As we drove out of New Mexico, I stopped outside of a restaurant in Raton. I checked my voice mail messages from a pay phone (no great cell phone plans those days). I was shocked to find out I should not have ignored my car insurance bill. It was one of those renewal things and I'd miss the deadline and had been uninsured for the past twelve days. Great, road trip with no car insurance.
Another message was awesome. The film commision in Greeley had a woman named Sara in charge. She not only said I could give my little spiel but she went ahead and found us a place (for free) and notified the radio and papers herself. Wherever she is now in the show biz world or living the high life in Colorado, thanks!
All she required from me was a fax with some information. We drove around and found a fax at a motor home place. They were so sweet. Then as we were about to move on, we saw a side show attraction. I thought it was a wild west show. Instead it was a road side zoo. We filmed the sad animals and interviewed the owner. Later I called Peta and sent them the footage.
That eveing we made it to Greeley and met the first of many kind strangers. I had been messing around on AOL chat rooms for the past few months. I told some of my new email friends that I'd be running around the country. Amy was nice enough to invite us to stay with her. She wasn't a pyscho killer even if we figured if she was it'd make great film footage. Instead, Arnold and her became best buds (I think from their shared interest in smoking on her back porch) so it was fun. We also really needed her hospitatlity, since all we had left was a ziplock of change that Arnold carried around and my check to the credit card companies (borrowed money from Mom to pay for the camera) wouldn't clear for a few days. At a gas station, some man seemed mean and Arnold just gave him the zip lock bag when he asked for a handout. Can't complain, we were living on handouts.
Greeley actually kept us busy with interviews. Not only did we talk to some folks with big dreams after my talk, but we got to meet some Gospel singers at an arts and crafts festival and used their awesome music to start the first cut of the documentary.
We got the best surprise - the Colorado Broncos - winners of the Superbowl, were right there in town with their spring practice. We tried to walk past the fans but a guy stopped us and said we needed press passes. No biggie - have camera, will get access. WE went into a little office, showed our camera and they gave us yellow laminated nametags that said "Bronco press". Wow, we were on the field.
I had camera envy as we set ours up on the tripod. It looked so small compared to the news camera packages. Oh well, that didn't stop me from interviewing a few of the players. I love the footage - I look small compared to them!
We left our Colorado adventure without the bag of change but I had already filled up on gas and had $8 cash still in my wallet. We drove to Topeka and found a campsite. The man said the charge was $10. I gave him my eight and said I'd look around the car for some change. He just waved us in. Another kind stranger.
We set up by a river and the sound of locusts. Half way across the country and it was our first time camping. We both slept fine - sung to sleep by the locusts. Woke up by Mandolina as she howled to the nearby train. I should have filmed her doing that - she looked so cute with her collie/golden retriever nose in the air answering the wolf cry of a rumbling train.
The campsite even had nice clean bathrooms and phones for me to make my calls. We could do well with this camping thing (thank you, Mike, my brother for lending us the tent!)
I am amazed that we camped various places in the midwest and never ran into a thunderstorm or since this was Kansas, a tornado. Plus, we had to sleep next to the outlets and charge up the camera batteries all night. We would have fried!
That morning we were running late for our first appointment with a tribe. It was with the Kickapoo triabl president. We arrived 15 minutes late but hadn't realized that by traveling East we had crossed a time zone and instead were an hour and 15 minutes late. The tribal president had to leave but the Vice President and Secretary met with us. We told them that we were interviewing people on the reservations about current issues and just seeing what was going on around the country.
They were very kind and explained that they would have to take it up before all the council members and vote on whether we could do an interview. They told us interesting facts on their history and their plans to develop a calbe station with TNT and Willie Nelson. We thanked them for thier time but said we probably woudln't be able to come back in a month after the next tribal meeting and we respected tehir democratic decision making.
Luckily, the Secretary said some magical words to us, "Since we can't do an interview, at least we cam treat you to lunch." He called the casino to give our names for VIP passes to the buffet. We were super thankful since now we were completely broke (unless there was change in the car somewhere).
We picked up our VIP passes and stuffed ourselves to last until midnight when we could snack again thanks to my credit cards being available to use at that moment again. We drove out of the reservation admiring the lucsh green small hills and the mist which reminded me of the moors of England - all they needed were more sheep and it'd look the same.
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