The Trip, Day 1: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

It’s been almost two weeks since I set out on the crazy adventure, so I figured it’s about time to start telling you all what’s been going on. Thursday, August 2nd was a day when I woke up early to make sure my last minute particulars were together before my 1 PM flight out of Newark. I thought briefly about taking a cab there, but realized that there was a good chance the cab ride would cost a significant portion of my airfare. I decided instead to opt for the train. So around 10 AM I lugged my luggage up 36th Ave. towards the N line, declining the offer of cab rides from two cabbies hanging out in front of the bodega. A quick subway ride later I got to Penn Station and wandered over to the Jersey transit side, lamenting that I had forgotten to check the times of the trains for Newark. I had plenty of time to spare, but no idea when the next train was leaving. After I got my ticket, I found that the next train was leaving in five minutes, so I got on board and was out Jersey-bound less than a half hour after I’d left my apartment. Getting to Newark Airport from the Jersey Transit trains means taking the AirTrain, which costs $5.50 and goes about 400 yards. It’s expensive, but at least it’s annoying.

By the time I had checked in, cleared security and found my gate, I still had an hour and a half before boarding. This called for beer. So I headed for the bar, which was fairly well patronized 11 AM on a Thursday. I had a seat between an ad exec talking on her Blackberry and a tourist contemplating the remains of his turkey sandwich. Two beers later I was much better suited to flying and headed for the gate, armed with my book and iPod.

To conserve funds, each of my flights on this trip were one-stoppers. This stop was in Cincinnati, known for chilidogs, sub-par baseball and racial tensions. With two hours to kill between flights, I headed for another airport bar. This one was called “The Pub” and made a concerted effort to turn a corner of a second-tier Midwestern U.S. airport into a slice of Britannia. It failed. But it had Guinness on tap. I sat between a couple returning from a Florida vacation and a Brit on her way across the U.S. None of them had heard about the bridge collapse in Minnesota, so they were glued to the TV and kept asking me questions about it since my viewing of a newscast that morning had evidently made me an expert in civil engineering and architectural quality control.

One more flight and I found myself in Denver around 6 PM, local time. Murph pulled up to the outside of the terminal just as I collected my bags and headed out the door, making for one of the most efficient airport pickups in recent memory. The rental car for the trip was a 2008 Dodge Avenger, a name that sounds like we should be driving to the Fortress of Solitude. It was spacious but with too small of an engine to power it. Still, it was brand spankin’ new and had about 3000 miles on it. We headed down Denver’s boondoggle toll road, which makes you stop and pay $2 every four miles, and stopped off for road snacks, a Colorado atlas and some booze with which to thank our hosts for the evening. Getting back on the road required an additional 75¢ for some reason and Murph bemoaned the basket-throwing technique of the car ahead of us. “He’s doing them one at a time! Just throw them all in at once!” she said. To prove the superiority of her method, she pulled up and hurled a trio of quarters at the toll basket. “Oh shit, one missed.” Here she opened the door to scour the ground for the errant coin while I rooted around in my pocket for a replacement. Thankfully, there were no cars behind us.

We made it to Cañon City just after dark and warily wound our way up the back roads towards the backwoods homestead of Kansanography, a recently retired professor and friend of Murph’s who was kind enough to let us crash on his couches. We drank and ate with him, his wife and two of his co-professors from field school, Untenured and Storyteller. After dinner, Kansanography declared that it was about time for a visit from OldTimer, who I thought might be one of their many pets. But it turned out that he was the neighbor from next door (which was surprisingly close considering the rural nature of the surroundings) who was a corrections officer, cowhand, and part-time riding coach. OldTimer had met movie stars and taught them to ride horses during the filming of multiple movies in the area over the years. He even had a story about one movie star in particular that involved a quart of cocaine.

After spinning yarns for a while, OldTimer declared it was time to head home since he had to be up early to corral inmates at the penitentiary. Untenured and Storyteller headed back to the field camp and the rest of us prepared to bed down. By this point it was about 2:30 AM Eastern, so I was happy to end the first day of the trip and crawl into bed.

Day’s Score:
Drinks: 6
Miles: 2,000 (plane) 120 (car)
Maximum Elevation: 35,000 ft. (plane) 6,500 ft. (car)