Arlington, MA to Kalamazoo, MI

On Tuesday, August 22 we set out from Boston at 7am on our cross-country drive to Los Angeles. Our stuff is already in storage in LA, and our new apartment awaits us. All that remains is to get ourselves there.

For our first day, we had our two cats, Norton and Princess Rockula, with us. They will be staying with my mom in Kalamazoo, Michigan until we get settled in LA. It was a long, hot drive with no A/C in our car; 14 1/2 hours in all. Norton was a Zen Master the whole way, though he did start to ask when it would be over near the end. Princess, however, freaked out. We ended up letting her out of her carrier. She explored the car a bit, and then made herself a bed wedged in between bags. She was much happier after that.

Not much to report on the scenery. We took 90 all the way to Cleveland, where we hooked up with 80 until Toledo. There we got 69 north (speed limit 70!) to 94 west. Nothing I hadn't seen before, having driven that general route a few times. I did think of my friend Dave R., who I haven't seen in years and years when we passed Rocky River, OH. Some childhood reminiscences of Cedar Point, that sort of thing.

With not much outside to entertain us, we turned to music. Two of our friends, Richard and Kristen, came through with road trip and East Coast/West Coast themed mixed CDs. Not only does our car lack A/C, but we also do not have a CD player. We rigged up Karl's CD walkman to the cassette deck, and were able to listen to Richard's "Super Driver" and Kristen's "East vs. West (Vol. I) before the batteries died. After that, I came up with the idea of state-based Ipod listening, such as playing songs with the state name in them, or playing bands from the state we're driving through. I didn't think of this til Pennsylvania, though, and couldn't think of any PA bands for the life of me. So, I focused on Ohio. CSNY's Ohio is an obvious choice, of course. And Devo, the Waitresses, the Pretenders. I wanted to play REM's "Cuyahoga", but it turns out we don't have that album on the Ipod. For Michigan, we went for the White Stripes.

We arrived safely in Kalamazoo at 9:30 pm last night, and spent today running errands and visiting with my family. Tonight we will take Karl to his first Root Beer Stand!

The camera was full, so no pics from our first two days. Hopefully I'll have illustrated posts from the rest of the road trip.