The Last Leg (Regular Style or Spicy?)

     The remainder of the trip was less eventful, up until we arrived in South Carolina. We drove a sliver of Iowa (approximately 50 miles of it), and the farmlands-turned-wetlands were telling of the heavy storms that had deluged the state only a week earlier.
     Missouri came up quick. The frontier was behind us. From now on, there'd be a lot more states per day.
     It wasn't more than a few hours since Iowa that we reached the outskirts of Kansas City. We had decided that it was worth a bit of a detour to include the state of Kansas into our trek's state roster. While Miriam had been when she was much younger (Miriam's family had almost relocated to Wichita, KS. Why in the name of God, you may ask? Her father is an aeronautic engineer -- a big industrial among the tall fields of the Sunflower State.), neither Bobby or had been. So instead of following the I-29 straight into the city and onto the I-70 (yes, back to our old friend from Utah and Colorado), we took the auxiliary route I-435, around the two Kasnas Cities, through a bit of Kansas, and then back into Missouri to meet the I-70 to the east of Kansas City, MO. So...I've been to Kansas. Nothing much more to report on that.
     It was just a couple more hours to the other side of Missouri and St. Louis. On the way we passed through our destination: one of the many other Columbia's that dot the American landscape (Alabama, California, Ilinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania,South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia). This route brought us through the very northern tip of the Ozarks. I had the stereo on and the windows up, so if there was a faint sound banjo music in the air, I was not aware.
     We approached St. Louis, stopping short of entering the city proper. Instead, we exited at Earth City. Why is it called that? You got me there. Wikipedia offers no explanation. Neither does a cursory glance through a Google search. But I can tell you that it's not an actual city -- that is, it's unicorporated -- and it seems to be mostly office, warehouse and industrial space. But, there's also a Holiday Inn and a Jack in the Box (something we would sorry miss come our arrival in Columbia, SC -- 2 tacos for $1...economical when a half-mile away, not when it's 70 miles away in Rock Hill).
     At the Holiday Inn, it was time for laundry. Bobby sat with his laptop in the laundary room, as we pumped quarters into a drier which didn't dry our clothes even after two cycles. We actually made use of the hotel-provided hangars that night...as well as the backs of the chairs...and the armrests.
     That night, we also partaked in our first Steak 'n Shake meal. Brian, our previous roommate (Linda Vista apartment) and the designer of our wedding CD sleeve (visit his website: Drunken Cat Comics), had worked for a while at a Steak 'n Shake in Columbus, OH. Miriam called him before we went to get his recommendations. We all pretty much got the same thing -- burger, cheese fries and a shake. Wasn't that bad. I was disappointed by the fries. They reminded me of cafeteria fries...the kind that make you wish they had tatter tots that day. And the cheese seemed to just be an American single slice. The shake was good, though. And while we were in there, a huge deluge passed by, but it was only slightly sprinkling when we left.
     The next day was our last full-day on the road. We drove through St. Louis, past the Archway, over the Mississppi River and into Illinois. (Of course, I'm listening to Sufjan Steven's "Illinois" as I write this.) This was my first time in the state, if you don't count being at O'Hare for a stop-over back in May...which I did count up until this point.
     We made our way towards the southern tip of Illinois, and crossed into Kenucky, crossing the wide Ohio River. This part of Kentucky seemed much like southern Illinois -- farmland interspersed with forests. We also caught quick glimpses of Kentucky Lake. Created in 1944 by the Tennessee Valley Authority (the TVA, for the acronymically-inclined), and the largest articifical lake east of the Mississippi (not sure if that's something to be proud of or not).
     The farmlands seemed to dwindle as we moved on into Tennessee. We stopped in Nashville at the Opry Mills, a shopping/entertainment center that had sprung up around the famed Grand Ole Opry. There was a Johnny Rockets (a favorite of Miriam and I) within the mall there. We enjoyed our #12's (cheeseburger with Tillamook cheddar) and cherry and vanilla Cokes and watched as shoppers walked by. There seemed to be a lot more diversity (read: not just white people) than we'd seen through out the Midwest. Bobby was totally digging on the place, and we'd really only been to this one mall. He ended up staying behind to get some pictures of the Grand Ole Opry and surrounding environs (and ended up seeing a highway-side fire that must have started just after Miriam and I passed.
     We made our way through Tennessee's woody hills and mountains, past Oak Ridge (yes, Manhattan Project fans, the Oak Ridge, TN), and on into Knoxville, where we would be staying the night.
     In the hotel parking lot, I heard a strange, somewhat electrical sound, that I figured was coming from the AT&T building across the street. I would later hear the same noise in Columbia, and would eventually come to find out that it is the call of cicada -- though this particular cicada "song" (in the loosest sense of the word) was only heard certain years (I still haven't found out how many years usually pass for this "song" to crop up again, but it seems like there are some that come and go every seven years). It's a truly annoying sound, whose Californian absence I wholly miss.
     In the room, we found a station playing the original (i.e., from Japan) "The Grudge 2." It was just kind of ridiculous. Though I haven't seen either of the American versions, or the first Japanese "Grudge," I sort of had higher expectations for this Japanese version, even it is a sequel. Guess they generally suck over there, too.
     Even though it wasn't necessarily scary, the movie was creepy enough for us not to continue watching, especially as it was getting dark and we were staying in a strange place. So we decided to go see "Get Smart" at the mall that was about two block away.
     We found the mall all right, but finding the theater was another thing. We drove to the far side of the mall, were there was a big sign for the theater, but there was only a general mall entrance, and it was locked as the time was nearly 10 pm. So we decided to drive around and see if we could find the actual theater entrance. On the other side of the mall, there was another brightly-lit sign for the theater, and a parking structure. Once within the parking structure, though, it was a bit convulted as to where the theater entrance was. We finally came to a floor with much more cars than the rest, and this turned out to be the right floor. As we entered the theater, there was a mock-streetscape, with pastel-colored façades. It was très weird. (That was my first time using html to add accents on letters! Did it work? Yay!) And to top it off, there were very few people around, and most of them were theater employees.
     Movie theater popcorn served as our dinner as we watched the movie. It was pretty good. I would rent on DVD, but probably not buy.
     The next day was our last on-the-road day. And it was the shortest, too -- only about four hours, from Knoxville to our final destination, Columbia. But it was probably one of the most beautiful four hours we'd spent on the road. It was woody hills and mountains all the way, and, although we didn't drive into the boundaries of the national park, we passed within veiwing distance of the Great Smoky Mountains.
     We came down slowly, through the eastern leg of North Carolina, past Asheville, where we bid farewell to an old Californian friend, the I-40 (which we had seen start in Barstow), and down into our new home's state, South Carolina (yes, notice the distinction between "home's state" and "home state"). We passed through Spartanburg, past closest Costco to Columbia (about 91 miles away...sigh), and the mileage signs kept ticking up towards our exit, #106, St. Andrews Road.

