Blog Master G

Pittsburgh, Penn. — This is it: Our final night on the road. Seven days behind the wheel, traveling across this vast country we call America. What strikes me about this country every time I cross it — be it by air (dozens of times) or by car (now thrice) — is how much of nothing there is. So much brown (this time of year) and so many fields. This is a good thing — to know that not everything is developed (yet). What also strikes me is how similar most places are, with only slight noticeable differences. The people are different, of course, in look, behavior, accents, attitude, political beliefs, but while on the road, we only interact with a small number of folks.

One small difference I’ve noticed between most places we’ve passed through and those in California is the coffee. The coffee is bad, of course, but so, too, are the cups — for the environment. Outside California, all coffee cups are styrofoam; in the Golden State, they’re paper. This is a debatable point: Landfill vs. trees. I think I would fall on the anti-landfill side, though. I love trees and want to conserve them as much as possible, but we can always plant more. Styrofoam does not biodegrade and ends up in a landfill. There is a finite amount of land on this earth. Once we use it up, it is gone.

Here on the eastern side of the finite American land, we spent some time tonight with my grandparents near Pittsburgh. The timing also worked out well such that my uncle Bruce was in town, too. We all had dinner together at my grandparents’ house. It was the first time I’d been to the house in which my Mom grew up, so it was an important visit for a number of reasons. We had a really good time and I’m happy to soon be living just one state away from family, despite moving away from my home state of California. I’m looking forward to spending more time with them.

Bored with the usual routine in our hotel room earlier tonight — check in, walk the dogs, bring in the stuff from the car, set up Happy’s cage, start writing in blog, watch CNN, etc. — we decided to live on the edge. We walked across the street to the Holiday Inn and hung out in the lounge. We had a couple rounds of drinks, played cards, and listened in amusement to the rowdy U.S. Army soldiers at the next table, discussing things such as their time in Iraq, their body weight, and how drunk they were. It was a fun night and a good way to break the travel routine.

Tomorrow we head into our new home state of New York. First stop: A visit with Johnny in Buffalo. Then we’ll cruise east across New York to Kinderhook.

Lexington, Kentucky — We crossed over the Eastern Time Zone some time around 9:30pm Central Time tonight. We had gone through the rest of Arkansas after leaving Little Rock this morning, crossed the Mississippi, and drove all the way through Tennessee. Today was the longest day yet, settling into Kentucky, which, according to the guy at the front desk of our hotel here, isn’t technically the south by Civil War definitions.

Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee wasn’t what Jen or I had expected. We had envisioned grandeur, excess — the kind of extravagance typically associated with the rich and famous. But by rock star standards, Elvis Presley seemed to live a fairly modest life, at least at home in Memphis. The first thing that was striking about Graceland is its locale: The part of town is pretty dilapidated and there’s not much around besides some gas stations, car dealerships, and boarded-up restaurants. Then, out of nowhere, are the white gates leading up to the Presley estate. You don’t park on that side of the road, though. That’s the weird and annoying part.

After parking in the lot across the street and walking past half a dozen different gift shops, we bought our tickets and got in line to board the shuttle that would take us all the way across the street and up the slight hill of a driveway. It was laughable. Only in America. It was clearly about crowd control, but incredibly frustrating that we could’ve thrown Happy Dingo the length of the street between us and the mansion, but they wouldn’t allow us to walk.

The self-guided audio tour of the mansion was about half an hour to an hour. Upstairs in the mansion is closed off to tourists because it was Elvis’ private area, so it’s out of respect for the family that they don’t bring tourists there. (Though they don’t go into detail about it on the tour, apparently Elvis also died upstairs at home, so that may be part of it, too.) The tour does include the main floor and basement of the mansion, including the famous Jungle Room, which has an indoor waterfall at one end. I really liked the basement TV room with mirrored walls and ceilings.

The remainder of the tour walked through the trophy rooms, the racquetball house, the stables, and the rest of the grounds, ending with a visit to the grave of Elvis, his parents, and his grandmother by the pool. It was pretty surreal. I’m sure it’s even more surreal for those Elvis die-hards who believe Elvis is still alive.

Coming the southern route across the country certainly adds a lot to the trip — about an extra thousand miles and two days, in fact. We’ve driven 2,826 miles since San Francisco, 580 of those since leaving Little Rock this morning.

