Without trying, I somehow have landed in an suburb that appears to have been built, oh, this morning. I have never seen so many brand-spanking new upscale chain restaurants and other establishments. My goodness gracious! After a while it starts to seem like the upscale part of Springfield that the Simpsons would go visit. But let's backtrack.

I spent last night Mars, Pa., just outside of Pittsburgh. Traffic outside of DC was a nightmare (gee, maybe the leaving-on-a-Friday-afternoon-in-summer wasn't the best move), and it wasn't until almost Hagerstown that I felt like I had ditched the traffic. I didn't stop until I got to my motel--I've driven to Pittsburgh many times over the past 15 years, so that's a pretty easy trip.

The trip took a decided turn for the angst-ridden when I started unpacking and discovered that I left part of my laptop's power supply at home. GAAAAAACK!!!!!! Luckily I have two batteries, both fully charged, and Mom and Dad have a laptop in Sheridan, and since I also have my BlackBerry I can probably make it without recharging. But geez, what a doofus move. On the other hand, it gave me time to read, so I finally started Hard News by Seth Mnoonkin, which I've been carrying around for about three months.

This morning I was up at 6 am, and in the car by 6:15. (Yes, that's kind of early for me--as I walked out of the hotel I realized that it's been years since I've seen dew.) The Penna. Turnpike was nice and empty at that time, and it wasn't until around 7:30 that traffic began to pick up, and by that point I was at Cleveland.

The tunes were blaring and I was singing along like a madwoman (I saw a lot of snickering in other cars). I got a little sleepy at around 10:30 am, but a sausage McMuffin and a tub of Diet Coke got me moving again. I ran into a huge construction backup on I-80/94 in Chicago, but surprisingly it did a nice job of breaking up the monotony, and helped recharge me some more. Plus I had switched over to XM's comedy channel (150), and at one point nearly drove off the road in hysterics at a Robert Schimmel routine centering around wheelchairs that are operated by blowing into a straw. At one point I switched to the BBC World Service for some news, but instead they were broadcasting the latest Test Match from Lord's (!). I returned to the XL comedy channel, and was rewarded with one of my all-time favorite routines, Chris Rock's diatribe on blacks vs. niggers. ("It's the media!! Run!!!!!")

I got here to Des Moines right around 6:00 CDT, which gave me a driving day of about 750 miles and 13 hours (just like the old days of driving I-95 to Gainesville!) Dinner was at a chain restaurant called Culver's, which doesn't exist outside of the midwest, but which is known for its frozen custard and its "Butterburgers." Bill and I had just watched a documentary about hamburgers in America a few weeks back that included a section on butterburgers--the TV ones had about 3 oz of butter schmeared onto the bun, which sounds unbelievably disgusting, but when I saw Butterburgers advertised on Culver's sign, I knew Bill would be so proud of me for taking the plunge. Culver's doesn't use anywhere near that much butter, it's more that their buns are very buttery, but it was still very good.

And now I'm here, typing as fast as I can in order to conserve battery power. Plus my left wrist is in really bad shape (despite two days of hardly any typing!), so I will have to bring this to a close.

Non-anotated photos from yesterday and today are available for browsing at: (I think)