Author:bluelollipoproad

August 7, 2010 In Uncategorized

hey there my fellow MAU soccer ladies

What do you think of this one that popped in my inbox this morning? Pretty perfect eh?

Word of the Day for Saturday, August 7, 2010

mojo MOH-joh, noun:

1. Personal magnetism; charm.
2. The art or practice of casting magic spells; magic; voodoo.
3. An object, as an amulet or charm, that is believed to carry a magic spell.
4. Good luck or favor concerning an event or individual.

I’ve subscribed to Dictionary.com for 2 years and never seen this pop up before. Looks like some karmic force is paying attention.

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August 7, 2010 In Canada, De-lish, Photos, Wisconsin

saturday breakfast variety

For someone like me that gets excited by the tiniest of things (especially when traveling) it’s killing me that I can’t stop every 20 minutes and share the next funny, ridiculous or crazy story or photo from Canada. Then again, I’d never get to my destination if I did that and I can’t exactly power up in a bail of hay or a tree. I can however power up in a local diner and look like such a fish out of water you may as well paint my face with; “I’M NOT FROM HERE IN CASE THAT WASN’T PAINFULLY OBVIOUS FROM WHAT I’M WEARING AND THE FACT THAT MY VEHICLE IS THE ONLY ONE PARKED IN THE LOT THAT’S NOT COVERED IN DIRT AND A HUGE TRUCK!!!”

Bfast at the beginning of the great Alaska highway

The waitress at the place I’m at definitely used a half bottle of Aqua Net before she came to work this morning. She gave me the twice over like who the hell do you think you are? when I first walked in, but after camping out looking like a complete idiot with my camera and laptop chords all over I think she’s starting to warm up. (I think she feels sorry for me. HA!) She looks like she wants to say something like; Hey sweetie, put that stuff away. We don’t do that around here. Instead she keeps filling my white ceramic coffee cup with that bitter but somehow delicious coffee you get in these places on the road. I am listening to a table of 4 gents behind me gobbling their breakfast. They’re all wearing work jeans with hats, and talking about guns, grizzly bears, loggers, safety hazards and what “they” are doing to the highway these days. Perfect. I’d expect nothing less. There a special place in my heart for people and places like this that are just like the movies and the whatchya see is whatcha get. It’s exactly like where I grew up and will never lose it’s charm or special place in my heart.

Although this quite different from my last Saturday breakfast of fancy-schmancy brioche french toast with fresh berry compote. at Marigold Kitchen in Madison…

Marigold Kitchen brioche french toast

…I love it just the same. And I wonder why I can’t figure out what I want to be when I grow up:)

Now three days have passed with no shower and I am so good at rigging my car for sleeping privacy I’m like the firefighters who teach new moms how to strap in the baby seats. After my initial, OUCH- how the heck did I sleep in that position for the last few hours? feeling when I woke up this morning, I had my first thought of Ok Diane, you might be getting a little offensive. That was quickly followed by a, meh- who cares. I don’t really smell that bad, even if I did I really wouldn’t care right now, and besides, this is becoming a game for me. I did think I might get a hotel one night between WI and AK but now? Hell no- I’m fully testing patience and creating the makings of my second longest run with no shower. (My finest record to date is 8 days.) Also, I might be able to charge Honda a huge consulting fee someday when they beg me to help them design the BLR inspired super road-tripping-pimped out convertible sleeper car. My current Honda is like a test lad.

Ooh! A few other gringos just walked in. More out of place travelers like me. Time to order some eggs or something that will not have words like brioche or compote involved , chow down and hit the pavement. (At least I hope it’s paved.)

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August 6, 2010 In Canada, North Dakota

oh canada!

I have so many photos in my camera and stories from the miles I have cranked out the past couple days I am in sensory overload!

I woke up yesterday in the parking lot of a grocery store in Minot, ND. Talk about need coffee on 2 hrs. of sleep freezing my butt off. I used the browser on my cell phone to see if there was a Starbucks laughing at myself because I actually thought there might be one there. When a Starbucks location popped up I almost fell out of my car seat. (I know Tom, tragic I had your beans in my car but I had to go elsewhere because I hadn’t ground enough for the road on my last stop to use the french press. DOH! The lightweight road coffee of a fast food joint was just not going to cut it either, so Starbucks it was.)

