Ryan and Joel's Spring Break Road Trip: Day 7

Originally posted on "Is It Sports" by Ryan. This is the final part of Ryan's Spring Break Road Trip posts.

Day 7 Little Rock, AR – Gallatin, TN

I figured if I’m writing about a Spring Break Road Trip, I should get it done before I graduate, at least. Give me a break though, I’ve had a lot of stuff going on, what with graduating from a Big Ten University and all. Anyways, look at most of our posts. You can call us a lot of things, but punctual is not one of them.

Before we took off towards Tennessee, we stopped in downtown Little Rock to see the Presidential Library. Unlike his own hometown and the women he let in the White House, the Library was incredibly attractive. Joel just wanted to see the replica Oval Office. It cost seven dollars. We turned around.

As we made our way towards Memphis, we ran low on fuel, and much like in Texas, all the gas stations were prepay. If I may briefly rant, I have to say prepaid gas stations are one of the most ridiculous concepts instituted by the clearly intellectual minds of convenience store management. Some day, station owners will learn that the video camera installed in the awning is a much wiser investment than making someone come inside and guessing how much gas they will need, especially when someone starts going to the station down the street where they TRUST their customers.

But I digress.

We eventually buckled to the whims of ExxonMobil and fueled before making the rest of the trip to Memphis. When we go there, we hopped out along the Mississippi River and took a stroll through downtown to Beale Street. If you don’t know, Beale is a street known for its jazz history, home to legends like B.B. King and the like. The celebrations there get to be not unlike Bourbon Street in New Orleans. We got there on St. Patrick’s Day, so it would have been a big party night, but we arrived at noon and had to settle for lunch.

The place we stopped at, Alfred’s was obviously a jazz place, with large screens and a stage and pictures of people like Eric Clapton and others who had performed there. Most importantly we got our first taste of the NCAA tournament. Alabama versus Wisconsin-Milwaukee. It wasn’t exactly the two teams we really wanted to see, but it beat watching the local noontime news.

After the trip to Alfred’s we took a look around town, saw the Pyramid (what goes on there anymore?) and the FedEx Arena, home of Memphis basketball of all types. Definitely a Pantheon moment in my life, that’s for sure. Truth is, Memphis seemed like a nice town, but it also seemed like the town that I wouldn’t want to spend much time in after dark.

We moved off to Nashville through the remarkably hilly Tennessee. Quite the contrast to the flatness we had been subjected to for the first part of the trip. Not being country fans, we just found a hotel after getting off the freeway, which was in the midst of rush hour/just arriving tournament fan traffic. We found, again, a Comfort Inn in the northern suburb of Gallatin. After arriving, we decided we needed to go out at least once on this trip, and after asking the very pregnant, very toothless woman behind the desk, she directed us to a shopping area.

We stopped in at a restaurant/sports bar named Rafferty’s and kept an eye on the basketball games in the bar. The hostess led us into the bar and flirted with me a little, telling the bartender that I went to her school. “Wouldn’t that suck?” she tittered. Whatever. A girl talked to me of her own accord. She was probably 18.

I feel disgusting.

The bar though, had the standard three groups of people you’ll find at any non-college bar. They are as follows:

1. The Giggly Single Office Girls. They were a cause for debate between myself and Joel. Were they attractive? Where they worth the time to say hi to? We decided that yes, they were attractive if we were five years older, and no, they shouldn’t be approached, as the Mudslides they had been working on since well before we got there were doing their job and the giggling, now incessant, was annoying. This happens at pretty much every bar I’ve been to.

2. The Regulars. Clearly, this was a pair of guys that knew each other and had probably known each other for some time. They had each elected different paths in life and was secretly jealous of the other. As a result, they tried to talk up their own lives to cover for their own perceived shortfalls. The funny thing was, one was a business type, the other the contractor type. I couldn’t imagine what they possibly had to talk about, so they started yakking about the staff, who they also knew. I’m sure they had the internal debate Joel and I did in the previous paragraph. The difference is, I’m assuming they thought those girls were worth it.

