Day 7: Youngstown - Roselle Park. 388 mi.

Off to a late start again today - totally my fault. We crossed the Ohio border into Pennsylvania in no time and then headed off through the rolling, rolling hills and (low) mountains of state number 10 of 13. It was a beautiful drive, the change in topography was gorgeous, although the numberous trucks flying along on either side were a little nerve-wracking at times.

We didn't realize that Delaware was involved in entering New Jersey, a lovely surprise (although it was dark and we didn't really see it at all). Our hosts for the evening had provided excellent directions, and we found their delightful home without a hitch. Another delicious dinner, an episode of The OC on the largest TV I've ever seen in someone's home, and to bed. Because first, we take Manhattan ...

Day 6: Lake Forest - Youngstown. 431 mi.

Off to a later start than usual this morning, due to (perceived) fewer miles to travel and having to see a man about a lock. This meant that Foghorn had to negotiate his way out of Chicago in driving rain and occasional lightning.


Once we reached the south side of the city, the skies cleared, or at least it stopped raining, and we proceeded through what remained of IL, Indiana and almost all of Ohio. Skies were cloudy, but rest stops in Ohio are the best yet - free wifi! Starbucks! fresh-seeming food!


And, as we entered the final hour of driving, the sweetest thing - the first sign to the Final Destination:

Additional photos

One of these things is not like the others ...


Minnesota farmland


Crossing the Mississippi

Day 5: Rest Day

And a rest day it was! Slept in, had brunch, and spent the afternoon at the club, swimming, hot tubbing, sauna-ing, exercising, snoozing, etc. Fantastic.

Shuesday: I'm going to get what I want

Thanks Kale! This is more fun than ... well, it's just a lot of fun.

Let's get some shoes. OMG, shoes. These shoes rule, these shoes suck.

I think you have too many shoes. Shut up!

These shoes cost $300 - let's get 'em!

Those shoes are mine, bitch.

(And no, I can't do that with a hula-hoop.)

Day 4: Sioux Falls - Lake Forest. 559 mi.

I ain't missing you at all, since you've been gone away ...

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name ...

Come on babe, Why don't we paint the town?And All That Jazz

Today we awoke to an inch of ice on the truck and a parking lot that could have hosted Stars on Ice. Needless to say, the Fabulous Father borrowed a scraper and went to work, and we left slightly later than anticipated, with the hopes of making up time along the way. We hit the main road after pillaging the complimentary breakfast bar and were on our way. And that's when the fog hit. FF - now known as Foghorn Leghorn - made it for an hour before the stress of driving through freezing rain of the night before combined with less than 50 yards of visibility combined to exhaust him. I took the wheel and carried on - it wasn't too bad if you assume that there will be taillights ahead if there's a problem. I mean, it's essentially a road that goes straight east, right? So I cranked it up to 65 and sailed along. It got patchy, which was a good thing, as we went, but we really didn't see Minnesota at all. Nor most of Wisconsin, although we took a moment to think about cheese curds. (Mmmm, cheese curds. A key ingredient in poutine.)

The challenges in this cross country adventure seem to always come after dark - Sunday night is was freezing rain, tonight it was a detour to I-94 through downtown Milwaukee (Schlemiel, schlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated!), followed by over-shooting the Lake Forest exit by almost 12 miles. But we made it! Ignoring the white signs with big black truck outlines surrounded by a red circle with a line through it, we wended our 16 foot Penske truck through the streets of Lakes Forest and Bluff to the lovely home of longstanding family friends. We were greeted with glasses of wine, a delightful cheese tray, and a champagne and lobster dinner. Fell asleep on luxurious Italian linen sheets before the head hit the pillow, and slept so sweetly. Tomorrow is a day of rest, not to mention Shuesday!

Google Maps

Day 3: Hardin - Sioux Falls. 671 miles.

Good day, sunshine ... Icicle, icicle, where are you going? ... The sun will come out, tomorrow ...

Another, longer day. It didn't feel long until the last hour. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Most of today was fantastic. Sunny skies, dry roads, lovely people.

However ... Am starting to call The Fabulous Father /The Snowman/, as each time we trade and he gets behind the wheel, it starts to snow. Or, in tonight's case, rain. Freezing rain. Would have been fine, but the headlights and the wipers got jammed with ice, reducing visibility to close to nil. We crawled along dark and icy roads for the last 90 minutes and into Sioux Falls, only to discover that it's close to impossible to get a beer in South Dakota after 9:30 on a Sunday night. Never thought I'd say this, but gods bless Bennigan's. (Who knew the Irish ate ribs?)

Things I've learned thus far:

• Drive as fast as you can, safely, when roads are clear and dry, and the sun is up.
• Chain Removal Area signs mean you're now free to exhale. Especially when you didn't put chains on in the first place.
• The air, including that coming out of the car heater, is incredibly dry this side of the Continental Divide. Moisturize, baby!

Google Maps.

Day 2: Coeur d'Alene - Hardin. 556 miles.

Oh the weather outside is frightful ...

