Nice Work If You Can Get It: Day One (and Two) at St. Louis University

"Opening" from Songs For A New World (music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown)

A new world calls across the ocean
A new world calls across the sky
A new world whispers in the shadows
Time to fly, time to fly

It's about one moment
The moment before it all becomes clear
And in that one moment
You start to believe there's nothing to fear
It's about one second
And just when you're on the verge of success
The sky starts to change
And the wind starts to blow
And you're suddenly a stranger
There's no explaining where you stand
And you didn't know
That you sometimes have to go
‘Round an unexpected bend
And the road will end
In a new world

A new world calls for me to follow
A new world waits for my reply
A new world holds me to a promise
Standing by, standing by

It's about one moment
That moment you think you know where you stand
And in that one moment
The things that you're sure of slip from your hand
And you've got one second
To try to be clear, to try to stand tall
But nothing's the same
And the wind starts to blow
And you're suddenly a stranger
In some completely different land
And you thought you knew
But you didn't have a clue
That the surface sometimes cracks
To reveal the tracks
To a new world

You have a house in the hills
You have a job on the coast
You find a lover you're sure you believe in
You've got a pool in the back
You get to the part of your life
You hold the ring in your hand

But then the earthquake hits
And the bank closes in
Then you realize you didn't know anything
Nobody told you the best way to steer
When the wind starts to blow

And you're suddenly a stranger (All of a sudden)
You life is different than you planned
And you'll have to stay ‘til you somehow find a way
To be sure of what will be
Then you might be free

A new world crashes down like thunder
A new world charging through the air
A new world just beyond the mountain
Waiting there, waiting there

A new world shattering the silence
There's a new world I'm afraid to see
A new world louder every moment
Come to me, come to me

* * * * *

That's the opening number from one of my favorite musicals, and this song was one that I played on "repeat" several times during the last leg of my drive to St. Louis. The sentiment of being on the edge of a new horizon and facing a change in life almost caught me by surprise (I had just about forgotten that this unique abstract musical is really a revue of songs that are constructed around this theme and not a traditional song-and-dance show with a central plot). But the driving melody and dynamic boldness of this opening song hooked me once more and I was captivated by its message all over again. It seemed so fitting for the road that literally lies ahead of me.

The excitement and anticipation of starting my new job overwhelmed the inevitable exhaustion of the drive out here, so I had a fairly late and restless night on Sunday, December 5. But the morning came, along with a very low cold snap in the weather with the morning news forecasting a high of 40 degrees for the week and wind chill dips as low as single digits. (Throughout the day, friends in California and coworkers here in St. Louis had to keep asking me if I was OK, and despite the blood-thinning that must come with 13+ years in California, the cold and dry winter air felt seasonally refreshing, and the New Yorker in me knew how to dress snugly in it.)

So on a rather dark Monday morning, I started my job on December 6, 2010 with the required benefits orientation workshop in Human Resources, the employment and tax forms, and the walk-through of many required forms. The benefits workshop woke me up fully with a pot of coffee available in a building that had a malfunctioning heater (so we had no heat in an icebox of a training room for two hours) and the review of topics included the Accidental Death & Dismemberment coverage. Lovely: premiums that pay out in case of loss of hands or feet or other senses or body parts. Good morning; Welcome to SLU!

That morning, I also got my official staff ID (including handy ID card holder that is supposed to be clipped and worn visibly by all employees at all time), paid for my parking permit (which will be necessary when I can no longer walk to the office), and then a very welcome lunch break with my new AVP colleague. Then it was two back-to-back two-hour meetings: one on policies and one with my new supervisor. After 10 hours, the first day was over and I came home to essentially crash.

First day at SLU (shirt by Mona Lucero)!

Day 2 started with another cold morning. Forecasted high for the day was 35, and it was 16-19 degrees outside on the walk to the office. The weather report used a term that I had not heard before: "deceptive sunshine" so apparently St. Louis was being reminded that it can be very cold and sunny at the same time. The second day at work gave me more meetings that were 2+ hours long, more meetings with staff members, two student events (back-to-back holiday receptions at the end of the day), and even my first "heads up" alert from a direct report to notify me that the media had been on campus to run a news story about some thefts that had occurred on campus. At the second campus event I attended, I was casually introduced to several other faculty and staff members, and not once but twice I was asked, "So what year are you?" Since a big birthday (one for an age that ends with a zero) is coming up, I thought to myself, I'll accept that assumption that I'm a student as a compliment for sure! (And I guess I need to hang out at holiday social events on campus more often to get that kind of stroke to my ego.) After an 11-hour day, I headed home and crashed again.

