There are three types of teams in the NBA:

1. Championship caliber teams
2. Fringe playoff teams
3. Lottery teams

In baseball, you get surprises like the Pittsburgh Pirates (not quite a surprise to some, certainly) this year, the Orioles and Athletics last year, etc.

In football, you get the Minnesota Vikings and Indianapolis Colts making the playoffs last year and the Kansas City Chiefs going from worst to first this year.

Hockey is a crapshoot all the time.

The NBA? Not so much.

In the NBA, in the words of the immortal Dennis Green, you are who (we) thought you were.

There are more than a handful of teams that have absolutely no hope this season. Those teams are, in some order:

Phoenix
Philadelphia
Toronto
Boston
Charlotte
Milwaukee
Sacramento
Portland
Utah

One of those 9 teams is very likely going to finish with the NBA’s worst record. None of them are going to make the playoffs. They are truly the have nots.

Phoenix and Philadelphia are especially terrible. Philadelphia is one of the more perplexing franchises. Two years ago, the 76ers were taking the Boston Celtics to 7 games in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Last year, they took a step back. But the Sixers had some great young assets. Had.

The Sixers took their best young asset, Jrue Holliday, and shipped him to New Orleans in a draft night trade. Now, 9 of their 15 rostered players are entering their third NBA season or less. They’re very young and coached by first-time head coach Brett Brown. Everything about what they’ve done in the past six months screams “We Want Andrew Wiggins!”

In their way (besides the whole “lottery” aspect of determining the top pick in the draft) are the Phoenix Suns who are, on paper, perhaps the worst NBA team ever. They’ll also be coached by a first-time head coach, albeit with a more recognizable name than Brett Brown, in Jeff Hornacek. I think there’s a solid chance that the Suns will challenge the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats for futility.

Then there are the teams that could make the playoffs and be eliminated in the first round, or could have a subpar year and finish 34-48. These teams are going nowhere in particular this season. In the big picture, some are getting better (Cleveland, New Orleans) while others are just merely existing (Atlanta, Dallas, Memphis). Those teams are, in some order:

Detroit
Atlanta
Dallas
Cleveland
New Orleans
Denver
Los Angeles Lakers
Minnesota
Orlando
New York
Washington
Memphis

Now, there’s a large gap in that group between New York at the top and Orlando at the bottom. But these are the 2013-14 also-rans. New Orleans will be fun to watch on a Tuesday night in January when there’s nothing else on. But you’re not going to invest your time and energy (and financial backing in the form of legal betting) on the New Orleans Pelicans to win the 2013-14 championship. And unfortunately, Vegas does not accept bets for most fun team to watch. If they did, I might be putting money on the Pelicans and Cavs.

And then, there’s the big guns. The eventual NBA champion is below. Again, in no particular order:

Miami
Chicago
San Antonio
Oklahoma City
Los Angeles Clippers
Brooklyn
Indiana
Houston
Golden State

Do I actually think that Houston is going to win the NBA championship? No. Same thing with Brooklyn and Golden State. Would I be surprised if any of those 3 teams got to their conference finals? No.

Miami, Chicago, and Indiana are the class of the East.

San Antonio, LAC, and Oklahoma City are the class of the West.

I’m going to cut to the chase here. I think the 11 games the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat play this season will be great to watch. I think they’ll go to 7 games in the Eastern Conference Finals. At the end of the day, seven months (?!) from now, I still like the Heat because of LeBron James, the best basketball player in the world. For the next few years, he’ll only continue to get better. And while Derrick Rose looked great in the preseason, lets see how he looks after a back-to-back or four games in six nights. The Bulls are deeper. But the Heat have the king.

Out west, it’s a little more open. Ultimately, I like the Clippers. Chris Paul is hungry for a title. I love the additions of Darren Collison and JJ Redick to the Clipper bench. Oh, and I have a certain fondness for the guy on the bench, coaching the team.

In the finals, I like the Clippers. Yes, the Clippers.

