I made it!

For those keeping track, I did not write yesterday because, well, I was staying with friends in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. Wireless was not so much an option. Not a bad day of driving from Ann Arbor to Champion, PA. Chicago always produces a ridiculous amount of traffic and construction but I managed to avoid getting lost, which is a plus. I also noticed that there are a lot of billboards in Ohio and Michigan that advertise for porn shops and 'friendly encounters'. Perhaps it's because they have a lot of lonely truckers? Who knows. Listened to more christian radio which continues to make me angry.

Got to our friends Pam and Hugh's around 4:30 yesterday afternoon and we sat and visited for a while. Wow I said "visited". Does that make me old? It was nice to catch up after not having seen them in forever. They are actually friends of my parents from Thailand but I feel like they are like second parents. It was nice to be in a home away from home. Went for a run up a giant hill, which is apparently all they have in that part of PA, after which I was served a fantastic dinner. And then I passed out. My phone rang around midnight I guess but I didn't hear it, even though it was right next to my head. Soemthing to be said about sleeping in the woods. Pam and Hugh's cabin is literally in the middle of the woods, with bears, squirrels, birds and all the other wildlife we don't get in cities. It's a little haven where I will most certainly return when DC starts to grate on me.

Drove back to VA this morning to mom's house. Decided to NOT drive on the PA turnpike since it is the worst road ever. Picture the Jersey turnpike (for those who have never driven it, two lanes going in each direction with a giant concrete barrier in the center and very little shoulder) with a million trucks, tons of construction, curves like a road through Vermont, and inevitably bad weather. Took a couple of small back roads to get to rte68, a much more pleasant alternative to the turnpike. And the unavoidable downpour occurred. Visibility was pretty much nil for about 40 miles, which isn't so bad unless you're driving downhill next to giant trucks behind thrown around by the wind and your windshield is not quite clear because the defroster isn't working and the last time the windshield was properly cleaned, a lot of streaks were left. I survived, obviously. Stopped someplace near the MD border to look at a cutout of the rock surface (will post picture later) that shows the striations and compression of the rocks over millions of years. Fascinating.

Got home around 1:30pm and promptly passed out on mom's sofa for a couple hours. All is well at home. Oh except for my minor freak out this evening. Mom and Gary went out for a couple hours and left me to tend the house, bake cookies, do my laundry, etc. I was in the basement and when I came up the stairs to the main level, the front door was wide open. Strange. I remember distinctly looking at the close door on my trip down the stairs and wondering if they had locked the door on their way out. Apparently not. I freaked out. The house is in a nice, safe neighborhood but there have been incidents of car thefts and people randomly wandering into houses. I was not about to become a bloody heap of former person, so I called mommy then went to daddy's house to hang out until the family came home. I'm still a little weirded out and a little worried that some weirdo is squatting in my sister's closet, waiting until we're all asleep so that he can jump out and eat us or something.

Sweet dreams all...

Day 5 plus a rant

A generally uneventful travel day. Ran in Madison in the morning and was eaten alive by mosquitos. I guess when running around a lake in the hot humid summer, I should have been prepared. After my breakfast smoothie--yes I have been lugging my blender in and out of hotels--I went in search of good coffee. That is my new goal: to only drink good coffee, as opposed to gas station coffee. In Madison, this was trully a quest. In fact, it took me a good 30 minutes of driving to find ANY coffee that had not been sitting in a metal carafe for over 3 hours. I finally found a place downtown by the capital. Caffeinated and ready to go, it then took me about 20 minutes to get out of the one-way-mess that is downtown. I have a great sense of direction so the lost-ness was not a function of not knowing where I was going. It was more a problem of not being able to drive in whatever direction I needed to go because the streets made no sense. Cute city, totally disorganized. Obviously I found my way out eventually.

Again, most of the drive was uneventful apart from the occasional accident and traffic that Chicago tends to produce. Given nothing to write on that front, I want to briefly rant on something that has bee bothering me throughout this trip. If it is not already obvious for those who know me, I am pretty liberal politically. That said, I lived in Utah for three years so I am also very open minded. I have had the opportunity I guess, to listen to christian radio in the last few days, in the absence of NPR. Don't worry family, no chance of my falling for their tricks. What I wanted to say is that these people are idiots! Who listens to this stuff and believes it?! First there was a show about abusive relationships; the radio personality told several 'callers' that they needed to stay in the relationship because it was God's will and something good would come of it. Then there was the barrage of shows about how to 'fix' gay children. Are we back to that again? Come on people. Being gay is no more a choice than is an allergy. These parents wer being told to make sure their boys weren't playing with girl toys; to make sure they were playing 'masculine' games with their fathers, like baseball; and to make sure boys and their moms weren't developing strong bonds. I don't know where to start. Is this really how gay children are being raised? I understand that many people do not believe homosexuality to be accepted by the Christian faith. At the same time, in this day and age, how can people honestly believe that gay children can be raised to not be gay? It's no wonder that so many people are in the closet. And these poor kids! They have a strong feeling of who they are and they are told that who they are is wrong. I could go on forever. I guess that's why it's called a rant, but I'll stop for now.

