Day 12

Gillette is a peculiar place. We were informed in the morning that workers travel into the town during the week, fill the hotels, and then return to their homes on the weekend. Huh? So that explains the "No Vacancy" signs the night before, and all of the massive trucks in the parking lots. Still, it felt a little Twilight Zone-ish, so we didn't spend any time sightseeing.


Andrew had a big phone call to make. All Music, whom he interviewed with in Ann Arbor, set up a phone interview for him with the head Pop Music Editor in L.A., so I insisted on spending 45 minutes in the Gillette Kmart so he could have some alone time in Goldie for the phone call. I found us a tarp for our tent, some mouthwash, some cream for our bug bites, and nearly bought Andrew some ridiculous boxer shorts with squirrels exclaiming "Ah, Nuts!" before he swept in and took me away from it all. Kmart is having HUGE sales, by the way. And Andrew came in glowing from his conversation, but unwilling to make a call on its long term results.


We swore off fast food before the trip - actually, both of us had sworn off fast food long before the trip - but knew it would be a challenge on the road. And the questions come, like "If we eat veggie burritos from Taco Bell without cheese and sour cream, does that count as fast food?" and "If you really have to go to the bathroom, and Burger King is the first thing you find, and they shriek 'How can I help you??' the second you walk in the door, and you order the new BK Veggie, without cheese or mayonnaise, and only eat half of it, does that count as fast food?" Well, the answer is YES. I realized with a sinking feeling that I had eaten fast food twice in one day - then I realized the sinking feeling was actually a very unhappy stomach.



This is the state in which Andrew and I entered Yellowstone National Park, ready for a change. From even before we entered the park, the Grand Tetons were visible, the trees full, and the air cool. We couldn't believe we were only a few hours away from the 101 degree Badlands. Once inside the park, we had a 45 minute drive to our campground. Suddenly, Andrew was as excited about this leg of our journey as I was.


Actually, not as excited. He looked at me with an open mouth and raised eyebrows when, with a somewhat choked voice, I said:


"I'm gonna cry. I'm so happy we're here. I've always wanted to come here! We did it!!!"


The drive through the eastern part of the park took us past the Yellowstone Lake and through many of the winding hills. Outside of our campground - where we got the last spot! (And yes, it's that organized, you have to check in and everything)- a buffalo was chillin', watching the sun go down.

We found the tent is much easier to put up the second time around, especially when there are less bugs and enough light to easily find the top, and finished setting up house early enough to buy some fire wood and attend the nightly lecture by a camp ranger, equipped with giant slides of the park.

The lecture taught us about the past and present of Yellowstone Wildlife, and was brilliant and accurate until the emotional closing...


"As you head back to your homes, you may whisper of the magic that you have discovered in Yellowstone...."


Before bed, Andrew showed his true calling as a fire-tender. The warmth was welcome because the weather forecast told us it would drop into the 30s overnight. We put on as many layers of cloths as possible, pulled our hoods up, and crawled into our sleeping bags.

- Emily

Day 11

I woke up to hear Emily mumbling about the heat inside the tent. It was definitely hot inside that little canvas inferno, so we packed everything up and began exploring the Badlands. While heading to the visitor center, we were barked at by some roadside prairie dogs who mistook our car for a predator. Silly prairie dogs - we're vegetarians.

The park's Visitor Center was our first source of indoor plumbing since entering the park, so we brushed our teeth at the restroom sinks. Once clean, we decided to dirty ourselves again by taking an uphill hike in the 101-degree weather.

Being one tint away from albino coloring, I took the proper precautions: a triple layer of 45+ sunscreen, thick sunglasses (think Doc Brown at the end of Back to the Future, where he returns to 1985 to snatch up Michael J. Fox), and the ugliest safari hat in existence. It's turquoise. The sun won't go near me when I look like this:

The sun was boiling, but the hike was quick and rewarding. We got to shimmy up a makeshift ladder and scale some rocks before the trail brought us to an overlook. You could see the entire valley - moon-like formations and all. Naturally, Emily wanted to walk to the brink of the cliff and sit down, despite tornado-like winds that were whipping past the rocks. I decided to stay back, and a sudden flurry of bee activity convinced Emily to come back to the trail and return to sea level the safe way.

Sweaty and hungry for more sights, we decided to leave the park and head for the Black Hills, where we paid $8 to see Mt. Rushmore and ended up enjoying it a lot. Emily insisted on bringing the turquoise safari hat with us, just so we could look like proper tourists while posing in front of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Did you know that there were no fatalities during the construction of the monument?

