the long and not-winding road (or: a bit about the first half of my trip to my new home)

So, to move all my stuff (and myself) from point A to point B, I drove a rented minivan with everything packed in the back. All by myself. For about 2200 miles. It was quite the adventure.

I left point A (aka Utah) at 6:30 p.m. the first day. Yes, I know, I'm crazy to leave so late. But I just wanted to get part of the driving over with. The problem was, the hotel that I booked was on the far side of Wyoming. And it took 7-ish hours to drive there. And I had to, uh, stop a couple times. Ergo, I wouldn't get there until 3:00 a.m. But I had to keep driving until I got to my hotel, because I had reserved it with a credit card and if I didn't cancel by 6:00 p.m. (which I didn't), they would charge my card whether I came or not.

So I went with the "I came" option. This meant that I needed to keep my mind engaged and somewhat entertained during hours of driving at night, which I did with awesome energized CDs. And, in the early morning hours, a mind game that involved eating Doritos. The game probably sounds lame, because it is, so I won't bother trying to explain it. But at 2:04 a.m., it was genius-level. I was pretty much Einstein, and more importantly, I was fully awake when I finally got to my hotel parking lot forty-five minutes later.

However, there was a definite side effect to my genius game. Eating Cool Ranch Doritos one at a time and spaced ten-ish minutes apart means that the taste of the salt and onion and whatever else coats a chip is very pronounced. And tastes weird, actually. I only ate 15 or so chips, but I was really sick of the taste by the time the game (of genius-marathon-driving-champions!) was over. I bet that's why people normally eat lots of chips at parties and such; if they keep eating, they don't have time to get that weird aftertaste. I suppose that's good advice, too - eat slowly and you won't eat as much. Wow, my brilliance astounds even me. If only science could give us such great advice. Sigh.

So I didn't check out of my hotel until almost noon, thus prompting a pattern of leaving hotels later and getting to the next night's hotel later than I had hoped. Anyway, the previous night, I had driven through almost all of Wyoming. In the dark, so I didn't get to see the lush forests and cascading waterfalls and prancing deer. Wait, no, everyone tells me that Wyoming is five parts desert, two parts truck stops, and seventeen parts boredom. Which, based on the last 40 miles of Wyoming that I did see, is basically true. No offense to any Wyomingers out there. I'm sure it's a great place to live. But not to drive through.

The, um, less interesting part of my journey was not over, though. Because the next state I drove through was Nebraska! Motto: "Like Wyoming, except longer. Not by a lot. But still." The upside: well, it was sunny that day. So the sky was a pretty shade of blue.



See? And for your enjoyment, here's a picture of me in all my sunglasses glory.



Thrilling, I know. Now back to our regularly scheduled travelogue. Another good thing about Nebraska was that the rest stops had lots of trees. That was not unusual from here eastward, but unlike many other states, trees did not seem to grow as abundantly in Nebraska. Which means that the trees at the rest stops were deliberately placed there, and that made a travel stop seem kind of like an oasis. Well done, Nebraska-Rest-Stop-Landscape-Planning committee.

So on day the second, I drove all the way through Nebraska and stayed in Council Bluffs, which is just barely inside Iowa. By this time, I was almost halfway through my trip. Which means that you're almost halfway through reading about it! But I'm done writing for tonight, and you probably have a regularly scheduled life to get back to. So I will, most magnanimously, save the rest for another day.

Uh, you may be dismissed.