Point L: Manistique

Start drive time: 9:44 AM EST
End drive time: 2:29 PM EST
Pit stops: Gaylord, Naubinway, Gould City
Miles driven today: 244
Total miles driven this trip: 3,282 (anyone care to double-check my math?)
Total number of miles past needing an oil change: 282

OH HEY YOU GUYS, WE MADE IT!!! A lot of people were like "There's no way your janky car is going to make it across the country" and "I can't guarantee the suspension rods aren't going to just shoot right up into the body of your car" and "A broken windshield probably won't shatter on you and kill you, but it is going to get worse and you can also get a ticket" BUT JAMES CARVILLE HAS DEMONSTRATED THAT HE IS A SUPERIOR CAR TO ALL OTHER $500 CARS AND IS STILL KICKIN' IT LIKE A G.

Darn tootin' we will. We, like Limp Bizkit and Method Man, are N 2 Gether Now (and Forever More)

Haters, please follow the signs to the left. Mechanics, please follow me to where CARville is currently taking a breather. Give him all the fluids! He's earned them! Bottle service with the finest motor oil in the land!

North of the 45th Parallel is my JAM. We've got snow. We've got trees. We've got so many lakes that there aren't enough names for them in the English language. Neil Gaiman described winter in the Northwoods as "science fiction cold" but I don't even care, yo, because the skies are blue, the sun is shining, and like the proprietor at the gas station in Naubinway said in a heavy Yooper accent, "If you want 75 degrees, move to Florida. Look outside, everywhere you look it's a Christmas card here." Praise Breesus, you are correct, sir.

OH! Where do I even start? It's the U.P.! I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I think I just piddled!

Yup. I definitely peed myself. And not because it's scary to drive across the Mighty Mac. IT'S BECAUSE WE'RE ON THE GATEWAY TO THE UPPER PENINSULA

For my non-UP readership, this post will not be the final word I have to say about the Upper Peninsula. I don't like to make promises that I can't keep, but since CARville is still functional and I have a whole lot of friends and some adorable nieces and nanny-babies in Marquette, I intend to share more about the glory of the UP, so consider this an introduction to the place that I never stop talking about because it's better than all the other places.

So da first stop yer gon'ta wan'ta make in da UP is gon'ta be down to da Mystery Spot in St. Ignace. Now I've never been'ta da Mystery Spot myself, but I heer it is a magical place dat defies all laws uv science and physics and your car moves and eggs stand on der heads and I don' even KNOW what else der is. Anywho, I had some time'ta kill so I mozied on down to da Mystery Spot only to see dis:

Closed?!?! What a complete crockpot full of elk turds.

Naturally, I was disappointed. (Can we all agree that the attempt to capture local dialect was just not working and you were probably just as embarrassed reading it as I was writing it? Ain't nobody got time for that. Cue the return to Standard American English:) NOW I WILL NEVER KNOW THE MYSTERY! And there are more mysteries! Like, why is it closed? Who put that sign up? What kind of gift shop treasures am I missing out on? THERE COULD BE LIFE-CHANGING SOUVENIRS. 

DON'T WORRY, I FOUND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO SHOP JUST DOWN THE ROAD

Can you guys just check out the blue skies in all these pictures? It is balls cold, there's (there are? I still have only a tenuous grasp on grammar at best) four inches of fresh snow on the ground but the sun is shining, there's no wind, and in the words of Edna, the adventurous protagonist of Antoinette Porter's groundbreaking and challenging A Penguin Story observed, the arctic lands are "blue, blue, blue forever."

OKAY. WHERE WERE WE?

Notes on pasties: About 800 million jokes have been made about how outsiders mispronounce the name of the national dish of Yooperland; or rather, one joke has been made ad nauseum. Occasionally, Yoopers make kitschy postcards with pictures of ladies wearing Stormy Kromers on their heads and pastry-wrapped pockets of meat-and-rutabega wholesomeness on their knockers and that's great and all, but pasties are too hot to put your boobs in. That is not responsible advertising. I still have third-degree burn scarring on my areolas. 

Notes on euchre: In spite of the fact that a large majority of Yoopers are proficient euchre players, it is nearly impossible to collect four players at one time in one location. Some theorists believe that the unique magnetic forces at play in the mineral-rich Upper Peninsula prevent the laws of attraction from allowing too many euchre players to gather before geomagnetic fields trigger a repulsion response. This phenomenon can generally be overcome by tricking a non-euchre player into joining (as new players do not carry the same magnetic charge as veterans), although the social pressure necessary to convert a non-euchre player into a fourth typically requires vast quantities of alcohol, incessant pleas, relentless insistence, and frequently, bribery.

Notes on beards: As per Article 7, Section 42.16a of the Constitution of the State of Michigan of 1963, all men residing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are "required, with full force of the state backing the mandate, to wear a beard not less than 1 mm in length and not more than 100 mm in length. Mustaches without beards, goatees, muttonchops, and other unapproved facial hair will be considered violations of the law and offenders will be sent to internment camps ("deer camp") during the period of November 15-30 until they have grown the requisite facial hair and can be rehabilitated into society."

Notes on hunting: The opening day of regular firearm deer hunting season (November 15) is a high holy day in the Upper Peninsula. This is not a joke. We don't have to go to school on November 15 because the teachers aren't going to be there. A new superintendent came to our school district my senior year of high school and did mark November 15 as a holiday and there was mutiny in response. Teachers and students alike banded together to break every. single. window. in Manistique Middle and High School and hung the superintendent in effigy from the flag pole, dressed in hunter orange camouflage. The rebellion lasted two weeks and then everyone chilled out and forgot all about it until the following November.

(Author's note: This concludes regular blogging for now. I've got Christmas crafting to finish, hours of reality TV to watch, maybe some more cover letters to write, friends to see, cookies to eat, moms to get drunk with...I'm going to be pretty busy and CARville's going to be taking a break. And let's be honest, he's the star of the blog. No one gives a crockpot full of elk turds about me blogging about watching 12 hours of Teen Mom while knitting, right?Right. It okay.)

Point K: Marion

Start drive time: 4:28 PM EST
End drive time: 8:46 PM EST
Pit stops: Grand Blanc, Birch Run
Miles driven today: oh crap. I lost track. Let's say 186
Total miles driven this trip: 3,038 (give or take...I'M NOT AN ACCOUNTANT)
Number of anti-abortion signs seen on the side of the road: I don't even wanna talk about it. Just know that Lower Michigan is on my poop list too

I could be really pedantic right now and write about flying into Romulus (an entire blog post about sleeping with my mouth open in terminals!) or sleeping for 20 hours in my sister's dorm room bed in Ypsilanti (because if you can't turn Arrested Development jokes into real-life situations, UR DOING IT WRONG), but let's just fast-forward through the fact that I spent wayyyyyy longer on a college campus than is appropriate and move on to the next portion of my trip.

