Road Trip (part one) The journey would be from Cleveland, Ohio to Los Alamos, New Mexico. It’s really kind of funny how I got mixed up in this wild southwestern adventure. No, it was not my love for the green chile, which motivated me to drive 2000 miles, plus in a tiny non-air conditioned car in the warm, summery month of June. In actuality, it was my good friend Pat. Supposedly, he was going to work in a nuclear facility at the National Laboratory for the summer. Of course, I knew this was a lie, because Pat is a peace-loving, tree-hugging, bona-fide hippy (minus the pot-smoking and free-loving). Certainly not a nuclear scientist. Regardless of his crazy, made-up reasons for moving, it was Pat’s brilliant powers of persuasion that finally swayed my decision. This is how it went:      Pat: I need someone to drive to New Mexico with me so that I won’t be             bored.      Me: No, I can’t.      Pat: Come on. My car has air-conditioning and I lovvvve teaching people to             drive stick.*(All lies).      Me: I can’t go to New Mexico just to get there and fly home.      Pat: No, you will also fly back in September and drive back with me.      Me: No.      Pat: Come on.      Me: No.      Pat: What else are you doing?      Me: Fine. So we set off with a car brimming full of every single worldly possession of Pat’s, a jar of peanut butter, and more Pop-Tarts than any two people should ever plan to eat. The trip began with high hopes, gleeful anticipation, and the introduction of Jeanne to map reading. By the end of day 1, somewhere outside Chicago, I had already had my first tremendously successful lesson in driving stick and Pat had finished his first lesson in why Jeanne should not drive stick. Tired, angry, and unable to find the historic birthplace of Ronald Reagan, we looked for lodging. Being that it was already 2:30 am (central time), we found our options severely limited. Once we found a Super 8 motel, I parked the car like a pro and Pat promptly snatched the key right out of my sweaty hands. We grabbed our rucksacks and exited the vehicle. It was at this point we discovered that, inexplicably, the car keys were now sitting inside the locked car. Several minutes were then wasted arguing about who last had the keys. I say these minutes were wasted only because there is no point in arguing when you know that Pat had them last. (After reviewing the evidence, including police reports, polygraph readings, and the video documentation of the trip that Pat himself took, it has been concluded that Pat was indeed the guilty party.) Within the hour, we had our first run-in with the law. Luckily, this officer was only there to jimmy open the door of the locked Hyundai. On Day 2, we awoke in the early morn, grabbed some bananas and miniature boxes of honey nut cheerios and hit the road again. We saw a lot of sights on Interstate 80, including the country’s largest travel station rest stop. I guess that was all we saw. I took lots of pictures nonetheless. (They are in the “blurry pictures of grass and road” series.) After driving west on 80, across the entire state of Iowa, and hating every minute of it, we made the brilliant, heat-stroke influenced decision to take the “northern route” to New Mexico, that entailed now driving north up the perimeter of Iowa. Rather than taking a direct route to New Mexico, we chose to get there by way of South Dakota. Sure, we said, why wouldn’t we want to increase the length of the trip by another 500 miles? It’s only 126 degrees in this car. (It was in Iowa that I learned just how profusely my legs could sweat.) After a great many hours of sweating, complaining about the heat, and pondering the inevitable spread of monkey pox, we reached the border of South Dakota. After driving a good 900 miles we were finally there. Only 1300 miles from our destination. It was time to call it a night. Again, we had miscalculated our bedtime, such that it did not coincide with the office hours of any reputable hotel. In fact, even the places we deemed “serial killing grounds” had no vacancies. We stopped at every exit for the next 2 hours, and eventually saw a pattern. No street lights, traffic lights, or signs indicating lodging = no hotels. We formulated a new plan of action and decided to sleep in the grass at a truck stop. When I say sleep, of course I mean Pat slept and I lay awake listening to the swarm of shrieking bats above us, waiting to die. I occupied myself by watching the monstrous bugs in the grass so that they could not enter my sleeping bag or hair. Several hours later, Pat had gotten sufficient rest and I had lost my mind after 3 hours of bug watch. Around 5:30 am, we began driving again to out first “sight seeing” location. The Badlands. As we approached, the landscape was really quite impressive, but after having only had about 23 minutes of sleep, I was not keen on exploring the Badland terrain, or moving my legs in a walking motion. I expressed this protest of movement by promptly falling on a jagged rock and skinning my elbow. The upside was, Pat got the opportunity