Tomorrow we head north to visit my grandparents before cruising into New York for our eighth and final day of the journey.

Little Rock, Ark. — Aside from the Waffle House, a southern breakfast treat open twenty-four hours per day, and upside-down armadillo road kill, today was pretty uneventful as we drove across the southern plains of Texas’ Panhandle, Oklahoma, and into Arkansas.

We started the day in Amarillo, deciding not to fight the pre-9am breakfast crowd at our hotel. The breakfast options were slim, with half-hour waits at Denny’s and the Cracker Barrel.

Then we stumbled upon the magical yellow letters of the Waffle House, like an oasis in the Texan desert. Neither Jen nor I had previously been to an actual Waffle House, but I’d seen them throughout the southwest before (in places like Tucson) and had been curious. Jen had only heard of the establishment as the stuff of legend. It was meant to be. In we strolled to the House adjacent to a truck stop, as the magical beacon usual is. Despite the signage on the door about Waffle Houses nationwide providing healthy no smoking environments for their customers, we could only smile in amusement as we looked around to see actual cowboys with half-smoked cigarettes dangling clumsily from their mouths.

After a few expected stares from regulars that labeled us as the obvious out-of-towners, we scooted into a booth across from the jukebox, which cranked out sounds of county music (what else?). The servers do not circulate around the small restaurant, but stay behind the counter, connected to all the booths, to tend to the rows of waffle irons, steak, hash browns, and eggs. We ordered coffee and OJ after being addressed by our waitress with the requisite Texan greeting, “How are ya’ll this morning?” I ordered the pecan waffle and hash browns with cheese. All for a whopping four bucks. And it was perfect. Just the traveling breakfast I had been craving, much better than fighting the hotel crowd. Jen was excited about her fried eggs with side of grits. After having a bite of grits, I realized that grits are basically just cream of wheat.

Despite our not being all that impressed by our brief stay in Texas, it seems that the Waffle House was the ideal experience for our inaugural trip to the Lone Star State.

Not much later we passed the armadillo on the side of the freeway, bringing our drive through Texas to a fitting close, but not before a stop on Route 66 at the Alanreed gas station, which also served as the Alanreed Post Office, Alanreed grocery store, Alanreed community center, Alanreed bar, and the Alanreed Jail. Then we whisked non-dramatically into Oklahoma.

Oklahoma was brown and overcast. The only noteworthy item there was a postcard at one of the rest stops of an actual photo of three hanged men and the date 1906. On the back was an explanation that the men had been suspected of trespassing on someone’s ranch. The card was not intended to be humorous, so we quickly returned to the car and left the OK state behind.

Here in Little Rock our hotel looks much like the others, Flagstaff excepted. We’re back in our room after dinner at the Olive Garden, thanks to a generous gift card from Jessie. I’m a sucker for accents, so I really enjoyed eavesdropping on the Arkansan drawls of the two women at the table behind us. People are quite pleasant and kind here.

Tomorrow will be a big day, as we head into Tennessee for a stop at Graceland, then on to somewhere in Kentucky for the night. Just when it seems like the trip has begun, we have only three days of the journey to go.

Amarillo, Texas — We woke up this morning in beautiful Flagstaff to a dusting of snow. I love that: Opening the curtains, looking out, and seeing snow-covered ground. I’ll never forget the very first time at Vassar my freshman year when I had that same experience. It’s one that will never grow old for me, and one of the things about which I’m very excited to be moving to upstate New York.

This morning’s snow was the first for the dogs. Happy got to charge around the trees adjacent to our hotel. The crisp morning was only the beginning of a long and fun-filled day.

We left Flagstaff around 10am and headed east on I-40. Our first stop was in the Petrified National Forest, exemplary of much of the Southwest: Red rolling hills, vast and detailed canyons, and a natural light unique to this part of the country. The Painted Desert at the northern end of the Petrified Forest was especially picturesque with its red rock and snow-capped top (though we chose to take it in mentally rather than stop for a photo). The petrified wood was pretty cool, too. We also drove past some faux teepees, including Route 66’s Wigwam Motel, at which you can actually sleep in your own teepee.