I called the location for directions from my parking lot spot as I am GPS-less. The Barista answered immediately, giving me directions but correcting my pronunciation of the town, telling me “It’s MY-KNOT ma’am. Keep going straight past Kmart. We are right there at the bottom of the hill.

Ahhh, coffee. I met a nice man there as I worked and gave him my business card when he asked what I was doing. If you are reading this now- Hi! Sorry I never got your name…) I worked a bit and on my way. Got to Portal, ND and had to snap a photo of the post office:

Portal, ND post office

I was SO excited to hit the border thinking that bells and whistles would go off and I’d be in Disneyland or something. I had fantasies of the border patrol interrogating me and searching my car. Well? Nothing. Sigh. It was so easy breezy and uneventful I was almost bummed. The saving grace was that the border patrolman was a good looking guy. Whew. (I wonder why the heck he’s hiding in Portal, ND?) Here are the signs and such going through the inspection station. (I took them through my bug-stained windshield as I figured they might shoot me if they saw me taking photos here. I think that might be illegal or something…

At the border

Border patrol station

So nope. No big WELCOME TO CANADA! sign. (Admittedly my heart broke a little. If there isn’t like the biggest sign I have ever seen when I get to the Alaska border I swear I’ll draw one in my own blood just so I can jump and scream in front of it and take photos.) I had to settle for this:

Welcome to Saskatchewan!

I have started talking out loud more and more to myself lately, so when I saw this sign I said aloud sarcastically. “Sheesh, thanks Canada. Do you know how far I’ve driven?”

I jumped back in my car and the first thing I saw out of the inspections station was this, which made me happy again:

Should I but it?

I considered for a few seconds leaving my car as a trade and taking that beast instead of the Honda, but on I went. Almost 800 miles and some of the flatest and most repetitive country I have ever driven in my life. About 800 more miles yesterday. It felt as if I went to the border of Kansas and decided I was going to drive across and back 5 times. I mean holy Central Canada flatness! Insert Jack Palance’s scene here from the movie City Slickers (My favorite movie ever by the way.) singing; “Tumblin’ tumbleweeds” (I’m laughing out loud in a Tim Horton’s watching the trailer for the 5th time…) .At one point in the day I found myself stuck in the middle of nowhere at a gas station run by a couple of teens because Wachovia put a freeze on my bank account. Even though I informed them of my travels, the nice smiley teens swiped my card and DECLINED! Photos of that to come.

More car sleeping and still no shower, but must run for now. Laptop is out of juice and no outlets here in no mans land. Lets just say I have covered a lot of ground in maple leaf country and I’m finally seeing green again instead of brown. The final frontier is getting closer and closer!

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August 6, 2010 In Uncategorized

indeed i am smiling right now

You know that scene in Home Alone where Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) runs, slides and says “Yesss!!! Yesss!!! and pumps his arms because he had just successfully pulled one of his tricks on the robbers?

That’s me right now.

After being on the road in the middle of nowhere in central Canada all day yesterday, amidst my joy and anticipation of everything that lies the next mile ahead, there were (and are fairly regularly) moments of; What the bleep am I doing? What am I stupid or crazy? Where the hell am I going to work and what am I going to do with my life after this? We all know that even when we do things that feel so right, there are those little voices and things that pop up to make us doubt ourselves. Thankfully I channel the friends and family I have, what I believe I can do and keep repeating to myself TRUST THE PROCESS DIANE. (Thanks Astro.) I keep on trucking.

(This is where I side note this story and expose my short attention span.)
When typing the above and thinking about how to convey how I shut the doubting voices up, it reminded me of this great t-shirt I saw in a chocolate shop in San Francisco a few years back. It read:

‘There’s a skinnier me inside that’s trying to get out.
I usually shut that bitch up with a piece of chocolate’

I so should’ve bought that shirt.

