Sunday, October 7, 2007

six million smoots later

we are back in boston! and our cats are happy
to see us again, well, mine at least. stacked up
mail awaits and a full day back at work tomorrow
cuts down the recovery time....but glad to be home.

ride home from roanoke (pronounced ro-a-no-kay,
meaning: "the good land" [not really]). virginia was
for lovers as it was the sexiest state yet. sexy in that
it wasn't texas, which is my new basis for whether
or not something is sexy. i call is the the "sexy texy"
test. more later once details are finalized.

a quick foray into west virginia and all of twelve
or so miles of maryland. then it was to dutch country
where we stopped in on the world's worst mall in
chambersburg, pa. sorry to all chambersburgians,
but seriously guys, get a food court (or anything).
worst mall ever. drove up a bit longer and found
a red robbin burger joint (tasty!). back on the road
though the scenic hills of northeast penn and west
new york. great sunset views and hazy hillsides.
too lazy and road haggard to take pictures....

drive through connecticut was marred by road
construction and lane changes. rolled through
hartford. HARTFORD! with classic rock tunes
blaring. final stretch was spent watching state
troopers cycling through traffic and issuing
citations. some highlights:

    a car with no windows. NONE.
    a beat up montana camper.
    a car with very fake, and very dangly plates.

on a side note, i noticed that people below
the mason dixon line don't signal when turning
or changing lanes. also, people with campers
or trailers are considered the lowest rung
on the interstate totem pole. this is a fact.

with that our smoot troupe has ended. top three
highlights for me [carl] in order of awesomeness:

    grand canyon
    end of an ear records in austin tx
    twin peaks town in north bend wa.


we'd also like to thank everyone who
we either hung out with (leah and matt in
austin) or let is crash on their floor
(heather in seattle). also thanks to
everyone who put up with our reckless
driving and lack of hotel manners.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Roanoke Virginia. lost the smoot count

but we are exactly 1 134 805.97 smoots away from Austin, Texas, in a hotel in Salem, Va that positively reeks of rose scented something. This is turning out to be the most uninteresting blog ever.

we passed through both Memphis and Nashville without stopping.

we are almost at 6 million smoots!

Friday, October 5, 2007

we are out of texas!

but we're in arkansas. a smaller version of northern texas. out of the frying pan and into the fire, i guess.

our return home will take us through Memphis, Nashville, and the beautiful, ever under construction, Pennsylvania turnpike.

The highlight of today was an encounter with a bird with the most annoying call i have ever heard in my life: a common grackle

I kind of loved them.

we also found a poor lost dog at a rest stop, but it was too late to do anything about it except give her our leftovers and post a craigslist ad. she was such a sweet little thing, but scared of everything.

leaving Austin

It's now time to make our way home.

We had a fairly fabulous time in Austin, visiting an old friend of mine from high school, and a friend of mine from Boston who moved here to open an adorable vintage clothing store.

Mostly I shopped. Shocking.

However, I am really impressed with the quality of yard plants in Austin. Cacti are great, especially when they are replacing manicured evergreen shrubs.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

texas - spanish for "deer detailer".

We are in Austin after a million and a half miles of boring, 2 hours of being sick (carlos),

I have thus far not been able to see my friend Matthew, because we just got in. So we're in a Day's Inn, and we might not leave.


on an aside note, carlos has given texas a new name. the "nothing to show me" state, as the interior is 8 hours of the same landscape punctuated by the occasional mesa or dilapidated town full of rude people.

even ruder than people from NJ.

texas smoots:

trek from seattle to austin started out with
an absolute beautiful trek through southeastern
utah and northeastern arizona. canyon country
is a must see for any crisscrossing journeyman.
pictures will be posted once my camera battery
is charged. didn't get a chance to do any hiking
as we were pressed for time. but we'll try to get
back there someday to experience the full tour.
also, props to the chatty lady at the grand canyon
bookstore, who upon no request, gave me the
backstory into the life of a bookseller in a
national treasure. i had happened to mention
that i work ina bookstore in boston, which
she responded with an "oooh! my golly! boston!"
i bought a book on the history on the grand
canyon and some postcards which i'll frame.
i'm too cheap for postage but too cheap for
postcard frames apparently. overall, this is
as close to a religious experience as it gets
[for me at least]

drive through flagstaff and new mexico
went smooth until, well, i'll keep this simple:
kids, remember not to mix your caffeine tablets
with mcdonald's hotcake breakfasts. i found
this out the hardway, and am paying for it
on both ends. wink ugh wink.

we both were excited to experice texas.
well, we experienced it. i'm sure texas has
a lot to offer and as soon as it shows me
something to offer i'll be the first to say
what an awesome place texas is. or is it
"tey-hass!" the mesas were great. and the
various abandoned towns and oil rigs
scattered throughout. but its very large
and very remote. at least interstate ten is.
the best part is that the speed limit is
eighty. EIGHTY! montana is only 75mph.
i guess here if you saunter off the road
you'll either drive into dried up riverbed
or eventually find yourself on another
highway. overall, if your ever going to
copy our journey, spend the extra day
in the grand canyon and just drive thru
nebraska..............

now i'm lying in bed reading about the
red sox and watching mythbusters which
is what i'd be doing if i were home and
had the pricey cable package. either
mythbusters or meercat mansion.

holla!

