Having said my tearful goodbyes, I set out on the road on Monday, my car weighed down like the pimp mobile that it surely is in the universe not quite parallel but sort of diagonal and up a few from this one. Among my now few possessions were: a prominently displayed vacuum, a drafting board, 26 pairs of underwear, an Imagineering mug, and a father. The last item was also quite prominently displayed, and took up quite a bit of room in the passenger side front.
We rolled out nearly bobsledding, the 210 an open vista of possibility, the 15 a bountiful array of expectant Los Angelenos. I always have a difficult time understanding the degree of urgency with which Southern Californians absolutely MUST arrive in Las Vegas in as little time as humanly possible. Fortunately, my fellow drivers were kind enough to remind me with subtle hints and kind suggestions that involve flashing lights and very specific body parts.
Nevada. You can almost smell the intrigue, adventure, and wonder of Las Vegas. As I found out the weekend before, in no place else do all women dress quite like that. With enough glitz to dumbfound every animal within a 1,000 mile radius, including men, Vegas women flaunt the tiny dresses, painted on makeup, and 1980s hair that I had never and will never dream of pulling off. At the time, I wished that I had overalls and a straw hat to further delineate my alien invasion of the trampy ho clique. On this trip, remembering the irresistible nature of the city, I did what any swaggering party girl would do.
I drove right past it to greener pastures.
Utah. Utah scares me beyond all reason. It’s kind of like Yzma, but with less purple, fewer potions (believe me) and infinitely more crazy. Kronk may be a prophet there, in fact. We drove a long day in order to arrive in Provo so that I could take a physics final the next morning. You see, I have nothing better to do in life than pile things on top of each other in a nearly impossible array of multitasking and scrambling that ends just short of killing me. Luckily, everything so far has settled on kicking my ass with a fiery vengeance.
Tuesday morning found us driving through Provo looking for Brigham Young, which, as it turns out, is quite lovely. I finished my test in the prescribed two hours, then hit the road again. Before I left the room, I was instructed to fill out a brief survey of my satisfaction with the course. I expected the normal questions rating my perceived aptitude of the professor, effectiveness of material, and such, but they also threw in a few gems. On a scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree,” I was asked to assign a value to the following statements: “I grew spiritually from this course,” and “I feel my character was strengthened.” You understand that this was physics, right? As in, the discipline most likely to completely disprove your religion and lambast everything you stand for?
So that was my entertainment for the morning.
Wyoming. I did not hate Wyoming, although, as Dad pointed out, it could use a few more trees. Apparently one of the least populated states in the country, it sports an endless plain of funny rock formations dotted with plains and houses. But then…
Nebraska. What was anyone thinking when they planted Nebraska? Has anyone there ever driven a significant distance of it? If they did, I am confident that they would immediately set to work on devising something, anything, to keep drivers from beating themselves over the head with the contents of their glove compartment. Flat, fields, and fragrant are labels I give to the endless straight monotony of fields dotted with cows and dripping with my disdain.
We wanted to spend the second night in Cheyenne, but apparently Frontier Days is a huge deal, so we needed to get an hour or two outside of it. You know you’ve left the west coast when hotels advertise “American owned” as their biggest selling point. First of all, having been in very international places for the last ten years, the extreme patriotism of the rest of the country sometimes seems a little jarring, and almost prejudiced in a way. Secondly, when I’ve been sitting in a car all day and it’s eleven o’clock at night, I will rent a room from Voldemort himself as long as he promises to avada kadavra the roaches.
The next way you know that you’re not in SoCal anymore is when you find streets called “Cornshuck Avenue.” Do they by any chance do farming in Nebraska? No way! I totally didn’t get that impression from the 15,000 fields I’ve already driven past!
But then we hit Iowa. Iowa was very pleasant. There was woodland with, wonder of wonders, TREES! It also boasted the largest truck stop in the world and more Git N Splits than you could shake a stick at. I give Iowa a B+. We stayed the night in Davenport, where there was a sale on puppies.
The eastern states love their construction in the summer. Just because they can’t do it nine months out of the year does not mean that every road needs to be under construction for those three good months. It also does not mean that work zones need to go down to 45 mph. It also does not mean that every granny needs to get in front of a line of cars in the one open lane and strictly adhere to that speed. I feel like Dr. Doofenschmirtz should have an –inator for that or something.
Anyway, I made it home and have already feasted on white hots! And I squeaked by in physics! More to follow of my adventures…