Little America, Wyoming.

Road trips take you to interesting places.  Rachel and I were feeling pretty shitty after a 10 hour drive and needed a break.  We happened upon an oasis called "Little America."  I don't know the details about Little America but there were three of them located throughout Wyoming and Nebraska.  My theory?  If you build it, they will come.  Seriously though, how could they not get business?  It was literally the only place that offered anything for 100 miles in either direction.  So, we went and got a decent cup of coffee and some decent hamburgers.  It exceeded my expectations by a full 20%.  There were other funny parts about Little America.  They boasted 50 cent ice cream cones, a little souvenir shop complete with rock kiosk, a hotel.  But my favorite part?  See the photo below

For some strange reason Little America prominently displayed a large, dead emperor penguin.  This stuck me as odd so I did a little investigation.  Turns out that the penguin was a gift to Little America.  A gift that was supposed to arrive to the tourist trap alive.  But the big guy didn't make it, he arrived dead and the tourist trap stuffed him and put him on display.  The locals call him "The Emperor."  The emperor creeped me out.

We really should have gotten a hotel at Little America because en route to Laramie, Wyoming...we ran out of gas right in front of a Sinclair Gas station in the middle of nowhere (run on sentence).  Lucky for us, someone else with AAA insurance did the exact same thing in the exact same spot (at 1am!) and there was a service man servicing them at the location.  Bob was his name, he warned me about gas station rattlesnakes and gave us two gallons of fuel.  Enough to get us to Laramie.  When we got a hotel I made this picture frame art and dedicated it to the patron Saint of Wyoming...our friend, Bob.  Thanks, Bob.  Without you I would have ended up dead on the side of the road in rural Wyoming.