It's The Good Life, If You Don't Weekend

The morning of the third day saw mostly clear skies, and shook off the rain the pelted Denver the night before. Bobby took the Saturn and Miriam and I were in my car. The fastest way out is a toll-road, which is only $2, so not that big of a deal. We have a bit of a freak-out, as we were paying the toll, when we saw an orange Vue zoom through the FastPass lanes. "That better not be Bobby," Miriam said. It wasn't. The Vue we saw was super-dirty (seriously dry-mud covered), and it turns out that Bobby was well behind us, having turned the wrong way out of the hotel.

The toll road dropped us off at the I-76, which led us through the farmlands of Eastern Colorado, the beginning of the Great Plains, and on into Nebraska, where the I-80 took over freeway duties.

The scenery remained much the same the whole day -- farms and fields and pasture land. But all quite green.

We crossed into Nebraska after a gas stop (where I spotted another California car). While the current state slogan is "Nebraska, Possibilites...Endless," the first slogan is still emblazoned on their welcome sign: "Nebraska ... the good life." We would put that motto to the test for a weekend, and see how well the state that spawned Arbor Day would treat us.

Around Kearney, we passed under the Great Platte River Road Archway, a huge structure, housing a mesuem over the highway. Meanwhile, ominous clouds loomed above and behind.

In Grand Island, we pulled off the freeway for...well, I wanted a DQ Blizzard, dammit. But no Dairy Queens were present on the "Food at Next Exit" signs. So I would settle for a Wendy's Frosty. But, on the way to Wendy's, we noticed a Sonic's, and we thought, "What the hell, seen the commercials, but never eaten there." So we did. I'm not a fan of the Sonic set up. Drive-thru is fine. But the parking and ordering through a poorly-working speaker -- not my thing. Nor was sitting in side and ordering through a poorly-working phone (never got my BBQ sauce!). And then I totally fried-food out, so I wasn't feeling so hot afterwards. And the shake wasn't that great.

