Just helped a guy who doesn't speak English connect to the WiFi at our hostel. The world is a wonderful place.

150 Years Later.

Today might have been a first. Three (kind of) balanced meals from three different restaurants on the list. I'll start with breakfast since it's the first meal of the day! 

We went to Astro Doughtnuts & Fried Chicken for breakfast. There wasn't any fried chicken to be had in the morning (not that I could have had it anyways) but I did try the creme brulee donut. I got it because I didn't want to get just a plain donut and I really liked it. I wasn't expecting a cream filling but it was yummy. I really liked the crunch which is a weird thing to say about the donut, but I say what I feel. My donut is the squarish one if you look at the picture on the lefthand side of your screen.

Now, we are good thespians and that means a trip to the theatre and in DC, that mean's Ford's Theatre. Yes, that theatre. The theatre that uses Abraham Lincoln's face as part of their logo (not kidding -- I wonder how long they waited before they made that design choice). 

So, Mrs. Lincoln, what'd ya think of the play?

I liked the sign that said "No Firearms Permitted" that was posted as we walked into Ford's Theatre. It's about 150 years too late, but I'm sure it's useful all the same. The first half of the tour is self-guided and takes you through the whole Civil War up until the assassination, at which point you get to go into the theatre. In the theatre, we watched a really weird one-man show from the perspective of the man who killed John Wilkes Booth. It was interesting, but odd.

After that, we walked back to the National Mall, where I discovered more snap stickers! Long live the snapstickers! Viva la snapstickers! Carpe de snapstickers!!!!! We went to the Air and Space Museum and then the Museum of Natural History, both of which I've already been to and will admit being a little bored at but still very cool. 

After museum hopping, we went lunch hunting. There isn't a lot of food by the mall so we just wandered until we found a place we'd passed yesterday, District Taco. When we passed yesterday, I told Melissa that I thought it might be on the list but today I verified and there it was so District Taco became our lunch destination. 

I must make a confession... I didn't get a taco. I got a quesadilla. I got a quesadilla that had black beans and shrimp on it. Who am I? (Ok, I've pretty much always liked shrimp but the black beans are new).  I even liked it. So weird...

Post-tacos (post quesadillas?) we walked back up the street and went to the International Spy Museum. Like the Smithsonian, I had already been here BUT a person can never tire of espionage. Especially when that person was 12 the last time they were at the museum and knew very little about the Soviet Union, KGB, the real life story behind the Academy Award-winning film, Argo, and didn't have the patience to read about them. There was a James Bond exhibit which didn't interest me too much since I've never seen a Bond film (sorry not sorry!).

I walked back to the hostel solo after that for a bit of R&R while Melissa went to look at something called the Declaration of Independence. I'm not really sure what it is but it sounds like something that Nicholas Cage might want to steal some day.

For dinner, we started plugging things from The List into Google Maps just to see if there was anything within walking distance and the winner was Ted's Bulletin. I got breakfast for dinner and then a slice of cake that was really just an entire cake. It was the size of my face. Face cake. The restaurant was cute (but not cheap like Buzzfeed had suggested). They're famous for their homemade poptarts which seems like an oxymoron but man, was that cake good.

More exploring tomorrow and then it is time to head a little closer to home because we are going to Philadelphia!!! Woohoo!

TJ Travels

So, let me start off by saying that I did a thing... an Instagram thing... Yes, I finally caved to peer pressure and made an Instagram. Blame Whitney! She doesn't have time to Facebook message me but she does have the time to crop photos into little squares and upload them to social media and since I want to know what's going on in Israel, I needed to create an Instagram. I made my username thomson.was.here because if I ever do post anything, it will be photos of places I have been so there ya go.

We started off today with a lovely farewell breakfast with our homestay and then we drove to Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. We couldn't have picked a more perfect time to visit, apparently, because today was the anniversary of when Thomas Jefferson presented the Declaration of Independence to be reviewed and signed 239 years ago.

