Retro Flashback: Thanksgiving 2008

I once said that I was working on getting up some videos of the Economic Stimulus Package Thanksgiving Road Trip Spectacular. Well, truth is, I forgot about it for quite a while until Brenda asked me why they haven't been put up yet. I was planning on putting together all the videos into one like I did with my Texas Road Trip, but it appears that this is not going to happen since I haven't done it yet. So, I've decided on giving you the highlights in chronological order, as uploaded to Blogger. This took forever, the autosave kept failing, and my 'connection to blogger' kept getting 'lost'. So, you better like it for all the frustration it caused. No wonder I hadn't done this before now...

The first thing I learned was that all you have to do is point a camera at Brenda and she will perform like a monkey without any prompting. Here we are stopped at a gas station to fill up and have dinner. It is very cold. Very. Very very. And as you will see, we're not wearing coats because we are geniuses.

I just got back in the car after running Remy around outside so that she would do her thing, which is why I am breathing so heavily, and why I am so cold and glad to be in the car.

We spent the night at a La Quinta in Indianapolis and got on the road again after a few hours of sleep. Brenda drove from Indianapolis until right before the Pennsylvania boarder, where I took over. Right after that happened, there was a wreck on I-70 and we got stuck in traffic... forever. Here I am, thrilled about the situation. As soon as we made it to the next exit, like an hour later, I took it and trusted Garmin to find our way back to civilization. I believe that we detoured through Washington, PA, home of Washington and Jefferson College, which I think we may have drove by. There were very dark and twisty roads. I do not recommend going to this town when it's this icy out.

After the detour, the driver's side windshield washer fluid sprayer froze up and stopped working. Why is it that you can always see better out of the passenger side of the windshield than the driver's side? After a few terrifying minutes of driving while unable to see because there was salt all over my window, I finally found a place to pull over and try to remedy the problem. You'll see here that I do not manage to get the driver's windshield washer fluid sprayer to work, but it started to dry up outside and the window wasn't nearly as bad after that. Although, for a while I did think that I may have to time travel back to high school and spray a Windex bottle out of my window like I used to in the Mustang. (I had one on hand, just in case.) Days later it finally warmed up and I haven't had this problem since.

Also, we've reached Pennsylvania, home of Tasteykakes.

The reason for this trip was ultimately to go to the Madonna concert in Atlantic City. I drove to Atlantic City and saw her limousine on the way there. Here is the video proof.

I like musicals and when the drive was getting long, we usually opted to put something in that we could all sing along to. Wicked was one of my favorites, and a fun song to sing was What is This Feeling? Funny thing, I accidentally replaced Galinda's name with Belinda's name once and thereafter, anytime that song came on, it was about Belinda. This camera angle is from the dash just so you could enjoy the dash dirt and dash dog hair and the Garmin being all awesomely in the way.

I had a really hard time switching my camera between video and pictures. A really hard time. In fact, I have several videos just like this one (or shorter). But you're only getting to see this one. I can hear your "thank yous" already.

It was always fun to piss off Garmin or sit idly by as he went completely insane. This joy may only be appreciated by those in the car with him for four days... recalculating!

Brenda apparently loves Diet Coke. I don't even know why she was doing this. There was no reason. This is Brenda. If you have ever wondered exactly what her personality is, or what she is thinking, or how she behaves... This is the epitome of Brenda. Now you understand why we are such good friends.

This is also very Brenda-esque. Do not judge her. Spice up your life.

I was pretty excited about the time changes. Phones are super smart. Do not judge me.

I talked repeatedly about doing a Chinese Fire Drill (I know, but there is no politically correct term for this, and if the Chinese are going to get mad at me, they already did for my Summer Olympics blogs) the entire time we were on the trip. So, when we were nearly home, we decided that we better do it or be forever regretful. I thought it best to have the jumpy video of me running around the car instead of a stationary camera on the interior. Just so you know, the reason I am screaming as soon as I get out of the car and the reason I cannot stop laughing is because when I got out, I jumped in a giant puddle that made water cover my entire shoe. And it was very cold.

Surprise, it snowed again... and though I didn't have problems with my windshield washer fluid sprayer this time, my driver's side windshield wiper just about fell off my car. Man, those things are awfully tricky to get back on. Okay, they're impossible. The only reason I have a windshield wiper on my car is because Brenda played the hero.

So, those were the main highlights of the trip. I hope you can see why I agreed to drive instead of fly for this. It was really a pretty fun vacation all around. I thank my traveling companions for so much fun.


End Blog.

Riddle Me This

Q: How do you turn all of Kansas City's interstates into parking lots?

A: Put an inch of snow on the ground.

My evening commute that usually takes 20ish minutes took 1.5 hours tonight. Because of 1 inch of snow.

One.

I said it before, and I still stand by this fact: Kansas City drivers suck. I hate them.


End Blog.

Texas Car Inspection Road Trip

Every May I find myself driving to Texas to get my car inspected. As you know, it's an eight and a half hour drive which kinda drives me a little stir crazy after awhile. Like, oh, five or six hours in when I want to remove the state of Oklahoma from the United States and sink it in the ocean.

I thought I'd give you a quick recap of the trip, according to landmarks... because it's more fun that way.

Start from Kansas City.

There's the wee little city off in the distance of this picture. Bye Kansas City! See you in two days!

