Aug 29, 2011

Road Trip Day 11

The next few days will be a bit of a break from this vacation. That is, we've been going pretty much non-stop, from one city to the next. And while great fun, it's also a bit tiring. I'm sure most travellers have had that feeling at some point. Today we headed up to Chicago. We stopped by at the Arcade Pancake House in the town of Paxton, for some hearty small town grub and hospitality. The rest of the drive to Chicago was pretty straightforward. We first went downtown to Millennium Park, with its silver bean sculpture and animated fountains. We discovered though, that the parking was geared towards all-day parking. For example, the Millenium Park lot cost $17 for 0-8 hrs, the best deal we found was $14 for 1pm-midnight. Both were really expensive since we only planned to stay a short time.

The rest of the evening was spent hanging out with cousins. The next few days will be similar. We will however, find the end-of-Route 66 sign, there must be one around here.

Aug 28, 2011

Road Trip Day 10

I was to arrive in Chicago on the August 29th, but somehow I was a day ahead of schedule. To kill a bit of time, and inspired by the Whithers gallery, we went to visit the Lorraine Motel, where MLK Jr. was shot. It's been converted to the National Civil Rights Museum. On the whole drive over, I could hear U2's Pride playing in my head.

The museum was educational. I had read about Rosa Parks before, but the museum put many of the different parts of the civil rights movement together in perspective. It also helped that Memphis, unlike say Toronto and San Francisco, has a significant black population.

A few years ago, I had this sense that San Francisco was a city stuck in the past. It was obsessed with its significant history, especially in the Vietnam and hippie era. Many of the buildings were old, and I couldn't really see where the city was going. My view on the city has changed over the last two years, seeing the significant development in the Dogpatch area, as well as spate of new and fairly innovate restaurants. The start-up scene is picking up again as well.

It took me a while to see the development in SF, so I'm probably wrong with my two-day impression of Memphis, but I did get a feeling of a city somewhat stuck in the past. Most of the tourist destinations were celebrations of the 50s and 60s. The National Civil Rights Museum was beautiful. While the neighborhood around it was gentrifying, it still wasn't that well developed. There's probably some cool music going on in the hipster scene which we mostly glazed over. Memphis was a fun enough town to be worth visiting again, but I'd hope that the city that gave birth to rock and roll would get its groove back and give birth to something new again.

The rest of the day was a drive up north. It was about 9pm by the time we made it up to Champaign, Illinois, so we stopped there for the night. Having had a good few days of BBQ, we finally had some asian food at Arirang, apparently an old student hangout. The dol sot bibimbap was as good as any.

Road Trip Day 9

My priority in Memphis was to check out the local BBQ. It was a little hard to pick out an top BBQ joint in a town chock full of them. There were a few that were rated highly on Yelp!, Chowhound, and Urbanspoon, I ended up going to the Bar-B-Q Shop.

Now I'm no specialist in BBQ. I was told there was a wet style and a dry, and one was from Texas, and the other was in Memphis. I'm just as confused at this point, because they both seemed about equivalently dry. Bar-B-Q Shop had a special platter including brisket, pulled pork, ribs and BBQ spaghetti, which was perfect since it had everything I wanted to try! The ribs were served glazed, with a dash of dry rub on top for flavor. It was delicious, fall off the bone, juicy. It would definitley be in the running for the best ribs ever. The pulled pork and brisket though, were much leaner than I expected. The pulled pork was a bit moister, but the brisket was pretty much completely lean. Both had a great smoked flavour, but a bit more fat would have made both juicier. The supposedly award winning sauce was way too salty for me - as was the BBQ spaghetti. The spicy version was pretty good though.

We had passed by the Sun Records studio the previous evening, and we headed back after lunch for the tour. Known for the discovery of Elvis, and Johnny Cash, as well as a number of other blues greats, and the "birthplace of rock and roll", the tour was entertaining and informative. The studio was originally started in the 50s, recording blues and rock and roll acts that eventually became stars. It later declined, and was closed, but re-opened in the 80s, when a number of significant acts recorded there for its history, including part of U2's Rattle and Hum album.