The other thing that scares me to the death is the abundance of anti-abortion propaganda that is posted on billboards. I've never seen signs that say "Your mother chose life" and "90% of women who had an abortion regretted it later" anywhere other than in the mid-west. It scares me. While everyone is entitled to their beliefs, what someone else believes should not affect what I do with my body. As long as I'm not hurting you, then get out of my face. I suppose that implies that I shouldn't have a problem with the billboards. I think what scares me most is that there are so many dumb people in the world who blindly believe and disseminate this kind of stuff without knowing or understanding the consequences of their actions.

Discuss.

Oh and dinner last night was very tasty: Middle Eastern Food at Jerusalem something in Ann Arbor. I love Ann Arbor. Can I stay here?

Day 4, fading, fading

It was a long day of driving. I'm so tired I'm dizzy. Strange, since it wasn't a difficult drive from Sioux Falls to Madison. Minnesota and Wisconsin are very pretty. I just got bored. There is very little I can do for 7 hours without getting bored out of my mind. Anything that involves sitting is even worse. I think I started talking to myself at one point.

Lunch was good. I stopped at an Amish bakery off of the highway and got a sandwich on tasty bread. Not sure what made it amish other than that it was sparsely furnished. The server seemed kind of afraid of food and was confused by the till. Perhaps he was Amish. I didn't think they were allowed to use electricity.

Madison seems nice. Going to try to go for a run around the parks in the morning because right now I think I would probably fall in the water. Hotel I'm in is a bit musty. I had to switch rooms when I got here because the non-smoking room I was put in smelled like smoke and I started hacking upon entry. Room I'm in now seems moldy but I only have to survive the night, right?

Top 3 from Day 3

Oh my lord. I just wrote a nice long post and the internet ate it. Where do the words go when that happens?? Is it the same place that the typing goes when I hit buttons and nothing appears on the screen? Argh. I will attempt to recreate.

South Dakota: Best State Ever

1. Wall Drug: “Wall” is a town in SD. Wall Drug is their local drug store, or what used to be the local drug store and is now a major tourist destination. There are signs for it up to a hundred miles away! I was expecting your typical drug store with some bells and whistles, you know, ice cream, toys, maybe a t-shirt or two. What I got was a mini-wild west down town complete with saloon, tacky souvenirs and figurines, and perhaps 2 aisles of actual drug store. Crazy. It seems they have perfected the art out here of creating a destination out of absolutely nothing that needs to really be seen.

2. Badlands: Badlands is a national park comprised of the most incredible rock formations somewhat akin to those in southern Utah, or even a mini-grand canyon. The Indians named it Badlands because it was “bad” or “difficult” to cross this section of land that was created when a volcano threw up in what used to be a lake. You drive about 10 miles off of the main highway through prairie grasslands, then all of a sudden the land just drops off and voila, jagged rocks, cliffs, plops of stone formations for miles and miles. It is the most primitive landscape I have ever experienced. I’m pretty sure I saw a woolly mammoth being chased by a saber toothed tiger. Oh and there was also a guy in a buffalo skin chasing them with a spear too.

3. The Corn Palace: Another example of creating a destination out of absolutely nothing that should be of any interest. The Corn Palace is a giant county-looking building that is literally covered in corn. They have created frescoes for the outside and made them out of corn and corn parts (husks, etc.). Apparently important political figures like John McCain think it an important place in front of which to speechify. Across the street is the Enchanted Castle Doll Museum. Very Creepy.

Speaking of creepy, I ordered dinner at the bar/restaurant in the hotel tonight and while I was waiting for the food to be ready, three middle aged guys at the bar tried to entice me into getting wasted with them. Sometimes being a girl just kinda sucks. Do I look that desperate?

On another note, in trying to buy dinner last night, I encountered the mid-west grocery store. Sister tells me I need to develop a better understanding of the normal American diet. I walked into the store across from the hotel in search of something green, vegetarian friendly, and edible. It took me 10 minutes to navigate around the store and to find the fruits and vegetables. Fruit included apples, apples, and some over priced cherries. Veggies available were shredded cabbage of various forms, prepacked broccoli, and…onions I think. Definitely not Whole Foods.

