Well, hi from Seattle. I’ve got internet now because after two months living on the road and out of a suitcase, I’m calling this place home for now. It’s a weird feeling. Today was only the fourth or fifth day of rain I’ve seen since I got here, but all I can hear right now is tires squeaking on the road as cars try and get up the hills, muffled by drunk Seahawks fans on their way home from tonight’s game. I’ve got a scanner on it’s way to me, but until then, there are some dinky iphone pictures and video from the rest of my trip. Let’s see, I left off in Mineeapolis.

From Minnesota I headed to Keystone, SD: home to Mt. Rushmore. I swear if South Dakota had a big city I would have just stayed there. I loved it. On the way there I took a detour and headed through Badlands. Most unreal thing I’ve ever seen. It felt fake. It was easily the first physical realization of not being on the east coast anymore. I spent a couple days there, poking around little tourist spots and photographing. From South Dakota I went to Denver, CO. Found out that Wyoming does indeed exist and it’s exactly what I thought it would be, flat, golden, and empty. Tumbleweeds here and there. Maybe. I crashed for the night in Denver and didn’t do much. Woke up the next morning and drove ten hours through good old Wyoming again to Salt Lake City, UT.

My only reason for driving back down south after South Dakota again was to go to Salt Lake City and see the Spiral Jetty. I heard it had recently surfaced again and I wasn’t sure if I would have the chance to do a cross-country trip again, so I went. I think a part of me was convinced that the Spiral Jetty was just a Chip Sheffield myth. But I rented a Chevy Tahoe at 9am on a Wednesday, drove sixteen miles southwest of the Golden Spike on a road made of nothing but dirt and rocks to Rozel Point, and there it fucking was. I spent the entire rest of the day there, just… blinking at it. I can’t really explain how it felt being there, maybe almost like a religious feeling? That’s really dramatic, but, it was a completely different feeling than, “oh wow, this is famous art!” Maybe I put Robert Smithson on some sort of unnecessary pedestal, but it was easily the best thing I’ve ever decided to do. I took a piece and I’m going to frame it somehow. Oh, sorry DIA.

From there I went to Reno for a night. Reno is the worst place I’ve ever been. I spent my twenty-second birthday feeling like an idiot in a casino and dodging people on meth. Watched Jersey Shore in my hotel room and went to sleep. I immediately went to San Francisco the next morning. I spent a week there. It was absolutely beautiful. I don’t think I could ever live there though, I think I would start to tweak without seasons.

San Francisco was also the first time I couldn’t drive West anymore. I remember thinking in Chicago that the country was huge, if I could drive west for 14 hours and still not even be a third of the way across the thing. But after a while 10 hours in the car felt like nothing, and a week and a half alone didn’t seem that bad, and I guess I expected it to last longer. Either way, I headed north on CA RT-1. It literally runs on the Pacific ocean line, and it comes in second on the best parts of the trip list. After this drive I can’t help but feel like the east coast is getting ripped off with their flat wimpy shorelines. Granted, after one stretch of 22+ miles of intense winding road, I was feeling nauseated and stopped at every little shack I saw for some Dramamine. But I’d do it again. The Redwoods were unbelievable, as well as unbelievably terrifying once the sun set. Two days later I was in Seattle. Slept on a couch for two weeks and finally got into an apartment. I’ve been getting to know the place since then. It’s still overwhelming and knowing that I’m significantly closer to Alaska than New York is unsettling. But I’m settling in.