Peacing out of America for 6 months. This is an account of my travels and experiences.

Friday, June 1, 2012

jackson holy wyoming


alright yinz guys, 
after two blog entries, i am a tired blog writer, but on i must forge for our loyal 3 followers, our moms.

so yesterday we drove through the whole state of wyoming, which was wildly enthralling. it literally looks like the mario kart level so much that i took  a picture of it to show the world!
mario kart levelll

the most beautiful mountains in all of the land



we ate in this little cafe in dubois wyoming which is probably the smallest town in the world, besides alex's. I was really pumped about our waitress because she kept trying to make us eat, and she was nice as pie, and she made pies, which I didn’t eat because I felt naucious from sitting in the black hole of death (the backseat) but I wanted to. then jenni was like “ is she is your people, daina?” and I was thinking in my head “if it’s because she’s enjoys excessive amounts of pie and wears tie die Wyoming tshirts, then yes, she is definitely my people.”

then onward we went to jackson hole. We saw the GRAND teton mountains, which were the best thing I’ve ever seen. It was like germany where the Disney world castle is, which I’ve only seen in postcards. I took about 6000 pictures of them. we ate some pizza at alex's friend carol's house, who we are staying with. and then we went out on the town in jackson hole


saddles for seats!1 wahoo!

carol and alex


we went to this bar place in town where all of the cowboys go. it was wild. these old cowboys would scout the room and make girls dance with them, carol told us not to look them in the eyes. then this giant cowboy man from australia came over to our table and wanted one of us to dance with him, we nominated alex because of her tininess and easy ability to be lifted into the air. this giant man swung alex to both sides of his hips. It was like  country version of dancing with the stars with a giant and a dwarf, which is a difficult scene to imagine! then we went to another cowboy bar and had drinks on saddles!


because of all the cars



Then carol drunk dialed alex’s mom, who is her best friend, and we interrupted their anniversary moment. Then the next day we woke up and I decided that  I am one pound away from entering obesity camp, which I don’t even know if that exists, but if it does I’m only one pound away from it! Anyway so I went on a run/more of a walk on the trail right by our friends’ house, it was absolutely amazing, and I don’t normally say shit like that. It was the biggest greenest most tree-ey hills I’ve ever seen back dropped with the teton mountains. And as I was almost done I looked to my right. HOLY SMOKES! It was an animal of which type I had no idea! I was pooping my pants because it was elk like in nature and then wondered if I was going to to die/get charged. I didn’t. it just sat there, and then I walked on staring at it t he whole time, which I think is what you’re( <- notice this punctuation sarah fryd) not supposed to do. But I lived.




alex and her giant cowboy man



Then we drove to Jackson hole, the ski resort and went on the biggest tram in the world! Up to the top of the mountain, I would like to tell you this story about a tour group of 42 korean people, me alex and jenni, and Amanda britton’s cousin, our tram leader. The tram had 5 towers and every time we passed a toer the tram would rock forward, it’s a thing that it does, totally normal. Literally every single time we passed one of these towers, the Korean people in unison would ooooooooooh, for 35 seconds, it was one of my top 5 moments in life. Even Amanda brittons cousin was dying. Also then we were talking to the tram leader, Amanda brittons cousin, and she was like, I have a cousin named Amanda britton, and then we were like “we know her!” and that was that.










tramming

Then we went to a rodeo. Holy smokes this was the best thing that’s ever happened to me. This is how a rodeo, or at least this one, started, first there was a horse lap for Wyoming, the cowboy state, then there were like 3 laps for America, and we praised old glory, then we had like 5 laps for jesus, praise the lord, no one will get hurt tonight, honest to pete, your riding a bull, with horns, someone is going to get hurt, this ain’t my first rodeo, but actually it was.


bucking bronco


Then yesterday we got really super sad about Bucknell, I was too depressed to even blog, which is not saying much because writing is one of my top least favorite things in life. I would say my least things in life are 1.paying attention, to anything, I have the add 2. Writing things 3. I only hate those two things

this is alex and her best friend in the whole world, lil kitty, that is her name

I would like to take this moment to talk about alex, my friend, who is a traveler with me, and her 3 things in life. 1. Animals: high pitched voice “COME HERE LIL KITTY, you are my best friend in the whole wide world!! YOU ARE THE FLUFFIEST THING IN THE  WHOLE WORLD!!” 2. Windshield wiping, like at the gas station, this is alex’s rekindled passion life, approximately every 45 minutes this is what happens “HOLY SHIT guys look at the windshield! Lets clean it!” and then jenni and I watch her scweegy like there is no tomorrow at each gas station.


these are elk horns

i look like i am about to attack them

old faithful was not faithful and was not working



christmas trees for days

who knew about idaho

the black hole of death, and the effing pillow
Now we drove from Jackson hole Wyoming today, to Missoula Montana, through Yellowstone national park, I’m hoping you know all of these locations. If not, google this, the internet is helpful. We started our journey at 9 am, at 6 pm, we decided, we are going to  screw the hotel, and drive on, so now we are dying, it will bring our total of the day up til 17 hours til we get to alex’s little cowboy theme town. Fortunately we are still alive in Idaho, the only things I know about Idaho are the following, Idaho, udaho, and that I think they are good with potatoes. But now I’m learning that it is beautifullll, which I like to say beeyuteefoll. There are a plethora of pine trees, which we have concluded, you could always have a Christmas tree if you lived here, like you could have a million.