Monticello was gorgeous! Absolutely incredible. Also, Thomas Jefferson definitely learned and forgot more things in a lifetime than I will ever know. He designed the house himself after teaching himself to be an architect because why not? Even though we managed to score an earlier tour than we'd originally booked, we still had some time to explore the gardens before we went into the house. Photography isn't allowed inside the house but that was pretty amazing too. One room was this ridiculous shade of yellow that was apparently historically accurate (historians spent a lot of time looking at paint chips to figure that out and now Ralph Lauren sells paint called Monticello Yellow in honor of this).

I'm so artistic.

The best part of Monticello might have actually been their attempts at social media; they had pictures of Thomas Jefferson for kids to color and they were supposed to post these photos with #TJTravels. Well, I'm TJ and I travel, so this was pretty perfect. We sat down at the kids' station and started coloring. A security guard wasn't too pleased about this at first but once we explained that I, too, am TJ, he took a step back and realized that we're harmless -- idiots, maybe -- but totally harmless.

We took the scenic route from Monticello to Washington, DC, which is where we are spending the first few days of yet another unbooked week -- lots of time in the rolling slopes of Virginia.

We checked into our hostel (which is a thousand times better than the Econolodge in Atlanta... although a cardboard box is probably better than the Econolodge in Atlanta... being homeless might even be better than the Econolodge in Atlanta) and got to some exploring. We walked down to the Mall and worked on mapping out our next few days here while checking out the sights; the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and of course, the White House.

This wasn't even all of them!

My favorite part of DC was when I discovered how many Snapstickers there were! Practically a new one on every block. I got snapstickers that I didn't even understand and I'm sure there will be more to find tomorrow. My phone wasn't on for the first half of the outing either, so there will hopefully be many more to add to my collection! I was so excited that I pretty much annihilated my phone's battery as I walked around, taking continuous snaps just in case. (Mandy is very jealous, obviously, because we love snapstickers).

The Historic Walking Tour and the Raven Room

So this exists...

Just in case you didn't believe me when I said I was in Virginia, I have a picture of me with a GIANT Robert E. Lee statue to prove it.

On Thursday, Melissa and I went on a historic walking tour of downtown Charlottesville. I didn't learn much about Charlottesville, but I did learn that I could get sweaty in a whole bunch of places I didn't think would ever be an issue. I might have possibly gotten dumber on this walking tour... To illustrate, our guide (who managed to be even sweatier than I was, which is equal parts impressive and disgusting) was telling us about the house that had served as a hospital for wounded Confederate soldiers during the Civil War and when we asked him what year it had been built in, he said 1899. Because that's possible... He also talked a lot about how sad it would be if they took down all of the statues honoring the Confederacy... Yeah, mhm, so sad....................... I did learn that statues of Confederate soldiers always face south, so that's something, I guess.

The Raven Room - I didn't take this; see plexiglass comment.

Yesterday, we drove to the University of Virginia after rehearsal to see Thomas Jefferson's brainchild. Ok, one of his many brainchildren, but perhaps the best known after the Declaration of Independence and Louisiana. Did we go to see any of the Jeffersonian architecture? No. We went to see the mysterious Raven Room. Edgar Allan Poe (or Joe if you're me and think you're funny when you're not) attended UVA for one session (because we can't call them semesters) and a bunch of people -- The Raven Society -- decided to restore his room to period condition. It was neat, I guess, if you like staring at one room through a sheet of fingerprinty, smudged plexiglass for an inordinate amount of time. There is the obligatory taxidermy raven, because I'm sure that he definitely just had that thing lying around. *Rolls eyes*

Today was show day and tomorrow, it is on to the next town, or actually, the next vacation because we're unbooked again.

One thing I forgot to mention about Blenheim Vineyards -- they give you your wine glass with the tasting (nothing particularly special except that it says their name on the base). It, along with a very minor buzz, is your little souvenir for the afternoon BUT if you bring it back, your next wine tasting is free!!! Melissa and I both took our glasses against our better judgment (because seriously, what are we going to do with them) but I guess I know where we'll be headed this weekend if we have a rough show...

