Road Trip Update: Homestretch

Vegas to Los Angeles, and LA to San Francisco was really fun. We decided to skip the entirety of Route 1 up the coast, for the sake of time, but it was worth it at Santa Cruz... some truly breathtaking coastal views.

Anyway, I'm not going to bother with details about the last days in LA and SF- Some things are better left unsaid. Except, that it was so great seeing Craig, and not just because I beat him at bowling (cough, ahem, first game).

Kate and I got a little crazy watching game three of the World Series two nights later. I wake up somewhere in San Francisco, ridculously hungover, aftermath of some party, safe, but without Kate. Not only do I not know where I am, but I don't know how to get to the airport. Iknow there are busses, so I ask a busdriver where to go. I left at 7 a.m. to catch a flight I thought left at 10 a.m. I look at my confirmation email again at the subway and nope, not leaving until noon. Good thing I woke up so early.

Upon arrival at the airport, I follow signs to United. I go to the self-check in kiosk... And my name does not pop up. I pull out the confirmation email again, to check the flight number, and realize I'm actually flying Delta. There are a few important things you need to know when you're flying, where you're flying out of, what time and what airline. I'd already gotten two out of three wrong, thank goodness San Francisco only has one airport. I attempted to help the hangover with a minosa/steak/eggs breakfast, to no avail.

I'm excited to be on the aisle and not sandwiched in the middle. But we left the Tarmac an hour late due to some fueling issue. Now, I've missed flights before, lost luggage, had to run for a gate and I'm still here, in one piece. It was out of my control- so I chose not to worry about it until I had to. I watched the new Twilight movie and I might be on Team Jacob. I also watched this movie called the A-Team, with Bradley Cooper. Not a bad lineup for a three and a half hour flight.

The delay left me only twenty minutes until the next plane left. I arrived at Gate E and decided to run for it- all the way to Gate B. That's a lot of ground to cover, and if I wasn't such a state of panic, I probably would have realized there's a shuttle. (I implore you, if you're on an escolater or one of those moving sidewalk things, step aside. There's probably someone in a hurry, especially in someplace like Atlanta, the biggest fucking airport ever.) Before my mom took her first plane ride last year, her worst fear of flying wasn't claustrophobia, hijackers or crashing, but that in the same vein as Home Alone, she'd have to haul ass through an airport to make her flight.

I ran. I ran with my giant Portmanteau Nana bag. I ran until I couldn't breathe. My teeth hurt and my heels hurt and I ran. I remember from a science class in middle school that if your body doesn't get enough oxygen, some sort of acid takes over or something. That was happening. Over these moments, I was thinking to myself a few eloquent, poetic things, like, Get the fuck outta my way, I should be in better shape, This never would've happened on JetBlue,  People who run for fun are insane goddamn masocists, This is probably the worst possible time to be hungover. I almost vomited on the man at the gate and can barely get out between gasps for air- Did it leave? The plane was scheduled to depart at 8:40 and I arrived at 8:37. No joke. I missed it.

There's nothing I can do except wait until I get to the bathroom to start sobbing uncontrollably. I pull myself together as some woman said,"Honey, I don't know what's wrong, but I'm sure it'll be okay." I said, "I missed my plane." It was the last plane to Maine for the night.

I go to the help desk. Other people from my San Francisco flight are there, and I'm irritated to be directed to a phone and not a person. I find another woman trying to get to Maine, and I try to listen in to see what they offer her. I'm told to get back to the front of the line.

In a moment of desparation, I try to fly to Boston. The woman at the help desk is definitely neither listening nor helpful. She tells me I'm going to need to hurry to make the Boston flight, and I nearly tell her to go fuck herself. I get to the gate and realize that there isn't going to be a bus leaving Boston for Portland at midnight. So I go to the help desk.

Yolande is really helpful, and gives me food and hotel vouchers. I'm staying at the Comfort Inn, there's a shuttle, and I'll have a bed, shower and be back in time to take my Marine Biology Lab quiz at 12. I take my food voucher to the Chili's, because who knows if there's a bar  food at the Comfort Inn. I meet a guy from Tampa, who looks like he's got some great stories, but I'm too tired, hungover, dehydrated, hungry and under-caffinated to care. I have half a turkey club, two margaritas, and make my way to the shuttle.

At 11 p.m. I'm in my hotel room. It's clean and inoffensive. I'd been in transit since 7 a.m. and I find on my ticket itenernary that Yolande is sending me to the wrong Portland. I call Delta. Apparently it's right Portland on my ticket, but not my itenerary. I get barely four hours of sleep, because I need to get on a shuttle at 4:30. In the morning.


