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.)