3 July 2008: Laramie, Wyoming

I woke up this morning after a gorgeous night of sleep and remembered that I was still the only one in the house. So I decided to make it a nice afternoon.

Which basically meant lounging around the house until 3:00, doing laundry and using the internet. I was the king of the castle, my friends. I decided to make myself scrambled eggs for a late breakfast, and then realized I didn't know what I was doing and so I completely doused them in salsa and it wasn't half bad. I then decided to make a quesadilla for an early lunch, and I realized I didn't know what I was doing with that, either, because five minutes in the microwave gives you quite literally two soggy tortillas in a pool of melted cheese. Delicious nonetheless, thank you very much.

Anyway, at 3:00 Andrew came and picked me up from the house. Not that I wouldn't have been happy spending the whole day there, but getting out was fine by me-- not to mention that he had already been more than gracious enough. So we took a drive a bit of a ways out of town and spent a little while just walking around.

So here's the deal about Andrew. First of all, as was perfectly obvious the previous night and reinforced this afternoon, he's an incredibly nice guy. But more recently, what I got is that, for one of the nicest guys I met on the road, he unfortunately had "the worst year ever" in 2007. During that year he got divorced, after what seems to have been a pretty steady and gradual deterioration almost immediately following their marriage, and one of his good friends died. So, unfortunately, that's where he's coming from.

Currently, he's dating the girl Gabby I met the previous night, but he's pretty reluctantly in that relationship, as things sped up faster than he had expected-- or would have liked.

And thirdly, he takes somewhat frequent trips to San Diego and always stays in the same hostel whenever he goes, to the point that he's good friends with the guys who work the desk.

Now, you probably didn't need to know the first, didn't care about the second, and aren't too impressed by the third. But the point of mentioning all this is that, along with the fact that he's a naturally out-going and friendly guy, there's no one that I can think of who is more primed to hit the road than Andrew. Seriously, you aren't telling me he could use some time out of Wyoming? I wouldn't particularly want to drown myself in the first situation, especially since his ex-wife still lives right outside of Laramie, I sure as hell would want to get away from the second situation, and if he's already taking road-trips and staying in hostels, hitch-hiking and couch-surfing is just the next logical step. We need to work on this.

When we got back in the car, Andrew suggested going back to Third Street to have some drinks and meet a few of his friends. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't crazy about this idea. I'm pretty luke-warm about day-drinking in general. And, guess what, when you take a month's worth of night-drinking and decide to add day-drinking to the equation, it's not the best idea.

Andrew was pretty adament about it, though, and so we went to the bar. But first we stopped by the shop that he works at to drop off my pack for the night so I wouldn't have to worry about it. The dude who owns the place was there, and when Andrew asked him what he was doing for the Fourth of July he said "going to the party at your mom's place." Dude, people in Wyoming are lame as hell.

Anyway, we got to Third Street and met his buddy Rudy, his other buddy Ryan, and Ryan's girlfriend Christine. I had a beer and hung out for a bit, but after a little while I grabbed Andrew's bike and headed back to his place to rest a bit. Please, I'd like to see YOU spend a month on the road.

I got back to Andrew's street fine, but when I got there it occured to me that I had no idea which house was his. And even though I had been dropped off at it the night before and had left it only a few hours earlier, I hadn't a clue how to recognize it.

I tried calling both Andrew and Gabby but neither one's phone was on, so I started knocking on doors. I had seen an envelope on the kitchen counter that morning and thought it had been addressed to someone with the last name of Voonman so, in an effort to sound like I had a reason to want to know where this family left, I asked "Do you know where the Voonman family lives, they have a son named Andrew?"

Everyone that came to the door, though, was unbelievably old, and no one knew where the Voonmans lived. Needless to say, that's because the last name wasn't actually Voonman, but finally a younger dude knew who I meant and pointed me to the house at the end of the street. Which, now that I thought about it, did look sort of familiar.

So I lay down for a little while and rested, which is really all I needed, and then showered and walked back downtown. I met up with Andrew and Rudy and we went to the Buckhorn bar, which had $1 shots of Jack Daniel. Not bad.

The bar wasn't really anything special, so there isn't much need to talk about it. But the one thing to point out is that Ryan and Christine were there also, and Ryan was wearing a sleeveless shirt and Christine was wearing a hat. Now, if a guy wears a hat to the bar or a girl wears a sleeveless shirt to the bar, it's pretty typically hot. Or, at least, it's pretty typical, and so it leaves the possibility that they might be hot. But, really, is there anything white trashier than flipping it around and having a guy wear a sleeveless shirt or a girl wear a hat to the bar? I'm not too sure.

After a while we went to the Cowboy Bar and met up with Rudy's baby-mama. The baby-mama was pretty cute and an incoming freshman, although 25 years old. So she's an old incoming freshman. Doesn't have quite the same magic to it.

Anyway, there was a country band in the main room but I had had way more than enough country music by that point, so I sat with Rudy and the baby-mama, because Andrew had gone off somewhere. Rudy was being a dick to the baby-mama and largely ignoring her, so she was talking to me instead. You know, because we were sitting next to each other. At a bar.

After a while Andrew came back with his buddy Cody, since there's at least two in every Wyoming family. So, in talking to Cody, he mentioned that he was a few days away from beginning a jail sentence of 1 to 4 years because "you can't do drugs and have a gun at the same time." When I jokingly said that he should just cross the border into Colorado and escape, Rudy interjected that "I'd never go there, here you can go five miles and shoot a gun, in Colorado I'd have to give my guns up."

The only thing better than that was, in the same conversation, when Andrew said his sister is hot and "has a great rack." Those were his words. About his sister. Awesome.

Finally we decided to go to the Ranger, which Andrew described as the last-half-hour bar in Laramie. When we got there Andrew said that Rudy was pissed at me because I was hitting on his baby-mama. Right. So, first of all, he was being a dick to her the entire night. Second of all, I hadn't said a word to her at all other than when we were sitting next to each other at the bar and he was ignoring her. I wasn't hitting on her at all. But boy was I inspired now.

Sometimes, though, it just ain't gonna work out. Rudy might not give two shits about the baby-mama, but she's crazy about him. So despite my best last-half-hour efforts, it was all in vain.

When the bars closed Andrew and I went to a house party we had heard about. Now, I had left my pack at Andrew's shop, but I didn't know exactly when I'd be able to get to it. That's really alright, since I wasn't going to need anything, but the one thing I did bring was my toothbrush. For one thing, you should always have a toothbrush. That's a basic rule. But for another, not only is a toothbrush a necessity for an unknown crash, but "a toothbrush in the back packet" is pretty much "a pack in the bar" for the observant. As long as you don't fuck it up.

I'll explain. We got to the party and a little while in a girl asked me "Why do you have a toothbrush in your pocket?" I don't exactly remember this all perfectly, but I'm pretty sure I said "I'm on the road. But where's YOUR toothbrush?" She said "Not here," and I said "That's bad for dental hygiene." Yup, that was the end of that conversation.

That's how you fuck it up.

Cursing myself, Andrew and I went back to Gabby's and I crashed on the couch.