On the Road (minus Sal Paradise)

I found this letter I wrote to a friend a few days after I moved to California. Sort of fun to read in hindsight...


Hey Rob,

Heard about the good news on your front...just wanted to say
congratulations for becoming Director Rob or in some circles "Don
Roberto". I had one hell of a road trip out to LA. I left on sunday
and basically drove like 800 miles a day for four days straight and
today is officially my first day of work, so needless to say I am
really tired. Most of the highlights of my trip came after I left
Chicago and started heading south through the hinterland and
southwest. It got really exciting around central Missouri as I was
cruising down the road and saw a nice mix of billboards that just said
"JESUS" in enormous letters and then others that said things like
"Meramac Caverns- 28 Different Flavors of Ice Cream", "Meramac
Caverns- Worlds rarest cave formation", "Meramac Caverns- Natural 7
story Cave" and finally "Meramac Caverns- Turn Around, you missed
us!". At that point, I was pretty excited my tires hadn't been shot
out from under me and I hadn't be conned into joining a cult. When I
finally got to Tulsa, I felt really compelled to make the experience
as "American" as possible, so I forced my friend to go with me to a
local Applebees (because I heard that was really popular for like a
friday night 'out' in a hillbilly heaven). I elected to go for the
three course dinner offered for $9.99 and reflected this to my server
Angela, who suggested the Chocolate Mousse was "excellent", so I took
her word for it. All I can say about that whole excursion is I feel a
lot more American, I am aware of the existence of an unsettling number
of lemonade flavors and I have a newfound belief in eatin good in the
neighborhood. After that, I decided that Oklahoma was really the most
boring state in the country...that is until I got to North Texas. Let
me just note that up until this point of the trip, I felt I had pretty
much "tackled" all of the states I had driven through...but that was
all before I crossed the eastern border of Texas. All I can say is
North Texas completely whooped my as$ (censored for barcap). As we
were driving, I kept seeing signs advertising a 72 oz steak eating
challenge at the Big Texas Steak Ranch outside of Amarillo, so even
though I wasnt especially hungry, I figured I had to try. When I
finally got there, I was pleasantly suprised to find a really
hilariously themed extravanganza complete with real texans and a nice
old southwest design. I got seated at a table in the corner and when
my gay cowboy waiter "Ward" arrived and I told him I wanted to attempt
the challenge, he placed me on an elevated table with a cowskin table
cloth and a big clock with the 60 min countdown right next to it. He
explained that I had to eat the 72 oz steak, a side of fried shrimp, a
salad, a roll and a baked potato in an hour to complete the
challenge...and, oh yeah, i had to sign off on the fact that people
could come and take pictures of me...which was fine I guess, because
now I know how it would have felt to have been the lady with the beard
at a traveling circus back in the glory days of side shows and such.
After failing the challenge miserably and throwing up aggressively in
the toilet, I needed to get back on the road for my final 250 or so
miles to Albuquerque where I slept in an econolodge and had a
tremendous late night dining experience at Waffle House. At this
point, my sentiment went something like this...so Pennslyvania and
Ohio sort of suck, Indiana is just a scary place where I might be
unfortunate enough to see David Duke in a Flying J, Missouri is the
home of Jesus Freaks, Oklahoma is where Andrew Jackson forced the
indians (and now I understand why no one else wanted it), and North
Texas just worked me like the new guy in a prison shower. After
Albuquerque, I started going about a million miles an hour until I
started seeing signs for the "Petrified National Park" which for some
reason I got compelled to go to. I'll summarize that experience in
one sentence...It was sort of like being on the moon, but with
gravity. (and also, I filled up my gas there and when I went in to
pay, the lady asked how much I pumped...hadn't heard that in a while).
Beyond that, I got back on the road and had a pretty uneventful trip
to LA. In any case, sorry for the long summary...I started this email
with only the intention of saying congratulations...just got a little
carried away.

Charlie