Awol...

I am horrible at keeping up this blog.  Every time I think to write I decide that I don't have enough time to make a good post so I don't post at all...then when I finally decide to post it sucks anyway..such is life.

So I'm back in Jersey unexpectedly for Kyle's grandfather's wake and funeral.  He died on Monday after suffering for a long time and recently getting diagnosed with cancer.  I really never want to reach the point where people are waiting on me hand and foot.  I know no one wants that, but so many people end up doing that. It's hard enough for me now as I struggle to walk around to have people help me.  I rather do it on my own.  I'm tough--I tell you--tough!

So I haven't written in over 3 months...what to say...Well, for the last month, we took a trip through Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas and all the states in between.  We've been to Tennessee a bunch so nothing too eventful there.  Louisiana was cool.. We went to New Orleans and explored the voodoo culture and a couple other lesser known places that were neat. 

During our time in Alabama, we accidentally stopped in a town called Monroeville cuz Kyle got tired while driving.  This is the town where to Kill a Mockingbird was born and the town is still very proud of this.  We watched the skit about the book which was pretty cool.  We met Bill Harper who was related to Harper Lee.  The people in the town said that Harper Lee keeps to herself and lives in the town.  I'm realizing now that Harper Lee died in 2006 so I'm very confused... hmm... Harper Lee's ghost?  Anyway, it was a really cool experience.  Bill Harper ended up insisting that he put us up in a small hotel in town and we went to church with him the next day.  We met his wife and the entire church.  I'm never seen such a welcoming church.  So it was a pretty nice accident to run into this loving town.  The rest of Alabama is pretty much backwards trash...even Tuscaloosa where we found a dead dog skeleton in a garbage bag the last time we drove through the town.

Texas was somewhat uneventful.  The towns are ridiculously big..especially Houston which was filled with  Mexicans, cops and beggars.  The town is like the size of Jersey.  Nothing notable except for the Space Center which we mystery shopped.  Mystery shopping teaches you that everything is life should be free.. oh...ya I almost forgot...in Houston we found out second stray dog.  She is a mangy mutt and we called her piggy cuz she snorts and she's fat.  We proceeded to bring her--an unnamed unknown dog at the time--and Mongrel to Joel Osteen's mega church less than an hour after finding her.  You see...that's one benefit of having a disability.  I can train my own dogs and bam... now they are service dogs...  The picture to the right is Piggy!!

Joel Osteen's Palace of many people...16000...

Austin was a pretty cool town in itself, but the people there were like a bunch of homeschoolers.. extremely anti-social...except when they are drunk on the weekends.  While we were there.  We went to a dog park, the bridge were thousands of bats come out every night, a natural pool, and a beautiful mountain top.


Mongrel doing what she does best...hunting for squirrels...

 

1)  Streetcars in New Orleans

2) Cartoon me

3)Mongrel killing and eating a blue crab in the Bayous

4)St Johns cathedral in Lafayette, LA

5)Gator skins in the Bayous

6) Sleepy sisters

7)The Golden Ball for the World's Fair in Knoxville  

So I wish that was a more interesting blog post, but I guess I need to develop my writing style if I don't want to just write a chronological list of my travels... but I'll compensate by adding pictures (=

News flash:  Harper Lee is not dead... She is alive and still lives in Monroeville... I'm not sure what google was talking about saying she died in 2006...

So as the whole country watches the superbowl, I sit here writing my monthly post.  I find that incidentally I only have a chance to post once a month.  It's been an interesting month I suppose..  Shortly after the new year, I had a relationship ending fallout with my parents.. or at least my dad.. probably not something that I should be writing about.  For a couple week's I stayed with Kyle's family trying to get my health in order.  Something my parents didn't think Kyle was helping me with because you know.. the average 24 year old is willing to carry his girlfriend around because she can't walk or pushes her in a wheelchair..  it's been 3 1/2 years.. the infatuation is over...it's true love..That aside..

Shortly after the new year, I started taking the miracle cactus drink, Nopalea, you know you've seen those commercials about this miracle drinking.. I saw the commercial during a long, rundown night at the crazy house I used to work out...  Little did I know that it was a hardcore multi level marketing scheme... Well, truth is, I met an old lady in Arkansas at the Clinton Presidential Center who swore by the drink.  She told me that she told God to heal her or take her and then she saw the commercial for Nopalea so she thought it was her God-send.  Naturally, the placebo effect is going to kick it and the drink magically worked for her.  Well, if you know me at all, you know that I'm the anti-placebo.  If something works, it should work.  I shouldn't have to believe it in for it to work.  Lately, I've been wondering if I should change my mentality.  Start meditating...getting in touch with my "true self"...

So we just got back last night from another pretty cool trip... we came back for Kyle's dad's 50th.. We went to Churchill Downs...

 The Bourbon Trail...

 and the Creation Museum...looking young has it's benefits sometimes... it gets you into places for free if you just ask a simple question because you know...we're young so we must be poor... Score!  Gotta love living below the poverty level (=  Even our dog gets innovative with being poor.. one morning we found her licking the window cuz it was frosted.. talk about being deprived...

