So it looks like I am going to have to become the ultimate morning person, as I have an 8:00am or 8:30am class every day during my first semester. Boo! Maybe I can convince my body to stay on east coast time and then all my classes will begin at 11:00...? But in happier news, I did figure out how to register for classes today and only bothered 3 or 4 people with inane questions about the registration process, so that is good.

Due to a *slight* error made by Door to Door Shipping (LAME, do not ever use them!!!), our stuff won't be arriving until Tuesday the 12th, so we are basically camping out in our apartment until then. Needless to say, we are NOT pleased, especially since we have hardwood floors, but that is another story for another day. It was probably a bad idea on the part of Door to Door to irritate two very stubborn, OCD people who are unemployed and actually have nothing better to do than sit around and think about taking you to small claims court because they are annoyed that you can't get their stuff to CA in a timely manner.

Since we really didn't have a ton to do, we decided to paint the new apartment (we didn't ask our landlord as we figured it would be better to beg forgiveness then ask permission), which may or may not have been a good idea since we will eventually have to paint back and I selected bright red paint (obviously). The paint looks awesome (pictures soon!) and since we had to leave our ground floor windows open to air out our apartment several neighbors poked their heads in the window from outside (literally) to say hi. They seem like a pretty interesting bunch...

In addition, we are struggling through the moving-to-a-new-place-and-registering-for-a-zillion-services process. I have been trying to explain to Mike that living in the land of liberals means that so much stuff is regulated and many fees must be paid for different services, which was going well...until he got a parking ticket…

Day 5 on…July 30-August 5, 2008:
Yellowstone National Park; Grand Teton National Park; Boise, Idaho; Lake Tahoe; CALIFORNIA!!!

Passengers: 3
Speeding tickets: 2

We have been traveling through national parks galore and haven’t had reliable access to the Internets or cell service, which is why I have not been answering your calls and letters in a timely fashion ☺. But tonight I bit the bullet and paid $4.95 to use the Internet at our campground so I thought I would post to the blog. Mike isn’t a big fan of paying for the Internet, but I think that if I post to the blog I can convince him that we are getting a better Internet “unit price.”

Tonight we are camping on the south end of Lake Tahoe in California and tomorrow we arrive in Berkeley. For the past week or so, we have traveled through Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park which were rife with small children and adults with fanny packs. But the scenery was beautiful. Even the forests in Yellowstone that were burned by a huge fire (a “control burn” that got out of control in 1988) were eerily peaceful. It was a strange feeling to drive through a forest of burned trees, but it reminded me of how big the park is and how people really only experience a very small part of it. Hopefully we will go back and get off the “beaten path.” (And hopefully we won’t have to…exit, pursued by a bear...hehe. Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)

Grand Teton was by far our favorite park as it was less crowded and full of easily accessible outdoor activities (we hiked and kayaked before I got cranky and needed food that was not PB and J…). And we saw bison which kind of look like their faces are covered brown shag carpet. In fact, when we saw a bison it was sticking its head into a bush, I think to scratch its itchy carpet-face?

We also had a fabulous time visiting the Curtis-Heidt-White family in Boise, which is in the thick of wedding preparations. I am sure I will have tons of stories and pictures after I return to Boise in a week and a half for the big event. (I have to wait to post embarrassing stories about Jenn online until AFTER she has left for her honeymoon and interviewed for important lawyering jobs for next summer…)

Tonight we had by far one of the most hilarious experiences of the trip. We decided (I honestly can’t remember why…it totally SEEMED like a brilliant idea) to eat at the “Lake Tahoe Chinese Buffet.” Normally, I am totally anti-Chinese buffet because they seem like a public heath nightmare. But we were starving and having something other than a sandwich sounded amazing.

Every single shady person in the Lake Tahoe area (I didn’t know there were ANY!) was dining there, including a man who seriously ate every piece of shrimp in the restaurant. As we left, a California police officer came in to eat. We later drove by again and saw him shaking down some youth in the parking lot. I think perhaps the delinquent youth of Tahoe frequent the Chinese Buffet and cause trouble?