Doc Rivers makes a difference on that team. So too do the bench additions of Collison and Redick (as well as Jared Dudley). The Clippers are a more complete team than the Heat. The Heat certainly have the best player in LBJ. But the Clippers have the best team. They’re as deep, if not deeper, on the bench, as the Bulls, with a much more balanced starting lineup, led by a healthy, hungry Chris Paul.

AWARDS (at least the two that mean something)!!!

NBA MVP: LeBron James
NBA Rookie of the Year: Victor Oladipo (Orlando)

Yes, I did just reference an Early November song in my title.

Since the last time I wrote one of these, I drove down the Pacific Coast Highway (terribly overrated drive), spent two nights in Los Angeles, took a detour to the Salton Sea, and spent a very quiet night in a hotel room in Phoenix, and drove to Albuquerque today. I’ve now stayed at both Best Westerns in the ABQ.

The stay in LA was wonderful. I found a room on Airbnb (use it if you haven’t), with a couple who were just a joy to be around. Granted, I spent most of my full day outside of the house, doing some eating, walking, hiking, driving, and sitting, but my interactions with them were just great. If you’re going to LA any time soon and want to stay in a super comfortable room, in a nice house in the Silver Lake area, with two people who will laugh and talk and just be great to interact with, let me know.

I ate at one familiar spot (Yuca’s) and two unfamiliar spots while in LA. I hiked Runyon Canyon. I walked up to the Silver Lake Reservoir (which I found to be totally unremarkable). I sat and people watched (including watching two guys next to me roll giant blunts at 4:00 p.m.) at Echo Park Lake. And, on a total whim, I drove to the top of Mount Wilson, which sits 5700 feet above sea level and offers great views of a distant Downtown LA and, at the time I was there, the sun setting in the west. Also, three bears.

All in all, LA was as good as it was when I was there 6 months ago and as good as I expected it to be. I got a beautiful weather day and I (mostly) relaxed. LA remains at the top of my list of places I’d like to move to one day (soon).

Notes:
New states: Hawaii, Missouri, and Arkansas. I’m going to do a wrap-up soon, but I’m just perplexed as to how I still haven’t seen a Kansas plate.

-On that same track, I saw an inordinate number of Minnesota license plates. In fact, there was one road in Arizona, highway 377, on which I don’t think I saw a single Arizona license plate. Lots of Minnesota. Lots of Virginia. Lots of Colorado.

-I haven’t seen a DC plate since Maryland. I have seen a few people give me some stares as they pass me, though. Taxation Without Representation. Learn about it.

-I passed a billboard for thegreatestpresident.com, which I would suggest you visit for some giggles. Or, if you agree with what you read, it’ll let you know that you should see a doctor.

-Last night, while driving north through Arizona from I-8 to I-10 (in what felt like the middle of the night, but was in fact, 5:45 p.m., which is what happens when you don’t believe in Daylight Savings Time), I experienced a 10 degree temperature drop, followed by a 5 degree temperature increase, in a span of 15 minutes. That seemed really cool to me, but I had also been in my car for 8 hours.

-I posted a video over on Facebook from my trip to the Salton Sea yesterday. If you are unaware of the Salton Sea, read about it here.

-I don’t foresee writing a new post each of these next few days. I’m going to be driving a lot so that I can get home and hug Amanda as soon as possible. There’s really no way to account for the lack of familiar human interaction on a trip like this, even after spending 6 days with my family in the middle of the trip.

To spend any amount of time greater than this paragraph telling you about my 7 hour drive from Bend to Sacramento would be a waste of our time. There’s a town/county in California called “Yolo,” whose bus line is “YoloBus.” That’s topical. North of Yolo is Weed, which, whatever. I also saw a sign advertising “Dirt For Sale.” Moving on…

I’m coming off a week in Bend, Oregon. There’s probably a good chance that, if you’re not a beer snob or a traveler, you’ve never heard of Bend. It’s in Central Oregon. Not quite “dead center,” but close enough. There are 80,000 people in Bend. So it’s not small, but it’s also not Houston.

I wrote, ever so briefly, about Bend in my previous blog post. I had been there for a few hours and in my typical fashion, I judged it. I called it “Portland overflow” despite having, at the time, never been TO Portland. But that’s what I do.