So as technology advances, I try to resist it more and more... course I have a blog so I guess I'm not resisting it that much.. they say I have to have a blog if I'm gonna be traveling the country when any decent human being our age is trying to get a real job... to hell with normalcy..
So on this trip, I learned that they use DC as a stomping ground for advancing the technology of creepiness.  Course they can already identify your face when you walk into a casino, but in DC now they track your license plates to see where you have been in the city.  The tracking device follows you around and watches your every move.  People try to say affairs are increasing because of facebook and other technology... Did anyone ever think that people are just getting more stupid about cheating?  Better watch who you text or what you look up when you're planning a murder...

jumbled up..

I never have any time to post... Between calling bankers and pretending to want a home loan... and giving massages to creepy men who want to know what my CRAZIEST massage stories are... the time runs short for posting.  Unlike Kyle, I have more important things to do.  That's why my version is the boring version... So for anyone reading Kyle's posts.. he decided to rename his site "Let's drive to America".  This week has been overrun with health problems and chaos.  On the last day of the year, I decided to give it to that gimmick called Nopalea so we'll see if that works.. if it ever gets here.  They said it would get here in 2-3 days.  It's been 4 and it hasn't even shipped!!  Anyway, a lady in Arkansas recommended the product to me... I've seen the commercial before but let's face it.. I thought it was a load of bs until this nice Arkansas women told me that she told God to cure her or take her and she saw this commercial so she thought it was God-ordained.  I'm pretty sure a multi-level marketing scheme isn't God-ordained, but hey, if it works I'll be happy.

So since I posted last, I spent my birthday in Kansas.. where we tried to find the Westboro Baptist Church... to our chagrin, these Baptists don't exactly take kindly to new comers.  We were greeted with upside down American and Gay Flags and signs that read God hates America.  The whole church building which was really the house of Fred Phelps and his family is surrounded by security cameras.  The next door neighbor told us that we were on camera and that they weren't going to let us in so after knocking a few times on the only door that wasn't guarded by an electric fence, we took a few pictures and seized the day elsewhere.

After driving through the flatlands of Kansas, visiting an abandoned missile silo that was the residence of William Pickard until the DEA got a hold of him and.. 90% of the world's LSD when Gordon Skinner decided to bail on his companions to avoid jail time back in 2000, we continued into Oklahoma, where we found.. nothing.

After that, we visited Arkansas.  Now I always thought Arkansas had nothing to offer, but I was sadly mistaken.  Bentonville, Arkansas is said to take over the world by 2015.  Ya... that's what they told me at the Walmart headquarters.  Moving on... Eureka Springs was a cool little hippy town with no Starbucks or Walmarts... I guess Walmart hasn't taken over yet.  In Eureka Springs, Kyle and I washed our hair in the magnetic springs.  The magnetic springs were said to heal ailments like arthritis if you strictly used the water that came from it... but it didn't do anything for me.  Granted, it was just a cold spring, not a real spring, but it was sufficient for washing our hair on an already cold night.  You see, Planet Fitness didn't tell us that there wouldn't be locations for 1000s of miles when we reached Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee, so we had to make do.

The next day we drove to Hot Springs, Arkansas.  In Hot Springs, at the very top of the mountain, we found a baby girl dog.  She was terrified of us.  We tried to give her food and she would run from us though she was more than willing to run under our car... After a little over half an hour, while we were squatted down on the ground trying to feed her, she came up slowly behind us and turned over on her back exposing herself.  We quickly learned that this is her solution for everything.  She's just waiting for that first un-neutered dog to impregnate her.

Anyway, we called her Mongrel because we didn't know what she was.  No one likes the name, but oh well, it is my first doggie and that is her name.  She is the best doggy ever except for the fact that she likes to run away and chase cars...two very bad combinations...

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.  In Memphis, we met a woman who has been occupying the Lorraine Motel for 23 years... Take that Occupy Walstreet!  In Nashville, we learned that Mongrel doesn't like beggars...or black people .. so we will now be safe sleeping in a car in the ghetto with Mongrel.  Not much else happened in Tennessee and after that we drove back home where I am currently residing now...

Until next time..

Trial One

This blog was created as a girlfriend site to wanderingbyways.blogspot.com...people call it a sister site, but I didn't think that applied.  I am creating a more refined and classy version of this aforementioned site (boring version).  I hope you enjoy my dull and uninteresting version of Kyle and my travels around America...and Canada.

Today I spent the day in Springfield, Ohio...again... I got here Saturday evening.  Ohio is what I used to call the most boring state in America.  Picture the most boring, emotionless, dull people and that's Ohio...Nah, it's not that bad.  On this visit to Ohio, I got to see my cousins..Josh and Dan...and  my uncle Rick...who I haven't seen since I was ten..and I got to stay with my cousins, Zeke and Riah.  It's been a lot of fun, a good addition to the travels, a new perspective on my previous opinion that middle America Ohio was the most lifeless place in the world.

Tomorrow the travels continue to Indiana, the land of our forefather, Bill Gothard and his cult following, ATI..