I wish I had kept stats on our beach-to-Midwest road trip just to quantify how ridiculous of a plan it was, but I didn’t so I’ll now estimate a few stats for you …

14 days
10 states (three of them we crossed through twice) ***
3,000 miles of driving
4 MLB games and stadiums
12ish fast food stops
2 soccer games listened to on the radio
7ish podcasts listened to in the car
1 taping of an NPR show
2 Stieg Larsson books devoured by the MLM (you know, The Girl Who … books)
1 stop at Ikea
1 million calories of junk food and beer … well, maybe 2 million

Did I enjoy it? A million times yes. Was I glad we went? Absolutely. Will I ever do it again? Hell effin no.

Oh, I’ll do road trips again. I love road trips because they allow me to see new places, new things, new landscapes. I like stopping at landmarks and national parks and scenic overlooks and such. Herein lies the problem. Have you ever roadtripped through the Midwest? I would say boring as hell, but hell is probably a hella lot more interesting than driving through the rural Midwest. Sure, the rural Midwest is beautiful in its own flat sort of way for the first 100 miles or so. Then it just gets old and painful to drive through. If we’re going to be driving 3,000 miles, I need the scenery to change more frequently or at least give me some cows to look at.

I will give the Midwest credit for something, it’s an expert when it comes to cities. I’ve loved Chicago since I first step foot in it. I love St. Louis. I discovered on this trip that I love Milwaukee and that Columbus, Ohio, is way more tolerable than I would have expected. Fortunately, those cities made the hundreds of cornfields and wind turbines worth it.

The Modern Love Machine and I neither killed each other nor eloped on the trip. We managed our time together wisely and still enjoyed each other’s company by the time we were headed for Knoxville (or at least, that’s how I feel … I guess I could have him do a post sharing his own feelings).

Still, we were gladish to get home. I say gladish because as wonderful as sleeping in my own bed and sitting on my own couch may sound after two weeks on the road, the air conditioning fairies did not come to fix our AC while we were gone, dang it! Which made Monday night a very restless and unpleasant night. Oh, and the couch I ordered almost 10 weeks ago from a local furniture store still hasn’t been delivered, so no couch to sit on.

But now, we at least have cool air in the house again and we’re mostly unpacked and the fridge has been restocked and the laundry is almost done. The moving fairies also neglected to show up while we were gone to unpack what was remaining from last month’s move, and I’m trying to find the number for the painting fairies, but I’ll have a little more free time for the next six weeks or so. I have more stories and some photos to share from the trip, which I promise, promise, promise I will do in a few posts this week. I still have many posts which must be shared with you.

In the mean time, tell me what I’ve missed! I’m trying to get caught up on my blogreader, but if you have big news or an interesting post that needs to be read five minutes ago, please let me know.

***I passed through the cities and states where many of you live, and I missed getting to see you. For that I am sorry. We were on a super-tight schedule and ended up seeing only the people we stayed with along the way because that’s how the dice fell. My next trips to your fair city/state will be more leisurely and I will do a better job of getting to see you, my friends.