Before we begin, a massive independent book sale. Many books, including mine are cheap or free. If you want to buy mine and a bunch of others in a bundle there is a Mid Range Bundle and a Fantasy Bundle. Finally, a different Sci Fi and Fantasy sale with 5 of my books.

I didn’t realize the effects of age on my body until you try to do something that would have been no problem in my twenties but thoroughly exhausting at middle age. As I mentioned a while back, we wanted to take my son to his first concert, mainly to see Fastball with the Barenaked Ladies being a bonus. This was because after this nightly ritual of exposing our son to a variety of genres, artists, and styles of music, Fastball has risen to the top as his favorite songs, dethroning Taylor Swift, classical music, the Bangles, Janis Joplin, and even The Scorpions as measure by the amount of time he requests it.

A pilgrimage to see a concert was easy in my early years. Spending my teen and early twenties in Albuquerque, we’d have to drive either to Denver or Phoenix to see most shows. For whatever reason perhaps fear of left turns, most concert tours skipped Albuquerque. My friends and I would often find ourselves in Phoenix for a show and driving back the next day. I even remember a time where we decided on a road trip to Vegas at 10 pm at night and rolled into Vegas around 8 am.

The point is when I was young, it was easy to travel. The first time I realized that the breakneck get there for the show, and get back might not be the best thing was sometime in my 30’s when one of my best friends and I went to Denver for the Mars Volta and decided to drive back that same night to save on a hotel. It was about 3 or 4 am when we were too exhausted to drive and pulled into a rest stop somewhere in northern New Mexico that seemed like it aught to have the name massacre after it.

While were never massacred for sleeping in a rest area in the middle of the desert, I did learn that I’m not a spry as I used to be. Now that I’m approaching 50, the whirlwind adventure really took a toll. The aforementioned Fastball/Barenaked Ladies concert was taking place at Redrocks in the Denver area. My aunt lives in Northern Colorado so we figured that we could stay at her house, which she was all too excited to host.

However, what we didn’t account for after buying the tickets was the fact that we would be getting back from a trip for my day job, 36 hours before we needed to leave for the concert. Before this concert was even on the radar we had planned a family vacation to Philadelphia. I was going there for a conference, and we have a policy that personal travel could be booked if it’s cheaper or same as traveling on the conference dates. We’d stay in the hotel when work was paying for it, and switch to an Airbnb, great plan. It all worked out, until we realized that our plan lands at 11 pm on a Saturday, our kitties boarded by the vet can only be picked up between 10 am and 11 am on Sundays, and the concert was a Tuesday. Also, I have limited time I can take off work, just used a bunch in Philadelphia.

The plan when we bought the tickets was we’ll drive out Saturday, stay with my aunt a few days and drive back Wednesday and it got shortened to drive out Monday, drive back Wednesday, after already being tired from traveling for over a week. As any experienced traveler knows, sleeping is never better than in your own bed.

We saw the show and almost got to meet Fastball (who said they’d be at the merch tent, and we realized too late there were 2 merch tents), but it worked out fine anyways because I talked to them afterwards via Instagram to tell them how much their music means to my son. Which is a strange time we live in where celebrities are accessible to common folk like me and probably worthy of a whole other essay topic.

But the real trial of my middle-aged body was yet to come, the drive home. Which was longer because we stayed at a hotel near the concert venue, not to mention Denver traffic. I’m pretty sure Denver likes to pretend its some quaint little mountain town, but it’s the only place in America where I’m sure they could do a race Cars Versus People and the people would have a good chance at winning! I can walk faster than I can drive on most Denver highways.

We began our day on the drive home in the murk of bumper-to-bumper traffic hoping to get through Denver as quickly as possible, which is at the pace of a leisurely stroll. Finally, about 2 miles from the Wyoming border, traffic lets up, and well there is nothing. I mean a whole lot of nothing. The University of New Mexico, where I went to school has more students that live in towns in Wyoming. With 80 mph speed limits (that’s 128 kmh who live in countries with sensible measuring systems), you will miss seeing a town if your attention wanes even for a moment.

Me: I wonder if the Barenaked Ladies will have to adjust If I had a 1000000 Dollars for inflation? Wait was that Cheyenne?

At about 4 pm when we reach Sheridan Wyoming, I have a moment at a rest stop where I wonder how much a hotel costs. My wife apparently had the same thought about being ready to be done with the drive. Both of us wouldn’t even considered it in our 20s. 4 pm is an interesting number because it means so many things pending on your age. Lucky for you, I’ve made a chart.

4 PM Chart (that’s 16:00 for those of you in sensible measuring countries)

0-10: Yay! Mommy!

10-20: A few hours before mom comes home.

