loose change

30 august 2025

today’s stats:

miles: 587

tanks: 2.5

states: 3 (ND, SD, WY)

hours driven by sam while ryder caught up on writing: SIX!

mini waffles eaten at fairfield inn fargo: 8

miles run: 1.7 (r), 2.8 (s before his treadmill broke)

times david allan coe mentioned himself in long haired redneck: 4

and we graced our ears with:

12/30/78 at pauley pavilion – the grateful dead

2 episodes of guess the year podcast

part one of big two-hearted river by ernest hemingway

long haired redneck – david allan coe

sam’s brown’s canyon bluegrass playlist

help – the beatles

taking the long way – the dixie chicks

tea for the tillerman – yusuf/cat stevens

a big day in the car for a change! our aim was to get as close to colorado as possible and gillette wyoming made the most sense. i wanted to get everything from voyageurs on paper before it became less vivid in my mind so we spent much of the day reminiscing on the prior three! lotta green yesterday. it felt great to be back on a 70mph one lane road with donna after being on i94 with an 80mph speed limit. the whole drive kinda blurred together for me.

thankfully we got our yayas out this morning in the micro gym at the marriott before breakfast. as far as continental breakfasts go this was one fine by my standards and subpar by sam’s. the scrambled “eggs” were absolutely insane, almost space food textured and lacking “egg” flavor. sam said the andouille sausage might as well have been a hot dog. but it was free! and my first hotel waffle(s) of the trip could not have satisfied me more. we were on the road by ten & prepared for a less eventful day of traverse. so much of this part of the country is 40% land 60% sky. we are driving on this land vs. driving through it, if that makes any sense. a vastly different experience than winding through tall rocks and forests.

it was rainy or cloudy most of the day, as it has been every time we’ve spent most of the day in transit with a hotel as our destination. saint christopher is with us!

we’re staying at a townesuite place marriott (or towneplace suites? same same) which i’ve learned is what you want on a trip like this. it is absolutely lovely with a couch and kitchenette and king sized bed. again, thank you to dad for donating marriott points to afford us the absolute lap of luxury in these passing-through-towns on the road. we brought our stuff up & i went to the market down the street to grab some quality freezer food for dinner. sam had sweet and sour chicken & i had a pot pie. a pacifico was calling my name so i grabbed a lime & we ate while watching a combination of portlandia & the michigan football game. unreal to me that fall has commenced already!

dessert is a mosby movie theatre classic: a bag of orville redenbacher’s with a bag of m and m’s dumped on top of it. sam’s first time trying it and he loved it! sleep is coming easy to us during this time on the road & i’m excited to read my book and conk. lots of mystery awaiting us tomorrow! not sure where we’ll end up but i have faith the road will deliver us well. xo!

31 august 2025

GM! sam is on first shift again so i’m phoning in a few updates. before anything else i need to show you the artwork in this hotel:

it’s been a wonderful morning of relaxation for me and endorphins for sam. we woke up a little before seven and i decided that instead of working out this morning i was going to lounge around a little longer and maybe watch some tv and indulge in a long lazy breakfast! sam watched a jason tatum documentary about the nba finals during his workout and came back with a pic of the gym artwork for me. for those of you who don’t care to zoom in and read, let me highlight some of my favorite features:

FUEL AMONG BOOTS

DEVELOPED PRIMARILY

EFFICIENT GLYCOGENCAPACITY

MINIMUM OSTEOPOROSIS

SARCOMERES

GROUNDBREAKING OCCUPATIONAL CONTRACTIONS

PROVIDE ETYMOLOGY

MEN SPEED DIFFER

i want somebody to write a graduate thesis on the origin and benefit of this type of artwork and its solitary purpose as hotel decor. i want to interview the person who approved the interior decorating for marriott hotels. another thing that i love about staying in hotels on these road trips is the complimentary shampoo and conditioner and various toiletries. hotels have started moving away from those little takeaway micro toiletry bottles which is marginally better for the environment and catastrophic for mothers and grandmothers everywhere who collect them to keep for a rainy day. the little bottles were great because each hotel was contracted by a different toiletry manufacturer. i remember as a kid coming across a hotel with l’occitaine toiletries and harvesting them as though they were worth a lot of money. gilchrist & soames is another name that comes to mind.

