Idaho-Montana?-Wyoming

I left Jerome this morning at 7:15. Couldn't have been sooner. The rest of my drive through Idaho was prettier. I somehow found myself in Montana. I didn't take a wrong turn, it's just that the West Entrance to Yellowstone is actually in a little corner of the squiglly part of Montana and I didn't know I'd be there for 10 minutes. So make that 14 states in 5 days.

I paid $25 to get into yellowstone. They price it by car, so had anyone been with me, it wouldn't have been so outrageous...but I definitely got my money's worth. I had originally planned on driving through the park in two hours. But when you start stopping it adds up quick, so I was w/in the park for 3 1/2 hours. All worth it. One of the highlights of my summer. I took about 100 pictures in that time. Got real excited when I saw some buffalo in the distance. Seriously, a mile away. Then some that were 300 yds away. Then 30 yds. Then. Um, 30 feet. I was all up in his grill. But so was everyone else and I was wearing tennis shoes and they were large-sized. So, I was certain my reflexes were quicker and I could run faster, so if there was any aggression, I was good to go. You don't have to be the fastest; you just can't be the slowest. Otherwise--according to the flier I got upon entry to the park--Bison Will Gore You! Or something like that. Maybe it was something less dramatic. It's in the car. We can whip it out later.

Lots of weird sulfur-smelling shit. I love that part the best. I went about 10 years ago and remember that being the coolest part. I got to see some bubbling mud and smelly holes in the ground. Scenic views abounded. I have a tendency to gasp allowed when something impresses me. The first time I saw San Francisco, *GASP*. Seeing the Vegas Strip from my hotel last weekend, *GASP*. Seeing the Rockies for the first time *GASP*. Seeing the buffalo by the bathrooms today, *GASP*. Seriously, my heart was pounding when I got all up in his grill. Apparently none of my pictures will upload. Not on facebook, not on webshots, not here. Grrr. Best Western! Thanks for the high speed LAN. Where's my Wi-Fi? Oh wait, I'm in Wyoming, where I only get cell service in a 4 mile radius of the town I'm in. And even then, it's pretty weak.

After a long day, I'm relaxing and watching the Olympics. My impressions of tonight:

• How pissed is the French Men's Relay Team (Swimming)? Haha.
  
• Is George Bush still our president? Is he on vacation? I guess he's entitled to that, but there's kind of a war in Georgia. (which he probably believes his ancestors are from because of the similarity in their names.) Although, I do enjoy watching him try to play volleyball. Apparently he's all about the U.S. female volleyball team.
  
• NBC loves montages. I don't ever want to see Michael Phelps in a montage again. I'm over it.

Alright, it's time for sleep. Photos to come.

Berkeley, CA to Jerome, ID

Ugh. This town sucks. I hate it here. I'm glad my only commitment to this town is to watch 4 hours of the olympics and sleep. Then I can leave. I'm in Jerome, ID, which is very close to Twin Falls, which also sucks, though not as bad. Riding through Twin Falls, I was behind some souped up hatchback with stickers on the back windshield of shotguns whose barrels crossed. After I realized that those tacky decals were, I stopped riding the guy's ass. Actually, I think it might have been a woman. or man with a mullet. I don't know.

Earlier today, I stopped to use the rest room at a gas station. In Winnemucca. I know I swore I'd never go back, but it was necessary. So when I walked into the gas station, immediately on the left was a room with slot machines. Awesome. But there was also a subway. It smelled delicious, but I had just eaten In-N-Out in Reno a few hours ago and was not hungry. So I passed and vowed to get some later.

Later came when I arrived in Jerome. There is a subway about a mile from my hotel, so I went. Big mistake. Slowest two employees ever. I was there for 20 minutes and there was ONE person in front of me. Granted, he had two subs...but TWENTY MINUTES?!? They should really hire some immigrants, who would actually get something done. These white people sucked. But then again, I don't think there's anyone in this town who isn't white. It sucks. The subway sucked. In addition to the worst employees ever, the tomatoes looked like shit. Later, I found they tasted like shit. They'll be ripe next week, but not today. I immediately removed them. I don't think I'm a food snob and I don't expect perfection. I just expect a decent meal. It's Subway. They're all the same. How hard is it to make the same sub I eat in Carrboro? Apparently, it's impossible.

Enough of that. The part of my day was my hour in Reno. Having spent last weekend in Vegas, it was interesting to do a comparison when it was fresh in my mind. I have been to both before, but this trip only solidified my belief that Reno is a shitty, trashy Vegas. White trash heaven. Also, lots of old people. And fat people. So, in that way, it has it's charm. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at El Dorado. I just sat and played video poker for a little while. I really love that game. I liken it to when I play a million games of solitaire in a row. Except this requires more thinking, but I'm getting good at just doing things automatically. Love it. I can't wait to go back to Vegas. Not Reno.

I also ate at In-N-Out Burger for the last time. I might swear off fastfood cheeseburgers until I return to California. I'm not sure anyone should hold me to that. It would not include homemade burgers or those in sit-down restaurants. Just fast food, which I don't particularly eat anyway, except for Wendy's. But I could switch to the crispy chicken sandwich. I'll think on it some more.

So that was my day. Long and boring. Nevada is boring, boring, boring. As is Idaho. Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to seeing Yellowstone National Park. I've been once before, as a disillusioned teenager who had been taken against my will on a family vacation. I'll appreciate it more this time, I'm sure. Okay, time for watching the olympics and weary break foot due to all the assholes who like to drive slow on the freeway.

One afterthought: the road rage was at an all time peak today. I was at a gas station, driving away from the pump and there was some assclown in front of my who wouldn't move and was blocking me in. So as I try to go around him, he inches up blocking my potential route. And then stops. The details are less important than the fact that I am yelling expletives at him and using lots of hand gestures (not my middle finger though), but I do believe I yelled Goddammit at the top of my lungs. All of a sudden, I hear someone honk lightly and some woman is running at me and pointing at my car. So I realize I left my gas tank open and hop out of my car, thank her politely and fix it and hop back in. I was a little embarrassed that someone would help me out after they just witnessed-and likely heard-me screaming at some old man in a buick. I'm an asshole.

Goodbyes

With approximately 12 hours left in Berkeley, and about 15 remaining in California (at least for this summer), I've been saying "goodbye" a lot lately. Not that I particularly have many friends out here, but there are some people that cross my path on a daily or weekly basis that I've developed relationships with. I've written about some of them, but some I haven't.

It started this morning with Angel, the owner of the coffeeshop at the French Hotel (or maybe the entire hotel, I'm uncertain). Every weekday morning, while I'm in the long line, he greets me with a "Hola, senorita! Coffee? Bagel?" and by the time there's only two people in line, I have a cup of coffee in my hand. By the time I reach the register, there's a sesame bagel (or if they are out, an everything bagel) with cream cheese in a bag. Yesterday, for the first time, I got there about 30 minutes early and wanted my bagel "for here," which totally threw them (he and his employees) off and they had to take it out of the bag when I got to the register. I just like that no longer do I have to wait 5 minutes for them to toast my bagel. It's just there for me. I informed him earlier this week that I was leaving and going back home to North Carolina, so today as I was in line we chatted about home and he told me how he'd miss me. Believe me, I'll miss that place more than they miss me. It's been a bright spot in my morning since I got here and the employees are much nicer than those at Open Eye back home where everyone pretends not to remember me and that they're too cool for school. Damn hipsters. When it comes to barristas, I'll take a Hispanic Californian any day.

After that, work was a flurry of activity with people in and out of the office all day. The vice president of my organization was extremely sweet and complementary and we wished one another well as he left this morning. The good reverend has been one of the biggest joys of my time out here as he is sarcastic and witty and always giving my boss a hard time. We even hugged. It was cute.