Blenheim Vineyards

Apparently Charlottesville, VA is Virginia wine country. I didn't know they made wine in Virginia. In my mind, wine comes from California and France (despite the fact that I've gone to wine tastings in South Africa and Mexico plus the Canadian fruit wine incident) but it also comes from Virginia apparently.

While there are lots of wineries and vineyards to choose from, we selected Blenheim Vineyards as our destination this afternoon, mainly because it is owned by Dave Matthews and that's pretty nifty.

We got to try five different types of wine at the vineyard; a viognier, a chardonnay, a rose, a merlot and a grenache. I like to pretend that I know what I'm doing at wine tastings but the truth is that I do not, I just like wine (and I'm generally rather indiscriminate about whether it is good or bad). The wine here was good but I think the view might have been even better. Overall, I felt very fancy.

Virginia is pretty.

 I also want to show off another marquee and the end of this post seems to be just as good a place as any!

The Best of the Rest!

So after Atlanta, I went to the land of no wifi -- Charlotte, NC. To be fair, I'm pretty sure that there is wireless internet in Charlotte, just not where I was so now you get a crash course on my last day in Atlanta and how I spent the rest of my week.

We started our last day in Atlanta with donuts (which I already blogged about) and after doing some business-y things, we went out to the Krog Street Market. It was pretty cute and I got a really awesome grilled cheese and some garlic parmesan fries, but nothing too special. The Krog Street Market also had The Little Tart Bakeshop which is on the list. I got a whole wheat chocolate chip cookie which probably would have been better if I'd eaten it right away, instead of letting it sit in Melissa's purse all afternoon and eating it as a late night snack, but still tasty!

Next we walked down the street to the Krog Street Tunnel. It's just a tunnel except for the fact that it's basically a living art museum. Every inch is graffiti. It was kind of a strange tourist destination, but really beautiful if you ask me (and I guess you sort of are since you're reading this blog). I tried to take a panoramic photo because I thought that would be really cool, but cars kept having the audacity to drive through my shot!

Post Krog-Street Tunnel, we headed over towards the Majestic Diner where we would be meeting my friend, Woodchuck Will, for a farewell dinner. The thing was, we were about four hours early for dinner, so we ended up walking to Piedmont Park which was gorgeous. And hot. Very hot. I was a sweaty girl (Melissa doesn’t sweat, she sparkles. She even has a shirt that says so, I on the other hand, sweat. A lot). Once we’d done a lap and basically exhausted ourselves, we headed back towards the Majestic, except we were still an hour early, so we walked to the Atlanta Cupcake Factory, which we’d read about as having delicious peach cupcakes. When we got there, they didn’t actually have any peach cupcakes, which was incredibly disappointing, but I did get a red velvet cupcake. Little Thomson would be very upset with big Thomson right now, because not only did I eat the icing, I thought it was the best part of the cupcake.

We loitered outside of the cupcake place for a while since we’d been walking all day and then went back to the diner. The Diner is from The List and it was yummy but nothing special. It was a diner, ya know? I got pancakes and I think it’s pretty hard to mess up those. We said goodbye to Will (for now, since we’ll be seeing him in two weeks) and went back to our hotel to indulge in a bottle of Red Truck Wine that we’d found.

The next morning, we said goodbye to Atlanta with some Waffle House for breakfast and a Cookout shake for lunch. I dropped Melissa off at the airport (not the Atlanta airport, but another airport in Atlanta because we later found out that she’d actually booked herself a private flight to Memphis!) and I drove on to Charlotte.