Soon I will have my first "hump day" at work, then my first TGIF, and a very welcome first weekend break from work. So things are off and running and it all feels right. That's the happy report from here for now.

Welcome Home: The SFO > STL Roadtrip Move, Day 5

Late Post for Sunday, December 5, 2010.

Total miles = 2,034. Having driven across approximately 70% the width of the North American continent, I arrived in St. Louis, MO last night.

Because of the quick start date to my new job, the past several days and couple of weeks seemed to go by at a dizzying pace. I'm being put up in transitional housing by the university, which is a great relief. This fast move would not have been possible without that support. I called the campus administrator on duty for the week when I was close to St. Louis (about 100 miles west of the city, filling up the gas tank one final time in Kingdom City, MO), and she planned to give me my apartment key and help orient me to parking and the building. She met me and I parked in the underground garage of the two-story apartment building that is owned by a private company that could not rent all the units, so the university partnered with it to put upperclass and graduate students in here as an off-campus housing option. "Off-Campus" meaning it is literally across the street from the southern edge of the main campus, so it is very conveniently located and I am walking distance to work. The apartment I am in was the space used as the "model"/"showcase" apartment to recruit students to live here (which you will see was not a very hard sell). So this will be a good place to settle in a bit (with just a few weeks' worth of stuff) and take some good time to look for a permanent address.

I've already posted the cute door tag that welcomed me on the front door of the apartment (see yesterday's blog post). Now let me show you inside the door (the whole place reminded me of the clean and colorful mid-century modern designs of Palm Springs)...

Bedroom #1: bed was fully made up just in case I didn't have any bedding with me (or in case I was too tired to make the bed, which was the case with me); working clock radio, dresser behind the desk table, and even a very cool pre-installed wall-mounted hanging magazine rack.

Bathroom (with a towel, just in case).

Bedroom #2: with minimal bedding in case I wanted to use my own.

Closets are smartly designed with pre-installed organizer units (Bedroom #1 has gray fabric curtains that slide on a thin line to cover the closet). Bedroom #2 had a cool pre-installed wall-mounted invisible shelf for books above the desk.

Even a working iPod docking stereo station (Bedroom #2) and a combination pushpin/magnet board.

Full kitchen (electric range, dishwasher, microwave, and a "disposal in the sink" - lyric from "Somewhere That's Green" from the musical Little Shop Of Horrors): refrigerator was stocked with beverages, freezer had two vegetarian frozen pizzas, and the tote bag on the countertop had some assorted snacks and treats for me.

A SLU totebag with teas, cookies, granola bars, and an assortment of oatmeal.

Cafe seating area right by the kitchen.

Living room: the use of carpet remnant squares on top of the gray commercial carpet was a very nice pop of color (yes, the chair and couch are black "leather").

Every apartment in this building has a wall-mounted flat screen TV - not surprisingly, the university was able to fill it with students!

An assortment of local reading materials (magazines, entertainment guides, SLU newspaper) was laid out for me on the coffee table. (I felt like Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada: "That's all...")

A great notebook that I am using for my first weeks of meeting notes, SLU drinking cups, pens, highlighters, keychains, sticky notes, notepads, and magnet-backed grocery shopping list pads.

Another totebag with a polo shirt and a T-shirt, courtesy of Housing and Residence Life. (The note explaining the contents is tucked into a front pocket and is addressed to "Dr. Ray!")

Coffee table even had a poinsettia and some votive holders.

Side table in the living room: the street address of this building is "374."

As I prepared to go to bed early for my first day of work in four months, I felt restless with anticipation and excitement. I hope many great adventures await me, and I'm sure I will be challenged in this job, and maybe I will challenge others back (in a good way). I recalled something I saw on that long stretch of my drive through Kansas: I noticed that the jet airplanes high overhead seemed to be following each other's contrails. I guess that makes sense: air traffic control and flight paths must all have designated routes to follow (weather permitting). So I wondered about my career in this context: whose trail would I be following if this job had never existed before? Even though my position at St. Louis University is a newly created one, I know I am indebted to all those who have taught and mentored me, and I hope I will always leave some brand new trails of my own wherever I go.