For lunch, we had a little going away party. Not really a party, but we ordered pizza and one of my coworkers that doesn't work on Friday actually came into work on her day off to join in on the fun. As we listened to my boss regale us with tales of labor unions in the 30s and 40s (she's 83, if you'll recall). I've gotten a lot more vocal with this bunch (this bunch is two women in their late 20s, one in her early 30s, a former postal worker/labor activist in her 50s, my boss who is in her 80s, and her love interest, who is 89....a motley crew to say the least), and so I talked of my future plans and my love for immigration law. I told of how North Carolina and California are oh, so different. While I wouldn't call any of these people good friends, they are my social group out here. My fellow coworkers and acquaintances. They are all interesting in their own way, and I have to say that I actually will miss seeing them day to day. Richard, the 89-year-old author and my boss's love interest, raised a glass and gave a toast in my honor. He's the silliest 89-year-old I've ever meant. Sharp as a tack. No alzheimers or anything. He's brilliant. He was a contientious objector in WW2 (when that was not popular at all) and while I can't agree with his stance in that war, he is a brilliant activist with a sharp wit who likes to giggle. I think he and my boss are a good fit. He still flirts with her even at his old age and she pretends not to like it. All in all, it's a funny bunch.

At the end of all that, my coworker (who wasn't supposed to be at work that day) gave me a hug and said some very nice things about me. I wasn't sure if she liked me until the final weeks of my job, but she's a cool girl and the only one who worked there that really knew how to handle my boss. She was a godsend this summer and I'm glad to know that she actually admires me and has great hopes for my future.

After lunch, my hippie friend stopped by. He bought me and the rest of my coworkers BBQ last week because he knew how much I missed NC BBQ. It was kansas city style, which I'd never had, but it was pretty decent and I at least appreciated the thought. He's taken to calling me "North Carolina," probably b/c he's too stoned to remember my name, but he's truly a good soul. Good heart, very chill, nice guy. He only came around once a week, usually on Friday afternoons, but I have to say, I'll miss his antics. He likes to call my boss "sweetheart" which is amusing since he's in his 40s and she's in her 80s, but it's cute. As he gave me a hug goodbye, he decided to give me a paternal speech about what kind of men I should avoid (he has no idea I'm in a relationship). I assured him that while I appreciated his advice, I could take care of myself. I'm glad to have met a genuine Berkeley hippie stoner. His final salutation to me was quite fitting, just a simple, "Peace!"

My boss and I had a good farewell too. She shuffled me into the house to see some old newspapers. Her father, in the late 30s/early 40s ran a newspaper in Michigan, focussed on workers rights. She had old copies so I was actually able to read articles in their original form from 1937. One of the headlines was about when the U.S. decided to stop drafting soldiers. Anyway, She is truly an amazing woman and while she drove me up the wall all summer long--today being no exception--I put off leaving for a little longer than I usually do. We chatted about my drive back and I thanked her for the opportunity to work there and learn from her. She gave me one of her books that she wrote on Carol Weiss King, who was a female attorney in the 40s, and a friend of hers. Carol King was an immigration attorney when women weren't attorneys, so the book chronicles the history of immigration law in the 20th century and, i suspect, a good deal of the women's rights movement. As a future female immigration attorney, I think this book will be invaluable inspiration. When I told my boss at lunch that I would like to purchase a copy, she told me to just take one, but that when I won my first immigration case, I owed her $5.75. I happily obliged. I can't wait to pay her back.

All in all, it was a long day of byes, but good ones. I think the best "byes" are ones in which you are not incredibly attached to the people you are leaving, but still will miss in their own little ways. The one person who it would have been hard to say goodbye to left at 4pm to go get the mail and called and said she wouldn't be back for the rest of the day. She was my favorite coworker and the only person I truly got along with all summer long. I will actually miss her and she just peaced out without saying goodbye. I suppose that's a taste of my own medicine since I frequently duck out and don't say goodbye b/c I'm not good at them.


In any case, I am looking forward to heading home, but happy to have met so many interesting people in Berkeley. I really haven't chronicled my whole summer here, but that's okay. There are some things that everyone just doesn't need to know. Suffice to say, I've had one of the best summers of my life and will most assuredly miss California. I can't wait to come back, whether it's to visit of live still remains, but I WILL be back.

Thinking Green

A New York Times article that came out today highlights Houston as the worst recycler in the nation. Only a mere 2.6% of their wasted is recycled. Seeing this, I had to read on, as I am under the impression that as far as big cities go, San Francisco has got to be the best recycling city out there. At least of the big ones. (Let's be honest, Berkeley's totally got them beat.) It turns out that I was right, but I was surprised to learn that SF recycles 69% of its waste. New York City recycles a respectable 34% of its waste.

As a side note: the article features a quote from a man named "Tex" who lives in Texas. Awesome!

I've really been amazed at how environmentally conscious everyone is. I always knew California was like that, I just didn't know the extent. I think I've written about this before, so I'll save the speech. I don't know how or if it will change my habits when I go back home. I'll certainly be diligent about recycling as I have been since I resolved to do so at the beginning of the new year, but perhaps there's another lesson I could take out of living in the land of the hippie. I'll have to think more about it.

----

In other news, I'm heading to Vegas this weekend for a last hurrah before leaving this side of the country. Should be a fabulous time, even if the high on Saturday is 108. Whoa. 108.

The following weekend, I am heading back across the country. I'm taking the northern route this time which I'm sure I'll detail at a later point. It involves the followings states though: California, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, NORTH CAROLINA! I'm doing the whole thing solo at a pace of around 10 hours a day. I think it's do-able. Of course it is.

Pandora for iPhone

This whole new applications thing for the iPhone is a genius idea. So now everyone has access to another way to spend money through their phone by purchasing things from the "Apps store." There's everything from games to books to facebook to programs that will teach you another language. I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg. Steve Jobs is an innovator and the creator of a whole new method of disposing of our income.

Thankfully, some of these things are free. Of course, it's mainly the crappy applications. Except for the Pandora application. It's free (at least right now) and it is going to revolutionize my life. Or at least, it would, except the main place I listen to music on my actual phone is when I'm at the gym on campus and unfortunately my internets are pretty crappy in there sometimes. Full disclosure: I have the "old" phone, not this newfangled 3G that I'm not entirely convinced is that much better...except maybe my internets wouldn't be twice as fast, thereby eliminating the problem.

Let this not be an ad for apple, but rather for Pandora. They've got a good thing going there and I like it. There are very few resources better than Pandora for finding good music, except maybe Brooks. She's good.

Best Websites of the Day - Douche and Riches

Wow. Only one of these has to do with California, and even then only tangentially...but the other is the best thing I have ever seen in my life. Ever. No lie.

Dimitri the Douchebag -- A man from San Francisco with serious ego issues leaves creepy voicemails for a woman he met out. I heard about this guy on the radio on Monday, but thanks go to Rob for sending me the link so I could hear it in its entirety.

Jonathan Lee Riches -- I was trolling Abovethelaw.com today and this guy popped up. He caught my eye because he just filed a lawsuit against Coach K, which I naturally find awesome. Little did I know, his lawsuit against Coach K is NOTHING compared to his other lawsuits.
Some background: Mr. Riches is a federal inmate in South Carolina who is incarcerated due to identity theft. If you ask me, he should have pled insanity because I really do think that he believes this shit. Or maybe he doesn't. It could be a desperate cry for attention. No, he's insane. No one would cry out for attention/publicity in this manner who wasn't insane. Unfortunately there are hundreds for which the complaint is absent or unknown. He's not entirely insane, though, because at least he files the suits in many different federal jurisdictions, so has avoided penalties for filing frivolous lawsuits (at least so far)...and trust...they are frivolous.

My favorite suits:

• Riches v. Joel et. al.: Plaintiff alleged that defendant Billy Joel the Singer is his step-father, and sent him to defendant Vision Quest Psychiatric Facility in Franklin, Pennsylvania. Plaintiff alleged that Vision Quest forced him to sleep in teepees with no UFO radar defense system. Plaintiff also alleged that Italian hitmen made him sign an omerta silence oath, Vision Quest made him travel around the country in horse and buggies like the Amish, and "We Didn't Start the Fire" was in the stingrays head when it killed the croc master Steven Irwin.
  

• Riches v. Jena 6 et al.: Plaintiff sued the Jena 6 for "Loss of My White Rights" and sought $100 million in white gold and the White House. Plaintiff alleged that defendants hung a white noose in his cell at FCI Willaimsburg, told the FCI Williamsburg dentists not to fix his white fillings, fed him tainted White Castle hamburgers, turn his cell mate into Snow White, called him the white Suge Knight, burnt him with Great Whites pyrotechnics, made him suffer whiteouts, gave him white phosphorus, subjected him to low white blood cell counts, and that Vanna White won't write. Defendants also allegedly turned plaintiff into a white collar criminal and sent Whitehouse prosecutors after his white skin.

