So there was a post on Tumblr, "Things you will see on a road trip across America"⁰. It spoke to me, far more than the Regional Gothic trend did, and I was quick to respond with my own listing. You may read my additions ( under the cut )

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Of course, then I started writing more about it all. Have some blather about road trips. It's not under a cut, because I do not love you enough.

According to my quick count, I have visited (or at least driven through) 36 states. Let's look at some highlights...

-From very young to age 11, the family drove to Peoria IL every year to visit Great-Grandma Deemy. She died in 2000, which was the year of...

-The Big Trip! Mom, her best friend Neva, and me and the sibs spent 2-3 straight weeks on the road. We drove from Maryland to Colorado, took a turn north up through both Dakotas, cut east back to Minnesota, just missed Michigan, and swooped back to MD. It was an absolute fucking delight. Kansas is terrible, we somehow skipped Nebraska entirely, and mom spit-swore she'd take me to the Mall of America to ride the roller coasters before I turned eighteen. This is why I don't trust my mother. ;)¹

-From very young until college, we drove to Winsted CT for Thanksgiving, and also usually for a visit in the summer. Dad's parents (St G'ma, G'pa Gus) live up there, on a wonderful horse farm with rock-walls to climb on and a pond and art and books strewn everywhere. I haven't been to the farm in several years --Thanksgiving started moving around my sophomore year of college-- and I miss it terribly. I should organize a visit some weekend!

-Starting in about, oh, 2002 or 3, us kids (Shan, then Al, then me) attended Stayaway Camp in Maine. Have you seen the Parent Trap? That is the camp we stayed at. No literally, they wanted to film at Wyo, but they were told to piss off, there was a camp to run. Anyways, there would be 2-3 trips up a summer (dropping off, changeover day, picking up) with some subset of siblings and parents, and staying the night in either Winsted or Boston.

-For two of those years, when the sibs were at camp and I was not, me and the rents drove down to South Carolina for a conference at Myrtle Beach. This is relevant because it means I've visited both South of the Border and Wall Drug.

(The second year, when it was just me and them, mom started to have some really funky vision problems and dad had to do all the driving home. Turns out she had MS. Anyways, that was 2002, which means Shan started camp in 2001, which works out since I did 2003 and 2004. Good talk.)

-Moving on to adulthood, I went to college in Boston (well, Cambridge). The family did many runs to pick me up or drop me off with my stuff, several of which did not involve my mother (see also, Dragon*Con.)

-Didn't roadtrip much in college, but right after I graduated, I got to do 14 straight hours in a car with one other driver (mom --although Shan did drive a couple hours), two siblings, and two cats. We moved to Chicago! Cats do not like it when the car goes 80 mph. They are fine when it is up to 85. No officer, I had to speed, I was doing science!

(Two days later, I did half that again, doubling back to Hiram, Ohio with Alys in tow. Dad was out of town, mom had to wait for the movers, I was her Official Adult for her college orientation. This was a profoundly uncomfortable experience for us both, I suspect, plus we had a serious argument about whether World/Inferno Friendship Society was a hipster band in the first thirty minutes of driving and were both super tense and stressed for like an hour. That bit I mentioned about the Lion's Den? I think it was figuring that out which calmed us the fuck down and brought us back to giggling like loons.)

-Sparr and I have made the Boston-Atlanta(ish) drive a few times. One of these times, I drove 17 of 20 hours (I did not make that up above for humour value). One of those times, our rental car was totaled and we had to frantically scramble to get home. The last time went quite without problem, except for the entertaining logistics of picking people up or dropping them off in at least five different locations.

-In early fall 2012, I was unemployed. My favourite ex-partner decided to move to Seattle. Their rich friend offered a plane ticket home. Mel and I packed up a uhaul (technically a Penske), drove to Cleveland (where we spent a day with their mother and raided a storage unit), drove to Chicago (where we spent about an hour and a half with my mother before she left for some vacation and we hung out in the house and watched movies --maybe George of the Jungle?), and drove and drove and drove and drove to Seattle. The Milky Way is every bit as stunning as I implied, Buttes will never not be hilarious, and having a governor keeping you from going over 75mph when you're on a 70mph speed limit road going DOWN THE ROCKIES is the shittiest thing.

I think that's the most of 'em. There's some small ones with strangers (from Indy to Chicago a couple times after GenCon, and I'm about to do Boston to Syracuseish) but most of the long trips have been with friends or family. States I have been to without driving there: Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona. And I suppose technically Tennesee in that I *have* driven to Georgia before, but the trip we went to TN, I flew to GA and then we drove up there. Dunno if that counts or not.

I hold no respect for America the Corporate Identity but I do fucking love America the road-trip liminal space of folklore and legend. Given a world without capitalism and a Tesla Roadster², I wouldn't even bother with a house in exchange for a rotating selection of friends riding shotgun as we roam around this world.

~Sor
MOOP!

0: Although I appreciate the thing someone pointed out, which is that they mean "USA", not America.

1: In case the smiley is not obvious, my mother is THE BEST MOTHER and I trust her very much and have forgiven her, but it's fun to tease.

