Dominos Never Tasted So Good

It is now day 6 of our 17 day trip. We left Santa Fe around noon today after a morning in Santa Fe's historic plaza. We saved the plaza for last, and truth be told, we were glad. It is the most popular tourist attraction in the city, but it was low on our priority list. When I travel, I am more interested in what the locals like than what the travel experts discuss. So, we asked our host and a few store owners for some advice and went exploring.

After our first night, we woke up and hit a couple of spots that I had heard of for a while. The first was Harry's Roadhouse on old Las Vegas Highway. Harry's serves an eclectic mix of spicy Santa Fe and Route 66 Americana. Head to this place and order the cold meatloaf sandwich! Wow, I am still thinking about it with its sweet onions and sweet - sour tomato sauce. Not quite ketchup, but a good analog. Jonathon had a nice grilled salmon taco accompanied with fresh salsa and chunky black beans.

Once we finished lunch at Harry's, we went over to Jackalope. Jackalope is a HUGE southwestern mercado selling all kinds of pottery, hand-blown glass and all kinds of well... neat junk! I picked up one treasure: the face of an old gas pump! Look for it in our backyard soon. I have to say, the laid back energy of this city has truly left me awestruck. You have to experience it for yourself. The adobe building style, mandated by the city, extends even to the local McDonald's! And speaking of, think green chile double cheeseburger. That's right, in Santa Fe, even everyone's favorite McDonald's $1.19 guilty pleasure comes with the state's favorite condiment! This is a city that will certainly see more of us.

As we left town, we set our sites west for the far northwestern corner of the state. Which also happens to be the northeastern corner of Arizona, the southeastern corner of Utah, and the southwestern corner of Colorado. It may not be much, but there is a certain cheesy cool factor to standing in four states at once. And the only place to do that is at the Four Corners National Monument! One thing to keep in mind when looking for this monument is well, it's HARD to find. The best direction I can give you is to go to Farmington, NM, take highway 64 west and hang a right at 160 in Teec Nos Pos, Arizona. In addition to some great photo ops, they have some awesome prices on Native American jewelry.

When we left Four Corners, the real adventure began. I decided to drive so Jonathon could get some video AND decided to take a road that barely appeared on any map and DIDN'T appear on the GPS to "save some time". On top of that, we ended up taking still another road that didn't even show up on the map!

We quickly realized why these roads don't appear. The GPS tries to take us around the giant canyon and we just barrelled through it! It was a happy surprise with some of the most beautiful scenery that we've captured yet on this trip. Better still, There was a lot of beautiful scenery unfolding in my mind about who I am.

The thing is, and many of you know this, taking unmapped roads through rugged canyons isn't what I would normally do. Taking weeks long driving trips is something I talk about, but do? Heck, leaving my job to find out what fulfills me is something I would never consider. And yet here I am.

Jonathon has talked about our reasons for taking this trip. I think the biggest reason I have is just because it's not like me. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I like about David Leslie. But being afraid to take chances isn't one of them. I've spent a lifetime doing what was expected of me. Making a good living. And it just never felt like me. Everyone else saw it as me, and in fact, I became a caricature of everyone else's expectations of who David Leslie should be. But Jonathon came into my life and challenged my notions of the value of playing it safe.

So here we are, driving across the country in search of what it means to be David Leslie and Jonathon Quam. I don't really expect to find the answer on this trip, but I think I expect to get a little closer to the answer.

Here's to each of you jumping off the proverbial cliff and finding who you really are, too.

Oh! the whole "save some time" comment. I almost forgot. Well, suffice it to say, the shortcut took us on a beautiful winding path that eventually lead us to a somewhat frightening little town and a slightly creepy hotel. Suffice it to say, I was watching the cornfields for the creepy kids to emerge. We decided to drive on to the next larger town, Moab. And arrived. And spent thirty minutes trying to find a room. And found what I believe is the only room available in the town tonight.

So we settled under our cheap polyester comforters in our heavily febrezed room. We put on some TV. And we gobbled up some Dominos pizza and chicken at midnight. After a long drive in the dark, it was truly the best meal we've had in a while.