Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

road trip

Rob and I spent ten and a half hours on the road today, driving from Arlington, Va. to Bloomington, Ind., home of Rob’s alma mater, Indiana Univiersity. We’re staying with Jeff and Erica, old friends of Rob’s, who have been fantastic hosts thus far.

I’m writing this from the newsroom of the Indiana Daily Student, the campus newspaper. (It’s a heckuva lot nicer than the old “Dungeon” at ASU ever was.) It feels a little strange to be checking my work e-mail from another paper’s newsroom — even if it is a student paper.

The road trip itself was long, but fairly uneventful. Random sights from the road, written in RobStyle (list form):

• States driven through: Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia (twice!), Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana
• In western Maryland, we passed what looked like a nasty accident on the side of the road involving a demolished Winnebago and a flipped-over Suburban-like vehicle. It didn’t look like anyone was hurt, but it was still a bad scene. Amid all the people and cars crowded around, a woman leaned against the Suburban and sobbed.
• As we pulled out of a NASCAR-themed McDonald’s in rural Ohio, a pickup truck full of high school boys drove into the parking lot, honking repeatedly. Their back window featured stickers with the Dixie flag and the word “redneck” in graffiti script. Weird.
• It’s no hybrid, but my car gets awesome gas mileage. We made it here on about a tank and a half of gas. I’m so proud.