Road Trip Diaries Days 17-18: The Grand Canyon

     BAM! Just thought I'd get your attention. 

     Caitlin and I are nearing the end of our journey- we're now just one border away from California, here in Flagstaff, AZ. It feels so far west! So big, so dramatic, so perfectly suited to hopping on horses and galloping into the sunset... but my horses are in California, so continue driving we must. 

In a Nutshell: Overview of Days 17 and 18

Route: Albuquerque, NM to Flagstaff, AZ --> then to Grand Canyon National Park

Miles Traveled: 404 today, 6,027 total. 

Hours in Car: 6 today, 77 total.

Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 4 these days, 25 total. Cortney: 0 these days, 5 total. Combined: 30 cups. 

Food Highlight of the Day: The best soup ever at Macy's European Coffeehouse in Flagstaff. Way back at the beginning of the trip, some hippies at a rest stop told me I needed to go to Macy's. When my friend Amber mentioned it, I remembered the hippies and the fact they tend to have excellent taste in vegan friendly food, and so I went. 

It may not look out of the ordinary, but that red lentil potato soup is the best soup I have ever had in my life. It is so savory, so perfectly spiced, and the potatoes are the perfect melt-in-your-mouth tenderness... regular lentil soup or regular potato soup will just not cut it for me any more.

Quote of the Day: Cortney: "Oh Joel and Caitlin are playing video games." Amber: "Ewww gross!!!!"


Rugged and Awesome Arizona
   There is nothing like a desert thunderstorm. We got stuck in many between New Mexico and Arizona- the clouds roll in, the thunder rattles the car, and all of a sudden the raindrops come with such volume and velocity that driving becomes an exercise in how hard one can squint and squeeze the steering wheel.
     We had to pass through such a storm on the way to the Grand Canyon, and only hope that it would clear up. Like desert thunderstorms do, it soon retreated just enough to provide a stark contrast with the blue sky and eventually moved well beyond the horizon.

The break in the weather as the storm crossed the canyon

    The canyon started out almost blue, filled with mist and rain and distant shadows of the other rim. At some parts it was so wide that we couldn't see across, at least not until several hours later when the storm had completely gone.

    When clear, the Grand Canyon is a brilliant spectacle of geology. Exposed layers of old earth tell a story in many colors and textures. The bottommost deposits we could see, the Vishnu Basement rocks (a name very pleasing to a religion scholar like myself), are over 1.8 billion years old. That means they were around in the Precambrian Period. The continents were jammed together into a big old supercontinent back then, as far as I can discern from a rather complex Wikipedia article. Layers upon layers were deposited, and the dinosaurs walked along the top of them here before water erosion started forming the canyon about 6 million years ago.  

     Sure puts things in a different perspective. 

Here you can see the top 3 or 4 layers. There are still several deeper ones. 

For some reason being on the edge of a cliff compelled me to try yoga.

     After a very informative lecture from a ranger about why squirrels are the most dangerous animals in Grand Canyon National Park (anybody who goes to Sac State can understand this), Caitlin and I went farther out to Desert View, a point with an old watchtower where a handful of people gathered to watch the sunset. Luckily we were attacked by no squirrels. Sounds like they might be even more vicious here than Sac State. Instead we simply had a peaceful sunset surrounded by a variety of people from Europe and Asia. Relatively few Americans at the Grand Canyon, but it is definitely a global destination judging by the number of languages we heard.

Um... you know that awkward moment when you realize you cannot possibly follow something so awesome? Yeah. Feeling that. 

Road Trip Diaries Day 16: New Mexico Wins the Pretty Sky Award

     Hello from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm lounging on a comfy bed in the aging but still cute Route 66 Hostel (Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel came here!) while Caitlin plays some excellent classic rock. Her taste in music and portable speakers have been a godsend these past two weeks. And this moment is pretty darn perfect. I've settled down from my let's-go-all-day-and-see-everything-possible mode, and sitting in a private hostel suite listening to Pink Floyd and Eric Clapton and The Animals is hard to beat when I'm this tired. mmmm acoustic guitar...

