Day 2 & 3: the Plains


barber shop
We started heading into the plains today, from West Virginia to Illinois. West Virginia was unexpectedly beautiful- and then there’s this dread that things are going to get more boring. It’s not boring of course- just different. I have to get out of the car and the interstate and walk around more. I walked on a side road to an expressway, and found a funky residential neighborhood, that had some pre-chain businesses, and some old trees. At least in this area, there are no sidewalks, and I witnessed about 10 people running across an expressway. I can’t make big generalizations about Illinois vs. California because there are *plenty* of places in Silicon Valley with no sidewalks.

Thunderstorms are racing across the big skies here. Along this expressway, and thanks to my iPhone, I found a funky suburban artsy kid cafe hangout, and a girl there made me the strongest iced latte I’ve seen in a while. So I’m wired, which is nothing new.

Quotes from the kids:
“Water is life.” — Elliot. I can’t remember the context, but it cracked me up.
“Can wooley mammoths swim?” Elliot, no context whatsoever.

As you can see me & my 6-year old nephew spent some quality time discussing things in the 200 mile trip. From, what was going on in the other car, to the differences between wooley mammoths and elephants, to how many miles we had to go, in proportion to laps around a lake near his old house (52,000 laps), to how many minutes we had to go (a complex word problem), to inventing games.