Should've just gone to Wendy's.

Back on the road, we passed the state capital, Lincoln. There seemed to be a couple buildings that looked tornado-ified. As we were passing through, a hail storm hit. People were pulling over on the side of the road. I can understand if they were pulling over under bridges -- and some where -- but others were just pulling over. So I thought, Well, they have Nebraska license plates -- they must know better than I how the proper hail-storm conduct. Miriam had the same thought, and we pulled over for a second and jumped on the cell phones to each other. She thought it very unlikely that the hail would break our windows, and we're not under a bridge anyway, so why not just keep going. Which we did...just in time for the hail to stop as we pulled back into traffic.

Omaha was not far from Lincoln, and we passed by PayPal headquarters as we entered the city. We exited the freeway to see a guy getting taken in handcuffs from a house and into a cop car. Welcome to Omaha!

We were going to spending the night and next day with Nick and Jeannie, friends from Berkeley. The last time Miriam and I gone up to the Bay Area was for their wedding -- back in February '06. They rent the first floor of a house a couple blocks from the freeway, and across the main street from a large park. They have a daughter, Willow, who was excited to have visitors. She was just learning a couple words, but was very talkitive anyways, mostly conversing in a quick sort of baby-babble. Also, she seemed to have several meanings for the word "tam."

Nick and Jeannie were graciously letting us stay there for two nights -- their apartment (can you call the first floor of a large house an "apartment"?) was turned into a bed & breakfast for a couple days. We were/are most graciously thankful.

The first night they brought us to a local healthy/vegan restaurant which heaped the veggies high on all their fare. I had a veggie & cheese sandwich, of which the bread became surperfluous, and I ended up just going at the vegetables and cheese with a fork. It was a lot of food, and I think everyone left a lot on their plates.

The next day, N & J showed us around downtown Omaha:

There was the "brick district" Bobby had been told about; the lake-centered park, shadowed by the towers of downtown; a little ice cream treat; and then a little bit out, past the Qwest Center, to Saddle Creek building. For those not familiar with indie rock record companies, Saddle Creek is one of larger/most influential. Their roster includes Azure Ray, Bright Eyes, Cursive, The Faint, and Rilo Kiley. There's actually an "Omaha sound," characterized by a slight country twang, of which Saddle Creek records is a "flagship label" (according to the Wikipedia article). The label is named after a local waterway.

Anyway, Indie Rock 101 aside, we walked around the building, stopping at an unmarked door that we thought to be the Saddle Creek HQ -- so I took of Bobby in front of it. A walk to the next building over proved us wrong. There, written on an intercom next to another seemingly inconspicuous door, was "Saddle Creek - Press 1." Another picture was taken.

From there, it was back to the Choe-Dey B&B, where we waited out a thunderstorm to go on a walk through Hanscom Park. Our feet well trod, it was time again to attend to our stomachs. At this point, we (B, M & I) hadn't had any ethnic food sometime back in San Diego. So we called upon N & J to take us out for some good old fashioned country cooking...just, from someone else's country. So they brought us to Thai restaurant which was pleasantly delicious. The kitchen seemed to (wo)manned solely by an old Thai woman -- so the food took a while to come, but was worth the wait (though Bobby, of course, needed more hot sauce on his).

I think Nick & Jeannie's place needs a bit of description. It's got a retro feel -- but in a good way. Not in a bad, Tarantino film feel. It's like all the cool, cute things of the past are collected there. I love their kitchen. It's huge! There's a shelf above the stove perfect for boxes of tea. And the table is built into this nook area, with a window that would have looked out onto the backyard...had there not been an additional room added back there. It was just so...cozy. The only downside of the place I saw: just one bathroom. We managed just fine, I think. But I felt a little bad about it -- that sole bathroom was in their room. I'm just a 2, 1.5 at least, bathroom kind of person.

There was some nice hand soap in there, though.

Monday morning dawned and it was time to set out on the road again. I think all of six of us were a sad to bid farewell to the other trio. But maybe it was best we left: Jeannie wrote to us that a day or two after we left, a huge storm blew through, and knocked over a tree right where Miriam's car had been parked during our stay.

