Normally, I don’t write season previews after the season has begun because that seems unfair. However, regardless of what the schedule says, and with all apologies to UMass-Lowell and Northern Kentucky, the season starts tomorrow, or tonight if you care about Stanford and BYU (I do…11 p.m. on ESPN2).

I love ESPN’s 24 hours (it’s actually about 29) of college hoops to start the season. Maybe you have a job and can’t stay up to watch Wichita State host Western Kentucky at 1 a.m. Eastern, but I don’t have a job and I can. Will I? Only if the fates (and my body) allow.

The 24 hours of college hoops is a fantastic gimmick enterprise that gives teams like Hartford University and New Mexico State nationally televised games at odd hours. When you wake up tomorrow to get ready for work, Hartford will be playing 2013 March Madness cinderella Florida Gulf Coast University.

The whole shebang culminates though in what is probably the best doubleheader, on paper, in the recent or distant history of college basketball with #1 Kentucky and #2 Michigan State playing at 7:30 p.m. (ESPN) followed by #4 Duke and #5 Kansas playing at 9:30 (ESPN) in Chicago. There are far too many “made for TV” college basketball tournaments during the non-conference season, but this is not one that I will complain about (it’s also not technically a tournament).

The four teams playing in that doubleheader could very well be your four Final Four teams in April. Kentucky brings in a freshman class similar to the one that won the championship two seasons ago, led by future top 2 NBA Draft pick Julius Randle. Michigan State brings back the leadership of seniors Keith Appling and Adreian Payne, as well as super-sophomores Gary Harris. Duke welcomes Chicago’s-own Jabari Parker, who will host a homecoming of sorts tomorrow when he welcomes Kansas into the United Center.

The Jayhawks are the most high-profile team coming into this season because of Andrew Wiggins, the latest Toronto to America star (joining Aubrey Drake, Justin Bieber, and to a lesser extent, Kelly Olynyk).

Wiggins, or “The Canadian Michael Jordan” (no pressure) is the highest profile freshman since I cannot remember when. There’s a world of pressure on a player with absurd athleticism, great defensive prowess, and, if we’re to believe the scouts, a tendency to “Ben McLemore” (v. To disappear from time-to-time.).

It will be interesting (nay, fascinating) to watch Parker in his hometown arena play Wiggins with the eyes of the college basketball world glaring at him for the first time. Neither freshman will feel this much pressure again until the tournament starts. It will be interesting to see who, if either, can excel in that environment. I’m more than a little excited for this game.

And that’s to say nothing about the “undercard” between the top two teams in the country (according to the entirely subjective and predictive rankings of the Associated Press).

So, who else is good?

Well, we should probably start with the Louisville Cardinals, who return Russ Smith, who thought for some reason that he would be a coveted NBA Draftee, but lose Peyton Siva and (more importantly in my mind) Gorgui Dieng. Chane Behanan returns (and was just (literally as I was typing this paragraph) reinstated by Rick Pitino) as does Kevin Ware, whose recovery from tearing his leg apart was much faster than the “forever” I though it would be.

Arizona is also good and well coach, with Sean Miller still at the helm. The Wildcats bring in a great freshman class led by Aaron Gordon.

The Wildcats travel to Ann Arbor in mid-December for a game against the Michigan Wolverines that will be a big test for both teams. Look for the intriguing matchup of the freshman Gordon with Michigan’s “out of nowhere” NCAA tournament sensation Mitch McGary.

Outside of the traditional power conferences, Virginia Commonwealth and Wichita State are the cream of the crop, as both return key players from teams that made the tournament last season (with the Shockers advancing to the Final Four).

The one team who I think is on the outer fringes right now who could make a big run this season is Oregon, assuming they aren’t jet-lagged from having to open the season in South Korea.

Okay, I’ve Read Enough. Who Is Going to the Final Four?

Michigan State is. I love Tom Izzo coached teams. Michigan State won’t out finesse anyone, but they will brutalize everyone. The matchup tomorrow with Kentucky’s athletic young players will be really interesting to watch, but even if the Spartans fall, this is a team that is made for March and early April, led by the best coach in college basketball.

So is Kentucky. Last year’s weird mix of talented players with no rhythm is a thing of the past. This team resembles the championship team too much for me to ignore. I expect Julius Randle to play himself into the top pick of the NBA Draft.

I also really like Arizona. Sean Miller keeps getting teams close. This is the team to get over the top, led by the freshman Aaron Gordon who will lead the Pac-12 in rebounding.

And finally, VCU, which seems, I’m sure, like just trying to go against the grain, but much like with Michigan State, this is a team whose style is suited for March. They’re deep. They shoot well. And they run better than anyone else. And with a fairly easy regular season schedule, I expect VCU to have a fairly smooth path in the tournament, likely as a 2 or 3 seed.

In the finals, I like the contrast between Michigan State and VCU. It will be a physical, bruising, probably low-scoring affair, but ultimately, I like Michigan State to come out on top.

