October 1st, 2006
Ok, so the drive up to the house in Minneapolis was fantastic. The house was great, the street looked gorgeous BUT…
Little did we know we had moved to the wrong side of Minneapolis aka ghetto! 1 street over from projects ghetto! Day by day we were realizing just how bad the area was and then one night gun shots, but no cops came after. We found a new place to live the next day. By Halloween, after moving all our shit cross country we packed up everything again and moved our asses to a nice little 1 bedroom apartment in Eden Prarie, voted one of the top ten places to live in the US. SCORE!
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September 27th, 2006
Alright so my day started fantastic leaving the Rocky Mountains. Then after leaving paradise I hit a Denver with all it’s cityness and a big fucking traffic jam. As some of you may know the shortest distance from Vail, CO to Norfolk, NE does not go through WYOMING!
Ok, so I make this one wrong turn out of Denver. You know, one of those weird freeway exits to the left instead of right. I realize I have made this wrong turn and I stop at a gas station that only has a map of CO but I see a state line at the top which I assumed was the southwest corner of Nebraska I was headed for. Second road lesson … DON’T ASSUME! That little state line was not Nebraska but I headed straight for it, stopping at about 3 more gas stations to make sure I was still on the correct road. Finally I cross the state line … into WYOMING, woops. This turns into about a 2 hour detour given my frequent stops to make sure I was still headed to Nebraska to meet up with my mapquest directions. Cheyenne, Wyoming has a bit of an erie spirit feeling to it and I don’t know how better to describe it, I’ve never felt it any place else. Anyways I had a few good laughs that day on the phone … “Dude, I made a wrong turn and ended up in Wyoming” that’s not something you get to say everyday, it’s very entertaining.
The landscape of Wyoming and western Nebraska is this flat tundra region that I’d only seen pictures of in Science class. It was very pretty… and windy … and lonely.
So, part of my excitement for driving cross country was to stay at my step brother Bobby’s house. I hadn’t seen him in, shit I don’t even know, at least ten years … not since I was a kid. [I'm 25 now]. Once again the last 2 hours of my 11 hour day was spent driving through pitch black farmlands of western Nebraska. It was so dark and the land was so flat it appeared that the stars completely surrounded me.
So, what’s it going to be like to meet someone who is a relative with the title of brother who is 17 years older then you and feels like a virtual stranger?
…well, how bout incredible!
Bobby, now 42 seemed younger then I remembered him at 30. I got in around 11pm, the Norfolk sky was filled with beautiful thunder and lightning, but no rain … we sat out on the front porch and talked for hours. I met his fabulous girlfriend Theresa who I love and the next morning her fantastic son. It was a quick visit, ate lunch the next day and was back on the road to MN.
I crossed over the Missouri River through South Dakota. I passed some beautiful farms in South Dakota but the real treat was entering MN. I passed a billboard that simply said in big bold blue letters “ENJOY LIFE”. After my own little adventure traveling across the country for days, what a nice treat!
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September 26th, 2006
Wooohoooo! Just writing this brings back such a feeling of excitement.
I drove from Los Angeles to Orange County to spend my final night in California at my parents house. I was so excited about driving cross country that I slept all of 2hrs before 13hr road trip. Why 13 hours, well because I wanted to make the most of everything, I had my choice to spend the night anywhere I wanted … I chose Vail, CO!
Thank god for my mom and dad who stocked up a little cooler of snacks for me to eat on the first day of my road trip adventure. Getting out of California was one of the most challenging parts of the trip, I hit fog like I have never seen before. I was going about 5 miles per hour, couldn’t see the car in front of me or behind me, we are talking blinding bright white sunrise fog. Once out of Cali I thought my first stop would be at the Coffee Bean in Vegas or maybe Roberto’s, man I miss Roberto’s & Fausto’s. To my suprise by the time I got to Vegas it just seemed so incredibly smoggy, dusty, dirty and just yuck! I couldn’t bring myself to stop in Vegas, I actually drove through as fast as possible not even any nostalgia for the 10years I lived there.
