A Travelling Story from Years Past

We once took a trip to Utah with plans to drive all the way to Mesquite before stopping for breakfast. We left in the wee hours, buckled the kids and drove like crazy. But the kids, who were little, were"dying" of hunger before we even got to Nevada. It seemed like eating breakfast was the only thing that would placate them. If you've travelled with little kids, you know what it's like when they are crying incessantly. We didn't want to wait and find some nice, grassy place to eat --what nice place would we find off the freeway in Nevada in the next 30 minutes before we strangled our moaning munchkins? None.

So Wes decided to pull off the freeway at the next exit. That happened to be at State Line and the exit conveniently had a huge Mcdonald's sign, which the kids all spotted immediately. Loud yammering for McDoanald's escalated as we arrived in the glamorous world of pavement and ever-blinking lights. Wes topped the gas tank at the station, then parked the car in between the gas station and McDonald's. He got out and lined the kids up on a curb. Knowing that a McDonald's breakfast would cost us well near 35 dollars, we had packed a box of cereal, some bananas, and milk (a whopping 8 dollars). With the kids lined up, we politely "welcomed them to McDonalds" and took their order: each "Happy Meal" came with a bowl of cereal, a banana, and milk. With the kids contented and munching, Wes and I surveyed our surroundings. We felt akward eating on a curb in the parking lot. However, the sun had just risen, so not many people seemed to notice our grovelling.


Nearby, at he gas station, two drunk redneck men had  parked their truck. The back of the truck was full of gasoline cans. And I mean FULL! (Think like twenty gas cans). The men were filling the cans with gas one at a time, laughing and bantering and loading the truck. What was hillarious to us, was that the cowboys were smoking puff after puff on their cigarettes; They dangled their smokes from their lips as they bent over open gas cans and wiped their fuel-covered hands all over their faces. Fortunately, nobody caught fire or blew up, but we were laughing so hard, sure these men should win a Darwin Award at their imminent death by fire.

Well, ever since then, we eat at the same place and re-tell the story of those two crazy men. We talk about Vegas and why smoking, drinking, gambling, and gasoline are bad ideas. We munch our cereal and consider the dishevelled state of gamblers at 6 in the morning while they consider our dishevelled travelling crew munching breakfast like pigeons on the pavement.