In A Nutshell: Overview of Day 16 
Route: Denver, CO to Albuquerque, NM
Miles traveled: 451 today, 5,623 total.
Hours in car: 7.5 hours today, 71 total.
Coffee consumed: Caitlin: 2 today, 21 total. Cortney: 0 today, 5 total. Combined: 26. Although I probably lost track of a few, these are just the ones I remember. I'm more of a tea drinker.
Food highlight of the day: Finally getting some real Spanish rice after fantasizing about it since last week.
Quote of the day: Caitlin: "I'm completing my slow but inevitable transformation into a gay man." This while admiring a striped scarf in a thrift store named Plato's Closet.

It's weird being this close to California again.

New Mexico: Way Prettier than I expected. And certainly way prettier than Nebraska. 

     As I mentally prepared myself for another day on the road, I imagined today would be full of flat ugly desert. Kind of like Nevada, where there are few things other than prisons and signs telling you not to pick up hitchhikers. (Note: Nevada is obviously not on this trip. I crossed it on my way to and from South Dakota when I worked there in 2008. And to those who live in Nebraska or Nevada, please don't take offense- I know your states may have decent and interesting areas too, but driving across them in their entirety.... oy).

What I expected from New Mexico
(photo taken in Montana)

What New Mexico actually looks like

But back to New Mexico: When I saw the sign announcing that we had crossed the border from Colorado to New Mexico, I was taken aback by the fact that we were surrounded by pleasant green hills and striking mountains. And even as the dirt became redder and the trees became shorter, New Mexico remained stunning and hilly and a nice pale shade of green all the way until we reached Santa Fe to take a short break. 

     We stopped in Santa Fe for about 40 minutes, because a number of people have told me I needed to stop there. And it's cute. Full of little square adobe buildings and slowly ambling tourists with big cameras around their necks. It seems like a good place for a retreat, like the ones I went on at my Catholic high school. It is very Catholic in its roots, too. Signs all around the cathedral proclaim "Celebrating 400 years of faith!" Caitlin has a more cynical way of putting that. Missions have a rather dark history, but today this place is a lot friendlier and very pretty. 

 

I got some mango sorbet, strolled through the little plaza, and it was time to go. Santa Fe is quaint and quiet and it has two Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's within minutes of each other. Road tripping college students clearly don't belong here. It is for people with money who like a pretty little town, as far as I can tell. And there are lots of flowers. It reminds me of my grandma's house. 

     Albuquerque is only about an hour south of Santa Fe, and quite a different place. The land dries out after Santa Fe and is full of creosote bushes. 

Still more exciting than a lot of our drives

     Albuquerque is a fairly big city, with bars and pizza places and all kinds of noisy hangouts that would not dare rear their heads in the adobe-clad historic district of Santa Fe. Perhaps in other parts of Santa Fe, but we did not visit them. 

Albuquerque- I keep calling it Albequirky. 

       Anyway, this seems like a pretty cool spot. I'm still recovering from going out blues dancing last night in Denver though, and alas, tales of New Mexico's nightlife will have to come to pass some other time or in the life of some other person. I'm chillin' in this janky old hostel listening to the Rolling Stones, my 6 day headache has subsided significantly, and I'm enjoying this thoroughly.
     Oh, and about the title of this post- I'm serious, the sky has been amazing this entire day. You can see the bright blue in some of these photos, with perfectly fluffy white clouds, but there were also various shades of grey and even golden clouds hovering over the hills and bluffs, some with streamers of rain visible from where we were on the dry plains. The sky here is remarkably multicolored, and often the horizon will show two or more kinds of weather as it is influenced by the terrain.
      And here's the sunset as viewed from the window of our janky old hostel. Prettiest sky of the whole trip- thank you New Mexico!

Road Trip Diaries Day 15: I Need to Live in Denver

Hey there. So, I don't actually have plans to move to Denver, but it needs to happen. The seed for this thought first planted itself in my brain when I was here for Lindy on the Rocks in 2010. It occurred to me that of the (then few) American cities I'd been to, this was the only one outside of California I felt I could live in. Vegan food abounds, the roads are drive-able (unlike Chicago), the trains are non-ghetto, there are skyscrapers but the nearby mountains are bigger, the baristas at Starbucks are friendlier than golden retriever puppies, there are parks, there are pedestrianized urban walkways dotted with painted pianos, there are enormous installations of happy, humorous street art, there are blues dancers.... oh, I knew before arriving that I liked Denver, but little did I know how hard I would fall for it.

