2006-12-12 - 12:30 p.m.
And thus begins our journey.
The Oregon Trail, Day One: Friday, December 1
8:30 a.m. - Kelly and I depart from Bainbridge, Ohio.
8:45 a.m. - "My sisters are so disgusted with me because you know, they're in that teenage stage where they want to look ugly." - Kelly.
9:06 a.m. - It is so rainy and foggy and misty that we cannot see more than 5 feet in front of the car. Kelly is doing an amazing job navigating through it. I would not have.
9:20 a.m. - "I don't know why people call me while I'm driving. 'I hope you're safe!'" - Kelly.
9:37 a.m. - According to Kelly, there is a student acapella group at MIT called "The Logarhythms."
10:00 a.m. - "Nobody wants your pepper...spritzed...onion salad." - Kelly.
10:55 a.m. - "Oh! Look at those trumpets go! I feel like I'm on a conveyer belt!" - me.
10:57 a.m. - On the outskirts of Columbus, there are tons of freeway side business plazas. Two of the businesses are "Drop 'N Go: E-Bay Made Easy" and "Laser Training Center."
11:15 a.m. - "I feel like I should have been born as a Japanese man. I could see you as a Korean girl." - Kelly.
11:16 a.m. - "Well, either a sad Japanese businessman or a Russian alcoholic." - Kelly, yet again on how she sees herself.
11:50 a.m. - Kelly is impressed not only by the fruits sold in the station but also by the name of Mad River.
11:53 a.m. - "This is full of sick." - me in reference to the weird orange cylinders in the dried fruit trail mix.
11:55 a.m. - We are being attacked by things that look like wispy dandelion heads bigger than fists.
12:08 p.m. - Kelly claims that Japanese businessmen love jazz music and is not amused when I refer to them as "Jazzpanese."
12:32 p.m. - At least 7 enormous billboards in a row along the free, each eithin 100 feet of each other, greet us upon entering Indiana that declare "Welcome to Tom Raper Country!" and "Free Soft Drinks, Free Hot Dogs, Free Smiles!"
12:35 p.m. - "I hate bric-a-brac and I HATE candles. Because who uses them, really, besides desperate housewives trying to turn on their husbands?" - Kelly.
12:37 p.m. - Tom Raper RV's exit--149A--is, supposedly, "Indiana's Most Famous Exit!"
12:50 p.m. - We stop to have lunch at a Dairy Queen that, much to Kelly's horror, is attached to a Stuckey's filled with bric-a-brac.
12:55 p.m. - There is a businessman with a really nice BMW and a nice suit that comes into Stuckey's and starts trying on a half-dozen different "Baja Shirts." He is also considering buying a "Navajo Rug."
2:26 p.m. - We drive through a suburban downtown that sports an E-Z Pawn, Cici's Pizza, Gonzalez Records, Ninza (that's right) Sushi, Hooters (in the shape of a gigantic steamboat), Shrimp Hut, and Peddlers Mall.
2:38 p.m. - I suggest that the name Dolly is short for Dolene; Kelly thinks this sounds like the brand name of a coin-sorter.
3:30 p.m. p.m. - "A Clockwork Orange. I would just lay in the middle of our living room and cry while listening to it...that and Gloria Gaynor." - Kelly.
2:55 (CST) p.m. - "I hate a Leslie." - Kelly.
3:30 p.m. - We arrive at Leo, Heidi, and new baby Nathaniel's house in Champaign, IL.
6:00 p.m. - Leo, Kelly, and I go to the grocery store to pick up brandy and the new Pepsi Jazz (Black Cherry/French Vanilla). Sam arrives at the house from Chicago.
7:16 p.m. - I tell Sam that if we were boyfriends in Montana, growing oranges together, and he was a baby-killer, I would pin down the baby's arms for him. The newly annointed parents, Leo and Heidi, are horrified and tell me I'm not allowed near their baby anymore.
7:46 p.m. - We cannot unravel the mystery of why Pepsi Jazz Black Cherry/French Vanilla is only available in the Diet variety.
7:50 p.m. - Pepsi Jazz, to the group's surprise, is very subtle and not bad.
10:45 p.m. - "My hormones are so messed up right now that when I hear a baby crying, my breasts just start lactating." - Heidi.