to listen to me complain about something other than the heat. Certain that I had contracted monkey pox in my open wound, I decided to live life in South Dakota to the fullest. In addition to the Badlands, we also saw Mt. Rushmore, and of course, Dinosaur Park. Much to our dismay, Dinosaur Park was nothing like Jurassic Park. Unless Jurassic Park was the movie about the large brightly colored plaster dinosaurs surrounding the large gift shop. No, that was Dinosaur Park. Anyways, we didn’t see any real dinosaurs, nor did we learn anything about real dinosaurs, but we did procure a lovely “Wild Turkey” flask in the gift shop. That evening, we learned from our mistakes and quit driving early enough to eat dinner and find beds to sleep in. We discovered that vegetarian dining options were limited in this particular locale, so we settled in at a nice Chinese restaurant. It was a delicious South Dakotan Asian delight. By the way, if you ever happen to go to the Chinese restaurant in South Dakota – I’m pretty sure there’s only one – don’t feel too special when you get a fortune suggesting you go to Africa to mine diamonds. Both Pat and I got it too. (*South Dakota was also a landmark in itself because it was the first time Pat accused me of “pouting”. Of course, what Pat interprets as pouting is actually me restraining myself from killing Pat.) Tension was high by the end of day 3, but a good sleep in a real bed followed by a shower, cured what ailed me. Actually, it made me much happier, but it did not cure my bad case of the monkey pox. (* It turns out I never had monkey pox.) Pat on the other hand, was on a hygiene strike. Apparently, some people are above bathing after sitting in a sweltering car for two days. Day 4 went well. We saw Yellowstone Park and discussed the likelihood of being gored by a buffalo. I was skeptical, but after Pat found some precautionary literature on the subject, I was a little more respectful. As we waited for the Old Faithful 3:15 showing, we weighed the pros and cons of eating the leftover Chinese food from the previous day. The pros: we were hungry and it was food. The cons: it had been sitting at room temperature overnight and at extremely hot car temperature for about eight hours. I theorized that the ultra-high temperature in the car would probably have killed any bacteria there was. Pat, however, felt that the sauce tasted a little too tangy. I decided that we needed a doctor’s opinion, and who better to ask than Jeff Goshe who is in his first year of medical school. Unfortunately, Jeff was unavailable, so we settled for the opinion of a middle-aged woman, presumably a mom of some sort. She assured us that it was not a good idea. By the time we got into Wyoming, we realized that our kind was not welcome in this part of the country, mainly due to the wealth of billboards telling animal activists they are not welcome. Now, I’ve never gone so far as to consider myself an “activist” per se, but the strongly worded signs worried us as vegetarians, especially since we were easily identified thanks to Pat’s clever vegetarian bumper sticker, as well as his “meat is murder” t-shirt. Fortunately, we found a friendly establishment to eat that evening, where we were able to get omelets made sans the buffalo meat and pig plasma. Pat, of course, turned his shirt inside out before we dined, but I think the waitress was suspicious of the kids who ordered cheese, broccoli, and celery omelets. We had to get the hell out of there before the anti-animal activist thugs came to beat us with sacks of nickels and run us out of town. Day 5 marked the high point in “hate levels”. We hated driving, we hated each other, and most of all we hated pop-tarts. (*It turns out that we actually hated each other more than we hated pop-tarts.) We were on the last leg of the trip, with only one more stop before our final destination. The best part of the day was around 1 a.m. as we passed through Laramie, Wyoming and for the first time since Illinois, my cell phone had a signal. (Thanks a lot Sprint PCS. You can expect an angry letter from me any day now.) Fortunately, by the time we arrived in Boulder, Colorado, the hate had melted away. Full credit goes to the man, the myth, and the legend, Mr. Erin “Fuego” Fraser. He took us into his home, accepted us for the dirty, filthy, dirty creatures we were, and gave us beds, showers, and bagels. (*Pat turned down the shower of course, but accepted the bagels.) Having upped our bagel levels by 200%, we managed to get back in that car and finish the last 455 miles to Los Alamos. I don’t remember much about the actual New Mexican experience. I do know that they put green chiles in everything. Green chiles and peyote. The trip had come to an end. Unfortunately, the labs had to keep Pat for some kind of secret government tests, so I embarked on the journey home without him. It was a bittersweet goodbye after all the memories and smells we had shared, but then I got a breakfast burrito in the Albuquerque Airport so it became more of a spicy goodbye.  The End (of part one)