We found this crazy pink house while we were lost in Trinidad, CO

Well we got about 15 miles away from home when we saw the Castle Rock outlet stores and decided to do some bummin’. Except its only 9:30 and the stores don’t open till ten. So we drove our asses on over to McDonalds and got some breakfast. I called Charlie this morning around 6…we talked for a little bit before I left. I agreed to call him on a pay fone once or twice. Shoot, I don’t even know where the hell we are going…New Mexico, Texas, who freekin knows. I’m really excited to go shopping, lol. Went to bed around 11 last night, I was too lazy to pack, so I packed this morning. I probably brought nothing that’ll serve good use. Hold on, I have to take a bite of my Bacon, Egg, and Cheese biscuit. Anyway, we’ll probably get to New Mexico on Sunday night, knowing us. Well its time for me to skidaddle. I’m eating, and nothing comes in the way of that.—Kat

By the way, we’re convinced that we chose the right time to go south, considering tons and tons of Army Convoy have been driving north. We must have seen about 50 cars. Good thing We’re escaping the war! Theres an awful smell in  this car that we’ll only get a whiff of every now and then, Mom thought it was me…I’m pretty sure its not. The smell is almost like melted plastic mixed with B.O.. Gag. - Kat

You cannot believe how beautiful the sunsets are in the desert southwest.  They are like this every night.

Friday night, 6:15pm

Well we just left Las Vegas, yes, the same place we were two hours ago. Dad wired us 200 bucks, but we don’t have an ID, which could be a problem in getting a hotel room. Jeepers! K, we seemed to have missed our exit 4 miles ago…Therefore we just pulled off the highway and we have to turn around. There is a suspicious car sitting off the exit of the highway…creepy. We’ve got 170 miles to get to Roswell, and we have every intent of getting there tonite. We might have to sleep in the car though… I think this calls for some food. Later    --Kat

Friday, 4:25 pm

Well all Hell has broken loose now…We’re about, oh, I’d say 65 miles from the last gas station we stopped at, sitting here in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Mom has left her planner at the Phillips 66. Its nowhere in the car to be found…so we’re sure its there. We’re wasting dollar after dollar calling people long distance…the gas stations fone number is busy. Perfect. Brock is laughing at us, and Charlie swears this must be an omen for us to just turn around and come home. As of right now we have a couple sodas, some snacks, about 10 bucks, a pack of smokes and a Texaco Card. Heaven help us all. I’m sitting here in the car listening to people speak Spanish while mom is making fone calls. Oh, here she is now.

Plan B—get a hold of the bank. How are we going to do that? Hell If I know. Moms back to the fone…calling the bank I presume.

Wheels wheels keep on turning, carry me home to see my kin, singing a song about the blah blah blah, I miss our family once again and I think it’s a sin. Well I heard Mr. Young sing about her, well I heard old Neal put her down well I hope Neal Young will remember. Something something something…sweet home Alabama where the sky’s are so blue…sweet home Alabama, Lord I’m coming home to you.

That is playing on our only radio station right now. Yay.

Things couldn’t be greater right now. I just love it. What a damn trip. I think I need to eat something, pronto.
-Kat

Our room is a dump, of course.  The Frontier Motel in Roswell.  Everything is entirely weird and creepy here.  Everything is about aliens.  There was a very crazy guy in a wheelchair on the corner, when we were going to eat.  The whole street was so dark cos it’s a small town, but he was on the corner in the dark in his wheelchair and he had his arm up. We started laffing and flipping out so bad.  Even tho he had a green light, he didn’t go, he just sat there in his wheelchair creeping us out.  We laffed so hard at dinner cos everything was just so damn funny.  I cant even remember what the hell we were laffing about.  - Mom

We were worried about trying to find a motel that would give us a room, with no ID.  Thank god for Middle Eastern Motel Owners.  We were on the cheap, tho..so we had to be grateful for anything.  This was the bathroom ceiling at the first place we stayed in Roswell.

Saturday 10am 

Even the WalMart is Alien-ified.

Ok, we left Roswell about 20 minutes ago…we sped right on outta there. SO MUCH WEIRD SHIT IS HAPPENING. Before we headed out we decided it was necessary to get some diet soda and a couple other things at Wal-Fart. There was not ONE parking spot in the whole place, and as we were driving to try to find one, these men just sorta met-up right in front of our car…they carried on a freekin conversation!  Then, as we walked in, we accidentally walked in the Exit, and mom goes to the worker - oh sorry, I walked in the wrong door. -  The man turned to her with a big grin on his face and said - we don’t care what door you come in, as long as you’re here!!!   - It was pure insanity. Then walking through the store was complete madness, as we were being blocked by people all the time. In the electronics section, two small children stared stared at me and basically blocked me in the isle while I was trying to leave. Weirdness. -Kat

Ok its my dumb ass again. Its so insane here….it feels so weird!  Its like, the movie Groundhog Day. Ya know? Like, these situations and places are completely logical, but its too repetitive, like every waiter and waitress has been extremely rude, and everyone seems to know that we are out-of-towners.  - where are you from? - people keep asking us. Its not like our foreheads are screaming  - we don’t live here. -  Oh my Lord our waiter
is so grouchy that moms afraid to ask him for coffee. Hes such a prick and hes just walking around with a disgusted look on his face. This is pure insanity. And this damn music! Everything is getting far too out of hand. This is soo awkward. --Kat

Yes, the sign technically says "Weekly Rats."