Gotta love the snap stickers

I mainly vedged out in Charlotte. I stayed with Whitney’s friend from school and made a new best friend in Carl, the one-eyed cat. He is seriously my best friend now. Leaving him was the hardest thing I have ever done! I did some sight-seeing around Charlotte, including walking the majority of the “Liberty Walk” which is like their equivalent of Boston’s Freedom Trail except that all of the historic buildings have been demolished. I also got a vegan cheesesteak and walked two miles in 95 degree weather to try a vegetarian restaurant. 

I visited Charlotte's "hipster neighborhood" NoDa, which was very disappointing EXCEPT for Amelie's French Bakery which comes from The List and which I would say is the first flat out "oh my goodness, you need to go there" hit that I've had in a while. The List has taken us to some really interesting places, but this one really was special. It's billed as a traditional French bakery, but I've been to France and can tell you that it is anything but; it's more like a French bakery meets American pop culture. I don't think my pictures really capture much since I was trying to be stealthy because everyone around me was already giving me weird looks from being sweaty. I think their little love lock bridge was cute, although if people seriously put locks there, I'm worried about their relationships. I got a blueberry cream cheese muffin and it was all sorts of goodness.

CARL

Overall in Charlotte, it was mainly me sitting on the couch with the kitten watching Netflix or sitting out by the pool and that is 100% fine with me.

Now I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia, prepping for another residency. Charlottesville is the biggest place I've worked so far and I'm almost overwhelmed by how much there is to do here! There will be lots to blog about for sure!

Georgia Peaches

This morning, we visited Revolution Donuts for breakfast because well, donuts. This place did not come to us via Buzzfeed, but Thrillist (and a subsequent Google search for peaches in Atlanta).

We got the peach slider donut which was like a donut sandwich with peaches in the middle. It was smaller than we'd both expected after looking at pictures online but delicious all the same. Now we're craving more peaches and are soon going to head out in search of fruit. A noble cause, indeed.

Thumbs up from Georgia.

The battle with EconoLodge ended in us leaving. No bueno. Don't go to the EconoLodge on Virginia Ave. in Atlanta... EVER.

Atlanta!

Before I start detailing the first 48 hours of my unbooked week, I should let you all know that the show in Talladega went swimmingly (can I say that now that we're doing Aladdin and not The Little Mermaid?). It was a great show, especially for it being our first week and I rocked it.

Now we are unbooked for this next week and we are spending our first few days in Atlanta before we part ways with Melissa heading to Tennessee and me driving up the east coast to our next residency in Virginia. The first great thing I noticed in Atlanta is that they had stickers on S
napchat! Mandy and I always used to complain about the lack of stickers in Canada, so whenever we're anywhere with stickers now, it is a big deal! Three whole stickers, man.

Another cool thing about Atlanta (before we get into discussing the city itself) is that my friend, Will, just moved here so I got to see him yesterday!!! He's been here for like a week and I'm pretty sure that I was his first visitor.

Before we saw Will, however, we stopped at the drive-in, The Varsity, which my dad told me is like Atlanta tradition. It was also on The List, but I will say that I trust my dad's opinion as much (or maybe more) than Buzzfeed. There wasn't a lot that I could eat there since it was a burger joint (this is a recurring theme in my life these days) but I got a grilled cheese, fries and chocolate shake (no vanilla there).

We are staying at the world's worst EconoLodge, so that is not fun (too much to blog about here, but I will say that things got off to a great start when we found cigarette burns on the comforter of our "non-smoking" room) but we are enjoying Atlanta itself. I started working on my tan lines yesterday because Will is staying somewhere with a pool and we went to a very interesting place for dinner, suggested by Will's housemates (Bantam Pub... like an anagram for Batman but the place had nothing to do with Batman and played a lot of ladies of the 80s).

I promised my mom and sister a pic of the otters

Today, we started the day off at the Georgia Aquarium, which is apparently the biggest in the country and considered Sea World without the animal abuse (not saying Sea World abuses the animals, Mandy, it's just hyperbole). It has the standard favorites -- beluga whales, penguins, dolphins, otters, etc. -- BUT it is one of two aquariums in the world to have whale sharks! They also have a manta ray named Nandi and I think they might be the one of the only aquariums to have one of those as well. Melissa and I got there right at the start of the day so it was pretty empty which was luxurious to say the least. This meant that we had time to walk around and see everything without having to fight our way through anyone to get a peak and then walk around a second time once the trainers had started giving talks about the animals.