Of note is Jeannie's mix CDs. Two she had mailed to San Diego before we left. I have since become hooked to Sufjan Stevens (featured on both), re-enamored with the Jenny Lewis solo and She & Him albums, and garned a couple play over-and-over again songs (Fruit Bats' "When U Love Somebody"). When leaving Omaha, she gave us another set of CDs, this time burns of a collection of vignettes from NPR's "This American Life" series. The collection runs the gamut from hilarious to haunting, to downright depressing...but in a good way. You know, a good, story-telling way. That is by no means an endorsement depression or its parent company. There's just a couple of the stories that leave you in awe, thinking, "That is some seriously sad shit. Wow."

Heartbreaking true stories aside, all in all, I don't think Omaha is all that bad. Maybe it helps having friends who have lived there for a couple years, who've had a chance to scout things out and show you the cool places to go.

Back on the interstate, Omaha quickly faded away, the Iowa stateline was crossed, and we began our short trek through the flooded farmland of the Hawkeye State.

Once again, you can see corresponding photos at in my Picasa album, the aptly titled San Diego to South Carolina.

The First Part: Mojave, Moab, Rocky Mountain High

The first day started out with goodbyes. We were departing from Miriam's parent's house (in Clairemont), where we had been living since the moving company took our stuff on June 7. My mother came down from Santa Clarita to see us off, accompanied by my brother (who had just moved back to San Diego). Ellen (Miriam's mother) got us pancakes and bacon from Original Pancake House as our farewell breakfast. We said goodbye to cats first, as they were lounging upstairs, and it was probably best to just let them stay up there and not get all excited about all the goings-on downstairs.

We said our farewells, and not as many tissues were needed as I had thought. Miriam and Bobby started in her Vue, and I went it alone in my Civic. They got a bit of a jump on me when we started out, making a U-turn while I went around the cul-de-sac. The first leg of the trip was nothing new: the I-15 up through North County and down into the Temecula Valley. I decided to take the I-215, since I'd only ever done that once before, and that was during the night. It was no big deal, really. But it did give me the lead over Miriam and Bobby.

For a little while, at least.

Then came Cajon Pass.

My car...not so good with mountains (and this was nothing compared with what was to come). I think my average up the pass was 55 mph -- not too bad. But other people were flying by, and I had to find a place between the fliers and the just slighty slower-than-I semis. As I crested the summit, my car shuttered in joy, and reved it was up to 80. No sooner than that, however, than did a CHP enter the freeway, and it was a foot on the brake and down to the speed limit (70 mph). I think he saw that I had been going fast as he was getting on, though, and he tailed me for a while, but then decided he'd given me enough of a scare and passed me by. As the CHP car moved from my rear view, it revealed Miriam's metallic orange Vue behind me. My slowdown up the pass had allowed them to catch up. They later teased me about the CHP, as they had been watching the whole time.

We were now in the high desert area, the Mojave. We passed Victorville, Barstow, and the factory outlets and desolation in between. At the I-15/I-40 split, another CHP was waiting to catch speeders, and I'm really not sure how fast I was going at that point...but I got away again.

We communicated via cell phones, and decided to stop in Baker for gas and food and...waste extraction. That would be our most expensive gas: $4.56. Plus $0.35 to use our debit card, as it was an Arco. It was still $0.30 cheaper than the other gas stations.

In the same cars we had started out in, back on the road, the Vue was able to pull far ahead of me, due to a series of desert mountain summits. But Las Vegas traffic proved to be the great equalizer, and we met again in gridlock, as the mega-casinos of the Strip loomed to the east. There didn't seem to be any good reason for the traffic (how L.A.-esque), and it was well before I would think should be "rush hour." But we fought our way beyond the glitz and car exhaust and stayed pretty much within each other's view after that point. Nevada took more time than I expected to pass, then came a sliver of Arizona, which included the amazing Virgin River Gorge, the Virgin River and the I-15 winding around each other, overshadowed by giant cliffs. (They actually numbered how many times the river pased below the freeway.)

As quick as it had come, Arizona fell behind, and Utah opened up with its clay-red ridges. And then the desert gave way to sparse forest, and we pulled over again for gas.

