To Toronto

Rolling out of Cleveland was every bit as relieving as I had hoped it would be. After what quite possibly could have been the very last night I sleep in my car on this trip, I awoke the next morning and headed to Toronto, stopping by Buffalo on the way. Buffalo reminds me slightly of Charlotte, and during the summer at least it was a hip little city, with some old buildings and a compact little bar district.

A funny thing happened on the way to Canada though. As I sat patiently in line trying to cross over the border, passport in hand, daydreaming of all the mission work I hope to do in my life when I'm not giving my money to charity, the border agent began to interrogate me. It began as it should, asking me what I was doing, where I was staying, what I was going to see, and when I would be leaving. I politely gave my answers, followed by a sir, a deep head bow, and a thank you for keeping our borders safe from terrorists after every question. He then repeated the exact questions. I believe this is to catch terrorists who are smart enough to hide in plain sight by driving their WMD's directly across a border check point in an elementary mistake of forgetting the answers they gave not 1 minute ago. To his credit, he did not believe that the rugged (ragged?) looking Texan sitting in front of him had driven all the way up to Canada simply to see a baseball game, even when presented with the entire story. He proceeded to ask me if I had any drugs, foreign plants or vegetables in the car--I assume a standard question. When my no didn't satisfy him, I began to wonder if he thought that I had driven up God knows how many hours from Texas to buy Canadian Pot when I live 4 hours away from Mexico. You know Mexico, our little 3rd world neighbor where I can buy a live Panda for the right price, much less weed. He then asked about any firearms, which I answered no. It was beginning to wear on me. The kicker of the experience was when he asked about my ninjas on the dashboard. Relieved that he was finally making pleasant conversation and about to let me go, I launched into the story of how I received the ninjas and what their names were. He cut me off and asked if I was trained in any of the martial arts. As if looking at my sagging, road trip ravaged body didn't convince him enough that I, myself, was not a deadly weapon.

My gift was to pull off to the station so that my car could be searched for all of the things I answered that I didn't have. Considering the state of filth in which my car perpetually resides, I believe Justice was served.

Oh, and I saw Niagara Falls.

The Drive: From Denver

I won't say that this has made the trip worth it, what with this drive only two weeks into the Quest, but I highly recommend that everyone make the trip from Denver down to Las Vegas simply for the sights you get to see. It was truly incredible.

That's why I come out here. Nature!

To Kansas City

Getting to Kansas City from St. Louis was a fairly easy trip, but I did get the chance to soak in some of the rural countryside radio coverage. For those of you curious as to what people in the great midwest do, aside from the whole unprotected sex/abortion condemnations, apparently they paint and dress up animal carcasses. Were animal carcasses nationwide to suddenly become all dolled up, then the Dallas-Memphis corridor would be Milan. If the whole bloating from unexpelled gases didn't make them too fat to be fashion models that is.

The Drive: To St. Louis

If there's one thing that I learned during my drive from Memphis, TN to St. Louis, MO, it is that unprotected sex is all the rage round these parts, followed closely by unsolicited condemnation of an all inclusive untargeted audience. How do I know this? I pieced it together from the popularity alongside the highway in Missouri to purchase billboards for the sole purpose of condeming abortion. Any offense that I took from this comes from such an uncouth and, in my opinion, ineffective way of projecting your opinion and belief. It almost makes me wish that someone, just to play devil's advocate, would take out an billboard like so.

The Drive: To Memphis

Well, if anything can be said about this trip, it is that I'm getting a lot of sitting time. The ride from Dallas to Memphis was a mere 7 hours, followed by a short jaunt up to St. Louis in only 4 hours.
On the way to Memphis, it looked as if the rabbits of east Texas had taken a cue from lemmings and run headlong into traffic en masse over a particular stretch of highway. The highway shoulder littered with rabbit bits and bloated carcasses was eerily reminiscent of the opening scenes of Terminator 2, in which Mankind survives across fields of human skulls fighting, and losing, to the machines. Pray for us all that Roger Rabbit doesn't show up buck naked in a blue glowing crater. Even if he does speak better English the last thing we need is a rabbit running California.

So Begins the Summer of Glove

The jets have flown past, the caps have been put back on, and the game is about to begin. Today was the first leg of my trip, the equivalent of having read the quote that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, and then thinking that you could probably take a thousand mile journey. Except it is 12,000 miles, and you’re driving. The Grand Marquis (Just as Elaine from Seinfeld thinks a penis needs to be circumcised to have a personality, I think a car needs a name to have one. Suggestions?) left Austin at 1:20 central time. The ride was hastily packed together with goodies ranging from Slim Jims, which I snapped into thank you very much Macho Man, to Pringles. It was a momentous occasion. I weighed in at 168 pounds. The odometer clocked in at 55037, and my ninjas were dueling on the dashboards. Life was good, and to celebrate I punctuated it by puncturing a fresh box of Juicy Juice, which was delicious. Turns out Mom knew what she was doing after all.

The drive was drizzly, but I passed time by playing Carcass Count.

Possum: 1

Cat: 1

Deer: 1

Unknown Bambi-cake: 1

Unknown bloody smear of Fauna: 3

As for the Game Wednesday, I'm going to be at the West Alabama Icehouse beforehand, the B.U.S. bar afterwards, and won't know where I'm sitting until I buy my tickets at the game.