After unpacking the car Sunday morning, I went to meet my friend Melanie (who was gracious enough to receive the boxes I had shipped ahead of time). I got my boxes, we unloaded at the apartment, and then Melanie took me to a great brunch place downtown where we enjoyed savory crepes and lots of hot coffee!

Melanie's home (practically "down the street" from SLU and my temporary apartment).

Mittens Jersey, Melanie's cat (ah-choo!).

Brunch at Rooster: goat cheese and veggie crepe with a creamy tomato aioli sauce, coffee, and very spicy breakfast potatoes!

Off to post-brunch shopping (probably not since grad school in Vermont in 1993 has a winter photo like this been possible)!

After our Sunday brunch, Melanie took me to some stores and we shopped for groceries and some other essentials I needed to live in my temporary apartment for a while (and we completed some of her shopping errands too). (Yes, Tim and Margot - surprise, surprise: a day with Melanie that involved shopping - shocking!)

Perhaps prophetically, just over 12 hours before this Sunday started, one of the first place names I noticed after the Kansas-Missouri state border was "Raytown, MO." Well, I'm Ray. This is my town now. Hello, Missouri. Thank you for welcoming me. I'm happy to be home.

Mile-High Mountain (Dew) Stop: The SFO > STL Roadtrip Move, Day 3

Apologies for late post #1: the last two days of this trip have been packed full so I've had no time or energy for the same-day blogging I had hoped to achieve on this trip. I hope to make up for it somehow. And if I don't, oh well.

Friday, December 3 started with a very restless sleep, and a long morning getting ready to hit the road. Maybe chilly morning air kept me from moving quickly. Maybe it was the allure of the breakfast danish and coffee conversation with the Polish immigrant woman proprietor of the Gas Lite Motel that kept me from driving out in a rush. Or maybe it was the crazy fake wildlife that had me hunkered down in my shelter-in-place mode.

Elk (braying) by my parking space

I guess I wasn't hallucinating last night: the motel is still inexplicably spelled "Lite" (is it low calorie?) in the morning light.

Hanging outside the second floor rooms. No that's not the proprietor. But if this is the saloon town I'm in, then I'm outta here!

I think that's an eagle on top of a bear with a freshly caught salmon: a totem to carnivores, outside the room of a vegetarian.

I credit the wolf with guarding my car and the entire parking lot last night.

I can't decide if the swimming pool bear is cite or scary - votes?

So I fueled up the car at the Laramie, WY Safeway (I skipped the very cheap gas advertised at the "Kum-N-Go" station - no commentary needed - and who knew that my grocery club card could save me $0.03 per gallon?), I took my Gas Lite Motel-recommended route to Denver, bypassing Cheyenne, WY (not to be confused with bypassing Cheyenne Jackson, which I would never do) and cutting about 45 minutes off the driving time of what would be the least amount of driving I would do in one day during this whole trip. It was the 287 South to the I-25 to the I-70. More "Strong Winds" and "Pass With Caution" signs peppered the route, along with the occasional horse ranches.

Cold winter clouds in the WY morning.

Strong winds allowing bright winter sun to peek through.

Hello, Colorado!

Red Mountain Granite Canyon, CO

CO landscape: lots of "Falling Rocks" signs along the route too!

These twin rock formations in CO can't possibly be natural, right?

Green locomotive pushing one coal car through a traffic intersection in Fort Collins, CO: definitely not the Hogwarts Express!

Having passed signs for the Ever Open Cafe (Fort Collins, CO), a "Large Goose Contest," multiple Cracker Barrel restaurants, multiple shooting ranges and "Guns, Guns, Guns" (for sale), and assorted shrapnel on the road (tire treads, railroad ties, assorted lumber, PVC pipes - all fallen victims to the wind gusts, perhaps), it was a rather welcome experience to hit new maximum speeds of 15 MPH through road construction in the surface streets of Denver, CO. My sister, Ana-Liza, moved to the Mile-High City of Denver with her job at Pepsi (makers of Mountain Dew) in June so the brief visit also helped re-energize my spirit about facing changes in life with a good attitude.

After parking, Ana-Liza's cockapoo, Lincoln meets me at the door and here he is (between tail wags and jumps on me).

Aw, cute! Lincoln and my sister.

A very welcome "real meal" not eaten on the road: Denver Biscuit Company's biscuit with a fried egg and cheese, smothered in vegetarian mushroom gravy.

