The cross country drive as a rite of passage may be the most overrated idea, ever. Sometimes you have to do it, but it's not fun. Especially when you do it solo. I just spent the last five days driving from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine, trapped in the Subaru version of a containment cell. Not much room to move around, two dead ipods and the limited food choices of gas stations, McDonalds and Taco Bells (the infrequent Sonics were my favorite since you can order breakfast all day). While I know there are worse things than spending all day driving, there are a lot better ways to spend time, too (some examples of things that would suck that I'd rather do: waiting in line at the DMV, watching a marathon of Gilmore Girls, listening to all of Oasis' albums in a row). Anyway, spending that much time sitting by yourself while remaining alert enough to keep your car away for the guardrail gives you some time to burn. I took a lot of photos, one handed, out of the driver's side window.

Leaving Oregon. I could have put a picture of Mount Hood here, but when you leave this place, which do you miss more? Slushy snowboard runs or karaoke at The Rat?

Entering Salt Lake City...unfortunately I had not perfected my elph night photos. But you get the idea: pretty lights.

In SLC I stayed with Bode Merril and his girlfriend Celine. This is their cat, Sean. Bode told me that Sean liked me and that he is the friendliest cat ever and that I should pick him up. He then added, "just be carefull, 50/50 chance he might scratch you." The next day we went out to breakfast at a place called The Park I think, which not only was really delicious, was the fasted breakfast place I have ever been to.

My stop in SLC was way to short, but I had to get back to the East Coast before the weekend and it was already Wednesday. After breakfast, I had a short porch hang with my friend Sam and it was goodbye to Salt Lake.

No anecdote behind this picture, just some nice clouds.

Sunset in Wyoming.

Wyoming definitely had the most interesting natural features to look at. Here are some rocks.

I spent the next night in Denver, but didn't take my camera out of the car. I had to conserve battery for taking photos while driving. The next day I drove to Omaha, Nebraska. This is a Nebraska sunset.

This illustrates my excellent photography skills. In this picture, I actually make Nebraska look like a place you would want to visit.

I took a lot of photos of the windmills, especially in Iowa. You know that movie with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning about the aliens and stuff? For some reason, the windmills make me think of that movie. I think it's just because they're huge and machine-like and so were the aliens in that movie...other than that there's really no similarities.

Sometimes driving 75 mph lends itself to artsy photos because you don't take the picture until the subject is almost out of the frame.

An isolated farmhouse surrounded by a menacing storm cloud. The photo representation of how Iowa makes me feel.

After Iowa, I entered Illinois and continued through more densely populated states. I didn't take as many pictures because the buildings in Cleveland don't look that great in still images. Then I got to Massachusetts and it was pouring until I got home to Maine and it looked like this:

Foggy. Ah, home.