3. The Ugly Lovebirds. These two were all over each other. You’ll find these two at any bar you go to, and you’ll be grossed out. You won’t mind that Mr. Bird is all hands, but you will mind that Ms. Bird weighs 250 pounds and is very visibly wearing a thong. We only assumed it was Mr. Bird’s hands going up the back of her shirt, but she blocked any sightlines we could have had. Most couples, believe it or not, have a situation where one member is more attractive than the other, be it slightly or greatly, and no matter what gender you are, you can always tell which way the tables are turned. With the Ugly Lovebirds, both are so far away from attractive that it doesn’t matter either way.

There you have it. That was Joel and my trip. It was a blast, no matter what you think, or how poorly I conveyed it. Yeah, there was the whole trip from Nashville to Lafayette, but really, I’ve written about that before, when we all went to Louisville. From now on, I promise to mostly write about sports again. - Ryan

Ryan and Joel's Spring Break Road Trip: Day 6

Originally posted on "Is It Sports?" by Ryan, this was part 6 of 7 of his spring break road trip with his friend Joel.

Day 6 Ardmore, OK – Little Rock, AR

Everyone, especially someone who has been in college, has woke up one morning and said to themselves, I can’t believe I did that. For Joel and I, it was spending an evening in Southern Oklahoma. We grabbed ourselves some breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant (Denny’s) and gave a wary stare at the clientele. Aside from the one group of what looked like international businessmen (I was as confused as you were) everyone in there was over the age of fifty and over the weight of 250 pounds. They all seemed like good, hard working folk, but Joel and I decided to get out of there before Farmer John made us the second course.

We steered south and spent about a half hour on the road when disaster struck. Construction crews were doing something on the bridge over the Red River and had the left lane closed. I was admiring the river when I looked back at the road only to see one of those big traffic barrels lying in the middle of the street. Needless to say, I plowed right over it. The first exit in Texas is only to an adult bookstore, but we had no choice. A road worker was behind us when we pulled a Pete Rose to the barrel’s Ray Fosse and he followed us off the highway. Needless to say, he went right into the bookstore.

We hopped out of the car to look at the damage. There was nothing wrong on the outside, but we quickly realized that the left turn signal was broken. If you have ever had a broken turn signal, you quickly realize just what a pain in the butt it is, with the incessant blinking when you want to switch to the fast lane. It was a nuisance.

We finally got back on the road after finding a gas station that didn’t require prepay and went to Dallas. We didn’t really have a plan for the city, but we just went through looking for a good exit. We ended up on the south side of town and went to take a look at the Cotton Bowl which was collocated with the State Fair. It was weird, since the fair is only open one time a year, and if I’m not mistaken there are only two games played at the Cotton Bowl every year. The added result was a stadium devoid of any team character and a vacant amusement park. I’m pretty sure that at night the place is haunted.

My mom had requested a phone call from every location we stopped at (My dad left the computer signed on about 6 straight hours when we were in Overland Park. I didn’t call them that night), and since this was the most southern extent of the trip, I decided to give her a call. While on the phone, I realized I hadn’t picked up her birthday present yet. We needed a mall.

The Town East mall was a mere hop, skip and jump away from the stadium, so we went to check it out. After we got into the main walking area, we came across a well populated play area. “It’s like a Petri dish,” Joel said, disgusted. On our way out we actually went up a floor to avoid the laughing, wriggling, sneezing pile of mucus.

I found my Mom the PERFECT gift at a store that ran out of bags, so they had to borrow them from the Rave Girl store next door. I felt pretty cool. We grabbed some lunch, and reflected on the fact that we were, in fact, eating Subway at a mall in Texas.

After Dallas, it was time to circle back toward West Lafayette, and that meant a trip through Arkansas. The only thing Arkansas really has to offer is the boyhood home of Bill Clinton in Hope. After rolling through that town, you really get an idea of what humble beginnings he came from. The only four well preserved structures in town were his birth house, boyhood home, visitors center and a bank at the center of town. It was really eye opening that the level of poverty exists in America. Jesus Christ, I’m depressing myself.

