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It was all worth it.

Blakeslee PA

too tired to write
love the mountain air in the Poconos
day ended with this

Ohio doesn't want me to leave

Hit the wall today. Barely able to drive 2 hours. Doggies feeling it too. Stopped in Youngstown. Dogs napping in hotel while I watch a thunderstorm build outside.

I think I have a Feng Shui gremlin in my head. This room is all wrong. Beds should be on the other side. Even Monk felt it. He paced for 20 minutes before he settled down.

Nap time now. 

Napoleon Ohio

Napoleon was supposed to be Cleveland, but I realized last night at almost midnight that trying to drive nine hours in one day is craaaaaazy.  Was able to change my reservations to make it a seven hour drive instead.

Lots of states today.  Started in Iowa, through Illinois, through Indiana, unplanned pit stop in Michigan (didn't even know I was in Michigan) and finally Ohio.  Illinois wins the worst traffic award.  Drove for 3 hours straight and then was stuck for an hour in traffic that was either at a complete standstill, or going 5 MPH. It was because of major construction.  It's a good thing that I have a bladder the size of a baby whale.

Illinois also produced my first brush with the law.  I got pulled over for doing 60 in a 55 MPH construction zone.  Now I swear I was going with the flow of traffic and others were going even faster.  My theory is that these young officers saw the California plates and wanted to see if the female driver was a cutie.  Those poor guys.  I'm sure I wasn't what they were hoping for.  

Lily wasn't taking any crap from them.  She barked her head off at both of them, guns be damned.  I apologized and they were very nice about it.  They let me off with a warning and told me to drive safe.

I wish I had a second head, an extra pair of hands and an invisible camera.  The head and hands are so I could take pictures while I am driving.  There are so many things that catch my eye, but there is no way I'm fumbling with a camera at high speeds.  Like the billboard that said, "DON'T DIE WITH YOUR TEETH IN A GLASS!"  It was an ad for dental implants.  

And I want the invisible camera so I can take pictures of people without them knowing.   Like the guy at the local restaurant in Michigan with the most excellent mullet.  Or the cowboys at the truck stops in Wyoming.  Or the young cop who pulled me over today.  I would never have the nerve to ask people if I could take their picture.  Plus that would ruin the spontaneity.  So when our Overlords at Apple or Google invent the eye-implant camera, I'll be first in line.

No pictures today.  I can't say the scenery in any of those states really move me.  It's all downhill after Wyoming.

Coralville Iowa

My last memories of Nebraska - walking out the door in the morning and inhaling deeply the warm, cow-scented air.  Also Karl Rove on Fox News at the restaurant with my morning eggs.  Joy.

Monk waiting to get the hell out of Nebraska.

Today's drive was one of the shorter ones.  I'm getting the hang of wrangling the beasts at every stop.  Needed a little Barry Manilow therapy for the last hour when I started to feel tired.  It's hard to be sleepy when you are belting out Barry tunes at the top of your lungs.  He writes the songs that makes the whole world sing.

But today also felt a little melancholy.  I've passed the halfway point.  I am really leaving California.  I have lived there for 18 years.  Eight years in San Francisco and ten years in San Diego.  

I LOVED my time in San Francisco.  I did a lot of growing up there and made lifelong friends.  I was 24 when I decided to go and jumped in a car with a couple of suitcases and drove myself out there.   No job, no money saved - just a friend's couch to crash on.  But I knew it would all work out.  And it did.

One of my favorite San Francisco memories - did the CA Aids Ride in 1997 - SF to LA in 6 days. These kids were holding up signs by the side of the road so I stopped to get a picture.

Moved to San Diego for a new job and I definitely didn't dig San Diego as much.  I can't believe I stayed there for ten years.  It is a beautiful place and I will never complain about year-round flip-flop wearing and all that blooms in the winter months.  But I was never really happy there.

So I am sad to be leaving my California dream.  Something about it always felt like home to me, especially San Francisco.  It sounds so corny and cliched, but I really did "find myself" there.  I am leaving behind a lot of things I love.  Probably forever. 

I keep leaving pieces of myself along the way on this trip.  Left my soap in Wyoming.  Tonight I realized I left a t-shirt that I like in Nebraska (karma for all my bad mouthing of that state.)  Parts of me aren't ready to go.  It is hard to say goodbye to a life you've known for so long.

But I do have a lot to look forward to.  A great family and a BFF who I haven't lived near in ages.  I get to live with them instead of just visiting their lives a couple of times a year.  Tomorrow I will enter their same time zone.  And I will stay. 

Feels good. 
Feels right. 
But still sad for what's left behind.

Kearney Nebraska

Oh, Nebraska!  You poor, mind-numbingly boring slice of middle America.  You just can't compare to my recent fling with Wyoming.  Nothing but slightly rolling grasslands and farmland.  Browns and greens, browns and greens.  Even the cows looked bored.  Sure, the aroma that perfumed the air when I passed that cattle yard was interesting.  But it's not the kind of interesting that steals a girl's heart.  

Even your sunset was half-hearted.  The flat gray clouds turned an anemic pink, with the slightly yellow undertone of an older gent with liver failure.  You had so much potential with all that sky.  But it's like Nebraska is the kid who never got to use crayons.

There's still time to wow me.  You've got about two hundred more miles tomorrow to try to show me something.

On another note - yesterday Monk proved the theory that he is quite capable and more than willing to jump out of an open car window if given the chance.  Fortunately, we were parked and I was outside of the car.  I am very Pro-Dog-Face-Out-Window when driving.  But I always had my suspicions about Monk and never rolled his down all the way.  He went over to Lily's side and took the plunge.  He doesn't seem to have hurt himself.  But I've got my eye on him now.  No more flying leaps for him.

Rawlins Wyoming

A little bit of Utah

Truck stop in Wyoming

I like Wyoming.

Ended the daylight hours with a pink sunset that lingered forever across the seemingly endless sky.  And on the other side of the road was a rainbow rising up from the reddish-brown mesas into a towering stack of clouds.  Sorry, didn't stop for pictures.  Use your imagination, kids.

Later, competing lightning storms continually flashed in the distant skies, startling the darkness.  It was a great ride.

Lily & Monk on their comfy dog beds in the back seat.  I am their bitch.  I live only to serve them.

Mesquite, NV

Someone at the Best Western has little legs.
Someone at the Best Western has discovered that those little legs can run.
Back
and forth.
Back
and forth.
In the room right above me.
At 6:30 AM.
Lucky me.

And miles to go before I sleep

View Road Trip 2011 in a larger map

Coming in June...

Two dogs, just looking to have a good time...

One 10-year-old Prius

3,053 miles - from the Pacific to the Atlantic

View Cross country Route 80 in a larger map

What could possibly go wrong?