There was a forest fire nearby, and we decided to skip the flames and head for Wyoming instead. After taking a quick detour to see the Crazy Horse monument (which will be GIANT and MONUMENTAL if it's ever completed), we pushed the pedal to the floor and didn't stop until a hailstorm forced us off the road in Gillette, Wyoming. Hotel vacancies were all but non-existent, and a tornado warning made things worse. We eventually found a smoky Days Inn room for a sky-high price - but at least they had showers.

It's too bad about the hail. The sunset this evening was nothing short of gorgeous. It looked like heaven was parting its way through the storm clouds.

- Andrew

PICTURE BREAK 2

Across the Missouri River

First stop on Lakeshore Drive, Chicago

Walking to the Holly/Vallens/Bopper crash site in Iowa

Posing with the co-owner of the world's first vegan fast-food place!

Emily trying to make friends with a Wisconsin local

Day 10

It's a big jump to go from a jacuzzi suite to a primitive campsite at the Badlands, so we made the most of our morning. "Ice Age" was on the TV, and we watched the movie while getting ready for our first camping experience in Badlands National Park. A thorough search of Emily's cosmetics case yielded a total absence of toenail clippers, though, so a Walgreens stop was in order.

While in the store, I wandered into the sporting goods aisle and wound up purchasing two more frisbees, thus bringing the grand total to four. You can never have too many frisbees. Emily walked out with a new pair of sunglasses.

After making one last stop at a natural foods store to pick up hummus, trail mix, and veggies, we pointed Goldie toward the Badlands and took off. The scenery was a bit dry and drab, as were our food choices when lunchtime came along. We ate a Pizza Hut in the dusty town of Winner, where I called my parents and asked them for some survival tactics to use during our camping trip. Example:

Me: "Should Emily and I be wary of coyotes?"
Mom: "Hold on a sec." Cups the receiver and yells to my dad. "BOB, WILL COYOTES EAT THE KIDS?" Brings the phone back up to her mouth. "Yes. Watch out."

It was getting dark when we approached the Badlands, and things started getting rushed. Where should we camp - inside the actual park, or in the nearby Grasslands? Why is the ranger station closed? Is that rain on the horizon? Oh god, how did we take a wrong turn and somehow wind up outside of the park? What's going on? Is the new tent going to be hard to set up? Is that a bison on the horizon?

We decided to camp at the Sage Creek Campground and approached it as the sun was setting. We saw buffalo. We saw white-tailed deer. And then we saw how the grass was being flattened by the wind, and we prepared for a rough time setting up our temporary home.

The tent was very, very hard to put up. The sky was completely dark, the bugs were active, and the wind threatened to tear the material out of our hands. I parked the car directly in front of us, turned on the brights, and thrashed about our campsite. "Where's the top of the tent?" I bellowed. "Something doesn't look right. WHERE IS THE TOP OF THE TENT?" (Once daylight arrived eight hours later, we'd discover that our campsite was located inside the "Horse Use Area," which explained the constant stench of horse manure and the insects).

Once inside the tent, we ate a very small dinner of avocado slices and PB&J. The sleeping bags had been laid out by Emily (who kept her cool during the tent's construction, while I was freaking out), and we eventually fell asleep while the moon shone through the top of our mesh doorway. It was actually kinda nice. Maybe that tent isn't so stupid after all.

Day 9

This lovely Sunday morning, we woke up amidst painted palm trees and orange wallpaper. The motel's wireless network was nowhere to be found, though, so we took off in search of it. We landed in a log cabin-style local coffee shop about an hour west and spent a good part of our morning there before turning to the local Walmart to purchase a tent that 1) definitely had all of its pieces, and 2) would come with instructions for how to set it up.

Once in Walmart, I could see that this was not a force with which Andrew often reckoned. Before crossing through the sliding doors, he said:

"10 minutes, tops. 5 to find the tent, 5 to pay and get out, ok?"

But faced with aisles of seemingly useful and cheap items, the story changed a little. Still, we reemerged about 25 minutes later with nothing more that a glorious $30 tent and 2 bags of croutons.

We polished off an entire bag of these organic croutons on our way to our major destination for the day: the actual crash site of the plane that shortly transported The Big Bopper, Richie Vallens, and Buddy Holly. The plane went down in the middle of an Iowa corn field, and a fan erected a small memorial a half mile from the road.

