Any coffee drinker will say that the first sip of the morning is the most important. For Morris the first sip was his first official wake up call, minus walking in freezing temperatures to get to work, he could do that half asleep. When in the store, he would fill up his Center Gas Station travel mug with the Columbian blend two sugars with a sprinkle of half and half. He would sit on his stool behind the counter with his coffee making sure no one was in the store and brought the mug to his lips lighting a cigarette slowly afterwards to complete the ritual.
Outside, the cold rustled around the mountains and a forest green Land Rover filled up at pump number two. It was just another Friday. The chime of the bell above the door broke his concentration. The driver of the Range Rover, a young fellow, strolled in wearing a brand new black and red one-piece ski outfit.
“Hey?” The expensive man motioned to Morris reading the bold headlines of the USA Today.
Morris had skied twice in his whole life but never got to like the sport. He enjoyed the snow, but never understood the whole dynamics of skiing.
“Will the gas be all for ya?”
The man in his early thirties looked at him out of the corner of his eye while grabbing a small carton of orange juice from the fridge. “How far until Vail?”
“Give or take forty minutes depends on the roads. You’re lucky that the pass is open. It’ll probably be closed in the next few days.”
“How often do they close it?”
“More often then you think. The government don’t want any accidents on their hands and when it’s icy, that’s the first place accidents ‘ll happen.”
The man placed the drink on the counter, threw down five bucks, opened the front door of the gas station, and yelled out to the passenger in his car, “Babe, its going to be another forty minutes! Want to wait to use the bathroom?”
The young blond woman with teased hair and a white headband in the Range Rover shook her head. “I’ll wait until we get to the hotel. Honey, you know I can’t go in public bathrooms!”
Morris took the money from the gentleman and said, “You’ve got a real classy girl out there.”
The guy ignored the comment and smiled politely, grabbing the orange juice, and drove out back onto 495.
Deana Bianco is a rad rad girl with an amazing travel blog (it's more like a magazine to me) that i write for, because it's so so chic and fantastic, called RunawayNow.com. she does a ton more, too, and plans to launch her own personal writing site soon. i really look forward to all the projects we'll hopefully get to work on together in the future. she'll also be one of the writers featured in a book chris bettig is putting together. more on that later. (chris bettig has done a ton of illustrations on ttf.) thx so much, d! you rule! xxx
awesome coffee mug drawing by Deana's friend Samantha Conti ... thx, sc!
Deana Bianco is a rad rad girl with an amazing travel blog (it's more like a magazine to me) that i write for, because it's so so chic and fantastic, called RunawayNow.com. she does a ton more, too, and plans to launch her own personal writing site soon. i really look forward to all the projects we'll hopefully get to work on together in the future. she'll also be one of the writers featured in a book chris bettig is putting together. more on that later. (chris bettig has done a ton of illustrations on ttf.) thx so much, d! you rule! xxx
awesome coffee mug drawing by Deana's friend Samantha Conti ... thx, sc!
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