My flights from both Atlanta to Laguardia and Laguardia to Portland are delayed,and I just about lost it- just about everything that could've gone wrong did. Luckily I make both flights, arrive in town at 12, and despite missing my biology quiz, I was happy to be home. 

Road Trip Update: Vegas, baby!

There's something really amazing about watching the sun set over the mountains/desert of Nevada.  Kate and I sang Jenny Lewis songs at the top of our lungs (sidenote about the movie of my life: at one point, all the the influential women in my life will come to me in a dream and give me advice in their own words and they will all actually guest star in the move: Chrissie Hynde, Oprah, Jenny Lewis, Terry Gross, Sarah Jessica Parker. I would like to be played by Zooey Deshanel. Ah! I digress... ) After a weird stop at the Hoover Dam, it was dark and the visitor center was closed, it was a very short drive to Vegas. Quotes from Kate: "If this wasn't the Hoover Dam, I'd think those people were smoking pot." "They need some Stadium lights up in this bitch."

Las Vegas is in valley in the desert, and when you approach the city at night, the entire city's lights glitter for miles. It glitters. It got me thinking about how a city can function solely on the tourism industry... schools, grocery stores, doctors, lawyers, government agencies, landscapers, vendors for things like food, clothing, napkins and shit. It's not just people working in the hotels, or strippers. Kate had been to Vegas a number of times before, but I decided to take charge booking the hotel. I decided on the Monte Carlo, because they had an advertisement for Mini Kiss on their website. Mini Kiss is a Kiss cover band comprised of midgets. As for Walter, we snuck her in a zippered L.L. Bean boat and tote bag, and I put a disposable kitty litter pan in my own giant bag. It was pretty seamless. On our way out the next morning, the cleaning ladies were in the hall- we just dropped the kitty pan in their cart and no one was the wiser.

My fantasies about Vegas were probably formed from watching an infinite number of sitcom television shows and romantic comedies- I've always wanted to elope in Vegas, and to be wed by an Elvis impersonator. This is seriously, not a joke. One of my other fantasies included walking down the strip in either a glitter dress, or stretch pants. But our plan was more like, get dressed in reasonably normal clothes (actually, I did end up wearing leggings.) Kate and I got ready to the new episode of Modern Family, and I was excited for a hot shower, then head out. The view of the Strip from our room was awesome.

Upon leaving the hotel, I realized two things: 1) People in Vegas are relentless. There are all these people trying to push things on you, like crazy Mexican men trying to give you cards with the phone numbers of prostitutes (I wonder who pays these guys? The pimps? A temp agency? Plus, I'm not gay!) 2) Kate and I were among the most attractive women walking around the Strip that Wednesday night- everyone else was either old, part of a touristy looking couple, or both. We came to this realization because of all the crazy people trying to get us in their club, enticing us with cheap drinks or free admission, and because some wicked scary voice from behind asked, "You ladies goin' clubbin?" I literally ran down the stairs, faster than a speeding bullet. My feet have never moved that fast- I was like Fred Astaire. Get it!? This freaked out Kate because of the size of the heel on my boot. Close call, creepy dude. (I just asked Kate if she saw his face and she said she did and it was so scary she doesn't want to talk about it, that those were some empty eyes.)

We hit some hotels and shopping centers and settle on the Ballagio. I say settle like it wasn't the setting for Ocean's 11 and I didn't know that the rooms were insanely expensive and out of our price range. My mom taught me how to play Black Jack during the Ice Storm of '98, so I bellied up and bought in to the table like it was no big deal. Kate said that I should only order bottled beer from the cocktail waitresses (drinks are free when you gamble), because everything else is watered down. Well! I got a vodka-soda, sucked it down, then a bourbon on the rocks and sucked it down, to prove that they were, in fact, not watered down. Surprise! I lost my winnings, got drunk, and the Epic Meltdown of 20-10 happened.

We walked across the street to a bar/casino called O'Shea, or O'Shay's or something. It was an Irish bar, and Kate immediately says she doesn't like it because she doesn't like Boston. Although I can't quite articulate why this made me so incredibly angry, and I'm not going to go into detail about the ridiculous things I said at that time or try and explain myself and the logic behind the crazy things I said. But I will defend Boston and my Beantown pride, though I'm not actually from there, now, because I'm sober.