they’ve been replaced with bottles that are kind of superglued to the shower wall that have scents like ~orange blossom and tea tree~ or ~lemon verbena~. i was curious the other day about who won this contract for marriott supplied toiletries so i peeked at the bottle and it turns out the call is coming from inside the house. the distributor is marriott. allegedly you can buy it from their website. the flavor in the hotel last night was lavender and eucalyptus.

anyway, most of the reason that our morning was so luxurious and indulgent is that georgia and finlay have come to our rescue in the final hour and are hosting us tonight in boulder! it worked out just perfectly that campsites are so packed and hotels as expensive as possible due to labor day weekend & g and f have a tent friendly backyard for us to stay in. i am so excited to see g and meet their dog ringo and to be back in sam’s college town! our first stop is boulder canyon for a plunge and a beer and then to george’s for a gorgeous evening of pizza and hang time. more updates to follow!

thus far today we’ve listened to:

lost dogs + mixed feelings – john prine

dakota the dancing bear part two – david allan coe

ttfn!

31 august 2025 – boulder, co

upon arrival in boulder we stopped at sam’s literal old stomping grounds–boulder creek up boulder canyon where he’s taken many a run and plunge. the last time we were here together was in 2023 on our first cross country road trip, which was really more of a cross country sprint. the water was chilly & it was a lovely spot for a beer & a dip before heading down to georgia & finlay’s!

a gorgeous evening of indulgence & the comfort of a home! what an immense privilege it has been to get some bonus time with the bride and groom as we close in on their wedding. we arrived with the intention of sleeping in a tent in the backyard but the gracious host that she is, george made up the guest bedroom for us and who are we to turn down a firm mattress with a roof over our heads!

finlay had the ooni pizza oven fired up & ready to launch – we learned that real backyard pizza heads call the commencement of the bake ~launching~ – so we had a cozy little evening catching up and slingin’ zas, sweet ringo underfoot waiting for one of us to drop a crumb or leave our plate unattended. the pizza was so tasty & they even had arugula & prosciutto & balsamic glaze to boot! the backyard hang felt so nice after weeks of hanging in campsites and hotel rooms. we are so thankful for our imminently betrothed friends!!! after dinner we walked to get ice cream at sweet cow.

it was so fun to get a glimpse of g’s house & neighborhood & life. thank you georgia and finlay!!

1 september 2025 (labor day) – boulder, co ➔ rocky mountain NP

began the morning early w a text from george inquiring if i wouldn’t like to go on a little coffee bagel walk before finlay’s meeting at 8a! obviously the answer was yes. i snuck out of our room to find ringo extremely excited that one of his houseguests was awake. georgia said he was crying outside of our room very early and that once they locked him in their bedroom he still sat at the door awaiting sam and i’s appearance.

our original plan had been to go to the buff for breakfast around 8 or so; we expected big crowds due to the holiday & since sam and i couldn’t enter rocky mountain NP until 1p or so we’d planned to go for a hike to devil’s thumb lake from hessie trailhead. however, it was such a lovely morning walk and we didn’t return to the house until 749 or so and, knowing that we’d be without showers until friday, i wanted to shower before we left boulder. i brought a latte back for sam and we hung out in the back yard for a little before motoring up to nederland alongside apparently every other person in the front country!

we pulled up to a ROAD CLOSED sign next to the high school and an extremely full overflow parking lot. hessie trailhead was full and they were running shuttles to the trail every 20m or so. very flustered but still with some wit about us we gave up on the hike pretty instantly and now we’re on our way up to estes park where we could hit a grocery store, rent a bear box, and pick up our wilderness permit for the backpack in rocky.

more updates to follow soon! given our days in the wild i’ll be backtrack documenting. my first time backpacking in rocky! thanks for reading xoxoxox ryder