The Days Got Blurry, Doncha know.

Jun 16, 2017

2 min read

At this point we were well off schedule. At a bar in Grey Bull, Caitlin and Patrick sat down and reconfigured the schedule while I went straight to sleep. It turns out I'm not so good with non-IT related planning. I'd scheduled up for 10 - 12 days of driving but hadn't thought about how long it realistically takes to eat, gas up, stop at points of interest, and all that. My 10 - 12 hours of driving translate to a 14 hour day which is not sustainable. I'm really glad my Millennials were with me to help out. They're awesome! Not just funny and kind, but smart and insightful, too.

The next few days all kind of run together. On the one hand, this doesn't due justice to the Midwest, because Eastern South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois... well OK. Let's face it. they aren't terribly distinct from one another. One thing I did notice, especially in Montana, was the farther East we went, the nicer people were. They were more engaged and personable. It threw into sharp relief how distracted and uninterested people in California are, overall. Yes it's a generalization; no not everyone's like that... blah blah blah you know what I mean.

The main factor though was that we were tired and restless and feeling a bit done with the whole thing. Things inside the car were more interesting than things outside the car. We continued to amuse each other which was good!

The highlights:

Patrick spoke with a Minnesota accent the entire time we drove through that state, doncha know. It was really annoying, doncha know. If you annoyed him back, he threatened not to give you a free donut with yer coffee, doncha know. The worse part is, he kept it up for a of the time in Wisconsin, too, doncha know.
Caitlin became a Metalhead! Ha! I knew it would happen sooner or later! :) She now headbangs with the best of 'em. Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed, Metallica, Megadeth, Alesana... I'm so proud! <Sniff!> \m/
We found longhorns in Wisconsin!! The fact that they were grazing under a billboard for a steakhouse was both a little sad and a little ironic.
Patrick denied me the jaunts into Iowa and Michigan 1) in the interest of time and 2) he pointed out that that was akin to a layover in an airport and didn't count towards putting it on The List. Dammit. He's right.