Alex's Restaurant

Cowboy meets call girl ... but only because she "follows him home."

A sign at the entrance of the parking lot at Nevada's Chowder Canyon Lodge declares, "Pavement Ends." It's often assumed that the road goes on, but when someone arrives at the Lodge, they've gone about as far as they can go.

Alex Blascomb, refugee from ex-wife-in-perpetuity, parks Old Red, his sort-of-pasty-pink '67 Mustang, at the Lodge at 6:02 a.m. He 's down to $3 and three gallons of gas. Thirty minutes later he has $40 and a job as a waiter. He starts work the next day - Friday the 13th. It's his lucky day. Maybe.

The next ten months are the craziest of his life, enhanced by the antics of an odd-ball collection of Lodge employees, a running fight with his ex about child custody and the money she got from selling his horses, family trouble back at the ranch, a beautiful woman who falls for him after his performance of "Desperado" during karaoke in a bowling alley, a couple of visits with the mob and his continuing effort to stay sober through it all.