We got on the highway again, drove by such towns as Arkadelphia and ended up in Little Rock. We sought out a decent hotel and came up with another Comfort Inn. It was a nice place, but we had to be buzzed into the lobby and I think Forrest Gump’s cousin was running the desk. The whole place seemed like it was getting ready for a homicide, probably of a prostitute. As it turned out, we were right in front of the State Patrol Headquarters. Perhaps the safest hotel of the trip. I’ll be back with the last day sometime soon. - Ryan

Ryan and Joel's Spring Break Road Trip: Day 5

Originally posted on "Is It Sports?" this is day 5 of Ryan and his friend Joel's spring break road trip

Day 5 Overland Park, KS – Ardmore, OK

The strange thing about Tuesday was that we spent about four hours in Kansas, from Overland Park all the way to the Oklahoma border south of Wichita, and I can’t tell you anything that we saw. There was a thirty mile stretch of interstate where the only exit was to “cow pens”. I’m not making this up, there were rusty old cow pens right along the freeway, and there was an overpass to get to them. I had never seen a gravel onramp before then. Only in Kansas, or my baby cousin’s sand box, I guess.

Irrelevant, but I still wanted to point it out; there was a roadside oasis on that stretch that said I was six and a half feet tall. Had to mention it.

We pulled into Oklahoma City thinking that we were just going to end up there for the night. We took our time, taking in the bombing memorial – very powerful – and looking around. It’s a nicer city than people give it credit for, really, and what with the bombing, and the tornado a few years back – you can definitely tell where it went through – this town has gotten kicked in the teeth so many times, I’m just not going to crack any jokes.

Joel and I went through Oklahoma so we could stop in Norman, home of both the Storm Prediction Center and Oklahoma University, a great meteorology school. As Joel said very eloquently; we’re dorks.

The plan was to visit the SPC first, maybe get a tour, then go to the University and see how roundly it kicked Purdue’s butt in terms of quality. The SPC, curiously enough, required a week notice before they let in tour groups. I guess they’ve had a problem with people sneaking in and creating tornado watches. We went across the street to the National Weather Service office (the SPC and weather service are different, I’ll spare you the details). They had a security guard at the door that had to buzz us in. Is there a weather tampering problem that I’m not aware of?

We actually got into the high security installation and took our tour. Since this is sort of a sports website, I’ll skip over the details and get to the University. Everything about this school was superior to every other I had been to. There wasn’t any large scale construction. The roads weren’t in disrepair. Historic buildings were actually preserved, instead of just being old. And the stadium was huge! This was definitely a football school above all else. The stadium was about eight stories tall and pretty much every item we could find emblazoned with an OU also had “football” written on it somewhere.

As with the day before, we needed to find a computer to find our status in the NCAA tournament. We figured we would just be creepy as in Omaha and use the free library computers. This time, however, all the computers were password protected. I was heartbroken. The fact remained, however, that we needed to get ourselves in one of these pools, otherwise the entire month of March would be ruined. We persevered. We found a 7-11, which I had no idea actually still existed, and asked for directions to public library. I haven’t been to a public library in years, so I didn’t really know what to expect, particularly from one in Oklahoma.

What I found were some of the scariest haircuts I had ever seen. The dorky teenage librarian looked like he took his cue from Flock of Seagulls, and I could have sworn Poison had stopped in to check out the new releases. We quickly checked out a pair of computers, Joel next to an impatient mother of about forty and a guy doing his taxes that was just as overwhelmed as we were. I got a computer at the end of a bank next to a guy watching something with Steven Segal, or more likely, Patrick Swayze in his mullet years. It was good to see the arts weren’t dead in Norman.

Our original plan was to stay in Oklahoma City that night. After seeing the most literate Normans, we decided to keep plugging along to Dallas. We set our sights on Ardmore, along the Texas – Oklahoma border. We got there, and along the freeway, there were several chain hotels. Joel was uncomfortable with staying in a place with rooms that opened to the outside, (maybe from watching Joy Ride?) but we had no choice. The most respectable looking hotel was a Holiday in, that had a creepy “nightclub” called Gusher, which had an eerily similar logo to the old Houston Oilers emblem, but with oil suggestively coming out of the top of the derrick. Adding that extra touch of class, the hotel restaurant was a Denny’s. I guess, though if you don’t have anything nice today, don’t say anything at all, so I’ll let Ardmore off the hook. Back with Day 6 later - Ryan

Ryan and Joel's Spring Break Road Trip: Day 4

Originally posted on "Is It Sports?" This is Part 4 of Ryan and his friend Joel's Spring Break road trip through the great plains

Day 4 - Brookings, SD – Overland Park, KS

There is a guy, a man we have dubbed “the Master”, who uses campus library computers for less than pure purposes. He’s not exactly discreet in his dirty undertakings, otherwise Joel, several others and I would not have picked up on this. Needless to say, when we got to Omaha and needed to sign up for our tournament pools, we felt a little dirty using the computers at Creighton University.