After the quick lunch break, I took advantage of my sister's free and secure WiFi to get some work done on the computer, including uploading the Day 2 blog post. Sadly, there was no time for a nap, but that didn't stop Lincoln:

A dog's life is hard!

Ana-Liza and I ventured over to the western side of the city, and one or two wrong turns later, we ended up at the store of our friend, Mona Lucero. 

Mona Lucero Design Boutique (2544 15th Street; Denver, CO 80211): amazing stuff here, so go check it out and support a super-talented designer friend!

Even Mona's store logo and the label tags on her designs are cool!

Window displays are warm, fun, and inviting.

Here's Mona at work: fitting and styling a model for an upcoming in-store fashion show event. (Yes, I felt very "Project Runway"/"America's Next Top Model" by witnessing all of this first-hand!)

Mona graciously took time out from her crazy workday to hang out a bit.

The kitty guardian of the store: Vincent Lucero, the cat that acts like a puppy (ah-choo!).

After checking out the boutique and scoring a one-of-a-kind find, Ana-Liza and I headed over to Root Down, a fantastic nearby restaurant. We were about to play hosts to two consecutive "Parties of 4" and I think the house staff at the place were even impressed!

"Little" Brother and "Older" Sister happy at Happy Hour

Root Down is an earthy and sustainable restaurant that used to be a greasy service station and approximately 70% of the entire place was built and furnished with reclaimed, reused, and recycled materials. For this business model and professional commitment to valuable philosophy, this restaurant deserves your support! (These scales decorated the restrooms.)

Party #1: Arlene Rapal (Ana-Liza's friend from Michigan State), me, sis, Alvin Cruz (visiting Arlene from San Diego, CA). Yes, that's four Filipinos in one place in Denver, CO. No, lightning did not strike, the earth did not swallow us whole, and the world did not end. How about that?

Party #2: Sis, Mona Lucero, me, Don Grant (Mona's buddy and hair stylist, whom I had met when they recently visited San Francisco - go support him at Hair On Earth: 2557 W 46th Ave; Denver, CO 80211)

The short day was packed full with a lot of fun stories, good laughs, decent food and drinks, it was time to head right to bed and prepare for a long day of driving in Day 4 of the journey. Good night from one mile up in the Mountain Time Zone!

Bag at Mona Lucero Design Boutique

Day 3 Fact File:
Starting Mileage: 80,109
Average Miles Per Gallon: 28.03
Visible Roadkills: 0 (maybe the cold mountain air quickly freeze dries the animals?)
Places Passed: Rawhide Road, WY; Tie Siding, WY; Red Mountain Granite Canyon, CO; Cherokee Park, CO; Owl Canyon, CO; Poudre Canyon, CO; Gateway Bridge, CO; Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO.
Soundtrack: Jason Gray, “Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue” (deluxe edition); Kris Allen, "Kris Allen;" Esmee Denters, "Outta Here."

East With The Day: The SFO > STL Roadtrip Move, Day 2

After fueling up with a quick breakfast and a lot of coffee, I said goodbye to Wells, NV and continued my trip east. But first I noticed a reminder of where I had come from (courtesy of the Super 8 Motel), and kicked snow off my boots (good practice for my future destinations). Today was a long day of winding passages through mountains, and high winds through rocky northern plains.

Super 8 Motel in Wells, NV with soap from San Francisco, CA

410 miles or so and I was safely through the state of Nevada, and entered the “Elevated State” of Utah and the Mountain Time Zone, which meant I lost another hour of daylight driving time. Before I left Wells, NV, I had checked my Facebook messages and was really humbled by the private messages I had received congratulating me on this move, many from friends who were surprised at the news and certainly with my speedy departure from the Bay Area. (I reflected on those people and their words through most of the day’s drive, and ended the day's reflections too - keep reading.)

I checked the maps and made a plan to try to get to Cheyenne, WY, or maybe even Denver, CO and stay there for a few nights with my sister, Ana-Liza, in her new hometown. I stopped at a rest area just east of the NV-UT border because of the unusual structural design I noticed from I-80: something reminded me of the futurist style of Eero Saarinen’s airport terminal at JFK.

