CANYCA: California to New York (and back) pg. 9
The lunch stop happened to us somewhere near North Platte, I think. A few choices were offered, but I recall insisting on
checking out a rather shiny little psuedo-retro place called "Penny's Diner", where I enjoyed a salad and some onion rings, and Tim experienced a buffalo burger. We finished up and departed Penny's just as the rain remembered its duty to be incessant as well as cold and the wind pervasive....perfect timing for the bus to exhibit problems of the mostly dead battery variety. What a nice time to get out and push! But we did, and were on our way. Further incident of this type was not experienced again during the trip. (I think this happened because I did not allow the wipers to park when I shut it off for lunch!)
And the highway stretched on and on....there was a bay singlecab in a field, more highway, more sullen skies looming over endless rolling hills and fields, and then, Colorado. An abrupt change in weather, terrain, and traffic. The last not too surprising as we had finally veered off I80 and headed southwest on I76 toward Denver. We made it pretty much past the northern part of the city before we had to give it up for the day, and with reports of snowstorms in the Rockies, we slept. The change to Mountain Time happened in there somewhere, so I'm not really sure what was right, but we were beat, and wanted to have the best chance of going this route through the mountains possible.