West to East Via Photos and Captions

From whence I came.


About 6 seconds into the trip we started taking "cool dudes" shots. Like, here we are, 2 cool dudes on the road, living the dream, completely free, totally untethered...


...except for that one huge metallic tether.

Eastern Oregon

Smitty: "You know what this place needs? Statues. Really, really big statues. Like the ones they have in The Lord of the Rings."

Me: "Yup."

Like the Magi, we were guided by a star. Unlike the Magi, we were also guided by a purple ball and some sort of fish. They kept telling us to go forward.

That lead to a nice riff on what the heck a goldfish could possibly be thinking in his tiny little brain.

"He's got to be just swimming around his little bowl thinking, 'Hey! There's a castle in here! When did they put that in here?

Hey guys, have you seen there's a castle in here? Gosh, I wonder what's inside. I bet there's a King and every...

...You know what I like? Swimming. You guys want to go for a swim? Cool. Let's all swim.

Counterclockwise, eh? Sweet. Yeah, clockwise is sweet too.

Holy crap, there's a castle in here! You guys want to swim through that castle? I wonder when they put that in here.

Swim swim swim! SUUUUUUWWWWWIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMMIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!

A castle! Man. I never thought I'd get to see one of those up close. Hey there, Mr. Castle, want to swim? No? Not a swimmer? Hey, have you heard they put a castle in here? Oh, right. Of course you have! Ha! So, how about a swim then?"

At some point Smitty said, "Boy, those colors are awesome." And I said, "WHAT colors?" That's when we realized that we had totally different views of the world, and the reason we had totally different views was because of our sunglasses.

Mine:

His.


No idea where this is.

Swim swim swim.

Castle!

Somewhere out west we encountered a herd of wild mules, which lead to the question: does it still count as being wild if no one wants to tame you? And that was kind of sad, thinking of those poor mules, living out in the middle of nowhere, and all they want is for someone to stop, throw open the back door of the sedan, and invite them home for a nice turkey dinner.

If they could only write, they'd be standing by the side of the road with placards that read, "Please Take Us Home. We'll Do Tricks.”


The moon rising as we approach Salt Lake City.

Ah... springtime in Wyoming. All the ashen trees are in bloom, and the mud birds are heralding the blossoming of the first sepia flowers. And the rains have come, transforming the barren land into a rippling cascade of khaki, russet, and taupe.

Get me the hell out of here.

Colorado!

Helen, meet the world. World, Helen. Helen was our host in Boulder, CO. She gave us wine and tacos. My friend Marcia was there too, and gave us a bag of G.O.R.P.
Side note: Helen has two 15-pound cats. Marcia has one 25-pound cat. If they ever fought, my money would be on the two smaller cats. I've seen Marcia's cat in action. Not a drop of fight in him. He's a big, fat, wuss.

Eastern Colorado.

Way back when we left Oregon - all of 2.5 days ago - we shared a goodbye breakfast with two of my professors at the Oregon Extension. One thing Smitty and I took away from that morning's conversation: the song of this one sort of duck (maybe a Wood Duck?) is "Squeee! Squeee! Kip kip kip!"

So Smitty decided that it would be a barometer of our friendship during the trip. Whenever one of us yelled out, "Squeee! Squeee!" the other person had to answer with, "Kip kip kip!" As long as squeee was answered with kip, our friendship was secure. Failure to kip meant there was trouble in paradise.

Not a bad system, really.

It was somewhere in Iowa that we got to talking about the relative strength of Smitty's various body odors, and how if you looked hard enough you could actually see the smells wafting up from certain parts of his body like horrible genies.

Then we talked ourselves through a battle between his armpit odor-genie and his foot odor-genie, wherein his armpit genie was fighting with a big stick of salami, and his foot genie was armed with a rotting fish. I forget who won.


After a long day on the road, we were warmly welcomed in Des Moines by Nicole's parents, Mike and Kim, and their 8 cats. They gave us pizza! They also gave us a u-haul worth of things to DC.


One thing to think about on your next road trip: how much barbed wire is there in the US? My guess, shooting straight from the hip, is 500,000 miles of barbed wire.

Things to consider:
- The US is roughly 3,000 miles across and 1,200 miles from north to south (give or take.)
- The Northeast is not heavily fenced, nor are urban areas.
- Each fence usually consists of at least three strands.


Castle!

The cool dudes ride again. I think this was about the point in the trip where Smitty told me about his friend who was such a prude that his worst swearword was "dipcrap."

We met The Mellon (note the size of his head) in Chicago. While we ate pulled-pork sandwiches, he told us a great story about almost being arrested last month for stealing a car from the dealership he worked for. The title of the story is APB on the Mellon.

Sunset in the rear view mirror as we race towards Cleveland.

We got tired... and went a little loopy.

The next morning, we awoke to this. For a clue has to how I'm feeling about this situation, compare this photo to the photo at the top of this post.

All tuckered out.

Still, we arrived safely.

2,891 miles in 4.5 days.

Squeee! Squeee!
Kip kip kip!