trip across the US, part one

OK, so I started writing this and it's more than 2000 words and not even done. So I'm going to break this up and hope you all enjoy!

Where to begin? Try Bloomington, Indiana where, after the movers packed us up and we scoured the place cleaned, our apartment management company felt the need to mark everything as "Not Clean". Bitches.

And with that, we started our long trek across the country. We bought a Garmin GPS thing we named Alice, who was nice enough to tell us exactly where we were supposed to be going, although we didn't need much help once we got going. We drove on our last Indiana backroad, which dumped us onto I-70 near Terre Haute. Ah, I-70. This highway was going to be our home until it ceases to exist somewhere in Utah.

The drive wasn't too bad to get to St. Louis -- well, until we got to St. Louis. It was around 9:30 at night and Alice the Garmin Lady was being a bitch. We were trying to find our hotel and learned our first lesson about Alice: she's accurate until you get close to your destination. Then you should throw her out the window. She told us we were approaching the hotel, but for some reason, the hotel looked like a freaking bank parking lot. Luckily, we finally found the place and luckily, it had two beds. So Aaron laid down on one to watch television while I sat on the other to knit. It was the farthest we would be from each other that day and we needed the break.

The next day, my college friend Kristen stopped by the room and we headed to lunch at the hotel before getting dressed for a fancy wedding. Our friend Christian from college was getting married and we had to look pretty. The Garmin once again took care of us for the most part until we got close to the church and it wanted us to turn into someone's driveway. Stupid Garmin.

The wedding itself was really beautiful and it was good to see some of the old college crowd. Can't believe it's been so long since I've seen many of them. The reception was awesome -- open bar! -- and I had a great time dancing with the two daughters of friends of mine. Plus, apparently, there are a few people I went to school with who now keep up with The Office Web site I work on. Crazy! So after the reception, a few of the old group headed to a bar -- and Aaron and I headed to bed. Boring, I know, but we had a big drive the next day.

So the next day -- woke up early, packed up the car, and headed to Columbia, Missouri, to meet some friends for brunch. My friend Jeremy lives in town with his wife and two kids and, coincidentally, my friend Brad was in town visiting. So there was Jeremy, Brad, and I sitting at The Heidelberg just like old times...well, except for Jeremy's wife and kids and my husband. It was definitely a great time, but I don't think Aaron was all that impressed as we stood in front of the bar waiting for everyone and I explained that the very gutter we were standing a foot from was the gutter I puked in on my 21st birthday. Ah, good times!

The best known landmarks on the University of Missouri campus are The Columns on the Quad so I had to get a picture of Aaron and I in front of them. So weird to have my husband on my old college campus and yet so cool.
Then we had to bid adieu to Jeremy's family and Brad, and head west. We had to drive another eight hours before we got to our hotel in the middle of nowhere Kansas. Along the way, we drove by the Kansas City Royals' stadium. Here's a picture -- they were playing the Chicago White Sox as we drove by.

And then it was nothing. Like nothing. OK, there was something. Corn fields. Lots of them. For miles and miles and miles. We ended up stopping somewhere along the way at a Sonic to get dinner [yum! tater tots and limeade slushes!] and here's a picture if you don't believe me when I say we were in the middle of nowhere.Then there was this weird oasis ahead that I thought looked like a bit of humanity amid the cornfields. I jokingly told Aaron that would be the metropolis we were staying in that night. As it turns out, it wasn't a joke. Crap.

Colby, Kansas was in the middle of nowhere and yet our Garmin still screwed up. We got off the highway and Alice told us to turn right. I knew this was wrong when I got about a half-mile down the road and realized I was already on the outskirts of town. So we turned around and sure enough, there was the hotel right off the highway -- if you turn left. Stupid Alice.