Yesterday all three kids bought novelty T-shirts in a tourist shop in Estes Park. Josie’s is black and says “Minecraft” above a picture of a thing called a Creeper. The shirt is way too big and hangs down past her knees. She put it on over her regular shirt as soon as we got out of the store and declared, “This is black! Now I have something to wear to the funeral!”

We explained many, many times why this shirt is not appropriate attire for a funeral and thought the matter was resolved, but this morning she got up (after having slept in the shirt) and happily said, “I’m going to wear my funeral shirt again today!” I fear we’re going to have a fight on our hands come Saturday.

Josie and her “funeral shirt.”

Colorado is lousy with Starbucks. We got royally spoiled, passing up locations without drive-thrus, confident we’d come across a superior location a couple miles down the road.  Then we entered Wyoming. Not only are there no Starbucks, there isn’t much of anything else, either. We’re passing signs that say, “Next services, 60 miles” and when you finally get there, it’s just a cruddy little gas station.  As the least populous state in the Union, Wyoming makes the plains of Kansas look crowded. Where are the “FREE LAND” signs here?

We’ve been calling our long stretch drives “Iron Butt” days, a term we borrowed from my dad. I got to wondering where that term originally came from.

There is actually an Iron Butt Association for people who do extreme motorcycle rides. For example, they have one called the 100CCC: coast-to-coast-to-coast (either New York to San Francisco, or Jacksonville FL to San Diego — and back) in 100 hours or less. That doesn’t sound like any fun to me.

The minimum requirement to become an Iron Butt member is 1000 miles in less than 24 hours. I now know that our “iron butt” days (usually around 450 miles, and in a car rather than a motorcycle) are an insult to the name. Perhaps we should start calling them something else.

Need empty space? Wyoming has oodles of it.

As far as the eye can see …

All throughout the South (Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.) you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays. We’ve had to plan ahead not to get caught having wineless Wine Time each evening. Then, welcome to Wyoming! Not only can one buy alcohol on Sundays, they have drive through liquor stores. Drive through! In the tiny town of Sheridan, there are no fewer than two drive-thru liquor stores within stone’s throwing distance of our hotel. Adam went inside making jokes: “I’m sure they have an excellent selection of fine wines! Just call me Todd.” (snobby neighbor from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation) but came back out with a fantastic bottle. “I judged too soon,” he said. “They have some really good stuff in there. That place is actually really cool.”

Sheridan also boasts the only Starbucks we’ve yet found in Wyoming. (Note: I looked it up; the entire state of Wyoming contains 14 Starbucks locations.)

When we eagerly pulled into the parking lot, construction crews were working on the drive-thru lane (a bad omen) so we all went into the store … which was filled with rubble and half their counter was smashed. The lady said, “I’m so sorry, but we’re closed. Someone drove through our wall today. We should be open tomorrow, though.”

I think they are being overly optimistic if they think they can get that mess cleaned up and be functional by tomorrow, but we’ll see. We plan to head over there tomorrow morning on our way out of town, just in case they pull off a miracle.

Our last surprise of the evening was dinner. Our hotel (Holiday Inn) is nothing to write home about, but they have a restaurant downstairs that is convenient. We were too tired from driving all day to get back in the car and drive around looking for something that looked better. We went down there expecting to be served very expensive, sub-par meals. Instead, we received excellent meals and the kids meals for paying guests are free. We were treated to just about the best meal we’ve had on the trip for less money than we usually spend on fruit and cheese platters from the grocery store. So, Holiday Inn in Sheridan, Wyoming … well done.