The walk in was hot and crowded with insects, but when we made it to the memorial, we were speechless. Part of our morning consisted of reading articles about their deaths, and even Buddy Holly's coroner report. It was a gruesome death. Although we were alone at the memorial, we could see that it had been visited by many people - what began as a couple of platinum records and a sign had become a shrine complete with guitar picks, jewelry, Polaroid pictures, and even a small guitar. Andrew pulled his favorite picks out of his wallet and we placed them in the soil before turning back to the car. Along the way, we encountered nearly 10 visitors hiking through the field towards the memorial, and commented on how happy we were that our journey had been private.

We got back into Goldie and made it into Sioux Falls, South Dakota before dark. We were shocked to see interesting architecture, big parks, an outdoor, free viewing of "How to Eat Fried Worms," and clubs with open doors and lrock music pouring out. "What a great place!" we said to ourselves.

Then we learned we happened to show up the same weekend as over 5000 missionary women from all over the world, and the only hotel room available in this bustling city was a $100 jacuzzi suite. We didn't have any other choice, so we decided to enjoy it with Chinese take-out and champagne.

- Emily

Day 8

Emily woke up early to grab some of the free donuts that constitute the free continental breakfast at Janesville's Select Inn. Thus fortified, we packed the Taurus (recently christened "Goldie" for her bronzed lustre) and headed west through the bottom half of Dairy Country.

Wisconsin is beautiful. Emily was driving, which meant I was free to control the CD player and enjoy the scenery. The area is all rolling hills, farm houses, ridiculously large sky, and green grass. We took a detour in the early afternoon and drove around some backroads, where Emily tried to feed some disinterested horses and I tried to take artsy photographs of the horizon, with Em propped alongside the car like a model.

After crossing the Mississippi River, we pulled into Dubuque, Iowa. The town is built atop a hill, so the roads have steep ascents and it must be hell whenever there's snow. We got lunch at the Shot Tower Inn and continued west. Next stop: Dyersville, where "Field of Dreams" was shot. The baseball diamond is still there, nestled amongst the cornfields that cover Iowa like a blanket, and we wanted to throw the frisbee on the same red dirt once trod by James Earl Jones and Ray Liotta.

We got lost, of course. Cornfields become hypnotic after you've driven beside them for an entire day, and it's easy to space out and miss the sign that says "Field of Dreams Movie Site" with a giant arrow. But we eventually found our way to the field, which looks exactly how it did in the movie. Emily used a Porta-Potty for the first time on this trip, which may be considered a milestone by some people, and we got some exercise by running through the outfield.

After stopping at Strawberry Point to see the world's largest fiberglass strawberry (seriously), we stopped for the night at a retro-looking motel in Waverly, where the bedroom walls were covered by a mural of tropical sunset. You'd flip the light on, and the whole room would glow orange and yellow. Emily fell in love with the room, and we took some pictures with us sunbathing beneath the wallpaper's glow.

The motel owner told us to check out a local bar called The Feinting Goat. We did as instructed and soon learned that Iowa citizens are crazy about dairy -- the entire meal consisted of cheese, butter, alfredo, and the like. The waitress was peppy, though ("We're just so glad you decided to make Waverly one of the stops on your trip!"), and a few beers made us giddy and happy and thoroughly exhausted. Excellent day.

Day 7

(Emily Entry #2- Yahoo!)

We woke up on Thursday with a fire in our bellies! It was time to move on, even though I think Andrew and I had fallen in love with Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan campus. We said goodbye to our host, who was both amazing and continuously amazed at the little things we remembered to bring for our long journey;

"Wow! You really thought of that? I would have forgotten tweezers for sure."

The girth in the back seat of the car actually looked pretty organized, and we said goodbye to Ann Arbor at around noon, refusing to stop to eat until we pulled up to our single food oriented destination - VEGGIE BITE - the first fast food-style vegan restaurant in the whole wide world! Since it was in Southern Chicago, we made a serious dent in our boxed cereal along the way.

Still clutching our giant road atlas, we introduced ourselves to the long haired, surprisingly young self proclaimed owner of Veggie Bite, who gave us free bottled water for having traveled so far. He helped us select an their vegan interpretation of 1) a Meatball sub 2) a Fajita Wrap 3) Chix-Free Nuggets 4) Buffalo Bites 5) A Mint Chocolate Chip milkshake. They were all great! All greasy and filling - just like fast food! We took pictures in front of the sign with the other young owner, who told us she expected us to ask because;

"Well, you know... vegans are kind of crazy like that."

She also gave us directions to Lake Shore drive, which follows a north/south route along Lake Michigan and is thought of as one of the most scenic drives in the US. We were so excited to see water and grass, and so full of energy to burn, we stopped and practice cartwheels for a little while beside the bike path.