I discovered my new spirit animal -- the sarcastic fringehead -- it's a type of fish. An awesome type of fish with an awesome name.

Ummmm... whale shark.

They might have also had the weirdest dolphin show in the history of dolphin. It included Patrick Stewart and a guy in a glittery cape and singing and dolphins, of course, but the glittery cape might have been the highlight (his name was Star Spinner and I'm still laughing about it).

While at the aquarium, Melissa and I took an inordinate amount of photos of penguins and seahorses because of Aladdin and Little Mermaid. The youngest cast group in each show are those respectively and we want to make the animals look the part, so I proudly present my photoshopping skills!

Let's mosey, seaponies

They were going to a wedding, now they don't know where they're heading.

Post aquarium, we got lunch at the oh-so fabulous Johnny Rocket's (no judgment! We were hungry and it was the only place we could find reasonably priced food within a mile radius) and then went over to the World of Coke. I didn't take any real pictures at the World of Coke because despite some very cool stuff, there wasn't much to photograph. Everything was cool to look at but it might not have been the place for us since neither of us drink Coke. (We accepted the complimentary bottles anyways because why not? We totally have the space for them... Just kidding, we do not, we live in a truck).

We visited Morelli's Gourmet Ice Cream after the long hot day of sightseeing. This place comes straight from The List and I don't think we were disappointed. I know I had a delicious dessert!

We're back at our (crappy) hotel now, where I am currently engaged in a battle with the receptionist, but I got to spend a half an hour by the pool (did I get tan lines? Yes, I did) and we'll be going to dinner soon before planning out our day tomorrow.

NASCAR

We went on a tour of the Talladega Superspeedway (because why not?). Despite the fact that our tour guide was exactly 2000 years old and didn't seem to speak English and we drove around the track at no more than four miles an hour, it was still pretty cool.

We also got to stop on Victory Lane. Which was admittedly pretty sweet even though I still don't care about NASCAR at all...

I'm a winner. Now where is my champagne?

Thornhill

I am staying at Thornhill Plantation this week and not only was I ready to explore yesterday, but I had the triumphant return of my camera to celebrate as well.

A brief history: Thornhill was built by John Hardie in 1835 and named for his ancestral home in Scotland. Hardie and his wife, Mary are buried in the family cemetery that is about 100 yards away from the main house (along with other family members and descendants). The family had about 50 slaves but were apparently opposed to slavery (we're staying in the renovated slave cabin). The main house looks like this...

No biggie.

Our cabin looks like this (although it is actually two slave cabins that have been combined and we won't go into one part of it because it is most definitely haunted...).

So rustic.

We did some exploring but there definitely has to be more to see considering that they have over 300 acres of land. We did visit the chapel that they have on the grounds (built in 1993, for the record) and signed the guest book, where we found a mini-record of all of the other TADs who've been in Talladega over the years -- including more than one of our friends and bosses!

My Camera

IS BACK!

Meet Me in Saint Louis

I have WiFi in Talladega everyone so I can now update my blog!

To begin, we shall go back to Drive Day #3, the shortest drive of our journey. We only had about seven hours of driving to do and we planned our trip this way because we were interested in getting to stop and actually see St. Louis (not totally convinced that I was ever in Omaha, NE, because we saw so little of it).

I LOVED St. Louis. When can I go back? Seriously!

After we checked in at our hotel, we went to Bailey's Range (we'd wanted to go to a diner from The List but they closed at 2 and we arrived at 1:30, so we looked up best shakes in St. Louis and this is what we found!). This place was delicious. Their homemade ketchup had a lot of what seemed to be brown sugar in it but other than that, no complaints. They had tons of options and luckily for me, everything could be made veggie-friendly. And their shake? Awesome.