Monday, October 1, 2007

salt lake smoots

first off, let me apologize for any sweeping generalizations
i may make in this post. with that said, salt lake city is scary
as hell. sure, salt lakians are super chatty and freindly. that's
not scary. no, this place is scary in that "church-of-latter-day
saints-drapes-hanging-over-the-cement-refinery-smokestacks"
sort of way. like anything dirty gets the drape. homeless men,
truckers with sass-mouth at flying-j reststops...they all get
the drape! seriously, drive down highway 15 south and every
factory and efinery has a JCLDS banner! scary!

also, boise is pretty damn scary as well.

day started off on a good note. got up at a decent hour
and were out the door and on the road by nine a.m.
a quick stop at the grocery store (next to a sawmill!)
to get some food and break some larger bills...then
it was off to boise, which by the way, isn't pronouced
like "noise". on the way, lots of beautiful mountains and
old towns with abandoned trains and houses. blue
skies with huge clouds in the distance. then aimee's
glasses proved to be too scratched (from a night of
seattle bar hopping with our good freidn heather) so
we go to some shitastic wal-mart to get new glasses.
turns out they can't fill the prescription (or whatever)
but there's a lenscrafters in boise which can. so we
hike it to lenscrafters where with their impecable
glasses making technology, they can make a set
of glasses in about five hours (literally). a couple
burritos later and an hour or four sitting in a parking
lot later, all is well. i'm not saying boise is a bad
place, but lets just say it ranks just below gresham
oregon as places i'd prefer to never visit again.
sorry boisians. (i made that term up.) keep in mind
i rooted for boise state university last year in the BCS
football bowl game, so don't hate the player, hate
the idiots who work in your town's lenscrafters. or
in simply, don't shoot me with your hunting rifles
which i'm pretty sure a lot of boisians carry judging
by the folks i stared at in the parking lot.

i pretty sure tomorrow we can make it close to
le grande canyon. it should be majestic, or
maybe just close enough to garner religious
experience levels.

on a more positive note, seattle was a classy
little city. it rained all three days which i was psyched
about as i love rain. lots of great shops and the
people there seemed like swell chaps and dames.
i highly recommend the underground tour as
previously mentioned. thanks to heather for
acting as tour guide and letting us make a mess
of her lovely apartment. a great time was had by
all. OH, i almost forgot, aimee bought me a beard
trimmer in boise, so i going to retract my
boise statement, or at least ammend it to
say, boise sucks, but you can buy a decent cheap
beard trimmer there no problem. g'night!

i miss my cats.

-carl

Oregon!

Watching Saved by the Bell in South Western Oregon.
I'd forgotten how kraptacular this show is!

Today: Boise, Salt Lake City, and the beginnings of the desert!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Still in Seattle - aka the home of the exploding Crapper.

Hello!
Still in Seattle, enjoying the hilarious tourist opportunities.
One of the best things we've done was to take the famous Seattle Underground tour.. Did you know that at one time, all the original buildings and store fronts in Seattle and the street levels in the Downtown Pioneer Square building were at least one story down (3 or more stories as you get further away from the shore)?


We learned that this city was built on mudflats, and when the tide would roll in it would create all sorts of problems. Roads would become impassible downtown, and a poorly thought out plumbing system would cause pressure to build up and explode toilets on the cliffs above. The solution to being stuck in the mud was to build the roads 8 feet higher than the storefronts... so you had to climb down ladders to do your shopping. And then they filled it all in, creating this dilapidated underground area (some of which is increasingly becoming gift shops).



We also did a bit of shopping at Sonic Boom and the Pretty Parlor.

The highlight of the day, for me at least, was trekking up to Snoqualmie Falls and North Bend to do some Twin Peaks style nerding out. Enjoying cherry pie and damn fine um..ice tea because i don't drink coffee...at Tweede's Cafe (aka the Double R Diner).




The night was capped by some bar hopping in the various Seattle bars that if anything have great themes and a stop at a friend's house to talk about such sundry topics as Denver the Last Dinosaur and hiding people in secret closets.

We head for the Southwest this afternoon!


Friday, September 28, 2007

2 848 362.99 smoots - seattle

We're on the west coast!