Lake Shore Dr. took us on a tour of downtown Chicago, where we considered leaving the car until we found out Millennium Park charges $17 for 0-8 hours of parking. Andrew appeared personally insulted by the possibility.

The drive took us through Northwestern University (Woah! On the water! Covered in Ivy! Gorgeous! Who actually goes there?) and past the Ba'Hai House of Worship (Woah! It's massive! And white! Who actually goes there?) and all the way into Wisconsin, where we crashed in a Select Inn in Janesville.

A little culture shock first, though - just before crossing the Illinois/Wisconsin boarder, Andrew walked into a local motel to check the rates and found 2 elderly women in a cloud of cigarette smoke, chewing on Italian take-out. One look at him brought their conversation to a halt, and after telling him that the only vacancy was a weekly kitchenette, warned him to "Watch out for the cops in Janesville."

Day 6

After sleeping until 10:30 and lounging around Whitney's apartment until the afternoon, Emily and I headed back toward the college campus. We found a metered parking spot (which seems to be a total steal in this town) and wandered onto the school's grounds. The buildings all resembled cathedrals and/or British fortresses. Color us impressed.

An employee at the student union suggested we check out the center for graduate studies, but the building was deserted by the time we made it over to that side of campus. Instead, we:

- Got frozen yogurt at Stucchi's

- Found an $8 copy of "O Brother, Where Art Thou" at the cluttered Encore Records store

- Saw Luke Doucet play a free concert on the school's campus

- Ate Mongolian barbecue in Ann Arbor's Main St. area

- Met up with Whitney to walk back to campus

- Caught a free outdoor screening of "The Great Outdoors" while sitting on a blanket that Whitney has thoughtfully brought for us.

It was a solid day spent in a town that Emily's friend refers to as "God's country." She might be right.

- Andrew

PICTURE BREAK

Southern Michigan.

Our most excellent host in Ann Arbor - Whitney

Lost pet in Appalachia

Day 5

Welcome all to the first submission written by Emily! I have enjoyed Andrew's recounts very much and wanted to jump in and join the fun.

Ann Arbor is a fantastic place. We first noticed the greenery - lots of grass and trees - and then the wind. It was a blustery day and our frisbee throwing was thwarted.

We drove to the apartment of our first couch surfing host (a person who offers up their home as a crashing pad for the weary traveler and introduces them to their native land) and were amazed (!) and happy that she is a sweet, interesting, and laid back University of Michigan student about to enter her last year as a sociology major. No axe killings in sight, it seemed. In fact, we spent the first hour talking and finding out about the dealings of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The stuff in the car was starting to swell and dismantle, so Andrew and I devoted about 30 minutes to squashing the rebellion before changing out of our traveling gear and heading to a highly recommended vegetarian restaurant downtown.

The University of Michigan campus is breathtaking with its massive trees and Gothic church-like stone buildings. The downtown area surrounds the campus, and that's where we found shops, coffee houses, and our tasty restaurant, where wine was half price per glass on Tuesday nights. Lucky for us! Much to Andrew's silent dismay, I quickly found the most feminine wine in existence - a sparkling pink that I will never recall the name of, and he was recommended a great red that went well with our yam fries, salads, and charbroiled tempeh and couscous dish.

After dinner, we met up with one of my Teach for America friends also visiting Ann Arbor with his significant other, and we sat in a coffee shop for 2 hours trading traveling tales and murmurs of Romeo and Juliette raps (he taught high school English last year).

Feeling a lot exhausted and a little embarrassed at our desire to head to our sleeping arrangements at 11:30, we made plans to meet Ryan and Lauren the next day, returned to our couch surfing venue, and tried to figure out if it would be rude to pull pillows off the two distant couches so we could curl up on the floor together.

Day 4

I didn't expect to enjoy a full day of immobility during the first few days of our trip, but hanging out in Canton turned out to be a great idea. Aunt Cathy had urged us to visit a giant flea market off Rt. 619, so we navigated the Taurus through Ohio's maze of ice cream shops and got to the market by mid-afternoon. I bought some strings for Emily's guitar... and nearly bought a baby chihuahua who was sleeping in a crib, tucked between boxes of cheaply-priced produce. The puppy's mom told me that all his shots had been taken care of, but there were just NO way we could take a dog across America. We left.

"If you had bought that puppy, I wouldn't have received any attention from you for the rest of this trip," Emily noted as we walked away.

