Cross Country, Day 1. "Traffic"

8/23/07. Today's goal: Connecticut to New York to Cleveland, OH. Before leaving, I must check the air in my tires, buy a pressure gauge, check my email fourteen times, and buy a cooler.

I have some trouble checking the air pressure. We won't discuss the details, but to summarize, it was embarrassing. My father may have been called in a state of panic and quite possibly I accused my mother's pen-shaped pressure gauge of insolence instead of admitting my own incompetency. It was, what one might call, an "episode."

By 12:00 pm I am technically ready to depart. I procrastinate by taking pictures of things like our garden in the backyard and my mother standing on the porch. I don't want to forget that the backyard can look so resplendent or that my mother sometimes stands on the porch. There are only so many things to photograph, however, so eventually, I get into Eloise.








<---(Eloise)









I stock Eloise's side pockets with packets of gum, my cell phone, and anti-bacterial goo. I reset my odometer to zero. Considering I am saying goodbye to everyone and everything I have ever known for some indefinite, but assuredly long, period of time, I am in relatively high spirits; after all, there are snacks, my new cooler is blue and has one sleek silver stripe, and my ipod has been outfitted with a new playlist (that morning, I'd hastilly downloaded a bunch of songs with "California" and "Los Angeles" in the title, including Bob Marley's cover of "Hotel California," Arlo Guthrie at Woodstock, and the theme from The O.C. It is an odd mix.) All in all, life is good. Stereo off, I sing my way to New York City to pick up Jil, my travel companion, because once she is in tow, singing really loudly a cappella will no longer be allowed - unless I wish to be both mortified and cruel. (I don't.)

Someone in a red Subaru cuts me off, then decides to drive window to window watching me rock out to my own original off-key tunes. He is a douche. He points me out to the passengers in his back seat. Awesome.

After successfully crossing the NY-CT border, I confuse I-278 with I-287. New York highways are not kind to dyslexic folks, nor those who have dyslexic moments, nor those who can't read. It's no biggie, however; I still manage to get to East Harlem at the appointed time of 2:30 pm. Jil and I are in the car and officially off an hour later. One hour after that, we have officially moved two miles. I consider this practice for LA. I also consider it a huge pain in the ass. Finally, we are in the clear and driving at a comfortably illegal pace. Then we stop to pee.

Around 2 am, after 5 or 6 pee stops and 2 tanks of gas, we arrive in Cleveland, OH. We are tired. Cleveland has beds, and a nice girl named Tessa who takes us in and feeds us muffins in the morning. We like Cleveland.

To be continued...