Coming Home Pt. I

It's funny, how now that I'm returning to RISD I finally get to writing about my trip home. It's mostly because I haven't had my memory card, which I just recently obtained. But before we get to the drive back, let's go back to RISD. I just developed a roll of film that still had photos from RISD on it, which is always a pleasant surprise. Featuring Joseph, Alex, and Maddie.

Then, my room. That shit was messy.

So I cleaned it. For a very long time.

And, after not sleeping, I finally finished. You can see the transition from day to night to day in the photos. Off to the airport. I got to Providence's tiny little airport, then transferred to another state. It's funny, it's actually been so long I can't remember what airport it was. All i know is that they had a FUCKIN MONORAIL

By this time it was dinner. I had a poorly made pizza that I was not very happy with. I mean, it was okay. But not good. However, the post-pizza dessert i found made up for it. It was a Milky Way drink or some other sort of chocolate-bar themed drink. I enjoyed that, while some I watched some Asian people across from me settle down and look for food.

I get to Indiana, where Guy picks me up. Get all my shit in his car, and we're off. I spent the night at his Frat house, which reminded me of all those great music venues ("venues") in RI. I slept under a bed or something. But more importantly, before that, we stopped to get Arby's. I don't know if you've even been to an Arby's in the middle of America at night, but my god. The people there. There was a large woman playing Magic with some kid. Next to them were two older men playing Magic. I guess it was like a thing they do. The two men were arguing about how the other had played in a previous match, and that they should have done better. They must have been a team. Besides the Magic players, there were lots of large, strange people. I would have taken a picture if I didn't fear for my life. Outside of the Arby's/Gas Station (they were connected) was this:

They had a buy one get one free sale going on. So we headed over to guys frat house, i met the guys (who seemed like a lovely bunch), then we went to bed. We headed out early the next morning, but before we headed out we had to get Guy's car checked, and he needed new winshield wippers. It turns out, Guy's tires were on their last string and COULD GO AT ANY MINUTE. The mechanic said we'd never make it to LA. Well, us being the thrill-seekers we are, we just laughed in the face of danger and said "NEW TIRES? WE DONT NEED NO NEW TIRES." Well actually, apparently Guy's G35 uses fancy tires that are impossible to find, and we couldn't get them anywhere. Not even Wallmart. Since it was a holiday weekend and everything was closed, and we didn't have time to wait, we'd just start heading out and figured we'd get them eventually in some major city along the way (yeah, right). But while we were at Wallmart, we did buy a case of Gatorade and Chez-Its. But most importantly that morning, before we left, we stopped here:

SQUARE DONUTS. And yes, they were square.

I got my favorite, the pink-flavored donut, and some milk. It was quite the delicious breakfast, and still lives in my memory. I wish I had a picture of the non-bar ones, because those were actually squares rather than just rectangles. Anyways, so we headed out.

Part I: INDIANA, ILLINOIS, MISSOURI

There were a lot of plains in Indiana. There was also a lot of nothing. Luckily, one of Guy's Fratmate's mother (?) made him some brownies the night before. But not just your standard brownies--CARAMEL NUT DELICIOUS BROWNIES.

Close-up of that caramel action

There were lots of plains. Eventually, the plains stopped and we reached a river. The Mississippi. This is guy driving over the Mississippi:

And this is the Mississippi. It wasn't quite as epic as I expected. Maybe we were too far north.

Then, all of a sudden: MORE PLAINS

Eventually, we had to fill up for gas. My least favorite part of the trip. BUT, we had also reached Kansas City. And with it, Kansas. We had a debate on whether Kansas City was in Missouri or Kansas. Turns out it's Missouri. Although, it's literally on the border, so who would know?

Kansas city actually looked quite a bit like Providence to me. Although we didn't really go inside, we just mostly drove around it. Then, we were in Kansas, where there were super-plains resting under rainclouds.

At this point we had five (technically six) more states to cross, three under our belt. I'm going to stop here because this post is getting ridiculously long, and all these food pictures are making me hungry. Plus, this is the end of the first memory card of photos. More open road coming up, featuring: Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, and just a dash of Arizona.