After Arizona it was on to New Mexico, whose landscape is quite breathtaking. We drove through Albuquerque, along with towns with catchy names like Gallup and Tucumcari. Then we crossed the Texas border — into enemy territory, I joked (in a political sense, of course, for two liberal, now former San Franciscans).

Another highlight from today’s trip was our “reading” the audio book The Big Bad Wolf (thanks, Liz!) by James Patterson, who also wrote Kiss the Girl and Along Came a Spider (both good movies, I thought). It’s a great murder mystery and an excellent way to pass the time on a long trip. We’re about halfway done with the eight-hour reading, my first time listening to an audio book.

So here we are in Amarillo about 12 hours after leaving Flagstaff. We’re now in the Central Time Zone with just one more zone to cross.

The stars at night are big and bright…

In other news, I was annoyed (and shocked) to find out this morning that our stuff with the moving company (A) weighed in at a thousand pounds higher than the estimated weight (suspect considering we got rid of a lot of stuff after the estimate), and (B) has still not left the facility in Vallejo, three days into the seven to fourteen day delivery estimate. As for the cost, there is a not-to-exceed price that we’ll end up paying, but I was hoping we’d be able to pay less than that. As for the delivery date, it’s just frustrating to think that it may be later than we were originally told our stuff would arrive. So far, I’m not impressed with North American Van Lines and its local agent All Points Moving Systems in Vallejo. I’ve left a voicemail with the guy who gave me the estimate to find out what’s up.

Flagstaff, Ariz. — I love to drive. Driving is especially fun because my car is fast. What makes my fast car even more fun to drive is when I have the chance to drive it across the Mojave Desert. Such was the case for the first time today when I was able to set a new personal speed record: 130 miles per hour. It barely felt like we were driving faster than sixty. I was tempted to push it even faster (and could have, given that I had enough road and accelerator left to do so), but considering I had previously taken my WRX to 120, I figured that a ten-mile-per-hour record improvement would suffice for now. There’s still a whole lot of country left before our adventure is over.

We drove 508 miles today from Bakersfield to Flagstaff in about seven hours (including stops), a full hour less than estimated by our road atlas. Of course, driving anywhere between 80 and 130 miles per hour all the way through the desert will have that effect.

Today was the first long leg of our trip, but it really didn’t seem that way. Jen and I both really enjoyed our Christmas celebration across the desert and into the highland of Flagstaff, which is truly a beautiful place.

I’ve been to Flagstaff once before and recall having really enjoyed it here. It reminds me a lot of Tahoe: High elevation, tall pine trees, and that clean, fresh mountain air. I immediately felt good and relaxed upon arriving at our destination.

We celebrated Christmas tonight with dinner at a Chinese buffet restaurant, ala A Christmas Story, the greatest holiday movie ever. We also found ourselves outside the Galaxy Diner (closed today, unfortunately), which hosts a Hot Rod show every Friday night (see photo). The picture is primarily for James. Anyone who knows him or was with us in Vegas will no doubt know why.

Tomorrow we will head to somewhere in Texas for Day Four of the trip.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

(If you’re reading this and keeping up on our cross-country adventure, please drop us a line, as we have so far been able to check email nightly. We would love to hear from you.)

Bakersfield, Calif. – We’re fewer than five hours from Sacramento and already Day Two of our journey is complete. I like that we’re easing into the trip, driving just an hour-and-a-half the first day, not much more today. We ramp it up tomorrow, though, as we dive into the first eight-hour leg of the journey as we head to the snowiest place in the desert: Flagstaff, Arizona.

After leaving Roseville around noon today, we met up with my Mom and bro at the Hyatt in downtown Sacramento for a Christmas Eve lunch. Despite overpriced food and a rude waiter, we had a good time on our final leaving-town get together. We’ll be on the road for Christmas Day, so it felt really good to have a little family interaction. Then it was time for the open, traffic-filled road.

Things went swimmingly most of the way to Bakersfield until: White flash. Thud. Bump. The sound of crushing a living creature at 85 miles per hour is never pleasant. About thirty miles outside our destination, a little white rabbit sprinted out from the center divider to its final resting place under my front left tire. We felt terrible, but know there was nothing that could’ve been done. It was raining hard and a swerve into another car would’ve been far worse. I didn’t even see the little bugger until it was too late anyway. I’m sure he’s much happier now in a field of infinite carrots.