Utah rest area

The orange glossy glazed bricks of the restroom made me miss the dry air heated restrooms at the Nevada rest areas, and the bristlecone pines and an actual pay phone (remember those?) gave the rest stop an historic feel. Stopping to check out the signs there hinted at the unusual design: I was at the Bonneville Salt Flats, where land speed records had been set on the famed “Measured Mile” track. There was even a viewing platform looking out at the test area lakebed. (But I wondered, “Who really drives to a rest area to watch a land speed record being set? Wouldn’t there be a special area set up just for that?” - OK, I’m no expert in land speed records, so that shows you how little I know!) This was also the site of (or near the location of) the first transcontinental telephone line (although my wavering signal bars suggested that cellular reception might be transcontintentally spotty).

Bonneville Salt Flats (rest area)

Bonneville Salt Flats (rest area)

Viewing Platform

View from the Platform (of the Measured Mile speed test area)

View of the sloping walkway ramp to the platform

Historic marker: first transcontinental telephone line: "Can you hear me now?"

The long drive through Utah and Wyoming would bring me past more dramatically different landscapes, interesting place names, and interesting road signs.

Salt flats

Reflections in the salt flats (wet)

No reflections in salt flats (frozen)

More salt flats [recommended reading: Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky]

Wildlife seemed sparse in this region that followed the historic Pony Express Route, moving past places like the Echo Reservoir, Castle Rock, Blacks Fork River, Flaming Gorge, Pilot Butte Avenue, Point of Rocks, Patrick Draw Road (Who is Patrick and does he only draw roads?), Table Rock Road, Red Desert, Carbon County, a Frontier Prison, the Medicine Bow River, and I even crossed over the Continental Divide not once, but twice (check a map for the explanation to that one).

Freight Train (one of 7 seen today) crossing the UT salt flats (this wintry scene made me think of "The X Files" alien mythology - where are those unmarked gray tanker railcars?)

Leaving UT

Echo Reservoir, UT

Red Bluffs in WY

Plateau in WY

Buttes in WY

Clouds in WY (made me think of a tortoise shell)

My trusty Honda making its way through WY

The rare animals included cows, cows + rs (those would be crows), deer (including one dead by the side of the road, surrounded by aforementioned crows), and black-billed magpies with their long tail feathers slicing through the cool air. The road signs included: “Masonic Families of Utah” (the name of my former street address in San Francisco was “Masonic Avenue”); “House of Blinds and Curtains” (billboard showed a cartoon mouse with giant oversized glasses - way to be culturally competent and sensitive to the blind and visually impaired, South Salt Lake City); “Frequent Wildlife Crossings;” “High Wind Advisory;” “High Wind Warning: Gusts 55+ MPH;” “Danger: 6% Grade;” “Next Rest Area 102 miles” (Yikes - pull over now!); Tex’s Travel Camp (my first nickname in college was “Tex”); “Chinese American Restaurant: next exit” (how is that different from “Chinese” food, exactly - are the dishes made with SlimJims and Funyuns?); “Eat It Up in Lusk, WY” (I chose not to stay at that Best Western, for sure!).

I lost count of all the fireworks signs in Wyoming. “Phantom Fireworks,” “Pyro City,” “Fireworks World,” “Fireworks Outlet,” “Fireworks Barn,” and even “Fireworks Blowout Sale - Buy One Get One Free!” Is this state world renowned for pyrotechnics (or pyrotechnics sales)? How did I not know that? The next time PBS does an all-day broadcast on July 4 showcasing celebrations around the country, Cheyenne, Wyoming better bring it. I’m jus' sayin’! If you are done with fireworks, there is also Romantix in WY (billboard described this as an “Intimates Boutique” with clothing and toys for sale...um...) and a place that looked like a dilapidated gas station just off the freeway with a lone sign that said, “ADULT - WY” and “Trucks Welcome”  (also: um...)

Yeah, I passed on all of those places and instead enjoyed a self-serve, soft-serve vanilla cone in Little America, WY.

A happy afternoon gas fill-up break in Little America, WY...and only 50 cents!

I played with the place names I drove by as a solo car game, so here is my Almost-Celebrity List of places I passed today: Delle [Reese], UT; [Eckhart] Tooele, UT; Clive [Owen], UT; [Diana] Aragonite, UT; [Cynthia] Rowley, UT; Dugway [Scott], UT; [Cary and Hugh] Grantsville, UT; Wamsutter, WY (is this where they invented high threadcount bedding?); [Mother] Superior, WY; [Henry] Rawlins, WY; [Upton] Sinclair, WY.

