I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that because of Bob Harkin’s excellent article and shout-out to the site, we might be getting a few extra visitors here wondering just how the rest of our trip went. Surprise! We didn’t self destruct (much); it just became increasingly difficult to find the time to update the website between sleeping in the car and eating canned chili with a side of Cup ‘o Noodles. I really don’t have many great excuses for not updating the site in the six months after the trip, though. I’m going to blame “Completing College” on that one. Will that slide?

In any event — barring a zombie uprising — the site will start seeing a few more regular updates. We have a ton of random stories to tell, though some detail will be left for the book we’re attempting to write. We know you’re just itching with questions! Where are our intrepid heroes now? How many stadiums did they make it to? Was Tim Horton’s really anything to write home about?

Stay tuned, true believers.

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Pittsburgh was an interesting city, full of interesting experiences. I will get to that later (in Road Trip: The Major Motion Picture). For now, know that it is a blue collar town full of character and dangerously laid roads and streets. We visited the South Side, which unlike the similar designation of Chicago is actually very nice and filled with independent stores. The next time you are there (a likely scenario), I challenge you to find three consecutive people walking the street without tattoos or piercings. It’s times like that I miss my eyebrow ring. Upon receiving several recommendations/orders, we grabbed food at the Primenti Brothers bar, which serves a brutal (yet tasty) amalgamation of cole slaw, french fries, and steak. Unlike most places, you get the entire meal served in between two pieces of bread. It’s kind of like eating a dinner sandwich. It ranks on my top five foods this trip.

Before we skipped for the Pirates game, we stopped at a small used CD store for shits and giggles and picked up six mostly-random CD’s for three dollars. It was here we learned the value of the bargain bin. Bands that end up in the discount pile mostly derive from three categories: bands you’ve never heard of (Choose Your Own Adventure, The Bittersweets), motion picture soundtracks to movies you’ve never watched (Godzilla, Daredevil), and Celine Dion.

We didn’t spend much time in Detroit proper, though we had a fantastic time eating, drinking, and chatting it up in the suburbs. Detroit’s surrounding area was nice looking, and was the first big hockey city we stumbled into. Nice towns, though it seems most people want to get out of the area, however, which I found pretty odd at first. I suppose everyone feels the need to leave at some point. I recommend travelling; it does wonders. Coamerica was a nice park, and we just happened to show up on the day they broke the single game attendance record. Apparently, we were on TV cheering for the Tigers; look for the handsome guy in the red shirt.

As we move eastward, we’ve become quickly indoctrinated to the ways of the turnpike. The turnpike is a foreign thing to a Californian. In the golden state, we pay for roads by charging obscene prices for bridge tolls; it’s about $5 bucks to cross from Oakland to San Francisco. In the East Coast, they do this as well, but also charge to use the highway itself. You pick up a ticket when you enter a turnpike, and pay when you leave based on how far you’ve gone. Along the way are mini service plazas. In what I’m sure is an American concept, these places exist as self-contained malls in which all needs for survival are met, minus the one about leaving with any money. There, you can use the restroom, check the internet, and grab vastly overpriced McDonalds food.* To say the least, I am not very happy with the system. It could use some work.

Next update will include many photos, and news of Cleveland and Canada.

*Note: McDonalds may not contain food products.

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• When The World Ends (Paul Oakenfold Remix) – Dave Matthews Band
• Where is My Mind – The Pixies
• The Beginning of the End – 30 Seconds to Mars
• Right Where it Belongs – Nine Inch Nails

Aman’s Small Town Theory:
As the population of a town approaches 0, the number of beautiful women (and men) increases. Reasoning is that beautiful people tend to attract other beautiful people, and smaller towns tend to have higher pregnancy rates. As such, beautiful people have beautiful children at a younger age, and the family tends to stay in the town for some time. Tendencies lean towards the cycle repeating (hence generational families in small towns).

Aman’s Population Zero Postulate:
Aforementioned small towns must have a population large enough to support a grade/grammar school; otherwise the population pool is not large enough to support Small Town Theory.

The world’s best bumper sticker:
“Remember Who You Wanted to Be.” Bonus: custom license plate that read “NEVER.”

Starbuck drinks consumed:
Aman: 41 (estimated).
Mike: 0 (estimated).

Near-death experiences:
Four. Locations: Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, 60 miles out of Chicago.

Worst cultural phenomenon of the decade:
Indie music. Not music that is signed to an independent label, but rather the strange folksy guitar bands that make little sense and wear tight pants. Band names often begin the indefinite article: “the.” Band names also make little sense. Example: Minus the Bear*

*Note: Minus the Bear is actually pretty cool.