We returned to the hotel, and took the downtown trolley to Beale St., Memphis' answer to Bourbon St. Lined with neon, bars, live music and crowds. It was plenty touristy, but also a lot of fun. One of the most interesting shops on the street was the Ernest Withers gallery, which covered both music artists, and the civil rights movement, including many photos of MLK Jr. We closed off the night in a bar, watching the Ghost City Blues Band live.

Aug 27, 2011

Road Trip Day 8

After a 500 mile+ driving day, we still have another 300 miles to go to Memphis. Already having cut north off of I40, I decided to take the side roads across Arkansas instead of driving back down to the main highway. For the majority, it was a single lane in each direction, twisting broadly through the Ozarks. The sides of the roads were mostly shrubs and fields, barns, but very few houses. There were many churches though, many of them "First"s. First Baptist, First Methodist, etc. etc. I'm not sure what happened to the Seconds or Thirds.

We were getting hungry after noon, and decided to stop, randomly in the town of Yellville. We passed by a Subway and local pizza place, which seemed promising, but I waited another half mile down the road, and we passed by Razorback Ribs, a promising local BBQ joint. I got a "tasting size" order, of 4 ribs, along with deep fried pickles, okra, and beans. I'm probably not the pickiest BBQ eater, since these ribs were just as great as the Texas ribs, though maybe not as meaty.

The total drive to Memphis was maybe 6 hours. At the end, we crossed over the Mississippi, into Tennessee and into town. There was a Tenessee welcome center at the first exit, we stopped by briefly, seeing the statue of Elvis, the statue of B.B. King, and a random guy picking through a trash can.

We tried out Chick-Fil-A, a fast food chicken burger joint, common in the South, and followed a NYT article around the "hipster" scene in Memphis, through two dive bars, somewhat empty (although, it was only 8:30 or so), and finally to the more upscale Mollie Fontaine, which had a great vibe, with two bars on two floors in an old Victorian home, and a baby grand piano in the living room.

Road Trip Day 7

It doesn't seem like a week since we've left. The days have been full, either of driving, sightseeing, researching tourist sites, eating, and occasionally attempting to catch up on emails and chatting briefly with friends. Day 7 started off with a debate of where to go. We could stop off in Oklahoma, but the most notable city was Oklahoma City, and we've been told by multiple parties that it's not a particularly exciting town. Alternatively, we could continue straight through to Little Rock, Arkansas, but we didn't know much of what to see there either. Finally we found an old New York Times article on 36 hours in Fayetteville, AK. It sounded interesting enough, so we made that our destination.

The storm from the previous night seemed to have blown over, with a lot of lightning, but not much thunder and just a bit of rain. The sky was clear and the temperature was rising. It was already in the mid-20s as we left, a little before 10am. We got back onto the I40, and just drove, watching the landscape change. For the first two hours, there was little variation. We were surrounded by flat fields of golden grass. Occasionally cows could be seen grazing. The radio stations contained mostly Christian and country stations - I'm not sure I noticed any spanish language stations anymore. As we crossed Texas into Oklahoma, we lost data access on Verizon. we stopped off for lunch at Lucille's Roadhouse off the highway, an American burger/diner/steakhouse kinda place running on the Route 66 theme. The patty melt and deep fried chicken bites were surprisingly tasty, for a roadside diner. While greasy, the portions weren't outstandingly huge, which made me feel a bit better. The temperature outside had jumped to 35C at this point, though as we got back on the road, the brush started appearing in the fields, first brown, then turning green. Green watered farm fields also began appearing. About four hours into the drive, we got to Oklahoma City, with surprisingly tall high rises in the plains of farmlands. About 15 minutes later, we were past the city. Route 66 would head northwards towards Tulsa, and onwards to Chicago. We would take the slightly longer route through to Memphis, but we'd eventually get to the east end of Route 66. The plains got steadily greener. Brush turned to trees and the plains got a little less flat.

