distance makes the heart grow fonder…

seattle: 3,000 miles and 3 weeks away.  and now that i have some distance, what was my favorite meal?
breakfast at glo’s, hands down.  eggs florentine, smoked salmon eggs benedict…it doesn’t even matter.  it’s just good.  that’s all you need to know.

The [Bucket] List.

(…a little delayed, but definitely worth the wait.  right, jack?)
And, so, after six months of living in Seattle it became time to wind down and pack up.  My sense of leisure was thrown out the window and replaced, instead, with a feeling of urgency.  ”Shit, I only have two weeks left in Seattle” quickly morphed [...]

the wrap-up.

My bags are unpacked, my laundry is folded, and my sleep hours have increased ten-fold in the past 48 hours.  I can no longer brag that I’ve been to every state on the East Coast…bc now I have bigger and better bragging rights: I’ve driven cross-country.
Yes, I have driven cross-country.
But am I wiser for it?  [...]

marathon mile.

16 hours, 850 miles, 6 states, 2 drivers, ONE day.  But we made it.
We left our hotel in Chicago at 8:30 this morning, survived the torrents of rain, and hopped on I-90 for an innocent day of driving that we’d expected would take us as far as Youngstown, Ohio.  But somewhere in Indiana (after we [...]

pizza! pizza!

Welcome to Chicago, home of the Cubs, the Bears, and deep dish pizza. Today’s Cubs’ game is sold out, the Bears’ season is over, so all that’s left for me is pizza. And who wouldn’t want the best? I conferred with friends in Philly, dutifully researched online, and took a stroll. [...]

runnin’ on empty.

We left lovely Hill City, SD yesterday at 8:30 and set out for lovely I-90, the longest interstate in America, stretching from Seattle (hmm…) to Boston.  But we merged on in Rapid City and will stay on it until Chicago.
And how is i-90?  Rainy, very rainy.  Wyoming wins for the size of its raindrops, but [...]

south dakota?!

“Hey Dad, I’m in South Dakota right now.”
It was hard for me to even finish that sentence on the phone without laughing.  Me?  In South Dakota?  Last week I hardly knew where South Dakota was, let alone its five most populated cities.  And Wyoming?  Ha.  Even worse.  But here I am, sitting in a hotel [...]

bumfuck nowhere.

We left Boise this morning at 8:45 with 630 miles on the odometer.  Easy drive down I-84, straight through Idaho, and we were in Utah before we knew it.  With Salt Lake City in the distance we turned off I-15 and headed to Antelope Island, a state park in the middle of the Great Salt Lake with [...]

i-84.

Oh, Oregon.  Left Portland and the hipsters behind this morning and drove and drove and drove east.  We drove along the WA-OR border, through the Columbia River Gorge, to Multnomah Falls, and visited the Bonneville Dam.  We saw beautiful cows and ugly horses, post offices in shacks, and the Hungry Red Neck Diner.  We listened [...]

pdx.

I left Seattle at 5:21 this afternoon and now I can say I “lived” there.  My apartment is empty, my library card is worthless, and my supermarket advantage card is in the garbage.  
We drove three hours south to Portland, checked into our urban hipster hotel, and I drank a Stumptown cappuccino.  Tomorrow we’ll visit [...]