Today was a long day. It was lovely to start with familiar coffee, but Fourth of July Pass was pretty slushy and scarier coming down than going up. We traded off shortly thereafter, and Lookout Pass wasn't much better. I got back behind the wheel shortly before Missoula and drove over clear roads and under beautiful sunny skies into Butte. Note to travellers: Continental Divide is East of Butte. Cease and desist premature celebrations for arrival in Butte!

It snowed off and on all day and visibility wasn't great. Of course, after dark, things were perfect weather and visibility-wise, so we elected to push on to Hardin in the hopes of getting back on schedule tomorrow. Early early wake-up and more driving for me tomorrow.

Google Maps.

Day 1: Seattle - Coeur D'Alene. 320 miles

What a day this has been, what a rare mood I'm in ...

Thanks to the Usual Suspects (Scottish Cowgirl, Cookie Monster, My Fellow Canadian and The Renaissance Man), I made it out of town in record time and with an extraordinarily clean apartment. Can't say enough how Fabulous the Friends are, and have been, since news of my departure hit the broadsheets.

There was snow in The Pass, but the Fabulous Father was more than up for it, and we sailed into the Heart of Idaho in time for oysters and beer for dinner - yes, oysters - and for the conclusion of a seasonal parade that drew the entire population of northern WA, ID and MT, based on the traffic jams. Post-party shennanigans included arriving at the local hotspot in strapless, shiny tops, and downing two rounds of Jagermeister shots in RedBull (a boilermaker for the oughts?), before diving into Huckleberry Margaritas.

You heard me.

More snow predicted btw where we are and Bozeman, but we'll make an early start and hope for the best. See you at 5,000 feet!

Google Maps

Art for art's sake

We adore The Blue Fairy for many, many reasons (dinner parties, first edition books, hats, etiquette, ability to speak icelandic while crafting puppets), but it's mostly about the art. Because now you too can be Andy Warholized.

* Yes, it's Thanksgiving night, yes we're leaving in the morning, yes, I should be sleeping, and no, I'm not completely packed. *sigh*.

Go east, young woman

There are far far far too many cliches about leaving one place for another to get into at this time, and I'm not going to bore you with the 4 song list on rotation in my head. The good news is that moving across the country isn't what it used to be in stagecoach days, and the list of visitors is already delightfully long.

I'll be seeing you ...

Shuesday: Dial-a-Shoe

Not a bad idea ... although not with quite that shoe selection.

Shoe wheel

Paaaaar-tay!

(Someone had to say it.)

I seem to be surviving on a pure diet of alcohol and fancy food - last night was the first official send-off for my partners in crime and tonight is cocktails with friends here. Under the influence of the Scottish Cowgirl last night, I drank French 75s after my initial dirty martini. Later, the Voluptuous Tulsan forced a shot of Patron Silver down my most unwilling throat. And was just fine this morning, thank you very much.

The food was fantastic! Stuffed dates* with blue cheese, coppa and pine nuts, mini grilled cheese sandwiches with drunken goat cheese and a fig/olive tapenade, spaghetti squash, honey & spice pumpkin seed bruschetta, and fantastic cayenne truffles. So good. And the wines were great too. I used to adore the colour purple.

* The Renaissance Man says that life is too short to eat dates, but what does he know?

You're not the only one

with mixed emotions.

The goodbyes have begun, over reasonably spaced delicious meals that no one will let me pay for.

The desk is almost packed - and this time I went through everything, as my exhausted shredder can attest. No longer am I moving birthday cards from the mid 1990's from domicile a to b. Nor cute little thank you notes, photos of people I cannot remember, anything that evokes a what-once-was or a might-have-been.

So what makes the grade?

Years of letters from one, on yellow lined sheets and family company stationary. Sketches from another, sent across the Pacific and to summer camp. More recently acquired cards and just because notes from special someones, regardless of whether or not I can read the handwriting. Business cards for New York shops and restaurants, from Carmine's, my inaugural NY dining experience (a colleague from San Diego ordered an appletini and the bartender didn't know what she was talking about), to the one in Chelsea, owned by a friend's sister-in-law, that I just have to go to. Bills from the last year only. And anything that makes me laugh out loud.

Lets grab the world
By the scruff of the neck
And drink it down deeply
Lets love it to death ...

Shuesday: No Bad Wrong

What's wrong with this picture? And these? No, no, no.


I said no!

Wide open spaces

The thing about selling off most of your furniture, but keeping your rug, is that you create the ultimate somersault environment.

I'm just saying.

A girl has to eat ...

Fortunately, Jane and Michael Stern have seen to it that we know where to eat in every state in the union. It's not champagne wishes and caviar dreams, but who cares when you're in the middle of ... where are we again?

We're talking 18 scoop ice cream sundaes at Cole Drug (Big Timber, MT), Megabob burgers at Bob's Cafe (Sioux Falls, SD), Walleye BLTs at Hell's Kitchen (Minneapolis, MN), and cheesesteaks at Tony Luke's (Philly).

Because arriving in New York packing an extra 20 pounds is exactly how I've envisioned the start of my East Coast life.

Roadfood

Freedom 06

All we have to see
is that I don't belong to you
and you don't belong to me ...

