Road Trip - part 4

Early Monday morning, Airman Snyder and I filled the government truck with gas and headed east out of Salt Lake City on I-80. Since Snyder was from Kansas City (Missouri) and his in-laws lived in St. Louis, our plan was to get there a day before we were scheduled to, which meant we needed to start seriously "fudging" our itinerary (driving further than the allotted 300 miles per day). Unfortunately, we were heading up over the continental divide, which meant we would be spending a good part of that day in 3rd gear (climbing at 30 to 35 MPH) - hence we weren't going to get as far as we'd like.

The first thing I recall (not particularly relevant) was that I had bought some Port Salut cheese (one of my favorites) in Salt Lake City and Snyder refused to get into the truck with it... I honestly didn't think it smelled that bad, but I went ahead and stuck it in the bed of the truck with our tools and equipment anyway... Whatever...

Then, right in the middle of the steepest part of the climb, Snyder spotted a beer box beside the road and immediately started yelling at me to pull over so he could check it out... I explained to him that the box was almost certainly either empty or contained only empty bottles - furthermore, I doubted we could get the truck to accelerate past 2nd gear after stopping on a grade that steep, meaning we'd be stuck going 15 MPH for a long time... Snyder didn't care. He remained convinced that some underage motorist had seen a police car, panicked, stopped, and placed the beer beside the road (intending to come back for it later). Nothing I said could convince him otherwise, but I did not stop. It was miles before he quit begging me to turn around and go back. He finally relented, but he was still irritated about it for days afterward...

It was pretty late in the day when we stopped for the night in Laramie Wyoming. We'd only driven about 400 miles but, given how much time we'd spent in 3rd gear it had been a pretty long day. And after grabbing a motel room we headed for a nearby tavern to unwind a bit. (FYI: The drinking age in Wyoming was 18 back in 1974 - they didn't raise it to 21 until 1988.)

We actually had a pretty good time. We drank quite a few beers and played a number of highly "spirited" games of foosball - got plenty of stares from the locals - probably wondering who the heck we were. (It was kind of a hick town back in the day.)

Then Snyder asked me if I though the lovely young Native American woman at the end of the bar was a prostitute... First off - I couldn't understand why a recently married guy would even wonder about such a thing. Second - I had noticed her too and she hadn't talked to a single guy the whole time we were there. I was pretty sure that's not how the "prostitution" thing works. I explained this to Snyder (who apparently had OCD and not a lick of sense) but he just couldn't let go of it. For a while I was afraid he was going to ask her directly (never a good idea for a variety of reasons), but he had noticed that the bartender seemed to know her and would therefore probably be aware if she was a "woman of ill repute". So (against my advice) he decided to ask the guy (a big biker-looking dude) about it. The exchange went something like this:

Snyder: "So - do you know that woman down at the end of the bar?"
Bartender: "Yeah..."
Snyder: "Is she a prostitute?"
Bartender: "No.... She's my girlfriend..."

I have to admit that I did not see that one coming, and for a fleeting instant I thought we were probably going to die. But Snyder (for once) apologized profusely and the bartender was astonishingly good-natured about it. (I assume he was used to non-locals hitting on her.)

So, having escaped with our lives, we headed back to the motel for a good night's sleep before hitting the road again in the morning.