By the time we got to Arkansas, another four hours later, the landscape reminded me a little of the Ontario countryside, with a highway cutting through small deciduous forests. The temperature had peaked at 37 somewhere through Oklahoma, though it was still stayed in the 30s. We finally got data access in Arkansas, and called up the Inn at the Mill in Johnson, just outside Fayetteville. It was featured in the NYT article, and was only $89 on a Thrusdays night. We finally broke off of the I40, which we had followed four states ago since LA. The highway curved through the foothills of the Ozarks, and the green hills rolled on into the distance. The Inn at the Mill was definitely the most beautiful hotel we had stopped at up to this point. It incorporated an old waterwheel mill as the main lobby, with a separate building for rooms, as well as another new glass building for their upscale restaurant. The aqueducts that fed the waterwheel were fashioned into mini waterfalls, and there was plenty of bubbling water running through the property. I had imagined Texas being a wealthy oil state, and Arkansas being somewhat of a backwater. In stark contrast, Amarillo seemed like a suburban, underdeveloped wasteland, and Fayetteville, a university town, a center of Confederate history and culture.

After checking in and showering, we drove down to Fayetteville. We stopped by the Confederate Cemetary for some photos on our way to downtown. The semester at the University of Arkansas starts next Monday, and students had began filling the town. Dickson St, the main street running through the town featured a variety of bars, pubs, and even one upscale lounge. There was a biker convention at one of the bars, with a lve band on their outdoor patio. There were at least two other live bands on other patios on the street though. We grabbed dinner at Hugo's a student burger joint with more going with the ambiance than the food, though the food was good enough. I had pretty low expectations for Arkansas, but this town was one of the nicest places to spend the night so far.

Aug 24, 2011

Road Trip Day 6

Having walked through downtown santa Fe last night, I didn't feel like we needed another full day, so we decided to move on to Amarillo. This would put us two days ahead of schedule. We spent the morning at the outdoor pool, making up for the hours of just sitting in the car, and eating American food.

I used Urbanspoon again look up a good brunch place. Harry's Roadhouse topped the list, but it was a ways out of downtown and close to the highway, so we walked back to browse some of the downtown shops a bit more before leaving. The shops were mostly closed the night before, so it was a bit different to actually walk into some of the shops. There were an abundance of art galleries, as well as shops selling kitschy knick-knacks. Native american themes were popular, but there was a huge variety as well, both in art and widgets.

While looking up hotels for Santa Fe, there were a lot of upscale options, upwards of $300 a night. It was interesting to note that the people browsing around town mostly seemed to be elderly and well off, or young and dressed like punks or white-trash. While walking around, the fancy hotels didn't really stick out. They must have been located outside of the downtown plaza a bit. Though not dumpy, the downtown didn't seem too upscale either, except for the prices on some of the pieces in some galleries, and the prices of the local gourmet cupcakes. Dream Cakes sold $4.50 cupcakes. That's $0.75 more than Los Angeles. Unfortunatly, it was closed for the one day we were in town, so we didn't get to sample it. Maybe that wasn't too unfortunate, otherwise I might need to do quite a few more laps at the pool.

By the time we got to Harry's, breakfast was no longer served. Dissapoined but hungry, we went for the lunch fare, which was still good, though mayber not amazing. Healthy options were available, which was a good thing, since dinner would be BBQ in Amarillo.

Most of the afternoon was on the road. Again, lightning flashed in the distance. We drove through two 3-minute downpours which cleaned off the windshield again. Otherwise, the drive was mostly sunny, straight, flat and boring. The landscape slowly got greener. First the brush, which eventually got replaced by trees and gold grass as we moved from New Mexico to Texas. The red mesas in the distance eventually disappeared into the rearview, and grazing cows and cornfields became the norm along the higway.