Ever since we picked up two copies of the USA Today, we had been bantering back and forth through southeastern South Dakota and northeastern Iowa, even stopping in virtually the middle of nowhere to fill in the brackets. How could anyone take Louisville with the performance they showed against Memphis? How was Washington a 1 seed? How did the Big 10 get 5 teams in? Of course, these questions were swiftly answered. Francisco Garcia made one dumb mistake, Washington didn’t deserve the 1 seed and the Big 10 got 5 teams in because they deserved it.

Eventually, we escaped death in the streets of downtown Omaha and made it to Creighton. The school, as with the city, was entirely under construction, and we parked, unsure of whether or not the car would be covered in concrete when we came back. The good news was, Creighton fit with North Dakota St. and South Dakota St., in that they weren’t nearly as attractive as Purdue. The bad news was, we had to trudge uphill to get to the library. After some directions received in the Union (the library was in the biggest building on campus) we found our computers. We looked around nervously and quickly, quietly, checked our e-mail. We quickly found out everything we needed, and scurried out of there, trying not to make eye contact.

The next few hours were pretty non-descript, except we got lost and ended up on the bad side of Omaha; we later determined there wasn’t a good side. Again, Missouri was pretty dull, except for the fact that the entire state was ON FIRE. Smoke billowed from a grass fire that had absolutely no fire breaks or anything. For all intents and purposes, this thing was out of control. We couldn’t see anything in front of us and it smelled terrible. More, even than in western Wisconsin, it felt like we were driving one of the deepest parts of hell.

We eventually made it to Kansas City and drove to the Kansas side. We rolled into the town of Overland Park, the town with the highest per capita amount of Larry King fans (Overland Park, Kansas, hello!). Speaking of per capita, I think the average net worth of the denizens was half a trillion. Those were some huge houses in town there. Clearly a wealthy suburb, and the hotels reflected it. We ended up staying at a Comfort Inn with a steeple and pillars. A room there would have ran around a hundred bucks, but through some sweet talk and puppy dog eyes, we ended up with a twenty percent discount.

We were definitely outclassed at this place. I rode up the elevator (they had an elevator!) with a couple of guys who were in town on a business conference. I had a big laundry bag with all my clothes and toiletries. Fairly awkward.

We strolled into the nicest hotel room of the trip. It had a refrigerator. Office chairs. A lamp with internet access. The service there was excellent as well. We were looking for a good local Kansas City style restaurant. The deskman responded, “Well, most people would recommend restaurant X, but I wouldn’t. Well, you might like it if you like expensive food that tastes like crap.” Too bad the Mets didn’t get this kind of advice before they signed Cliff Floyd. Some people would recommend Cliff Floyd. You might like him if you like expensive players that play like crap. To be fair, I guess the Mets do have a tradition of expensive players that play like crap.

That’s about all I got for day 4. We’ll see when I get around to Day 5. - Ryan

Ryan and Joel's Spring Break Road Trip: Day 3

Originally posted on Is It Sports? This is day 3 of Ryan's 7 day spring break road trip in 2005 with his friend Joel. Ryan got to visit a town that has the same name as his last name.

Day 3 Victoria, MN – Brookings, SD
The weirdest part about coming home is seeing how much everything has changed. I live in the outer suburbs, and the growth is explosive. At the rate it’s growing, I expect Victoria to have a half a million people by the end of the decade. In any event, the growth calls for appropriate facilities, and my small little Catholic Church that I’ve gone to for as long as I can remember was next in line for an upgrade. Needless to say, when I went to mass, I half expected to see Bob Vila give the sermon.

While I was at mass, Joel, the heathen, slept in. My dad cooked us a scrambled egg dish that looks like cat vomit but tastes as good as it looks bad. That’s an interesting element in my family. My dad is an excellent chef, as is my mother. I famously screwed up macaroni and cheese on one occasion and to this day refuse to cook anything that doesn’t involve a microwave.

