May 30 - Memorial Day - Grandmother and I talked all day. I tried to dial into the net, but Grandmother has a phone which doesn't work with TouchTone, and Sprint needs TouchTone for phone cards, and my computer doesn't have an output for the phone, only an input for the line into the modem. Sigh.

May 31 - Well, I think we ran out of things to talk about. However, I had to figure out how to ship this antique radio (it's in a cabinet 42" high) back home. Grandmother's phone was acting up also. I arranged the shipping from a pay phone, and called the phone company to look at the problem.

When I was preparing for this trip, I had tried to find a knee-length raincoat with a hood since I am expecting rain to happen somewhere this summer. I first went to Sears, and then Target, but they said that raincoats were "seasonal" in California. I went to North Face, an outdoor shop, and they didn't have what I wanted, and what they did have, they wanted $70 for. When I told Grandmother this, we went down to Wal-Mart in Plainview and found one for $15. Stupid California.
June 1 - Set out for Denver. The drive was about an hour too long. Most of the flat-for-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see part of the trip, I was watching the big storm move east of me before I got to it, so I missed it.

Stopped at the Cadillac Ranch just outside of Amarillo. This is a patch of farmland off of I-40 that a guy took ten 40-60's vintage Caddilacs and stuck them nose-first into the ground. The fins stick up out of the ground. He spray painted them blue and took out all of the glass. There is lots of really cool graffiti, and they are fun to climb on. Art. Serious Art.

Went through the prettiest small town I have ever seen, Rocky Ford, CO. Just a gorgeous, quaint little town.

As the sun was going down over the Rockies, I had to sit on Highway 50 and wait for the construction trucks to pack up and go home.

Got to Pueblo right about sunset. The combination of the sunset, the darker rain clouds and Pike's Peak made a great view.

I finally got to Denver about 10 PM, and got to Tibor Roberts' place. This place is kind of hopping this weekend; I am here for my trip, and one of Tibor's friends from grad school is working out here for a week and staying with Tibor.

Route: I-27 North to I-40 (Amarillo). I-40 West to US-385. US-385 North to US 287 (Boise City, OK). US-287 West to US-50 (Lamar, CO). US-50 West to I-25 (Pueblo). I-25 North to Denver.
June 2 - Tibor and Pete went to work; I slept. Got up and got my oil changed. Dialed into work, but when I went to shut down my computer, the system got corrupted, and the machine wouldn't boot (flashing disk question mark icon). Sigh. Spent the rest of the afternoon reading, and enjoying the thunderstorm. I hadn't seen a good one for a while.

That evening, Pete had to work very late. Tibor and I went to dinner (you guessed it, Mexican). We went CD shopping, came back, played cards, played pool, and went to bed.

Tibor has a "luxury condominium" right next to where he works in an eighteen story buiding. He is on the fifth floor. In the basement, there is a ping-pong table (no ball) and a pool table. Nice place.
June 3 - Tibor's Denver Hilton continued welcoming guests as another person flew in.

But first, I took my computer to a shop to have the sytem reinstalled, got the light fixed in my sun visor (it was hanging down in my field of vision) and had lunch. I then made my way to the airport to pick Tibor's friend Bec up.

Of course, there was a real bad accident on I-25, and they closed all lanes, and I had to find my way around this on city streets. Fortunately, Denver is a grid.

Got there about 10 minutes late. Bec came out from Baltimore to see this concert that had the Violent Femmes and to interview for a job. Bec and I dropped her stuff back at the apartment, and tried to go to the US Mint, but it was closed. We did however, see the World's Ugliest Building. This amorphous looking dark grey brick thing had windows seemingly in random places and of random shapes.

I took her back and got my computer. Got back, and Tibor, Bec, Pete and I went to this excellent Italian restaurant and ate. We then went to the Rockies game.

Mile High is a football stadium. Still, it wasn't that bad. I could see Pike's Peak from my seat. We moved to other seats because of railings in our way. Colorado won 6-4, over Pittsburg, but the ninth inning was tense, as Pittsburg had men on. Best game so far.

We went back and played cards and drank alchohol until 2 AM, and went to bed.
June 4 - Got up about 11. Ate lunch. Got queasy. Really felt miserable. Decided to skip the Colorado Railroad Museum and go back to Tibor's. Pete had gone to work. Tibor and Bec had gone to the all-day concert. I slept.

About 4:30, I woke up feeling much better. Galynn Gaddy showed up about 5. She was staying with Tibor for a few days so that she could find a place to live and a part time job since she will be moving to Denver to go to graduate school. I had only met her once before, so we got reacquainted. We decided to go to a movie.

We saw Maverick, a fun movie, even if it is 20 minutes too long. She was getting over a cold, so we went back, and she went to bed. After messing around with the computer, I decided to go to bed also.

Before I got to sleep (I had had a nap, remember), Pete came home. He proceeded to open some chips and dip. A little later, Bec and Tibor got home. This got everybody up again, as Tibor and Bec had never met Galynn. So everybody got to know each other, and Bec got to tell her story about knowing Gordon from the Violent Femmes again and got to add this day's concert to it.

Seems she saw him at a concert one time and just introduced herself. She didn't act like all of the teenybopper groupies, so he actually talked to her. She then started going to as many of there concerts as she could, including one in Australia. She tries to gets tickets on her own, but Gordon now usually puts her on the guest list. Gordon found her today, and Tibor got to meet him. They had a good time.

After all of this, Galynn and I went back to bed. Tibor, Bec and Pete started playing cards again, and since I was just tired not sleepy, I got up and joined them. We played until 4. Sigh.
June 5 - An exciting day. Got up about 10 and hit the road for Kansas City. Western Kansas is the second most boring scenery so far. Bleah. Did chase a big thunderstorm, and almost caught it about 9 PM, but stopped and ate, and by the time I got back on the road, it had moved south. About 10:30, got real tired of driving, so I stopped in Topeka and bedded down for the night.

Route: I-70 East to Topeka.
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