after 2 months of goodbye parties we are as fattened and polished with well-wishing and cookouts as any sacrificial virgin that ever got flung into a volcano and at 5 pm today we put on our asbestos panties took the plunge. as i write this we are passing the jeweled luminescent lego set of Chicago's night-time skyline after suffering through the moldy pancake that is northern indiana. with forty feet of diesel burnin' land yacht and tiff at the helm we could be the poster for "squeaky and the bandit." stella finally lost a long battle with consciousness and her cheeks are jiggling like santa's ass on a corrugated tin roof. neither tiff or i have been able to sum up our feelings very well at this point. i feel like we're half-way through a health club smoothie; it tastes a little nasty but it's probably good for us and for the price we're damn well gonna finish it. we're hoping to make it to madison wisconsin tonight and head west from there on the northern route. the last time i came this way was on a cross country honeymoon bicycle trip. now 10 years later and with fourteen thousand pounds more stuff (including 20 pounds of cheese-fed baby) i'm looking for the next thing, whatever that might be. between tiff and i, i'm sure we've had several hundred conversations with friends and family about why we're leaving and i think we've managed to come up with a different answer each time.

my turn to drive...