mama says...

i am in boston and back online, baby! i have finally located the free internet access at my new town library and now i am ready and rearing to blog! i know you all have been dying to hear about the road trip, so here goes...

we departed the beautiful blue and green state of oregon on wednesday evening, august 31st. i drove the relatively short 3 hours up to kemi's house in seattle, and we stayed the night there. kemi (unlike brian) was nice enough to give me a butt massage since my ass hurt from the driving. if only she could have come along for the rest of the ride. it was great to see kemi and her fam, and we took off for our big adventure the next morning, thursday, september 1st, at 10:45 am pacific time.

i made myself and brian proud by driving the first leg of the journey, a 7 hour trek that took us through washington, the tip of idaho, and finally to missoula, montana. i blasted the stereo, ate my mom's homemade cookies, and brian read harry potter like a mad man. he angered me greatly (okay, slightly) by reading ahead to the end and finding out who the half blood prince is and who dies. my ass kept aching, and i made brian shove my pillow under it for awhile, which slightly helped but made me extremely tall and made the angle of my leg on the gas pedal extremely awkward. we decided to stop for dinner at costco in missoula, despite my protest that costco doesn't sell tacky souvenirs. brian dared me to down the second half of his fruit smoothie in one gulp, and it made for a hilarious photo of me with tears dripping down my face. we observed that missoula had almost no attractive people, except for one man and woman who were of course married with three kids.

brian took the wheel for the next stretch, and we drove across montana as the sun began to set. he appeased me by stopping at a gas station so i could buy a tacky montana postcard, and then i began the long and difficult process of trying to fall asleep in a crammed car when your whole life is about to change. needless to say, it took two sleeping pills, one open window, four hours, and finally the soothing sounds of sarah mclachlan to put me to sleep. before i passed out, brian pulled over in the middle of nowhere and we got out to look at the stars. i cant remember if it was in montana or wyoming, but it was amazing. i have never seen so many constellations, so many tiny, flickering, white speckles of light. we stared in awe and remarked about how all of them are always there, we just can't usually see them in the bright lights of even a small city. the night passed in a weird state of feeling highly medicated and sleepy, yet waking up at every noise. brian ran over a rabbit and missed an exit and that woke me up...i stared at him, half awake, and he snapped "what are you looking at?" it was pretty funny. he chugged red bull and so we stopped every couple of hours so he could pee. at like 3 am, we stopped at a tiny gas station and store in wyoming, where there was a woman working who was atleast in her forties. brian asked her how much longer it would take to get to south dakota (he was estimating about two) and she started naming off cities and then said, "mama says 6 hours." brian questioned her a little, and she repeated, "well, mama says 6 hours and i always listen to what mama says" in her twangy wyoming drawl. it took two hours, but brian and i repeated "mama says" countless times on the rest of the trip.

when i finally woke up, we were in south dakota and brian had been driving for ten hours. we stopped and changed into some fresh clothes, and i re-assumed my role of daytime driver while brian attempted the troublesome sleeping thing. we passed by the badlands and a million signs for wall drug and the world famous corn palace, and by the time we passed into minnesota brian was finally asleep. about ten miles into the evil land of minnesota, i was promptly pulled over for speeding, thus waking brian from his slumber. "90 in a 70," officer olsen reported to me, "and it took me four miles to catch up with you." crap. my luck with countless warnings had surely run out, and he issued me a $137 ticket, which of course he knew i wouldn't be coming back to minnesota to contest. brian and i decided right then and there that minnesota was stupid, and nothing happened on the rest of the drive across to change our minds.

after minnesota came wisonsin, which i recall being relatively boring but atleast not stupid. if my memory serves me (and it probably doesn't) it was somewhere around here that we broke out good ol' micheal jackson number ones and had ourselves a grand singalong. i danced, too, but brian forced me to keep one hand on the wheel at all times. we bonded over the glorious "man in the mirror" which brian loved as a child. he recalled being seven or eight and having the stomach flu, laying weak on the floor in bathroom from constant vomiting, and then hearing that music video come on mtv in the living room. he loved that song so much that he pulled his weary body on the floor by his elbows and crawled into the room to see it. now that's dedication. brian was hysterical singing along, and i got chills from the key change. it was damn hilarious.

stay tuned for the next installment of the road trip entry, including such intriguing stories as...

* why people should have to take a course on toll booths before ever passing through one
* why people should never suddenly strike emotionally fragile women
* and why people should never make ludicrous claims when they are sleep-deprived