Land of Lincoln!

I cannot express how much I am enjoying being in Illinois!

After a positively delightful lunch Friday with Carly and her lady love Jan in Iowa City, I drove to Normal, Il. James and Erica have a precious little house and life, and it was such a joy to spend the weekend with them. We ate good food, visited the farmer's market, ate good food, walked, read, knitted, ukulele/guitar played, napped, ate good food, and had some great conversations (did I mention that we ate well?). Since we spent Labor day at the cabin three years ago, Scout and their dog Jack were already buddies. Their lovely fenced in back yard was like a vacation for Scout! I could tell he was very much enjoying not being in the car too. 

Yesterday afternoon I drove up to Chicago listening to Sufjan Steven's C'mon feel the Illinois! and thinking more about the shadow puppet show I'm doing for my grand parent's 60th wedding anniversary party in Austin. It is so SO flat here! Kind of ridiculous. But! I arrived around 3 and got a little lost finding Megan's apartment, but no worries. SO good to see her and be here! I haven't seen her since B&P tour ended a year and a half ago! So we walked around her neighborhood and at a cute little outdoor cafe. I met her bf (who as it turns out has a startling amount in common with Joe...) and we got to gush about being happy.

This morning I cleaned and organized her apartment as a gift for letting me stay here and am now off to walk Scout and explore the neighborhood! 

(aaaaaaand Joe will be here tomorrow and I'm beside myself excited.)

boo couchsurfing and rich folks, yay trees and visiting people!

So, my couch surfing karma was not with me this week. Jon and I had lots of positive experiences using couchsurfing.com on tour this year to hook up places to stay, but I had two people fink out on me at the last minute this week. The guy in Boulder never gave me his contact info, so at 9 o'clock at night frustrated and confused, I just drove away from Boulder. Granted, Scout and I had a good day in Boulder. It's a pretty little college town nestled in the mountains. We hiked a bit, but mostly just lounged around and visited the farmer's market. I realized though, that, and I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but I don't really like rich people. My first reflection was that I didn't like rich liberals, which there are plenty of in Boulder, but no, I just don't like rich people in general. After spending time in Jackson and then Boulder, I was thinking about it a lot. It just makes no sense to me that someone can spend $1,000 on a handbag or a coffee mug or whatever when there are folks who don't have food. Or healthcare. I guess I'm more of a socialist than I thought. 

I got to Fort Collins and stayed in this precious little road side motel that reminded me of something out of It Happened One Night. Small and shabby but clean and cheap ($50!), it was a total find. Then, since my couchsurf from Omaha took a last minute trip to Vegas with her sister (whatevs), I drove all the way to Des Moins last night. That means that, yes, I drove ALL the way across Nebraska yesterday. It's funny, because I'd been dreading Nebraska in particular, but enjoyed it MUCH more than Wyoming or Eastern Colorado because it had trees! Lovely little trees across the farmland that made it much more bearable to look at. 

Today, I'm off to Iowa City to have lunch with my friend Carly from Athens and then onto Normal to visit James and Erica! Yay reunions!

Oh, and on a side note, I haven't held all that well to the not drinking thing. I realized that what I don't enjoy is getting drunk. I had a glass of wine last night after driving for 10 hours and it was quite lovely. That is all. Carry on.

wyoming: not a fan

I drove across Wyoming yesterday. Talked to Momma and LJ on the phone who both informed me that they were crazy jealous of what I was doing, which I didn't quite understand at first. That is, until I felt like singing and pumped up and belted out some Dar Williams as I covered the plains. That was a pretty amazing feeling. Overall though, Wyoming = not my favorite state. I can appreciate that there are still places in America that there are stretches of great big nothingness, where you have to be careful and get gas when you can because the next station may be 60 miles down the road... but... for example: I tried stopping for dinner in Laramie, because I was thinking, "Okay, all I  know about Laramie is that Matthew Shepard was brutally killed here for being gay, but it's a college town, so there must be at least a decent place to eat." NO. One of the most depressing little towns I've ever driven through. I got to Cheyenne before I could not drive any more and watched the National Spelling Bee finals on ESPN. 

Today is a vacation day. I'm driving the hour and 1/2 to Boulder, and just hanging out. I've got a couch surf lined up for tonight and will be headed to Omaha tomorrow. Here's to vacation!

*edit: Oh! and I started reading the Sookie Stackhouse southern vampire series the last couple of weeks on the road, until I realized they were thoroughly mediocre but I was willing to keep reading because I wanted to find out what happened next and then I realized that's how those sci-fi bastards keep you reading a series and I walked away. Phew. (As a side note, I find the HBO series TrueBlood based on the books, highly enjoyable and a huge improvement. It's amazing what Alan Ball can do with a good idea). So, when I walked away from Sookie, I (yes, I'll admit it) went to hear what all the Twilight fuss was about, and let me tell you they are awful. I say they, because of course I got sucked in to reading the second book and the third on audio even though they thoroughly piss me off. The gender dynamics, (I'm a girl, I'm weak and annoyingly self-depreciating, and whiny and fragile I need a big strong dead man to take care of me), view of love (I would DIE without you), sexuality (I want it, but we can't because I'll die) BARF. Thankfully, Laura Jean to the rescue found me this site: http://stoney321.livejournal.com/317176.html so that I could read with sardonic glee that a) I was not the only one who felt this way about these books, but just had to keep reading and b) I do not have to suffer through the fourth book just to find out what happens. I'm back on Neil Gaiman and feeling very good about it. I'm listening to Neverworld right now, and downloading American Gods for later in the trip. 