Ugggghhhhhh. They changed Google Maps and I don't know how to deal with new aesthetics...we fear change

Oh hey, moar Michigan! Let's play with haikus today:

Desolate farmland
Interspersed with industry
That's pretty much it

Need an abortion?
You have to buy insurance
Thanks, legislature

Sorry, 'merica
For giving you Ted Nugent
But "Fred Bear" was cool

It's not "DMV"
It's "Secretary of State"
But it sucks the same

Kwame Kilpatrick
Needs to put his phone away
I can't unread that

My grandparents live in the kind of rural 'merica where the ratio of evangelical nondenominational churches to humans is 32:1 and anti-abortion signs outnumber stop signs by a REAL gross majority. Ugggggghhhhhhh. My little sister is an undergrad, which means that she's way more tolerant than I am about everything and since she just used her meal plan to buy me ice cream, I will attempt to channel the spirit of Sisterbutt and not be a total wad right now about how vast swathes of the Lower Peninsula are the WORST.
Must. Resist. Backwater. Jokes.

Jesus wud resist the temptation to comment on this. Jesus wud be very gud. 

Michigan had a President. That's cool. He's famous for Chevy Chase inaccurately portraying him as clumsy and for not even remotely being elected by the Electoral College. He also was all like "Yo, Nixon. It okay. Don't be cry. Have you ever seen how ugly turkeys is? I forgive them, so I forgive you. You're less ugly than a turkey."

See? Farmland is pretty. Icicles are pretty. CARville is....still not the prettiest girl at the ball

This part of Michigan also has Amish people. Although most people associate the Amish with horse-drawn buggies, candlelight, and hella dope quiltwork, the history of this group in Michigan is a bit....seedier. Prior to their adoption of the symbols of simple living that we now associate with Mennonites, Amish-Americans had built a large metropolis that spanned most of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and was known as Yoderopolis. This city had a reputation for being one of history's most decadent bins of iniquity, famous for its bright lights, garish decor, and loud music. After a long weekend in Yoderopolis, the Marquis de Sade was quoted as saying "I have seen some sick things in my day, but never, NEVER, have I witnessed the indescribable acts that occur openly on the streets of this antechamber of Hell." The Marquis died of a fever several days later but The City That'll Try Anything Once continued to lure in the innocent and dispatch jaded, drug-addled burnouts into the region for decades to come. Only after a particularly bacchanalian orgy in 1937 that resulted in a devastating fire, decimation of livestock, and record numbers of misspelled tattoos of ex-lovers names on derrieres did the Amish community pull themselves off the floor and ask themselves "What am I doing with my life?" and mend their wicked ways. The following decade was spent drinking vast quantities of coconut water and re-aligning their priorities until they came to develop the framework for modern-day, sustainable Amish living. 

Point J: Hartford

Start travel time: 5:04 AM
End travel time: 5:52 PM
Modes of transportation: foot, train, bus, unicycle
Number of hours added to my trip by rush hour traffic: 2

Oh right, I went to New York for a reason other than hanging out with my cool friends doing cool things in a cool city. I have to go to Hartford for an interview.

Going to an interview sleep-deprived is really never a stellar idea (did you guys read the story that says that going to work tired is like going to work drunk? What happens if you go to work tired AND drunk? Does an interview count as work? Because it FEELS like work and it's IN a workplace. Maybe I shouldn't be drunk) but I was really excited to go to my friend's work party and eat meatballs and play skeeball all night. However, this was sandwiched between not sleeping much the night before and having to wake up at 4 AM to look presentable before leaving at 5 AM to take the train to Port Authority so I could be on time for my bus to leave for Hartford at 6 AM.

But I need a job so it's time to double up on pastries and just DEAL WITH IT.

Cue sleeping on the bus for two-and-a-half hours.

I don't remember how I got here but I'm pretty sure this is Connecticut

People in Hartford were so friendly it was alarming. Every person who I passed on the street had a genuine interest in how my day was going. The woman who told me that her store was running a special deal where you get $150 off if you spend $500 (ON WHAT? WHAT COULD I POSSIBLY WANT HERE THAT COSTS---oh, that skirt is $735? Oh. I get it.), instead of pulling a Pretty Woman on me, she shook my hand, introduced herself to me, wasn't a d-bag about my line of work, and was just wayyyy nice. So was everybody in the city. Did the organization I interviewed with pay people to be friendly to trick me into staying? Was this a bait-and-switch in which I would accept the job and then everyone would be all like "Psych! Now we're going to pour paint in your hair and put spiders in your tea"? Were they all high? I don't know. But it creeped me out so I switched my bus ticket so I could run back to New York where people would yell at me again and everything would be normal.

I mean, I could have stayed a little longer to try to break into the old Colt factory or gotten a bunch of insurance quotes from literally anyone in the city. Maybe I should have gotten the insurance quotes before breaking into the gun factory.

Big mistake. Big. Huge.

Thanks to rush hour (the traffic, not the multi-million dollar Jackie Chan franchise), I got to add two additional hours to my trip back to New York, over one hour of which was spent crawling in Manhattan and 4.5 hours of which were spent with me being hungry and sleep-deprived. Readers who know me well know that I turn into a monster when:
a. I am hungry
b. I am stuck in traffic and trying to get somewhere
c. Republicans do things like passing rape insurance bills in Michigan
Unfortunately for everyone within stomping distance, we were in for a hat trick.

When I boarded the bus at 1:30 after having consumed only a cheese-and-raspberry croissant and a pumpernickel bagel all day (yum, amirite?), I thought, "NBD. Food can happen at 4 PM after a nice nap and I'm going to get back to New York early enough to try to get a cronut and then I'm going to hang out with my friends and things are going to be great." But the guy sitting behind me on the bus smelled funky and kept getting calls from his friends and I kept getting calls about jobs and the level of hunger was building to crescendo of panicked cries from my blood-sugar depleted brain.

As we inched past Central Park and down 5th Avenue and my phone kept blowing up because my friends aren't psychic and didn't know that I couldn't hear because steam was coming out of my ears, the tension rose to an unsustainable level and the homunculi that operate the switch boards in my brain decided it was time to Hulk out and I ripped my clothes off, tore the bolted-down seats out of the floor and threw them through the window to release the trapped passengers and ran growling through the streets in search of sustenance. I saw a sign for New York-style pizza and pointed and grunted that I wanted the piece of pizza that had four whole chickens and an ocean of buffalo sauce on it and nearly knocked over the pregnant woman who was standing in between me and paying (I'M SORRY, BABY, YOU CAN EAT THE PLACENTA. I NEED FUD NOW!) and breathed in the slice of pizza in 7.3 seconds and daintily wiped the corners of my mouth with a napkin and I was a person again.