Who Is The Top 10 Team That Won’t Be There At The End of the Season?

Oklahoma State. I like Marcus Smart a lot. How could you not? But Oklahoma State is ranked in the top-10 right now because a really good player came back to school, not because they’re exceptionally deep or do anything really well. Le’Bryan Nash is a good player too. But again, my previous point…

Who Is The Player of the Year?

Julius Randle at Kentucky.

What Are The Chances That Any Of This Will Be Right?

21.35%.

“Distance is an essential American pleasure, the greatest American chore. Each of us must conquer it.”

It took me 9 months to quit my job in the Senate. 9 months from the first time I decided I needed to do it to the day I handed in my resignation.

Uncertainty is fear-inducing for most people. In that way, I am like most people. Routine and certainty run my life. For over 5 years, I knew where I was going every Monday through Friday (and sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays too). I checked my blackberry at the same time every morning (as soon as I woke up) and at the same time every night (the moment right before I got into bed) and about 150 other times throughout the day.

Most people quit a job because they hate their job. In that way, I am unlike most people. I loved my job. I still do love my job. I miss it immensely. Never during my childhood, teen years, or college years could I have predicted that I would live in Washington, DC and not only live in this great city, but work for our government. My interest in politics was and will always be long-standing. I enjoyed watching CSPAN2 as a teenager because it made me feel smart. I was so excited when I first had the chance to vote in an election. Never though did I think that as an adult I would watch CSPAN2 more than I saw my family, my friends, and my girlfriend.

My time working for Senator Reid was the greatest blessing I’ve ever received in my life. I got to work for a political figure I respected (and always will) and I got to meet and work with people from every part of North America. Because of that job, I now have life-long friends who grew up in places like Las Vegas, Mexico, Georgia, Louisiana, Philadelphia, and a host of other places I’m only leaving out for space purposes. For a kid from Taunton, Massachusetts with no pedigree to speak of and no great academic background, well, how lucky could I possibly get?

So why would I leave a job like that, in a place where I was respected and well-liked for a world of uncertainty and all of the fear and anxiety that comes with it?

That’s a really great question that I just asked myself. In the most truthful sense (and this will assuredly be something that if you’re a future employer reading this to vet me you will probably raise a red flag over) I just didn’t want to work any more. I was exhausted. And my job was keeping me from doing the things I enjoyed. Traveling. Writing. Cooking. Sleeping well. Not having anxiety attacks. Eating dinner with Amanda. And so on.

When I explained to people what I was doing during the month-long period between submitting my resignation and actually leaving, I was struck by the reactions. Some people hugged me and expressed joy and envy. Others thought I was dying of a disease. Still others questioned why someone would want to leave a job. The general trend though was that the “lifers” (those people who had been working on Capitol Hill for 20+ years) were those that fell into the first group. These are people who were journalists or staff members who had given so much of themselves to their cause. These are people who didn’t do what I was planning to do when they were 29. And these were people who, by and large, regretted that.

So for all of the 30-somethings who said it was a bad career move, I was comforted by the more experienced people with the greater perspective who saw very clearly that prestigious employment, even in a town like This Town, isn’t more important than personal happiness. Those people gave me the inspiration to make this happen. Without that support, those final days in the Senate would have been more difficult for me than they were.

And so, as you know, I hit the road. I had absolutely no idea how much of a challenge my road trip would be. I could not have accurately estimated how lonely the road can be when you know at the end of the day, you won’t be seeing someone you know. There were moments where I felt completely empty. Those usually came when I was out of place.

Near the end of my trip I needed to stop for gas and a bathroom break in the town of Dalhart, Texas, way up in the panhandle, north of Amarillo. I will never forget the glare I received from a woman who saw my license plate before she saw me. The glare said, “Get out of here.” It was cold and mean and frankly everything I would expect from a small-town Texan, unfortunately. Inside the gas station, the attendant would not make eye contact with me when I paid for my Coke. It felt like the sort of scenario you’d experience in a dream. Experiences like that sour you on not just individual people, but on the towns and cities they live in.

Once I left Los Angeles, I decided that I didn’t want to be on the road anymore, which presented a rather difficult logistical problem, namely that I was 3,000 miles from home, in my car. At that point, I had run out of the strength it takes to walk into a new restaurant every night, pull up a seat at the bar, and hope that someone nearby was in a talkative mood. And then, even if they were feeling gabby, I was just repeating the same story to a different face. “No, I’m not from here. I’m from Washington, DC. I’m on a road trip. Yes, I’m by myself. No, I have a girlfriend. Yes, she’s very understanding. No, traveling alone is not everything it’s cracked up to be. I worked in the government. No, I don’t have a job anymore. No, I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I get home. Yes, my chicken is delicious, thank you.” It’s an exhausting endeavor. I love people and I especially love people’s stories and backgrounds. But after 3 weeks, you just sort of stop caring about their own stories and, even more, your own.

