Breakfast

Rules for Bumming a Continental Breakfast.

The Entrance: Quite possibly the most important aspect of the entire maneuver, this must be pulled off with the utmost of confidence. The trick, however, is that the confidence must be masked behind the dead eyed look of a slumbering hotel guest. Morning times are busy for hotel employees checking people out, smiling insincerely, pretending not to notice the marital indiscretions occurring left and right amongst the business class traveling through, so the last thing they could care about is a rugged man sauntering though the lobby. Now, once you've made it past the lobby, do not stop at the breakfast immediately. Pick a hallway and go for it. If you're lucky you'll get the one with the lobby restroom, which you can use. If you get the wrong one, simply head to the stairs at the end of the hallway, go up and double back. Take your time in the restroom--Proper hygiene is not abandoned simply due to a life on the road. Plus, the more time between sightings, the greater likelihood you are a legitimate guest back at his room. Finished? Good, now you may go get breakfast. Make sure you've washed your hands.

Breakfast: The most important meal of the day. A good continental breakfast should have hot food for you, after all, you deserve it. Should you happen upon a cold continental breakfast, do not settle. If you've gotten up early enough, and if you're sleeping in your car you will have, you've got plenty of time to find somewhere more fitting to your tastes. Specifically 9:30. In order to avoid this situation alltogether, be selective about where you sleep. The parking lot you crash in tonight is the breakfast you'll be eating tomorrow. Avoid Hilton's, Marriots, and any hotel with an attached restaurant or breakfast joint in the parking lot. These higher end joints, while hosting a more appealing sleeping situation, are generally inclined to charge their guests for breakfast. On the opposite side of the spectrum, avoid Super 8's, Red Roof Inn's, and any place that has hourly rates for your slumber party and breakfast. If you survive the night, you will only be greeted by the cold bowl of stale Cheerio knockoffs. The prime locations, coming from 10 nights of experience now, is to find a Hampton or Holiday Inn. The upper middle class of the group, you'll find a free, hot breakfast here that gets the Ballparkquest.com Seal of Approval. Each is different, and each is the same. You can count on Dannon's yogurt and a good bagel. Don't let your diet slip simply because of the until then absent abundance of food at your disposal. If you've hit the Jackpot, you'll be treated to sausage patties or links, eggs, and biscuits and gravy. Take your time. Enjoy. This is fine dining on the road. Sure the obligatory CNN stories on in the dining room are anything but newsworthy. Sure the family disciplining their children in an awkwardly loud fashion is distracting. Don't eat and run. Enjoy. Let your first cup of coffee cool enough to drink. Befriend the sweet lady making breakfast, but not enough to where she is comfortable enough to ask questions. Enjoy. You're just going right back to your Bed/Car/Home/Prison Cell. Get seconds. Don't settle for cereal. If they have mini muffins, try a banana nut and a poppy seed. Get your vitamins. Your fruits. Apple and Orange juice. Make a Waffle if they have the station. Most importantly, Enjoy, this is as close to feeling like a normal person with a home, income and purpose for the whole day, until you wake up the next day and do it all over again.

The Exit: When you've done all that you can do, refilled your coffee cup, pocketed a banana, and grabbed a muffin, you're ready to leave. Should you feel particularly comfortable, and in need you may ask the front desk for a toiletry of your choice. Usually they're more than happy to oblige, and won't ask for a room number. Say thank you to the front desk and the sweet lady making breakfast, and make sure you don't foul things up in the end by going out the front door. When a hotel guest leaves breakfast, they go down the hall to their room, which is what you must do. It just so happens that you go down to the end of the hall, out the door, and into your car, ready for another day on the road and another story for the Quest. If only there were Continental Dinners.

The Great Ass Flattening

Or
Eastward Ho(e)!

I could regale you all with stories of the rolling hillsides, the black hills, the fields of antelopes and bison that passed by my weary eyes as I traversed from Washington State to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a litte over 5 days. I could tell you about the beauty of Bozemon, Montana, or the lake at Coeur D'Alene that has the Floating Green at Coeur D'Alene, where I am already organizing a vacation amongst my friends for twenty years down the road. I won't tell you about the way I managed to get into Little Big Horn and Mt. Rushmore both without paying, and I won't bore you with slideshow picture captions of my time at both of them.

Instead, I'd like to concentrate on the glorious inbetween time. The time spent with myself and my ninjas. This is a particularly opportune time to discuss this since I got to know my car intimately over this particular stretch of time, as I spent five nights in a row sleeping in the '98 Mercury Grand Marquis. Without further delay, here is a short list of my long strech in the car.

• I have a bad voice. I learned this a long time ago, but upon hearing a rather pathetic version of "in the Air Tonight" belted out, I can safely put any debate on that issue to bed.



• I swear every place I've been to has a 96 something Kiss FM.



• The Accelerate and Coast cruise control buttons replaced the actual pedals on trip long ago. It has come to the point to where a believe it would be possible for me to sit Indian style and drive completely safely. I would do this were I not told once in my life to never trust a grown man who sits cross legged.



• There are some really really pathetic state license plates out there. Ohio is the leader in Aviation, yet North Carolina is First in Flight. Is this really, in today's age, an accomplishment worthy of two states?
  


