It's Day Four of the Trip

I am blogging on the open road. I love using blog as a verb. It's one of those words that has so many meanings, and is so much fun. It is a noun, (I have a blog,) it's a verb, (I need to blog,) it's an adjective, (I met one of my blog friends.)

Speaking of blog friends…

I had the pleasure of meeting and staying with Little Sister last night.

She welcomed my brother and I into her lovely penthouse apartment overlooking the beautiful city of Indianapolis. There she gave me vodka and cigarettes and her hospitality for the evening. I was/am feeling quite guilty that I didn't bring her a gift or something.

I could have bought her something at The Cracker Barrel where we ate dinner outside of Columbus, OH, but Shelly informed me that Cracker Barrel was a racist, anti-gay company built on strong Christian morals to discriminate against people. I wasn't aware of Cracker Barrel's strong, Christian, discriminatory, gay-bashing reputation but be sure, now that I know, this I-70 West traveler will NOT be patronizing that establishment ever again.

Pity too, I really liked the chicken/broccoli/green bean dish I had there, not to mention the sweet tea.

I digress.

Before meeting Little Sister and the whole Cracker Barell incident we began our trip.

We left Pittsburgh at 5:30 EST on Wednesday and quickly swept through south-western PA and into Wheeling WV, then onto the lovely state of Ohio.

We passed Zanesville, OH which is a city where I lived when I was three. I called my mom and dad to commemorate the event.

Speaking of my mom and dad; they, unfortunately did not set me up very well for this adventure west. Prior to my flying to Pittsburgh, my mother told me that she put an atlas in my suitcase. While perusing Mapquest with my dad, I went to retrieve the so-called-atlas from my suitcase, only to discover that it was not an atlas at all but the Thomas guide for the city of Portland. I didn’t think it was going to do me any good on my trip across America so my dad gave me one of his Atlas's. I pulled out the so-called Atlas somewhere in Ohio only to discover that it was a WORLD atlas and unless I was suddenly going to change direction and go to Sudan, it wasn’t going to do me any good either. Somewhere between Columbus and Indianapolis, we stopped for gas and I bought a pocket atlas of the US. I couldn’t see spending $12.95 plus TAX (something we do NOT have in Oregon,) for an atlas I don't intend on using again so I opted for the smaller $3.95 plus tax version.

Again, I digress.

So upon leaving the lovely city of Indianapolis, which is quite easy to get around I might add, we stopped for a quick delicious breakfast, coffee, and gas and made our way to St. Louis.

In order to get to St. Louis, one must travel through Indiana and then through Illinois. Not a lot going on in that part of Illinois, but I did pass where Lincoln lived. You know, the president? He’s from Illionois, or was anyway. Before he died during that unfortunate theatre incident.

After Illinois, the state of Missouri welcomes you. Missouri is the "Show Me State." What do they want to see do you suppose?

I wasn't sure, so I didn’t venture to guess.

St. Louis is where they have that big silver horseshoe looking thing. We drove through the city instead of by-passing it and we got a few pictures of the big silver horseshoe looking thing from the car. I asked my brother if he wanted to stop, but he wasn’t interested. So pictures from the car going 70 mph it was.

Passing St. Louis we stopped at Waffle House for lunch. I wanted some more sweet tea and as I mentioned, I’m no longer allowed to eat at Cracker Barrel; Waffle House would have to be the next choice for sweet tea.

After a completely grease soaked BLT for lunch we were once again on our way. This time, destination: Kansas City, which apparently is not in Kansas. Just as soon as we left the city limits of St. Louis it started raining like crazy. Crazy I tell you. People think that it rains in Oregon? Oregon’s got nothing on Missouri. We could hardly see the road and there was thunder and lightening; scary shit. After the torrential downpour/thunderstorm we were once again up and going. We breezed through Kansas City and onto Topeka where we intended on staying the night. My brother decided that he wanted to keep driving; and here we are in the middle of Kansas.

We finally opted to stop in Junction City, Kansas at a lovely, wireless-internet-equipped Comfort Inn with a pool, hot tub and HBO. The nice man at the front desk, Cooper, instructed us where we should dine this evening and my brother is presently in the shower while I send out this quick blog which I blogged on the open road in Word, just awaiting a wireless signal. I so very happy. So I'm off, my blogging friends of the internet for a lovely dinner in this fine part of Kansas. I will return this evening and catch up on what some of you are doing before retiring to begin the next leg of this journey.

Until later my friends.