Epic Road Trip 2017 - Day #5

Today we woke up in Salida.  I woke up early and spent some time reading before Katy got up.  Once we were ready, we went out and walked around downtown Salida some more.  When we were hungry for breakfast we headed to Seasons Cafe, which turned out to be fantastic!

We got to sit outside down by the river and the service, food, and location were perfect.  After breakfast, we walked around the rest of the downtown area and picked up a couple of items.  We visited the local yarn store, Fringe, where Katy bought some yarn that was hand-spun and dyed in Salida.

Once we were done, we turned in our key and hit the road for Moab, Utah.  On the way out, we stopped by Sonic for a cold slush.  We went over Monarch pass, like we did back in 2010, and once we got on the other side of the mountain it started getting hot.  We stopped at Starbucks later in the afternoon and were part of a pay-it-forward line where someone in front of us paid for Katy's drink and we paid for the person behind us.  We were pleased to see that the speed limits in western Colorado had been increased to 80mph.  We got into Utah around 4pm and started to see some of the rock formations unique to the state.

Our final destination for the day was Moab, Utah, just outside of Arches National Park.  We arrived at our Airbnb, the "Cowabungalow" around 5:30.  We were pretty tired, so we picked up Pizza Hut for the evening and chilled out for the rest of the night.  Tomorrow we will head to Arches National Park for some hiking and hopefully stay cool in the 100+ degree temps.

What We Learned: Today we learned about Mike the Headless Chicken.  We periodically look up things about the towns we pass through while driving.  Today, as I was looking up information about Fruitas, CO, I found out about Mike.  Apparently in 1945, a farmer was trying to behead a chicken for dinner and was unable to dispatch the animal.  Much of Mike's brainstem was intact and he was able to stay alive and be fed by an eye dropper.  After this happened, Mike was taken around the country to be shown off, and made large sums of money for his owner.  Today, the town of Fruitas has a "Mike the Headless Chicken Day" the third weekend in May every year.

For the day we drove 298.8 miles and saw license plates from 27 states and a new one for us from the Canadian Northwest Territories!