In elementary school, field trips to the aquarium were always really exiting. Boston was the place we always had to drive to in high school to see the best bands. Boston was the place we all dreamed about going to college in- the big city, and they are a serious college town. In college, I got my first piercing in Boston. There are no major sporting teams in Maine, we've got the Sox, the Patriots and Celtics- Boston teams. Before I started drinking beer, and before I knew what microbrews were, I always thought I'd drink Sam Adams, the Boston lager. Flying to the West Coast or internationally, it's usually cheaper to fly out of Boston. We didn't have a city in Maine, which is part of why Maine is the glorious place it is, so we have to live vicariously through Boston. If I'm alone, travelling and lonely, and I find there's someone from anywhere in New England or someone wearing a Sox hat, I immediately feel comforted. People in Massachusetts have summer homes in Maine, and hell, Maine used to be PART of Massachusetts. I love Boston, even today.

Kate and I made up, well, she chose to ignore my wildly inappropriate behavior and even though she'd only had three Coronas and I was drunk and sleepy, we went to bed. She cashed out of the casino that night with almost $100, so it wasn't a total loss. The next morning as we were checking out, I ran into a couple that I recognized from the Portland Jetport on Monday morning. I couldn't help but ask them, "Excuse me, are you on vacation? Oh, can I ask from where? ME TOO! I thought I'd recognized you two from the airport!" Small world. Next stop: bowling and tacos with Craig Hildebrand.

Road Trip Update: Days Two and Three

Austin was pretty great- Kate's friend Matty was nice enough to pick us up at the airport in one of the biggest trucks I've ever seen, probably from 1981. It had a killswitch and a carborated engine. Welcome to Texas, where everything is bigger (especially the trucks and the bugs.)

After a few last minute-moving errands, we walked by the legendary Emo's, where a bunch of kids were waiting for some new it band to go on. Clearly, it was an all ages show- it was like Hot Topic exploded on the sidewalk. We got BBQ at Stubb's for Kate's last Austin meal. On the menu there was fried okra, which I've never had before. Actually, I wasn't sure if I'd ever seen an okra before. Trips like this help me remember that although I'm pretty open minded, my Portland life, though awesome, is sheltered. The pulled pork was as good as expected. Kate picked something up off of the side plate of pickles and onions and took a big bite. She thought was an okra, and in an effort to enlighten me to the vegetables I'd been living without, took a big bite. It was some sort of chili pepper, hotter than a jalapeno, and she had a breakdown. Kate doesn't eat spicy. Her mouth was on fire and her lips were burning and she didn't know what to do. I pushed some bread at her and tried really hard not to laugh.

We hung out at a bar in Austin called Liberty, which served these great chicken buns. It kind of reminded me of Amigo's meets the Downtown Lounge, plus a million stickers. Kate pointed out a bar Bill Murray surprise bartended at during South by Southwest last year. I'd absolutely lose my shit if I walked into a bar and Bill Murray just so happened to be there. Maybe I need to get out of Portland more often.

The car is packed so full that there is literally no room for us, anything else, to go boxes. Walter keeps walking around in circles from the blankets in the backseat to my shoulders, to my lap, to the dashboard, to Kate's lap, back to the backseat. There are Dairy Queens in every town we drive through.

In one memorable stop for gas in Coleman, Texas, a really old man with a gaping open mouth and a ten gallon cowboy hat, asked us how far we were moving. I said San Francisco. He said, “Well gee, that's clear out the County!” Coleman had a slightly desolate main street, where we found lunch at the Owl General Store Soda Fountain and Grill. All of the store fronts had Go Bluecats messages written in their windows, and I realized this was the kind of town Varsity Blues is supposed to take place in. The kind of place where everyone goes to high school together, and everyone stays in the town, and the social structure stays the same because no one leaves and no one new arrives. To quote James Van Der Beek, “I don't want your life.” The food was pretty good- Kate decided to get the chilli cheese burger, blacked out, came to, and had eaten the whole thing. I got a chicken salad sandwich, which wasn't as good, I'm sure, but at least I didn't want to die after.
I drove a car for the first time in six months and I didn't kill us. I'm following Katie Kearn's two rules of driving: Don't hit anything, and don't get hit by anything.

At some point, I started telling Kate that sometimes I have fantasies about the movie of my life. Whitesnake's “Here I Go Again” came on the Pandora station. I've decided that in the montage of me doing things by myself, bowling, coming home to an empty mailbox, table for one, walking down the street alone, etc, in the scene right before I meet the person I'm going to be with for the rest of my life, (the movie of my life is a romantic comedy with a happy ending,) “Here I Go Again” will be the backing track for the montage.

