Road Trip and Dog Food

I arrived in Philadelphia a few days ago, after finishing a roadtrip from Stanford. The trip had a few interesting moments. The weather got progressively worse as I was leaving California (of course...) and for the next couple of days I was driving through a lot of rain and occasional hail. Later on, I read in the news that a couple of tornados had touched down where I passed, either just before or just after I passed there. Made me feel less bad about how hard the driving felt. Betty (my new car) was a trooper. I was very happy to be in it, rather than outside.

Rachel and I met in Denver, and continued the drive to the east after playing for a short while in the Rocky Mountain National Park. For the record: Colorado is gorgeous.

A few incidents from the trip stuck in my mind. On the first night, my friend Shay called me from Israel, and helped me find a place to stay for the night in Utah. I'm often amazed by technology, and phones in particular. It still seems strange to me that I can talk into a little box and somebody far away can hear me, and then I can hear THAT person from the same little box... I think that's amazing. But then, to talk with Shay and have him track my location using GoogleMaps, and then find a motel for me by looking ahead and reading reviews that other people left... that just blew me away.

The next morning, I went into the local supermarket to buy some food for the day. A store employee was friendly, and when he heard I'm on a roadtrip, he suggested I take cherries with me. I tasted one, and it was good. I got a bag. From that moment and until the end of the trip, there were always cherries in the car (I kepy buying and eating them). Now, for me, cherries are official roadtrip food. It's amazing, what an impact one person can have in one moment.

One morning in Nebraska, Rachel and I went into a supermarket to buy some groceries for the road. We got most of what we wanted, and I asked a guy in the store where I could find some hummus. "Some what?" he seemed confused. So I explained it's a dip made from chickpeas and his face cleared. "Oh yes," he said. "Try aisle 10." So off we go to aisle 10, and it's all dog food. I think he was playing a joke on the snooty strangers that were asking for the weird food. I thought it was a pretty good joke. :-)

The drive through the eastern half of the country was, for the most part, very beautiful. I'd never gone through this area before, and I guess spring is a good time of year to be anywhere. So green, so beautiful.