After lunch, we walked to the Gateway Arch. It was quite a sight to see. Stunning, actually.

Now, we purchased tickets and went to the top and that's where I was disappointed. We had to wait a long time in the hot sun before waiting a long time inside to get to the top. The elevator ride was pretty cool but very crowded -- it's basically just a pod that they squish five people into. You know everyone on a far more intimate level after the 3 minute ride to the top and somehow, Melissa, the shorter out of the two of us and the shortest in our group of riders ended up with the most head room! When we got to the top, we spent maybe two minutes up there. It smelled like an armpit and the windows were teeny. We basically took one step out of the elevator and immediately rode it right back down.

After we finished up there, we walked to the City Museum. Melissa had been to St. Louis before and had been raving about this place and it's on The List as well. (I don't know why Melissa didn't see the Arch when she went to St. Louis but she hadn't and therefore could not warn me to save my money and nostrils from the smell). The City Museum is basically a giant maze. It is insanity. There are millions of places for you to climb and hide and crawl and run and play. They have a ten-story slide (I do not recommend wearing shorts on this unless you want a permanent wedgie)! I didn't actually take any pictures because I smartly checked my phone with Melissa's bag when I got there, but this is a pic of just one of the "exhibits." I will say that there are advantages to being short here because there were a lot of places that Melissa could fit in that I could not! Sad but true. We spent two hours of pure bliss here and I can't wait to go back (I'd like to see Whitney there because she'd either destroy the entire thing and/or run away and we'd never see her again).

We went to The Shaved Duck for dinner. Not only did this restaurant make The List but it is also Guy Fieri approved as it has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It was definitely off the beaten path.

The food gets an A+, the service...not so much. Apparently the dish to get is the smothered fries -- fries smothered in cheese and pulled pork, but that was off the menu for me, so I went with cornbread, mac and cheese and regular fries. Melissa bounced back and forth between wanting the smothered fries and duck and eventually chose duck but how could that be a wrong choice at a place with duck in the name? (She gives it a thumbs up).

After all of that, we crashed for our final day of driving.

Yesterday, we made it to Talladega. It only took 42 hours, but we did it. Other than some delicious brunch in Nashville and serious drive day delirium, there isn't much to report about yesterday's adventures. We've driven for four days through 10 different states and the tour has just begun. It'll be a good one -- that's for sure!

To My Followers

I have made it to Talladega, AL after 42 hours on the road. I have lots to blog about (including the awesome afternoon I spent in St. Louis yesterday) but I do not have internet at the renovated cotton plantation I am staying at. For those of you who do have internet and are curious about my whereabouts, go ahead and look up Thornhill Plantation. I will blog for real tomorrow or later this week after I've found someplace in town with WiFi.

Two Days In...

I'm a bit behind on blogging because I've been doing a lot of driving, so this post will be a long one. We're currently sitting in Omaha, NE at the end of two very long drive days with two more to go (final destination: Talladega, AL). How did we get here, you ask? Do not worry, because I will tell you.

We left Missoula at exactly 6:15am yesterday which was great considering we planned on leaving at 6:30. I know that I've seen a lot of Montana at this point, but let me just say that it is so pretty! I can't handle it and none of the other states I've seen in the past 48 hours really compare. I also get to add two new animals to my list of wildlife spottings: antelope and prairie dogs! Ok, so I saw plural antelope and a singular prairie dog but semantics (literally).

Our way station last night was Rapid City, South Dakota... sort of. That was where we had planned on stopping when we made our original itinerary but when I was making reservations, it was cheaper to stay in Keystone, SD, which was just a few miles away so we decided to stay there instead. Along with that, when I realized we would be driving through South Dakota, I went to look up where Mount Rushmore was to see if we would be going past and my GPS told me that it would be three hours out of the way, but the funny thing about GPSes is that they lie; Mount Rushmore is IN Keystone, SD, which I realized during my first shift in the passenger seat and we added that to our ever-growing list of detours.

