Day 4: Green, Blue

Drove 623 miles today. I feel like I could have did way more but, and this is 100% true, I swear. This will be my...fourth or fifth time on Interstate 70 which runs from somewhere in Utah to Maryland. You pick it up outside of St Louis and take it up to Ohio. For pretty much the whole trip I was on Interstate 40, and then 44 which both follow Rt. 66. I am now off Rt 66 as that heads due north as I go north east. The first time I was on this highway was in 2006 when I first drove across country by myself, the second time was when I drove with Jodie when she moved back to OK last summer, I was then on the road a month later by myself when I moved out to Los Angeles. There is nothing significant about the road aside from for whatever reason I enjoy Indiana with it’s huge bright blue sky and bright green grass blankets everywhere you look.



That first time driving across country I remember seeing a sign for a Nike/sneaker outlet. For whatever reason at one point, and I guess to some extent now, I hate stopping and going to places I don’t REALLY need to be. What a boring way to be that is. A sneaker outlet in the middle of the country though, sounded like a good idea but I had no idea how far off the highway it would be, and the sign advertising it on the highway is yellow so it could be one of those places like the t-shirt stores you see in places like Hampton Beach, NH, Virginia Beach, VA, blah blah blah beach, BL, etc. The second time going by that place was with Jodie. We had broken up and I was taking the drive back to help her move. We barely spoke that whole trip so I didn’t want to ask to stop when we drove by it. I remember spying it from underneath my sunglasses while she drove. Last summer when I moved to Los Angeles I pulled off the highway late at night and got a room in what would turn out to be Effingham, IL. The next morning while leaving the hotel I noticed the sneaker outlet from the billboards on the highway the other two times. It was right there, and open for business. I bought one pair of Adidas that I wore out for a while but have since put into semi-retirement.

I decided on this trip back to Massachusetts I wanted to do a couple of things. I usually like to have at least one or two “big stops” for this drive, or at least did those other two by myself. First year it was the Grand Canyon, but I also did Niagra Falls sort of last minute on the way out that first day. I also took a tour of the Indianapolis Speedway, which I am half thinking about visiting tomorrow since I’ll be driving by it an hour and a half into tomorrow’s drive. The following trip, when I moved I wanted to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and any baseball games. I saw the museum which was decidedly underwhelming. I saw an Indians game, a Royals game and drove through Colorado and Utah so that trip was worth it. Went to Vegas the last night which was okay. By myself in Las Vegas, a non-smoker and a reluctant drinker was kind of boring and depressing to me. I can’t imagine ever going there again unless it was with...nobody I can’t imagine it ever being that fun to me. So I wanted to see that Meteor Crater in Arizona, and hit this sneaker outlet again. I had absolutely no idea where it was though. I was looking for it hundreds of miles before where it ended up being. I was going to try and push myself to Indianapolis which is about an hour and a half from where I am. I got this motel, and lets just say if I could get on the roof of this building I could throw a baseball at the sneaker outlet. I stopped here kind of knowing it would be closed. I then realized there was no real reason to push myself. I was going to try and break my record from last time when I did the 720 miles in one day. There’s no reason to though so I decided to stop here for the night, 50ish more miles than I drove yesterday and now pretty much 2/3 of the way done. Now tomorrow when I check out I can WALK over to the place before I leave. This may be more exciting than that stupid hole in the ground I saw in Arizona.



A good amount of dead animals I have seen. But man, creepiest one I saw was this morning. Just a pit bull dead on the highway, looked like it happened like twelve seconds before. Maybe he was sleeping there and just looked dead? No. The day before on one side of the highway was a police car pulled over, and then fifty yards or so another police car pulled over. In the middle of the highway, on the grass were two pit bulls kind of circling each other ready to fight. Was just a bizarre scene on the side of the highway like THE MICHAEL VICK STORY DIRECTED BY JEAN-LUC GODARD, CINEMATOGRAPHY BY SOME DUDE WHO DID AN R.E.M. VIDEO ONCE.



Rest of drive today was all kind of business. I can’t get myself concentrating if anything even remotely shitty happens, or anything I have to think about. I would rather think about things I came up with if that makes any sense. I only took a handful of pictures today. I am going to post more when I have more energy. I would rather work on writing down things than showing pictures right now. Also I am just lazy and don’t feel like going through them all so shoot me.



When I think of how full of shit they all are, trying to sell me on ideas and stories I wouldn’t believe if I wrote them myself. How far away can I run? How many times have I myself just shrugged everything off. For fifteen minutes I thought I needed something and then realized it was a fake pitch to me and I almost fell for it again. I should know the type now, those hairdos and footwear and inability to look you in the eye during key parts of sentences. Watch them yourself next time. They look past you at important “big” words. Watching these types on the internet. It’s like if the internet was the same as it is now, but in 1992. i see people I know in real life with this, as well as secretly looking at people I am not supposed to be looking at. They all want to sell something to someone. How gross is it? It makes me wish only like six-hundred people knew about the internet. It makes me wish I never got into it as much as I have.

Yeah okay then.