Then I had a totally great evening hanging out with all my New York friends and my friend Lauren came up from Jersey AGAIN to see me and rescue me when I lost my metro pass right before returning to the airport.

Oh wait, we're at the end of the post and nobody knows anything about Hartford because I left after spending 4 hours there. Breakdown of my trip to Hartford:
Hour #1: Try to look not puffy and wrinkly and find worksite
Hour #2: Try to sound not like an idiot when answering where I see myself in five years
Hour #3: Try to get a sense of what the city feels like
Hour #4: Try to change my bus ticket to leave sooner because this city is too clean and quiet and friendly

A poem? Will that suffice?

Hartford,where I left my ford of hearts so long ago this day
On thy snow-covered greens in Bushnell Park where I lay
Staring at the arch erected to remember sailors and soldiers
Battling blood-thirsty enemies bolstered by gallons of Folgers 
I watch as insurance companies flee the city walls
Claiming that paying their fair share of taxes is balls
Harriet Beecher Stowe and Samuel Clemens turn in their graves
To witness how the corporate person behaves
In a city that rivals only Brownville, Texas in poverty
We are finding that trickle-down doesn't work so properly
Hartford, what has become of one of the wealthiest cities in the nation?
Was it the loss of the Hartford Whalers that caused this degradation?
But Hartford shall return one day to its former state of glory
Or end up saying "You don't know me" on Maury.

Point I: New York City

Arrive at DTW: 12:30 PM EST

Depart DTW: 6:50 PM EST

Arrive at LGA: 8:02 PM EST

Arrive at final destination: 10:04 PM EST

Miles driven: none miles
Miles of subway traveled on: 482

James CARville was a little but bummed out about not coming on this leg of the trip, but honestly, he's better for it. I won't waste this space to repeat New York traffic cliches but I will reveal a little known secret about one of my special talents: I am conversant in cargalese, the language of cars (It's mandatory in the state of Michigan to take cargalese classes each semester from 2nd-12th grade). Some of the honking I was privileged to overhear today was deeply illuminating.  

"You, sir, are violating the sacred right-of-way of vehicles which have received permission to proceed."

"Milady, I fear that you may have entered into the thoroughway of motorized vehicles where it is presently a grave danger for pedestrians to venture."

"I will CUT YOU if you pause for more than half a second after this light changes to green, motherfu---" 

I took a few days off from blogging because there is so much fun to be had in New York that I pretty much didn't sleep the whole time I was there. Except the time I fell asleep on the subway and missed my stop on the way to the airport. Or the other time I fell asleep on the subway and woke up in Brighton Beach at 6 AM. Or the time I fell asleep on the bus to my interview and my face was still puffy when I got there. If it's in motion, imma fall asleep on it. My New York friends thought it was hardcore that I passed out as often as I did in public and didn't die or get robbed or eaten by subway rats. Ain't nothin' but a G(train) thing, baby.

Do you see the rats? Did they scurry away faster than I can take a picture? No, they're there. Trust me. I counted at least 87 separate rats on this rail alone in the time it took to retrieve my phone from my pocket, unlock it, point and snap. They move so fast. 

New York is soooooooooooooo great. I know that cities bum me out pretty hard because concrete is ugly and skyscrapers make me feel like I'm a louse about to be brushed off the scalp of the earth by an over-eager teacher's aide using a comb made out of 400-foot-tall buildings (that's a normal feeling, right?!?!), and the number of people is overwhelming because how are you going to find out everyone's favorite flavor of cupcake if you see 800,000 of them every day and that's not even all the people in the city and is it even possible to make friends when there are so many people to choose from that you might pick the one person who likes the poop-flavored cupcakes and then you're like "Crap! I invested so much time into getting to know this one person instead of the other 799,999 people I could have befriended and she likes the grossest cupcakes in the world! How is that even a thing and why didn't I know that poop cupcakes existed? What kind of market supports that? I mean, other than my new bestie." 

The same market that spends four hours in line for a cronut supports it. That's who.
(Actually this is a really delicious gingerbread, chocolate thing from the Dominique Ansel Bakery served to me by the nicest barista on the planet because I was wayyyyyyyy too late for cronuts or the kouign amann but whateva, I wanted to see why people are going so insane over pastries)

But New York is so big and so cool, that you forget that anything exists outside of the city and it becomes your reality and you realize that all other cities in the world are second-rate pretenders that try and fail to be New York and this is the reason why people want to live in a city. Because all of the things are here.

There are some real good noms in New York. I didn't eat at any of the $300-per-person-and-everything-on-the-menu-is-a-concept-rather-than-a-dish places but I had some delightful culinary experiences in Hell's Kitchen (cheese!!!!) and Brooklyn (meat!!!!) and found my favorite little chocolate croissants in a bakery in Williamsburg that previously I had thought were only available in metro stations in Budapest. Also, I coat-checked a lamb kebab at the MoMA because you don't throw away Zagat-rated leftovers just because you can't eat your lunch in front of Starry Night.

Not pictured here: angry coat check people who had to smell goat meat for five hours

Can we talk about MoMA for a hot minute? That museum is AWESOME. And I was lucky enough to be there at the same time as a really great Rene Magritte exhibit, so I got to see The Luvuhs and The Train Coming Out of a Fireplace and Trippy Drug Dreams #487: Girl Eats A Raw Bird. Unfortunately, I Have An Apple for a Face was not on display (My honors art history prof is going to be soooooooo proud of me for remembering all the titles of these seminal works). All the who's-whos were there: Seurat, Dali, Ernst, Klimt, Monet, O'Keefe, Johns, that guy who splatters paint on canvasses, Mondrian, that other guy who paints the canvass one color, Kahlo, Picasso, that girl who broke up the Beatles...the list goes on and on.

In Death Candy, the artist's very fine rendition of the UFO-shaped wafer candies with the tart sugar inside rejects the ephemeral nature of childhood and subverts the paradigm that dictates that all perishable comestibles must be subsumed by the eater in a timely manner before the inevitable decay that returns all organic matter to the elements renders it inedible. In this piece, the artist has immortalized the candy, demonstrating that the triumphant cardboard-like-nuggets can, in fact, consume the child, by turning the edges of the work into razor-sharp blades that decimate everything in its path.
Donated by the Arthur T. Slugworth Foundation for Art that Kills Children

After MoMA, I trekked across the vast wildlands of Central Park, battling cat-sized squirrels, aggressive sellers of refrigerator magnets, and frostbitten brides wielding bouquets like weapons and broken bottles of champagne. I emerged, unscathed at the other side to the American Museum of Natural History, because...dinosaurs.

What, that's it? That's not going to be able to eat a lawyer on a toilet.