Back to the story at hand…

So I have been offline for about 35 hours and that feels like decades for a road tripping, Facebooking, Twittering, emailing, trying to figure out where I’m going to stay in Alaska blogger like me. I’ve been jumping out of my pants to upload photos and share more stories. I have enough for a book from only yesterday, but to share an email that came in just now:

Read your blog the other day after returning from vacation. I love my family dearly, immediate and extended, and it is good to see them always, no matter the circumstances, but I’ve a larger itch to scratch.

You’ve converted me.

I have 12 days vacation remaining this year (maybe a couple more at Christmas, they don’t count too strictly then).

And, if I want to “scare” myself into a depression, I could count the vacation days remaining until I retire. It’s about 300. I’m sure I’ll gladly and happily use half of them on both wild and mild adventures with my son.

But, I refuse to use any vacation days doing anything I can squeeze in during the workweek / weekends I am in town. I will not take vacation to paint my garage, set up my workshop, relax, cycle, (although a cycling vacation would be different and is allowed), fix my car(s), do any home repairs / home improvements, etc.

Instead, I’m going places and doing new things. By myself, with my son, with others, all of the above, it doesn’t matter. After you left your visit through here, I tacked a map of the world on my wall as a symbolic reminder my world has grown too small. Who I know, whom I meet, what I try, experience, and risk.

I have more thoughts; stories from jury duty, vacation, etc., but will save for future emails.

Be safe. Keep pollinating.

You’ve converted me. I’m pretty sure you’re smiling right now.

SMILING?! Smiling?! You can say that again (Insert the Home Alone scene here.) That’s me right now.

This email is EXACTLY the thing that keeps me believing and trusting myself and that I’m doing what I should be. This is what shuts up those doubts I have. Words like these tell me I’m paying it forward without even trying. I believe that life is about paying it forward; Living and believing in what you love and always give back

The person who wrote this email to me is one that is kind, generous, smart, sweet, driven, honest, loyal and fun. Thing is, I’m not sure he knew this a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure he might doubt a few of those things now, but he’s getting there, and not because of me. To say that the look on the faces of people when telling them we’ve become close friends would be puzzlement is an understatement. We are so far different it is comical, but get along perfectly.

Somehow he’s trying to credit me with “converting” him. HA! Little does he know he has done way more for me than I could ever do for him but I guess that’s how things like this work. I certainly cannot take the credit. My credit goes to a student exchange program and two friend that aren’t here in physical form anymore. Those are the some of this big things I channel to constantly remind myself the world will always bigger than me, and that it’d be a sin not to laugh and love as much as possible every day.

So thanks G, but all I’m doing is fumbling through my life trying my best to keep the good in mind instead of the bad and respecting the gifts I’ve been given. I’m thankful you saw my heart instantly even though you met me at my rock bottom. I love that you’re taking life by the kahonas. You deserve it. Oh and did you hear? Apparently jorts are hip these days…and you didn’t think you were cool. Pshaw!

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August 6, 2010 In Uncategorized

99 followers on the blog, 99 followers on the blog, you take one…

I know that not everyone that reads this blog is a “Follower.” Like my mom for instance. She’s so funny, still can’t figure out how to add herself after almost two years but always tells me she tries which is one of the bazillions of reasons why I know she’s loves me as much as she does. I know it doesn’t matter if my follower number is high, I have analytics, I can see how many people read here. BUT! I think it is awesome that I am now about to go over the 100 mark of people who actually want to put themselves and their photo on my blog.

Love! Support! Encouragement! Wahoo! Thanks guys!

After clocking 1,600 miles the past two days in the little Honda that could, the one added new follower since yesterday will help fill my bucket o’ energy for the next 1,600.

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August 6, 2010 In Uncategorized

i’ve got this yeuk to drive to alaska…

…so I decided to it. Now I am stinky and have slept in my car for the past 2 nights. Mostly because of budget, but more because it makes for good stories. Oh I’m so glad I had that itching sensation. Even happier I’m scratching it…

The word of the day is so fun when it pops in my inbox in and fits perfectly in the moment:

Word of the Day for Friday, August 6, 2010

yeuk YOOK, noun:

1. An itching sensation.

verb:
1. To itch.