In a Nutshell: Overview of Day 15. 

Route: Omaha, NE to Denver, CO
Miles Traveled: 532 today. 5,172 total.
Hours in Car: 9 today, 63.5 total. Yes I know this data is redundant.
Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 1 cup today, 17 total.  Cortney: 0 today, 5 total. Combined: 22 cups

"All desserts are vegan." The best words

 I've ever heard in my life.

 I've waited two years for this. 

Food Highlight of the Day: Finally going to Watercourse Foods after hearing about it in 2010, and getting a vegan milkshake. Mine was chocolate-peanut butter. It was thick- the kind that is a little tough to suck up through a straw, but totally worth it. It could easily be eaten with a spoon. This is how milkshakes should be. Watercourse makes their shakes with coconut milk ice cream, so they definitely have a coconut flavor. I happen to love coconut, so it works!

With my chocolate peanut butter shake, and
some Boston cream pie cake.

Quote of the Day: (in Starbucks)
Cortney: "Can I get a tall iced-"
Barista: "No."
Cortney: "Okay, well can I get a tall soy-"
Barista: "No."
Cortney: "Fine then, I'm just going to steal your WiFi and not get anything."
Other barista: "Ah, he's just being disagreeable."
Cortney: "But that's not disagreeable. That's apathetic. You need your disagreeable face."
First Barista: *tries several awkward grimaces until I approve*

Denver: I want you, I need you, oh baby, oh baby. 

     I really am this obsessed with Denver. Of course, driving across all of Nebraska before getting to it possibly intensified the feeling, but I really do love Denver. I mean, not only do they have tons of vegan food (kind of like Portland), but in the summer the weather is actually good enough to play piano on the streets (definitely unlike Portland). I mean, look at the photo below, and tell me: Does it get any artsier than this?

     Another thing I've noticed about Denver is that it is unusually happy. As I am an almost sickeningly happy person (I spent my afternoon in Denver jumping around and telling my friends, "Let's frolic!!!"), I think I would do very well here. I could be one of the weirdly perky Starbucks baristas- they have personalities and senses of humor and stuff. One guy was fully devoted to lightheartedly teasing me for the entire time I was there, and I probably should have gotten his number. You know, for when I move here and need a cute, happy Denver boyfriend. He got very excited over the fact I was having a FaceTime conference with a professor and group of student assistants back home in Sacramento. Perhaps I just have a thing for cute guys who work in coffee shops. It took a while for me to be cured of the temptation to go back to Iowa City to find the guy from Fair Grounds who had (according to my friends) been flirting with me.
     But it's not just the baristas who are really happy in Denver. Look at these dancing statues- they clearly agree with me that Denver is totally frolic-worthy:

     I think I pulled almost the exact same move last night when I went blues dancing at the Mercury Cafe- a (get this) vegan/vegetarian cafe with a full schedule of dances and dance classes in the evenings. Tuesday is Blues night, and I recommend Googling the calendar for all the other events they have going on. The dance is upstairs, in a large room with a beautiful romantic ambiance and an old, dark wood floor. In terms of atmosphere, this is one of my favorite places to dance. Not to mention that staff come around and pour ice water for you while you take a break at one of their cute little tables by the windows. 

    So, I've already got a built in social scene for when I move to Denver. Dancers are never without friends. What's more, I've even got a potential roommate, seeing as my friend Haydn who hosted us wants to move again already. His car has already been stolen, rummaged through, and parked at the apartment on the other side of the parking lot... a perfect excuse to move downtown by the University where it is way less sketchy and roving teenagers won't steal candy from his backseat. I'm glad they didn't see the Sour Patch Kids in Caitlin's car. 

Haydn: "Are either of you comfortable with scruffing?" 

 I must now go off on a bit of a tangent, purely for the sake of including this entertaining photo. Haydn has a cat named d'Artagnan, a black and white longhaired and very handsome feline fellow. d'Artagnan is not happy about the new apartment and especially about the fact that it is full of boxes. They are terrifying, offensive, and overall upsetting. So d'Artagnan tucks himself behind the TV and refuses to come out. I think he's protesting. We could not lure him out even after several hours, so Haydn and Caitlin teamed up to get him out of there. 

