Month: August 2004

Cleveland.com: American Idol holding auditions here Wednesday. Apparently about three-quarters of the people staying in this particular Best Western are waiting for the auditions tomorrow at Cleveland Browns stadium. Sure beats karaoke.

One more day’s driving and I get to see Lisa and the dogs again. Today I go from Cleveland through Pennsylvania on 80 and then across New Jersey to her family’s place in Lakewood. With any luck, there won’t be a repeat of yesterday’s traffic snarl around Chicago. Then again, it’s already raining, so who knows.

I do have to give a big thumbs down to the loop around Chicago. The first 1600 miles of this trip were like some kind of platonic ideal of driving, where people stayed on the right unless they were passing, roads were well maintained, and you got plenty of room from your fellow drivers. Fast forward to the approach to Chicago, where I encountered my first stay-in-the-left-lane-for-six-days drivers, my first come-up-after-everyone-else-has-merged-from-the-closing-left-lane-into-the-right-lane-and-cut-in-front-of-me driver, and my first signs of the impending jaw surgery I’ll need from the rough ride.

Wah, wah, wah. I know. And yet I think it says something that I didn’t have to dust off my invective until today. For example, a little phrase I’ve taken to short-cutting as “Gootllysac,” lest “Get out of the left lane, you selfish ass-clown” be too long or harsh to pronounce. Try it, you’ll like it.

(For more left-lane angst and uses of the word ass, check out this classic post from 2002, now with working link).

Nothing outlasts…the cross-country drive. I have this funny feeling that I will be too tired, for a very long time, to post any blow-by-blow details of this trip. Suffice it to say that 2350 miles after leaving the Seattle burbs, I’m sitting in another cheap hotel with free internet, this one outside the Cleveland airport. (All together: Cleveland rocks!)

Odd factoid: not every room in these Best Westerns actually has high-speed Internet, despite it being advertised as “free” on the sign outside. I had to change rooms tonight to get the high speed connection.

Oh, and one minor correction to Dave’s post from a few days ago: the final destination of this trip is Boston—but the map on the first day’s post shows my interim destination, my in-law’s place on the Jersey Shore, rather than Delaware (a reasonable guess given the highly imprecise map).

I did get a chance to try out the iTalk (which I mistakenly called the iMic a few posts back) yesterday. It worked, mostly. I held the mic too close the first time and got lots of unlistenable too-loud audio. The second time was OK but I was incoherent. The third time? It didn’t record at all for some reason.

Which was too bad, as I was actually babbling something that would have classified as “seeing vapor trails.” (Technically the following could be considered a “spoiler.”) My babbling involved an elaborate reading of “Kill Bill” as an inverse Odyssey with the Bride as Penelope having to fight her way home to Odysseus, who is waiting for her with her child. Along the way she has many picturesque fights, including one with a cyclops. Finally the couple is reunited. And then Penelope kills Odysseus. (OK, so Ulysses it ain’t.)

1. Auto-exposure cameras that can’t be easily tweaked to capture the subtle play of the setting sun’s rays on a mountainside.
2. Poor aim.
3. Bugs on the windshield.
4. Attempting to take photos at 6:30 in the morning through the windshield while driving. (Don’t worry, I made sure no one else was on the road, on either side of the median.)

Rough cut of the photo album for the first two days is up; notes as I get a chance.

Since I wasn’t able to dial up from the hotel in Livingston, Montana last night, I thought I’d post a quick update before I try to find a bite to eat. I’m currently sitting in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the Best Western has free DSL. <flavorflav>Yeah boooy.</flavorflav>

For those of you playing along at home, I’ve come over 1600 miles in two days. Just two more to go… Hopefully I can post more later.