Sorry about that, but what is a blog for if not a good rant?

yellowstone, cloudy tetons, and jackson

So, as planned, I drove through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks yesterday. For some reason in my mind, I had confused Yellowstone and Yosemite and was expecting El Capitan and got Old Faithful. Meh. I remember being relatively unimpressed by the stinky, although beautiful, hot water last time I was here (what, 15 years ago?) and spent most of my time in Yellowstone taking pictures of buffalo. 

Speaking of Bufflao, Scout and I were pulled over on the side of the road checking a rather large herd out and they make this funny almost mooing sound. Well Scout didn't know what to make of that and growled, and barked! Okay, maybe not barked, but tiny "roof! roof!"s that were a trip. Ah, my silly dog.

Then Grand Teton National Park was underwhelming as the mountains were completely socked in. It was a nice drive, but because it's raining today, I've decided not to go back to the parks and head on down the road instead. 

Jackson is a precious little town. An interesting mix of old neon and Eddie Bauer, antlers and boutiques. From what I gather, a lot of rich liberals, ski bums, and a artsy folks live here. I really like that it's a town of less than 9,000 people, but they have a beautiful arts center, lots of biking, and a neighborhood just behind downtown fully of tiny cute houses. I think small houses are underappreciated and they make me happy. 

So, I'm headed to Boulder. A day ahead of schedule, I may just take it easy and stop somewhere along the way if I get tired. I have secured couch surfs in both Boulder and Omaha, which is awesome! I've enjoyed a couple of days and nights to myself, but it will be nice to be social. 

I'm settling into being on the road. It's so completely different from work. It's very relaxing, and liberating, and only the nights are lonely. I can appreciate that though. I'll have plenty of company soon enough, and being able to snuggle with Scout makes up for a lot. 

Love to all!

good morning idaho falls!

So, after an anxious night's sleep, eeeearly breakfast with my Quaker girls on my sunny front porch, and good byes too my roomies, I got on the road around 9:15 yesterday morning. It was a beautiful day in Portland and I listened to the Avett Brothers as I drove out 84. I was planning on staying with a friend's parents in Caldwell, but to my surprise, arrived there around 4:30 and wanted to keep on down the road. I got to Mountain Home, consulted my atlas (EXCELLENT last minute purchase from Powell's) and decided to head on hwy 20. Turns out, there's not a whole lot between Mountain Home, ID and Idaho Falls, ID other than big stretches of pretty nothingness. And a trippy place called Craters of the Moon that, yep the name is rather descriptive, looks like the surface of the moon. So I drove on to Idaho Falls, putting me about a day ahead of schedule as I'm now only around 2 hours from Yellowstone. I've decided to head north on 20 and enter Yellowstone from the north west entrance and then spend the day driving south to Jackson. Then tomorrow, I'll have a whole day to go back and explore more or head on to Boulder if I want. I've spent the morning trying to arrange last minute couch surfs in Boulder and Omaha. Then Friday, I'm looking forward to some familiar faces; lunch with college buddy Carly in Iowa City and a couple of days with my hs drama teacher and his wife in Normal, Illinois. Scout is a fantastic traveling companion as always and I'm already enjoying the delightful changes in scenery of this beautiful country. Yesterday the Gorge melted into desert of eastern Oregon, and then the flat plains surrounded by lovely mountains of Idaho. Lots of beautiful farmland, blue sky, and mountains, mountains, mountains. Yay for excellent beginnings! 

(*and to all who are worried, I'm safe and sound and the car is running great... if that wasn't immediately obvious from above post. quit yer frettin')

big gulp

Wow, the last week has been a total blur. 

Last Friday, Jon and I had our last show. It was bitter sweet. About half-way through I really realized that I'd never get to do it again. We've done something like 150 shows! The end of an era. We took a bunch of pictures after the show, and celebrated at the Horse Brass with our fellow puppeteers once we got back to stump-town.

In other news, I've decided to stop drinking for a while. I know this is probably really bad timing seeing as I'm about to embark on a road trip where I'm going to want to celebrate reunions all over the country, but basically, it's expensive, not that great for me. Meh? We'll see.

Over the weekend, Joe and I took a fantastic day trip to the coast (a little precursor to the big one coming up). Other weekend activities included teaching Joe how to drive a stick shift and enjoying the delicious sunshine that has been drenching Portland recently. 

This week, I've been getting things in order for my trip. I've decided to leave on Sunday rather than Monday because I think I was cutting my timeline a little close. That way, I'm going to give myself an entire week to get to Chicago. If you're interested in my updated calendar you can see it here: http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=annahhay%40gmail.com&ctz=America/Los_An

geles 

I've been just writing lists, and trying to cross all my t's so that I don't forget anything. Strangely it hasn't been stressful at all. I guess I already did most of the work, but I still feel like I'm forgetting something because this is so easy.

Eeeeee! I can't believe I'm leaving so soon. I'm so excited about seeing friends and family and the big beauty of this great nation. Expect frequent updates from the road, and if you so desire, give me a call. I'll have LOTs of time on my hands. 

holy jamole

I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone. Only two shows left, about two weeks from my departure date for my trip, and I've started reading science fiction about vampires. What?!