The Road: Day 2 – Hippie Havens.

I realized yesterday that driving for twelve hours a day is like the opposite of a marathon. It's like, how long can you handle NOT MOVING AT ALL? How long can you deal with a numb butt and leg muscle atrophy? Thankfully, we found two delightfully hippie veggie places to eat at yesterday.

Possibly my favorite picture yet - at a gas station in rural Colorado.

The first was in Omaha, Nebraska - McFoster's. I got an amazing vegan (!) eggs benedict and Mike enjoyed a falafel wrap. It's housed in an old brick gas station, was filled with several dreadlocked guys and bicylcers, and when we walked up, there was a girl with a guitar on the patio singing Little Boxes. (She sounded EXACTLY like the Weeds opening song).

After driving through the rest of Nebraska, we arrived in Denver, where my sister and her boyfriend drove up from Colorado to meet us for dinner. They picked out a lovely little restaurant, Mercury Cafe– it was a quintessentially bohemian, complete with a poet performing (“War is but a fart with a long odor.”), a tofu-peppered menu, and yellow mellowing in the toilets.

We even saw a man dressed as a wizard, ("He even has a spell pouch!" my sister's boyfriend noticed. What is a spell pouch? I'm pretty sure he made it up.).

Mercury Cafe

My favorite point in the night was probably when Tara told me that her boyfriend had said earlier, "You know she's going to be taking a ton of pictures for her blog." But that means he reads it! :)

After dinner, we headed to Mike's friend's house to crash for the night. Today we're hanging out in Denver for a bit before heading out to camp in Pike National Forest. For the record, I'm pretty much glowing with happiness - sitting in a coffee shop in Denver on a Monday morning in July. Not working, just drinking my white mocha in my tank top and flip flops.

I love summer. I love road trips. I love Colorado!