Final Opinions - Road Trip December 2008

I just completed a 3100 mile road trip, driving back with my dad or brother (depending upon which part of the trip I was on) from Indiana to Oregon. To summarize this, I could recite the details of the trip, with where I ate and what route I took and where I stayed. I won't though, however, even though I have it summarized in an excel spreadsheet (don't worry, its in a spreadsheet for legitimate reasons, its for processing for compensation). Instead, I will summarize my findings in a like / dislike manner. So here we go:

Like: Southern Routes Through the Midwest. I went through so many more reasonably sized cities (reasonable being Amarillo, TX or larger) going south than driving through the monotony of a South Dakota or a Nebraska.

Dislike: California Department of Transportation. I know they have a lot of miles of roadway to deal with, but I still don't think its an excuse to not have milemarkers on the highways. Milemarkers are what I depend on for highway driving.

Like: Taco Mayo. I had never heard of this before, but we found one in Perry, OK, and it was surprisingly good. We considered getting a tub of their tater tots, because they were quite possibly the best tots of all time.

Dislike: Morning Fog. Because of the fog on the second day of our drive, I have no idea what Kansas and northern Oklahoma look like beyond the right of way of the highway.

Like: Spontaneous Travel Plans. So we had a route all planned out, until I took the wrong east to west highway and didn't realize it until 70 miles in. It was really fun recalibrating the route, finding a new place to stay, and reconfiguring our time.

Dislike: Flight Cancellations. I think I don't even have to explain why I would put this kind of thing in a dislike pile.

Like: Farms with Trees Planted in Lines. This is especially fun when you find a line of sight that is not parallel to the main line direction that you can see along.

Dislike: Gallup, NM. Took an exit here to get some food, didn't realize I'd have to drive 10 miles on a mainly 20mph business route to get back to the highway. That tricky city fooled me.

Like: Being Back Home. Simply put, Oregon >> Indiana.

Introduction

So I've decided to re-enter this foray of blogging, its been quite a long time since I've done this. I was last, I believe, on Xanga back in '04. I wonder if that is still up yeah its still up.

So my blog title, well I am a newly graduated Structural Engineer, so the first part is pretty self explanatory, and the nonsense, well, my writing style lends itself toward going on random tangents that can make the paragraphs I write amount to pretty much nothing. But you'll come to realize that in future (provided I post on this frequently enough) postings.

So yah, enjoy. (Two final warnings, when I am writing spontaneously, I start 95% of my paragraphs with so. In addition, I tend to overutilize the parentheses).