I can report that after spending a week in Bend, it is a much better place than wherever you are right now. Or where I am. I’m in Sacramento.

During my time in Bend, I ate great food, drank seriously great beer, and breathed seriously clean air. One of the really great advantages of lots of trees is that the air is remarkably fresher. I got kind of lucky in that every day was perfectly clear with a high temp between 60 and 70.  With that luck came some time outdoors “recreating,” to steal a term from my uncle. I hiked. I rode a bicycle. I went for walks along rivers and through meadows. And I ate a lot of great food and drank some great beer and probably evened out the health risks/advantages of it all.

Cut to the chase, Bend is great. But maybe I realized unemployment is really what is great. People don’t necessarily work much in Bend. I’m sure there are career-types there. But I interacted with a lot of people who are just doing what they need to do to make enough money to enjoy their life. This is a vastly different mindset than that which I’m used to in D.C. where people work a lot, make very little money, and don’t really have hobbies. Or at least don’t talk about them socially, because you’ve just got to talk shop when out on a Saturday night.

(I deleted a large chunk of “big picture” life lessons that I had written in this space. I’ll save the “big picture” life lessons for when this trip is over. That could come within the next 7 days. I’m tired of being on the road. I want to get home to D.C. and to Amanda, most especially, and continue to enjoy my unemployment. That said…)

I’ll head to Los Angeles tomorrow morning where I’ll spend two nights in Silver Lake.

Notes:

-No new license plates. Lots of British Columbia, though. Snowbirds, I’d guess.

-I had another solo dinner in a nice restaurant tonight, though thankfully, the bar was mostly empty. The only patrons at the bar were a wonderful couple in their mid-50s from Kentucky, by way of New Hampshire. They started a conversation about Kentucky politics with the bartender, who didn’t seem too interested. I, however, was very interested in said conversation. They were great to talk to and gave me some hope for ALG14.

-No, seriously. Weed, California. Complete with “I
-The walls in the Holiday Inn Express Downtown are thinner than mid-90s Kate Moss. So after sleeping in a blissfully quiet, dark room for the last week, tonight should be great. Especially if this guy continues talking to what I would presume to be a deaf old woman.

-I don’t think I could ever get used to the time change relative to sports. I mean, I had never seen the Sunday Night Football wrap-up. Not only did I just see it, but it’s only 9:30. Included in that: I typed this while watching a football game, so forgive me if “you’re” became “your” inadvertently.

There was nothing special about today’s drive. I spent the morning in Boise, eating breakfast and running/walking/nearly crawling up a steep hill to get a photo of the city before sunrise.

The drive from Boise to Bend was nothing like I expected it would be. For what it’s worth, I expected lot of pine trees and towns filled with smiling Oregonians. Or something. Instead what I got was wide open space and very little civilization. Eastern Oregon fits the bill of what I enjoy geographically. Wide open spaces, distant mountains, and steep inclines opening up to panoramic views. That said, after driving for 3500 miles and just under 53 hours, even my favorite landscape couldn’t satisfy me.

I was very lucky to be able to randomly pick up a Westwood One signal over the only (I’m not exaggerating) AM or FM station I could receive. Unfortunately, that game was the Steelers/Jets game.

A common thread over most of my trips in my life is that I fall off the sports grid. I have a general idea about what’s happening in the sports world, but there’s always some stuff I miss. For example, I had no idea Stanford lost to Utah yesterday. To most of you, that’s not very important to know. To me, though, not knowing that kind of stuff is just weird.

I’m in Bend, Oregon tonight and will be here for the foreseeable future. I get the impression that my aunt and uncle would be perfectly okay with me hanging around here for as long as I want. Bend is an interesting town. It strikes me as having been built six months ago to provide overflow space to those who couldn’t make it all the way to Portland. Of course, this is an assumption based upon being driven around town for 30 minutes. I’ll have a few more days here to really experience “this town” (lowercase).

I don’t foresee posting much while I’m here. Once I get back on the road, wherever that takes me, I’ll start updating again. If you care for these things, you can follow me on twitter @midatlanticbias and on Instagram @jasonbotelho (formerly @midatlanticbias).