• I've touched on this before, but have now come to recognize the inventiveness of the numerous Abortion Billboards across the country. While they may never rival the wittiness of numerous Church sign catchphrases, they have become viral. I hate to put anyone onto this silliness, but the Billboard was too much not to pass up, regardless of what you believe.


• Hootie and the Blowfish still rock


• I can go a little over 37 miles on the highway once my car's Low Fuel Light comes on. Barely.


• The only downside I can find to having this Man Beard is that I find myself stroking in contemplatively. My contemplations involve the following real train of thought: Not eating for a few days to see what happens and to save money, a breakdown of my funds to see how far overbudget I am, eat a wheat tortilla, remember that I had wanted to not eat for a few days, grab belly and jiggle it to see if it looks any smaller than before, think about how good a shape I'd be in if I'd enlist, debate whether I'd do it if we go to war with the Iran, wonder how hard it would be to learn Arabic, remember I'm going to law school, wonder how hard it is going to be studying alot, consider what kind of apartment I want to get, debate whether I could siphon off enough student loans to put a down payment on a house, think about what kind of deck I would want for my house, wonder how many more miles I have left, realize I am in no hurry, sing along with the rap song, think of how I could totally hack it as a suburban rapper, remember I tried to hack it as a suburban rapper...for about an hour... and had an "In The Air Tonight"realization, if I go one more mile an hour faster, I'll get there four minutes faster, I've got to poo, I wonder if I've lost weight or gained weight, maybe I should try not eating for a few days.
  

Lastly, when sleeping in your car, there are two positions one may assume. You may

A) Clear out the back seat in order to lay across it, relieving pressure on one's back and allowing for a modicum of disguise, but also must deal with your legs invariably falling asleep or cramping from their inability to properly stretch out

B) Lean the driver's seat as far back as possible. Pre-grooved butt wedge adds to the "slept in" feel and you get to stretch your legs out. Drawbacks include the disgusting realization that the past 17 hours straight were spent in the exact same location, the car seat now smells... more, there is a higher probability of being seen by passerbyes, a risk that can be negated by backing into a parking spot and putting up a windshield sun screen.

You may be asking yourself, Why is he so concerned with people seeing him? Where is the poor man sleeping? Without exception, I sleep in the parking lot of some friendly off ramp hotel. With only one incident of an alert Holiday Inn employee calling the police on my suspicious activities, resulting in me moving on down the line in Milwaukee, I've found these to be the best place to lay me down to sleep. The reason being that in the morning, when I rise groggy eyed and with sleep lines on my face, I can saunter into the hotel, past the desk, and into the hotel lobby to have my morning constitutional and brush my teeth. And eat the Continental Breakfast.

Mariners vs. Rangers May 31st

My first two innings of this game were put off track by the fact that, in my attempt to get a seat closer to the action, I sat in the middle of over twenty ROTC instructors who were all on their leave for the summer. They were talking to everyone, it seemed, and when my Texas and SEC background came out, all hell broke loose. Due to this I missed Ichiro extending his hitting streak to 23, a home run I think, and God knows what else. I didn't help that the stadium was near a large amount of really fun bars with a large variety of microbrews. It also didn't help that the large local brewery made a baseball themed beer. Cave in to the peer pressure and expectations of drinking it? You bet your ass I did. As for the rest of the game, it wasn't the most eventful spectacle, but I enjoyed myself. If only I could have found Addison before she had left for her Private Practice in L.A.

I love you. There. I said it.

The volume is a little low, and I spelled SegWay Segue (thanks James) but enjoy.

Seattle

Seattle was an area of the country I was looking forward to seeing, and I got my first taste of the great Pacific Northwest when I stopped in Eugene Oregon on my way north for a rest and to check out the University of Oregon. I've always been partial to Oregon ever since Akili Smith was drafted to pull my Bengals out of the mire, and have stuck with the university despite that. Despite Joey Harrington as well. After an afternoon in the town, I am now a firm believer that the University of Oregon is one of the places that people should consider when applying for schools. Part fratty, part hippie, part Denveretian earthiness, it simply has a good feel to it.
As for Seattle, I was amazed by the astounding lack of Starbucks in the city. Additionally, the city had the most absurd parking arrangements yet, charging something close to the right arm of your firstborn's eternal soul. As such, I didn't make it down to the Piers of Seattle, where I think they throw fish and have ferries take you in circles on the water. It all seemed pretty inefficient to me. If the experience was anything like it looked like, or how the Marina in San Fran was, I'm guessing it was a whole bunch of nice restaurants that would simply mock my financial ineptness were I to have made it down there. At least that's how I'm rationalizing it.

F.S. Player: David

David, a university of Georgia grad now living in San Fran, offered me his place to stay while I was in San Fran even though he wouldn't be there the first night. When I arrived in his business apt., I noticed the bike, health bars, and workout gear all over the studio. Which was funny since my main memories of David were of playing trivia at Wing joints in Atlanta or a hazy run in with him in bars back when we were in Athens. When he returned the next day, he told me how he had been watching a program on the Ironman while still in school, and a piece on the Hoyt family inspired him--Inspired him to not do a marathon, or a mini triathlon, but the freaking Iron Man. Mind you, David was in his drinking prime at this time, but for some reason, come three months from now in Florida, with no triathlon experience of any kind under his belt, David will be competing in his first Triathlon. I'll probably be tailgating somewhere, dipping something fried into a bucket of ranch dressing. Want some inspiration yourself? Here's the people who did it for David.