I have loved this trip, which ends tomorrow, but I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had a source of income and did not have school hanging over my head. Don’t get me wrong…I am looking forward to starting school, but all of the move-in and registration and such will be stressful. I am the kind of person who needs to have all of her markers lined up in color order before the first day of school and that has been difficult while traveling. I think this has been taking a toll on my normal level of patience…

Days 3 and 4, Monday and Tuesday, July 28-29, 2008: Naperville/Chicago, Illinois to Lincoln, Nebraska to Rapid City, South Dakota

Passengers: 3
Bags of chocolate: melted
Speeding tickets: 1

So wow…a lot has happened in the last 48 hours. We left Clare’s house and picked up Daniel at Midway. We then drove across Illinois and Iowa to Nebraska. This part of the trip can be summed up as follows:

1. Google “corn” and pull up an image of a corn plant.
2. Stare at it for 8 hours.
3. Get a speeding ticket.

But our long drive across America’s breadbasket was rewarded in Lincoln, where we met up with the fabulous J Jones, Ed Gerrish, and company. Lincoln was a very charming city and what seemed to me to be the gateway to the West. The vibe changed from one of people of the corn to one of more Western (dare I say it?) rugged individualism.

I wasn’t so sure at first because in order to reach Jonathan’s we had to pass a very large “Jesus Only” sign, which did not bode well for a Jew in the Midwest… But it turns out that Lincoln has a very large immigrant population, especially of Sudanese, because people are relocated to Lincoln by the Office of Immigration Services (is that the right name of the office?). Jonathan is also writing a fabulous pro-comprehensive immigration reform editorial for his local paper.

Jonathan and Ed were able to suggest an alternate route from Lincoln to Yellowstone since we had planned to cut across the entire state of Nebraska on Interstate 80, which is apparently the most boring road on earth. I am not going to lie, I was kind of scared when Jonathan circled Valentine, Nebraska on the map and told us to fill up on gas there because there would be no gas for a while…and apparently if there is gas, since there are often gas shortages people with access to said limited gas do not give it to non-locals. Ack!

Anyways, after filling up on gas and Coke products in Nebraska (and sadly after I had to stop at Wal-Mart to get bottled water and fruit, because there was NO OTHER OPTION…but don’t worry, I only spent $8.10…and I felt bad because a lot of people in that Wal-Mart looked extremely busted), we cut up into South Dakota so that we could see the Badlands (home to the indigenous black-footed ferret!), the Black Hills, and Mount Rushmore. Can you name all of the presidents on Mount Rushmore? We are not technically there yet, but I will keep you posted as to who they are.

You might have noticed that I have not mentioned Mike very much in this post. Sadly on this trip while we were fording a river with the help of the Indians, Mike contracted Typhoid. I suppose I shouldn’t have had us traveling at such a grueling pace…

Addendum for Mike’s parents and all others who were not born in the 1980s: Mike does not actually have Typhoid. Please Google “Oregon Trail Computer Game.”

Picture 1: Mike and his speeding ticket.
Picture 2: Daniel in trucker gear at a random gas station.
Picture 3: Badlands!
Picture 4: Badlands 2!

Day 2, Sunday, July 27, 2008: Ann Arbor, Michigan to Naperville/Chicago, Illinois

Passengers: 2
Bags of chocolate: 2

Hello again, this time from the Central Time Zone! The new theme of this trip is “A Duck A Day,” and I have included a picture of today’s duck(s) from the Naperville, Illinois Riverwalk.

After a healthy dose of English-major cynicism over breakfast with the much-missed Leslie and Doug, we headed west to Chicago. It is a good thing we love Leslie, Doug, and the sandwiches we had so much or else this day might have started off on a sour note due to a very bad pickle. But seriously, the pickle I had tasted like a cucumber and it was kind of gross. Doug commented that the order-takers at Zimmerman’s Deli should really come up with a better marketing technique for their pickles and I agree. When you walk in and order a sandwich, they ask you if you would like a “new crispy pickle or an old garlicky pickle.” I mean, would you ever choose to have an old garlicky pickle? As Doug said “I would never choose a pickle when the description of that pickle could also apply to my grandfather.” Truth.