The notes section of my notebook was relatively desolate after today’s drive from Salt Lake City to Boise, ID. I decided this morning that the 11 hour drive from SLC to Bend was going to be too much and given the halfway point, excitedly settled on splitting the drive.

8 years ago, I traveled to Boise, Idaho for the first time. My aunt had recently moved there from Berkeley, California (via Ogden, Utah) with her boyfriend (now husband). For most people the idea of visiting an aunt seems arduous, at best. Aunts are, inevitably, weird invasive versions of your parents. This aunt, however, was never that. She was always the “cool aunt” (apologies to my two other aunts who will certainly not read this, but in the event that they somehow do, they’re cool too. I’m not playing favorites. I promise). Years younger than my father (10, give or take) she listened to Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. and lived in San Francisco and Berkeley and basically did all of the things I would have done had I been born in the early-70s. And really, she never treated me like a nephew. She treated me as a “future equal” if that makes sense. She treated me like someone who could be like her, some day. And I always appreciated that. In short, she served as a guide for what I wanted to be like: cool, free-spirited, and adventurous.

And so, if visiting the aunt wasn’t the problem, surely visiting a place like Boise, Idaho would be. I mean, all they do is eat potatoes and vote for people named C.L. Butch Otter in Idaho, right?

Well, unfortunately, part of that is true. But there is so much more to Boise than anyone who hasn’t been there has ever really given any thought to. Boise is, as my bartender/server tonight put it, like a really perfect melding of the snobbery of Seattle and the friendliness of Portland.

8 years ago, I was barely 21, yet my very cool aunt and very cool soon-to-be-uncle took me to bars and nice dinners and showed me how cool this little pocket of western Idaho could be. I was star-struck.

But I was also just 21.

I returned to Boise at the age of 26, this time with Amanda (who had heard for years, how awesome this town was) to visit my aunt, uncle, and their newborn (one month old, at the time) child. I didn’t think for a second that my years of expectation-building would win over Amanda. She is, after all, I think slightly predisposed to balance out my extremes of LOVE! and HATE! And yet, a few days into our trip, with no real provocation, she turned to me in the car and said, (paraphrasing slightly), “This place is really great.” The tone in her voice evoked surprise and I completely understood it. You don’t come to Boise expecting to have your entire life’s prejudices altered, but Boise does it for you, if you give it the chance.

Today, given the opportunity to return, I did. My aunt and uncle and niece have moved on to Bend, Oregon, but I was still filled with excitement when I woke up this morning, thinking about that first moment that I would see Downtown Boise from I-84.

I had a wonderful solo dinner at a new restaurant in town called The Dish. Put a mixed greens salad, a plate of sous vide chicken thighs in a nutty mole, and a hoppy IPA in front of me and I’m generally happier than Mumford and Sons at a suspenders convention. And that held true here. My bartender was a real gem; a wonderfully pleasant guy from northern Washington, two years into his time in Boise, who was more than happy to talk beer snobbery with a fellow beer snob. After dinner, I moved on to a hip brewery (based in Bend) called 10 Barrel, where I pulled up a seat at the bar, enjoyed another IPA, and watched some of the Boise State/Utah State game. As I walked back to my hotel, I approached a real, live record store. I spent about a half hour walking around, looking at used and new cds and vinyl, before ultimately making one purchase (I refuse to tell you that it was Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits for $7) and commenting to the clerk, essentially, “wow.”

Tomorrow morning, I plan on eating at Goldy’s Breakfast Bistro. Goldy’s is, in my mind, the best breakfast spot in America (sorry to my Philly pals who would cite Sabrina’s, which is also phenomenal). I’ll savor that mile walk to Goldy’s knowing that it may very well be my last walk in this amazing city, as my reasons to come here dwindle.

If the variables were different (less harsh winter, any sort of base for Democratic politics, Amanda being willing to move to the Gem State), I’d move to Boise in a heartbeat. But life doesn’t always work out that way, and that’s fine. I just know that whenever I get the chance to come back here, I will. And I’ll love it just as much as I did almost 10 years ago, when I first laid eyes on the Mountain West.