As we pulled into Amarillo, we stopped by the Cadillac Ranch, an art exhibit of sorts, of 10 Caddilacs half-buried vertically in a field. Around are strewn cans of spray paint. If you're lucky enough to find one that's not yet empty, you can contribute to the painting of the cars. After a few photos, we moved on to Tyler's Barbeque. We got in before closing, and had a taste of authentic Texan BBQ, complete with a smokey crust of dry rub over some tender, but extremely lean brisket, and some of the best ribs I've had. I would have preferried a fattier brisket, but overall the food was great, and pretty cheap. Tyler was very friendly, and came out to chat with the patrons of the order-at-the-counter restaurant. It wasn't as busy as I expected, but it was also earlier to closing time than I had expected. We had passed through another time zone without realizing it.

We didn't do much more exploring of Amarillo, but we did find a ghetto laundromat to do our laundry, while lightining flashed overhead, rather silently.

Road Trip Day 5

Entry here.

Aug 22, 2011

Road Trip Day 4

We didn't do much exploring in Flagstaff - there didn't appear to be much as we drove through in the evening. We started out a little earlier today, well rested. The first step was to grab food at McDonald's and Safeway, both in the same mall. Lunch would be sandwiches; I had packed some kitchen equipment in the car. We had planned to spend tonight camping in or near Petrified Forest National Park (PFNP), but given the daytime heat, and the flash thunderstorm last night, I decided to go the easy route and camp out in a hotel in Albuquerque instead. We'd have to leave PFNP earlier in the day, but it would put us half a day ahead of schedule on the rest of the drive. So far, it seemed like a good decision.

Route 66 goes all the way through Arizona, and we followed parts of it along the I40 from Flagstaff. The landscape had dried up a bit, and the greenery around the Grand Canyon area turned back into Mojave-like shrubs. Rock formations started peeking up through the desert soil and yellow sandstone mesas started appearing, first in the distance, then closer. The first stop on the drive was Meteor Crater. Along the highway, signs advertised AM 1610 on the radio, which contained a looped advertisement for the crater, as well as the town of Winslow. We took the 6 mile drive to the crater, but balked at the $15/person entrance fee, and dceided to take a photo from the distance. Next up along the route was the Jackrabbit Trading Post, a small curio shop just off the I40. I suspect the shop had seen better days, but as we pulled up, we were the only car in the lot. The store had an assortment of curios and Route 66 souvenirs, as well as a far back wall that had an assortment of suede moccasins, though the wall was about half empty. I remember as kids, we had bought mocassins on some road trip through Utah or Colorado. I wonder if it was at a similar trading post stop. This one had obviously seen better times.

A few years ago I had considered switching fields to photojournalism. In the process I had met a bunch of photographers, and some journalists. During that time, I heard a lot of stories of the glory days of photojournalism in the past. Those were the days when American photographers could be sent to exotic eastern countries, paid well, and put up in expensive hotels. They were the glory days of film, that fantastic medium that evokes nostalgia, but that simply doesn't compete with modern digital cameras. Still, I met photographers who swore they would never stop shooting film. That was a long aside, but the Jackrabbit Trading Post, a fossil stuck in time, refusing to move on, reminded me of the whole industry of journalism, as it struggles to adapt to an age where information flows much more freely through the internet.

The next bunch of fossils appeared at the PFNP. Immediately at the south entrance were petrified logs, behind the visitors' center. Along with giant sequoias and redwoods in California, the petrified forest was something I had read about a good 25 years ago, but had never been able to see until recent years. We had a picnic lunch under some corrugated metal picnic shades by the visitors' center, and spent the next two hours checking out the various sites along the main road. This park seemed like a smaller version of Death Valley. Some of the eroded desert landscapes were familiar, but the petrified logs and petroglyphs stood out. There were plenty of European tourists around, which was a bit different from the flood of Korean tourists in the LA area.

