Now here’s something I’m curious about: New York has the ball drop and all, but what about the other time zones? Seems to be that Chicago should have a ball drop for the Central time zone, Denver for the Mountain time zone, and I suppose Seattle for the Pacific time zone. Don’t let New York get all the glory! I’d suggest more southern cities, but it seems that people have this idea that the holidays should be all gobbed up with snow, even though many parts of the US don’t see snow around the holidays at all. However, I’m open to a ball drop in .

We were there 2.5 days, whereupon I received stuff and ate stuff and hung out with Drew’s relations. We decided to split up the drive back into two parts, and ended up getting a motel room in Topeka after having eaten some incredibly delicious BBQ in Missouri earlier. I need to either make or get ahold of some St. Louis style BBQ sauce, as it’s really good. I’m a sucker for some sweet and smoky. We might have driven further that night, but at some point the roads got slushy, then icy, and it would have been a waste. It’s interesting to observe weather driving west. It was really cold in Nashville with no snow, bitterly cold in Topeka with bunches of snow, and the further west we drove across Kansas the warmer it got, and it’s gonna hit close to 50 in Denver today.

Incidentally, next time we’ve got this kind of distance to go, we’re gonna try to fly instead. Driving is fun if you aren’t really familiar with the route so much, but we’ve both seen the 430 mile stretch on I-70 across Kansas waaay more then we need to at this point.

And here’s a few thoughts on hotels. I like nicer hotels, but only if someone else is totally covering it. As Drew and I were splitting the tab, we stayed at a Motel 6. In terms of cheap hotels/motels, it often seems better to choose chains over non-chains. With non-chains it’s questionable as to how livable the room will actually end up being. However, it doesn’t matter much for that chain if whoever stays there thinks it sucks, as they’re just passing through and so repeat business isn’t too much of a concern. So, if they’re sheisty or lazy, they can get away with lower standards. However, staying at a chain place, there’s a possibility that you’ll continue to visit their other locations when you travel. Thus, the Motel 6 was as bare-bones as the price suggested, but had the benefit of being appropriately clean and not being sketchy.

We got back last night around 8:30, and Estha was super glad to see us. We now have giant piles of crap sitting everywhere which we should probably deal with at some point. Also, so much junk food. My goal is to not eat it all today. Incidentally, my New Year’s resolution is to not gain too much weight. Screw losing weight. And screw not gaining weight. I’ve accepted the fact that, every winter, I put on lbs. Conversely, every summer, I lose those lbs. All I want is to not gain so many lbs that my bras stop fitting, as that is a royal pain. Mind you, I’ve got summer bras and winter bras for this precise purpose, but when I start outgrowing the winter bras things start getting really pissy for me.

Anyhow, we scored a giant bag of miniature candy (kisses and teeny Reeses cups and such), which pleases the little Martha Stewart part of me as it means we have stuff to put in our candy dish for the next month or so. Incidentally, we decided that we’re gonna keep our Christmas tree and lights up until the beginning of February. See, I get depressed in the winter. I think the excitement of the holidays helps, but January is generally pretty bleak. So, I shall experiment with leaving bonus Xmas light cheer up, to see if that combats seasonal affective disorder type issues.

And on a final note, today is Drew’s and my 4 year anniversary, yay! Unfortunately, Drew is currently passed out in bed with whatever disease he picked up on this trip. We’ll be hitting the Macaroni Grill later for anniversary dinner, whereupon I will gorge myself on sea life and exciting beverages. Until then, I will hang out with Drupal and try to figure out what the heck to get Drew for our anniversary that he hasn’t already received over this long holiday season.

It was nice to see people and eat delicious Thai food Friday night, though in an ideal world we would have had more then just that evening for such things. Saw Carolyn & Todd’s house, which is magical and full of penguins. Spent the night at my parents’ place, got delicious Mexican for lunch the next day with both my & Drew’s parents plus Julie. Next, headed off to Charlie & Tara’s wedding, which was weddingtastic. Hung out with all sorts of OWP-related peoples at reception and ate/drank copious amounts of items (it is indeed possible for asparagus to taste really good, crazy!). Went to OWP Jason’s afterward for continued OWP-related socializing. Then, off to Drew’s dad & stepmom’s place in Chester for sleeps. Get moving truck from Budget the next day, move items from attic into said truck, eat copious amounts of delicious seared tuna. Head back to my parents place, sleep. Get up next day and move my items into truck. Eat bacon, load up on travel sandwiches and cookies, hug Mickey the pigeon goodbye.

We left around 11:00am or so, taking 64W. The trip is the same that we took back in July, except this time in a giant bouncy truck (well, if you consider 10′ “giant”) that costs about $50 to refill the tank. Anyhow, the drive through Virginia was one taken many times before, and the drive through West Virginia is absolutely gorgeous. Giant mountains everywhere! West Virginia is totally underrated. We go through Charleston, which looks like a fun place to visit. Then, the long drive through Kentucky, where we end up in Louisville at Drew’s aunt & uncle’s place around 10:00 pm or so. Stay the night there, eat breakfast biscuits, load up on travel sandwiches and cookies. We drive for forever and a half the next day, all the way to Kansas, going through Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. In St Louis we switched from I-64 to I-70. St Louis also looks like a fun place to visit, what with their fancy arch and all. The worst state for driving through, for me, was Missouri, it was just long highway and terrain not dissimilar to other long highways in VA/NC/OH. I wanted to make sure that last day of driving wasn’t Hell, so we pushed into Kansas, and stayed in Abilene at a cheap hotel, getting there about 11:00 or so. Or maybe 10:00 or so. Or possibly 12:00 or so. Our truck was on Mountain time the entire trip, my watch was on Central time, but my head was on Eastern time because I kept getting sleepy entirely too early. This continues, as for some bizarre reason I am typing this post at 7:30 am, and it’s not from staying up all night!

Anyhow, we left at 11:00 the next day, driving the long haul through Kansas. Almost all of this drive through Kansas is farmland. The first 1/3 or so is full of lots of rolling hills, and it’s really pretty. The rest is really flat. Everyone seems to complain about it being really flat, but I never really got tired of it. I kept looking around and being all like “Wow, it’s really flat!” This fascinated me until we hit Colorado and I started getting antsy for mountains. Also, it was super windy, and tumbleweeds kept flying across the road. As you move across Kansas, it also goes from “hey, it’s pretty green and farmy here” to “Hey, it’s drier, but still farmy here, just with more cattle” to “gee, it’s kinda brown!” and mostly ranches/farms with cattle/horses. Oh, and there are giant wind turbines at one point along the highway, which are really neat to see. I took pictures, and if I find any ambition whatsoever, I’ll try to post them at some point.

So we get into Colo Spgs around 7:00, making good time, eat chicken, and decide to sleep at Pam’s place for the night and drive the truck up the next day, to give Estha the cat one more day of sanity (she was staying with Pam for the week we were traveling). We’ve spent the last two days locating furniture, and today we get to take the truck back. The furniture has been an adventure in itself, and I shall post more when I have more ambition.