April 27th, 2009: "End of the Road"

[Citi]

So as I mentioned last week my road trip is over. As a venture seeking employment it was less than successful. It was in fact a money pit and a complete waste of time. That said, I had a great time and I'm glad I went.

Here's my route.



The trip back was far less "leisurely" than the trip out there. On the way to California I spent a night in Kingsport, TN; ten days in Austin, TX; a week in Tucson, AZ; and a month in San Felipe. Once I was in the San Diego area (Leucadia to be precise) I spent a week trying to find work; at that point I just couldn't afford to stay out there any longer.

So like a fish returning to the water I headed back to Connecticut; tail firmly set between my legs. The trip from Leucadia is just under 3000 miles to where I'm staying with family. I left Leucadia around noon local time (Pacific) on Monday and arrived back in Connecticut around 9 am (Eastern) on Thursday.

I spent about six hours conked out Tuesday morning at a rest stop in Rifle, Colorado and I grabbed another six at a really crappy Motel 6 Wednesday morning (I say morning because I didn't check in until 4 am but the bastards still charged me full price and booted me out at 1 pm) north of Des Moines, Iowa. I drove through the night on Wednesday though as the six or so hours of sleep was enough to get me over the hump.

I have to say, I enjoyed my trip through the lower half of the U.S. a lot more. There's not a lot to look at after you get past Denver. Incidentally, I must go back to Denver some day and look for my ear drums. Coming down out of the Rockies I thought my head was going to explode. I've jumped out of helicopters and planes and I've been all over the world but nowhere and nothing has made my ears pop like that trip down to Denver. My ears were still rattling two days after I got back to Connecticut.

As I was saying though, the trip through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and then into Illinois there just wasn't much to look at; unless you like cows. If aliens landed in Nebraska they surely would think that cows are the dominant species on this planet; simply due to the numbers. More cows than I had ever thought I would see; an unceasing, never ending stream of one cow farm after another. Needless to say, the higher the concentration of cows, the less pleasent the overwhelming stench became.

I'm sure there are very nice places in all four of those states. I'm also sure that one can become use to that smell. With luck I hope to never find out for certain.

Death Valley was interesting. I didn't take any pictures though, it was pretty much just desert and I've put enough of those pics up from my time in Mexico. I've seen a few deserts now and trust me, if you are just driving through they all pretty much look the same. You have to explore to discover the differences; and charm.

Six thousand five hundred miles at least since I left in February. Quite a haul.

One thing I consider very valuable from this trip is the knowledge of my place in this world. Well, more like a region than an exact place. If you drew a line from say, San Francisco, California to Melbourne Beach, Florida I can safely say that I belong south of that line.

Now to find a way to get there. Permanently.

Here's another link to my trip related photobucket album. 78 images and 13 videos there so lots to look at. I moved all the vids up front and put them in order of production (in other words oldest to newest). I also arranged all the photos so all the oldest ones are first. I wanted anyone exploring the album to sort of follow along on the trip; from beginning to end. There are 25 new ones I just uploaded and I think six new videos from Mexico, California and Colorado.

Sorry for the delay on the blog. Uploading all this stuff takes forever. I actually started this blog about five hours ago.

See you next week for more Remedy.

[Rob]

What, no comments on my drive?

[Citi]

What, no comments on my drive?

Attention whore.