As we got back onto the I40 and headed eastward toward Albuquerque, the landscape got greener, and the mesas got redder. Again, lightning bolts struck far off in the distance in front of us. It was a 4 hour drive onwards to Albuquerque. We made it about halfway when we pulled off to check out Sky City, a native american casino. We probably should have waited until we got to the Route 66 Casino, which seemed far grander and flashy. The Sky City was far less impressive than the highway ads might have suggested (no surprise). The bathrooms were mighty clean, though the sharps disposal container (i.e. syringes) seemed odd. Either there were a lot of diabetics, or addicts. I'm guessing the former, given the number of elderly and obese people I saw around the place. As with most other casinos, the place felt dreary and depressing to me, though the large Bingo room was fairly full, and seemed a bit more social than the slots.

By the time we checked into the hotel and settled down, it was past 8pm, which actually meant that it was past 9pm, since we had passed one time zone. Downtown Albuquerque seemed a little on the sketchy side, most places being open being bars, pool halls, and a strip club. A quick Yelp! search for "late night" at the "current location" didn't turn up anything - most results were closed by 9pm. A Google search popped up an Urbanspoon page, which suggested Frontier restaurant, close to the University. College kids know how to eat cheap. The place was just 10 minutes away, and was still fairly busy. After ordering at the counter I watched fresh flour tortillas being made as I waited for our order. The soft tacos contained a ground meat mix, unlike Californian style carne asada tacos, but they were also served on a 12" flour tortilla, making thems pretty much like half-sized burritos for less than $3. The green chili was delicious, and the large came with two flour tortillas. The iced tea was also surprisingly good, with a strong black tea flavor. A hearty meal for two for $12.61 was pretty much a quarter of the price of dinner at Son of a Gun in L.A., which was a quarter of my last dinner in S.F. I'm pretty sure I'm hitting the bottom end of this trend.

Road Trip Day 3

While we had passed by the end of Route 66 in Santa Monica the day before, day 3 felt like the first day exploring the historic route. We took part of the old route 66 off of the I40 to Amboy, passing the non-extant town of Siberia, and the Amoby Crater along the way.

We also stopped off at Seligman for lunch. It was pretty much as expected, with touristy knick-knacks of a declining (actually, mostly dead) tourist route. The Roadkill Cafe was pretty much a gimmick, and we were hungry. The food was basic "american" fare, a BLT, and a chicken wrap. Both were reasonably well done for what they were, but the lack of truly "healthy" choices reminded me why America is so fat. The desert landscape, however reminded me how fortunate California is, with the wide variety of fresh local fruits, vegetables, livestock and seafood. Something like San Francisco's green "locavore" movement doesn't work nearly as well in Arizona, where it seems like there's a wide variety of desert shrubs. With all the sun though, I wonder if it might make sense to grow food in greenhouses here at some point.

There were a few hours of driving to go to the Grand Canyon. As we moved from the Mojave, up through the mountains, and to the plains of Arizona, there was a clear change in the landscape. The land flattened, the shrubs got slightly greener, but most tellingly little fluffy clouds appeared in the sky. San Francisco has its share of fog, but rarely cumulus clouds, and rarely so many.

I think the last time I had been to the Grand Canyon was when I first moved down to California, before I even started this blog. There had been a long hike that time, an adventure a battle of youth vs. nature, where youth fortunately prevailed. This time around was far lazier. For one thing, it took two and a half days to get there, and there was no hiking involved this time, except for the walk around the paved rim trail. We managed to catch a gorgeous sunset from one of the less crowded vantage points. Unlike the last time, the beauty was not marred by the concern of hiking in the darkness. What hadn't changed was the sense of grandeur staring down into the canyon, and across to the distant rim. The little fluffy clouds had gathered into a a giant dark cloud on the far North Rim. While it was relatively clear and peaceful where we stood, we could see distant lightning on the far rim.