Best fictional underground hip-hop band name:
Smoking Causes Cancer. Album name: The Surgeon General’s Warning.

Wisdom gained:

• Respect is given and lost; not earned.
• Comic books are better in encapsulated story format (see: The Watchmen).
• Rest stops provide a pleasurable sleeping experience. Some rest stops have wireless internet.
• City Museum in St. Louis is indeed the coolest place in the universe. Everyone was right.
• Truckers make the American way of life possible. They are everywhere.
• CouchSurfing is the best website in the world. I will never travel without it.
• Beautiful women do watch baseball. We have seen proof.

Experience points gained:

• Aman has gained 8,445 XP! 1 per mile! This is the way!
• Mike has gained 576 XP! Mike has learned NAVIGATION IV.

Top 3 alien landscapes:

• Wyoming
• Arizona
• Mars

Favorite cities (unranked):
Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Chicago.

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An update two days in a row is probably a bad sign, yeah? The moon will soon turn blue, the oceans will flood, and Eddie Murphy will make a good movie again. We’re in Cincinnati right now. Well, Newport, Kentucky, to be exact. It’s a nice place, but we’re not caught up yet. Backtracking to several weeks ago, though, we were departing Kansas City on our way through Chicago. As fortune had it, we were actually passing through the city twice: once was to catch a Cubs game prior to heading to Milwaukee, and the next a five day stay during the All-Star break. Unfortunately, some giant indie music festival was sharing the city with us and it became near impossible to find CouchSurfers to stay with. Almost every other city was good on the first message to a surfer; Aman sent out 39 emails with only two people able to host. Those were for the second trip to Chi-Town. In the mean time, we were left as true homeless people. Except for the car, laptop, and all the other fancy shit we trudge along with.

As such, the first time we went through the city, we didn’t actually have a place to stay. We rolled into town, watched a Cubs game, and then took off for Wisconsin. For the first time in the trip, one of the games we watched was versus the Giants. As any good fan would, we made sure to saunter into Wrigley wearing full Giants regalia. Surprisingly enough, it went great. Note: the same would not be true if we came in wearing Cardinals gear. Everyone was very nice and the girls sitting next to us (die-hard Cubs fans) bought us a round of beer when they found out what we were doing. Crazy! In typical Giants fashion, Matt Cain pitched a helluva game only to have Walker come in the 8th inning and blow it in dramatic fashion. And you thought being a Cubs fan was tough.

The park itself was old in a very good way; it had history, interesting sightlines, and fun fans. Basically, it was the complete opposite of Dodger stadium, which was old in a bad, “we haven’t paid for renovations in years” sort of way. Wrigleyville is the nice, upbeat neighborhood surrounding the park. It’s a beautiful looking place with lots of bars, fancy restaurants, and some asshole trying to sell $45 stadium parking. That’s actually more expensive than the game ticket itself, mind you. We went exploring for a bit and then decided to sit down at our favorite rest stop (Starbucks) and plot out the next course of action. I am pretty sure I’ve seen more Starbucks than any mortal man should. I don’t even drink coffee, damnit.

After trying (and failing) to find able CouchSurfers, we set off for Wisconsin. It turns out that Milwaukee is only about an hour and a half away when you don’t account for the three hours worth of construction delays. Arriving a day earlier than expected, we broke down and settled on what would be our last emergency hotel stop of the trip in Racine, Wisconsin. Upon entering the hotel, we were greeted by a calendar featuring Brett Farve, AMERICAN HERO, riding a motorcycle. This was to be the first of many signs that Wisconsin is actually home to the Cult of Farve. You know when you go to a bookstore and they have a small section devoted to local sports? In the Bay Area there are an assortment of books about the Giants, A’s, 49ers, etc. In Wisconsin, there is a section devoted to Brett Farve. Not the Packers…just Brett Farve. It didn’t matter what bookstore we were in. I am pretty sure I could have walked into a McDonalds and found a shelf of biographies, actually.

Whoops…sorry to leave you all hanging, but we’re off to try Cincinnati chili now. More on Wisconsin later.

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A CouchSurfer we stayed with recently put it best: when it comes to making a choice between a possession and an experience, there shouldn’t be any debate. An experience is something infinitely more valuable than any material possession, and (surprisingly) much longer lasting. There was one particular turning point for me when I realized this, and it was in Kansas City at Kaufman Stadium. In my obligatory photo tour around the ballpark, I stopped in the rightfield nosebleed seats. I sat down with no one within forty seats of me and watched the sun set above a baseball game in a city I never thought I would visit. This was what the trip was about, I realized. Not about baseball, not even America. It was about the journey.