Day 2

Went for a run this morning in Cheyenne. There are a number of different parks around the city that were easy enough to find, no thanks to the hotel front desk. I think the last time she left the hotel was to score some meth. Lions park has a little pond in the middle, surrounded by a path about a mile around it. There’s a botanical garden, kids parks, even a ‘fitness trail’ for people to follow. Quite civilized.

I almost had an interesting story for everyone. Almost. When filling up in Douglas, WY I checked my oil (yes daddy I am a responsible adult) and according to my dipstick, I was out of oil. Strange since I just had the oil changed. I added a quart of oil and noticed that there was a puddle forming under my car, something dripping from a place that I thought things shouldn’t drip. I panicked. Compared to Sidney, NE, where I last had a car blow up on me, Douglas, WY is, well, nowhere. I got directions to the closest service station that was open—apparently everywhere in Wyoming closes between 12-1 for lunch. Where are we, Spain? The guy at the service center was incredibly accommodating and found someone to check the car. Turns out there was just a small leak in the oil pan which they fixed in 20 minutes. The whole thing took an hour, but I was back on the road with no further incident.

Except that I lost phone service and had absolutely no radio stations other than the pilgrim (Christian) station for a good 3 hours of the drive through middle of bumblefuck Wyoming.

I visited Mt. Rushmore this afternoon just ahead of a huge thunder/hail storm. I was impressed by the fact that someone actually carved the whole thing. Not only is it huge, but the rock is also hundreds of feet up. Crazy. Otherwise it wasn’t as breathtaking as I would have thought. Way too touristy. Lots of, well, stereotypical Americans and their broods of children. Not as many Asian tourists as I expected.

A thought that crossed my mind while driving through eastern Wyoming: what brings people out here? Why, why, why? It’s green for several months a year but the rest of the time it’s either ridiculously hot and dry, or bitterly cold, windy, and snowy. And while I’m no city bug, don’t people want to be closer than 50 miles from the closest grocery store? One of the gas station attendants had just moved to middle of nowhere from Ohio. I don’t get it.

Day 1

Today, I drove across Wyoming. Who decided this was a good place to put a road? Or a state for that matter? There are absolutely gorgeous parts of Wyoming, or so I'm told, but the rest of the state is sort of a barren wasteland. Crossing into the western part of the state, the landscape turns from the green mountains of the Uintahs in Utah to what I would imagine Mars looks like: colorless, lifeless, almost devoid of any human touch. All you see are shrubs, for miles in any direction. At one point I-80 winds through a sort of canyon with high red rock walls on either side. I was excited that perhaps, as in Souther Utah, there would be winding canyons for the next 300 miles. But no. I came out of the canyon to find more flat land.

After driving for about 2hours I was desperate for a rest stop and lo and behold, there arose an oasis of greenery to the north of the highway. I pulled into "Little America", the west's equivalent of South of the Border. Anyone who has been to either knows them as islands of hotel rooms, bad road trip food, and atrocious souvenirs. Vic and I stopped there a couple years ago and it wasn't any less odd then. The strangest thing is that it seems to be a destination for a good number of visitors. Sitting and eating my lunch of leftover indian food, I felt totally out of place in this space that was itself completely alien to its surroundings.

Back in the car, another several hundred miles and the scenery finally became slightly interesting, but only slightly. Driving through Medecine Bow Recreation Area was a welcome chnage. There are rocks that seem to have dropped from the sky, a bit like drippings of wet sand. Huge evergreens sprouted between the rocks and the road was finally something other than straight. The last three hours of the trip were dotted with gusting winds, rain sprinkles, and random loose objects drifting across the road. 7 hours after I set out, I pulled into Cheyenne, Wyoming, which is where I am spending tonight at the Super 8 motel. [Brief hotel review: next to a train track, isolated from any other buildings, good service, clean room...and free wireless!] Not sure I'm going to venture out again tonight. The wind is howling and there are meant to be thunderstorms. Sleep sounds amazing!

T-minus something hours

I'm leaving tomorrow morning on a drive across the country. It's not the first time it's been done, nor the first time I have made the trip. But it's a little different this time: I'm moving from Salt Lake to DC, and from the carefree life a student/outdoors bum to the life of an adult with a real job. So this trip is a little different. Previous trips across the country have included dropping my transmission in Sydney, Nebraska, staying in the white-trash ghetto outside Chicago, and hanging out at Walmart outside of Indiannapolis. Who knows what the next week will bring. Stay tuned...