c0redump

5000 miles part two: the actual trip...

Coninue on... (um... sorry for the [3 month] delay there ;) )

...
august 10th - 11th, winston salem

i had my last meal in pittsburgh with weiting (it was crepes, i think ;) ), and headed south toward k's new place in winston salem, nc. two hours later I was pulled over by the virginia state trooper for speeding (only 60 miles of I77 lies in virginia ... man, i wasn't even going that fast =( )... it's the first ticket i got in 6 years =(((. <-- my insurance didn't go up tho (and still hasn't ;) ). Interestingly it was also k's first day to winston salem, having moved from texas just before =P. In true cmu style, the only items in his apartment were blankets, air mattress, and 1 server, 2 desktops, and 2 laptops. I took my comp out of the car to leech off all the tv series and apps i can carry on my hard drive... that room was 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the house =p

k's Pod(tm) arrive the next morning, and together with his brother 3 of us moved the poorly packed content into the living room =)

...
august 11th - 14th, columbia

it was a short 3 hr drive to Columbia, SC, and j took me to a southern seafood place (new item learned... apparently, locals would order 'sweet tea' at all the restaurants they goto...). We played tennis on saturday =) By then i was almost done with 'the World is Flat' (which was 20 CDs long), so i started looking for new listening materials. we spent sunday in charleston, walking around the open market, shopping district, and the beaches. With history dating back to the 1600s, charleston is full of historic landmarks, old colonial and confederate buildings; In contrast to philadelphida tho, the sunny warm weather, small crowds, and the utter lack of tall buildings make charleston a nice and laid back little town.

I spent half of monday fixing j's machine that was built by m's brother (pfftt amateur... it's the n00b mistakes that'll cause you pain and sufferings and lost of data =P ). after two runs to best buy i replaced the hdd and ram, and the machine was back up and running like nothing's happend ;)

...
august 14th - 15th, atlanta

I wasn't really planning to stay in georgia overnight, but apparently p assumed that i'd be crashing at her place (i was only gonna grab dinner with her then go). how can i refuse free lodging =). p was spending her last week in us before heading to nippon for a year(semester?). There's supposedly things to do in atlanta, but we ended up just going to a border's and i walked out with Blink! and Guns, Germs and Steel audio books (p had to run an errand in the city)

...
august 15th, grand rivers

hmm, where the heck?

grand rivers is a tiny town along I24 in the great state of Kentucky. I specifically looked for a best wester with whirlpool and free internet, and it was perfect after 9 hours of driving. I finished most of Blink! that day... The book discusses the nature of human instinct and our reliance(or lack of reliance) on it for judgement and decision making... Malcolm Gladwell provided many compelling examples to illustrate his points, and you should read the book sometimes =)

...
august 16th - 18th, kensas city

I scheduled a phone interview with Google for a PM position on the 16th... so I pulled off the free way 5 minutes before the appointed time, parked on a quiet residential street, and had the interview in the car (writing down notes on paper and using the steering wheel as table =) ... I thought it went well but i was later rejected when i got to bay area=/

I arrived at a&s's place around dinner time. they lived in a nice housing community, and the newly painted houses with similar styling under a cloudless sky is a picture straight out of the neighborhood of Edward Scissorhands o_O (a didn't think so tho =p) We played some friendly pingpong in their basement and had some kansas bbq for dinner. The following day i wondered aimlessly around downtown, trying to understand the city in less than 4 hours. Kansas city is definitely a well maintained town, with parks, fountains, museums and outdoor sculptures around every corner (random trivia, the city's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has a large collection of bronze sculptures, including huge badminton shuttlecock sculptures littering the front lawn.) I met up with a&s to play tennis around 5:30 (after they got off work), and had a nice sushi dinner nearby.


...
august 18th, avon

[i wrote a journal entry this day, so i'll just copy and paste it ;)]

i think my english is improving quickly by 'reading' so much recently ;) or maybe it just make my blog much longer ^^;;

---
I left Arthur&shuhong's around 10am, central time. After fueling and putting some extra air in my front tires just outside Kansas City, I cruised along the almost perfectly straight highway of I-70 while listening to the abridged version of Diamond's Pulitzer-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. To my great disappointment, I was appalled by the time i finished listening to the prologue of the book. I felt that the author's tone of writing was presumptuous and patronizing, and the while sentences and paragraphs are eloquently constructed, the book was impersonal and dull. I patiently finished listening to the 6 hr program, and found that I've learned nothing more than a summary of my high school world history (and not even the full semester, just the pre-15th-century part), and the 'insights' the author proudly presented were, well, obvious. I was about 90 minutes away from Denver by the time i finished listening to the book, and the sun was beginning to set behind the sharp, regional and vertically layered cloud to the left of the perfectly straight road. I had entered Colorado from Kansas, from Central to Mountain time zone. Denver sits at the foot of the Rockies, separating the great plains from the misty mountain tops. I popped in the last audio book i had, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins, and it was fascinating and very entertaining for a non-fiction. With a pessimistic and ideological reflections, Perkins wrote about his job of bringing 3rd-world countries to their knees to be forever slaves of the modern democracies and corporations. I'd tell you more, but since 1. i'm still reading it and 2. i don't want to ruin the fun for you, you should just go and get a copy =) I stopped at Idaho Springs for dinner (about 45 minutes west of Denver), and found out with a shiver that the temperature outside was 30 degrees lower than two hours ago on the plains.