     It worked eventually. And of course, Caitlin's the cat whisperer and they were soon to be best buddies. She has convinced every pet we've encountered on this trip to adore her, it's quite a skill. Although overnight, d'Artagnan proceeded to disturb our sleep by clawing just about everything in the apartment. 

     Cats. 

     But I could live with cats. My life plan now goes about this far: Get into grad school in Denver, move in with my literature-nerd friend Haydn and his easily offended cat, eat lots of vegan food, go blues dancing every Tuesday, find a cute Denver boyfriend at a coffee shop, and be happy and awesome and go frolicking down the pretty pedestrianized city walks day in and day out. 

     I really don't think I need to do anything else with my life. That sounds pretty damn amazing. 

 

    

Road Trip Diaries Days 14-15: Nothing really happened.

Hey. So I've been sick as a dog but I've been in denial. Not in New York! I will power through on sheer Ibuprofen! But then we landed in Chicago and I did not leave the air mattress in Amanda's apartment until noon the next day.
And then we drove to Nebraska.......
.........................................................
And then we drove through Nebraska.....
................................................................
................................................................

And that's about all that's happened.

Overview of Day 14:
Route: Chicago, IL to Omaha, NE
Miles traveled: 472 today, 4,640 total.
Hours in car: 8 today, 64.5 total
Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 0 cups today, 16 total. Cortney: 0 cups today, 5 total. Combined: 21.
Food highlight of the day: Spaghetti in Des Moines, Iowa. But I forget the name of the place. I blame headache.
Quote of the day: Cortney: "I can take Ibuprofen with Nyquil AND Mucinex, right?"

Overview of Day 15:
Route: Omaha, NE to Denver, CO
Miles traveled: 532 today, 5,172 total.
Hours in Car: 9 today, 63.5 total.
Food highlight of the Day: I think this will be covered in my Denver blog.
Quote of the Day: Cortney: "This country sure has a lot of... Nebraska..."
p.s. Due to my tremendous headache I've basically forgotten all of these two days, otherwise the quotes would be far more interesting.

Hey look, a covered wagon!

Road Trip Diaries Days 11-13: New York City

We made it! New York City, the great metropolis perched on the Atlantic Ocean. I am now closer to Ireland than I am to California (I surprised a lot of people with that fact when I studied abroad in Dublin last year). In fact, going to Europe and encountering so many people who had seen more of my country than I had is part of what inspired this trip. So, next time I'm abroad and somebody asks me if I've been to New York, I can beam proudly and tell them I have.

In a Nutshell: Overview of Days 11-12
Route: Chicago, IL to NY, NY- via planes, trains, and buses for a change.
Miles traveled: 974 today, 4,168 total.
Hours in car: None today, but 2 hours in a plane. If I count it, that makes 56.5 total.
Coffee consumed: Caitlin: 5 cups these days, 16 total. Cortney: 0 these days, 5 total. Combined: 21 cups.
Food highlight of the day(s): Stogo Ice Cream. Traci, Caitlin and I were strolling along after a tasty brunch at Cornerstone Cafe (also a very worthy place), when I saw a sandwich board sign on the sidewalk for dairy free ice cream. I walked in and... could it be? Every flavor was vegan! EVERY FLAVOR. This has never happened to me before. Never in my 3.5 years of veganism and constant quest for tasty desserts. ALL THE ICE CREAM. I CAN HAVE ALL THE ICE CREAM.
I ended up settling for two scoops- Caramel Praline Pecan, and Bananas Foster. I don't remember which kind of ice cream these ones were- Stogo makes soymilk, almondmilk, ricemilk, and hempmilk ice creams. Okay, I have to say it one more time- I CAN HAVE ALL THE ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would have taken a photo of it, but I my enthusiasm was so great it overwhelmed even my intense compulsion to take photos of nearly everything I eat.
Quote of the Day: Sometimes, actions speak louder than words. Like when the bus to Hoboken got stuck in a traffic jam so bad that half of us got out and walked.

Look! We made it all the way across the country! 

