And so does this guy (btw I agree with him (almost) completely) There’s too much hype over stuff that’s been around for years.

 If these words were people, I would embrace their genocide.

There’s been a lot of talk about this on TV and newspapers lately…

 his hilarious website, even if you dissagre with him entirely.

 An interesting experiment in user interface however I don’t see the appeal and it’s got some serious usability issues.

If I want a link opened I will click on it myself, don’t presume I want something just because my mouse is hovering over it. It took me several attempts to open a specific sub page only because it kept opening others… bad, very bad

previously:  part I,  part II,  part III,  part IV and  part V

Day 10 ~ 750km

Is it a car, is it a train…?? Nah, it’s just another deer/antelope/elk thingy

In the morning we finally realized where we were. Lander, Wyoming is the proud home town of a waitress that had no idea who won the US Civil War. Was it the north or the south? Hmm…

“Where are you guys from?”
“Slovenia”
“Uuhhh??!”

We knew what was coming so we tried to make it easy on her:
“Central Europe, next to Italy, Austria, Hungary….ex-Yugoslavia?”

But then she dropped the bomb:
“Why ex?
“Sorry??”
“Why ex-Yugoslavia?”
“Well, ya know…. there was this civil war for almost a decade and it gradually broke up into several independent countries. It was mentioned on CNN a couple of times, perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

And a big, nice and mushroomy nuke for the finale:
“Ah… I didn’t pay much attention at school y’ know. My daughters are still making fun of me coz I had no idea who won the US Civil War…”

I don’t know why but I always assumed that the stereotypical american homo ignoramus only existed in the movies and jokes outside the US. I’m quite willing to give them the benefit of a doubt. So what if most of them don’t know there Slovenia is? So what if a lot of them are unaware of the world around them? But this lady really surprised me, we had a nice laugh… she made good breakfast though.

The Big Void

I don’t think I’ve ever driven on roads as empty as the ones in Wyoming. The place is true cowboy country with one ranch after another but when each of them takes 30min to drive through, you’re left with nothing but emptiness. Grassland and purple sage… The few and far between places that actually made it on the map are usually just two or three buildings with a couple of old rusting trucks around. Some of them were even diners and bars (perhaps they prefer the term saloon?) though I have a hard time understanding the reasoning behind it. Three customers might be considered a good day with the traffic they get around those parts.

What we did see a lot of were elk and deer (or something) herds running around and the odd coyote observing the universe revolving around him. It’s interesting when they run along with the car on the side of the road and you’re able to shoot from the window. But eventually they find a hole in the fence and slip through to the big open space on the other side.

It was on these straight roads with their silly 55-65mph speed limit, (either it was Wyoming or Colorado, I don’t remember) that we broke the all time speed record for a Mazda Protege. It took like forever to get there (I like totally got into spirit of things) but we were blazing along at mind boggling 115mph!! Downhill.
Oh, wait… like that’s only like 185km/h?!

brrr… shake it off…

Anyway, by this time we were loving the cruise control and driving with our feet all over the place (definitely try driving with your feet out the window) and didn’t mind the stupid speed limits that much. We usually kept it at 10-15 above the limit and most people (well the few) went by at more than 80mph. We figured no sane cop (the infamous highway patrol) would wait around all day for the 15 cars that would eventually pass his position and there really were none.

Me against
 Sebastien Loeb

Colorado and Roosevelt National Forest marked the return of proper roads and some effort was again required for turning the steering wheel. It was a beautiful drive towards Fort Collins through Cache la Poudre valley and a decent exercise if some speed was added to the equation but the fairy tale ended again when we got out of the Rockies and on the plains again. It was Interstate 25 all over again.

Before returning to Denver we extended a rather long drive a bit more with a detour to Keenesburg to see if  Rocky Mountain Wildlife Conservation Center was open but we were 15min late. It turned out we missed something else but… wait for part VII.

to be continued…