i've been a long time gone now, maybe someday, someday i'm gonna settle down, but i've always found my way somehow, by taking the long way around

my one suggestion for anyone contemplating a roadtrip: buy a gps. it's not that i didn't think about it. i did. but i decided i wanted my trip to be unplanned and have the chance to get lost and see the unexpected. yeah, that's great and all... but spending 3 hours lost in the city looking for the effing interstate = not so exciting (more on that later). anyway, for practical purposes, a gps would have been fantastic. but of course, me being the stubborn person i am, there was no way i was going to buy one halfway through my trip... so instead i got the grand idea of buying an atlas! yeah, i've gone this whole trip with no maps or anything... just following signs. i've always hated maps/graphs/anything like that. i have this intense phobia of them because my brain is "map-retarded" and seriously just doesn't understand them... but i'm a little in love with my pocket-sized atlas. obsessed even. i love looking at the places i've been and seeing the places i could go. i love figuring out which interstate will take me where. i'm addicted. so where were we...?

Tuesday:

Allison convinced me to stay another day by bribing me with a fondue restaurant. she promised that we would meet up with a friend of hers after work and have a girls night out, complete with cream puffs dipped in melted snickers chocolate. i was sold. so i spent the day working out, playin with the pups and chillin by the pool until allison got home. then we hit up the fondue place, where allison got wild boar that they brought out to her on a lava rock thing that she cooked herself. it was pretty cool! i even tried a little tiny piece, much to everyone's surprise. real tasty.

Wednesday:

after a quick workout, i packed up the car and me and rotey said farewell (or so we thought) to sweet san jose. the plan was to head to san francisco for the day and then camp at yosemite that night. but thanks to stupid san francisco's lack of interstate signs, that was not meant to be. so we made it to san fran that morning and headed straight to fisherman's wharf. i ended up parking in what i would later realize was the most expensive parking garage in san fran and was also like an hour and a half walk away from both china town and f'man's wharf. not a good combo. we finally made it to the wharf and i was happy as a clam (i thought the simile was appropriate here). cute little shops, streetside vendors and festive music everywhere. after i felt i had gotten my fill, i decided to try and walk to the golden gate bridge, only to find out it was at least another hour and a half away from where i was (meaning a 3 hour walk back to my car) so that was outta the question. the cop who had told me this then gave me "faster" directions back to my parking garage, which actually only ended up in leading me in a gigantic circle. you can imagine my frustration when an hour later i ended up back at fisherman's wharf instead of my parking garage. heading back our original route, we eventually found our car and got a quick drive thru chinatown since i still wanted to see the gg bridge and get to yosemite before nightfall. really really absurdly and frustratingly long story short, thanks to traffic and stupidity, i spent the next 3 hours blindly driving thru the city, trying to find the bridge. finally, as the evening was setting in, i called allison and told her she would be getting to keep me for another night. so back to san jose we went.

we got there just in time to join in for her ballroom dancing lessons. and then we stayed after for the group party where they dim the lights, raise the disco ball and dance the night away. haha. it was great! i danced with one of the older instructors there (probably like 70s or something), and i tell you what! that old fox had me blushing all night long. guarantee you that man was a ladykiller in his prime... like 40 years ago.. but whatever! age is just a number.

Thursday:

as i set out on the road thursday morning, i started to head in the direction of yosemite... but then i turned around. i had a score to settle with that golden gate bridge. so in the opposite direction i set off. and you will be glad to know, i did indeed find it!...after only getting lost a few times... and on top of that, when i parked to get out and take a picture, the meter still had time so i didn't have to pay! i think that was san fran's way of apologizing for being a stupid city yesterday. even though it was going the opposite direction than i needed, i wasn't going to NOT drive over the bridge!

after we crossed over, i saw signs for a little town called sausalito that my friend josh had recommended to me.. so we ventured there and i loved it. it's crazy how it's just barely outside of san fran but totally different. it's like entering another world. you leave the smoggy skies and cold wind of san fran for the blue skies and cool breeze of this quaint little city. super cute. fiiiinally, we headed on our way to yosemite and made it there with just enough time to drive through and see that all the campsites were full. but at least i got to see it! so beautiful. i'd love to go backpacking there. on we drove through the night until finally i came across a 24 hour burger and passed out in the drivers seat for the rest of the night.