Being a non-tourist in New York City
     Those of you hoping to see photos of the Statue of Liberty or views from the top of the Empire State Building will be disappointed, because we didn't visit them. (I did see the statue once from the airplane I took to Newark from Ireland though, so I'm not a total loser).
    There is a lot more to New York than its big landmarks- it is home to smart little coffee shops, leafy districts of classy brick apartment buildings, a bookstore which claims to have 18 miles of books, amusing graffiti, and most importantly my friend Traci Lee, who's been working in NYC for about half a year now. We got to use her employee discount card at the Rockefeller Center gift shops, which was probably the highlight of the trip. I saved two cents on my little $1 Christmas ornament of Kenneth from the TV show 30 Rock. Now here's my shout-out: if you don't read Traci's blogs already, go read them! They're good stuff:  Notes from a Coffee Shop and The Didion Diaries.
    Now that I've shamelessly plugged yet another friend who's cooler than me, time to carry on. I think I shall have to classify sections of this blog, because otherwise there is just too much to write.

General Observations:
    A warning to Californians: Almost everybody in New York City will dress better than you do. People are so ridiculously well put-together. Even if they wear shorts and a tank top, they are top-quality shorts you can tell cost more than $50, and the thank top will be some gorgeous, fluttery, loose-fitting thing as seems to be the fashion here. But most women wear cute dresses, and men have the best jeans I've ever seen.
   Also, New York is almost impossible to navigate. Flying in, I rationally calmed my nerves about navigating the city by telling myself, "Hey, I got around Paris and London just fine. I'm sure New York is just like any other metropolis with an extensive subway system." Lies, all lies. I was nervous for a reason, and that is because New York City is full of mystery trains with no signs telling you what route they're on or what stops are on that route. The only signs in the subway stations are advertisements. Getting around in countries where I didn't speak a word of their language was far easier- I couldn't pronounce what was on the signs, but at least the signs were there.

   Speaking of signs- apart from the subway, there are plenty! Street signs and graffiti are very amusing. The drivers are so notoriously hurried that there are signs telling them not to honk at each other. And apparently somebody was very concerned about the possibility of passers-by shitting at a construction site. As for my fairy drag mother, I didn't know I had one.

I especially like the addition of "please" at the end.
New Yorkers have manners. 

New York Adventures
   One touristy thing we did was visit Times Square. Caitlin and I hunted for affordable tickets to a Broadway Show, but alas, it never came to pass and we simply got lots of photos of the flashy advertisements for amazing shows we have insufficient money to see. Perhaps the people who stood for several hours waiting in line in the sun at the half price booth in Times Square had better luck, but the shows we were willing to do that for naturally did not have half price tickets.

    We also went to Rockefeller Center (also known as 30 Rock) to be thoroughly intimidated by the place where Traci works. The inside has black floors and black walls with gold pillars and highlights- it is terrifyingly important looking. I am amazed that such amusing things as 30 Rock can come from 30 Rock.
    None of the photos turned out. Too black and dark and scary inside of there.
    But I did get a photo of the super creepy and shady looking NewsCorp building! Doesn't it look like they're plotting evil things in there?

From this building, Murdoch's media army
rule the world. 

     Strand Books is a much friendlier place to hang out, and comfortingly full of nerds. We actually had better luck at Strand than we did at Powell's in Portland, largely because Portland is just too hip and their books are super expensive. This coming from a girl who spent $15 on a Strand Tote.

OMG! He's holding Hamlet AND Macbeth!!! 

     We decided to get away from Manhattan for a while, and went up to Traci's neck of the woods in Harlem- a safe haven for drinking chai and playing ukulele. I realized then that we just drove and flew across an entire country to sit in a coffee shop with a friend and learn to play the uke. It may seem strange, but what else would I rather do in New York than just hang out?
     This is the farthest point in our road trip- the climax, the point at which we stop heading toward New York and start heading toward California. And really, it is all about doing this:




Pretty shiny sparkly things
     I'm not energetic enough to further harp on the profundity of finally getting to New York, so I'll just finish off this blog with lots of pretty pictures. Yay!

Manhattan as viewed from Hoboken, New Jersey

A bridge I'm assuming is important and famous

World Trade Center

Road Trip Diaries Day 10: Hittin' Chicago. (Careful, it might hit back).

     Chicago is f**king mad. Mad. Bicyclists dart out between traffic, ice cream trucks sell drugs, and the roads are both lacking in paint and determined to ruin the shocks on cars brave enough to travel them. Unprotected left turns require frequent dashes out in front of oncoming traffic, and the place is f**king mad.
     But hey, it sure has personality! Salsa music drifts into the alleys from garages as people work on their cars, downtown is full of pizza you need to eat with utensils, and there is actually a real Tastee Freeze that looks like it is straight from the 1950s. It is impossible to ever be bored in Chicago, even if it is rather rough around the edges.

