Well, I’m officially back in Iowa, which is a sad thing to me. I have come back with a story though, a story about my travels, cause I know you all want to hear it. I expect this to be no more than 3 parts long, and in the end I may even reveal something deeply personal. What is it I may reveal? Well… that’d spoil the surprise.
Lets begin this tale with how it should begin, with myself on the road. That is right everyone, I drove to San Diego, CA from central Iowa. This trip is roughly 1,800 miles long, give or take 50 miles depending on your route. I have flown to San Diego before, and it was a traumatizing experience. Seriously, it was bad enough I was tempted to pretend to board my plane back home from San Diego, after saying farewell to my friend, then get a cab to the nearest Amtrak. I have an excuse though for not flying this time around though (besides it being scary), I wanted to see the country first hand, and I did.
If I could describe the country in one word, I would first have to section off different places of the USA. I found some parts interesting, others fascinating, and a few just down right boring. I did very little viewing of my surroundings on the trip to San Diego though. My thoughts during the drive to San Diego were focused purely on getting to San Diego. I had no idea how well my car would handle those bumps on the Earth called mountains. By the way, the car handled them fine. I also had to remind myself it would be in bad taste to stop in the middle of the road as I came upon my first ever mountain view of a forest (with a mountain backdrop).
This was the scenery we hear about in stories and see in movies. It was amazing, and I could have never seen it from a plane… okay, I could have seen it from a plane, but it is all about view point here people. This view was well beyond the 20 hour mark of my drive, and I could have cared less about most things, but this was enough to wake me up and have me take notice. This scene alone was enough to make the drive worthwhile. Coming from Iowa, I don’t get to see much in the area of interesting land formations, unless you count “cut flat by a glacier” as being fascinating. It was later during my trip when I came to realize that for most of Iowa, you can see till the Earth curves. Yeah, Iowa is flat.
In the end, I don’t know how long I actually spent driving to get to my destination in San Diego, I just know how long it took overall, which was too long. It had been 4.3 years (almost to the day) since my last visit to the area, and I was shaking with excitement. For those of you that don’t know, shaking with excitement is very similar to shaking with exhaustion. Unfortunately, my mood was fairly low at this point. I had brought some Iowa sweet corn 1,800 miles as a gift to my close friend, and keeper for the duration of my stay, but it was confiscated upon entering California. I know most of you would tell me “just tell them you don’t have anything”, except I wasn’t given a chance to, I was just told to open up. That’s right, my first thoughts upon entering the land were those about not being able to do something special in return for everything my keeper was about to do for me…. for a week.
I figured my mood would stay low, even after seeing my keeper. I was wrong. Seeing my friend Elizabeth, who I shall call CK for California keeper here on out, lifted my mood immensely. To me, even though I knew it had been 4.3 years since I last saw CK, it felt like it hadn’t been more than a few days, because we were able to jab and poke fun at the other without the slightest bit of hesitation. My nervous hold backs from my first trip were completely gone.
I was introduced to a few new things within moments of arriving in San Diego. The first was a burger joint called In-N-Out, some of you may know of it. My first trip there was okay at best, but I can tell you right now that it was immensely better the 2nd time around, and I feel I may have been too tired to evaluate it and take it in. The other thing was the show series “World’s Dumbest”, I came to find out I like this show. The night was spent mostly with these two things while BS’ing with CK, about the best way for me to spend my first night in San Diego I think.
After a few hours of hanging, I was delivered back to my hotel, where I was to take care not to injure myself or upset the locals. This was not hard, for I instantly went to bed. I had come to find out exactly how hard I could push my body in regards to driving. I hadn’t gotten this little sleep since I was a teenage boy, hyped up on Mt. Dew with no reason to wake up early. I did have a reason to be up early though, Comic-Con was the very next day, and I was excited.
This will end part 1 of my California trip post. In summary? I pushed myself hard to get to San Diego, possibly too hard. The one truly special thing I could do for someone who does too much for me was corn-napped at the edge of California. Beds are extra soft when you are tired.
Even though I have been out of California for almost a week now, I still feel a panging of pain when I think of the area I stayed in.
Have fun kids.
-Jason-