Books & CDs, one hundred thirty six dollars.
Coffee table, fifty dollars.
Bakeware, ninety dollars.

Not having to lug stuff across the country? Priceless.

Freedom 90

Now, if I can be her ...

I'll live wherever you want me to. Because this I can do. And I don't own a giant red bag ... yet.

The Sartorialist

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Eggnog lattes are back!!!!

Shuesday: I'm melting!

Vote with your feet! (I am).

The rain continues, but these boots will keep you dry and warm and the shearling cuff is fun-tabulous. Enjoy!

Reasons not to move to Brooklyn

Because I just can't dress like this. I think I missed my chance at hipsterdom ... and I think I'm going to be OK with that in the long term. Not that there aren't other embarrassing photos of me in existence.

The Sartorialist

Fundamentally women without men

I don't watch The Gilmore Girls*, but the woman who wrote this article gets it. Completely. Selections:

... that was the charm of the old show: women, fundamentally women without men, were compelled to talk as fast as they could to keep their loneliness at bay. The virtue of (the) style was that it created characters who were new to television. (...) Lorelai and Rory shared the witty woman’s challenge: to architect a wall of words so high and so thick that no silence, no stares, no intimations of mortality or even love could penetrate it. And the more they did that season after season, and the more they relented only when overcome by real despair, the more (the creators) seemed to have found a way to bring the pain of cleverness to the screen.

Lorelai’s out-of-touchness with her own emotional life has only grown more extreme. That process has had an incredible poignancy and even suspense. Lorelai’s internal life — her desperate loneliness (come on, have any of these forgettable guys even come close to matching her?) coupled with her untenable reliance on her daughter as the one true thing in her existence — is clear to longtime viewers. But no one of her fans would really want her to face that suffering, and turn soft. To force some kind of psychological reckoning on her would be sadistic. Her humor, her style, her neuroses, even her quicksilver physicality were all contrivances that served to shut out existential truths.

If she were in therapy, or a character on a show with a dumber audience, maybe she would have to embrace her weakness. But like Elizabeth in Stephen Frears’s movie “The Queen,” Lorelai has a humanity that is perfectly apparent precisely in her unwillingness to betray her stoicism in favor of a therapeutic catharsis. For all these years, Lorelai in “Gilmore Girls” has been painful and surprising and exciting to watch — a marvelous high-wire act. How cruel that the new writer of the show wants to rub her face in conventionality, strip her of the speed that was her reason for being and transform her into another banal television lead.

*OK, I dabbled heavily last year, but that was a combination of the formidable influence of Trivial Kate - she can even get me to watch game shows! - and the excellent writing.

I can't stand the rain

against my window ...

I suppose it is excellent weather for spending time inside going through 10 years of accumulated miscellany, but it does feel like an intentional send off (yes, even the weather patterns are all about the FG). It also makes the cat cranky - he wants to be outside, but not in the rain. Conundrum!

Had a great weekend with Camarooned - an excellent balance of spicy food, laughing til our sides ached with good friends and good wine, sleeping in, packing, and moving stuff around.

We're due for extensive flooding this week, even in the city. As in, 100% chance of rain Mon & Tues. Which calls for foot and outerwear that's weather-proof, and I'm preparing for a series of bad hair days. But things are getting packed and sorted through, and furniture is slowly being sold off and leaving the premises. As Jeff Leiken used to say, /this is happening/.

"We don't want you to bite yourself."

I went to the dentist last week for a pre-move cleaning, and of course they found cavities, so I went back this morning. The numbness is wearing off and I've managed not to drool, but I'm on a mostly liquid diet for the rest of the day. Which is even more reason to go for drinks with Camarooned before dinner before a 1 vs. 100 marathon and games night with the Capitol Hill Clan (not my idea, but I love my friends enough to watch bad tv with them). I had a Fage Total Greek Yoghurt with Honey for elevenses, and brought tomato soup for lunch, so I'm not on a totally empty stomach.

It's Day Two (or is it three?) of the first rainstorm of the Northwest winter, and I'm impressed with its aggressive attitude. We did have a lovely, dry fall, and the rain that didn't get to meander its way to the ground last month is clearly ticked off. And I'm reminded of the main reason I'm leaving. Because it never rains in NY, right?

Stars collide

They Might be Giants' New York City was just on KEXP ...

'Cause everyone's my friend in New York City
And everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
The streets are paved with diamonds and there's just so much to see
But the best thing about New York City is you and me

I'm so sure ...

Keep your pants on

I'm prepared to say please, if necessary.

Hot on the heels of all those over-sexed Hallowe'en costumes (no, I can't sit down in this skirt), comes the NYT plaintive "Isn't Anyone in this Town Wearing Pants?"

While there may be moments for this look (not to mention perhaps one in twenty pair of legs), leggings without a skirt are hardly appropriate for ... anywhere outside your exercise facility. And you know it just reminds you of the first iteration of the stirrup-pant/ leggings fiasco of 1985.

Sometimes, being on the "cutting edge" of fashion just leaves you with scars. Not to mention embarrassing photos.

Puppies!

For TK's birthday - this is a Jackapoo.