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August 5, 2010 In Donations and Sponsorships

muchas gracias

I am like a giant thank-you fest, but I’m a very fortunate girl so I will continue thanking on:

*Bill, Julie, Jeff and Bobby~ You guys are the bomb. Thanks! Never a dull moment, things never change and I never want them too all these years later. Thanks for the roof, the feasting on cheese, the laughs and for loving me just the way I am.

*Jerry~ What to say to someone I’ve known since kindergarten? Thank you for never forgetting my birthday and always being early for it. I’m not sure I have ever told you this, but I absolutely love your “Diggatro!” beginnings to the voice messages you leave. they always make me laugh, and like above know some things will never change and that’s just perfect.

*Andrew~ The CD kept me up driving in a part of no mans land I’d never been in before. I was belting out tunes and pretending I could be the next American Idol. (Delirious and tired? Yes, because I can’t carry a tune.) Thank you for still being that generous and selfless guy you were 25 years ago. I hope you are being safe over there. Enjoy your visit back home and thank you always for your service. I have so much respect for you.

As days pass, it’s impossible for me to say thank you enough to everyone. I have appreciated every email, phone call, text, comment, Facebook message, conversation, card, well wish, meal, bed- all of it. During this trip and beyond, I hope I can be the friend to you all that you’ve been to me. Not a second goes by I don’t think about how lucky I am to have met and know so many kind, fun and generous people.

In the wise words of the one and only Jerry; Here’s to kickin’ it live and uncut!

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August 5, 2010 In Minnesota, North Dakota, Photos

8 X 100, plus a bunch of bugs

I’ve been tracking mileage for a few reasons. One because it is fun. Somehow unplanned, from my start point, until many hours later at my stopping point yesterday, I went to the mile, exactly 800 miles. Couldn’t have planned that one better if I tried!

Some more fun things from the road yesterday:

I found another pet exercise area at a rest stop, but I’m wondering where the human is and where the pet is. Or more, is there a human on this sign at all?

Pet exercise area?

I didn’t think I managed to get this one because it looked too dark on my camera last night, but happy day- it uploaded like this. Even through my bug-drenched windshield:

Welcome to ND!

Ok, Ok, so it’s a little small but it says; Welcome to North Dakota!

Back to bugs. When I stopped for gas I looked at the front of my car in horror. I had seen a few butterflies splattering on my windshield as I drove, but I think I killed every bug in Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota yesterday. And this is just what my license plate looks like:

DSCN4555

Juan, Juanita and Pablito were very, very tired as we hit 136,000k:

DSCN4539

Anyone out there work for Honda? Hello? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I should so be on a Honda commercial. After several x-country trips, all in different Hondas, driving thousands of miles and never breaking down, and the fact that all of them have had well over 100k on them and then run like brand new? What better spokesperson do you need guys? 🙂

In case anyone was wondering, yes, it’s even freezing in ND in the summer. I woke up to 57 degrees this morning and have never been happier to see a big fat sweatshirt in my back seat:

DSCN4564

The people have been lovely here, but lets just say at 57 in August-I won’t be moving here anytime soon.

After watching miles, landscape and states fly by yesterday in what was a long day on the road, I couldn’t help but to think again that there is nothing better than a summer day driving across the country exploring. Everyone should do this once in their lifetime. I hope to do this every summer moving forward. Imagine all the cool and interesting stuff you could show and teach your kids! I want my next trip across in a convertible. Someone flew by me in one as the sun was setting last night and it looked like way to much fun. There you go Honda! You could design a Blue Lollipop Road series convertible and I could test it for you. It’d have built in chocolate dispensers, a comfy bed in the back somehow and an espresso machine for when I wake up in the morning. There’s an idea to take to the bank!

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August 4, 2010 In Minnesota, Photos

bye bye midwest

Things I’ve seen on the road today. Just to list a few:

1.) People picking their noses. I have written about this before and again I am confused. They are called windows people, but hell- who am I to judge. Dig away!

