i’m using some down time to whittle away at a pile of unread magazines, and look what i find from instyle:

now i don’t usually go seeking out my horoscope, but if it’s right there in front of me in easy-to-digest niblets, then i’ll probably read it. note in the bold, “Take advantage of a chance to travel abroad or cross country starting around the 20th.”

for the record, i left on my cross country road trip on the 27th.

now i know these things are written to be as vague as possible, but, come on. weird. right?

my partner in crime has taken issue with my latest blog post criticizing his driving skills and general sense of worth. he refuses to comment and refute my claims himself, so i’ll address some of his concerns and then immediately discredit them.

1. jimmy thinks he can’t be both a “completely worthless passenger/driver.” he says i have to pick one. i disagree. my point is that, taken as a whole, his worth as a roadtrip partner, as both a passenger and a driver, is minimal. i will back down from the claim that his worthlessness is “complete,” but it’s impossible to decide which role he was more worthless in, so i must name both for the sake of accuracy.

2. in his own defense, he also says he’s a “night person”—proven by his ability to stop so expertly at the sight of the deer. i admit, if i had been driving, i definitely would have hit that sucker, so props to jimmy for being alert. but once again, i add, this is alertness propped on the back of my extensive day driving and day conversation. in conclusion, you just got pwned

with finally a second to breathe, i bring you the last segment of the trip.

this part of the adventure begins at sundown (remember that pretty sunset?) we are STILL in texas and jauntily driving down hwy 10. jimmy has now taken the brunt of the driving load—not b/c i’m a weak, endurence-less female—but b/c he is a completely worthless passenger/driver. the boy apparently has no ability to stay awake while i drive my 3 to 4 hour shift; yet while he’s driving, i’m forced to stay up to prevent any nasty run-ins with the highway rumble strips.

in any case, jimmy’s driving. it’s dark. i fall asleep. i’m starting to exit my slumber when both of us notice a bloody carcass in the road. we approach it fast and we definitely run over it and we definitely are worried about it. how’s the car? the tires? no signs of damage. immediately afterward, we see this sign:

thanks for the warning, jackass.

we continue driving. more road signs. and more deer lounging on the side of the road. then, some idiot deer decides the left lane of the highway would be a sweet place to chill. SCREECHING BRAKES. high beams on. a little swerve to the right action. our young beautiful lives flash in front of us.

for the next hour or so, we basically trailed giant semi trucks, figuring if there were deer in the road, the large vehicles would easily nudge them aside.

i also think the scared driving tired us out a bit. we had big plans to forge straight through to california, but we instead decided to rest on the new mexico/arizona border. after the 2nd best sleep of my life (see post before this), we rumble through az (nothing to note there, except my skin started going crazy from the dry air and we had some good mexican food at a shady pit stop), and FINALLY get to california.

we’re 2 hours out from huntington beach, and we hit some pretty awesome wind farms.

the environmentalist (you know the one that just drove across the country in a heavy car) was tickled pink, but the wind that was running these turbines was absolutely brutal. throwing the car left and right, and capping the trip with more weather-related scare tactics (much like snowy virginia). after some infamously awesome driving in southern california, we make it to the beach! we are alive! the only casualties being a toiletry bag with some contacts and glasses, and maybe a little of our collective sanity.

the night is spent walking around, getting drinks, and watching drunk rich people get kicked out of bars. just like home. it’s been a week since this pic was taken, but i can’t think of any funny way to end these dispatches.

the state is so big it gets its own post.

around 6pm (19 or so hours in), we arrive in texas. we immediately get confused (not the first time), but decide to pave our own route to bryan.

sometime after sundown, we pass through a quaint town whose buildings look, no joke, like a theme park re-creation of the old west. no pic. sorry.

arriving in bryan after 24 hours of driving, it becomes clear to us that going to the bar is a really good idea. two beers and 3 jager bombs later, i still think it was a basically good idea. i got to see all those texas a&m hotties!!!!

so these two aren’t technically a& m hotties, but you get the point. anyways, afterward we all went back to jimmy’s friend’s apt (that’s him on the right), we played rock band and passed out and slept like you’ve never seen before.

the next morning, we got up, and did the whole driving thing again.

another quaint town:

and a texas sunset:

(cue wistful sigh)

next up, new mexico and a near death experience.

24 hours to get to bryan, texas, starting at 11pm on wednesday evening. it’s a terrible idea on paper, and it’s pretty much a terrible idea in practice. some highlights:

1. leaving at 11pm also means it’s probably going to be cold. so cold it snowed, making it infinitely scarier to drive at high speeds. (i still drove fast. i was just more scared.)

2. va and most of tn took us through the night, and i got to see the sun rise just before we hit chattanooga. jimmy was sleeping. more on that later.

3. georgia was quick, but alabama lived up to its sterling reputation. we got to see chain gangs on the side of the highway. apparently alabama reintroduced the chain gang in 1995, 40 years after it was banned. why did they do this? nostalgia? who knows. i don’t remember actually seeing them in chains and a number of people have mentioned that they like the idea of making prisoners be productive. however, i found the whole thing a little unseemly. no real explanation. just a feeling.
i do remember seeing a sign on the road that said “please don’t litter,” and then immediately thinking, “then what will all the chain gangs do?” i blame it on fatigue.

4. apparently all men’s bathrooms have condom dispensers, but in women’s rooms, we usually get some sort of feminine product dispenser. not so in this one mississippi pit stop, where they treat us females like true equals. since condoms are such a rare sight for me, i took a closer look:

“hm. colors … interesting … super strong (with spermicide) … good to be cautious … goodie box? wtf.

a close-up:

what exactly does a condom from “different cultures” look/feel like? and how can it be made “specifically for [my] personal enjoyment,” yet it’s randomly “sold in rotation.” and why am i wasting time trying to parse out the logic of a condom ad? i also enjoy the nc-17 pair in the background.
probably my biggest regret from this trip is not buying one of these condoms.

5. lastly, the louisiana we drove through was pretty crappy, and texas is a BIG STATE. the rest of these posts are not going to be anywhere near as interesting as this one, sorry to say.

so i’m accompanying a dude to his new home in huntington beach, california. we are leaving tonight and my flight back to DC is 9:30pm pacific time. do the math; this will be intense. i have nothing else to say about this besides, who goes on two road trips in six months?

ugh. i do.

probably no postings for a while, but do expect pictures of the beautiful texas scenery at the end.