• Riches v. Beckham et. al: Plaintiff sued defendants David Beckham d/b/a "Soccer Player" and Victoria Beckham d/b/a "Posh Spice" for soccer piracy. Plaintiff alleged that Beckham uses satellite precision guided soccer balls that are remote-controlled by British agent James Bond and Pakistani intelligence. These agents allegedly move the balls into the net after Beckham touches them. This supposedly garners defendant more commercials, a key to any U.S. city, and Iraqi national bank loot, which Beckham kicks back to Buckingham Palace. Plaintiff also alleges that Beckham is an illegal alien that did not have to make a stop at Ellis Island, that Plaintiff suffered lead poisoning from a Mattel soccer ball he received from defendant Beckham, that Posh Spice uses Old Spice, and that Beckham told Frenchman Zidane to head butt him last month.

• Riches v. Guantanamo Bay et. al: Plaintiff alleges that the defendants sold half his brain on eBay, but undervalued it as they only received $4,275 from the highest bidder. Defendants also allegedly stole his identity and used his credit to purchase missiles and gas masks on the international black market. Plaintiff claims that collection agencies keep sending him bills. Judge dismissed the complaint finding that the allegations were baseless, fantastic or delusional.

Seriously, I could list favorites all day. Nearly every one of them with a description is phenomenal. Some of my favorite "defendants":

• Terry Schiavo (twice!)
  
• E. Coli 0157:H7
• No Child Left Behind Act
• Michaelangelo
• The Statue of Liberty
• (843)387-9400 (i have no idea)
• Hurricane Katrina
• The Uniform Commercial Code
• Benazir Bhutto
• Roe v. Wade

Also, he apparently hates O.J. Simpson. I've lost count of how many times he sued him. Other trends: he doesn't like Pakistan and you're really not a celebrity unless you've been sued by Riches. Seriously. All the good ones are. Apparently a federal judge in the Northern District of Georgia has had enough and barred all future suits.

Okay, if I don't call it quits now, I'll spend more hours on this than I already have, and that would not be healthy.

Final Note: Jonathan Lee Riches gets out of the pen in 2012. Anyone want to start a pool on how long it takes for him to get sent back? Or get his own realty show?

The People of Berkeley

Specifically, the people that I come across on a day to day basis.

My favorite person is the owner of the cafe I go to every morning. About 4 days a week, I walk in 9:12 and he says, "small coffee, seniorita?" Him and his family own the cafe, which is attached to a hotel called The French Hotel. It's a cute little building and there's lots of seating inside and out. I really love it. He knows half the people that come in there and is always smiling. Sometimes I get a free upgrade and he always likes my earrings. Don't get me wrong, the man is old enough to be my father. In fact, I think the other guys that work there are his sons and probably a few years older than I am. They're a great bunch though and like clockwork, I walk out at 9:18 and continue to work.

Another of my favorites, is Mario. He works at the grocery store. He's very jolly and when he checks my ID, he always puts out his hand and says, "nice to meet you, Elizabeth." And we shake hands and then chit chat while he scans my groceries. He never remembers that he's met me before, but I think that's part of the charm of the whole thing.

Then there's the homeless man who only repeats the phrase, "anything you can. anything you can" as his way of asking for change. He also likes to stand sort of near the ATM machines on Shattuck

As far as characters at work, our vice president, who comes in for about an hour a week is a reverend who curses more than any man of God I've ever met. He calls my boss, "the oracle of justice" though, which I think is cute. He's a hilarious guy though and teases my boss (who is in her 80s), so it's fun to watch her get all fired up.

George W. Bush Sewage Plant

I love Californians. They're so sassy. A group is proposing to rename San Francisco's Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant. If they get their way, it will be called George W. Bush Sewage Plant. Here's the article. It looks like it could be put before voters in November as a ballot item. If you don't care to read the article, here's my favorite part: "A California group submitted a proposal Monday to rename a sewage treatment plant after President Bush, calling the initiative a fitting tribute to the outgoing chief executive and the "mess" he'll leave behind." The chairman of the Republican Party has called the measure "childish, it is stupid."

Well, stupid as it may be, it's comical and appropriate. Best of luck!

California, the Constitution, and Cell Phones

So the NY Times posted an article this evening about California's new cell phone ban that went into effect on July 1st. The basics: If you're under 18, you may not use a cell phone at all. If you're over 18, you can only use a cell phone via a handsfree device. There's some fines involved and you can't get away from the advertising on the freeways/radio/tv from cell phone vendors trying to sell handsfree devices. My favorite, by has the last line: "It's better to be safe than cited." Which, to me distorts the whole purpose of purchasing a handsfree device. It's not to avoid a fine, it's to be safe, right? Well, either way, the cell phone companies are raking it in, I'm sure.

Personally, I don't own an earpiece thingy, but my iPhone came with headphones that have a little voice receiver near your mouth on the cord, so that's my handsfree device. Although, as irony would have it, I nearly got into a wreck trying to untangle said handsfree device so that I could use my phone in the future.

But the real intriguing argument being made about this whole scenario involves a little Criminal Procedure. That's right. Tune out now. The NYTimes article actually references this blog post which does a little crimpro analysis of the new law and it's possible ramifications. All hail the Fourth Amendment. The author, a Berkeley Law student, argues that the new law will be a whole new justification for pre-textual searches. It's an interesting argument and I think the author is correct; I just wonder if it will actually be abused. I guess time will tell. I think the moral of the whole article (in case you don't care to get all law school in July) is that you shouldn't hide your phone if you get pulled over. Put it in plain view and that way the cops can't search your entire passenger compartment looking for the phone, and whoops, find a little contraband along the way, getting you more than a fine. So, a lesson for all Californians. If everyone would follow this advice, the whole pre-textual search issue would go away.

If your love of the law isn't quite satiated, I encourage you to read the comments posted below the Berkeley law student's article. I think I can actually imagine some of the people who responded and there's a 85% chance many of them are 3Ls cracked out on crimpro bar prep.

Random Musings on a Random Thursday

So work is going better. I would certainly hope so, now that I’m over halfway done. It got better about two weeks in. I think part of it is adjusting to an office job, which I’ve never had and then there’s being in a new place and away from nearly all my friends. But now that I’ve adjusted, I really love California. It will be weird to go to back to NC. I’m currently in the process of planning my route back. I really want to do it in 5 days, but I want to see some new places, so I just don’t know if that’s going to be possible. Anyway, back to work stuff. My boss is pretty insane. She’s super old and can’t see very well. She’s legally blind, but not completely. So she can get around the office, but uses a machine that projects the words on a page onto a larger screen. It’s taken some getting used to, but it’s really not that big of a deal. What’s worse is that she is so old and forgets things so sometimes she’ll ask me to do the same thing three different times.

Enough with the negative though. The office has been very busy today. There’s only 5 of us that usually work here and several others come in for a few hours a week just to pitch in, but this morning, we had a group of Thai reporters come in to chat w/ the executive director (my boss) and they had a translator, so I listened to a lot of Thai and English. This afternoon, we’ve had several people come by to catch up with my boss and talk about human rights issues. Well, my boss wanted the two of them to get together at some point to talk about some issue and then she walked out to get something from outside. As she was gone, one of the men turned to the other and said. “Well Ann wants us to get together and chat, but let’s celebrate our independence and not deal with this shit right now.” By the way, cursing is rampant here. I’ve heard “goddammit” more times than I can count and a few people have dropped the F bomb. Everything else is just part of the general lingo for the office. We’re a tough group. Grrrr.

Also, I just had a 15 minute long conversation with this guy about BBQ. Apparently he’s been to NC and loves barbeque, so we just yammered on about pulled pork and coleslaw and brisket. He is SUCH a hippie. First of all, he has a ponytail with several different hair ties in it as it gets smaller. Then, he’s wearing khaki colored manpris. He uses the words “sweetheart” and “darling” and says things like, “be well” and “blessings.” And he smelled like patchouli.

