Subject: ne-ia-il-in-oh, oh-pa-ny-ct-ma (it's hawaiian!)

warning: very long.   

and now... the breathtaking final installment for which you've all been
waiting anxiously.

first, some addenda.

nevada: a woman who was selling postcards in ny ny spotted my hawaii
driver's license and started talking about how sad she was that she had to
move away from maui, but she had to follow her husband to vegas.  it was
very sad.  but it did fulfill my expectation that i would see someone from
hawaii there.  also, i forgot to mention that i spent 75 cents on the
double wild cherry slot machine.  return: zero.

utah: at arches i saw a hawaii license plate and a massachusetts
one.  also, i heard there were a lot of mormons in utah but can neither
confirm nor deny.  finally: sidis are not intended for hiking use.        

colorado: forgot to mention donna and julian's cool little dog,
heidi.  she would let me play with her, rub her tummy, etc., and then as
soon as i would go outside and come back in she would forget who i was and
start barking.  she went nuts when i put on my bike helmet.  the crosswind
that ruined my ride also grounded airplanes that were supposed to be
fighting the forest fires.

nebraska: an interesting place to have roots.  the people are hard.  i
think the plains do that to you.  i took a new liking to my aunt doris,
who is for sure a hard woman.  my grandma's kind of hard too; it was
really difficult for my relatives to convince her to live in assisted
living community because i guess she just wanted to tough it out
alone.  (she's 86.)  cool things about my grandma: the sign on her door
said "valkommen" (welcome in swedish, she's 100%) and she only has ridden
a bicycle once in her entire life (she fell off).  and finally, i think
i'm developing some spidey sense.  found my way to doris's house from i-80
without a map.  haven't been there in 3-1/2 years, never driven there. =)

back to the trip.

q: why does all the corn in nebraska lean east?

a: because iowa sucks.

i left lincoln at 3:30 am cst.  i think it would be safe to say that iowa
made me despondent.  i would never use that term lightly.  there's just no
other way to describe it.  it's a very wide state.  there's nothing to
see.  also, it was dark.  that was the only time i drove when it was dark
out.  i stopped for some coffee at mcdonald's that tasted like
graphite.  (yeah, go ahead and laugh, i read some stupid overwrought
dickens novel or something that involved someone licking the tip of pencil
and i tried it once.  blech.)

i wanted to quit.  i was actually really relieved when i got to davenport
and crossed over into illinois.  i felt like i'd crossed some big
barrier.  i should feel close to iowa i guess.  that's where grandma's
from, and i have ancestors from there that lived through grasshopper
swarms and stuff, just like little house on the prairie.  but it was the
low point of my trip.

illinois went by pretty quickly.  i think i drove near chicago but the
only way i could tell was from all the traffic.

indiana was also a blur, i think my mind might have started to go at that
point.  i considered trying to a write an e-mail from the road, the sole
purpose of which would have been to convince you that i was going crazy
like willard (not kurtz).  as i was driving i often thought of that
opening scene in apocalypse now where a tight shot of willard's eyes is
superimposed over the jungle burning from napalm while the doors sing "the
end."  with me it would be fields, a glazed look, and no doubt singing "a
simple kind of life," or maybe the ex-girlfriend song.             

once i got to ohio i felt i was on the home stretch.  but i was
not.  cleveland is almost in pennsylvania.  and i was going through
cleveland.  during the trip i consistently beat time estimates by 2 hours
or so, and this was no different.  mapquest told me it would take 16 hours
to get from lincoln to cleveland, and it took me 14 to get to the far side
of cleveland.  over an hour of that was in traffic, in the rain.  (never
going more than 5-10 mph over the speed limit the whole trip.)  i had to
start listening to all beatles, all the time, because i had to have
something to sing along with to keep me focused.  at one point, getting on
to an interstate, i nearly got into a very bad car accident when i
hydroplaned in a deep puddle with a guy towing a trailer right behind
me.  i lost control of the car but somehow it was okay.

so got to the hotel, got ready to go out.  johnson came to pick me up to
take me to the reception.  it reminded me, in an odd way, of my senior
prom.  people were standing around awkwardly in ugly dresses (wait, that    
was just the bridesmaids) and the music was very high-schoolish.  does
anyone remember the electric slide?  so really the only difference between
this and my senior prom was that everyone was drunk and my shoes were way
better.

got done around midnight.  decided i wasn't ready for another long drive
and stayed another day.  saw the lobby of the rock and roll hall of fame
(brittney's red leather catsuit!  jewel's halter top!) and a delorian
(sp?) car show.  went to a bbq for the bride and groom, who i had not
actually spoken to yet at that point.  had a lot of good food, hung out
with johnson's cool friends from bismarck.  so that's cleveland.

left sunday morning around 9.  i was anxious to get home so i only stopped
for gas and bathroom breaks.  i knew i was close once i got onto i-84.  i
made sure to go slow in newburgh, ny so i wouldn't get another ticket.

something i've noticed is that the further east i got, the more people        
tended to sit in the left lane, going slow.  it was pretty annoying.

made it home.  could barely walk because i hadn't eaten all day and had
just driven 10.5 hours.  felt sort of dizzy and delirious.  but i made
it.  (before this trip i'd never driven more than 3 hours at a stretch.)

how it all ends.

i woke up early (3:50 am) this morning to get ready for work and somehow
managed to do it, even though i've averaged about 5 hours of sleep per
night over the past week.  i actually enjoyed working.  it was pretty
simple but it looks like i won't be able to dress like an
engineer.  ("we're more professional than that," my boss
sniffed.)  dammit.  they made me business cards.  is that funny or what?

tried to come home a different way.  traffic sucked.  went to independent
fabrication which is like the worse place to try to drive to.  did several   
illegal things with cops around (didn't stop me, guess i'll know when i
get a citation in the mail).  the reverse of the car is like a volvo so
it's easy to go into accidentally when panicked.  IF didn't have a jersey
in my size, so they gave me a men's large which they figured i could
trade.  managed to find a women's xs at belmont and sold the L to my boss
at the bike shop. =)  and they gave me lots of free pedro's stuff
too.  i've been riding for pedro's teams for two years now and this the
first time i've gotten any schwag.  got a tour of the factory.  and also,
the is the first time i've gotten a team jersey i don't have to
alter!  that's after buying 5 different jerseys for collegiate and uscf
teams.

it was fun to see everyone at ace wheelworks.  they ribbed me about being
dressed up and seemed pretty happy to have me back.  it's nice to have
people to come home to.

i can't believe how crowded everything is around here, how close all the  
people and cars are.  i've decided i'm going to move to colorado at some
point.  coming back on i-95 was like a bike race, where the front three
cars were blocking all the way across the road and i had to attack on the
outside.  (after watching the mercury guys draft a semi, neilie
said: "bike racers are the worst drivers.)

one of my friends from ace took a look at my car, which was making a funny
noise in 2nd gear ever since my dad bought it.  (yes, i drove it 3400
miles without ever, not even once, using 2nd gear.)   he said it's
fine.  and when i got gas today, it was nice to pay $1.60 instead of
$1.99.

that was my trip, and my first day back in the real world.  i wish i could
say i feel different, or that i had some great epiphanic moment during the
trip.  i guess there were a few things i learned:

-climb big mountains in 4th gear             
-i'm actually pretty good company
-i can get across the country without getting lost
-public libraries have internet access
-rubbing a dog's tummy makes me happy
-never, ever get off the interstate unless you can actually see the gas
station

sorry this is so long, i'm having trouble concluding.  i guess i'm sorry
it's over.