Traveling to the NCC

It takes two days of driving to get to Fort Robinson, Nebraska from Fort Huachuca. Hard driving. Fortunately for me, my buddy Jay likes to drive. I spent two days sleeping in the back of the truck eating snacks. The other passengers, Pete and Bill, were also taking advantage of Jay's driving fetish to catch up on missing REM time. It was like Jay was driving a truck full of bobble heads. The trip was uneventful for a change. No blown tires or other vehicular problems. Our first stop was in Raton, New Mexico, which I'm told meant "rat" in Spanish. I had found an overnight stable there which turned out to be pretty nice. Unfortunately, it had snowed there that day. Yes, snowed. It was cold and our horses were shivering. Who would have thought we needed stable blankets in New Mexico in September. We double flaked the horses to give them some warmth, closed up the barn doors, and went in search of our hotel. I had booked seven rooms at the Comfort Inn at Raton but as we drove down the only street in the town we saw no sign for the hotel. Frustrated, I called the hotel and the clerk answered, "Quality Inn, formerly known as Comfort Inn." Crisis resolved. They had changed names a week earlier. Go figure. After dumping our bags we went in search of a restaurant to get some chow. We found a Mexican restaurant with a sign that was missing some letters so it read, "Rest rant". Perfect for us. It had big screen TVs in it so we could watch the Dolphins - Colts game. The chow and beer was good so we went back to the hotel with full stomachs and a motivation to sleep.