Day to day stuff in the office can be pretty humorous, but as far as actual substantive work, I am really enjoying researching public policy issues on everything from Education to Immigration to the War in Iraq. Some of these things I know well, but other policy areas, I’m working from scratch, so it’s more challenging. I’m glad it’s challenging though because if it wasn’t, I’d just be bored.

Weekend plans: hanging out w/ Jon in Mountain View for a couple of days, probably catching San Jose’s fireworks show. We went to the Giants/Cubs game last night and they had fireworks afterwards but there was so much fog (AT&T Park is right on the bay) that it looked more like colored lightening. It was pretty eerie and I liked it, but I think the San Jo fireworks will be better. By the way, I’ve picked up a little NorCal Latin slang. It’s pronounced San Ho. I love it. So yeah, probably just playing it pretty low key and relaxing. I’ll be back up in Berkeley on Saturday and Sunday, maybe I’ll find somewhere to go read or hike or something.

Last weekend I went hiking by myself. It was pretty cool because I’ve never done that before. I just took an Ipod and threw on some tennis shoes and drove out to Tilden Park which is a regional park that’s about 2 miles from me. It’s amazing how I can drive just a few minutes and be out in the middle of nowhere. I’ll post pictures later this weekend. I also did a little shopping in Berkeley and hopefully I can finish that up this weekend. Alright, 25 more minutes left in the work week. Soooo close!

P.S. A while back, I posted about a deer mom and her two babies that I spotted walking up my street in Berkeley. Well last night, a stag crossed the street (IN the crosswalk, I might add) a few houses down from me. The deer come down at midnight.

Rain? and politics

Where is it? I haven't seen rain since Brooks' rehearsal dinner night. That was over a month ago. California is dry, dry, dry. At least this time of year. It's cloudy and sometimes looks like the dreary skies over London or Utrecht...but in those places it rained daily. Here, it's cloudy a few days here and there. One or two a week...but no rain. It's eerie really.

In other news, John Yoo, former assistant AG, goes before Congress tomorrow. There's a group in Berkeley that is campaigning to get him fired. He's a law professor here now, but he's better known as the author of the torture memos. A bright, legal mind, for sure, but a champion of the unitary executive theory. This is a scary man to have as your ConLaw professor. How will you ever learn about separation of powers, new UC Berkeley 1Ls? Needlesstosay, I look forward to reading the transcript of tomorrow's Congressional hearings and I look forward to the indictment, even if it takes a while.

gASS

There's something wrong with the world when the "cheap" gas website has the cheapest gas in the area at $4.49. source: http://www.oaklandgasprices.com/Berkeley/index.aspx

Jesus oil-loving Christ. Nevermind that I don't have my car, but my dad's which doesn't tolerate regular unleaded (the car, not my dad), but plus, so tack on another 10 cents. I spoke to my mom last night and she said that gas in NC hadn't hit $4 yet. Lucky bastards.

Now I get why all these Berkeley-ites(??) have damn Priusii.

Congressional Stupidity

Who knew Congress spends some of their time being so lame. For example: everytime anyone wins a national championship, Congress must congratulate them. This might be okay if it was a card or something, but they actually sit there in Washington and vote on a bill on whether to congratulate a team or not. Here's House Resolution 475 passed in 3/9/04: "Congratulating the San Jose Earthquakes for Winning the 2003 Major League Soccer Cup."Whoop-de-dooo! They also have to pass official legislation in order to change the name of a post office: House Resolution 3769: "Ben Atchley Post Office." And to celebrate birthdays: House Resolution 84: "Recognizing the 93rd Birthday of Ronald Reagan." H.R. 492: "Honoring the Contributions of Catholic Schools." Yeah, less birth control, more fantasies of catholic school girls. Go Congress. I could sit here all day and list stupid bills, but I won't. Probably because I've been sitting here all day going through the titles of every bill voted on (not just passed) by the House of Representatives up to 2008. I'm working my way backwards and have finally made it to 2003. Only 2 more years of the Bush Administration to go. Seriously, ridiculous. I am swimming in legislation right now. Bottom line: at least there's stupid shit like, HR 923: "Recognizing the State of Minnesota's 150th Anniversary" to make me chuckle.

The Prius Game

So the other day, Jon and I were driving around in Berkeley. Probably in the car for a total of an hour, maybe 90 minutes…well, we decided to count Priusii. There seems to be a high concentration of them in this city which is not surprising because most of the inhabitants of Berkeley are Bourgeois Bohemians. A bobo, for short, is basically a group of elite Americans who have a lot of money, yet shun conformity, and the traditional ethos of past generations. They shop at organic farmers markets and recycle and generally try to be hippies, but with all the comforts of an upper class society that tries to shun consumerism, but actually embrace it in their own way. I didn’t make this up. Its from a book I borrowed from dear friend called Bobos in Paradise. It’s by David Brooks in case anyone wants to look it up. In any case, Carrboro is FULL of them. So is Berkeley. So in keeping with their environmentally sound preferences, yet ability to spend thousands on nice cars, Priusii are IN.

I have a point, I promise. As we are driving around and counting we eventually got up to a number in the neighborhood of 38. Pretty high frequency. I consider playing this game daily, but am usually distracted by the strange man with dreads (but only two huge nappy ones) pushing his bike along, or the man who seems to wander every street of north Berkeley who has an unforgettable reverse Mohawk. I guess that’s a nice way to say that he’s bald straight down the middle, but has abundant hair on the sides. Four times I’ve spotted him in the past 2 ½ weeks.

Back to my point…I left my house today to go fill my car up with gas so I didn’t have to do it in the morning on my way to work. (If I wait for tomorrow, I’ll be paying $4.70 instead of $4.60) On the way home, I decided to play my little game. In about a mile and a half of driving back home (note: NOT round trip), I counted 18 Priusii. Eighteen. In a mile a half. Granted, the streets are lined with parallel parking spots, but wow. Just wow. North Berkeley may be home to the greatest concentration of Priusii on the planet. If anyone cares to challenge me, do it. I’ll put money on it.

A final note: I’m not sure if Priusii is a term used in the general parlance of discussing cars, but if it’s not, I’m hereby coining the term. Pass it along.

Point Reyes & Northface

What an amazing weekend. Saturday, Jon and I went to Point Reyes National Seashore. A short hour drive from Berkeley. It's a little north of San Francisco and is absolutely gorgeous. There are miles upon miles of forest and seashore. We drove to the Bear Valley Visitor Center and got out for our hike. We decided on an 8 mile round trip route to Arch Point. The hike was pretty level with a few hills, but nothing too bad. I do have to say that both of us were pretty tired by the end and sore when we woke up this morning, but it was a decent hike. Just long enough to get tired, but not too long to be absolutely sick of it. We walked through forests, past creeks and a few scattered redwoods. It was a really beautiful walk. Slowly we started to smell salt water and all of a sudden could hear the waves. Arch point is this point that juts out into the Pacific Ocean and you can hike out to it. The ocean is probably about 100 feet or more down and the waves just crash into the rocks. There was a little beach, but I don't think we could have gotten down there if we tried. Unless of course we took a huge dive into the water, but that wasn't happening. There was an adjacent ridge that we hiked up to and put out a blanket and had a little picnic and just laid in the sun.

The only negative of the whole hike was this creepy blackbird that decided to swoop around near us. For some unexplained reason, i hate big black birds. It may be due to Malefacence (if that's the right spelling) from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Remember: she turned into a blackbird and was really evil and mean. Anyway, I was catching some rays and heard the flapping of wings above me and it was up there and then landed a few feet away. He was after the tomato that I had carelessly tossed about 10 feet away. Thankfully, I scared him off but he kept close and flew overhead the entire time we were there. Then a seagull landed and tasted the tomato. He even had a little red juice on his beak and in the end the valiant seagull won out and the blackbird went hungry. Just the way I wanted it. Haha, bird!