Within the Texaco mini-mart, as I was waiting for the restroom, this guy come up, an older man, and asked if I was waiting for the restroom. I said, "Yeah," but then looked down, as he was holding one had with the other, and the held hand was full of blood. The women's room (which was probably exactly the same as the men's) was open, so I said, "Oh my gosh--" (I try to clean up my language around non-city folk) "--I think no one would have a problem with you using the women's room." So he went in and washed up. He came out with a couple paper towels, the wipe up where he had dripped blood on the floor, but only really managed to smear it around, around which time he said, "Don't know how I managed to do this to myself."

It sure was strange, but he seemed the kind of guy that probably did working on his car or RV, so I wasn't totally freaked out...and I don't think I even mentioned it to Miriam and Bobby.

It was only about forty-five minutes more until the town of Beaver. We stayed at a Best Western just off the freeway. It was all that bad. We hemed and hawed about where to go for dinner. Bobby was talking up a "cafe" down the road. The place had two reviews on TripAdvisor: one was favorable, but the other was: "Menu just variations of chicken tenders." We finally decided to go a place which ended up not existing, either anymore or where Google maps said it should be, so we ended up at a local eatery a la Coco's. It wasn't half-bad. The prices were a bit too just-off-the-freeway," but the portions were huge. Of course, we didn't have a place to keep or re-heat leftovers, of we ended up leaving quite a lot on our plates.

The morning of the second day we made breakfast out of some fruit we had bought at Trader Joe's the day before our departure. Back on the road, Bobby helmed the Vue, and Miriam piloted my car, with me as naviagtor. Shortly after leaving Beaver, we bade the I-15 goodbye, and merged onto the I-70, trading north for east and started our great ascent to the Mile High City. We stopped along the way to take pictures at one of those scenic view points, and then another stop at Green River for some $5 footlongs.

As we crossed into Colorado, the Utah desert faded away and the Colorado river wound its way to the south of the freeway. With greenery now replacing the orange and brown of the desert, we made our approach into Grand Junction. Bobby had been cajoled by his co-workers at NBC to visit a former co-worker who was now working at the Grand Jct. affiliate.

Our first stop as a Walmart supercenter, where Bobby needed to pick up a picture uploaded over the Internet to be developed (for the NBC woman). Finding the Walmart was easy enough (though it did take an inordiante amount of left turns. Finding the NBC station was another thing. Miriam and I never actually made it there. Instead, we ended up taking the nickle tour of downtown Grand Jct., and waited out Bobby's visit in a Dairy Queen parking lot.

Once Bobby rejoined us, Miriam went into her car, and Bobby sat shotgun in mine. We left the DQ without any Blizzards. I ended up reading a sign wrong and had to do some turning around before we got back onto the I-70. This was the most scenic part of the trip, I think. We followed the Colorado River through gorges and valleys, my favorite being the gorge after Glenwood Springs, where the freeway splits, the westbound lanes up high, and the eastbound lanes down along the river. Plus: tunnels!

The Colorado River forks north after that, around Dotsero, and the Eagle River takes over as the highway companion. We stopped in Edwards, which is just west of Vail, and for a moment I felt like I was home again: the gas was the most expensive it'd been since Baker, there were huge houses atop the hills, and the Wendy's was completely staffed by Hispanics. The only difference was that the yuppies sipped their espressos within ski chalets instead of country clubs. Oh, and there was an awesome river that had rapids! Sweet!

Once gassed and food-ed, it was back on road. Unfortunately, this was not my car's favorite part of the trip. Cajon Pass (back in San Bernardino) is 4,190 ft. high. Vail Pass is well over 10,000 ft., and the Eisenhower/Johnson Tunnel is 11,158 ft. above sea level, making it the highest vehicular tunnel in the world. My car was not so impressed. Or, then again, maybe it was. Why else would it going 35 mph up the mountain if not to simply take in those beautiful Rocky Mountain views?
After the tunnel, it is pretty much all downhill from there. In a good way. And in an even better way, as daylight was dwindling, and we approached the Denver metro area, a huge thundercloud presented itself, and gave us a fantastic show (but I was paying attention to the road, of course).

We got into Denver pretty late, due the Grand Junction kerfuffle. The storm hadn't been as welcome a sight to some air travelers, you ended up flooding our hotel as their flights were delayed. They also ended up taking all the good food from the restaurant, so that there were no starches (potatoes, rice) left. No artichoke dip, either. Plus, the hotel was under renovation, so the bar had only the basics (read: Budweiser and vodka). But, there was A/C and TV, so it's not like it was all that bad.

Next post: Oh, Ma...Ha!

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