If Kate's life were a movie, right now, Walter the cat would be her daughter, and Kate would be a single mother played by Susan Surandon in the 80s, with a perm and a white tank top. Since she's been picking up and moving so much, (three times in the last year), there'd be a lot of empty promises and excuses and apologies for a better life. “This time, we're really gonna settle, Walter. San Francisco is real nice, and I bet you're gonna make some great friends. I just know it.” Kate's movie is a little bit less literal, but still has a happy ending.

Driving through West Texas to New Mexico can get pretty barren (though there are some scenic parts and I can't believe how big the sky is out there.) Kate really needed to pee, there was nothing in sight, so I pulled over. She said that her vag was going to get bit by a rattlesnake, and I was supposed to watch Walter, our cat friend making the journey with us. I forgot to keep an eye on her, because I got a text message. She escaped, and almost disappeared into the desert of New Mexico to live off of cactus water and armadillos before becoming totally feral.

Albuquerque was great, also, and it was nice to see Andy and meet all of his friends. His roommate and his friends are really well read, and have a lot to talk about. They have a pomegranite tree in their back yard, and cooked us a delicious meal. We went to a metal show at a bar with a stage that had a mural of some palm trees behind it. Epic.

More updates soon.

Road Trip Day One Update

Trip thusfar has been reasonably uneventful- although my cab driver from work last night tried to have me critique his poetry, and my cab driver this morning got all philsophical about life being too short to be unhappy. Zen and the Art of Cab Driving?

I had three hours of sleep and managed to board the plane forgetting only my belt (actually, Mandy's, sorry) at security.

I always fantacize about working as a flight attendant, then I remember I'd have to like, save people if we crashed. I like critiquing business men's suits and briefcases and how fast they're walking, making eye contact with cute guys, people watching in general. I always wonder if I'm seeing people who are on their way to or from a funeral.

I fell asleep listening to the audiobook Rock On: An Office Power Ballad by Dan Kennedy, though I think that has less to do with the book, more with my lack of sleep. Then Grown Ups with Adam Sandler and an all-star supporting cast came on, and I'm not embarassed to say I laughed a lot. Good ol' family friendly slapstick.

Anyway, I write this entry because something terrible happened, actually. Worse than the time Darcy and I were getting drunk at the airport bar and almost missed our flight. Worse than the time I climbed over the sleeping man- I felt bad waking him so I sort of straddled him and made my way to the bathroom- he got a facefull of boob and when we landed he told me, "I didn't sleep a wink!" Worse
than a baby or a snorer or snakes...

I think someone pooped their pants. Or sharted. Really, it's so potent I want to gag. But I can't say anything, because you smelt it you dealt it. There's no way it's the toilet because the toilet is all the  way on the other side of the plane. Seriously, this is an airtight, pressurized cabin a.k.a. stale, stagnent air. I want to vomit.

See you in a week, Portland!

In just a few hours, I'm about to embark with the fantastic Kate Digby Skinner, on the Epic Road Trip 20-10.

I've been on an epic road trip once before, with the fantastic Mandy Lou Wheeler. Highlights included: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, rival school football game, meeting new people, cool kids in Denver, consignment stores in Denver, Mandy's family, all of the rock and roll shows, Bridget's hospitality, Halloween in SF, the drive from SF to LA, going to my first Hooters, the whole drive home, staying in random motels, getting lost, cotton fields, coming home. Lowlights included: not knowing how to drive the stickshift, having so much stuff with us, fighting all those fights about everything, losing my debit card on the first day, homesickness. We were gone for, no joke, 40 days, and 40 nights.

This year, older, wiser, and boozier, I'm looking forward to a few things: Vegas for the first time (stretch pants?) I probably won't elope and be wed by an Elvis impersonator, like I've always envisioned my first trip to Vegas including, but stranger things have happened. I've made some playlists, including dance mixes, podcasts and audiobooks for the car, and I can drive the car this time. I haven't seen Kate in months, and I've been feeling like I direly need a vacation (if only you'd have read all of the depressing discarded drafts of blogs I've been starting with things like, I feel like Eeyore today.) The only thing I'm not looking forward to is missing everyone at home, including my cat, and the fact that the trip is so short.

Updates soon, from the road, hopefully. I'm getting in a cab in three and a half hours. Sunnufabeotch.