20-30: Breakfast time? Lunch time? I don’t know anymore

30-40: I wonder if they have any drink specials

40-50: Can we be done? It’s time for the day to be done.

50-60: No one will notice if I sneak in a few rounds at the course

60-70: Maybe a few cocktails at the golf course

70-80: Dinnertime

80+: Bedtime

But the day wasn’t done for us. We still had to get through Montana, which is even more spread out that Wyoming. People think Nevada is where the government stores all the alien bodies. Aliens could homestead in Montana and no one would notice.

Clee: Glorp, why aren’t the deer and antelope playing?

Glorp: I tried to get them to play, but I incinerated them.

Clee: Oh Glorp, I can’t take you anywhere.

Glorp: You know that planetary destruction bomb that you told be never to press the red button?

Clee: Yes?

Glorp: I pressed the red button.

Clee: I guess we’ll just have to move back to Andromeda.

Laughtrack. Queue opening credit sequence for hapless but well-meaning alien. <-- my prediction how the world ends.

It was driving through the great wilds of nothing, when I started falling asleep and my wife said it was getting harder and harder to concentrate on driving (we had been switching off all day). By the time we got to Billings, we were so tired that when she asked me what gas station was at the exit, I said a Holiday. But it was this weird exit as most of them are in Billings where stuff advertised on the sign weren’t on the road crossing the freeway, but further in.

So, I did what any sleep deprived, exhausted travel would do and looked around for the advertised Holiday, and my wife after a bit of driving said, “Um, okay, so where is the Holiday?”

To which I said, “I don’t know. I don’t see it.”

Her: You didn’t look on your phone?

Me: No, I just kinda looked.

Her: But you have a phone!

Me: Oh yeah. I do. Hey look, we passed it. It’s down in that direction.

I point to the right away from where we are driving.

Luckily, before we could get demoralized any further, we saw it. The hallowed welcome halls of affordable hot dogs, and bulk egg products, Costco, not only did they have gas, but we wanted to stop at a grocery store before we got home (still three hours away at this point), and $4.50 to feed a family of three. It was a reprieve from the exhaustion we were both feeling.

At that point we were seriously considering packing it in, getting a hotel and driving back in the morning, not enough time to take off work be damned! It was the closest I ever came to giving up on a road trip. Even sleeping at the rest stop after the Mars Volta concert didn’t feel like giving up because we originally planned to get a hotel. The hype feeling you get after a concert prompted us to leave Denver the same night. So, getting to the rest stop was a triumph.

Sitting in the Billings Costco, felt like a defeat, my aging body finally won. I could no longer do a road trip with about 24 hours total of driving in two days. We were going to get a hotel, but there was something about the Costco, its ability to rejuvenate and refresh. If scholars years from now figure that capitalism was some sort of early human religion, then Costco would be the Mecca, the holy temple, the whatever it is Mormons are hiding in the bunkers under those golden trumpeters.

Years from now, when our culture is gone and these words are dust, Costco would be sacred ground and strangely a good place for a rest for weary travelers because after the Costco stop, which added an hour to our already long journey, we found the will to move on. Also, caffeine, I drank a diet soda, which I know is wimpy of the caffeine scale, but when your stomach roils like a Yellowstone geyser every time you drink a caffeinated product, you have a tendency not to drink it all that often. So, when I do have it, it probably feels like what an overdose victim feels after getting a hit of Narcan.

That is to say hyped up on caffeine, fueled by massive $1.50 hot dogs, and a car full of Costco food, I was ready to get back on the road, which I could barely see because of the sun in my eye. So yeah, getting old sucks. Gone are the days of driving all day and all night to get to where I want to be. But there’s a positive side to it too. For the next time, we road trip, we plan to do some overnight stops in between, and I’ll get to places that I never thought I’d see, especially if I was thinking about Barenaked Ladies lyrics while I was driving through them.

Books to Consider

When unassuming Toby stumbles upon an ancient prophecy, he’s thrust into a quest for powerful magical weapons that could save all of humanity from a devastating worldwide apocalypse. A humorous, adventure-filled fantasy!

Read the Golden Assault Rifle and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction today!

It’s a new kind of war. When you see them… it’s too late. But Byllard Iddo is a new kind of commander… and he’s about to become a legend.

Read The Dark Sea War Chronicles today!

En un futuro donde la tecnología lo es todo, la supervivencia pende de un hilo y la inteligencia artificial es el arma definitiva.

Read La Firma Del Cisne today!

530+ pages. 90,000 Words. Endless Laughter.

Read The Galaxy of Comedy today!

Vandryn of house Glenclare faces insurmountable odds fighting against the corrupt Melborians.

Read Brothers of Chaos today!