There are some things that we do to keep morale high in our car. We check on everyone’s morale, kind of like in the Oregon trail, except no one has died of dysentery yet, we did shoot 470 buffalo though. We all put our hands in the middle console and shout “one two three, CAR” this really boosts our morale high.




Monday, May 28, 2012

south dakota is the worst state in america


Rochester to Mt Rushmore
So right now we are stopped at subway in South Dakota and I am contemplating suicide. South Dakota is everything I dreamed it would be, many toothless people,  13 year olds and 95 year olds driving pick up trucks and more motorcycles than cars, no one ever wearing helmets. Everyone is nice as pie though!
I have made alex and jenni listen to this song I just discovered called pretty girl rock. It says “don’t hate me cause I’m beautiful” (my philosophy on life) and I really enjoy the tune.
In Minnesota we saw more wind mills than I have ever seen in all of my life combined. It was fascinating, alex and jenni asked me how they worked cause I am a smart engineer, so I explained how wind energy is converted to electricity using a generator. Now that I’m a college graduate I can discuss things like that


this is a 95 year old lady driving a pickup truck in south dakota, you can't see her because she is so small because she is so old

we saw 2000 windmills
we left alex here to be in her natural habitat



 wyoming, there are only horses, no cars

this is a wildabeast we found in hannibals house, i thought  wildabeasts were fictional, but they're real and here is one

Update, we are only 2 license plates away from being CHAMPIONS OF THE LICENSE PLATE GAME 2012!!!! If you see Hawaii or lousiana in the near future please shoot me a text, because there’s a better chance of finding a chipotle in all of the Midwest, and I checked. There are none.
Then I checked all of the news, to see what is happening outside of south Dakota, w hich  is hard because this is such a happening place. That dude is Syria is such a prick and I hope someone abducts him and brings him to South Dakota, then he’ll really wanna bomb things.

this is south dakota and this is all that there is here

In the distance there was a ray of hope in the form of a badland. Thank the sweet god above they were there because I ready to lay down and die in the endless prairies. i'd have more luck being eaten by a cow than run over by a car because there arent any! These are things we passed in south Dakota that made me thank every god in the world that I wasn’t born in south Dakota, a palace made of corn, and the lady from little house on the praire. well, her birthplace, not actually her, i think she's dead. Holy actual smokes how could someone make a tv show from that.
Anyway, so we drove thru the badlands and took 47 pictures, all of which we tried to be artsy and emo and looking like we were contemplating serious moments. Here are some
wow...life


Then we had a debacle because of our hotel, which was the president’s inn suite resort . Google it. It is bad news. We had to switch it or face death by bed bugs, which wouldn’t be my favorite way to die. So because my faja is a traveling salesman, see death of a salesman, that is what my childhood was like, he is a platinum member at holiday inn expresses! So he got us a free one! So we switched hotels. When we got there, the lady was like “listen we’re out of queen beds, can we upgrade you?” and I was thinking in my head, “in what way would a king bed and a jazcuzzi in my room be not ok?” so we got upgraded and alex and jenni swam laps in our Jacuzzi!
our lover's suite!!!


Then we went to mt rushmore, and it was wild! We think that george washington’s ear is going to fall off, in case you were concerned about the future of our metamorphic founding fathers. then we drove around the mt rushmore parking lot looking for louisiana, we found saskatchewan.

mt rushmore!!!!









being bad in the badlands


our favorite photo of the trip
also jill, shout out to you because jenni and i have been taking vitamins every day so were as healthy as the oxen we see in south dakota!

Then we drove through the black hills of south Dakota which was pretty wild. Then we went to Wyoming which is everything you would imagine what Wyoming would look like. Do you know the level in Mario kart that is is the middle of nowhere and there is a train? That is what Wyoming looks like. We took 3 roads in Wyoming and on our first road alex said “holy shit look at this road, there is nothing there!” then she said that for the next 3 roads because there was nothing there.

this is wyoming


Saturday, May 26, 2012

chicagoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


Chicago to Minnesota
So as soon as we got to chicago, we drove to alex’s cousin, whose name is tommy, restaurant. Tommy valet parked the car and then we had the nicest dinner in all of time. we had an appetizer and cocktails! Only things that adults have! And it was all free!! There is nothing better than a free meal to a college student, and I am still considering us college students, because tommy said that we are all grouped into the college student category. I’ll allow it. Then we walked around in wicker park which is so wild and trendy and nice. One lady was walking down the street, and alex was like “ is that a hooker?” and I was like “no she is just trendy”. Very confusing  wardrobes for country bumpkins like ourselves. Then we went into American apparel and wondered why colorful spandex and sweatshirts were so expensive. We also talked about hipsters and wondered why they have to wear weird shit, and they all wear the same weird shit, which makes them th e same, which is the opposite of what a hipster wants. I am a hipster for wearing my yellow shoes around, no one in the world has those. Too trendy.