After just chilling out for a while eating, basking, and listening to the waves crash against the rocks, we headed back. When we got back to the car, we decided to drive out to the lighthouse on another point. It was a really pretty drive through cow fields and rolling hills. At one point we even had to stop so the cows could cross the street. I almost felt like I was in India. When we got out at the parking lot near the lighthouse we took some pictures and then walked the half mile or so to the lighthouse. The wind was crazy, I think about 30-40mph, according to the Park Ranger and it was pretty cold, but the walk out there was totally worth it. We couldn't actually walk down to the lighthouse b/c it was closed, but we could still see it and just being there felt like we were on the edge of the universe. All in all, a really wonderful day.

When we got back to Berkeley, I took Jon to the Pyramid Brewery here in town and we ate dinner. I had eaten there for lunch earlier this week and it's a pretty cool spot overall. Having hiked all day, we didn't do much else for the rest of the night.

Today, we got up and ate lunch at this little pizza restaurant on Shattuck Ave and then headed to the NorthFace outlet because I heard that there was one here in town and that, in fact, it is the only one in the entire country. Well, we never really made it to the actual store outlet part because we were diverted into this back room of the outlet and given a large plastic trash bag by one of the employees. A bit confused, we beheld the sight before us. It was their sample sale that only takes place once or twice a year. I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I think it means that none of these things actually made it into their stores, or were prior variations of what did make it to the stores. In any case, it's all northface gear, but incredibly reduced. It's all the same sizes: men's medium, women's medium, kids medium, but that was just fine. A few things were too big, but most of it fit great. There were about 10 rows of 15 cardboard boxes FULL of coats, shirts, jackets, fleeces, snow pants, etc. There was also a wall with two rods running the length of the room with heavy winter coats. There were also about 6 boxes of bags and backpacks. So, basically, paradise. After about 10 minutes we realized what the plastic bags were for: shopping! My best deals were a $200 coat for $80 (it feels like a sleeping bag!) and a $60 jacket for $15. Amazing. I spent a little over $250, but came out with 5 items that were originally priced at $560. Maybe next weekend I'll actually make it to the outlet store nextdoor to that warehouse of awesome and pick up a sleeping bag or something. Who knew that such a jackpot was only 3 miles away and how lucky were we to happen to stop by on the one day a year that they let their coats go for pittance.

The only downer is that for the past two weeks, I've been a little chilly and wishing I had brought a few more jackets, but now that the weather is in the upper 70s, I don't need them. So bummer. I can't wait til winter. And for those of you in NC right now (and maybe the whole east coast), I'm sure you are all ready for some cooler weather. I have been keeping up and it looks ridiculous over there. I don't really want to rub it in, but California may just have the best weather of anywhere on the planet. Maybe not San Francisco, but they're weird. The rest of us have great weather.

Anyway, after NorthFaceHeaven, Jon and I came back to watch the Prefontaine Classic (a track meet anticipating the Olympics) and then headed back to Mountain View. We watched the first half of the Celtics/Lakers game and then went out to dinner in downtown Mountain View at this delicious Thai restaurant. Overall, it was an absolutely amazing weekend and I wish it wasn't over! Mondays always come too soon. Thankfully, work is going better and next weekend will also be incredible. Maybe some dinner/drinks in the City on Friday, and Saturday, definitely heading to Sonoma Valley to go tour some wineries and do some tastings all afternoon. God, life sucks here. So bad.

Santa Cruz and Monterey

So I’m about to finish my second week of work, and go on my next mini-vacation for the weekend, so I figured I should probably talk about what I did last weekend. I met my friend, Erin, and her husband, Adam, in San Francisco for dinner. I picked them up and we went to the Mission District to go find somewhere to eat. We initially wanted to eat at one of the million Taquerias as the Mission is a predominantly Latino part of town (Latinos and hipsters) but they all had waits of something like an hour and a half. Ridiculous. So we found this Ethiopian restaurant instead. I had never eaten Ethiopian food, but it was quite good. I had beef and chicken and lentils. They serve your meal on big round plate along with the other people at your table and there are just little piles of food. Using your fingers, you pinch off a little “bread” called Injara which is more like a spongy pancake and pick up your food in that manner. It was quite an experience and the food was actually really good. We also each got a different Ethiopian beer which were also pretty good though the lager and the stout tasted almost identical, which is just not right. After dinner we found a cute little bar that was indoors/outdoors but as we started looking around, we noticed that there were all these huge poster-sized photos of Mexicans camping out at the border. It was some sort of art exhibit illustrating the injustices of US border policies and judging by the A/star symbol, it was anarchist sponsored. Welcome to San Francisco.

The next day, Jon and I took a drive down south. Not too far south though. Our first stop was Santa Cruz so from Mountain View, we took highway 17 to Santa Cruz. We drove through campus, which neither of us were impressed by. Pretty trees and such, but the buildings were god-awful ugly. Overall, Santa Cruz seemed very much like a beach town. Everyone seemed to wear shorts and zip-up hoodies. We went out to the boardwalk which was something like an amusement park complete with roller coasters, other various rides, an arcade, and carnival food. From the boardwalk, you could walk right onto the beach. I think we’re too far north to get any sort of decent temperature in the water, or perhaps it was because it was the end of May, but it was just cold. After taking a stroll on the beach, we walked over to the adjacent pier which included a few shops and restaurants and a few fishermen, but mainly just a lot of walkers. We ate lunch overlooking the water and watched as some surfers sat in the water waiting fruitlessly for any waves. I didn’t see a single one in the entire time we sat there and there had to have been over 20 surfers. Give up already! When the one wave comes, you can’t all surf on it anyway. Oh, there were also seals that were swimming around. They were cool. And loud.

After lunch, we headed further south along Highway 1 (the famous highway that goes down California’s coast.) where we could only see the ocean occasionally, well really it was the Monterey Bay. It was a pretty drive nonetheless. We arrived in Monterey which is right on the Bay and proceeded to find our destination: The 17 Mile Drive. It’s through this mostly wooded, yet somewhat coastal area that has 3 amazing golf courses and some of the biggest houses I’ve ever seen. There are tons of places to stop and get out and take pictures, so we did all that, just to get our $9 worth. One of the houses even had deer in its fenced in yard. I’m sure that’s not legal, especially not in California. One of the golf courses there is Pebble Beach which is one of the most famous courses in the country. It was gorgeous and we got out at the Pro Shop so Jon could buy some way overpriced golf balls with the logo on them. We also walked down to the 18^th green where some famous football players were playing golf.

After finishing the 17 mile drive, we went to go to see the Indiana Jones movie. I’ve heard a lot of bad reviews, but my take on the movie is this: I wasn’t bored, so that’s good. I thought it was a little cheesy at times and some of the one liners were pretty dumb, but then again, the old IJ films had some dumb one liners too. That’s what happens when you let Harrison Ford ad lib. Anyway, it got kind of weird at the end, but overall I thought it was decent.

On our way back to the Bay Area, we stopped in a little (and I do mean little) town called Moss Landing. There’s only one little turnoff and if you follow the road to behind where the boats are, there’s a restaurant called Phil’s Fish Market. It has fabulous seafood and is very, very cute. I highly recommend it if you’re ever on Highway 1 between Monterey and Santa Cruz.

So that was the weekend. It was really nice to see part of California and I look forward to going to see Point Reyes National Seashore this weekend and doing some hiking. Professor Motomura recommended it to me and I’ve seen some amazing pictures, so I’m stoked.

Deer in Berkeley

I know I still need to update last week, but instead, I have a weird little anecdote:
So, tonight, it's almost 12:30pm I suppose...I go onto my mini-balcony to smoke the last cigarette of the night. Its quiet on my street. The occasional car passes during the day, but at night, it's really dead. I think I've mentioned that I live up in the hilly part of Berkeley; probably less than half a mile away are no houses, because I suppose it's too steep or just not livable at the top of the hill. (note: if you could find a grader at a decent rate to make some of that land inhabitable, it'd be the most choice real estate in the county of Alameda.) In any case, I'm outside in a very quiet neighborhood and I hear something. Walking. My neighbor to the south has a tree with a lot of leaves that obstruct my view of the road somewhat, so I see something walking down the middle of the street. It looks like a dog...a big dog. From the coloring through the leaves, I'm thinking huge German Shepherd. Who let's that kind of dog roam about? Does it have rabies? I re-read To Kill a Mockingbird lately and remember vividly the dog with rabies that walked straight down the street.

