Kid Rock is in the Drivethru:

After hitting up every hotel in Moab we finally decided to believe the folks that were telling us there was no lodging in the area…or even in the next town, or the next, or the…you get the idea. We never found out what the rush on rooms was about but it seemed to have something to do with the fact that every small town in the area had invented some festival for that time of year. There was the pit toilet festival, the raccoon and other rodents festival, the tubers and tomatoes festival and of course my favorite the homeless go home festival in friendly Fruita Colorado (I’ll get back to that one). So we were recovering from a very long day in the sun, covered in salt, like the Morton lady without her umbrella, a little bit sore and super hungry. The prospect of waiting for a shower and food was not a welcome one but we knew if we ate we would surely fall asleep while driving. We pressed on while Dave bravely forged new lines of conversation designed to keep my eyelids from closing. When we finally crossed in to Colorado we were certain that this was the promised land, you know…the promise of a bed, the promise of a meal, the promise of a shower, but these myths were quickly dispelled by the clerk behind the desk who delighted in telling us about the awful time we would have that evening. “It’s gonna be a really rough night for you folks, no lodging for hours”. We knew we couldn’t drive for hours so we needed to come up with a game plan. We decided gas and food were a necessity so we fueled up, stumped a cashier with the phrase “lodging situation” and parked the truck to get some fast food. As we walked towards the Wendy’s (I was breaking my Wendy’s ban even though I still believe that they step on all their burgers with cleated shoes and that should not be tolerated). The lights turned off. Not to be deterred we headed for the drive thru, now yes I understand the concept of a drive thru is to actually “drive” thru however that doesn’t work with a 44’ truck, so we hoofed it hoping for the best. When we got no response we walked up to the window and quickly discovered that they weren’t just ignoring us (they were ignoring us) they were also closing. Damn. Hunger. Need shower. Need food. As we sat in the parking lot we decided to cross the street and try our luck at McDonalds which was boastfully open 24 hours. When the door was locked we realized that it was drive-thru only and again we had been foiled! We wandered to see if there was anything else open at 11:15 pm in Fruita Colorado when we bravely decided to try the hotel that we were walking past despite smug clerks declaration of no lodging. They had just released one room which the owner happily sold us. He got Dominoes on the phone for us and luckily they were closed or else our food problems might have been too quickly solved. We decided with the security of a place to sleep we would try walking through the drive thru at McDonalds. We got up to the window where the trainee said she thought it would be okay but had to check with someone. Her manager high on power at getting to decide whether we would be allowed to spend our money or not, related that since Kid Rock rolled through here he would allow us to as well. Now we can’t quite figure out if Kid Rock somehow paved the way for us, if this dude was a nut or if perhaps he was quoting a song but either way, Thanks Kid Rock. On the way back to the hotel Dave stopped and pointed in disbelief at a sign. When I looked up I was dumbfounded. I’ve seen a lot of despicable behavior before, but never have I seen a town so proudly display it’s Scarlet Letter. The sign was a picture of a cardboard sign that someone might make to ask oncoming traffic for money. There was the Ghostbuster's circle and slash through the sign and something about giving change won’t make change. There were a host of businesses signed on to it, including the United Way and it was just disgusting. Who could have known that Fruita Colorado would be such a tolerant place! When we later researched the town’s website to see how deeply rooted their discriminatory practices were we discovered that the town itself was panhandling funds to save some bridge. I thought about making my own sign against the cities bridge fundraising efforts but I really needed to get to Michigan before Juliette’s wedding celebration. I still haven’t ruled out an open letter to the city council however. Aah, hypocrisy is a strange animal.