Friday:

My next destination in mind was the grand tetons and yellowstone. after stealing a shower from another Motel 6 again (i love motel 6!!! they are the bomb diggity and a half and they don't charge for pets.. they might even be 2 bomb diggities!), we spent a lot of friday driving and stopping at random places... one such place was the saltair palace in utah. some weird little palace looking place on the great salt lake. it was interesting. rotor was particularly fond of the dead birds scattered across the beach. i told him he'd be walking home if he rolled in one. he did anyway. fortunately, they had little showers so i could rinse him off.

we made it to wyoming that night, and as we were driving through the grand tetons, i thought it looked oddly familiar. then i realized that i was driving through the exact area that bill and i had been at over spring break! i had even pulled over and contemplated camping at the exact place we had gone snowmobiling! how weird was that? i actually didn't realize any of this until i passed this moose on the side of the road... and thought "WHOA!! a real live moose!! just standing there!" and then remembered that i had thought that exact same thing the first time i had seen it... and was sadly disappointed when everyone told me it was a fake moose. anyway, at about midnight when i stopped driving, i once again found out that all the campsites were full, and i really didn't feel like just sleeping wherever cuz there are wild animals EVERYWHERE... and unfortunately, tuesdays are my Get-Attacked-By-A-Bear Day... so... once again, i slept in my car. actually, i really wanted to get a motel room that night and would have spent a pretty penny... but there was literally not ONE single vacant hotel in all of jackson, wyoming. so the car it was.

Saturday:

we got to yellowstone early and spent much of the morning observing the hot springs and geysers. yellowstone is so beautiful... ya know, in case you didn't believe everyone who has ever been there and said that. i even got to see old faithful--who is, by the way, definitely a woman. she was such a tease! over the course of like 15 minutes, while the crowd was ready and waiting, she would bubble up and you'd think here we go! and then she'd stop. and then start again and you'd think "surely this is it!" and then she'd stop... and then finally, once everyone in the crowd was impatiently begging and waiting for it, she finally... blew. i think i now understand how guys feel. oh and during all this, it began to rain... so due to the nasty weather, i had to cut my visit to yellowstone short.

back on the road, i knew my final destination was mt rushmore.. so to south dakota we went! at about 10 pm, dead with exhaustion and wanting nothing more than to stretch out in a big bed, i stopped in buffalo, wyoming to find a hotel. wrong town to stop in. i couldn't find anything for less than 90 bucks (and that was AFTER i lied and said i didn't have a dog). finally, at the last motel i was at, just as i was about to leave, i turned to the guy and flat out lied and said "well i guess i'll just go back to the mansion motel. they offered me a room for 50 bucks. too bad you don't do competitive pricing." and as i started to walk out the door, he scrambled after me and was like "wait!! i'll see what i can do!" and that was that. stephanie got a room for 50 bucks (which was still way more than i'd wanted to spend but i was way too tired to care).

Sunday:

i had also lied to this guy and said i didn't have a dog... and there was a $50 charge for lying about that... so i decided we'd just sneak out early in the morning and since they were the kind of rooms you parked right outside of, i figured we'd just hop in the car and go. rotor had other plans. he ALWAYS gets in the car when i open the door.. always. but this morning he decided it was the perfect time to go sprinting around the hotel parking lot with me chasing wildly after him, and in a useless attempt be subtle, scream-whispering "ROTOR!! GET IN THE CAR!!" finally, i remembered a trick that sometimes works.. so i got in the car, turned it on and said "bye rotor!" and he came sprinting over to me and hopped in the car, terrified his mommy would leave him.

a few hours later, we arrived at mt rushmore. amazing! i ended up taking the presidential trail and was surrounded by large, sweaty herds of out of breath and out of shape people... the trail was only half a mile long!! dear lord.. what has our culture come to? and yet, i was the one who tripped UP the stairs (in a little sundress, no less) in front of a long line of nasty, sweaty old men--with cameras! eek! so if some random chick's ass at mt rushmore appears all over youtube... it's not mine.

after mt rushmore, we started driving.. and i started drinking coffee. lots of coffee. big mistake. i'm not really sure how much coffee i had... but i somehow made it from rapid city, south dakota to memphis, tn 24 hours later... yes, i drove for 24 hours straight, stopping only for a 30 minute cat nap in a hardees parking lot. well, that's not entirely true. i also stopped at "THE WORLD'S ONLY CORN PALACE!" i mean, seriously. who WOULDN'T stop there?? but yeah... i was all cracked out on caffeine and knew i wouldn't be able to sleep anyway so i figured why not just drive..? i finished another book on tape and started a new one--so that was pretty exciting. i also got in some quality time with my show tunes (especially phantom of the opera and wicked).

Monday:

my early arrival (i wasn't supposed to get here til monday night) allowed me to go watch my mom's barrel racing lessons and meet the horses. i was so proud of my mommy racing around the barrels like a pro ;-) then i came back to their house and slept for like 5 hours... and woke up with my right armpit painfully sore. your guess is as good as mine. after a yummy dinner, mom and jack gave me a tour of the little town. jack then had to abandon us (something about needing sleep so he could perform surgery in the morning or something stupid like that), and mom and i went for a walk with our pups and got some good mother-daughter bonding time in. i haven't gotten to see them since i got back from alaska so it was long overdue! and now, the amazingly comfy couch is callin my name.