I mention my mother. As it turned out, she, who had been in Venezuela as recently as a week and a half ago, was on a vacation with several of my dad’s sisters and sisters in law in central Minnesota. She was at a resort near Brainerd, Minnesota, and using her powers of maternally inflicted guilt, coaxed me into heading up there to meet her. Our plan had always been to go to Fargo, but this little detour would take us well away from the interstate. Using my powers of persuasion, I encouraged Mom to buy both of us lunch, since she was forcing us to take back roads through rural Minnesota.

In the end, we met in a town called Baxter at a restaurant with improbably good looking waitresses and TVs showing a spring training game between the Twins and someone else, maybe the Blue Jays. The nice thing about my parents is that they don’t go out of their way to embarrass me, and actually, sometimes my mom fixes whatever ridiculous outfit my dad is wearing to minimize his looking like a buffoon. In truth, my parents have given me no reason to be as cynical as I am. That being said, Mom decided to forgo weeping openly when I left, much to the benefit of all involved.

And there it was. Joel and I were on a two lane highway, our speeds being regulated more by the whims of aging farmers in aging Ford F150s than by the speed limit. After about forty miles, still in our effort to navigate through rural Minnesota, we encountered Henning, a town of about 700. It’s not really an impressive town, just sitting there in west central Minnesota. The freaky part, of course, was that the towns name was my last name. I felt like Donald Trump driving through town. My name was on everything.

We finally pulled back onto I-94 and stopped in at North Dakota St. in Fargo, where, literally, all we did is used the restroom at the Taco Bell. We veered southward and drove to South Dakota. Imagine an entire interstate highway where you don’t see another car sometimes for twenty minutes. North Dakota is as sparsely populated as they tell you. We made it to Brookings, stopping only at the north-south continental divide. Thank me, I just condensed about 4 hours of driving into a sentence.

I really can’t come up with too much interesting about the rest of the night. We eventually learned the tournament field, which we had been dying to find out all evening, and the shower head in the room was about 8 feet off the ground. All in all, not a particularly dynamic evening. I’ll fill you in on day 4 in the near future. - Ryan

Ryan and Joel's Spring Break Road Trip: Day 2

Originally posted on Is It Sports? This is day 2 of Ryan and his friend Joel's spring break road trip. A review of a Steve Zahn movie is just what every sports blog needs.

Day 2 Victoria, MN – Victoria, MN
All right, so I didn’t get this post up as quick as I wanted. Don’t blame Steve, blame college basketball. Now that my brackets are shot, I think I can focus a little more time filling you in on this road trip. I know you’re dying to hear what went down on day number two on our misadventures across middle America.

The thing is though, we really didn’t do anything. We went to the Mall of America in the afternoon, after getting a solid night’s sleep (which was totally needed after the disaster that was Friday). Joel was impressed by the Mall and the Cities, both by how large and by how clean they were. I guess it was like finding out that Andre the Giant really is 7 feet tall, and he showered.

Of course, we went on a Saturday, so the Mall that was half the size of Delaware was twice as populated. Additionally, since it was only a few days until St. Patrick’s day, there were, I kid you not, groups of kids dancing Irish Jigs in the Mall’s “Rotunda”, so as we meandered through the Mall we were serenaded with folk music and tap shoes that were very noticeably out of rhythm.

My argument that the Mall really does make a good tourist venue was given a boost. The greatest highlight was the “As Seen on TV” store that had a poster up for Girls Gone Wild. Tell me where to find that at Six Flags.

But after the Mall, we were in that awkward, what do we do next? phase. Well, clearly, this was the time to break out the “road trip” movie. There was no clearer choice than Joy Ride. As a service to you, I’m going to give you an exclusive, Is It Sports? review of this 2001 classic.

PLOT B -
Lewis (Paul Walker) finished up his school year at Cal-Berkeley, and his quasi-girlfriend Venna (seriously, that’s her name) (LeeLee Sobieski (seriously, that’s her name)) who attends the University of Colorado wants him to come pick her up. So Lew does the obvious thing and buys a freaking car. On the way to pick up the beautiful Venna, Our buddy Lew gets a message that his older brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) got arrested in Salt Lake City. Lew goes to pick his brother up, and the road trip is on.