While driving around the rim, we also happened on numerous elk. At one point, I spotted a huge stag, through the trees. We were driving along, not slowly, so the trees nearby whizzed by, but the stag stood tall and grand in the distance. It was a regal creature.

The drive back to Flagstaff in the dark was mostly uneventful. We were hoping to drive past the Sunset Crater, which we did, but it was not visible in the pitch blackness. The sun had gone and the clouds had gathered. The lightning we had seen in the distance got closer and brighter as we drove along. Eventually, a stroke covered the sky from end to end outside our windshield, and torrents of rain came down for a few minutes. For a few moments as we hydroplaned through huge pools of water on the road, the rain and the water splashing up rendered the windshield a sheet of water that we could not see through. But as quickly as the rain came down, it was over within a few minutes, leaving the windshield clear, and free of the myriad of dead bugs that were previously on it.

These moments are beyond rare in the everyday.

Road Trip Day 2

We had stayed at the Marriot near the Burbank airport, which was pretty cheap off Priceline. We planned to see Santa Monica, which meant a bit of a drive, but fortunately, the traffic wasn't too bad.

We spend the late morning on the 3rd St. Promenade, where a farmer's market was running. While it was pointless to get groceries, we did get some interesting pastries (marmalade/onion, pesto/goat cheese/mint), and some incredibly delicious "flavor grenade pluots".

Time was spent on Santa Monica beach, which wasn't actually all that busy earlier in the day. We also rented a tandem bike for an easy ride down to Venice beach. The whole Santa Monica area feels clean and yuppie, while the hippies hang out at Venice beach. Cast of characters included a homeless looking Santa (in August), and a tanned dude that looked like Conan the Barbarian. There was less weed in the air than I'd expected, but maybe that's just after living in SF for so long.

After a few hours on the beach, we drove over to Beverly Hills for a stroll. Window shopping at Rodeo/Wilshire resulted in buying a cupcake at Crumbs, which we noted was at least 50c more than a cupcake at Kara's (though, somewhat bigger as well).

For dinner we drove over to Monterey Park. I hadn't been in the area since the early 2000s, but it didn't really look like too much had changed. We stopped at Savoy Kitchen for the much praised Hainan chicken rice, which was quite good, as well as the beef brisket curry, which was quite outstanding.

I napped a bit in the car after dinner to kill some time, and headed over to Pomona for teh Body Language show there. I probably should have showed up earlier this time, since they were playing last and there were some other bands playing before them. Pomona was a surprisingly hip town. Just stepping out of the car in the parking lot, I could hear at least two different live bands playing. Walking around showed even more tiny venues with live music. Most of the crowd looked college aged, but there were a few older folks around. It wasn't a crazy party environment, but definitely fun on a Friday night.

Unfortunately, I had already booked a hotel further down on our route, and we moved on for Barstow before the night got late.

Aug 21, 2011

Road Trip Day 1

I had initially planned to leave San Francisco on 8/16, but I discovered later that Body Language was going to be in town on the 18th. I delayed the start date by a few days, which ended up being perfect, since it gave me a few days to rest for the drive after a hectic weekend.

Viv most generously hosted me, since I already moved out of my apartment. Hence we were well rested as we left on the morning of the 19th. It was a few hours after I had originally planned to leave; I had brought the car in for an oil change the day before, but they ended up replacing the water pump and a valve gasket as well.

We left Burlingame around 10am and took a quick stop for breakfast in Santa Clara, and then drove on to Carmel. It was cloudy all morning, but fortunately skies were clear by the time we got to the beach. We passed through the town pretty quickly, but took some stops to admire the beach and some of the fancy oceanfront properties. We also stopped by the Carmel Mission, which I had never noticed before. It had a satisfying historic feel to the museum in the restored building. Definitely worth visiting on a trip to Carmel.

Next down the route was Big Sur. We only stopped a few times for photos, but the beauty was constant on a wonderful drive. We stopped for a moment also in San Simeon to see the elephant seals. I had read about them ages ago, but it was the first time seeing the blubbery giants. I could see that it wasn't really worth a trip just for the seals though. They mostly just lie there, and scratch themselves lazily occasionally.

