James in Ammerst: 2010

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Road Trip to Roo: Day 2: Yellow Springs, OH to Grantville, KS

This house can talk!

If our car was smaller, I would have tried to drive underneath this thing

You are welcome, state.

Hello, new state.

Stay out of the NO-ZONE

At the worlds largest cross in Effingham, IL. I had the Ben Folds song 'Effington' in my head the whole day after this.

You could walk around the cross and listen to words of encouragement. It got old fast.

Not pictured: the awesome info center next to the cross that had some of the cleanest bathrooms of the whole trip

Truckers helped keep the Jesus theme going today

An hour after driving through Kansas City, we found a campground in Grantville, KS

It had a pool, but we got there a little too late

We explored the grounds; there were animals everywhere. Pictured above: nearly 15% of the cats on the property.

They also had a bunch of hungry looking goats..

...and some EVIL geese...

...and a HOSS or two!

So we made a campfire, looked at some stars, and fell asleep.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Road Trip to Roo: Day 1: Hadley, MA to Yellow Springs, OH

This week was crazy. It was a complete mad rush to try to get everything taken care of in time. Especially the whole "ups wouldn't deliver my $40 tent without a signature" experience.

We left just after 5am on Friday - Ive been sleeping horribly lately due to too much coffee in order to get everythig done. Oh well. Let us get this snow on the road.

On the road.

We stopped at a massive rest stop off the interstate.

For those who want to apply for

a job the same way one orders at the deli

Sooo much underwear for sale...

This was one of my favorite PC videogames and I was happy to see a pinball incarnation of it

A wall of pay phones; remember those?

There was also a whole shelf of skeleton themed toys and statues for those METAL truckers

I guess we were entering Amish country or something. Also there was a giant beehive inside.

I enjoy when other states lottery tickets are hilariously large. This one was a loser, however.

After that, we drove. And drove some more. The first phase in the plan of the trip is try to get out west as fast as possible. Yes, this will mean missing out on some interesting roadside attractions... For now.

If the south is the land of Jesus, then the Midwest is the land of steaks. Every 10 miles there is a giant billboard tempting you to eat a giagantic steak. For 11.99, why not? There is also a restaurant called "steak and shake" which honestly just sounds like a steak milkshake. Plenty of sonics out here too; which I am sure the locals take completely for granted.

One of the many, many, many road signs about Jesus

Outside Columbus, Ohio

After dinner, and going to dublin, oh to be be bombarded with the largest collection of strip malls that I have ever seen, we stopped to stay with my friend Hannah who lives in yellow springs. And there is a raptor center on the premesis. And by raptors, I mean birds. We got a tour of the place and got to see barn owls, vultures and a one winged bald eagle.
Following a campfire and some marshed mallows, we went to bed. Up by 7am was the plan.

An unsafe looking old barn

Small cave/waterfall

At the Glen Helen Raptor Center. It was just as cool as it sounded.

A one-winged bald eagle

It's yellow, I guess.

Nighttime at THE yellow spring!

Hannah punches the yellow spring

Turkey vulture!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Road Trip to Roo: Day -2

It's kind of sort of starting to sink in that this trip is actually happening. Artemis and I drove to bjs in Chicopee to load up on bulk food goodness. I will be eating a lot of granola and beans.

There is still way too much that I need to do tomorrow. Laundry. Seal the tent. Buy even more food and some somescream. Plus I decided to drive back to shrewsbury for the sole purpose of getting my dads gps. Because, unlike Artemis', it doesn't take 19 hours to get a gps signal. She is back in rowley now getting the car inspected. We also bought our national parks pass, which is way less cool looking than I imagined.

I was having a few problems with my iPhone. Bought an app called 'Roadside America'; which promised a complete database of bizzare roadside attractions, but it didn't like working on jailbroken phones at first.

We went on a giant food spree at BJ's wholesale club. They had a bunch of $250 blenders on sale, which was of course the basis of a South Park episode.