Things heard from the street from Heather's apartment
"bring my name to you i'll bring your name to me"
"hey george clooney"
"no poop"
" i won't play games, i'm right here"

Tomorrow = Seattle Underground tour and assorted not being in the car for a day!

smoots to seattle

grand tour of cities beginning with
the letter "s" continues! we're in seattle!

more later

Thursday, September 27, 2007

On the decimation of deer.

It is here that the definition of "meat plow" comes into play.

Basically, a "meat plow" is when you have a tiny car, and there are lots of deer, you pick a semi to ride behind at a safe distance.

Because deer are stupid.
Or they think that cars are some sort of prey. Either or.

Also, trekked down a eroding highway to see devil's tower.

This means something.

We are having too much fun :)

smoots in montana (high meat content)

south dakota! spent the day tooling around the badlands
and then on to america's favorite theme-town, Wall. ate
some gut-explosion-inducing chicken. aimee had the
burger. we both passed on the garden salad--surrounded
by all this roaming, grazing, meat!

another sun set into the western-laid mountains.
another night spent trying not to run over deer.
such as:

    me: how fast does one have to go to completely decimate a deer?
    aimee: i know! there aren't even any bones left!


i mean, where does all that deer stuff go?
it all just vanishes on impact. into powder.
and a pollock on the pavement! gross!

now we're in billings, montana awaiting
the continental breakfast at 8:30am.

tomorrow, seattle or bust!

prairie dogs are adorable.
i still miss my cats very much.

-carl

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Smoot total - 1 465 791.04 smoots.

* I oughtta smack Carl upside the head, HARD.

magnets=the great national roadtrip souvenir, and I bought the moccasins just to irritate him.

I will not doubt that i hit the buffet HARD. When 99.9% of the cherry tomatoes have a bad case of mush-rot and the celery is dry, you sort of have to.

But greetings from what we like to call "America's Attic". You know, where they stick things they aren't sure what to do with. National Monuments, the Natives who used to own the country, Grassland. Sure. Just stick it in the Dakotas between the Corn Palace and the Oversized Novelty President Heads Carved into a Mountain.

We kind of love it here. I doubt the cats miss us.


smoots to sioux

rather subdued trek across the midwest and into
sioux falls, south dakota. lots of casinos here as
every once proud tribe has given in to 0.05 cent
gambling chips at local gas stations. highlight
thus far has been the world's largest truck stop,
in walcott, iowa. ate a delicious plate of steak
and eggs. aimee hit up the buffet table HARD.
aimee hit up the weird shoe dept HARD. aimee
hit up the cheap magnet kiosk HARD.* to sum
up the iowa 80 experience, carl ate steak and
eggs, and aimee hit everything HARD. HARD.

saw a wonderful sunset, then commented that
it was getting late, then remembered something
about a time change. extra hour of driving!
to sioux falls! HARD!

now i'm updating blogs and flickr
tomorrow, wall drug, mitchell corn palace,
and satan's smokestack or ladder to hades
or tower or whatever. i still miss my cats.

funny things names from day #two:

    fangboner rd.
    gore orphanage
    and a man driving a bright yellow corvette
    with vanity plates reading "PAYROLL"

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

573 077.015 smoots - Cleveland, Ohio pt.2

carl here. journey started late. woke up 4hrs behind schedule. decided
to give our friend TK a lift to the plane station. off to the mass pike.
soggy butter bagels at some crapdive chain in newton. then back on
the pike. its, like, noon. on the road again like willie. smooth ride
through central, then western mass. bershires beauty. border towns
still lost in time. large ponds. locals in pick ups. over into new york,
or The Western Mass Extension. turnpike through mass-rip-off towns.
design flaws of old mill towns. utica, esp. then to george saunders
land (didn't see him). old familiar settings and backyards in henrietta.

by nine we were in buffalo and i was on the phone texting TK that
we'd be in chicago before she (plane delayed at JFK somewhere).
intense scary lightning over the great lakes. started off in one
singular cloud then grew and grew and grew until we finally hit
ohio and the skies opened. here in cleveland, as aimee said earlier.
watching PBS. looking for red sox scores. i miss my cats.

stat of the day:

    2 adult video and fireworks "super stores"
    within a half mile just over the new york border
    into PA. followed by "trucker town".

573 077.015 smoots - Cleveland, Ohio

Day one:

There are many beautiful sights to be seen in this country. Cleveland, Ohio is not one of them.

We don't have any pictures to report. But we are doing well! Lounging at a Day's Inn and watching the Ken Burns WWII Documentary.

Tomorrow we make for the cornfields!

Monday, September 17, 2007

0 Smoots - Jamaica Plain, MA

Well, Carlos and I are married, amidst much hilarity.

Unfortunately, 99% of the photos are either a) polaroids or b) still in our lovely photographer's camera awaiting processing!

Stay Tuned!