The Cross-Country Tour...

was a trip. Wow. Started on Thursday morning after a whopping three hours of sleep (but you know how those gigs mash up my sleep cycle, so that was inevitable) and we hit the road.

And promptly missed our exit. Took the 10 instead of the 15. But rather than go back, we bought a map and continued on until we crossed the border through Vermont.

Ah, Vermont. Lots of hills. It was all very green. And pretty. There were old white men in every passing car. I ate my first turkey sandwich and granola bar. Not long after, it was, "Bye Vermont! What's up, Massachusetts!"
(Incidentally, I said goodbye to every state we left and what's up t every new one we entered. If I got on Stephanie's nerves, she kindly didn't let on.)

Then Massachussetts. Ah, Massachusetts. What can I say about Massachusetts? Actually, nothing, now that I think of it. It was nice, and it was over quickly. I saw one elderly black man at our bathroom break, which I thought was cool. First one! I also saw this skinny dude come rolling up in the diner wearing black PVC chaps over his blue jeans. Ugh. Actually, I'll go back to my first statement: Massachusetts, nothing much to see.

Then we rolled up in Connecticut. We stopped in New Haven to get gas (but only for the car, sadly, as Stephanie wanted to forgo a pit stop at Taco Bell or at Popeye's Fried Chicken) and I saw Yale University. Which was cool. I also saw many more black people, which I thought was a-ok. Of course, I also saw a huge economic disparity between the races, which was decidedly not. Hmph. But since I became friends with Stephanie, I've stopped wantonly abusing Americans at large, so I'll hold to that. Anyway, it's not like we're any better up here. Brown-skinned folks get the short end just as much. If you're Black or Native, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And I'm thinking about my Filipina friend who's a nanny, as well. She's got a rough deal too.

Driving through New York and New Jersey took forever, because that's where we got connected with the I-95 and had to cross through the Bronx and then the New Jersey Turnpike. At rush hour. I will not attempt to conceal the fact that after two hours crawling through traffic and really needing to use the bathroom, that some profanity snuck out from time to time. The three hours we'd slept weighed very heavily on us as we crawled through that traffic. It also meant that there was no way we'd be able to crash in Richmond, Virginia that night, which really sucked. As for New York state and Jersey, just...ew. I have just four words for you: Oil and Petrochemical refineries.

Moving on: Next was Pennsylvania. We drove by Philadelphia, and Popeye's chicken was calling out to me strongly (you may remember from a previous post that it was in Philly where I first discovered the glories of Popeye's.) Lots of hills. It was green. It was over quickly. We listened to parliament and tore the roof off the sucka.

Boistered by a promise from Stephanie that we would get some Popeye's and beers once we made it to Baltimore, we continued driving to Maryland. We were really, really, tired. The sun had gone down on a 14-hour driving day.

I'll give you the next part of the saga tomorrow for two reasons: one, I should get back to work, and two, maybe it'll seem funnier to me by then. The more that time goes by, the more I can see the humour in things.