After checking into our hotel here in lovely Bakersfield and walking the dogs, we drove around looking for dinner and stumbled across one of my old childhood favorites from Sacramento: Marie Calendar’s. Not quite the same as most of the independently-owned restaurants we’re used to frequenting in San Francisco, but among chains, I think it ranks pretty high.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Roseville, Calif. — With only four hours of sleep before the movers arrived this morning, Jen and I have successfully completed day one of our cross-country journey, albeit it was only San Francisco to Roseville (outside Sacramento).

Twenty-four hours ago, things seemed bleak. Stuff was still amok. Boxes were still untaped. And the movers were due at nine. Packing is the most exhausting part of moving. But somehow, everything was looking better this morning. Once it was all packed up and organized neatly inside brown cardboard, all our crap seemed contained. Three movers were in and out in less than two hours, our inspection was shortly thereafter, and we were on the road to Sacramento.

Our first stop was to pay our respects at Odd Fellows Cemetery, where the remains of Nana and Alan rest. It was an important stop that I’d been wanting to do for quite some time, especially before moving East. I shed some tears and it was somehow calming.

After some onion rings to die for at Willy’s on Broadway, we headed south to meet up with James for some drinks and emotional “see ya laters.” Goodbyes: Who needs ‘em? We shed some more tears when James presented us with a guardian for our trip: The St. Christopher pendant he wears around his neck.

The first tears I shed were those when my Dad came by Monday night. It’s meant so much to live near him for nearly five years. It hadn’t really sunk in until that night that yes, we were leaving San Francisco.

And here we are, not geographically far from our now-former home in San Francisco, at Aunt Liz’s in Roseville, where we had dinner, good conversation, great laughs.

We’ve embarked on a tremendous journey the energy for which we would simply not have without the love and encouragement of all our family and friends.

“You guys are brave to be doing this,” said James.

The clock just struck midnight, which means that it is officially moving day. We’re still awake packing, of course, but are in the home stretch. I realize I’ve been saying that for days, though. The past week has been a blur of social activities, great fun, and tons of packing. Why is it that we’ve been planning this move for so long and didn’t have time to finish packing with a day or so to rest? I suppose that’s human nature: Procrastination.

Some guy should be here any minute to buy our last remaining piece of furniture for sale.

Jen and I just endured nearly 24 hours without power. Nearly 150,000 people were without power last night, including us. Under normal circumstances, we enjoy the occasional power outage. It’s a nice break from modern technology. But when you’re in the midst of packing for a cross-country move in two days and your apartment doesn’t get much natural light in the first place, it really, really sucks. Things were looking pretty dark for a while.

The power came back on about ten minutes ago and we’re feeling more recharged than ever now. We must. Only a day and a half of packing time to go. We really take power for granted in this country.

We had a great brunch at Tiff and Miguel’s this morning (though we had to bust before actually eating), then we head to Tim and Elizabeth’s for dinner tonight.

Tomorrow: Finish packing no matter what. Oh, and get the alignment done on my car since I had my new Continental ContiExtremeContact tires installed yesterday (at 25,918 miles).

Update: Recent entry on the topic: Gay Marriage (posted 2.25.2004)

The anti-gay American Family Association (“America’s Pro-Family Action Web Site!”) is conducting a poll on gay marriage. Apparently, the organization plans to share the results of this poll with Congress. Of course, they’re expecting that the only people to vote in the poll will be those who visit their site and believe in “traditional” values. Let’s show them otherwise. I’ve received two email forwards so far today about this, so figured I’d spread the word here, too.

Visit MarriagePoll.com to cast your vote.

After I voted, the results showed the following:

• I oppose legalization of homosexual marriage and “civil unions”: 51.45% (118227 votes)
• I favor legalization of homosexual marriage: 41.72% (95871 votes)
• I favor a “civil union” with the full benefits of marriage except for the name: 6.83% (15685 votes)

This seems to be a word-of-mouth Internet effort that is working and can have a positive impact. (The first forward I received said that when the sender voted, it showed 93% in opposition and only 3% in favor; the one after that showed 30% in favor.) Perhaps the poll results will even show that the majority of Americans favor gay marriage. I’ll bet AFA won’t be so excited about sharing the results with Congress then.