In a Nutshell: Overview of Day 10
Route: Iowa City, IA to Chicago, IL
Miles Traveled: 223 today, 3,194 total.
Hours in Car: 4 today, 54.5 total.
Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 0 Today, 11 total. Cortney: 0 today, 5 total.
Food Highlight of the Day: Katie's amazing healthy homemade breakfast. She made me some trail mix, and blended up a smoothie of coconut milk, banana, peanut butter, and chia seeds, with a few ice cubes for texture.

So healthy.... and so tasty

Quote of the Day: I actually don't remember anything in particular from this day, so I'll share an earlier one that hasn't been shared yet (from Bozeman, MT): Random stranger on street: "Don't believe her! She's a vegan!" 

Chillin' in Chicago

    As I have said, Chicago is mad. So staying in my friend's apartment and watching 3 or so straight hours of 30 Rock suited us brilliantly! We'll be there soon when we fly to New York, may as well get hyped up about it. Caitlin and I are crashing with our old high school friend Amanda and her boyfriend Brian, and we've barely left the futon except for pizza. It was that famous deep dish pizza though. I got a plainer vegan version, but they all got a huge deep pan full of the kind of pizza you might need to eat with a spoon. It totally merits the use of utensils. 

     There's something nice about not being a tourist. I do know there are a lot of sights in Chicago. The waterfront is gorgeous- very different from the pothole pocked roads up in the residential areas (at least, residential for the non-wealthy). There are skyscrapers to climb and parks to stroll through along Lake Michigan. And perhaps some day I will do all that. But sometimes, sitting on a futon in a chaotic apartment with creaky old floors and watching TV with friends is an even better way to enjoy a destination. Especially if it is pouring rain outside, which happened as soon as we got here and had to leave the dry security of the car. 

     I'm going to keep this blog short, since the simplicity of friendship does not take too much explaining. It's good to see where people we care about are living. Bonding in a creaky apartment full of moving boxes is so legitimately twenty-something. It is cozy and colorful and full of both the crazy and the mundane adventures of making a life in this world. 

     I do have some pretty photos, though. See, this present tense stuff I'm writing is a lie and I've actually already moved well beyond Chicago, from which we flew to New York. And on the flight from Chicago to New York, I got to see the great mad city from above, a metropolis perched on a lake that would dwarf it if not for that city's crazy and indomitable personality. 

     Alright- this may be a short and rather boring blog, but I am about to fall asleep thanks to that whiskey chai I thoroughly enjoyed a while ago. Glad I survived you, Chicago!

Road Trip Diaries Day 9: Iowa's Coolest City

     When we finally got to Iowa after our twelve hour trip, we spent our night getting a little drunk off wine and whiskey with our friend Katie and her roommate Katy. It's tempting to call them "the Katies" or something like that, but as they discussed, pluralizing names that are spelled differently is quite a challenge, so I will refrain. Anyway, today was laid-back and full of shopping, much as Iowa City is.

In A Nutshell: Overview of Day 9
Route: Ha! We didn't have to drive anywhere today!
Miles traveled: We walked a few, but that's it.
Hours in car: None! Isn't it glorious!
Coffee consumed: Caitlin: 1 cup today, 11 total. Cortney: 0 today, 5 total. Combined: 16.

This was my lunch. 

Food highlight of the day: White-chocolate strawberry cupcake from Fair Grounds Cafe. It is a very vegan-friendly coffee shop and cafe, with a full food menu and a plethora of desserts :-) The place also has plenty of tables and chairs for working at laptops or chatting with friends, which is what I spent a lovely few hours doing.

The front room at Fair Grounds.
There is also a back room. 

Quote of the day: Random fortyish man in bar to girls in bathroom line: "Does anybody here no who Walter David Thoreau is?"
Girl 1: *shrugs*
Katy: "The writer?"
Random Man: "Well you're on the right track."
Cortney: "Yeah, he wrote Walden."
R.M: *throws hands in the air exaggeratedly* "Ah! At last! There is hope for the world!" *proceeds to complain about how his friends are shallow and uneducated*

Seriously, man? You're trying way too hard to be smart. And all of the women in that line were preoccupied with the fact they had to pee.