Back to the car, back down Rt. 619, and back to Rick & Cathy's place. They had just gotten home from work and were clearly tired, but decided to take us on a driving tour of Canton anyway. Such nice people... Halfway through our sightseeing, we stopped at a restaurant located inside an old horse stable. Emily and I are realizing the difficulty in traveling across America's culinary landscape as vegetarians, but the stir-fry was good. The company was even better.

Tomorrow: Ann Arbor. It's a 3.5-hour drive if you take the interstate, which means we're giving ourselves 5 hours to tackle the backroads of Ohio and southern Michigan. Ann Arbor will be our first Couchsurfing experience, so we're very excited about that. Then it's on to Chicago (home of the only all-vegan fast food joint) and... well... we don't know where we're going after that. We'll see. If I don't update this thing in several days, it means we fell in love with Ann Arbor and decided to seek permanent housing in the abandoned stacks of some U.Michigan library.

- Andrew

Day 3

The alarm on Emily's phone is the shrillest sound this side of Enrique Inglesias' falsetto. We kept hitting the snooze button, but the phone eventually succeeded in getting us out of bed. After deciding against Red Carpet Inn's continental breakfast (which, for the record, only consists of coffee and Hostess Honey Buns), we packed up the car and headed north for Ohio.

Emily's relatives live in Canton, the former home of such illuminaries as Marilyn Manson, Macy Gray, and President McKinley. If you head a few miles north, you'll reach Chuck Klosterman's former stomping grounds in Akron. And no matter where you go, you're sure to be surprised by the number of ice cream shops that dot the Ohio landscape like so many blades of grass. We counted several before pulling into Uncle Rick and Aunt Cathy's driveway.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing with Emily's relatives, all of whom are quite nice and hospitable. We tossed a frisbee in their backyard, played in their creek, got attacked by their killer plants (dry nettles?? I need to Wikipedia that), ate their lasagna, and slept in their Tempurpedic-padded bed. It was a good day, so we decided to stay another night before heading to Ann Arbor.

- Andrew

Day 2

The good news is that we woke up early. Our intentions were good; we were going to pack my stuff, load the Taurus, eat breakfast with my parents, and leave before the afternoon.

Much to Emily's delight, though, I took as long to pack as she did. This was mostly due to the VERY IMPORTANT PROCESS of selecting CDs for our trip. 100+ discs and two iPods later, I was comfortable with the music selection.

We left at 2:35 p.m. After stopping by AAA to pick up some free maps and guidebooks, we took Rt. 250 to Charlottesville and walked around the U.Va. campus. We hadn't really eaten lunch, so we also stopped by Martha's Cafe (the makers of the crabcake sandwich that I consumed 5 times/week from January-April 2005).

Emily took the wheel and we continued heading west down 250. Past Staunton (whose architecture reminded of The Goonies, which I think is set in Eugene), past a number of rustic roadside shops, and into the Blue Ride Mountains that occupy the western half of Virginia.

Those mountains were steep, and we quickly learned that the Taurus does not do a good job with steep climbs. It does, however, avoid deer with admirable dexterity and maneuverability. We eventually emerged from the mountains unscathed, unfazed, and excited to be in West Virginia.

The rest of that drive was a convoluted straight-shot to Parkersburg, where AAA was offering a cheap rate on a hotel room. We made it by 1:00 a.m. and passed out in the HUGE bed, whose bedspread smelled of burps... but whose pillows were surprisingly plump for a hotel.

- Andrew

Day 1

The updates came quickly on Friday morning.

At 10:40 a.m., Emily called to say that she was late for her appointment with a throat specialist in Wake Forest. Half an hour later, she called again; the specialist was NOT going to take out her tonsils until August, which meant we were free to leave for our trip. At 1:00 p.m., Emily called to say that her car was still at the body shop and would not be road-worthy until Tuesday.

So that settled it. We were going to leave the following morning, we'd be gone until early August, and we were going to take my car. I left for Henderson, NC, planning to pick Emily up and take her back to our launching-off point in Richmond.

Packing sucked. There's no way to prepare for 6 weeks of tight containment in a Ford Taurus, other than to pack every item of clothing you own. We laid everything out on her bed, and I tried to limit my naysaying. It was hard.

"You're packing your swimming goggles?"

"Yes - got a problem with that?"

At 11:00 p.m., we'd thrown her belongings into the Taurus (which, incidentally, has yet to be named) and gunned it for Richmond. We arrived at 1:00 a.m., were greeted by a series of growls and barks from my parents' miniature pinscher, and went to sleep.

- Andrew