It was getting pretty dark by the time i finished dinner around 8:00PM, mountain time, and I continued on the now winding I-70. Rain started showering down, and the two-lane freeway sparkled as headlights are reflected by the slippery wet pavement. I became nervous as the trunks, SUVs and high-beaming sedans around me showed no signs of slowing down. Visibility is poor and I was distinctly aware of my shoulders, tense from concentration. After an hour I knew I can't make it to my target interim destination of Grand Junction, and started looking for lodging. I exited at the resort village of Vail, only to find myself creeped out by the somehow eerie street lighting and the utter lack of hotel signs. There were lights coming out of the windows of what looked like apartment complexes, but with little traffic (for a touristy area) and sidewalks deserted, i just couldn't shake the feeling that i had entered an abadoned little village.

I drove back on to the unilluminated freeway for the next exit, able to stay in lane only by carefully following the white solid shoulder line, visible for only a hundred feet in front before fading into darkness. On the next exit i saw a clear sign with a list of big hotel chains, but as soon as i exited I found myself in the same unnaturally dark lighting of the previous exit. I found my way to a Sheraton on a small hill, and as i stepped out of my car i found my legs shaking slightly, either from fear, fatigue or the cold mountain wind blowing into my T-shirt. The girl at the front desk told me politely that it was a time-share resort and does not take walk-ins, and pointed me to another non-time-share sheraton nearby. Following the seemingly simple directions, I was unable to find the hotel. I wanted to leave Vail as soon as possible to get rid of that chill on my spine, so i abandoned my search and returned to the freeway. The rained had thinned and visibility improved, and soon I was checked into a hotel at the neighboring town of Avon, ending this long day =p
[/end of entry]

...
august 19th - 21th, irvine

At the beginning of the trip, I contemplated the idea of hanging around grand canyon for a few days before reaching the west coast... however, having received no interest from the possible participants, I decided to see if i can drive straight across the canyons and deserts to california.

I believe it took me exactly 13 hours from Avon, Colorado to Irvine, California, passing through Las Vegas where i stopped for dinner (10 am - 11pm). The change of scenery from mountains to canyons to desserts to california cities is quite amazing; it's also interesting to see the change in high way condition from state to state (the road in arizona are fresh and perfectly paved, and nevada is nice and smooth, but as soon as you enter california you see cracks and uneven pavements and random constructions...... state tax dollar at work, i guess)

I spent sunday hanging out with b&m - sleeping in, playing badminton, gaming and reviewing my trip with everyone. As usual, staying with b&m is always relaxing with plenty of engaging conversations. On monday I took my time getting ready and took a short 1 hour drive up to LA.

...
august 21th - 23th, l.a.

I spent 2.5 days in LA for even more relaxation; taking care of the kids is always fun, and meeting up with a and c is also good... A took me around USC campus [in order to run some errands, talk to professors or whatnot], and while i don't remember much about the school, i saw the most advanced coke machine in the school parking garage (or maybe it was pepsi)! While the crude traditional vending machines simply drop your beverage about 5 feet from the display rack to the slot at the bottom, risking severe foaming/explosion/shattered glass, the USC uber coke machine has a robotic arm that moves up to retrieve my 20 oz cherry coke on the first row and 2nd column and gracefully returning to the exit slot, rotating it into position for minimal disturbance of liquid within. I was so impressed that if i wasn't a cheapass with no income i'd spend all my spare singles buying cokes from that machine, just to see the amazing technology at work again.

...
august 23th, milpitas. final destination

The 5.5 hour drive from LA to Bay area was pleasant enough. Having purchased John Stewart's America, and Jim Colin's Built to Last in irvine, I was definitely entertained/educated on the way over.

So at last, my war-battered black G20 pulls into m's apartment's parking complex around sunset.... the promised land... exciting opportunities awaits!

....
odometer reading:
Starting 115,285mi
part 2 starting 116,654mi
Ending 120,580mi

Part two time: 13 days
Part two distance: 3,926 miles

Total distance: 5,295 miles

Labels: travel

posted by wooden @ 1:15 PM