Notes:

-I’d be remiss if I didn’t give some mention to the great state of Nevada. I took the long way from SLC, west on I-80 into the Silver State. Perhaps I would fill differently about Nevada had I not spent 5 1/2 years working for the best senator Nevada has ever seen, but I’ve come to truly love the state. I understand its regional politics and what matters where. I understand its challenges. I understand its achievements. And, more than anything, I love being surrounded by its life. Many people would look at a state like Nevada and think, “barren.” But I really feel like I see and experience something different there. The mountains, the near-limitless desert landscape, I just feel a connection there. So, taking the drive from Wendover to Wells, then up US93 to Jackpot today, I felt kind of at home, even if my birth certificate would tell you that home was much further away.

-No new states today, though I did see multiple Georgia plates in Nevada which seemed odd.

-I reached mile 3000 at milepost 32 on US93 in Idaho today. Exact time: 2:11 p.m. (MDT). Total driving time: 49 hours, 25 minutes.

-Tomorrow, I’ll take the short drive west on US20 to Bend, Oregon, where I will spend a few days with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. After that, I’m thinking about spending a few days in Los Angeles, another city I’ve come to really appreciate. So if you’re reading this and in LA, let me know. I’d love to talk to real live human beings when I get there.

Thank you again for reading this. The wind did not cooperate with me posting a Facebook video blog today. I hope that you’re having a safe, fun, and explorative Columbus Day weekend.

Good people, good food, and good (exceptional) views can cure a lot of homesickness and loneliness. 

Today was the worst day of my drive. I found myself incredibly restless, tired, lonesome, and out of place.

The drive from Bismarck to Bozeman is mostly high grassland, which is nice for a little while, but sort of feels like someone is pulling a Hollywood set, for a boring movie, alongside the car. The weather today didn’t necessarily cooperate with my body’s interest in oxygen consumption, either. It was in the mid-50s for most of my drive and if you know me well, you know that warm weather suits me better than anything under 60 degrees. 70 degrees, really. And really, when the speed limit is 75 mph, it’s hard to drive with the windows down and hear your podcast/NPR/music.

Some of you may have seen my video blog from beneath Salem Sue, the world’s largest fiberglass cow. Salem Sue was not a victim of the federal government shutdown as it has yet to achieve National Park status (get on that, Hoeven and Heitkamp). Setting aside the stigma of roadside tourist traps, it was the highlight of my drive, save for the 50 miles or so that I talked to Amanda tonight. The air was cool. The view was lovely. It was all very relaxing.

Where I think I’m going wrong here, besides the fact that I’m traveling across the entire country alone, is that I’m driving too much every day. If I were breaking this down into two 3-hour driving sessions with an hour break in between, I’d be much better off. But I’d also be back somewhere in Minnesota right now, and spending more money on hotels, food, and gas. So you take the good with the bad, I guess.

Notes:

-You can add New Mexico, Washington, Wyoming, and Guam (yes, Guam. In Miles City, Montana) to the list. Kansas really needs to get with the program.

-I tweeted about this (@midatlanticbias) in the morning but at the complimentary breakfast, I saw a man  fill a plate with breakfast potatoes and then proceed to cover those potatoes in: cheese, four packets of butter (“my butter fix,” he said to an old man), mayonnaise, an egg, and an incomprehensible amount of salt. If the Midwest had a flag, I’d want that man’s plate on it.

-I saw my first snow between Bismarck and Dickinson, ND. A lot more snow on the mountain tops here in Montana.

-There’s a place called “New England, North Dakota.” It’s like a combination of all of my hells.

-Another thing I tweeted: the cowboy hat thing. Maybe it’s just my big city, East Coast way of thinking, but every time I see a man in a cowboy hat, I assume he’s just some ironic hipster from Greenpoint. It just doesn’t seem real to me. I know that it is.

