I swear, Officer. It was a prairie dog. No, I didn't get a good look at him.

I've hurt you, I know.

As my production director reminded me today, this blog is a now-record 10 days late.
That's the latest I've ever been on anything that didn't result in losing two full letter grades, facing possible tax evasion charges or taking a knee (or on one occasion: a bowling ball) to the crotch.
But I've got a decent reason.


At sort of the last minute last week, I was enlisted by my girlfriend for a drive across the country from Cleveland to L.A.


Considering that up until a year ago, I hadn't been outside of the Eastern time zone, just picking up and taking a four day trip through all the time zones the U.S. has to offer was kind of a big deal. (I never really understood how TV shows in Central or Pacific time zones caught up with TV in Eastern. So Saturday Night Live is on at like 8:30 p.m.? I'm not even sure if that's true, but the whole thing is difficult for me to wrap my head around.)

But the thing is, how often is one afforded the opportunity to drive from (almost) coast to coast for an actual reason? It was like in Dumb And Dumber when Harry and Lloyd used Mary Swanson's lost baggage as an excuse to drive to a place where the beer flows like wine.





So I won't trouble you with any of the minute details of the journey.



Except for these tidbits:


1. I lost our gas cap somewhere between Arizona and Barstow, California. Look, I'm not sure of the physics of the whole thing. All I know is, when I realized it was gone at a gas station, I ran across the street to a used auto parts junkyard, explained that I'd lost my "gas cap thingy circle thing" and the greasy, friendly gentleman pried open the side of a '87 Chevy Celebrity and said, "Does $5 sound reasonable?" And I said, "Sir, I genuinely have no idea."

2. Iowa is the coolest place ever. Who'd of thunk it? Certainly not us. But when we stayed overnight in a little town there, everyone was so insanely nice to us that we decided we would move there if we were to somehow arrive at the mindset that we were, in fact, ready to move to Iowa. So I'm really super-depressed that Iowa is covered in water right now. Seriously. Although, from my experience, I'm sure all the people in the town we stayed at are still very tidy and cordial. 

3. When you're using a GPS navigator and you arrive at your destination--even if it's 37 hours away--there are no fireworks or exciting "Game Over" festivities. After four days of hearing things like, "Turn right in 437 miles" or "Merge left in two days," there's really no climax in store for you. You just cross an imaginary checkered flag and die a little inside.

4. If you hang out at a rest stop in the middle of the desert in Utah, prairie dogs will get in your car and drive away. Keep your keys with you.

Exhibit A:

5. If you play any of the following songs that I love (in case any of you are reading) in the car on a cross-country road trip with my girlfriend, you're going to hear the following (and these are pretty much direct quotes):

• Film School's "Dear Me" - "What happened to you during your childhood that you feel the need to ruin a perfectly sunny day? Where's your medication? Oh, it's not for you."


• DJ Shadow's "Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt" - "So...is this all this song does? No, no. It's cool. I'll spend the next six minutes thinking about products I'd like to purchase."


• Brand New's "Millstone" - "Finally."


• Soundgarden's "Let Me Drown" - "Remember Boy Meets World. I effing love that show."


• Protest The Hero's "Palms Read" - "I swear to God, I will leave you in Arizona with those prairie dogs. I will leave you and I won't look back. You think I'm joking? You better lock your door, kid."

So the moral of this story, other than that gas caps potentially only really cost $1.75, is that if you get the chance to drive across the country, you should take it.

Just don't expect your GPS to be as stoked as you are when you're done.
Still, you'll get to see stuff like this:















And this.