Continuing this ridiculous series of postings . . .
So Mark and I are figuring out how we are going to get back from Seattle, the pacing, how many ladies we can find Mark along the way, etc. The "only" constraint is that it is the 2nd of July, and I have Pre-op on monday?? Actually I don't since the office is closed, so I really don't know when I am going to have surgery, which adds an interesting element to this whole equation. Mapquest says that it is ~40 hours from Seattle to the ATL. I figure we can knock that out in 36 since Mapquest always over estimates. But there's this other thing looming in my mind.
See, I didn't really bring this up too much in my earlier post but as I left Nashville the first time I couldn't help but wonder if I should have stayed an extra day in Nashvile and sacrificed a day in Denver. Granted, due to the workings of Beth Porecca (new Disney employee), Denver was supposed to be my hook up point, but (and this part I didn't really get at in the blog) I had a great fucking time in Nashville hanging out with Chowning. I was really tired well before we went to sleep, but I couldn't bring myself to leave. And it wasn't a "man I wanna tap that ass" moment, talking to her was really cool. . . o.k. I could go on for a while here and I just leave it at I had a great time in Nashville, so it had crossed my mind to stop there . . . on they way back . . . during the fourth of july . . . ? The first day in Nashville I wasn't really sure what was going on, I had truely just wanted a place to sleep for the night, I didn't expect to be so smitted by Chowning, and so part of me was still not sure if there was really anything there. A stop back in Nashville would give me that opportunity, but was that really the right thing to do? There were a few reasons in the back of my mind why I shouldn't try to see her again in Nashville, and should just blitz to the ATL for surgery ASAP. In the end I couldn't help but call her and see what she was doing during the 4th, she was/is too cool to pass up that opportunity. Truth is I had been talking to Chowning a bunch on the trip, so it was easy to place another call and try to be all slick and nonchelante (sp?) about figuring out her plans for the 4th and seeing if we could crash there. This all gets handled at a gas station while, the perfect passenger that he is, was cleaningthe bugs off of the windshield. With that set we didn't have as much time as we thought if I was going to get to Nashville with maximum daytime to spend figuring out what the hell was up with this Chowning girl. Off we went at a decent pace, through Washington, Idaho, and into Montana.
Mark took the bad shift (2am-dawn) the first day, which was a mistake. I am pretty good at that shift, and bad a sleeping in a car at times, so it makes the morning shift really hard on me. As it was, since we were now on a deadline, we didn't get to see much of western Montana. I don't know when the sun came up (although I was driving at the time) but it wasn't until after Butte that I saw how beautiful Montana is.
I've always heard of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho reffered to as Big Sky Country, and it took Montana for me to figure out why. See, unlike Colorado, where the sky is broken up by these mountains that loom on the horizon, or like New Mexico, where there is a solid horizon line broken by these pillars of rock, or even Nebraska were it is so flat that clearly they have the biggest sky . . . Montana has this nice mixture of space and mountains small enough that they aren't towering. I'm sure Montana has some great peaks, but it didn't have much of horizon line, it was all broken up by these smaller mountains. Unlike Atlanta, which certainly doesn't have a clean horizon because of all of the hills, the mountains in Montana were spread out enough that you got the spacious feel that Tennessee mountains don't give you. So there is still plenty of sky, but it is framed well. And that is why I think they are called the big sky states.
So we bulldoze our way through Montana and into Wyoming, across more desolate land without trees (there comes a point when you are out of the evergreens and back into the high plains where the tree disappear) and finally into South Dakota. Mark gets this idea that we should go so Mount Rushmore. I'm game for just about anything, as long as it doesn't interfere with me getting to Nashville so we get off of the interstate and head towards a big rock with faces on it. Not that we can see it yet.
We drive, and drive some more, and then some more. Oh, and we pass a waterslide which loks like lots of fun since it is fucking hotin the car. But through all of this, and more traffic we continue to Mt. Rushmore, destinedto live the American summer trip dream and look at dead presidents. somewhere along the way it occurs to me that there is one FUCKING HUGE problem with this idea. We'll see if you were paying attention. What day was I trying to end up in Nashville?? What day did we leave?? Well, we drove through the night to get past Montana, which mean it is what day again?? That's right kids, the day before the 4th of July!
When deciding on a whim to see a monument that is somewhat out of the way, be sure to take into account what day it is and how close you are to a holliday designed arond patriotism and national pride. Needless the say the road between the highway and the entrance to the park was packed beyond belief. As we get closer to the "historic site?" the place turns more and more into a pidgeonforge gattlinburg site. Tons of "native american" selling stores in crappy old style buildings and swarming with people who look like the would rather be somewhere else. I had my reservations about this trip at this point and was wishing we had just gone to the waterslide and enjoyed a few trips down.
We eventually make it to the security check (makes sense, if I wanted to destroy america I would blow up a rock in the middle of nowhere). The security check was super lax, almost non-existant. He asked if we had explosives, guns, nuclear weapons, he might have well have asked us if we were terrorists, or I guess he could have looked at us, decided we looked white and felt that was enough. It was ridiculous. So we wind our way just high enough to see the fucking heads, take an uninspired picture and turned tail. We checked off that box in our personal to do lists and moved on with our lives, and by that I mean we spent forever driving across South Dakota.