Here is the Paseo Bridge. Off to the left, you can see some cranes working on building the new bridge.

This is somewhere in southern Missouri. Missouri has roads that are named simply by letters. This town is the home of my initials. I imagine it is a magical place with unicorns.

Here is a McDonald's that is built over the turnpike. Seems like a completely normal place to put a McDonald's, don't you think?

This is a giant feathered Native American who greets you as you enter Big Cabin, Oklahoma. He is saying, "Thank you for paying that toll, sucker. If you'd like to lose more money for no good reason, I have built a casino for you right down the road."

This is also in Big Cabin, which, you can see is a very popular tourist location where all the NASCAR drivers go for vacation. There are more cops per capita than race cars. Although, that's probably true everywhere. At any rate, someone is really irate about receiving speeding tickets in Big Cabin. There are three of these trailers along the roadside. I took this picture as a representative sample of all three.

Then I pass a big giant lake in Eufaula. It is cleverly named Lake Eufaula. By this time in the journey, I have managed to kill one million bugs, just by moving my windshield through the air at high rates of speed. Some of them leave me with parting gifts that are yellow or red and gooey. At the gas station, I will scrub my little window clean again.

And then there's the Indian Nation Turnpike. I'm on this road for nearly 70 miles. In 70 miles, I saw 11 cars on my side of the road, and I passed every single one of them, just trying to get the hell out of Oklahoma.

This is where Jesus is buried. In Oklahoma. On the top of a hill. Don't drive into smoke.

This is a giant heifer. In a fence. I like to pretend he's made of paper mâché.

Here is a decapitated pilgrim. I think the feathered dude in Big Cabin may have done this, but I have no proof... yet.

This orchard in Texas is showing off its oranges and strawberries on the roadside. It's true that everything is bigger in Texas. Look at their produce!

Some time after this, I arrive at my parent's house which pulls me out of my delirium. Hooray! And, the car even passed its inspection and everything. Hooray times two!

Then, I drove home and saw all this stuff in the reverse order. Fascinating, I know.


End Blog.

Honeymoon

Since the Paseo Bridge Construction Project has started, my commute has been heaven. I can get to work in 18-20 minutes. Regularly. It's totally awesome.

I think that the majority of people have already started using alternative routes and there isn't so much construction going on during rush hours. They've promised to keep two lanes open during those times for all three years of the project. It's working really well. I have no idea what kind of actual construction they are doing, but I don't care. They've already made my commute better. Go MoDOT... or whoever it is that's out there.

I realize that this honeymoon period will someday come to an end, but I'm hoping for much later rather than sooner. I suppose we shall see... but for now, I don't have to get out of bed until 7am. And I like it.


End Blog.

Goodbye Paseo, Hello Christopher S. Bond

Road construction on the 29/35 interchange super "We're Gonna Make Nikki's Commute Hell for Three Years" project is starting on April 21st. They're going to start restriping lanes, putting up barriers/retaining walls, paving, and moving traffic all around. (I got all this information at http://kcicon.com/)


You see, MoDOT must have found out that I moved or something. When I first came here they decided to renovate the I-435 bridge over the Missouri River because they knew that's how I got to work. And, being the rockstar that I am, I suppose they wanted to make my commute super nice. However, they made it really annoying for quite a while during the construction phase of the project. But, sure enough, my commute was pretty great after they were done.

Well, since I moved, I don't use I-435 anymore. MoDOT must have found out. And so... being the rockstar that I am, I suppose they want to make my commute super nice... again. Project completion is set for summer of 2011. This is a much bigger project... And will be annoying for a much longer time. (Like a good three years.)

Plans are to widen the road to six lanes, build a new cable-stayed bridge (expandable to eight lanes and capable of accommodating a future bicycle/pedestrian facility) just east of the existing Paseo Bridge, and then tear down the Paseo. Apparently, it's going to look something like this:


I'm thrilled that this is happening. It really needs to because the roads just can't handle the traffic volume. I'm in traffic every morning for a very short amount of time. You see, traffic backs up long before I get on I-35, but I enter the road at the busiest spot: at I-35 and Armour 210. (Mostly to avoid the traffic beforehand.)

This is the first interchange they're going to reconstruct. My entrance ramp is closing on May 12 and won't open again until late summer. (The off ramp to 210 from 35 is staying closed for a full 12 months.) They have an alternate route set up, however, I think that the traffic will be horrible there and it may be impossible to merge onto I-35. We'll see. Oh, also, they're adding ANOTHER light on 210 for all of this. As if there weren't already enough lights on 210 right there. There's three in a row!

I might start driving down Route 9 into the city and getting on 71 south from there, although there's a ton of construction downtown right now, too. And they're offering that up as an alternate route, along with Antioch and Prather, which I currently use. So, no matter which way we slice it, Nikki's commute is going to be hell for the next three years. Hooray! Those MoDOT people should be really happy to know they're doing such a good job.

I guess I could always try getting on 35 right at Antioch and seeing what happens...

But really, what this all boils down to is that I'm going to have to start leaving my house before 7:30am. For three years. Which means getting up earlier. For over three years. Probably starting April 21st.

Siiiiiiiigh. It's hard enough already! This better be the coolest bridge, ever, when it's finished. And make my commute less than 20 minutes. At any time of the day. And it should change the speed limit to 65 mph.

And increase the resale value of my home.

Where IS my flying Jetsons car, anyway?


End Blog.