Welcome to Salt Lake county! I'm sure this enormous smokestack and factory have a lot to do with the local industry, but to me it was just a potentially scary sight: like something from a Tim Burton/Danny Elfman diabolically clever fantasy. (Couldn't you just see Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter cooking something up in those furnaces?)

Visible evidence of plate tectonics (and geological time) in UT: take that, anti-evolutionists!

Wind Farm in WY

They better turn these things off when they light all those fireworks in this state!

The high winds and very dark roads combined with at least three fishtailing tractor trailer trucks that I had to pass cut my evening drive short and I stopped in Laramie, WY for the night.

Racing the setting sun eastward through WY

Not a UFO: one day I hope to photograph a perfect lenticular cloud, but this suspicious blue shape hovering in front of the orange clouds was close enough for now.

Continental Divide: 1st of 2 crossings in one day

My WiFi connection and cellular reception in this lovely and quirky little place meant that I did not have much time to respond to messages last night, so I went to bed and got some much needed rest, slumbering and reflecting on the good sentiments I received when I started the day about 600 miles earlier. To answer many quizzical points: yes, I am prepared for cold winters and hot/humid summers. After all, I am a New Yorker: we can survive anywhere! I am sorry that I did not have time for more personal goodbyes with more people, but life has its own timeline, I think.

In WY: today's drive in this scenery with truckers everywhere had me feeling very Thelma & Louise. Well, Louise for sure, unless Brad Pitt miraculously appears in a cowboy hat holding a hair dryer...

The freedom of the open road today reminded me of the variances of time: I crossed one time zone and three (almost four) states over two days' time, a time and distance that a jet airplane can cover in just over a few hours. The landscapes I witnessed evidenced a totally different scale of time: geological time that dwarfs us, and is in turn infinitely small compared to universal time. Here I am in Laramie, WY a place that has all sorts of historical meanings for me and I am also left reflecting on the passage of time and how much or how little cultures and people change over time. I was also reminded of this quote (that I had to look up after bringing Chinese take-out food for dinner back to this kitschy motel with a janky WiFi hotspot connection) from one of my favorite books, West With The Night, by Beryl Markham:

"But I have learned some things. I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are buried deep - leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour, because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late."

Totally random find in Laramie, WY: super kitschy independent motel, old-school saloon style!

Crazy western-inspired decor everywhere!

The covered seasonal pool was closed, but this non-hibernating bear was guarding the "Wyoming Watering Hole" anyway!

Tatanka! (American bison on Lakota language)

On the motel roof: a rooster, a horse, and a bandit with binoculars. Don't ask. I didn't.

And this lovely painting of wolves watched over me at night (literally: hanging over the bed's headboard)!

I ended the day thinking about time and distance and speed, thankful for cruise control and wiper blades and window wiper fluid, and for courteous truck drivers who flash their headlights when it is safe to pass in front of them. I am thankful for mostly clear, dry weather and mostly clear, dry roads, and I seem to be successfully staying ahead of the snow and foul weather. I am thankful for life and all its changes and some of its permanence too. Somewhere in a 75 MPH zone on the freeway, continuing my drive east mostly during the day after my fast departure from San Francisco, I learned Beryl Markham's lesson too, perhaps not too late in my life, and happily moving forward.

Good night, from Room 30 of the Gas Lite Motel in Laramie, WY!

Day 2 Fact File:
Starting Mileage: 79,540
Average Miles Per Gallon: 27.88
Visible Roadkills: 4 (including one with very persistent crows)
"Oversize Load" or "Long Load" Trucks: 14
Places Passed: Moor, NV; Shafter, NV; Wendover, UT; Rusty Palm, UT;
Elevations: Pequop Summit, NV (6,967 feet); Silver Zone Pass, NV (5,940 feet); Summit, UT (7,800 feet); Continental Divide, WY (6,930 feet)
Soundtrack: "GLEE: The Music, Volume 4, Season Two;" Robbie Williams, "In And Out Of Consciousness, Greatest Hits 1990-2010" (deluxe limited edition 3-disc set); Below Zero (Various Artists), “Minus 1;” Boyzone, “Brother;” Thomas Anders, “Strong;” Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, “Under The Covers, Volume 1;” David Campbell, "On Broadway;" Jason Gray, “Everything Sad Is Coming Untrue” (deluxe edition).