Anyways…on to Chicago. I slept through most of the drive, but apparently we passed the circus en route to…somewhere. Or maybe Mike just made that up because he was annoyed that I was sleeping.

We are staying with the Family Sierawski in Naperville, a suburb of Chicago. To be honest, after the puke incident, I am so thankful to be sleeping in a real bed! Two parents and at times seven children live here, but right now we have the run of the house and so are doing the only logical thing…watching the flatscreen TV in our PJs and using the wireless Internet ☺.

Tomorrow we pick up Daniel and continue on to Lincoln, where they have a unicameral legislature and the fabulous Jonathan Jones.

Addendum: Mike wants to clarify that we actually had LUNCH and not BREAKFAST or BRUNCH because we ate sandwiches.

Day 1, Saturday, July 26, 2008:
Washington, DC to Ann Arbor, Michigan (via Pittsburgh and Cleveland)

Passengers: 2
Bags of chocolate: 3
Number of stops because Sarah had to go to the bathroom at an undesignated time: countless…

Today, we left DC after more than three years for me and almost two years for Mike and began our journey to the West Coast. I am new to the personal blog-o-sphere so I am not sure how much background information is appropriate, but we are heading across America (yay America!) en route to Berkeley, California so that I can begin graduate school and Mike can…hopefully be employed soon and support my lavish student lifestyle. I am no Perez Hilton (and I promise we won’t be seeing any celebrities en route), but hopefully this will be interesting and informative and allow me to avoid sending mass e-mails, which I always BCC to people so I can pretend that I am sending everyone a personalized e-mail.

Mike has been hoping that “something cool will happen so we can write about it in our blog,” but unfortunately, rural Pennsylvania and Ohio aren’t that interesting… which is probably why we have an entire CD full of songs about California but none bout this area of the country. I suppose every coastal elitist should make this pilgrimage at least once. And what better way for us to begin our all-American trip than in a blue station wagon with Daniel, my little brother, who we will pick up in Chicago.

I suppose that this is an appropriate beginning to our trip because this is the land of (some of) my ancestors and one should really know where one is coming from before traveling far from home. However, Mike did point out as we reached the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio that “we seem to be entering an area where people grow stuff.” True. And I kind of have a weird obsession with silos, which abound along our route along with fields of (probably) corn.

Tonight we will be camping just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan and doing a test run of our tent, which will be our home for our time in Yellowstone. Read: after 8 hours in the car Mike and I will inevitably not be able to set up our tent, whose directions are probably translated into English from Chinese (where is Clare Sierawski when you need her?!?) and it will probably be raining. But nevertheless, I am excited to be on the road and to have all of our stuff packed and shipped. And Mike is excited to show me where he went to graduate school and take me to Zingerman’s Deli, a restaurant which he promises has “a lot of fancy cheeses like you like to eat.”

Picture 1: Subie Sue packed and on the road.
Picture 2: Yay, we set up our tent (and it was still light outside!)
Picture 3: Our neighbor was living in an RV at the campground with a swimming pool full of ducks. Not Kidding. (Our other neighbors were 30-somethings who got ridiculously drunk and woke up in the middle of the night and puked all over their tent and then proceeded to scream at each other about whether puke would come out of a tent...LOVE it.)

So…I have joined the blog-o-sphere. And, as per usual, my technological exploits are occurring 3 years after everyone else’s (see—I am not even sure if blog-o-sphere is one word or hyphenated).

I would pretend that I started this blog for some higher purpose (informing America about relevant political issues, advocating for social justice, encouraging people to eat 5-7 daily servings of fresh fruits and vegetables), but if you know me, you would know that this would be a lie. I really just needed a venue to air my feelings about the South and various other ridiculous happenings.

Ed thinks this won’t last longer than a month…and he is probably right. But at least that is 300 minutes (30 days times 10 minutes each day) during which I will be less tempted to purchase shoes online…

In the words of Clare: “Yeah, blog, yeah!!!”