Iowa City: Outpost of Civilization
     After driving across so much of the wild west, where people ride motorcycles without helmets, speed limits weren't introduced until 2005, and fireworks could probably blow your house up, Iowa provides a stark contrast. Upon crossing the Iowa border, the speed limit drops (Caitlin and I had gotten very used to 75 mph speed limits), the roads get better, there are actually cops to pull people over, and in Iowa City, there is a determination to be lawful, liberal, and hip. It seems as though Iowans have made it the mission of their state to welcome people back to civilization- the be the frontier of the East Coast, in a way.
     When Katie announced that she was moving from California to Iowa City to start her engineering PhD (my friends are all smarter than me, I'll admit it), she kept insisting to the nonbelievers that it was actually a pretty cool place. And it is! As I delightfully updated my Facebook for the first time in a while, I believe I called it "an oasis of vegan food and WiFi."

Part of the main shopping district

     Iowa City is home to the University of Iowa, a huge and excellent university where both of my parents actually did their medical residencies. It therefore has both excellent hospitals, and a large and diverse student population. Along with students come coffee shops, used bookstores, vintage clothing, and a lot of cool things within walking or biking distance- you know, all the things that make a place hip. Katie, Katy, Caitlin and I (*sigh* I was the only non-Katie/Katy/Caity) spent our day ambling around the cute pedestrianized downtown area, buying vintage clothes we didn't need and admiring the beautifully painted benches that decorate the broad brick walk.

Of course we couldn't resist Revival, a cute little shop that must have come into being when a ladies' boutique and a thrift store fell in love and made beautiful, stylish babies. Shame on me, I bought more clothes when I barely have enough money to feed myself for the rest of the trip. But the prices were so good! Surely I couldn't pass them up!

Next door to Revival is an equally cute little shop called Soap Opera, a shamelessly adorable shop that sells pretty smelling things. Imagine if Bath & Body works used all natural ingredients and sold handmade items instead of mass produced ones. You can find a soap in any delightful-smelling variety, and not be too concerned that the wonderful smells come from artificial chemicals. We had to leave this place before we really did spend all our money.
     To those who do not enjoy reading of girly shopping adventures, my apologies, but perhaps you'll be relieved that our next stop was a place called The Haunted Bookshop. I did not ask the story behind the name, but this little converted house filled to the brim with books definitely seems old and interesting enough to be haunted. I spent perhaps half an hour at at a small round table reading a book from the perspective of Jack Kerouac's first wife, Edie Parker. My inner Beat Generation nerd was so happy. Iowa City students, hipsters, and booklovers- thank you.
     So, Iowa City is hip enough to feed vegans and interest Beat nerds. But it also has a certain venerability to it. The vibe is very different from a coastal city- the brick buildings remind me of gentrified country living, and the air is heavy with humidity and the sound of cicadas. It does not have the bustle and grit of a city like Portland, but rather has the grace and style of a place like Virginia. I feel like Thomas Jefferson or somebody of the sort could live here. Iowa City is trendy and fun, but without the edge that comes with being in a larger city or on the coast. Perhaps the heat and humidity slow it down a little, give it a slight midwestern drawl and even a dash of Southern charm that floated northward.
     I'm both happy and amused to see how well Katie fits in here. She's always had family in Iowa, and I can tell the place suits her. She even has an Iowa accent now. Funny to see where people end up- how being born somewhere doesn't necessarily mean that that is the best place for you. We can adopt the personality of the places we go. It's why some people love San Francisco and some people hate it. Why some people dream of New York while others dream of a place in the country. And why I now have a friend I think of more as Iowan than Californian, even though we grew up in the same town. Best of luck with the PhD, Katie, and happy shopping!

Road Trip Diaries Day 8: 750 Miles of Mostly Corn

     Hello! Today was by far the most driving of the whole road trip- glad to have survived. Driving from Hill City to Iowa City requires driving a very long, very straight route across the entirety of the state of South Dakota, about 2/3 of the way across Minnesota, and then a turn south into a whole lot of Iowa. And Minnesota has terrible roads, so we couldn't even drive faster than 75 mph. There is a lot of corn out here, along with quite a few giant windmills. We could instantly tell that Iowa was more exciting than Minnesota because the windmills here were actually turning. That's some big stuff right there.