Turns out, the dioramas were the COOLEST.

Serving as the inspiration for J. Crew window displays since 1869

Let's forget the problems with hunting endangered wildlife for trophies. Let's forget exoticizing and exploiting communities of indigenous peoples to demonstrate the triumph of civilized nations. Let's forget that displaying human remains is at best problematic and at worst, a crime against the burial rights of the deceased. This museum, problems and all, is still the COOLEST museum I've ever been to. And I didn't even make it through the whole thing before the guards were like "I hate Ben Stiller. Robin Williams is not Teddy Roosevelt. If any of you idiots thinks you can hide in the bathroom and wait for the exhibits to come alive, I will stab you. I'm not even kidding. Bloomberg made it a law that says I can stab you. Now GTFO before I stab you."

But there's a giant piece of copper from Calumet, Michigan that I need to figure out how to touch before I can leave

Other cool things I did in New York:

Walked about 20 miles in one day because the subway is confusing and there are rats

Went to part of a mass at St. Patrick's but left when I remembered I'm not Catholic

Did not tell a stupid white guy to eat it when he bemoaned the presence of "stupid white people from the Midwest" at Rockefeller Plaza

Got complimented on my dress by fashionable New York ladies at a party that Reggie Watts came to

Played a bunch of free skeeball while eating free meatballs

Refused to hug a creepy Elmo at Times Square

Walked behind Hoda and Kathie Lee and didn't wave at the cameras like an idiot 

Forgot to eat street meat

Went to a second-hand store that was selling $175 coats

Got lost and followed the Hasidic Jews to Williamsburg 

Ate a cupcake at Magnolia Bakery (Trophy Cupcakes is better)

...and more

New York is the shizznit. I wish my interview had been in New York instead of Harford. (What's that, readers? Foreshadowing? You get another blog post today!)

Point H: Ypsilanti

Start drive time: 10:08 AM CST
End drive time: 3:40 PM EST
Pit stops: South Side of Chicago
Miles driven today: 256
Total miles driven this trip: 2,852
Number of toll roads: unnecessary

Chicago drivers are notoriously crazy. Somebody zoomed by me weaving in and out of a heavily congested highway at about 90 miles per hour and did not die and I have no idea how that happened. I feel like magic was involved. Chicago pedestrians are maybe a little bit crazier. They're all like "Oh hey, what's up? Don't mind me bro, I gotta just saunter across eight lanes of traffic right now. Yeah, I'm in no hurry. You're going 30 mph? That's cool. I'm going, like, 1.7, maybe 2 miles tops. Naw, my body's not wrapped in metal or airbags like yours is. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Crosswalks are not really my thing."

So I was pretty glad that I only had to not commit manslaughter for about 15 miles or so

Guys, I'm road-weary. I'm blog-weary. Blogging is harrrrrrrrd. Fortunately, we're in the home stretch. We're in the great state of Michigan. And because I forgot to take any pictures yesterday, I'm going to get cheesy enough on you to make you cringe and paint you a picture with my words. We shall begin with a passage from the Encyclopedia Amyricana on my home state:

Population: 9,883,360

Population when I'm not there: 9,883,359

Birthday: January 26, 1837
Astrological sign: Aquarius
Capital: Trenary
Geography: 2 Penisulas. Count them.  Two. The Lower Peninsula is shaped like a mitten because it's prepared to slap you if you leave the Upper Peninsula off the map or try to give it to Wisconsin. Seriously, dudes. Cut that crap out. We also have a million lakes.
Climate: Seasons: collect the whole set. Sometimes it's -40F and 104F in the same week
Precipitation: Average of 623 feet of snow for nine months out of the year
Popular attractions: Mackinaw Bridge, Mackinac Island, Isle Royale, The Mystery Spot, Sleeping Bear Dunes...pretty much everywhere in Michigan is a postcard
Demographics: 99.98% steely-eyed bastards, 1% Kid Rock
State nickname: The Land of More Lakes Than Minnesota Plus 4/5 of The Great Lakes
State food: Better Made chips
State motto: All your lakes are belong to us

(Author's note: I understand that my primary readership hails from the UP. DON'T WORRY, BUDDIES, I GOT YOUR BACKS AND I'M GOING TO WRITE SOMETHING BETTER THAN JIM HARRISON but we're going to use today's post to focus on the Lower Peninsula) 

Notes on automobiles:
The automobile (referred to in common parlance as a "car," "wheels," or "sweet ride") was invented in Lansing in 1902 by Ransom E. Olds (Side note: False reports of German engineers inventing the automobile in the 1800s continue to plague history books. This misinformation stems from a really quite embarrassing attempt by Karl Benz to take credit for ideas stolen during his first foray into simultaneous time/space travel. I mean, really Karl, when you can invent a FREAKING TIME MACHINE and travel 40 years into the future to take ideas and blueprints back to the 19th Century, why not just take credit for inventing something that defies the laws of physics and is arguably much more important than a stupid car? YOU INVENTED A TIME MACHINE. Do you know how much cooler that is? Germans are soooo weird). Cars are used today to transport individuals across short distances. They are most effective when used to travel one mile or less, particularly in areas of high car density where parking is limited and expensive. Cars drink the blood of dinosaurs for sustenance. They can be highly dangerous predators and have been known to eat entire families, only to regurgitate them shortly afterwards. Some cars hibernate during the winter, particularly in a stretch of the United States referred to as "The Rust Belt," where many cars suffer from a genetic debilitating allergy to the salt emitted spontaneously as a defense mechanism by frightened roads. Cars reproduce asexually once per year to give birth to a litter of motorcycles, which do not grow the two additional wheels of a fully mature car until its third year.

Notes on cereal:
Cereal originates from Battle Creek, Michigan, and has been the popular in the state since February 19, 1906. It was invented by Keith Kellogg in collaboration with his brothers Tony "The Tiger" Kellogg and "Toucan" Sam Kellogg. Although cereal has its roots in Seventh-Day Adventist teachings, which argued that the sins of the flesh could be tempered by a breakfast of bland, cardboard-like toasted oats, the effects of cereal have made it a favorite among counterculture degenerates. Cereal parties in underground speakeasies referred to as "breakfast joints" have been known to break into lupercalian orgies known for their wild and often dangerous abandon. Cereal paraphernalia has been outlawed since 1982 but traffickers continue smuggle black market spoons, bowls, and milk into the state. Children can become easily addicted to cereal, so parents are advised to watch carefully for signs of snapping, crackling, or popping.  

Notes on trees:
They're the right height here.