Indian Memorial

Our first detour was to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, which is somewhere that has always interested me. When we got there, I bluntly told Melissa, "This would be an ok place to die," and I wasn't really exaggerating because it was be-u-ti-ful. We didn't really have time to walk the whole place or walk out to the Deep Ravine (which is where they killed Custer) but we did get to see the mass grave monument and the Indian Memorial.

Continuing on after that, we entered Wyoming where the speed limit is 80 miles an hour. I thought Montana was speedy with a typical highway speed of 75 mph but 80 blew my mind! Now, it wasn't all fun and games in Wyoming because the tire pressure sensor  light came on and we got to spend some time at the side of the highway, kicking our tires and calling the tour office to figure out what we should do. We drove to a local tire shop where they said that nothing was wrong and shut off the light, so that was a bit frightening and chewed up a lot of time. (The light has flashed on and off once or twice since then but no one is worried at the moment because sometimes these things can get funky with temperature and altitude and we have had a wide range of both in the past two days).

We made another detour in Sundance, Wyoming, where we checked out the little monument dedicated to the Sundance Kid, who spent 18 months in jail there and took his name from the town. Thank you to the Quirky Attractions filter on Roadtrippers for that one because it was a very goofy five minutes!

At that point, we were so close to South Dakota that we were about to lose our brains! We saw one more very exciting thing on the highway though and that was a sign for Aladdin, Wyoming! I managed to snap a pic too. We didn't get off because we couldn't figure out how far away it was and we'd already been on the road for 11 hours by then but if that isn't a good omen, I do not know what is.

A third detour was to the Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, SD. Once again, the Quirky Attractions filter on Roadtrippers is really the best way to go when planning these things... I've seen an inordinate number of dinosaur statues at this point, but never anything like this, it was trippy.

After that, we drove to the famed Mount Rushmore. I read on the internet that it was one of the most overhyped tourist attractions out there but wow, the internet lies. It was stunning; we were driving up through the forest and then out of nowhere, there is was. It was something special. It's what makes me: proud to be an American (Drop Dead Gorgeous, anyone?).

Keystone is strangely touristy -- I guess you have to be when you literally exist to cater to a tourist attraction -- so we ordered the world's most expensive pizza after we checked into our hotel (just 14 hours after we left Missoula) and crashed for the evening.

Today, we hit the road even earlier (at 5:50am), despite having a shorter day ahead of us. Just eight hours, no biggie.

Our first detour of the day was Wall Drug in Wall, SD. This monstrous drug store is a bit of a legend. Melissa said that she had driven past it before but never stopped -- how that is possible, I do not know, because with the insane number of billboards they had leading up to it, if I hadn't already been planning on stopping, I definitely would have gotten off the highway due to sheer curiosity. This place started off giving away free ice water and now it has everything, including 5 cent coffee, not that that does me any good, but still.

I got a homemade donut for breakfast (today is National Donut Day, people) and it was wonderful. Melissa got some homemade fudge as well (not for breakfast, for later) and of course, I got a post card. They had tons of shops and weird things... like a jackalope statue that you could ride...

Our next detour came four-ish hours later in Mitchell, SD (South Dakota is big and flat, nothing to report from those four hours). Mitchell has the World's Only Corn Palace! It is a building dedicated to corn and corn art. Craziness, I know! The time to visit is in the fall because they spend the summer redoing the exterior with new and improved corn art but it was still very cool.

After that, it was on to Omaha, NE, sort of. We drove through Iowa to get there, which means I can say I've been to six states in the past two days and we tried to see the largest ball of stamps (in the world? I'm not quite sure) but didn't get there in time. We are now in Omaha at Melissa's friend's house, watching Silver Linings Playbook and getting ready for Day 3.

Getting silly after two days on the road.