It's me, Danelle again.   This is so funny.  Our waiter is about to explode, Im pretty sure he’s got an Uzi behind that counter.  He hated us from the moment we walked in.  He would not do a damn thing without us asking for it first, and then you get the dirtiest crustiest look on his face.   There is no reason people should keep asking us where we’re from.  We could just as easily live here as any of these people.  It’s like we’re in a bad movie, I swear.   Maybe it will be nice to get on the road again and away from this insanity.  I have this vision of trying to get back to the highway and everything just keeps circling around, the roads I mean..and right back to Roswell.  God that would suck, cept for the Iranian guy – he was cool.  Course obviously he’s not from here, so he’s technically not part of the town.  He rocks. 
 – Danelle

We found this amazing cemetary just outside Roswell. The wind was blowing a little bit, and the turnstile at the entrance was spinning, and creaking. I couldn't resist! I tried to persuade KT to come in with me, but she cried! The graves were incredibly interesting, some were only stones marking graves that had been obviously hand dug.

We just got to dennys in albuquerque and the whole damn place is filled with mental/hardcore/insane/ pierced people all talking to each other and being so weird

Dude someone has this childish candy like voice and I heard them say something about a space between your ears and screaming “overcome me! Overcome me!”  oh my gosh this is sooo  out of hand I cant handle it.

 I cannot express how insane this is I am going to describe to you, some of the people. We have decided its something between a halfway house or something, like between prison and an insane asylum.

There is a huge sporty black guy talking in a baby voice. There is a big fat huggable obviously retarded guy with messed up teeth and a studded bracelet. There is a man who seems to be deeply involved in his writing/reading/listening to music/smoking to even look up and see where he is. There is a very pretty teen girl who looks really spiritual and sweet with a huge headdress thing on. Everyone knows everyone and are talking and more people keep stopping in to talk and stuff. Its so fucking weird. Where the hell is mom????????

Saturday, 2:30 pm

So many funny things going on.  This town is completely overrun with Alien crap and I could not live here for 5 minutes.  If my future husband ever moves here I will kill myself first.  Actually its been a lot of fun, and we feel like we are attracting a lot of attention in the town.  It’s very weird.  People give long staring glances when they walk by you.  We don’t fit in at all.  Lots of migrants, old people, and losers who’d parents grew up here and they’re too big of losers to leave.  I just talked to KT about if she feels like we are attracting attention.  She thinks so too.  It’s so bizarre, its like sub-reality right now.  So now we are going to Albuquerque.   Not too crazy about getting back on the road and seeing nothing pass by for miles at a time.  But I know i cant stay here...good god. -Mom

Not a great picture, but an important point in the trip:

KT and I have always said that if we went on a road trip, our anthem would be Affirmation by Savage Garden.  So we were in Roswell today and decided we NEEDED to find the tape at WalMArt.  We decided that we wouldn’t listen to it until the radio started dying.  So it finally did on this long stretch of desert 2-lane highway and the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. So we popped the tape in and it was magnificent!  Totally like we imagined it would be.  We decided that if we did make the movie we had talked about last night that this would be the song playing when we finally got out of Roswell.  Like groundhog day where he finally learns his lesson about love or whatever.   I know I will never be able to listen to that song again without remembering this.  What a fun great trip it has been.   – more later – Danelle

OK its Katie this is too damn weird some guy has sat with an unlit cigarette in his mouth just hanging there for at least 20 minutes. Oh my gosh im going to be sick because I cannot eat type and listen and look at the same time and so it makes me so mad. I just want to barf. Umm shoot me this is tooooo weird im never, ever, ever, ever going on a road trip with mom again. EVER.

We realized on Sunday..that since we had left Castle Rock, Colorado...we had eaten every single meal at Denny's.  We had to keep it up.

Hey its Danelle.  Here are some of the conversations going on here:

I was chillin with some 45 y/o man.  Ohhhh…

Raise the glass!

and now sir Anthony Hopkins!

what do you want?

It’s really good, but activity-wise its ok, I mean you pay for it.

I mean he’s got like spikes in his tire..ha.ha.ha.

Ok in front of me there is a guy with a ponytail and his hair must be really frizzy or something cos it looks like shit.

For once KT and I are not the center of attention.  We are completely hidden the world of the mentally ill.  We are having so much damn fun.  Everything is kooky and bizarre and totally fun.  I am trying to eat but it is far too entertaining to watch these people. 

Wow, what a long strange trip its been.  We are home!   

Today was long long driving, lots of stops so Kt could pee.  I swear to god she needs to pee every 5 minutes.  The whole trip was entirely too fun but we are both very glad to be home.  We both had some genuine reflection the last few miles home, listening to ‘Affirmation' again.  It was like the culmination of the whole trip.  We’d talked about this for so long, it was wonderful, terrific hilarious and bizarre at the same time.  We’ve GOT to do it again! - Danelle