I stopped in Mesquite and got a coffee and a gatorade, caffeine and electrolytes, I was already feeling extremely tired and was barely halfway through my day.
What I was nostalgic for was the drive that Babe and I use to take regularly to Zion National Park in Utah. I stopped in the Virgin River Gorge which is beautiful and spent way to much time stopping every couple of miles outside of Zion. Zion is one of my favorite places it was so hard to just drive by. [double shot of espresso and another gatorade] Now past Utah and into Colorado where I passed more smelly corporate repulsive cattle farms then I could even imagine existed. At one point I went through this incredibly long stretch with no rest areas, no gas stations or exits and all this flat tiny tree landscape … needless to say after lots of coffee, water and gatorade I really needed to diddle. There was NO PLACE to pull over to provide cover and sneak behind a tree … I remember driving very fast through this area knowing that if I got pulled over I would probably piss myself. After that I learned my lesson and stopped much more frequently at rest areas. Well, that and the fact that I was exhausted and now driving in the dark, or I mean pitch fucking black winding moutains in Colorado. [one more double shot of espresso]
So sad to drive into Vail, my scenic destination of choice and not be able to see a lick of it. I made it to my hotel, The Roost exhausted from 48hrs with 2hrs of sleep and 13 hours of driving and enough caffeine to give me that nice shaky sick cracked out feeling. A nice bath and good nights sleep and then I awoke to Vail ……. wow…. totally worth it …. fairy tale beautiful. My hotel was also great for the price, comfortable, affordable and very friendly staff. I took my sweet time taking pictures and driving out of Vail and down the mountain. When I left LA it was 80, I think it was about 30 in Vail that will wake your ass up!
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September 3rd, 2006
So, the day after we decided to leave Los Angeles Babe immediately received a job offer from a company in Minneapolis. Minneapolis? Umm, ok, sure, why not? Neither of us had ever been there but it sounded pretty and it was far away from Los Angeles, not to mention the cost of living seemed like a dream. We flew out a few days later to go to what looked like a sure fire interview and look for a place to live. For some reason we had very little time for this and had maybe 2 days there. With a limited budget and the idea of move cross country on the horizon we thought a hostel was the way to go.
The Minneapolis International Hostel… well the photos looked nice [see below] and it sounded like a practical slightly adventurous route. Their pictures make it look historic and cozy, let’s just say someone did a real nice job taking those pictures. On their website there are no pictures of the rooms … let’s just say it had more of the ambiance of what I believe a halfway or crack house might look and feel like. The excitement of moving combined with the uncomfortable atmosphere of the hostel lead to NO SLEEP … maybe an hour.
Before flying out we tried to map out a good chunk of houses to look at while there. However once arriving in MN almost every single house fell through. People either couldn’t meet with us or the house was already rented. Babe got the job so this was a serious hicup we NEEDED TO FIND A PLACE to live. This is pre-lap top & smart phone for us so we speant most of our sleepless night on the laptop looking on craigslist for a house to meet with and hopefully rent the next day. We drove all over looking at all areas half awake while trying to figure out the Minneapolis roads on a map….Hah! We did fill out an application for one house that we thought was going to be great! Minneapolis was beautiful and green and looked heavenly compaired to LA.
We did all that we could and we were back on our way to the airport. At this point it had been about 3 days with almost no sleep, I’d say we slightly resembled traveling zombies in the airport. While waiting for the plane we both stretched out across those oh so comfortable not meant to be slept on airport seats and rested. I think we both slept on the plane back as well.
Upon return we found out we didn’t get the house, but we were moving to Minnesota in about 3 weeks. So no place to move to, needed to get all the aderesses and bills changed to somewhere and yah know, PACK up an entire house! We were back on craigslist and found what looked to be fantastic 4 bedroom house, we were able to do the application and everything online and it seemed like everything was going to be great 
What a shame there are no images available from this trip, lost with my hard drive, my hard drive that is sitting next to my desk waiting for those few precious images to be rescued. Although the only image I really remember taking is of Babe sleeping in the airport.
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