gone to look for america

disclaimer: the following photo-journey contains photographs of nauvoo, il.  readers who may find such images uncomfortable are advised to proceed with discretion.

given that some of my writings of the great cross-country trek were a little long and given that some readers here a) have offspring tugging for their attention near-constantly, b) may be illiterate, and c) just might not like me enough to bother reading whatever it is i write, i have chosen to put up a whole buncha pictures from the trip with brief captions.  because, in light of the a) through c) possibilities, there's also d) i just had a lot more that i wanted to show.

here's what we did:

day 0: the pre-show

here we are, together at one edge of the continent.
in four days, we'll be at the other side.
....provided we don't get abducted by aliens in nevada.
(the sun is in my eyes.)

my feet, the atlantic.

i think we were all a little sad that jess was
going the other direction--across the
atlantic--rather than with us.  still,
it was great to see her before she left.

day 1: A to C

so this is what new jersey looks like....

counting the cars on the [pennsylvania] turnpike...

this is one of my regrets of the trip: how boss would it
have been to have a picture of every "welcome to
[this state]" sign that we passed?  very.
lamely, i'd usually forget about it until we were almost
there.  as a result, this is one of my better shots....

i had a red door, God has a green door.

jaime, master of the self-portaits.

hello, cleveland!

 day 2: C to E

legit typography

by comparison, this is very modern nauvoo....

any place that looks like this just HAS to be good.
...except that they were closed, so we ate down the street.
still, seriously awesome marquee...

no ruby red squirt here.

o-ma-ha!

day 3: E to F

it's a museum built OVER the interstate.
even if it's lame inside, it's still awesome...

truck stop technology: you choose the
ice cream and the thickness, the
machine makes you a milkshake.
what more could you want?

how about a whole chicken?
thank you, bro-tisserie.

"potter," as in "harry potter."
we also saw signs for "jack (something)", "jeffrey lake,"
"peterson", and i think there may have been a "caleb"
and a "jessica" in there somewhere, too.

ok, wyoming, you're prettier than i remember.
the fact that you aren't a snow-blown death
trap helps, too.

I-80, the third member of our journey.

day 4: F to G

jaime, walking on water.

mexican "death star valley"?

A to G.
not counting the additional two hours to the pacific.

it was an amazing trip already, but let's
drive across the golden gate bridge,
just for good measure.

we made it!! coast to coast!!

my feet, the pacific.

the reality: it was absolutely freezing out there!!
i think it was around 50 degrees out.

somewhere out there is the house from "full house,"
and one day i'll see it.

did you know san francisco had a place
like this?  i didn't.  i just recently saw this
in a clip from hitchcock's "vertigo":
jimmy stewart walked where i walked.
yeah.

the sacramento temple.  : )

the parting of the fellowship at
the phoenix airport.

so, check off yet another thing i completely wasn't expecting when i said that i looked forward to the unknown adventures of 2011.