-Pete seemed to be a big hit yesterday and I thought a lot today about his “polite but unfriendly” line and it really rings true. I find myself getting a lot of looks at gas stations and rest stops (license plate and funny looking car probably do it) but no inquiries. I’d really appreciate an inquiry rather than a “look.” I like to feel like I belong, wherever I am, and I do not feel like I belong in the middle of these United States.

-I always assumed that Eastern Montana was going to be beautiful like the rest of Montana. Come to find out, most of that part of the state is just an extension of North Dakota and that makes for some really boring driving….

-…and then, all of a sudden (not really, but go with me here) I turn and I see MON-TANA. Wide open space. Snow-covered mountains. Horses. Cattle. Water. And a highway sign that says, simply, “Crazy Mountains.” Indeed

-Finally, I am sure that there are typos and words that unintentionally spit out to my fingers that I’m not proofreading here, so thanks for bearing with that. I’m doing the drive, then writing about the drive. Proofreading the drive, well, I just don’t have the energy.

-Tomorrow will take me south for the first time in this trip, to Salt Lake City, where I will, for the first time since Tuesday morning, see familiar faces, in the form of Brian and Ali Spittler. They’re going to get the Raw and Uncensored Story of Pete from Bismarck. Be jealous.

Pete sees me as I walk into the Pirogue Grille before the bartender/maitre de does. His eyes light up. Pete is looking for someone to talk to. Luckily for Pete, so am I.

Unluckily for me, Pete is drunk. There are two glasses in front of him, both half-consumed. One I make out to be an old-fashioned. The other might just be straight whiskey. There are two seats at the bar. One is in the far corner, the other is next to Pete. I choose Pete over solidarity. I’ve had enough solidarity over the last three days. I sit.

Pete can tell right away that I’m not from here, despite my flannel shirt. Maybe it’s the skinny jeans. Maybe it’s the haircut. Who knows what it is. He asks me where I’m from. I tell him I’m from Washington, DC. I explain the road trip thing. He immediately wants to buy me an old-fashioned, but I’m driving. He seems upset so I let him buy me a Deschutes Black Butte Porter.

Pete talks. And talks. And talks. He tells me that I chose the wrong restaurant. This one is to bourgeois. I chose the restaurant, I explain, because it was a recommendation from a former colleague and because it is TripAdvisor’s number one restaurant in Bismarck. And, let’s be real, I like bourgeois things.

Pete has a lot of theories about North Dakota. He grew up in Grand Forks. He loves Grand Forks. He lives in Bismarck now because that’s where the good-paying white collar jobs are. He thinks North Dakota should be split into Western North Dakota and Eastern North Dakota. Like, actually split into two separate states. “Bismarck makes Fargo and Grand Forks look like Greenwich Village” he repeats to me multiple times.

The bartenders are annoyed by Pete. One of them wants him to leave, but I keep him out of trouble (i.e. I slow down his drinking) by asking him questions. I ask him what it was like in Grand Forks during the flood of 1997. The images of that flood, for whatever reason, are still etched in my brain. I truly thought, as a 13 year old, that an American city was destroyed by that flood. Years later, I found out that Grand Forks was doing just fine. Pete confirmed it. I ask him about the economic state of the North Dakota (lowest unemployment rate in the U.S., y’all) and whether it’s just as good as the national media would have you think (Pete: “Hell yeah it is. We are (expletive) riiich.”)

He talked about the metal scene in Grand Forks. He recommended a few bands that I would never listen to and can’t remember the name of already.

Pete wants me to go out to a bar with him, and quite frankly, that’s probably exactly what I need (to go out and talk with people and try to relax), but I don’t like being around drunk people, and Pete is very drunk (so drunk that he was concerned about my ability to drive back to my hotel after drinking one beer and eating a large meal of bison, rice, and vegetables). So I tell him I’m beat from driving (which is true) and he accepts.

I didn’t intend to write about Pete earlier today, but I was struck when I was driving back to my hotel room, by the thought that until Friday, that will probably be the most interaction I have with anyone. And beyond that, Pete will forever in my life be the official representative for the state of North Dakota. And he described North Dakota to me in a way that makes me not like it very much at all. He described North Dakota, the place he grew up and a place that he clearly loves, as a drunk, weird, slightly Canadian, polite, unfriendly, xenophobic, socialist…um, mecca???