Something we haven’t shared with many of you is how close we’ve been cutting our budget. Things like breaking down in the middle of the desert and being forced to rent a hotel in the middle of a thunderstorm set us back by a fair share. When Aman and I arrived in St. Louis, we sat down at a Starbucks in trendy Central West End and did something we had been dreading for weeks. We did our finances.

Mapping out our funds involved a ledger book, credit card reports, and far too many depressing bank statements. When finished, we came to a startling conclusion: we had to turn back. 8,000 miles and six weeks into the road trip, and we realized that the Gateway to the West would be as far as we could get. It was a sullen moment, and we spent a long time in the coffee shop discussing our alternatives. None were viable, though I maintain an Ocean’s 11 style heist would have been fantastic. Alas, we weren’t able to find anyone to temporarily shut down four blocks worth of electricity or drive the getaway car.

Needing a second opinion, I called up my dad. Always a fountain of knowledge, he told me four wise words: “Go out like kings”. Eat a steak, spend $20 at a riverboat casino; do something to finish the trip in style and lifted spirits. So we did. We ate good food, spent $20 at the Casino Queen, and slowly came to terms with the path before us. Then everything changed.

We received help from Aman’s parents. We had a long debate about our options before making a decision, but we eventually concluded to accept the support and keep pushing east. Our route will have to change; making Florida and Texas seem unlikely at this point, but we won’t know until we get there. It was a false alarm, but it opened my eyes. I don’t want this to end. Neither of us do. Travelling has been one of the best experiences of my life, and I am constantly amazed by everything we do and see on the road. From the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri to the South Side of Chicago, everything has been worthwhile in its own way. I know that for the rest of my life I can sit back, recline in my chair (as though I am old/wise) and speak: “Let me tell you about the time our tires blew in the desert. It was 115 degrees out, and it was one of the best experiences of my life.”

We head eastward now. I’ll tell you all about Chicago tomorrow. It’s a nice place; they have streetlights, fountains, and good pizza.

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An important update is coming soon (hopefully either tonight or early tomorrow), but in the mean time we’ve got a small set of photos for you to enjoy!

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I figure I’d stick an addendum to Aman’s post: you can find a sampling of our Kansas City photos above.

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Denver? Minneapolis? …Kansas City?!

The drive from Seattle to Denver is an alien landscape. East of Seattle (forever a geographical definition in my mind) is empty and when I say empty I mean desperately needing explanation empty. On our adventure eastward (the first 2500 miles) we saw no less than six exits jutting off of the interstate that are in every way unmarked (perhaps they lead to military silos, maybe they are for repair crews, or maybe they serve as the secret lairs of evil villains), there are houses far off the road that have no reason to be there, and there’s Wyoming.

I want to first tell you of the smaller than metropolitan capitol-cities of America. This includes Boise, Cheyenne, and Omaha as well as the towns in between. The attitude of someone from a major (greater than a million people) metropolitan area when considering having to go to these places is preoccupied dread. One tries to predict what sorts of people might hide away in such cities, and why anyone would have to drive through such a place. Stereotypes of bad-mannered or ultra-religious Americans who give “the rest of us a bad name” are left unsaid, but they refuse to go away. I want to dispel this, because these people are definitely neither bad-mannered nor uneducated, and their cities are worth the drive. Boise, Cheyenne and Omaha each in their own right have a culture radically different in pace and politeness from that of the major cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York) as well as from one another. We did not try spuds in Idaho nor visit the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City. Instead we talked to people along the way whose enthusiasm for our journey kept us going (700+ miles a day) every time we got tired. We were in a shoe store in Idaho (I needed sandals) and two men struck up conversation with us. When Mike informed them of what we are doing, one turned to his friend and said “Let’s quit our jobs, let’s go do that.” That type of passion is what got me through the next thousand miles.

Wyoming is beautiful (as is most of the mid-west). Look at the photos in The Long Road to Colorado. We drove through the state hovering around 8000 ft and I experienced two important things: Wyoming weather signs and 44mph winds. The state of Wyoming informs you that at any time the weather can negatively impact road conditions and that if any signs lights are flashing, you have to return to the nearest town: often more than 30 miles back. Thanks Wyoming! Note: 44mph winds are not enough to make the signs lights flash.

We celebrated the 4th of July in a motel in the American heartland – Omaha, Nebraska –with a six-pack and pizza wandering around watching fireworks all over the city. It was definitely a memorable Independence Day.

