As Garth and I cruised from Salt Lake City towards Denver (our next planned stop), we had a long and lazy drive though Southern Wyoming. The drive was pleasant and the landscape was wide open. We passed several wind farms and were amazed to see huge trucks barreling past us hauling the parts for these massive wind gatherers. It takes one truck to haul one of the propellers for these whirling beasts.

No roadside attractions pulled us off the road in Wyoming, so we made pretty good time. We decided to try and find food before we made it to Denver and found ourselves happily pulling of the highway in Fort Collins, Colorado. This bustling, green college town was filled with skinny people on mountain bikes, offering a welcome change from the faded desert-y landscape we sailed through most of the day.

We parked in a central area of town. Before long we found ourselves seated on the patio of a vegan/vegetarian restaurant (a karmically balanced alternative to the bag of gas station beef jerky we were snacking on in the early afternoon). Tasty Harmony had a great casual feel and what appeared to be an exciting menu. Garth ordered some Asian Lettuce Wraps, which I would be hard pressed to actually call "wraps" as the amount of veggies and tofu piled on top made them impossible to pick up and eat. I had the Heart of Provence, which was a lovely tempeh placed atop polenta cakes with a tomato sauce and a salad. We were delighted by our meals, and I would stop back by Tasty Harmony to sample more of their menu again.

The real treat of the day came after we enjoyed dinner, just before the sun was setting. Our Roadside America map pointed us to a location just south of Fort Collins and we debated whether it was too late in the day to drop by someone's art environment. Our curiosity won and we pulled off the highway to check out Swetsville Zoo, something you should also do if you happen to be driving between Denver and Fort Collins—what a treat!

From the Highway you can spot the yellow and white turrets, aka the facade of zoo keeper Bill Swets' home. We pulled into Swetsville around 7:30 in the evening and found the place empty but open. The zoo must house at least 200 sculptures built by Swets himself. They are carefully crafted from old farm machinery, car parts, and scraps.

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