Estrella/Vegas 2010 - Part 4, Fat Man Mike and Ho-made Pies.

We left our wee motel to discover a foot of wet snow on the ground. Luckily the Utah authorities actually plow the streets. I think we should adopt this strategy in Calgary.

Driving slowly and carefully down the highway we came to a line of cars that had been stopped by a state trooper. It turns out a semi trailer had jack-knifed on the highway and all traffic was blocked until that could be fixed. We were pretty close to the head of the line at least.

During the hour or so that we waited around, we chatted with other drivers. One was a large fellow who, discovering that we were Canadians, decided to go off about what a bad idea socialized medicine was. I could have gotten into it with him, but I just couldn't be arsed. Instead, I just let him rant and listened to him for a bit (the others near me pretty much abandoned me).

His arguments pretty much all could be flipped easily to support socialized medicine. At one point he said he could be for it if it was operated at least as efficiently as the VA hospital system in the states. His decription of how it worked (and this is second-hand, so don't take this as an accurate representation of reality) is that veterans who need to see the doctor, go to any VA hospital. The only person who decides what treatment is proper is the veteran and his physician. The government pays for it all, though some treatments may get delayed because resources are not infinite. However, life-threatening problems, get treated first.

I think he was a little suprised when I pointed out that this was a fair description of the Canadian medical system. He didn't realise that. I left him with the thought that the only thing stopping America from having the best health care system in the world was America. They could do it if they just herded the cats.

I introduced myself as we left to go back to our vehicles (the line was starting to move). His name? Fat Man Mike he said.

We continued on and made our way to the Thunderbird Inn for breakfast and ho-made pie!

The pies were delicious. If you're going by, try them out.

Estrella/Vegas 2010 - Part 5, New Personal Best

We stopped off here, a tributary to the Grand Canyon. It was super impressive. thebrucie tells me the actual Grand Canyon is ten times more impressive. While there, several of us succeeded in getting new personal bests!

Later we passed through Flagstaff and our third snowstorm in as many days. Thankfully it only lasted thirty miles or so.

Around mile 244 we stopped to pee in the skungiest Chevron restroom ever. Seriously, it looked like a place where you house down your hostages for not putting the lotion on its skin. Conversely, the store itself was super cool and about half of the many things it sold were illegal in Canada. I damn near bought the [PERFECTLY WHOLESOME AND LEGAL THING] that I've been hoping to find on my trip. Sadly, the goth clerk said that they only had two and he sold the "good one". He then went on to drum up a storm with his fingers on the counter. Seriously, he was a really talented percussionist.

We found our place in Phoenix and then went to pick up garething at the airport. We had arrived. Tomorrow would be Estrella!