Day 11: Red Rock and The Road

I was hoping to go to The Mint on Monday (day 11), but you can only get tickets the day of and despite the fact that my mom was in line before 7am, there were only tickets left for the 3:30 tour.  As we had a nine hour drive, we were unable to do the 3:30 tour.  My parents and their friends enjoyed their tour though.  Since we couldn't go to the Mint, we made an impromptu trip to Red Rock.  We didn't stay too long because we had a long drive ahead of us, but we enjoyed wandering around a little bit, taking pictures, and checking out the area.  Then it was time to get on the road and begin heading back toward home.  We made a bathroom stop in Colorado on the Nebraska border.  A little later we stopped at a diner in North Platte, Nebraska for lunch.  It was at a place called Penny's Diner--a 50's diner.  It was pretty good.  We made one more pit stop later that afternoon.  On our ride we saw lots of cows, corn, and windmills.  I still found that part of the ride more enjoyable than Wyoming though.  We listened to quite a bit of country music--not Mike's favorite, but limited options in places.  With the time zone change, we arrived at our hotel at 8:10pm (in Iowa).  Our room was really nice, I kind of wished we were staying for more than one night.  We ordered take out dinner from a place we'd seen on the Travel Channel and Mike went to pick it up.  It was Jethro's BBQ.  Mike really enjoyed his sandwich.  After dinner, I did a short work out in the hotel gym.  A little reading, then off to bed.