Of course, the tree doesn't span forever, so eventually this creature comes into my view and lo and behold, it's a deer. A smallish one, obviously female. She doesn't know I'm there. Then I hear the clip clop of her hoofs on the pavement. She's walking straight and with a purpose. Then I hear more clip clops. There is a fawn behind her about 15 yards. And then another one scurries up to the first fawn. What are three deer doing walking down the street like they own it? I did readjust my sitting position at one point, and the second fawn heard me and paused for a moment. I was sure not to make any more sounds so that mama deer could continue assessing the situation. I don't know deer very well, but I assume she's doing what any good mother would do and that is: find a way home. or at least to the woods. LeRoy Ave. is not a good place for a mother deer and two babies. However she got off track, I hope she finds her way home without incident.

I watched her disappear around what must have been to her 'yet another corner' and wondered if she appreciated the beauty of this part of the world as much as I do.

The first week

So, when I arrived in Berkeley on Monday afternoon, I met the girl I was subletting from and there was another roommate (who was moving out in a few days) and his girlfriend here. The four of us along with my sublessor's boyfriend grilled out on our back porch. It was a nice introduction to Berkeley. I unpacked my car and made myself comfortable and readied myself for my first day of work.

I'm going to skip the subject of work for now because I feel like I can be more positive about it when I've been there for a few weeks. Suffice to say, it's been an adjustment and I think once I'm more used to it, I'll like it more. So in the spirit of being positive about living in Cali for the first time, I'm going to move on and address this topic when there's funnier/better things to say about it.

The House/Neighborhood:
I live nearly on the corner of Cedar St. and Leroy Ave. (Which I keep calling Le Roy, like it's french, but I think it's really just Leroy...like the guy who fixes your brake pads). It's north of the UC Berkeley Campus about 5 blocks. If you don't go straight and instead head down the hill (down Cedar street) you will find yourself in an area called the Gourmet Ghetto. It's not a ghetto at all. It's really just all these locally owned restaurants/cafes/bars/shops along several blocks (I'm not sure how many). I guess it's best described as a district. At the bottom of a hugely steep hill is a flower stand that sells cheap fresh flowers every day and a grocery store and a store called the Elephant Pharmacy which is like an organic/hippie Walgreens. You can buy all the things from Stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com there, such as the metal water bottle I purchased on Thursday. Also tons of herbal remedies and supplements for whatever ails you. But you can get Tylenol and Claratin there too. They are an equal opportunity pharmacy.

Okay, the actual house. It's 5 bedrooms, most of which are pretty large. It seems like a pretty old house which I love because I've always wanted to live in an old house. But that equates to little insulation, thin walls, and creakiness. Which is totally okay if you consider that the entire place has wooden floors and lots of windows that open outwards, not upwards. There's a fabulous balcony with a great view of Oakland and the Bay. Being in the "Berkeley hills" means that it's very steep often, but there are tons of trees and flowers and gorgeousness. I can't complain at all. At night, I go out on the balcony and just sit and absorb the town. It's beautiful. From what I've heard, it's a pretty coveted area to be and I think I got really lucky with this place. This is the view from my bedroom's balcony.

The Roommates:
The first week in the house was a bit weird only because 2 people were moving out after me being there for a few days and 2 more were taking their places at that point. So the people I hung out with a little bit wont' be here and there are new people. Now it is the weekend and the two new roommates are moved in. I met them a few days ago when we had an open house for another room that's opening up at the end of June. So things should settle down and we'll get into more of a routine. What I know right now (or think I know): the other roommates are all engineers, so we will not be discussing the law, which is awesome, because after 8 hours of work, that's the last thing I want to talk about; they are all berkeley students. (note: there is one roommate--the one moving in june--that i havent' met, she's out of town indefinitely, so this is just about the 3 that are going to be here this summer). 3 of us are grad students, one is a senior, but my age b/c he took some time off. So we're all mid-late 20s. (whoa. is 23 mid-20s?) I like them all so far though, even though we've only eaten dinner once and had a few other minor conversations. I look forward to hanging out with them more.

All in all, those of us who will be here for the summer are me, Rikky, CiCi, Erik, and a fifth yet to be named. Might be a girl or a guy. We shall see. It'll be fine either way.

Berkeley:
The town itself is really cute. Tons of flowers. It just smells different out here. Like flowers. Maybe there's a reason hippies are referred to as flower children. Tons of shops and restaurants that I've never heard of because there's only one. Here's where I insert a diatribe about how much chains suck because they are impersonal and owned by Corporate America, but I'll spare you. We all know that the local coffee shop is far superior to Starbucks and Carolina Brewery beers are much tastier than Budweiser. You get the picture. The term "quaint" sounds condescending, but I don't mean it that way. The town has character. I've been spending my lunch breaks exploring. I've got my little corner of the town down, but next week, I plan to explore the areas closer to the University. Speaking of, this town is very young. There's a few older couples and some children, but mostly, there's a lot of college/grad student age people around so it's a lot like Chapel Hill/Carrboro in that respect. I can see now why they call Chapel Hill, "the Berkeley of the South." It very much is, except Chapel Hill is TINY TINY TINY compared to Berkeley. There are 40 Franklin Streets to our 1.

The first week was kind of chilly. Weather in the 60s, but still very sunny, except for Friday. The coming week looks like its full of 70s. I'm excited. I'm glad that I'm learning where things are and just getting used to things in general.

This has been a hard week just in terms of adjusting to life in a new city/job/house/roommates. I miss everyone at home terribly and homesickness is just a way of life, but that being said, I adjust to things quickly and while I can't wait to see everyone in August, I'm excited to see what the summer has to hold. I think my hardest week is behind me, so bring on week number 2!

The rest of the drive.

So the rest of the trip. This is a week later, so i'm sure I'd have had more to say on the subject a week ago, but it's been a crazy week of moving in and all that. Jon and I had a great time and seeing/doing the following things:

Brunch/people watching in downtown Denver on Saturday.

Snowy Rocky mountain drive from Denver towards the Utah border.

An unfortunate speeding ticket (Jon, not me) in the sticks of western colorado. Absolute crap. He was going 76 in a 65 on a road with no curves, just hills. The cop was clearly bored as he was driving towards us and turned around in order to give Jon a ticket.

Dinosaur National Monument which is sort of a national park where you can camp and stuff, but we just got out and looked at the dinosaur bones that were partially uncovered and embedded in the rock face. Pretty cool seeing real bones in a rock.

Our "near disaster" was when we forgot to get gas in this town in Utah and I noticed we were getting low an hour later. We realize we're in the middle of nowhere and Jon, positive as he always is, tries to assure me that we can go at least 90 more miles and surely there's a gas station between now and then. Well we get about 20 more miles down the road and the E light goes on. From my experiences w/ my Civic, I know that this means I've got about 20-25 miles to go before pooping out. As Jon examined the map, it became clear that the nearest town is a good 40 miles away. Well, just as I'm starting to panic in my head, I see some dim lights of what looks like a closed gas station. So we pull in and sure enough, it's closed. Oh, it's also dark out at this point. At this point, I am just hoping that the pumps are kept on at night when Jon and I spot some people inside the dark station. Well, they come out (a man and a woman) and ask if the pump is working, I assure them that it is, and then they go to their cars and leave. Had Jon not been there, I can guarantee that I would have probably shit my pants at this point. Luckily we filled up the tank and were on our way, but I paid attention to the next 4o miles and there was NOWHERE to get gas. I do have AAA who would bring me gas if I needed it, but seeing as how neither of our cell phones had any service whatsoever, we would have just been SOL.Spent the night at a great hotel in Salt Lake City and saw the Temple in Tabernacle Square in the morning. Such wonderfully nice people in Salt Lake. I like those Mormons.

Drove past the Great Salt Lake and through the salt flats which are where they shoot all those car commercials and test cars to see just how fast they can go. It's pretty amazing. We tasted the ground to see if it really did taste like salt and sure enough, salty as hell.