In a Nutshell: Overview of Day 8
Route: Hill City, SD to Iowa City, IA
Miles traveled: 756 today, 2,971 total.
Hours in car: 12 today, 50.5 total.
Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 1 cup today, 11 total. Cortney: 1 cup today, 5 total. Combined: 16 cups.
Food highlight of the Day: Breakfast at Bully Blends cafe and pub in Rapid City, SD. They make a strong latte, have a large cafe selection, and they have a bar where they keep Guinness on tap. This place wins at everything, which is why after 4 years I still remembered it and made sure we stopped. I had a cinnamon raisin bagel served with peanut butter, and Caitlin got a pasty with some very carnivorous filling. I don't remember what it was, but it kept her going most of the day. This is probably the coolest place in all of South Dakota.
Quote of the Day: Cortney: "Two hours to go! Let us power through with enthusiasm born of vegetables!" A Subway sandwich can go a long way in making a 12 hour drive more manageable.

Miles and Miles of ...  uh........ 

     The Circle B singers perform a song called "Miles and Miles of Texas." We're not going to Texas, but we sure saw miles and miles of other flat parts of the country. It's interesting how places seek to distinguish themselves out here. The little things become so very important, and will have billboards for hundreds of miles. Wall Drug, for instance, has populated about 50 miles of the area immediately east of Rapid City with so many billboards that we got virtually hypnotized into going there. I have never seen so many billboards for one place- it has to get you wondering. So we pulled off I-90 and followed the signs to Wall Drug. It is so important that there are even signs to tell you there are signs ahead- "Slow! Arrow ahead!" The arrow pointed us into a parking lot- if only all attractions were this well marked. 

     Frankly, Wall Drug was worth it. It is a giant complex of stores that take up most of the tiny town of Wall, South Dakota. You can buy coffee, cowboy boots, and stickers that say "Yay cheese!" You can also buy the heads of various animals, including the rather creative jackalope. 

     Caitlin and I hypothesized that Wall Drug is kind of like that spirit village in the Hayao Miyazaki movie Spirited Away, and we soon grew concerned that we would never be able to leave. There were Stetson hats to try on, and beautiful hand-tooled boots, and carved or polished rocks of all sorts. There was even this handsome cowboy: 

     Eventually, though we did make it out of there, and I had bought nothing more than a rather useful little mortar and pestle.  We were not done with odd, hyped up attractions however. Not in the least. We still had the Corn Palace. It is a good couple hours east of Wall, but still in South Dakota. Billboards proudly proclaim that it is the world's only corn palace. What a great honor. Originally built in the late 1800s, it used to be a building made entirely of corn. It has since become modernized and somewhat less cool, as it is now a rather normal basketball arena that is decorated with corn. The corn decorations are still pretty impressive though. All the artwork on the building is done with corn cobs, while some of the other decorations are done with hay, rye, and other local crops. 

OMG! Corn! It's so exciting! 

A lot of corn on the outside.... what wonders can possibly be within? 

A basketball court... turned market

     So, the corn palace wasn't as remarkable as hoped, but it was free, and it was part of what made the 12 hour drive not feel like a 12 hour drive. When you're driving across the middle of the United States, you have to get your kicks somehow, because most of it looks like this:

 Or maybe this: 

    

     The windmills get to be pretty exciting after a while! They do make for some nice scenery, or at least they gave me something to take way too many photos of. Caitlin had a pleasant herd of windmills waiting for her on her memory card by the end of the day. 

    We did get some excitement in Waterloo, Iowa when we pulled off for gas. It seemed to be a sleepy enough little Iowa town, and we filled up and went back to get on I-380, only to find police cars blocking every onramp. We drove around, Caitlin rather miffed and me trying to convince her to ask for directions while I used my phone to look up what was going on. Were we stuck in some terrible small-town crime? Was a rural crazy coming to get us? Why could we not get back on the Interstate?

     Turns out it was President Obama. We had gotten there exactly 10 minutes before he was to give a campaign speech. 

     Oh the people you encounter on the road. We eventually did get back on 380, and had to go the speed limit the entire rest of the drive because of the police cars on every single overpass. I hope you enjoyed Iowa, President Obama!!! 

I nabbed this one from Google Images.