(Author's note: We have now reached the point in my journey where CARville gets to take a little break and I get to resist the temptation to make super lame jokes about airplanes. I am currently at DTW writing this post on my phone because I travel wayyyyyy light and am taking a few days away from my computer. I most likely will not be blogging in New York, but who knows? Anyway, let's all give a round of applause to the heroic efforts of James CARville, who is still doing just great and who got me everywhere I needed to be in the time I needed him to get me there. Unlike the airplane I'm looking at, which is currently running about three hours behind schedule.) 

Point G: Chicago

Miles driven today: negligible
Temperature outside: negligible

I've had a lot of interviews before and this one, at 9 hours long, was certainly the longest. In a traditional interview, you get asked all the standard questions:
Who's your role model?
Why did you leave your last job?
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Why are you showing me a scrapbook of your trip to the Everglades?

My very worst interview was for a position at the new Walgreens store opening up in Marquette several years ago. I had decided to delay grad school for a year and save up money so I applied for really anything there - the person who looks at your blurry pictures, the person who puts the wrong shade of lipstick on you...whateva.
My then-boyfriend drove me to the closest existing Walgreens store 60 miles away (because apparently interviewing candidates in a construction zone is "unprofessional"), where they had me take a test, told me that if I was selected for a minimum wage position, I would have to train 5 days/week for 4 weeks at this store 60 miles away from my house even though I didn't have a car, and asked me all the standard questions that make both the interviewer and the interviewee want to pull out their teeth.

Highlights:

Interviewer: Where do you see yourself in five years?
Me: Well, I'd really like to go to grad school and study gender history. I love learning and I'd really love to get a PhD.
Interviewer: And then would you come back to work at Walgreens after you get your PhD?
Me: [cocks my head to the side and raises an eyebrow as if I'm not sure I understand the question; pauses for a moment]
Me: [slowly] Well I'd have a PhD; why would I want to work at Walgreens?

A million little interview angels lost their wings at that moment and crashed from the heavens, clawing at their breasts while curses flowed freely from their lips.
That interview, to the detriment of everyone involved, continued for another 15 minutes before they wised up and realized I was not ready for a career in anything.

Annnnnnnnnd, let's move on 

Chicago. The Windy City. Hog Butcher for the World. The Big Onion.

Are you sick of the snow GIFs yet? ME NEITHER. I'm glad we can agree on something.

I spent a day wandering around the downtown and nearby neighborhoods and because the holiday season is upon us, Daley Plaza featured the Christkindlmarkt. 

Donations to those who would like to keep the MAS in CHRISTMAS can be made to El Fondo Para Tacos y Margaritas Para Amy y Sus Amigos

The Christkindlmarkt was dope as the current Pope. There was Gluhwein, there were gingerbread cookies, there was a ton of sausage. Christmas was in the air. And so apparently was cheese. I'm a massive fan of cheese. I love looking at cheese. I love thinking about cheese. I don't love smelling cheese because it doesn't smell great. But I do love talking about cheese. And so, apparently, did the rest of the Midwesterners milling around me. Actual quotes overheard at the Christkindlmarkt from individual conversations:
"You want cheese?"
"Oh they have cheese dip. I've got to stop and try this cheese dip."
"Let's go to the cheese."
"Do you have any cheese for your pretzels?" "Nein." "[sad face]"

I also saw this:

Can it be? The holy grail has been found in Chicago?!?

It feels good to be among my people again.

I swear, I have no idea why Google Drive is doing this. This is the GIF that keeps on GIFing

I went to Millennium Park to do the touristy things and take the picture of myself reflected in the bean-shaped mirror:

I'm doing it right, RIGHT?

...and discovered that Chicago understands the importance of place names. Names imbue meaning. They connote subtleties of history and the values that shape the surrounding community. They inspire individuals to greatness so that they, too, might have a fountain or alleyway bear their name and become a physical reminder of the impact that individuals can have in shaping our world. Naming places after people honors them by preventing their memory from being swept into the dustbin of history and ensures that their legacy endures. Chicago honors the people most impactful to shaping our community values: corporations. If you're lucky enough to visit this land that reflect timeless values, might I recommend:

Chase Promenade South

Boeing Gallery North

Exelon Pavillion SE

BP Bridge

McDonald's Cycle Center

The next time you find yourself in AT&T Plaza, be sure to honor the brave men and women corporations who continue to inspire Chicagoans by leaving their names upon this fair city.

Oh, and go to Haymarket (whose name means nothing whatsoever so don't bother looking it up on Wikipedia) for the delicious beers and vegan chili

Point F: Oak Terrace

Start drive time: 8:14 AM CST
End drive time: 2:32 PM CST
Pit stops: Mt. Olive, Springfield
Miles driven today: 302
Total miles this trip: 2,596
Number of 25-foot-tall statues of men in swimsuits spotted on the side of the road: 1

Because the weather looked like this the night I was planning to leave St. Louis:

Man, you know it's bad when light poles start bundling up.

I was worried about the roads in Illinois and did not want another day of white-knuckle driving on skating rinks for hundreds of miles. Fortunately, the Paul Simon Freeway was clear and dry and I got to enjoy untrammeled views of rural Illinois for hundreds of miles to the tune of "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes."

I was treated to the following vistas:

Fields

Pro-gun signs (my favorite of which was a 5-part stanza that read: "Criminals menacing/A lady alone/Require more/Than a phone/Guns Save Lives")

More fields
Pro-soybean signs

That was pretty much it.

Fortunately, my bladder was able to perfectly execute its plan to urinate at as many historical sites as possible on today's trip so I took slight detours on Route 66 to visit the Mother Jones Memorial site and Lincoln's home in Springfield.

Worth. It.

Mother Jones is buried in the Union Miners Cemetery, which as a union thug myself, I think this is totally rad. 

NO SCABS ALLOWED

For realzies, a "resting place of good union people." I am. all. about. that. Segregated cemeteries have a long and storied history and unfortunately today, many cemeteries are hodge-podges of it-doesn't-matter-what-you-believed-in-while-you-were-alive-because-you're-not-anymore-so-just-deal-with-the-fact-that-you-can-decompose-next-to-someone-different-from-you-and-nobody's-hurt-by-it-because-you're-already-dead. I am in favor of more segregated cemeteries. Although I had originally been planning on donating my cadaver to caffeine-jacked med students and cremating whatever remained after they practiced giving face lifts to my decapitated head or whateva, I now believe that I would like to lobby to get buried alongside other good union people in Mt. Olive. I mean, there's already a giant tombstone with my last name on it at the Union Miners Cemetery, so it wouldn't be a big deal or anything. I'm totes looking forward to eternally resting next to other people who also know the lyrics to "Solidarity Forever." I just wonder what the dues are.

I also stopped by Lincoln's home in Springfield, Illinois, because I'm a huge fan of walking around the houses of people who aren't there to see me look through their medicine cabinets.