We also made a quick stop at the Hearst Castle visitor center. It was almost 4, and the tours were already done for the day. I didn't realize that the visitor center was miles away from the actual buildings and you could only see it from afar, perched at the top of a distant hill. It did give the estate a sense of grandeur, but wasn't really interesting enough to make me want to repeat the drive.

The next stop was supposed to be the Griffith Observatory in LA. It was hard to tell what the quickest route would be. We stopped off at the Main St. Grill in Cambria to grab a quick late lunch. Sinyee had recommended it almost 10 years ago, and the fat dripping BBQ tri-tip sandwich met expectations.

We took the route through Paso Robles, passing the vast field of oil wells at Lost Hills. It was a bit of a detour, and took about an hour and a half to get back to the I5, but the route was mostly straight and clear. We made it to the Observatory around 9, an hour and a half late for sunset, but the place was still open.

You have to drive past the Greek Theater on the way up. Death Cab for Cutie was playing that night, but the concert had already started and there wasn't too much traffic, though the Observatory parking lot was packed.

After checking out the view of LA, we swung by Son of a Gun for dinner. It was featured in Bon Appetit the previous week, but surprisingly there was no line when we arrived; I guess we were late enough. The smoked mahi dip wasn't bad, but far less interesting than the Bon Appetit article might have suggested. It reminded me of a tuna sandwich filling, with the addition of a nice smokiness. The alligator schnitzel, crisp and thin, exceeded expectations. There was no fishy flavour, it could have been mistaken for tender pork. The lobster roll compared favorably to the one I just tried a few days before at the Old Port Lobster Shack in Redwood City, though this one was about 1/3 the size, and 1/3 the price. I preferred the "naked", mayo-free version at Old Port, but the SoaG roll was better toasted and buttered.

The lime frozen yogurt though, was fantastic. Hands down best $5 dessert with the sweet meringue and graham crunch on the side. I have to say this was better than the dessert at Benu the night before, and that meal cost 4x as much (though that meal was also great).

Gas tracker

8/19 Pilot, Lost Hills, CA 10.626 gal, 305.6 miles, $3.819/gal
8/20 Shell, Pomona, CA 9.510 gal, 249.8 miles, $3.899/gal
8/21 Chevron, Ludlow, CA 5.434 gal, 138.2 miles, $4.599/gal
8/21 Chevron, Seligman, AZ 9.374 gal, 237.0 miles, $4.099/gal
8/22 Chevron, Flagstaff, AZ 7.635 gal, 218.6 miles, $3.799/gal
8/23 Circle K, Albuquerque, NM 12.882 gal, 388.0 miles, $3.679/gal
8/24 Love's, Amarillo, TX 2.747 gal, 367.3 miles, $3.639/gal partial
8/25 Toot, Amarillo, TX 11.404 gal, 15.8 miles, $3.699/gal
8/25 Love's, McCloud, OK 10.489 gal, 281.6 miles, $3.639/gal
8/26 Citgo, Springdale, AK 10.451 gal, 253.8 miles, $3.789/gal
8/27 Exxon, Memphis, TN 13.843 gal, 343.7 miles, $3.799/gal
8/28 Citgo, Farina, IL, 12.497 gal, 318.0 miles, $3.899/gal
9/01 One Stop, Chicago, IL 12.478 gal 299.5 miles, $4.299/gal
9/04 Shell, Port Huron, IL, 13.392 gal 356.9 miles, $4.10/gal

Aug 16, 2011

Farewell

Today I bid farewell to my colleagues.  I bid farewell to my apartment.  I bid farewell to my bartender.

I'm not comfortable with the concept of goodbye.  I'm not ready for anything so permanent, with people or places that I've grown attached to.

I'd much rather have it be 'see you later'.  I mean it.