Ames, IA at the AmericInn.

I think this is my new favorite motel chain. Butter churners in the lobby, a pool, wireless and a waffle maker. Doesn't get better than this.

We’re in the heartland and as much as I want to peel off all the Bush Cheney bumper stickers, and as bad as P. says the drivers are, I’ve found that people are really nice. The college students (this is our second college town stop in the Midwest, the first was in Nebraska) are really good looking in that ivory soap way with a touch of MTV around the edges. Wholesome really. And as much as it disturbs me, it attracts me. I want to be wholesome too.

We’ve been driving for two days now. We’re headed from Denver to La Crescent MN where P.’s sister has a farm. We’ll spend the weekend there. I’ve heard rumor that it’s cold there. Our recent drives have been uneventful. The skies have been grey and the landscape is bleak although a few minutes of sunshine every two hours gave us a glimpse of how beautiful it must be in the other three seasons. We’ve found that the best way to drive with Ila is to keep it to about five or six hours of driving time broken up by lunch. Keeping with bedtimes and mealtimes makes it hard to do much sightseeing, but I did experience my very first Applebee’s last night and feel the more American for it. (For the record, P. says I’ve been to an Applebee’s before, but that it was by no means the popular restaurant it is now. As always, on the cutting edge!)

We only have about 200 miles to cover today so we may try to fit in some sights. Thanks to Russ I've reviewed roadsideamerica.com and it's just a matter of choosing between the Spam or Hobo Museums or the Grotto of the Redemption.

And now to start catching you up on the early part of the trip…


Friday, November 3rd
San Francisco – The Ritz

Friday afternoon, November 3rd, we turned over keys to the new owner. Our bags were still lying all over the sidewalk and the impossible task of somehow squeezing it all into the car was ahead of us. There was no time to do a leisurely last walk through of our house of four years. The house where we brought home our brand new baby and all that good sentimental stuff, so I just had to suck it up. This was probably was for the best since I was already crying every five minutes as it was. Eventually we just shoved it all in the car, pulled into the neighbor’s driveway, left Ila with them and went into San Francisco for a night at the Ritz – a gift from the folks at Kokkari.

The Ritz was ritzy. We were treated to an impressive dinner heavy on the foam and gelee, were sir’ed and madam’ed to our hearts’ content and nearly didn’t make it out of the gigantic room with the coziest beds in town. We could hear the sound of the cable car cables under California street, wierd new age music played on the flat screen TV, there was chocolate… it was spectacular. But we pulled ourselves together and went by Kokkari for a last goodbye, most of which I spent crying in the park across the street as I thought back on our early days in SF, how much we’d miss our friends and all the things we were leaving behind. Afterwards, we took a walk around Nob Hill looking down on the city, remembering those early days together. It was a lovely night, a perfect San Francisco night. A good way to say goodbye.