At a pit stop, Fuller installs a CB radio on Lew’s new car. With it, they decide to entice a lonely trucker by the name of Rusty Nail to meet with “Candy Cane” a fictional girl voiced, unconvincingly, by Lew. Rusty Nail goes to this hotel, finds there isn’t an attractive young lady but a disgruntled businessman. So what happens? Rusty rips off his jaw, of course. Then he sets his sights on Lewis and Fuller. For the rest of the movie, Rusty pursues the brothers, and eventually Venna as well.

ACTORS C
There is a reason Paul Walker was chosen to star in the Fast and the Furious. There are a very select few actors who can make Vin Diesel look like a Shakesperean leading man, and Mr. Walker is one of them. He didn’t try to hide the fact that he was the oldest college student ever, or show any fatigue after driving across the expansive and entirely dull state of Nevada. I’m concerned for his future career, given that his leading roles always seem to involve him driving a car for most of it.

Steve Zahn, on the other hand, has a personality. This translated well to the movie, and if it wasn’t for him, there would be no plot advancement, no humor, no movie. The only problem with him, though, is that Steve Zahn has never ever been a leading man. In that, he should never be given the task of carrying a movie like this, especially when he has to carry the 200 lbs of dead weight in Paul Walker.

ACTRESS A-
LeeLee Sobieski. She always seems to have that pretentious New York actress tone to her voice. It’s like she feels that it is her role to bring the proper thespian attitude to all movies, even ones as trite as this one. That being said, it seems like someone said “being in your underwear and having perpetually erect nipples is vastly important to this role” and she bought it. I want to see the episode of “Inside the Actor’s Studio” where she defends not wearing a padded bra for an entire movie shoot. I honestly think that it’s just a matter of time before she does full frontal nudity. As for her acting, she acted like every stupid girl I’ve ever had a crush on. So I guess she may be a good actress, if not a particularly good judge of movies

VILLAIN A+
Rusty Nail is a great villain in every sense of the word. He has a fabulously cheesy name. You never actually see him. His truck is black. He’s obviously smarter than the “good guys”. He was clearly wronged and is looking to punish those who wronged him.

For most of the movie, ol’ Rusty is messing with the boys, but then the “horny trucker” side of him takes over and he kidnaps Venna’s roommate, makes the boys go to a diner naked and wraps Venna in shrink wrap. He’s creative, violent, and has a nose for suspense, exactly what you want out a movie villain. By far, the best part in the movie, and you never really get a look at him.

ENDING D
Well see here’s the thing. Rusty Nail, as I had mentioned, has been following the brothers and Venna across God’s Country, but then when they get to Nebraska, he up and decides to finally try to kill all three of them. He’s clearly not that far ahead of the brothers, but still, he has time to set up a veritable Rube Goldberg machine in order to do all three of them in. Truckers, especially psychotic truckers, don’t tend to have this type of forethought. Without spoiling it for anyone, the movie had an inadequate ending that inexplicably left the option open for a sequel. You might get Paul Walker in on that, but good luck on getting any other member of the Screen Actors Guild involved.

OVERALL B
First and foremost, this movie was fraught with great takeaway lines. It was chock full with inane trucker banter that Joel and I used throughout the trip, as well as the typical brother to brother bickering that I live with, only scripted and one sided.

As a road trip movie, it was invaluable for several reasons. A) We were two guys in a car for a week. We needed to see some LeeLee. B) It taught us not to piss off truckers. C) We kept looking for “Kojaks with a Kodak”. I would recommend everyone see it, especially if you are going on a road trip anytime soon.

I’ll be back with Day 3 sometime soon. - Ryan

Ryan and Joel's Spring Break Road Trip: Day 1

Originally Posted on Is It Sports? This was the first of 7 posts on Ryan and his friend Joel's Spring Break 2005 road trip across the Great Plains. I went to Panama City with some of my friends from school instead, and we had an interesting trip too. My friend Yami lost his glasses somewhere in Northern Alabama when they blew off his face when he stuck his out of my friends truck while trying (and failing) to throw a muffin into an open sunroof on our car. He then lost his backup contacts while trying to put them on in a windy Dairy Queen parking lot in Montgomery, Alabama. If a Japanese guy yelling and dropping F-bombs in a dairy queen parking lot in the deep south doesn't say Spring Break, I don't know what does.