On Minneapolis/St. Paul and Kansas City: This was the first time we got to see the Mississippi River up close, but definitely not the last. I believe it is our duty to find a raft or a dock at some point and pay tribute to Mark Twain by sitting on it and fishing, so look out for that. Other than that, it’s a nice-enough city and the fans definitely deserve the ballpark they are getting in a couple years. I got to have an authentic mid-west (northern?) dinner of corn on the cob, burgers, baked beans, and MGD on a farm an hour out of the city. Mike and I both got lit up by mosquitoes, and it was the first city with real humidity. But we still like it. Kansas City was just as unique. Our host showed us a wonderful time with an authentic tour of the city: we drank coffee at an independent coffee house that managed to put a Starbucks nearby out of business, I got some awesome coffee bags, ate Gates BBQ which has a magic barbeque sauce, and fell in love with the HD jumbotron at Kauffman Stadium.

I love the mid-west. More on this next week.

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You’ll all be happy to know that we have the bulk of the “good” photos uploaded for your viewing pleasure. The image above links to our Denver album in particular, but you can now get to the photos by clicking the “View Our Photos” link at the top of any page, or the “Photobucket” icon on the right side of any page. We made the switch from Flickr to Photobucket because the latter isn’t lame and doesn’t require you to pay $25 to make more than three album sets. Tools.

Minnesota photos are coming, but we now have eight photo albums including Anaheim, The Desert, San Diego, LA, Oakland, Lake Tahoe, Seattle, and Denver. We’ll post an update with the trip info itself from Seattle to Denver tomorrow, before we depart for Kansas City, Missouri!

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We’ve seen a lot of America so far, and it’s pretty damn hard to believe that we’re already over halfway across it. Our first new experience after Tahoe was Oregon. Oregon is not very exciting. Coming up from I-5 North, we mostly traveled over rolling hills and long mountain stretches. It sounds great and scenic, but after spending time in Tahoe (REAL mountains) and driving through the burning hills of Redding and so forth, we were done with mountains. I do not want to see a mountain ever again. It was during this time that we decided it would be best to turn the music off for as much as the trip as possible. Up until that point, our handy Zune was on at all times (no iPods here!). While playing music quiz games ala High Fidelity were fun, we came to a realization that the trip was about random conversation as much as anything, and that it was too easy to zone out with music playing at all times. Since then, it’s barely been on and we’ve haven’t had a dull moment in conversation.

Back to Oregon! The state was mostly uninteresting until we came to Portland (which, unfortunately, was all the way at the far end of the state). It was a pretty interesting place. Full of hippies and indies that couldn’t make it all the way to Seattle, it was a nice liberal town that seemed to be a small scale mix of San Francisco and Berkeley. While there we checked out the world-famous Powell’s Books, supposedly one of the largest bookstores in the world. Aman was adamant in affirming that the bookstore alone was worth the trip and I can’t disagree. After staying the night and checking out the store in the morning, we had to set off for Seattle. We were already beginning to feel the wear of so much driving, but believe me, it would get worse. Seattle, though, was no big hike; only about 200 miles. I have a whole new relative scale for long distance trips. 400 miles? No problem, it goes by like nothing.

We stayed with Daniel in Seattle, a very awesome CouchSurfer who was gracious enough to give us a place to sleep and give us some great recommendations for the town. We met up with Aman’s friend Frank that same night, and then went to see the Mariners play the Blue Jays at SafeCo Field. The park was awesome (pictures will reaffirm this), and we had a good night of wandering around afterwards. Later in the evening, Aman and I met up with Daniel and his friend Chris at the Hopvine Pub. We shared a couple of (good) beers and some good stories. The next morning, we grabbed lunch at the Coastal Kitchen, and set off on the long journey to Denver.

If I had to rank cities I’d like to live in so far, Seattle tops the list. It was a beautiful looking city, and the people were very friendly. It seems to have a good deal of nightlife and lot of good food, which is a nice plus. On the downside, it is chock full of indie hipsters at every corner. I’m not sure I could manage that, even after being told that I would “fit in perfectly”, a revelation which is slowly destroying me. Aman is keeping track of indie points I gain and lose during the trip (using Macs is a +1, enjoying mainstream music is a -2). The only other city I’d consider living in so far is Portland, but we’ve definitely been to some interesting places that are great for a visit. More updates with follow, and I’ll get you all caught up to where we are now. I’ll also let you all know when the new pics have been uploaded to Flickr.

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