2: I am adding this footnote seven years later to acknowledge that this reference did *not* age well.

Where it's COLD! Stupid working AC's to keep the compys from imploding. *grin*

I don't especially have anything to report. My mother is currently in the South Pacific somewhere, cruising around and heading towards Bora Bora. Which, as jealous as I am, is cool, because I get to have St. Grandma chilling out and watching us kids. She's clever enough to know that we're generally good kids, and can mostly take care of ourselves, so yeah. Good stuff.

Spent most of Saturday hanging out with Ksatyr, mostly watching more HOUSE and mowing his lawn for him. House = highly addictive. Which means that yes, mek, you can say any varient of "I told you so" that you choose.

Saturday night was Rocky Horror, which I managed to babble through somehow.

Sunday was completely crowded together --I woke up at about three thirty (EEK! --So much for getting up before noon every day. :p) and had to clean the catbox, do a psych project, and eat dinner, all in rapid sucession. Then I went off to a girl scout thing, collapsed onto Dmitri a bit, and went to bed, somewhat tired.

And yeah. That's my weekend. In the meantime, it's time to go home and ignore my homework. See you lot later!

~Sor
MOOP!

Recap:

Friday: Went alright, and then I got to babystitting. Oh my. Diane pointed out that DC (Dear Childe) was borderline sick, so if he fell asleep earlier or whatnot I shouldn't worry.

He was asleep when we got home. So, we put him to bed and Diane told me that if he woke up screaming or anything, and seemed to need his Mom (as opposed to this crazy pseudo-mom) to just call her since she was right next door. I was perfectly fine just watching him peacefully. Then he woke up. *headdesks*

I did wind up getting Diane, and she determnined that he prolly had a nightmare or somesuch, since he wasn't feeling as hot/feverish as he was when we put him to bed (hardly any temperature by that point) We wound up chatting for a bit, with Koob just snuggled up against Diane and it was rather nice. I like talking to people.

After she left, DC was his usual bundle of energy, I finally put him to bed 9:30ish and sang to him, and finally got online again around 10:15ish. And that was after just leaving him be since he didn't seem to have any interest in GOING TO SLEEP! Yipes!

Saterday: Aly's friend Natalie wound up coming over, which was cool(ish) I let them play the Sims on my computer while I played with Veronica and Nik and Dan. It was pretty fun. Natalie stayed the night, and I just generally hung out.

Sunday: Pretty good. I went to Jimmy-Grey (My youngest cousin on my moms side)'s B-day party, where mostly I hung out with mom and aunt sara, choosing to avoid the hordes of small children being obsessive about video games. Me and Nik then went over to Jernie and Boe's to play Halo and watch the transformers movie...we didn't finish it, which was a shame. Played a lot of Halo though.

I really really really really suck at Halo. Although, I achieved a new personal record: I killed someone all by myself! Twice even! It made me very happy. I also killed Andy since he was being a sweetheart and standing still so I could just shoot him a lot.

Transformers movie was very amusing. Gotta love the crazy things. I love the fact that the chickbot wears lipstick. Because, you know, she needs it.

Monday: Worked on some girl scouts stuff, and then went to the leader meeting. Which was cool, if a little long. I wound up inviting myself/getting invited to a younger girl troop via thursday to help them learn origami for thinking day.

Tuseday: Couldn't make up it's mind about weather it was a good day or a bad day. Felt incredibly fragile for no real reason in gymnastics and was ready to just start crying at the littlest things. Very annoying, especially since I had to forcefully refocus myself several times. I figured out what I was doing wrong via back handsprings though, so that was good. Maybe I'll be doing them by myself before the year is out.

Today: Was rather nice. Did the whole school thing until English, where I did the whole hang out with Becky and work on review thing. She had the complete HGttG with her and I had raptures over it all period. I didn't steal it though, which was good of me.

She said she got it at the mall, for only 16 dollars or somesuch. If I can find a compy for under 20$, I'm quite definently buying it for myself, so I have my own copy to deface highlight all the good quotes in.

It started snowing today about Englishtime. Someone looked out the window and pointed it out and adjuisted the blinds so everyone could see and it was exciting. Everyone was cheering and whatnot (not real loud or anything) and enjoying the fact that we have snow. *looks outside* It's still going right now, I reckon we have two, or maybe even three inches so far.

I like snow.

I walked home in it, which was nice, although a tad on the cold side (must remember to bring gloves tomorrow...) and Jeff offered me a ride, which is different. I declined, partly since I was enjoying the snow, partly because I was pretty close to home at that point anyway, and partly because his car skidded rather nicely as he pulled up to the curb next to me. No interest in getting into a car accident thanks. I've done that (albeit several years ago.)

Jaimee invited me to CoE again, which I hope to go to, although it occers to me that I should prolly hang out here and study and clean my room, and knock off things on my todo and whatnot. Sigh.

All for now.

EDIT: Since then, I've shovled the walk which isn't fun, found out that CoE is practiced, which works with my plans, and chatted with Kat, which is very fun.

~Sorceress

MOOP!

(((COT: My clone and my mum have friended each other. This amuses me greatly, although I'm not entierly positve why.)))