Pete held in his hands the ability to shape North Dakota for me. And he did. But he shaped it into a place I don’t really understand and don’t much care to.

As I left, Pete asked me if I was going to write about my trip. I told him that I was writing about it for my personal blog. He looked at me suspiciously and asked if I wrote for Vice or Vanity Fair. I assured him I did not. He then asked that I mention him, use his name, and say that he is a “Badass Motherf****r.”

—

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Bozeman, Montana, which is a bit of an audible (Casper, Wyoming was my original intended destination). I’ve never driven in Montana and have long considered it to be the number one state in America that I hadn’t seen that I wanted to see. Granted, Montana from I-94 is probably not Glacier National Park, but I’m looking forward to seeing Big Sky Country for the first time.

Notes:

-Add these states to the list:
Nevada
Vermont

-Radio in rural America is basically: Christian Talk, Christian Music, Christian Talk, Country, Christian Talk, that one Verve Pipe song

-I’ve listened to very little music and only a few podcasts so far. I’ve relied on either the radio or on the sounds of the road. And it’s a good thing because…

-Somewhere in western Minnesota, I discovered a radio program called “The Swap Shop.” The concept is simple and amazing. There’s a host (if you’re a sports fan/southerner, think Paul Finebaum) who takes calls from people who want to sell things. Here’s a sampling:

Host: Caller?

Caller: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I have three kittens. They’re orange with white stripes. Two males, one female. They’re all de-clawed. Very nice kittens. $25 for one or $50 for all three. I also have a set of wooden shower curtain rings that I’d like to sell for $5. 555-6525. Thanks.

Host. Thank you caller. Caller?

I listened for 5 minutes. People were trying to sell: dogs, cats, stoves, cars, car parts, agricultural equipment, and televisions.

-I took a rural highway from Minneapolis west into South Dakota, before taking a U.S. highway up to I-94 in North Dakota. One of the real advantages of this strategy is you get to see actual towns and people. One of the real downsides is that nearly every tractor trailer that drove by shot up little rocks into the side of my face. At one point, I actually had to check for blood.

-I reached my 24 hour mark (total time driving the car) at the junction of I-29 and US12 in South Dakota.

-Finally, I leave you with this bit of wisdom from the sign in front of a Presbyterian Church in North Dakota: “Big Bang Theory? Give me a break.” –GOD

When dining alone, always sit at the bar. If the bar is full, wait for someone to go to the lavatory and steal their seat (And food. And date.) DO NOT under any circumstance, sit alone at a restaurant at which you are not a regular, during dinner, especially if it’s packed to the gills.

Of course, I speak emphatically about this subject as I put myself through the great horror of DINING ALONE tonight in Minneapolis.

I ate at Pizzeria Lola, one of Food and Wine or Bon Apeitit’s best pizza restaurants in America. The pizza was terrific (I got “The Boise,” natch. Potato, caramelized onions, fontina and (added) smoked bacon.). Eating alone isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world. There are times when it’s a fun experience. Namely, when you’re sitting at the bar and can talk to strangers. It’s much harder to talk to strangers when they’re on a date at the table next to you. People don’t really like that interaction very much.

Today’s drive took me from South Bend to Minneapolis, with a stop in Chicago for breakfast and a stop in Madison for a mid-day walk. 

I’ve never actually “been” to Chicago. I’ve been to Chicago. I went to a White Sox game. I saw Wrigley Field from the outside. I drove on Lake Shore Drive. But that’s it. One day on my first cross-country trip when I wasn’t a very smart traveler. Today was my second experience in Chicago.

Very often, I find myself bothered by Chicagoans love of Chicago. I come from a school of thought that says you should resent the place that you’re from. There are obvious and non-obvious exceptions (basically, it’s a case-by-case basis) but in general, I am comfortable with those who don’t like the place they grew up in. I mean, we all leave for a very good reason, right? 

