This morning, on nytimes.com, I saw a link to an article which is being updated all day today, as the journalist liveblogs Thanksgiving. I thought liveblogging was corny before (mostly because I am picky about which internet/blogging trends I fall for), but now liveblogging has gone too far. To out corny them (because that’s what we’re about here at Wanderful, corny), I’m going to take it one step further and liveblog MY THANKSGIVING! But not like that, no - see, I always wanted to keep a list of all the things I am thankful for on Thanksgiving, but I usually forget or fall asleep for most of the afternoon. This year, whenever something comes to mind that I am thankful for, I’m going to liveblog it right here on Wanderful. Perhaps this isn’t really liveblogging - I think liveblogging is supposed to have something to do with following your own or someone else’s actions for a day. I don’t care, I’m liveblogging my thoughts, that’s what I’m liveblogging. Here we go:
I am thankful for…
9:13PM
Wine.

9:00PM
THE DINNER WE JUST ATE!
 

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Back in September, I found that someone had clicked to our website from a blog called Swiss Miss. It turned out it was not Wanderful that was the cool website to be written about in that post, but another road trip blog called The Continental Crawler, named after Michael and Jen’s eBay bought 1950’s trailer. Our pal Ratcliffe left a comment on the Swiss Miss blog post with our web address in it and that’s how people were finding us. So I visited their blog and thought it was pretty crazy that we had both taken off from about the same area (Montclair/Brooklyn) and at the same time - except they were going the more exciting and scenic way, and we were driving through Pennsylvania and Ohio. I emailed them and received a reply from Michael, we decided “let us be linked-blog friends.” and so we were. Every so often we’d receive emails from Michael about random things like “Go to this ghost town.” (we had already passed it) or “Is there still corn?” (yes there was, it was a late year for corn harvesting). Their final destination was Portland, OR, where they were moving to lead a less stressful life. Both Michael and Jen are freelancers (photography, graphic design) which made the move that much easier for them and inspiring for me - for I too am a graphic designer/photographer (but not really the latter), and I like seeing others in the field living wherever they’d like to live after creating a name for themselves.

Michael invited us over their AWESOME house when we were in Portland, and after skipping out the first, I don’t know, five times we were supposed to go there, we finally ended up at their place the night before we left. We spent about five hours talking about life and life on the road, I didn’t even know we had that many hours of road stories. Being that they are more seasoned in living life and doing business, we got a lot of great advice on just about everything, including: moving, living, working, freelancing, traveling, what dog food will make your dog fart a lot in front of guests (never heard a dog actually fart, oh Wally), that sound really matters for online videos, and a bunch of blog tips - they prefer to keep posts short, one line - I meant to keep this post at only one line for them, but it turned out to go on a little longer. They’ve also inspired us to do some sort of weekly video on Wanderful, an episode about our day maybe, after watching their well done Continental Crawler episodes.

We were recording a great video for all you Wanderful fans the other day when my camera BROKE! The screen went black and now I can’t see a thing I’m recording. SO while I had big plans to premiere a video today, it was all ruined by Canon’s ability to disappoint me over and over again. Don’t worry, I am upgrading to something even better. I have been too lazy to post videos on our Wanderfilm page here, but you can visit our Vimeo page for some short clips. I swear, in the next two weeks you’ll have at least an hour’s worth of Wanderfilm to catch up on.

Anyway, thanks for having us over Jen & Michael. & Wally + Tanner even though she was sleeping.

My first impression of Minnesota was the result of a thirsty detour to stop and get a drink. Not much came up on the GPS search, except for a place just off Highway 52 called ZZ Tap. We pulled up to a hole in the wall with no lights and nobody inside. It had closed for the evening. I kicked some loose asphalt and licked my dry lips. Looking to the right I noticed a dated sign that said, “Family Dining.” This dive was called the Canton Pub & Supper Club. Just so you know, it didn’t live up to either part of its name.
A rush of road trip excitement fizzled in my joints as we walked through a foyer of wood paneling, poor lighting, and rusted signs hanging on the wall. One of them said “No poem was ever written by a drinker of water.” Stale smoke hovered over the bar, where a man in a baseball cap stared intently at an electronic lottery machine that seemed bizarrely out of place. I hoped we had entered into a slice of rural reality known and appreciated only in this sparsely populated part of America. Turns out it was merely a space to hold a deep-fryer and a fridge full of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I wouldn’t be surprised if the waitress/cook used the yellow slime under her fingernails in place of butter on Katie’s grilled cheese sandwich. She was nice and talkative with us until I whipped out a credit card to pay for the meal. “We don’t take those,” she said through clenched teeth. The way she turned on us, you would think her whole family had been murdered by a wild pack of blood-thirsty credit cards.
“Is there an ATM on this block,” I asked sheepishly.
She glared at me with her arms crossed. “Five miles that way,” she growled.

After tapping into my emergency stash of cash to fund a tasteless meal that probably eroded my intestinal lining, we got back on the road in the direction of the twin cities.

“Okay,” Katie said to me. “No more pit stops at places with names like ZZ Tap.”

It took all day yesterday to simply pack up the car (Katie’s mom’s Jeep Grand Cherokee — soon to be updated to a Saturn Vue, oh how we hope) and say goodbye to family & neighbors.  The night before had been spent vigorously working to get the website up and running, so neither of us had been lucky enough to sleep in a few days.  As I write, though, we have just woken from a nine hour snore-fest at the Holiday Inn Express in Milford, Massachussetts.

There is not a single inch of unused space in the Jeep, save for a small soft cubby hole between blankets in the backseat, where Mister alternately snoozed and watched helplessly as Katie and I ate Doritos in the front seat.  It was a solid four hours of continuous driving — not something we plan on doing too often, but Milford, Massachusetts is one of a handful of stops that was planned out far in advance.  This is where Katie’s dad has been spending his time for over a year, courtesy of Saint-Gobain glass company, where he is the quality control expert.  When we pulled into the Holiday Inn parking lot at 10:30 last night and couldn’t open the hatch on the Jeep to get our stuff out, he trotted outside to help us.  It was that darn bike rack which put so much weight on the hatch, making it impossible to open.  It took so long to disconnect the bike rack, and we were all so delirious from sleep deprivation, that instead of putting it back on the car afterwards, we chained the bikes AND the bike rack to the guard railing behind our parking spot.  I’m sure there will be pictures to prove this bit of laziness soon.

Today we’re headed for Providence, RI.  What will we do?  Who will we meet?  I don’t know, but I’m hungry.