M
So Mark and I are figuring out how we are going to get back from Seattle, the pacing, how many ladies we can find Mark along the way, etc. The "only" constraint is that it is the 2nd of July, and I have Pre-op on monday?? Actually I don't since the office is closed, so I really don't know when I am going to have surgery, which adds an interesting element to this whole equation. Mapquest says that it is ~40 hours from Seattle to the ATL. I figure we can knock that out in 36 since Mapquest always over estimates. But there's this other thing looming in my mind.
See, I didn't really bring this up too much in my earlier post but as I left Nashville the first time I couldn't help but wonder if I should have stayed an extra day in Nashvile and sacrificed a day in Denver. Granted, due to the workings of Beth Porecca (new Disney employee), Denver was supposed to be my hook up point, but (and this part I didn't really get at in the blog) I had a great fucking time in Nashville hanging out with Chowning. I was really tired well before we went to sleep, but I couldn't bring myself to leave. And it wasn't a "man I wanna tap that ass" moment, talking to her was really cool. . . o.k. I could go on for a while here and I just leave it at I had a great time in Nashville, so it had crossed my mind to stop there . . . on they way back . . . during the fourth of july . . . ? The first day in Nashville I wasn't really sure what was going on, I had truely just wanted a place to sleep for the night, I didn't expect to be so smitted by Chowning, and so part of me was still not sure if there was really anything there. A stop back in Nashville would give me that opportunity, but was that really the right thing to do? There were a few reasons in the back of my mind why I shouldn't try to see her again in Nashville, and should just blitz to the ATL for surgery ASAP. In the end I couldn't help but call her and see what she was doing during the 4th, she was/is too cool to pass up that opportunity. Truth is I had been talking to Chowning a bunch on the trip, so it was easy to place another call and try to be all slick and nonchelante (sp?) about figuring out her plans for the 4th and seeing if we could crash there. This all gets handled at a gas station while, the perfect passenger that he is, was cleaningthe bugs off of the windshield. With that set we didn't have as much time as we thought if I was going to get to Nashville with maximum daytime to spend figuring out what the hell was up with this Chowning girl. Off we went at a decent pace, through Washington, Idaho, and into Montana.
Mark took the bad shift (2am-dawn) the first day, which was a mistake. I am pretty good at that shift, and bad a sleeping in a car at times, so it makes the morning shift really hard on me. As it was, since we were now on a deadline, we didn't get to see much of western Montana. I don't know when the sun came up (although I was driving at the time) but it wasn't until after Butte that I saw how beautiful Montana is.
I've always heard of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho reffered to as Big Sky Country, and it took Montana for me to figure out why. See, unlike Colorado, where the sky is broken up by these mountains that loom on the horizon, or like New Mexico, where there is a solid horizon line broken by these pillars of rock, or even Nebraska were it is so flat that clearly they have the biggest sky . . . Montana has this nice mixture of space and mountains small enough that they aren't towering. I'm sure Montana has some great peaks, but it didn't have much of horizon line, it was all broken up by these smaller mountains. Unlike Atlanta, which certainly doesn't have a clean horizon because of all of the hills, the mountains in Montana were spread out enough that you got the spacious feel that Tennessee mountains don't give you. So there is still plenty of sky, but it is framed well. And that is why I think they are called the big sky states.
So we bulldoze our way through Montana and into Wyoming, across more desolate land without trees (there comes a point when you are out of the evergreens and back into the high plains where the tree disappear) and finally into South Dakota. Mark gets this idea that we should go so Mount Rushmore. I'm game for just about anything, as long as it doesn't interfere with me getting to Nashville so we get off of the interstate and head towards a big rock with faces on it. Not that we can see it yet.
We drive, and drive some more, and then some more. Oh, and we pass a waterslide which loks like lots of fun since it is fucking hotin the car. But through all of this, and more traffic we continue to Mt. Rushmore, destinedto live the American summer trip dream and look at dead presidents. somewhere along the way it occurs to me that there is one FUCKING HUGE problem with this idea. We'll see if you were paying attention. What day was I trying to end up in Nashville?? What day did we leave?? Well, we drove through the night to get past Montana, which mean it is what day again?? That's right kids, the day before the 4th of July!
When deciding on a whim to see a monument that is somewhat out of the way, be sure to take into account what day it is and how close you are to a holliday designed arond patriotism and national pride. Needless the say the road between the highway and the entrance to the park was packed beyond belief. As we get closer to the "historic site?" the place turns more and more into a pidgeonforge gattlinburg site. Tons of "native american" selling stores in crappy old style buildings and swarming with people who look like the would rather be somewhere else. I had my reservations about this trip at this point and was wishing we had just gone to the waterslide and enjoyed a few trips down.
We eventually make it to the security check (makes sense, if I wanted to destroy america I would blow up a rock in the middle of nowhere). The security check was super lax, almost non-existant. He asked if we had explosives, guns, nuclear weapons, he might have well have asked us if we were terrorists, or I guess he could have looked at us, decided we looked white and felt that was enough. It was ridiculous. So we wind our way just high enough to see the fucking heads, take an uninspired picture and turned tail. We checked off that box in our personal to do lists and moved on with our lives, and by that I mean we spent forever driving across South Dakota.
M
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