This park ranger threatened to break the camera of anyone who took a picture of his face, which I thought was really pretty intense but maybe he was still mad about the furlough

The tour was extremely informative and I learned that in addition to wrestling animals on the floor and praising the thighs of dudes he shared his bed with when he was living in smaller digs, Babraham Lincoln had an affinity for migraine-inducing wallpaper and hella ugly carpet. Lincoln was almost never home when he lived here because he was busy fighting vampires or whatever, but Mary Todd Lincoln went through a domestic servant about every other week because her children were total monsters who liked to defenestrate anything that was not bolted to the floor. MT also set the precedent for the hit television series "The Simple Life" (which aired from 2003 to 2007) by being a pretty heiress who wanted to marry powerful and felt like she was totally roughing it by making a huge production out of cooking for herself. Viewers in the 1850s tuned in weekly on stereoscopes and immortalized Mary's famous catch phrase "That's hot" over 150 years before Paris Hilton plagiarized the former First Lady. 

Do you see how reasonable this drive is? It was also unambiguously the most boring one. 

After napping hard enough at the hotel that I was completely disoriented by the duck ringtone on my phone ("What? Why am I in a pond? Oh my god, is that drool?"), I spent the rest of the evening eating free hot wings and talking to other fellow interviewees about "Orange Is the New Black" and Rob Ford's propensity for munching on rectangular containers. All in all, I'd say we've got a pretty good chance of this weekend-long-interview being a totally awesome thing. 

A Respite of Sorts in St. Louis

Miles driven today: negligible
Hours of sleep: negligible

IT'S OKAY, YOU GUYS! I'M STILL NOT DEAD. ALSO PROBABLY STILL LITERATE.
These are words, right? Definitely. Cool. Thanks for doing a literacy check with me.

I'm tired. And I've been REAL busy for the last few days. So you get several blog posts, you lucky dogs, you.

When I accepted the interview offer in Chicago for the weekend of December 6-7, my first thought way "Yay! A job!" immediately followed by "But..but..but....I'm going to miss the fast food workers' action in Seattle on December 5." (Cue Charlie Brown music) Fortunately, I have friends in a city which was both a convenient stopping place on my drive and where fast food workers have been making things really awkward for errrybody for a really long time because they oddly enough believe that they have a right to be able to survive on the wages they earn. Cray, amirite?

Would you like a living wage with that? Supersize my salary now!

The St. Louis fast food workers involved in the campaign were off. the. hook. They were turnt up. There was singing. There was dancing. There was a game of go-into-the-restaurant-and-freeze-and-make-things-real-awkward-for-everyone-and-then-throw-a-dance-party. There was fried chicken and mashed potatoes. It was AWESOME.

The marauding of fast food restaurants all over the city and the bonus hospital workers' action in East St. Louis afterwards gave me a chance to get to know some of the neighborhoods in STL and I learned from activists about the history and geography of The Rome of the West.

As someone who spent approximately 30 hours in the city, I feel qualified to write a comprehensive guide to St. Louis:

Hoodies:

But what about eyepatches?

Hooded sweatshirts, colloquially referred to as hoodies, are one of the biggest threats to safety in this country and are a scourge upon the crime-ridden city of St. Louis. Wearers of hoodies are typically warmer than wearers of non-hooded sweatshirts since they cover the wearer's head. The wearer can also put his/her hands into the pockets attached to the sweatshirt. Since the hood covers the head of the wearer, the identity of the wearer is automatically concealed and one can no longer see the face of the wearer or ask the wearer any identifying questions like "Oh hai! What's your name?" or "Nice sweatshirt! Who are you?" In fact, the wearer becomes completely invisible and can move through society without being seen. Notable exceptions to this example include when the wearer carries Skittles and Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail. The candy and juice react with the hoodie in such a manner that the wearer appears to be a gun-wielding, dangerous criminal capable of any sort of horror known to woman or man. In order to prevent the completely-unavoidable-and-in-no-way-a-reflection-of-enduring-systemic-racism-in-America violence that should occur from the misuse of the hoodie/candy/juice combo, law-abiding citizens are asked to refrain from wearing hoodies anywhere in the vicinity of money, guns, and/or white women because George Zimmermans are everywhere. 

The Gateway Arch:

It's okay that this picture was obviously taken while in motion because a passenger helped a bro out and was all like "Yeah, I can totally take a picture of the Arch and not drop your camer....whoops."

At 630 feet, the Gateway Arch is the tallest man-made monument in the United States. It is composed of approximately 82,953,217,193 Lego blocks and weighs 42 lbs. The Gateway Arch was dedicated on May 25, 1968 by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who has a totally legitimate name and does not remind one at all of the pedophile protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov's seminal work Lolita declared that the majestic arch inspired "a new sense of urgency to wipe out every slum....Whatever is shoddy, whatever is ugly, whatever is waste, whatever is false, will be measured and condemned [in comparison to the Gateway Arch]." He then proceeded to march Godzilla-like through the streets of St. Louis, crushing everything in his path that did not meet his aesthetic sensibilities, leaving behind rows of charming brick townhouses untouched. 

Food and drank:

To the left of the Fortune Teller Bar and to most liberals, anarchists can find the Black Bear Bakery, a co-operative which features a worker-owner handsome enough to be confused for an Edward Cullen lookalike contest winner. They also have delicious and completely normal baked goods and coffee. They only accept dollars stamped with "Not to be used for bribing politicians." Fortunately, they provide the stamp for you next to the cash register. 

As previously noted, food that is not 100% pretentious but is at least 96% delicious can be found in the city of St. Louis. While in the city, I experienced culinary delights such as fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuits, cole slaw and sweet tea because St. Louis is a city where citizens can eat food because it is good; not because it will impress their foodie friends. This experience was obviously overwhelming for me and inspired panic attacks of "But where is the cardamom-jalepeno-creme fraiche sauce bottles? How am I supposed to eat taro root fries without it? What is wrong with you people?!?" I managed to find a hipster mecca called The Fortune Teller in the Cherokee neighborhood, which soothed my anxieties and helped me to breathe a little easier. To my delight, the decor and theme were adequately ironic, featuring a large print of Rasputin and a table where you could get your palm read by a big beardy dude. The method of retrieving your food after ordering it was unnecessarily complicated with at least 32 steps, including following a map to an abandoned wearhouse and battling orcs in an alleyway. The food was (disappointingly) wholesome, uncomplicated and reasonably priced. The tattooed bartenders with ultrahip hair styles were warm and engaging and the patrons were so overwhelmingly and genuinely friendly that I fled from the establishment into the snow-covered streets begging with silent lips, "Give me your ironic, your bored, your detached masses yearning to breathe clove cigarillos, the wretched refuse of your dodgeball-teaming shore."