lookin good in millenium park

deep dish pizza

Then the next day we went into Chicago, with the help of tommy, alex’s cousin, who was the best tour guide in all of tour guide history, he knew more about my favorite water building than I did, and I love buildings. He told us where to go to the bean, so that was our number one priority. We ate pizza that was deep dish and is more like a lactoseintolerants worst nightmare, but delicious as hell. Then we went to a fountain which alex said, in alex voice “guys, this fountain shoots 100 stories high!!!”  alex, if that was the case it would be about the height of the world trade center, and the water pressure needed to power that fountain would be redonkulous. Then we found the bean. There was a model there who weighed probably 50 pounds. I wanted to give her a hamburger. I’ve never realized how skinny they are in real life. Then we went to my favorite building in all of time! the aqua building. It is new skyscraper in Chicago that has concrete plates in circular shapes that make it look super duper sweet!

leavin the burgh

cheese for days

trendy as hell

 Then Justin met us and we went for sushi at his old restaurant, I’ve only ever eaten bison sushi, so it was super duper and it had raw fish and I actually didn’t throw up!
Then we went to justin’s friends house and hung out, which gave us hope for the afterlife (aka after college) because all graduates are bonded together due to our love of alcoholic beverages and willingness to cut off an arm to go back to college. This kid was all knowing about lsd, getting arrested, and editing movie scripts, 3 things we knew all about. Wanting to fit in to our surroundings, we pretended we knew what in the heck he was talking about. We didn’t.  side note. We are about to win the license plate game, we only have 5 states left.


my favorite building in all fo time!
Then we went home and woke up and went to dunkin donuts where they only gave us 2 ketchups/breakfast sandwich, had a 30 minute seating limit, and had to be buzzed into the bathroom. It was also hot as balls. We were sweating. And then I thought, this is not India people. Then after I ate a breakfast sandwich, I wanted nothing more than chocolate ice cream, which is unusual because I hate chocolate ice cream, however, it may or maynot have been my time of the month. Conveniently the dunkin donuts was also a baskin robbins! Wow! 





So then I got chocolate ice cream but it took this man, whose name was mohammed, 6.3 minutes to check me out. He pressed 107 buttons, which is weird because I got a childs size cup of chocolate ice cream. Then alex came out of the bath room and I told her to watch our stuff, which immediately she did not listen to and she was like “ ICE CREAM!’” Then I had to raise my voice and I was like no watch our stuff, because there was a snatcher lurking, I saw him. Then she went over and watched out stuff.
the beannnn

Now we are driving and have 6 hours to go. We are visiting my cousin Hannibal lecter who i have not seen in 7 years.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Day 1-PITTSBURGH to chicago


Hey Yinz Guys,

before you do anything, type america into google.
So yesterday we drove away from our home for four years and it was emotional as hell! Alex started balling at the house, and although I cried there, I totally lost it when we pulled away from our friends.  Plug for Bucknell, we realized that we met some of our best friends in the world there, had some amazing times, and will definitely be lifelong friends!  But then I said to myself, people graduate from college every single year and they survive! Then we went to the burgh! And Alex’s car was holding like 17 dead bodies, or the weight of that anyway, and could barely go more than 45 miles on the highway. I would like to talk at this point about Alex’s effing pillow, that is what Jenni and I call it. It is husband in nature (with those arm things) and about 16/17 dead bodies. It won’t smush at all, and she WILL NOT get rid of it, coming fom the girl who decided to bring half a bottle of soysauce and olive oil across the country, because we’ll really need those when we run out of soysauce for our mcdonalds hamburgers. She won’t let us throw it away although Jenni and I have tried 3x already. Once we arrived in a burgh, We had spaghetti with Sandlebar, my mom, whose passion in life is making people eat food, so we ate a lot of food. For the first time in my life I had to be packed neatly, I normally throw all of my shit in the car bagless and go Pittsburgh or bust. However, now that I am real (an adult) I packed very adult like and neat. I am so responsible now. I also have stopped checking for bad guys when I go to sleep the day that I graduated from college, 4 days and counting. My friends came over and we drank yuengling like true yinzers. Then we slept for days, Alex and I went to get her car fixed when we woke up to make sure we didn’t die on our trip. Sand fed us again and then we were off on our way to Chicago! The Windy City! The Land of the Bean! Wahoo!

On our way to Chicago, specifically, in ohio, the worst state in America, although somehow with the best rest stops ever. As we are driving, guess who we see? Three girls who we don’t know, but they are driving to Washington! What a coincidence! Wowzers!!

Real Pictures will come tomorrow