The Road Trip

Yes it has been aeons since by last post, but life has gotten very busy, our internet has been on the fritz (technically Jonathan broke it), and blogger takes forever to load pictures. Anywho, enough with the excuses and on to some Fortner happenings. So...Jonathan and I have had the wonderful opportunity to go skiing in Colorado the past three years with his company. Neither of us are beach people, it’s hot enough at home and we like to do stuff on vacation, so lounging on the beach just isn’t Jonathan’s thing. Well ever since our first ski trip together, we have found ourselves daydreaming about a group ski trip with friends. Well, this year we made the dream come true, sort of....

You see about May of last year Jonathan and Bacon started hatching a plan to ski in Park City. Bacon (or Lisa) found a great little condo right in town that we could rent for the week and I piddled around and researched the best skiing and town amenities, it was all so lovely sounding, and then Jonathan and Bacon had a little too much down time/together time and decided that we would save so much money if we rented a van and drove out there; 30 hours in a rented church van with 3 other couples, 8 people total. I protested until I was overruled and then decided to put on a happy face. So, join me for my list of things I learned on our cross country trek...

But first a story, we left Mississippi around 7:30 on New Year’s day, thinking we would drive through the first night and get as close to Park City as we could in case we ran into bad weather and then just drive on in early on the 3rd, giving us four full days in Town and allowing us enough time to get our skis, walk around the town go to the grocery etc. We got to the northwest corner of Arkansas and had already discovered that the temperature control in the van was going to present a problem. Jonathan and Bacon were driving and navigating and for reasons we could not understand kept the heat on in the back just somewhere shy of boiling. Seriously, it was what I imaging taking a nap on the sun might have been like. All the chocolate snacks that were tucked away under the seats melted or evaporated, we were forced to pick through a giant glob of chocolate for the peanuts that had once been wrapped as single morsels as MM’s. Everytime we would ask them to please turn the heat down, they would look at us like we had lost our minds. Meanwhile, the rest of us were plastered to the windows for some cool relief. Finally, all the passengers managed to fall to sleep (or passed out from the suffocating heat). Somewhere in the middle of Kansas with a wind chill of -2, all of us passenger are jogged from our sleep/suffocation by the cool blast of wind from the open door. Jonathan and Bacon were switching places and the rest of us were fighting for the chance gust of wind. Once on our way, sweltering again, we all notice J & B are shivering and have their coats on and zipped up all the way and their toboggans on and pulled down over their ears.
“What are y’all doing?”
“It’s freezing up here and y’all won’t let us turn the heat on.”
“You have your own heat control?”
“No we don’t it’s broken.”
I reach up there turn the switch that says rear control on and then turn their heat on. Immediate relief with no overwhelming heat in the back of the van. So, the whole time J & B are sitting in the front freezing and we are suffering because they couldn’t figure out the A/C. The thought of those two driving in the cold, bundled up, with out any heat on still makes me laugh.

So, back to the trip.

City limits bar and grill in Oklahoma was a lovely place to watch the Tide win a national championship. It was even sweeter to get to share the moment with Bacon. I know he was moved. The big burly trucker in overalls and I were pumped.

City Limits Bar and Grill sure has some fancy fresh flowers in the Bathroom. I have to be honest, it's not what I was expecting from such a low key establishment. Way to class it up guys.

Wyoming is a large state and the residents of that state love to adorn their plains and prairies with windmills. Those things are everywhere.

Fireworks stands and the Little America truck stops and hotel invested their entire marketing budget in billboards along the interstate in Kansas, Utah and Wyoming. Every 1000 yards another billboard was beckoning you to try their 50 c ice cream, or offering you a great deal on black cat fireworks. This is just a sampling

Shane had a baby while we were there. (the chocolate shop on main-street)

Salt Lake City has the longest red-lights in the entire world. Seriously, we made four right turns and the light still hadn’t changed. I only wish we had actually timed the light to prove this. I challenge anyone to find a stoplight that stays red longer than the ones in SLC. On our way out of SLC to Park City we were approaching a yellow light and gunned it (probably ran it), had we not we would probably still be in Utah. I took this photo of the Billboard for a dry dance club (only in Utah) while waiting and waiting and waiting for the light to change.
Our lovely little room at the American Embassy Suites in SLC before heading into Park City.

On the drive in, Anjanette and Shane were sharing some junior mints and she dropped one of the little boogers. They searched and searched the van. I was pretty convinced that it was so hot in the back of the van that it just evaporated all together. Well, that night in our hotel room Anj found the missing morsel melted to her shirt.

Jonathan has no sense of distance. This is the conversation that took place on the way home.

Me - “It’s crazy how those mountains look so close, but they are 60 miles away.”
Jonathan - “They can’t be that far away, you can only see a maximum of 20 miles”
Bacon - “What? No way man. That isn’t true and that mountain is further than 20 miles”
An argument ensues and we each guess how long it will take us to get to the mountain in the distance. I am not sure if Bacon or I won, but it was well over an hour later that we finally made it to the foot of the mountain. In that hour I heard Jonathan and Bacon rehash an argument from 8th grade. I can’t remember what the argument was about, but I know they are both a little salty about it.

We are pretty sure this is a coffee bean, but the jury is still out.

There was a lot of this going on.

There are a lot of antelope in Wyoming. To paraphrase Bacon “Holy sh— there are thousands of them out there.”

Yep he's asleep behind those shades. Thanks for being a trooper and driving all night baby; even if you did try to give me a heat stroke, I still love ya.

They were exhausted from driving in the freezing cold all night

If you are on a road-trip with boys, do not let them choose the bathroom stop locations, ever. If you do you will end up at lovely little establishments like the Diamond Express in Northwest Arkansas. I took a pass and ran next door to the redroof inn. The friendly little desk-clerk with 3 teeth total was kind enough to allow me to use the employees bathroom. Still sketchy, but my odds of being propositioned with a methamphetamine sale were greatly reduced.

Or Reynaldos

It was like coming out of the wilderness and seeing the promised land. Perhaps this was how Joseph Smith felt on coming to Utah.


In Midwest/western truck stops you have the convenience of being able to purchase wizard and witchcraft paraphernalia, cleverly located next to the mugs inscribed with scripture verses.

The cleanest nicest pit stop we made was at the QuikTrip

And now for a few quotable moments:

Not all boobies are good boobies - Shane
My breath smells like orbit mixed with decay - Shane on hour 30 of the drive in
I just need to brush my tooth - Brian
That’s what you call a redneck snowplow - Brian, on seeing a guy walking down the street with a shovel
I’ll probably do more unpacking than anyone, it’ll just be by myself - Shane

There were more, but Holt deleted my note from the phone and this was what I could remember.