Then we entered Nevada where there were a ton of border casinos. There's not much to say about the drive through Nevada as it is pretty lame, but our one interesting moment came when we stopped to get gas. It was a little town called Winnemucca. And whatthefucca...I pumped gas and Jon went in to grab some drinks and witnessed this exchange (I'll try to get it is close to his story as possible):
Gas Station Employee 1: "Did you hear about the shooting at the bar last night?"
Gas Station Employee 2: "No, what happened?"
E'ee 1: "Well, you know that guy who comes in here all the time with [some sort of description]? Well, he shot up the bar.:
E'ee 2: "Yeah, I know the guy. Why did he do that?"
E'ee 1: "I dunno. Just went crazy I guess. Started shooting at everyone, men, women, children and everything" (note: children? at a bar? what)
E'ee 2: "What happened?"
E'ee 1: "Before the cops could they get there they shot him."
E'ee 2: "They? Who's they?"
E'ee 1: "Some other guys at the bar."
So yeah...when we got to Reno, we saw the news story. Apparently this guy who "just went crazy" shot and killed three guys the night before at this dive bar which apparently had children in it. Bizarre. We vowed never to go back to Winnemucca again.

Sunday night we hung out in Reno. It was like a trashy Vegas. I accidentally took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up passing the Reno Sheriff's Department which made me extremely excited b/c of the show Reno 911. It did not look the same, at least this one didn't and I did not see any of my favorite characters, perhaps not surprisingly. Reno was fun. Jon won money. I lost about 40 bucks, but I don't think that's too bad since I played slots for a while and some craps and some video poker and got probably $25 in free drinks. Not bad for a night out.

The next morning we left Reno and headed to Lake Tahoe since it was so close and we only had 3 1/2 hours of driving to get to the Bay area. So we detoured and saw the lake. Unfortunately, it was a cold, foggy, rainy day, but we were able to get out and walk around a bit. It's a super cute area and I'd love to go back when the weather is nicer.

After that I took a nap and missed much of the drive through California. Reno had kind of taken it out of me. I dropped Jon off at his place in Mountain View (south of Palo Alto) and then drove up Hwy 101 through San Francisco and across the Bay into Berkeley. This last picture is of the Bay Bridge (not to be confused with the Golden Gate.) It doesn't look like this if you are going FROM Berkeley TO San Francisco, but since it's two layers, this way is covered by the West bound lanes.

Day 4

Between Amarillo and the Texas/New Mexico border I noticed a lot of fans. Well, not fans, windmills. It reminded me of the Netherlands. Except that these were white and the Netherlands had big orange ones. I’m glad Texas is trying to invest in other sources of energy besides simply oil.

I saw a tumbleweed today. And also real cowboys. The tumbleweed crossed the interstate in front of me. I couldn’t help but laugh. Then, a bit later, I see an animal running in a field near me. As I got closer I realized there were several of them and they were cows. Why would a cow run?, I thought. Because 2 men on horses made them. Cowboys. Right on. There were also a lot of ranches in both Texas and New Mexico. I suppose that’s not surprising, but as I’ve said before, I’ve seen these places on TV, I know that they exist, but they have just never existed as concretely in my mind as they do now.

Overall it was a fairly boring drive. The last long one by myself though. I hit 2000 miles at some point. Tomorrow I’m driving alone, but only to Breckenridge and then to Denver. So less than 4 hours total. No biggie at this point. I did decide to take the long way and go into New Mexico far enough to see Santa Fe. Thankfully, New Mexico was prettier than Texas, but not near the Texas border. Santa Fe seemed like a pretty cool town but I just can’t imagine living in quasi-desert conditions. Seems nuts to me. I’m amazed we even have non-admitted immigrants from Mexico because I don’t think I’d be willing to walk across that part of the country. And if I saw it, I’d turn around. But I suppose Mexico is pretty dry too, so maybe New Mexico is actually an improvement. Scary thought.

I stopped for lunch in Santa Fe at this little burger joint. It was pretty good except they forgot to take off the onions. It was actually really chilly there. Very windy all day and probably in the low 60s. And I had thought that would be my hot day. Guess not.

I continued on 25 North until Colorado Springs. Drove through such towns as Las Vegas NM and Pueblo CO. There was one little mountain-y area on my way in, but other than that, pretty flat drive. The best part was that there were these hills covered in dark trees to my right that were too small to be called mountains, but they were huge hills. Well, every now and then I’d catch a glimpse of a craggy peak in the distance with a snow on it. I actually gasped when I first saw it. So incredibly gorgeous. Another part that I thought was funny is that there was a sign for roadwork and it read "Road damage ahead" And then shuffled us across the median to occupy the opposite direction's left lane and scoot along there at a snail's pace. Well, here's the picture of the "road damage." The road wasn't damaged, it just wasn't there!

As I drove into Colorado Springs—a pristine town at the foot of the mountains—I wished that I was going into the mountains already, but a few more hours and I’ll be doing just that. I am staying at a really nice hotel, but I’m convinced they gave me the shitty room because I have an awful view and several things don’t work around here. I found a Thai takeout place in the phonebook and went to get my food from the hole in the wall. Usually those places are pretty good and this one was no exception, but their near complete lack of patrons at 7:30 was worrisome. Nevertheless, my panang chicken curry was pretty damn good. I don’t think you can really eff that up. I’ve never had bad chicken curry from a thai place before unless it is too spicy to eat.

Tomorrow, I’m heading up to Breckenridge to see a friend and eat lunch. Then I’m off to Denver to hang out w/ Cory for a few hours before Jon gets here at 11pm. Plus! I get to drive through the mountains all day!

Day 3

Woke up early again, showered, then went to Sonic. Got a breakfast bistro sandwich, which was alright, but not stellar. Then dropped Liz off work. I had such a wonderful time. I drove back through campus, filled up the tank, and headed for Tulsa. Like my drive in, the drive out was beautiful. The Ozarks are amazing. I got to Tulsa without incident and promptly stopped by Oral Roberts University because my dad went to his first year of dental school there and my mom was with him, working at the hospital. ORU was terribly tacky. Lots of gold buildings. It looks like aliens landed and tried to set up a village. I walked around for a few minutes so I could grab pictures of the most aesthetically offensive buildings and then back to my car to plan a scenic drive through west Oklahoma.

I guess I drove through Oklahoma City, but didn’t see any of it really, so I don’t think it really counts. I got gas in it, I think. Speaking of, though, it’s the end of Day 3 as I write this, and I have only spent $250 on gas thus far. I’ve gone I think about 1600 miles. This was NOT the summer to pick to do this, but in (quasi-)retrospect, I wish I’d done this long ago. Or maybe I’m doing it at the right time. I am loving being by myself and about the time I get bored, Jon will joining me, so it’s good. Therapeutic even, but certainly not bad. The only thing that sucks is that by the end of the day, my lower back hurts. Lumbar area. Although, now that I say that, today was my longest driving day thus far and it didn’t hurt, but that’s probably b/c I took 2 Tylenol in the morning before I started out specifically to address that problem.

After OK city, I started looking for a Popeye’s which I still haven’t found. There have been a few, but I’ve missed them. (as an aside…I’m watching the local Amarillo news, which is just terrible and they can’t get any of their audio feeds to work. This guy is floundering. He’ll never be as bad as the “boom goes the dynamite” guy –if you don’t know what that is, search that term in youtube—but he’s bad. It’s not his fault. His tech crew is terrible.) Maybe Popeye’s is for tomorrow.

So then I drove down 44 to Clayton, OK and then went into my scenic route. A lot of up and down hills, but straight roads. Through the country side. Very few cars. Not many buildings. It was pretty incredible. I’ve found throughout my travels that there are certain moments when everything becomes clear and life seems simple because no one knows where you are or what you’re doing. It is an almost indescribable feeling. I think it’s just the euphoria of being completely free. I attained it in Europe last summer and I have throughout this trip. I’ve kept some people up to date as to my geographical location, but today I was truly free. No one knew where I was. And where I was is some two lane road with nothing around. Speed limit is 70, so it’s fast, especially for a 2 lane road with no shoulder. So I’ve got the speed and of course, the windows must come down. Then the Garth Brooks begins. I put it on solely because Garth is from Yukon, OK, which I had passed through an hour before. So country music blasting, windows down, sunroof open, hair amuck, country roads, and no one knows where the hell I am. Actually, at one point, I had to take a detour b/c the “bridge is out.” So there was a point where even I didn’t know where I was. I have to say, it’s a nearly religious experience. I love people and I love my friends, but I also really love being all alone and going on adventures. Even if they aren’t that exciting to the normal person. Sometimes I think I need therapy, but really the best therapy for me, personally, is to escape to complete freedom and anonymity. Temporarily of course. I can’t wait to see friends again on Friday, but just for those few minutes/hours/days, it’s really therapeutic , for me at least.