Clearly, Steve and I have had way too much to do to update the site for a while. It was an ugly blend of exams and spring break that led to an even uglier two week span of no updates to the site. Here’s my promise to you. I’m going to crank out update after update for at least three days, so if you don’t see anything up here for a while, um, blame Steve. I don’t know if I have or haven’t mentioned this, but all I do here is write. I don’t know the first thing about the internet. Well anyways, I haven’t talked to Steve-o for a while, but I’m sure he’s got something up his sleeve too.

As for me, I had this crazy idea. My Spring Break road trip was probably one of the weirdest things I’ve ever partaken in. Over the course of the next however long I feel like it, I’m going to share a leg of our journey through middle America. I would talk more about the tournament, but anyone who cares enough about it has been watching. (UNC over Oklahoma State, by the way). In addition, on one of the slower days, I might slip in our second mail bag, because we actually got mail this month! Without further ado, here is the first leg of the trip.

Day 1 Lafayette, IN – Victoria, MN
The goal of our trip, which I went on with my buddy Joel, from the outset, was to see as many states as possible, and see my family for a couple of days. Therefore, the first day was a trip back home for me, and Joel’s first trip to the Twin Cities. For those of you who haven’t made the trip, that’s nine hours in my two door Honda Accord through central Wisconsin. Obviously, music was in order, which brought about an important issue. Joel and myself share different opinions regarding rap and hip hop in general. I like it, he doesn’t. So we decided that we would blend each of our playlists and have my MP3 player play them randomly. Low and behold, I went to pick up Joel, and we heard nothing but rap all the way to the Illinois border.

Just for S and G’s we went a different route than I’m used to, and took US highway 52 through Kankakee. I’d heard jokes about what a dump the town was but I had no idea. For those of you who don’t know, Kankakee has been voted the least liveable city in America. Worse than Jersey City! Not a nice town. As if on theatrical cue, when we arrived in “Skank”-akee, it started snowing and Bill Withers started singing “Ain’t No Sunshine”. It was like I had Quentin Tarantino in my trunk cuing the soundtrack. Needless to say, we exceeded the speed limit when getting the hell out of there. (As a fellow Illinoisan, I know a little more info about Kankakee. After it was voted as the worst city in America, David Letterman bought them a gazebo with a giant chain lock and urged their mayor over and over again on the phone to get an arena football team. Their high school was in my conference, and they called themselves the Kays. If you look at dictionary.com, I guess they were either fans of the alphabet or King Arthur's helpers. - Steve)

When we were sure that we could get out of the car without smelling Kankakee, we pulled off the highway in Mendota, Illinois for McDonalds. Joel and I were enjoying our meal, acknowledging that we were shaving a good week off our lives when the older lady whom we had assumed to be dead or particularly enthralled in her romance novel took a shine to Joel. Apparently, she worked at our current diner of choice and was opinionated about her coworkers and felt the need to share those beliefs with her new friend. She reminded me of the stray dog that you didn’t kick, but didn’t really want around either. She kinda smelled like that dog too.

Again, knowing it was time to get out of there and keep going, we hopped in the Honda and headed to Wisconsin. Just north of Madison, we encountered something we scientists call “snizzle”. Don’t worry, Snoop Dogg is OK. See, drizzle is like light rain and snow is lightly falling frozen water. So what happens when drizzle freezes around snow? Snizzle! Or snow grains if you want to be truly scientific. Whatever. (On a somewhat related tangent imagine a short Indian fellow saying drizzle drop. Hilarious. But I digress). This snizzle north of Madison was the heaviest snizzle I’ve ever seen. Inevitably, this slowed traffic entirely too much, and by the time night fell, turned I-94 into one of the lamest bobsled courses I have ever seen. The best part was, there were tractor trailers slipping through western Wisconsin!

So we finally made it to Minneapolis and St. Paul (“they’re actually like, two built up cities!” as Joel said) and eventually back to my house. We touched base with my family and hustled off to Mystic Lake Casino. This day was bound to have good luck at some point right? Joel is a fan of the slots, I prefer the tables so I made my way to a 5 dollar blackjack table and sunk in 20 dollars. Second hand I hit a blackjack. In retrospect, I should have quit then. I was looking for Joel again five minutes later.

The final tally on the day, -20 dollars at the casino, 1 colorful character, 1 reminder of why its great to live nowhere near Kankakee, and edition of the Ice Capades, I-94 Mac Truck edition. Be back later with day two. - Ryan