After day one of my cross-country journey and making it past Brooklyn, IA and onto La Vista, NE — seriously, it sounds a lot more interesting than it really was — I had to gas up the minivan to get ready for my trek across Nebraska. I was anticipating this as the most boring and crazed inducing part of the ride, which is probably what the next couple photos are all about.
I start experimenting with taking photos while I was driving, which I’m pretty sure is fairly dangerous and probably not something I would recommend doing. After I was getting a little stir crazy, I decided to stop at the next respectable place that wasn’t just straight-up fast food. I found a place called Old Chicago in Kearney, NE; this was nicely symbolic for me to stop at and get a beer and some “authentic” Chicago food.
After that, it was another four or five hours of driving through landscape that looked like for as far as the eye can see.
Finally, after getting into Colorado and driving for another hour or so to hit Denver, you’re finally driving through a landscape that’s at least interesting and something to look at. It’s 100% necessary after the Nebraska portion of the drive, something I had remembered from my childhood trip with the family out to Colorado. While into Colorado this time, I found a fantastic place as you start into the mountains past Denver called Smokin Yard’s BBQ.
After another hour or so and once the sun went down, the mountains immediately became a bit too dangerous to be driving through after 18 hours of it already. I chose to stop in Glenwood Springs, CO, a very cool little mountain town situated right on the Colorado River. I found the Hotel Denver and the Glenwood Canyon Brewpub in the same building and decided that would be a nice place to stay. After a couple of their house made IPA’s, I was set for a nice walk around town and an early night to bed. That place was cool, though. I would definitely try to go back if I was ever in the area for a vacation or something.
The next morning on my way out of town, I stopped at a coffeeshop in town to grab a latte. I was super excited with the way it turned out.
