The last thing that Alex said to me when I left Rochester a couple weeks ago was, “blog about it.” I thought that would be a funny way of starting this. Hey Alex.

I’m exactly a week into my trip now. Last Friday morning I left my parents’ house in New Jersey at about 8 a.m. and drove to Chicago, IL. It was about thirteen hours of driving and by the time I got there I was pretty loopy. I’m glad I started out with an insane amount of driving though, because now these little 7-10 hour trips seem like nothing. It’s really weird. The first few hours of the trip were the same first few hours of my drive to Rochester, it was kind of a mind fuck. But I got on Rt. 80 and stayed on it for four states. I’ve been on that road since the Poconos, actually. PA is huge. I’ve never really driven west of Pittsburgh, and that was only when I was sixteen and looking for a good excuse of a “back up college.” It’s a silly state. Ohio was boring. I can’t even complain about it more. That’s literally all I have to say about it. There was a Chevy plant? I think it was the most interesting thing I saw the entire state. I’ve noticed people in the midwest love American cars. And silver ones. They’re everywhere. Indiana was pretty, and where it started to get flatter. When I got to Chicago I was starting to go insane. I snapped out of some driving trance I was in and realized I was actually there and that I had just driven a million miles and I was no longer on the east coast, so far that’s been the strangest feeling I’ve felt. I stayed with Jessica and her boyfriend Ian. I’ve never been there and I have to say I’m impressed. Every other word out of my mouth was, “in New York they ____,” or, “In Philly they ____.” Comparing everything with the only big cities I’ve actually visited and gotten to know. I felt like a big huge goober for the first few days. I think Jess got sick of it too. I haven’t thought about New York much since though. We went to the Art Institute, spent an entire day looking at work. It’s ridiculous how different looking at real pieces of work versus slides in Chip’s class is. Speaking of, the modern wing of that place should be renamed to CHIP SHEFFIELD’S TOP 100. But I’m not complaining.

(art as tourism is really funny to me.)

I almost cried like a little idiot when I turned a corner and saw this Robert Smithson. Like I said we’ve all seen this stuff on slides and in powerpoints but actually standing next to this thing and walking around it was amazing. The only reason I’m going down south again as I go west is to see the Spiral Jetty in Salt Lake. I think I’m going to be alone at Rozel Point, just… yelling.

(Paying homage to Lee Friedlander.)

This was on the way to Minneapolis this past Wednesday. I’ve never seen rain like it before. Absolutely horrific. I had to pull over and hang out at a truck stop for a bit. It was nice to stop and just watch though. I was about 30 miles out of Minnesota and it was darkness that I’ve never experienced before. I’ve never been anywhere that didn’t have light pollution. I’m in Minneapolis now, using Ruby‘s boss’s computer to update this actually. First internet in a while! (Sorry for no Sunday or Wednesday post, but I’m not sure the next time I’ll have a place to do this.) Minnesota is the strangest place I’ve ever experienced. Peoples’ accents are really funny, they need to pave all of their roads really bad, and everything is stuck in ~1965/70. But also everyone is THE nicest human I’ve ever met. It’s strange. Everything is old here, but not old as in falling apart and outdated, old like… preserved in a museum. I don’t know. I feel like I’m on another planet. I’ll be heading out tomorrow morning for Keystone, South Dakota. Mt. Rushmore had better be more interesting than I think it’s gonna be.

This past winter quarter I took a class called The History of The American West. (Which, if you’re still at RIT, try and get into this class or any other class with Eric Nystrom, it will be worth it, promise.) Anyway if I had to sum the class up, the biggest thing we talked about was the debate that Frederick Jackson Turner started, of whether the West is a place or a process. Minnesota is the first place where I’ve felt different due to the environment, so I’ve just started thinking about this stuff again, but I can feel an urge to make work about something relating to it. That might be the most vague sentence ever. But I’m gonna start making legit work again I think, and I’m excited.

See you guys the next time I can find some internet. Hope all you Brooklynites are doing well after the great tornado of 2010.