Chicagoans are loyal to their city like no other American citizens. New Yorkers will defend New York with a sense of irony. Californians will “subtly” mention to you that “IN CALIFORNIA, WE….” Bostonians have no right defending their city. Etc.

Chicagoans embrace their city. They truly LOVE their city (I’m really into using the CAPS lock button right now). And so, long story short, I pretend to hate Chicago because I love being a contrarian. But I’ll say this: the little bits of Chicago I’ve seen are pretty great and I’m sure I would really love it if I, you know, spent more than a few hours there. 

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When you’ve spent two weeks eating nothing but steamed beets, you’re probably really going to enjoy that first ribeye. And when you’ve spent hours upon hours of time in your car, when you’re presented with a really lovely city, you find yourself skipping through the streets with glee. 

Now, I care very much about how I’m perceived, so I didn’t skip, but my heavens is (Downtown) Madison, Wisconsin a lovely place. I sent Amanda a text while I was taking a 45 minute driving break and told her we need to get a weather transformation machine so that we can move to Madison immediately. 

I haven’t seen any of Minneapolis really. I got here at 7 p.m. just as the sun had set and I was frankly too tired to drive downtown and go for a nighttime stroll. Maybe in the morning. Tomorrow’s drive will, god willing, take me to Bismarck, North Dakota, aka The City Where Dreams Are Made.

Notes: 

-To yesterday’s list of states, you can add:

Arizona
Diplomatic Plate
Minnesota
Montana
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Ontario

-I saw my first Fiat, not in Chicago, but in Madison. It remains the only other Fiat I’ve seen. I doubt I’ll see another one until I get to Oregon. 

-Roughly 94% of the road between DC and Minneapolis is currently under construction. I need to look into starting my own business that sells orange construction cones.

-The notion that I would “disconnect” from DC and politics and all of that has already been put to bed. I listened to the President’s press conference today and listened to about 5 different NPR affiliates all of whom had stories about the local impact of the government shutdown. Seriously, Speaker Boehner badly needs a “Come to Jesus” moment. “Jesus” in this case being the House Democratic Caucus. 

-The radio edit of Trinidad James’ “All Gold Everything” left me wondering if musicians, primarily rappers, record two different versions of their lyrics or if they just go into the studio and say the words “Phoney” “Sucker” “Shhhh” “Women” and “Stuff.” Any insight would be greatly appreciated. 

I never read “On The Road,” but I could venture a guess that Kerouac’s road tripping didn’t involve him making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at a rest stop outside of Cleveland.

A few years ago, when Amanda and I drove DC to San Diego, I chronicled the trip and, looking back at it now, I find it trite. There was some part of me that actually thought I was going to “get something” out of a six-day cross country road trip with my life partner.

That’s too easy. If I’m going to get something from a road trip, it better be this one. Day one, however, was not the day where I got much of anything.

Today’s drive wasn’t difficult, per se. Two hours of heavy rain certainly wasn’t fun and never being able to drive with the windows all the way down was a pain, but as far as driving, it was easy. And boring. REALLY BORING.

The only highlight really was my version of the license plate game. I opened my notebook in the passenger seat next to me and kept track of every state’s license plate that I saw (tractor trailers are excluded. As are rest stops. I have to see the car driving on the highway. I’m serious. I debated these rules with myself.). Here is that list:

Alabama
Colorado
District of Columbia
Florida
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Ohio
Oregon (in Rockville, MD)
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Other notes:

-I have seen 0 other Fiats since I left Washington, DC. My guess is I’ll see one in Chicago tomorrow.
-Never eat chili the night before you go on a long road trip.
-When in Rome (or South Bend, Indiana) eat at Fiddler’s Heart Public House. Tell them Jason sent you. They’ll have no idea who you’re talking about.
-When in Rome (or South Bend, Indiana) don’t necessarily stay at the Waterford Estates Lodge.
-The entrances to Notre Dame Stadium are named after famous coaches at the University. Not pictured: Tyrone Willingham, George O’Leary, or Charlie Weis.

I’ll try to make this more interesting tomorrow by picking up a hitchhiker in Wisconsin, though it’ll probably just be the guy from Bon Iver.