So that was my spiritual experience in west Oklahoma. I headed into Texas and things got flat quick. I drove through some very tiny towns with signs that said “Welcome to Allison” and “Welcome to Panhandle”; some of which even included the local high school’s list of state football championships. I watch “Friday Night Lights” so I get it. West Texas. Crazy about high school football.

I think that’s a recurring theme about this trip. I’ve seen many of these places in tv shows and movies…unfortunately, most notably, horror movies…but I never really believed that places like this existed. Or if they did, I never imagined I’d be there. I’m an east coast girl with a strong curiosity about the west coast…but everything in between? Never really gave it much thought. I drove through a lot of dilapidated towns and I don’t know how long they’ve been like that, but they just seemed like victims of our failing economy. The agricultural/farming industry is obviously struggling and it is very evident in the empty farm towns that once bustled.

After my drive through west Oklahoma and the “top hat of Texas” (as I’ve decided to call it), I arrived in Amarillo. I stayed at a nice hotel, but Amarillo itself is not nice. Not that I saw. Just the typical chain restaurants/gas stations/whatever. Speaking of gas stations though, it was the first time I paid over $4 for gas. In Texas of all places! Don’t they have oil? Shouldn’t it be cheaper there than anywhere else in the country? I’m not really sure, but it didn’t seem right.

Day 2

None of my thoughts on the road seem nearly as relevant as when I’m first thinking them on the road. By the time I get to this point, I’ve forgotten most of them. However, a few things caught my eye that I do remember. Somewhere between Nashville and Memphis (not a fabulous drive, although not terrible), I came across a state park sign in the official brown and white that read “Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park”…yes, Nathan Bedford Forrest. I’m ashamed to say that I recognized the name from Forrest Gump. I believe that’s who he’s named after. In the history of Gump’s name, his namesake is the first grand wizard of the kkk. Which I will not even capitalize because it’s not worth capitalization. But in any case, I was shocked that the state of Tennessee would memorialize such a son of a bitch. Ugh. Minus 50 points, Tennessee.

I had high hopes for Memphis. I wanted to see Graceland. Not because I really care much about Elvis, but I thought it’d be cool. Turns out it’s a total tourist trap for which I am too cheap. I paid $8 for parking, went in, and it was about $28 for the cheapest tour. Bullshit. Minus some more points. Like I said, I don’t care that much about Elvis. So I went to the giftshop instead and bought some tacky Graceland shit and then went on my merry way.

So then I had a second mission in Memphis: BBQ. I’ve heard of Memphis Style. Bobby Flay and the Food Network’s BBQ week have alerted me. So I set off to find some. I settled on Jim Nealy’s Famous Interstate BBQ. Plugged it into the GPS and located that delicious restaurant. I got a chopped BBQ sandwich and a sweet tea. Seemed appropriate. And perfect. It was both. It’s more like Western NC BBQ than Eastern, b/c it’s definitely ketchup based. Having grown up in western NC, I almost feel like a traitor saying I enjoy vinegar based BBQ better. But there it is: I like vinegar based BBQ better. In any case, this was not that. But it was super good. I forgot to ask for no slaw, because if you have grown up around BBQ you know that slaw automatically comes on BBQ sandwiches. But I forgot. And even though it may disqualify me from being a true “southern girl,” I don’t like anything cabbage related, thus, coleslaw = gross. However, the BBQ at this place was more than good enough to account for the (thankfully small) amount of coleslaw. So wow, that’s a lot about BBQ, but dammit. I love BBQ. 10 points, Tennessee.

After my BBQ excursion, I hopped back on 40 to head across the Mississippi. I had no idea how close Memphis and the Mississippi are to one another. I really wanted to get out at the River and take a picture, because, wow! , it’s the biggest river in the country. But, alas, that was not to be. I crossed it, but the bridge’s walls were too high and I was on a big interstate (I-40) so no place to get out before or after. Next time I cross the Ole Miss, I’ll find a small bridge and take pictures. August, I suppose. In any case, here's a super fantastic exciting picture of the bridge over the river since it was all I could get.

As soon as I got into Arkansas, I realized it was beautiful. There were some pretty flat lands around the river, but as you got further inland, there were more rolling hills and just fields and trees. This picture is near the river and I did not intentionally take a picture with a truck in it, much less a Wal-Mart truck...but there it is: Pretty land w/ Wal-Mart mucking up the scenery -- Arkansas in a nutshell. I also saw some of the Ozarks and I really just can’t do them justice in trying to describe them. They are small mountains. Way smaller than the Apps, but they are so pretty. I like that they aren’t completely covered by trees like the Apps are. It actually reminded me of Ireland. So very green and beautiful. So I rode 40 all the way through AK except for the last bit where I hopped in 540 N to Fayetteville.

There are two parts of Fayetteville, Arkansas. First of all, I should say that Bentonville, which is the headquarters of Wal-Mart is directly north (about 30 min) of Fayetteville. So the northern side of Fayetteville is ugly. Full of chain restaurants/stores/fastfood. Boring. It could be any town in the US. However, the redeeming factor is southern Fayetteville. It reminded me of Asheville or Carrboro. Very socially aware and environmentally friendly. Full of hippies and cool kids. Lots of trees and bikes and people actually walk. It’s amazing. If it weren’t for its geographical location in the US, I’d love to live there. No close cities worth going to.

It was wonderful to see Liz again. We have known each other for 10 years now and that’s a LooooooooNG time. Her and I caught up on all the people we know in common, which considering involves all of hickory and UNC, we get a little busy. We traded fun stories about our lives in the 2 years since we’ve lived with one another and generally caught up on life. I didn’t realize how much I missed her until I got there. I really wish I had a few more days there to see everything that there is to see. I did get to go Sonic for the first time though. I had a strawberry real fruit slush and loved it. We vowed to go the next morning for breakfast. Afterwards, we went to a really good pizza place (Tiny Tim’s) within walking distance of her apartment. And I got to see the University of Arkansas campus. We drove through and walked around. I was pretty impressed with how pretty it was. Although at that point, it didn’t surprise me b/c I’d seen how gorgeous Arkansas is. One notable thing is that the Razorback Football team’s stadium is ridiculous. Liz explained that there’s no other huge university, no pro teams of any sport, and nothing nearby, so it’s only natural that everyone freaks out about college football. I can’t in good conscience say “Go Razorbacks,” but as long as they’re not playing UNC, I guess I could cheer for them, but I'm not calling the pigs. That's for sure.

After campus and dinner, we went to a nearby bar w/a patio. Some of Liz’s friends happened to be there, so we hung out and I eventually got to meet her boyfriend. It was a good time and beautiful weather…as it had been the whole time. Then Liz and I went to this dive bar across the street—Maxine’s-- b/c she wanted me to have the true Fayetteville experience. It looked like a nightmare from the outside. It was just this brick building w/ a crappy sign and a pink light emanating from the door that had metal crisscrosses on it which led to stairs and down into the bar. It wasn't actually as creepy as it looked from the outside and it has a cool story. She told me that it was founded in the 50s of 60s, but had burnt down a few years before. Maxine was the owner and bartender and she had a certain stool which was the only thing to survive the fire. Apparently Maxine is no longer on earth, but her stool remains and it took several years for the town of Fayetteville to scour the country’s antique shops for the old memorabilia that bedecked it’s bar. We’re talking old Budweiser handing lamps and very 60s diner type stools. I still think it’s weird that Maxine’s stool was the only thing that survived. It looks worse for the wear, but I suppose you could sit on it. I didn’t dare. I feel unworthy.

After Max’s, we headed home and hung out for a bit longer and then went to sleep with her crazy cat (only a year old) careening throughout the room like a mad man. Also, I woke up at one point with her sitting on me and think I scared her to death. I don’t feel bad…the feeling was mutual.