The open road is romanticized in prose. And it’s long been romanticized in my head. I thought that spending a handful of hours on the road by myself every day would make things clear. I’d know what I wanted to do professionally. I’d decide, once and for all, whether or not I want to stay in DC. My life would become clear. And I had done the cross-country road trip before, albeit with Amanda. I knew how to travel. It would be a breeze. A freeing, comforting breeze.

Instead, I spent those hours thinking about every conversation I’ve ever had in my life. I would find myself lost in thought going over conversations I had with classmates in 4th grade. One night, when I couldn’t fall asleep because the time zone changes had caught up with me, I spent a solid hour trying to pinpoint the exact most important moment in my life. Then, I turned that into a sort-of Rorschach test:

Given the choice, would you rather (a.) Witness the most important moment in your past or (b.) Witness a randomly selected (presumably by the god or genie who is allowing you to do such  a thing) 5 minutes of your future life. Eventually, I turned the TV on.

By the way, I chose A.

One thing a lot of people told me before I left was, “Wow, I wish I could do that.” I could not discourage you enough from taking a trip like this. Spending all of your days alone can be a very sad experience. I pride myself on being independent. I like going to the movies alone. I like driving alone. I also prefer to sleep alone (Amanda knows this. Please don’t think I’m dropping some great bombshell here). If I learned one thing from my trip it is this: I’m not as independent as I’d like to be. I need the comforts of my life, primarily the people who bring me great comfort and joy. Three weeks is not a long period of time. I get that. But the days move by very slowly when you have no one to turn to when you’re feeling alone or when you’ve spent too much time reflecting on your “self.” Self-reflection, like black tar heroin, is great. But only in moderation.

The quote at the top of this post is from Esquire Magazine’s “75 Things Every Man Should Do Before You Die.”It’s a ridiculous list. Very Esquire. The quote is a companion for the number 9 item: “Drive By Yourself Coast to Coast.”

I conquered “the greatest American chore.” The relief I felt when I walked into my apartment at the end of my trip was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Did it make all of the lonesome, sleepless nights in cookie-cutter hotel rooms worth it? Absolutely not. But it certainly gave me an appreciation for what I have in my life. And so if that’s the lesson of all of this, well, lesson learned.

TRIP STATISTICS, FACTS, LISTS, MINUTIAE:

October 7-28
Total Distance Traveled: 7,582.5 miles
Total Driving Time: 134 Hours, 1 Minute
Amount Spent on Fuel: $756.23
Average Fuel Economy: 35.5 MPG
Average Speed: 58 MPH

Highest Elevation Reached: 7,500 feet above sea level (Mogollon Rim, Arizona)
Lowest Elevation Reached: 225 feet below sea level (Salton Sea, California)

U.S. License Plates I did not see:
Connecticut
Delaware
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Mississippi
Rhode Island

I saw my first Kansas license plate 5 miles south of the Kansas border. Kansans do not like to leave their state.

Cheapest Gas: $2.95/gallon in Hamilton, MO

Favorite (ironically) Roadside Highway Sign: Somewhere in rural northern Missouri: A confederate flag next to a hand-painted sign that read “IMPEACH THE CLOWN.” I wonder who that educated fellow is talking about…

I saw a lot of confederate (I refuse to capitalize the word) flags in Kansas and Missouri, which reflects very poorly on those two places.

Best Breakfast: Bison Benedict at Main Street Overeasy in Bozeman, Montana
Best Lunch: Pork Carnitas Burrito from Yuca’s in Los Angeles (Los Feliz)
Best Dinner: Chicken Mole at The Dish in Boise, Idaho

Album of the Trip: Haim’s “Days Are Gone.” I went back to this album any time I needed a pick-me-up. Just a terrific collection of pop songs with nods to a lot of genres and styles. On the short-list for my Album of the Year along with Vampire Weekend’s “Modern Vampires of the City,” Generationals’ “Heza,” Chvrches’ “The Bones of What You Believe,” and Yo La Tengo’s “Fade.”

Best Hotel Experience: Staybridge Suites, Bismarck, North Dakota (Very comfy bed, large suite, functional shower head)
Worst Hotel Experience: Holiday Inn Express, Springfield, Illinois (My room smelled like mold, the fan wouldn’t turn off, and the rusty shower head dripped water)

Hotel Discovery: I’m a 3 1/2 star hotel person. I stayed at two 4-star hotels on this trip and found them to be an unnecessary middle-ground. Either stay in a 3 1/2 star or a 5-star. There should be nothing in between. I’d also like to add that at both 4-star hotels, I had the privilege to pay $10 for WiFi as well as the great honor to pay $5 for a 16 oz. bottle of Nestle PureLife water.

City I Can’t Wait to Go Back To: LA, obviously. But also Bend, Oregon
City I Can Wait to Go Back To: A lot.

With that, thanks for reading these. From here, this will return to its irregularly scheduled sports blog.

And remember, YOLOBus.

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