life in surround sound and process color.

LISTENING TO: a year in review... 1. Don McClean - American Pie 2. Hooters - And We Danced   3. Jethro Tull - Aqualung

LISTENING TO: Jethro Tull - Aqualung This is a quick wrap up post for the rest of my trip out west. Like I said earlier, I feel like these posts really aren't doing this trip justice, but for as much as I want to remember, everything is blending together. In the end, maybe that's how it should be - with only the best pieces really making a point in my memory. For instance, after my dad's procedure, we experienced the kindness of the nursing staff. As my dad had to stay flat on his back for a few hours after his treatment, we basically sat in his recovery room watching the Nicolas Cage movie Drive Angry. This movie will always have a special place in my heart, I think, because 1.) it's so bad it's good and 2.) we had about a half hour of it left when the nurse came to tell us to leave, and she let us stay to finish it. From there it was a slow connecting walk back to the Kahler, where we ordered Jimmy Johns and watched more of the SyFy channel. We had near...

LISTENING TO: Hooters - And We Danced I feel like there is so much going on with this trip that I'm leaving out all the little moments that keep happening. Did you know that the Illinois highway system has Oasis-es (that's totally the wrong way of writing that out, but bear with me), rather than rest stops? I mean, they're pretty much the same thing, EXCEPT AN OASIS FLOATS OVER THE HIGHWAY ITSELF. It sucks that it was sleeting outside when we stopped at one on the way through - they have an outside skyway you can walk on that I'm guessing, when the weather is nice, makes cars driving underneath a little more perceptive that the rest stop is literally floating over the highway, and oh look! there are people standing right overhead. My dad may or may not have taken my photo while we stopped to get coffee. Every state's rest stops should be like this. After passing through Chicago, we were on our way to Wisconsin (where we kept running into more waterparks a...

LISTENING TO: Don McLean - American Pie Whenever I thought I would be driving through midwest America, it was definitely never going to be because my father was going to the Mayo Clinic to be treating a cancerous tumor. If his diagnosis has taught me anything, it's that you have to take the good with the bad, and I've always been down for a multi-state road trip. Since we are driving through states known for their hellacious winter weather in the middle of January, we rented a four-wheel drive SUV. Unfortunately, that SUV is a Yukon. What we've very quickly determined is that no one of a height less than 5'6" should really be driving a Yukon, because the blind spots are literally not made for someone of less than average height.  Needless to say, it's one of the most comfortable vehicles I've ever been a passenger in, and although driving isn't the easiest (and I look like a child driving a car made for a giant), it's actually a pretty cool c...