In conclusion:

St. Louis was wayyyyyyyyy charming. In spite of the fact that my host almost got arrested for civil disobedience while I was trying to leave before the giant snow storm and I was like "But how am I supposed to get inside your house if you're in jail and have access to my computer and backpack?" I was very glad that I stayed an extra night and kind-of-but-not-really got to rest after my 14 hour day of driving through Kansas and 12 hours of protesting for higher wages and union recognition. I can now check a visit to East St. Louis off my bucket list. I ate tasty food. I met unbelievably nice people. It was great. St. Louis, you are a delight and I would love to hang out with you again sometime. 

Point E: St. Louis

Start drive time: 10:02 AM MST

End drive time: 11:46 PM CST
Pit stops: Bennett, Colby, Abilene, Kingdom City
Miles driven today: 865
Total miles this trip: 2,284
Number of anti-abortion billboards spotted: 10
Number of individual rage attacks inspired by anti-abortion billboards spotted: 10

CARville woke up looking like this:

And he was all like, "Seriously? We drove through like 500 miles of snow yesterday and you couldn't find me anywhere to sleep indoors? Where is the humanity? Also, how did you make this picture snow?"

But he got over it pretty quickly and was a totally chill bro about driving through the unplowed roads of Boulder. There were a handful of times on the way out of Colorado when the snow was packed so deep on the roads that one could only conjure up the Governor of New Jersey and declare emphatically that "If you think I give a damn about lanes right now, then you don't know me."

Winter, it seemed, was upon us and there was no going back. We had left the drizzly, kinda temperate embrace of the Pacific Northwest and we were headed into all snow, all the time. Welcome to winter. Forever.

That is, of course, until Kansas didn't get the memo. 

Now mind you, I had been dreading this drive since I made up my mind to return to the Motherland. I mean LOOK at this:

There is no justifiable excuse for Kansas's size. It could easily be cut into two or three states but then, horror of all horrors, we would have 4-6 Senators from The Lands Formerly Known As Kansas

Not only would I have to endure 417 miles of prairie, but it's Kaannnnnssssaaaasssssssssssss.....

But to my surprise, the Kansasy parts of Eastern Colorado and deep into Kansas were...a paradise of sorts. Kansas seemed oblivious to winter. The skies were cloudless and blue. The sun was shining. The grass was green. It was beautiful. Is it always late August in Kansas? Is this a secret of the Plains States that Kansas remains glorious year-round as a fertile bread basket of America? How has this not become one of the hot destination spots for snowbirds fleeing the Midwest? I began to question if I had judged Kansas unfairly. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. I mean, I haven't even seen any anti-abortion signs yet. Maybe I'm a closed-minded bigot who just didn't understand. Maybe they're "pro-life" because the state is so empty and they're just lonely for company and will do whatever they can to share the beauty of Kansas with others. I began to smile and to compose an ode to Kansas as an apology for my rash judgment. There was a fine crop of windmills growing beautifully in the fields. Swarms of swallows were impersonating psychedelic screensavers. If the rest of my drive was as lovely as Kansas, I would be home in no time at all. I could drive through Kansas forever.

I stopped in Colby to refuel and check my tire pressure and AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!! WHAT'S HAPPENING? OH MY HANDS!!!!! COLD!!!! WIND!!!!!! STABBING!!!!! IT'S STABBING MY BONES!!!!!!!!! THE WIND IS STABBING MY BONES WITH ICE SHARDS!!!! MOM!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!

Oh look how pretty everything is!

KANSAS HAD LIED TO ME.

I held my blackened, withered hand to my chest and whimpered. A few years ago when I was hanging out with a lot of other people's kids (because I was a nanny, you guys, not a weirdo), I came down with a cold and thought that I had the whooping cough. Now, lots of my mom friends are crunchy woodland hippies who eschew vaccines and a dear friend of mine had a daughter who came down with Scarlet Fever in the 21st century, so I didn't think it was that unreasonable for my hypochondriac brain to jump from influenza to whooping cough...Anyway, when I requested the whooping cough test, the nurse practitioner asked me if I was sure that I wanted it and warned me that it was "extremely unpleasant." Medical professionals are notoriously blithe about the awful things they do to you in the name of modern medicine:

"Will this amputation without anesthesia hurt?" 

"Oh, you'll just feel a little pinch." 

"Isn't childbirth excruciating?" 

"You'll feel a little pinch. Perhaps some minor cramping." 

So when a medical professional freely proffers a phrase like "extremely unpleasant," and you brush the dirt off your shoulders because you're a CHAMP and then they stick a six-inch long metal rod STRAIGHT BACK (NOT UP!) YOUR NOSE ALL THE WAY TO THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR SKULL AND SCRAPE THE MUCOUS MEMBRANE OF YOUR NASAL CAVITIES, you, if you are not accustomed to violent abrogations of your physical and psychological well-being, respond by immediately scrunching up your face and sobbing deep guffaws while tears stream down your face.

The sub-arctic wind biting my bare skin was comparable to that. 

KKKKKAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSSAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! Why would you do this to me? How could you lie like that? I take it all back. All the good things. Damn you, Kansas. Damn you to...yourself.

And as I nursed my newly useless left hand, I began to get out of Kansas as fast as possible. No food. No breaks. It's not worth it. I must get out of this godforsaken place. The tumbleweeds playing Frogger will not slow me down. The unanswered questions posed by the billboards advertising the world's largest prairie dog (is it real?), a live five-legged cow (whaaaaa....?) and liquid fertilizer (ewww...?) will not tempt me into staying any longer in this state than I absolutely must. Why would Dorothy want to return? Did she have Stockholm syndrome?

And then I approached Hays. And the anti-abortion signs started. 

I Was Smiling Before I Was Even Born

Adoption Not Abortion (times 3)

Thank Mom For Choosing Life

Abortion Stops a Beating <3

Take My Hand Not My Life

Jesus Wept (a twofer? One of the 30 or so pro-Jesus signs clearly, but they're implying Jesus is weeping over fetuses, right?)

And my autonomic nervous system overtook my body and the rage centers of my brain caused me to gnash my teeth and dig my fingernails deep into James CARville's steering wheel as I pressed my foot even harder against the accelerator. (CARville, baby, I'm so sorry. You know I'd never do anything to hurt you. You know I love you, boo. Now come here. Come give mama a kiss.)

I am not so deficient in self-awareness that I would respond with "How dare they shove their ideology down the throats of passersby who are just trying to get from Point D to Point E? Don't they know that screaming your beliefs at someone doesn't win anyone over; it just fuels your opposition base?" No, dear readers, I am aware enough that my line of work is also the business of ideological gavage. HOWEVER, I've never blown up an establishment that provides the services I disagree with. I've never allowed a person seeking the services I disagree with to die because I passed legislation that made it impossible for them to access that service so that they had to resort to dangerous unscientific remedies that resulted in their deaths. I've never tried to take the physical autonomy away from a second-class citizen who is trying to reclaim some control over the course of their life and what they get to do with THEIR OWN BODIES. And I've never created a climate in which the natural recourse of the rhetoric I use to express my disagreement has resulted in the assassination of providers of those services.

