People Try and Hide the Light Underneath the Covers

For your amusement: the route of Jul's Desperation-Based Impromptu Road Trip '07. This is an inexact recreation; I couldn't come up with a way to accurately map those amusing little "Welcome to New York? I thought I was ALREADY IN NEW YORK!" moments.



Highlights:

- Showering in The Bachelorette Pad is a joyless experience. While standing under its lukewarm, erratic spray, I am often tempted to scrawl "HOW COME YOU SUCK SO BAD?" on the wall with one of J.Q.'s tub crayons.

Super Discount Hotel Chain's shower featured both a Shower Massage and a seemingly-endless supply of super-hot water. When I emerged, trailing clouds of steam hot enough to peel wallpaper, I was one happy stewed prune. Ed. Note: did I ever tell you guys about my Shower Massage song? The one which featured lines like "If you don't respect the Shower Massage / You are a total dope / I'll sneak into your shower / and strangle you with your soap-on-a-rope"? No? Yeah, I guess I see why...).

- Stopping in Promised Land, PA, just because the Springsteen song of the same name kinda rocks. I did manage to restrain myself from taking a detour through Cornish, NJ solely to inform the locals, "Dude, I LOVE your game hens!"

- Hiking in the splendid desolation of Stokes State Forest. No one else for miles... just a forest in the eerie, Blair Witch-y lull before a snowstorm. Did not encounter any bears, either, despite posted signs ("Bears Sighted In Area"... "How To Respond When You Encounter a Bear"... "Scream Like a Sissy or Run Like an Idiot? Weighing Your Options"... "LEAVE THIS AREA IMMEDIATELY OR YOUR ASS WILL BE BITTEN CLEAN OFF").

- Complete editorial control over radio. Hence, an eclectic blend of, well, crap: "True Blue"-era Madonna! C+C Music Factory! "Stuck in the Middle With You"! "Hey Man, Nice Shot" (which always begs the question: which son do you think Mr. and Mrs. Patrick love more - Robert, who played the Liquid Metal Man in "T2", or Richard, former lead singer of Filter?)! Plus one total gem... The Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)"... absolutely gorgeous. It receives a minor demerit for making me break my eighteen-hour crying-free streak, however.

Lowlights:

- Being informed by the front desk that I "must have misheard" the time given when requesting late check-out; having to go from "naked, surfing internet and picking chocolate chips out of trail mix" to "actively vacating premises" in ten minutes.

- Aborted detour to Otisville, NY... "Huh, state and federal penal institutes? Let's check this out!", I thought. Roughly ten miles later: "Why the hell are these prisoners so far from the rest of the decent, law-abiding citizenry? Oh, yeah. Better turn around."

- Alarming the locals during a pit stop at the McDonald's in Yuppie Snottington, NJ. I was covered in forest grime, squinty-eyed from the glacial wind and vaguely surly due to being stuck behind a creaky Ford for the past hundred miles. I felt very much like the protagonist of "Turn the Page".

Hell, maybe that should be a highlight!

- Vague sense of sadness and ennui returned the second I set foot in the Bachelorette Pad. Well, damn.

Future Highlight:

- Stokes Forest has cabins! And I can apparently live on trail mix indefinitely! I sense that my weekends are about to become Thoreau-iffic.