Oh Kansas. Congratulations on your contributions to society:

The Westboro Baptist Church (based out of Topeka)

Scott Roeder from Merriam, who assassinated George Tiller while he was serving as an usher in a Sunday morning church service in Wichita

Becoming the first state in 1881 to amend the constitution to impose prohibition

Eliminating evolution from the state teaching standards in 1999

Koch Industries, Inc (based in Wichita)

Passing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in 2005

Setting a minimum age for now-totes-only-for-heteros-because-God-hates-fags marriage at 15 in 2006

Sam Brownbeck, whose major efforts include making Kansas the first state without an arts agency, supporting anti-abortion legislation that politicians in his own state referred to as "Taliban-esque," and attempting to shut down rehabilitation and social services in Lawrence. Because we LOVE babies. As long as they remain in utero to full-term. And then eff 'em. They're not my problem anymore. 

Kansas can eat me.

Do I hate all Kansans? No, I'm not a Kansist. I have a friend who's from Kansas. I like the band Kansas. Kansas City is great...oh wait, that's Missouri.

Missouri is also not off the hook. The two anti-abortion signs I was able to see there (because the sun set over Salina so I was spared much of the unlit anti-choice roadside screeds) reminded me that the state is responsible for Claire McCaskill. And Todd Akin. And the East St. Louis Police Department. 

Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Thanks, Kansas and Missouri. You've inspired me to double my monthly contribution to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. I know this is a departure from the general tone of this blog, but I don't have anything funny to say about states that don't value women enough to trust them to use their best judgment about what they can do with their lives and their bodies. As soon as you start murdering the medical professionals who provide life-saving procedures to women because your fee-fees are hurt by the idea of them not wanting to be relegated to choiceless mini-human factories, you have nothing to redeem yourself and light-hearted humor only serves to diminish the responsibility we have in condemning a culture that defines "pro-life" as the assassination of health-service providers. Well done, Kansas. You've officially become my least favorite state. 

Point D: Boulder

Start drive time: 10:19 AM MST
End drive time: 10:32 PM MST
Pit stops: Willard, Evanston, Rock Springs, Laramie 
Miles driven today: 543
Miles driven through snow storms today: 543
Total miles this trip: 1,419

There was something different about the world when I woke up this morning.

Ladies and gentlemen, let there be snow!

Although I am a seasoned veteran of nine-month long winters in an area of the United States that averages approximately 30 feet of precipitation per year, I suffer from chronic seasonal amnesia. This malady manifests in forgetting that any other seasons actually exist until they hit you in the face with "AHHHHHH! Why is so much snot coming out of my face?" (Spring), "Holy balls, I'm sweaty" (Summer), "Oh thank god I'm not sweating anymore" (Fall), and "It was the winter of our discontent...and it will not end until June."

Seattle's seasons are much less defined and last year's winter was the first I had ever experienced without snow. So I kind of forgot that it happened in reality to people and was not just a cold, bright dream.

Fortunately, I remembered that theoretically, I might need a down jacket, mittens and an ice scraper for my car, so we were off to a good start.

For residents of Seattle: this is what rain looks like when it's cold

I also remembered that you pump the breaks. No matter what. Pump. The. Breaks.

Drivers who grew up in warmer, drier climates don't know how to pump the breaks. Here are some rookie mistakes that make me have mini aneurysms while I'm driving (which is dangerous for everyone):

1. Driving 30 mph below the speed limit - plenty of people today were driving wayyyyy below the speed limit. Dudes, it's OKAY. It's snow. Yes, it's a little slippery. But steer straight and always be pumpin' and you're gonna make it through. 

2. Driving 30 mph above the speed limit - obviously you have no regard for human life and want to die. Just don't make me die too. 

3. Tailgating - not only can you not see anything because the driver ahead of you is creating a wake of mini-blizzards that will make visibility next to impossible, but you can't break as quickly as you can when it's not snowy, even if you be big pumpin' so just back way the eff off.

4. Over-steering - you don't even have to turn the wheel when you're on a straight, slick road - just think the direction you want to go because telekinesis works during winter and your car will move in that direction.

5. Doing anything other than vigilantly driving - I know McRibs are back right now, but you're going to have to pull over when you eat that thing. 

Because I am a Yooper, I generally don't die when I have to drive in snowy weather. It snowed like three inches today, which was a big deal to everyone in Wyoming but is just Tuesday in the UP. However, it snowed ALL. DAY. LONG. which meant that my theoretically 7 hour trip took much, much longer. I'm not going to brag about my driving skillz because the last time I said "I got mad skillz" while doing something impressive in motion, I fell face-first off my bike with half of my cardigan still on. What I will assure you is that CARville and I are totally fine and at no point during my trip through Wyoming today did I exceed 87 miles per hour. 

This was in the middle of NOWHERE. What is there to guard?

Of note today:

I saw two semi-trucks tipped over on their sides and many more in ditches

Being behind giant snowplows that look like snow-spitting disco death machines is much more terrifying than driving on unplowed roads

Even though I'm not a Catholic, I crossed myself enough times today to bruise my forehead, chest, and both shoulders

None of the three craft stores I went to had mastodon bone beads - what is up with that?

I also was able to stop to see my hometown homegurrrrrl Marie in Laramie and wanted to share this lovely gem in the building where she works: 

This is a typical wedding dress in Wyoming

And I discovered from this handy chart that I am, in fact, drinking enough fluids:

Which is remarkable, because my blood stream consists of at least 37% caffeine at any given time

There becomes a point in which you've been driving through a storm for eight hours and your hands fuse to the steering wheel and you become one with the car and it's just you and CARville together in this fight alone. The wind is whipping at you and the snow is pummeling your windshield, but CARville keeps rolling along and serenading you with "Knights of Cydonia" and you two are going to MAKE IT.

Oh my god, Becky. Look at that girl's plow. It is so big.

She looks like some kind of zamboni driver's girlfriend or something.

You know they're only talking to her because looks like a total snow shovel on wheels.

I like big plows and I cannot lie.

You other drivers can't deny

That when a truck rolls in to this itty bitty space

With a big scoop in your face

You get sprung

Want to pull out of this...snow bank.

That's all I got. Lady Bro is making me breakfast. Stop. It's Boulder time.

(Author's aside: Tomorrow's post is likely going to be late because I will have a giant mega drive followed by another big day, so don't fret. I'm probably not dead or illiterate yet.)

UPDATE:

Ahhhhh crap. I knew I was forgetting something.