2.) “Be a flirt and lift up your shirt!” written on the back of an 18- wheeler. (Please excuse me if you are one of the non-skeezy truck drivers out there and ignore this.) I have kept my mouth shut about this for SO long because I hate categorizing people, but really? I have had enough Skeez-dog truck drivers! Your sign would have been funny if you all hadn’t tried terrorizing women like me on the road for years. Enough honking, beeping and trying to box me in with your fellow operators on the road you ass. Do they put this as a requirement in your training or something? Get a friggin’ life.

3.) Teenage girls singing at the top of their lungs. (So fun, love that.)

4.) Teenage boys in a Jeep (from Virginia no less!) with it so weighed/packed down I wonder if they will make it to wherever they are going.

5.) About 600 silos. By 600 I mean about 9 million. I am from Vermont. I thought I knew what a lot of silos looked like. Nope. Not before driving through the midwest.

So I hit more traffic in Wisconsin and Minnesota than I ever hit going up I95 or in NYC (odd, I know,) but I am still trucking. Seeing more and more state signs like this (I had to be Ok with a rest stop rather than actual road sign today, I nearly crashed the car trying to snap the photo I wanted on the interstate):

Minnesota

I found a place to exercise Pablito too. See him at the very bottom? I always think these PET EXERCISE AREA signs are funny:

Exercising Pablito

A good day on the road, lots more to go. I even talked to a gal pal who lives in Alaska that I went to high school with today. We’re going to meet up. YIPPEE! I have literally not heard her voice in 16 years and all it took was one email. I love modern technology.

Coffee is empty. On the road again…

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August 4, 2010 In Random babble

my eat, pray, love

Warning gents; Girly post…

If it’s not painfully obvious already, I will tell you that I often have the attention span of a 2 year old. I’m not a big reader as in books. Not because I don’t love them or think that reading is one of the best things you can do to educate yourself, but because it usually takes me months to get through one. I read for 30 minutes, put the book down, come back in 2 weeks and reread because I forget what I have previously read. This was not the case when I read Eat, Pray, Love. I flew through the book like I did when The Babysitters Club series when I was 12, as if I couldn’t sleep until I read every page. After seeing the preview for the upcoming movie that’s been made about Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey around Italy, India, Indonesia I have to share a story. I Can’t wait to see the movie now…

I finished Eat, Pray, Love on December 5th, 2008 sitting in a red velvety chair facing the door at the Carytown Richmond Virginia Starbucks. (How’s that for details. Clearly finishing that last page burned that day in my mind for good.) Like so many other woman out there, I remember after I first started the book, I stopped reading after the first few pages, looked around as if I were on camera and thought; Um, did I write this book in my sleep or when I was drunk or something and someone else put their name on it?! The opening scene when Elizabeth is crying on her bathroom floor, trying to make sense of her life, how she got there, with the guy she was with and what the hell she was going to do next- that was me. (Flash forward to me finishing it a few days later in that Starbucks.) I closed the book and sat staring blindly straight ahead for about a half hour, got up and left trying to brush off the truth and reality of my misery at the time like so many of us do when the world is trying to give us signs to wake the hell up. I was too chicken shit to listen or act back then. I mean I had it “all.” Giant diamond, fit, smart, fiance’, amazing apartment and about to move to start a fresh new life. All great plans for the future, yadda yadda. I was absolutely miserable then, but why rock the boat and even if I wanted to, where the hell would I begin?

Exactly 25 days after that morning finishing Eat, Pray, Love in that Starbucks and me ignoring what my gut and the world was trying to tell me, my then fiance’ woke up in bed and straight dumped me. The world screamed at me “HA HA Diane! You can run but you can’t hide punk! We will always find you and make you pay attention whether you like it or not!”

Thank God, Buddha, the stars…

If you knew me then, you know I then shared all the moments that Elizabeth had written about. Talk about feeling like my world collapsed. After a few months of sheer absurdity, crying uncontrollably, not eating or sleeping and thinking my whole life was over, (I’m rolling my eyes at myself right now and laughing. Oh the times in life we can look back and be mortified at what a hot mess we were) something clicked and a big ol’ F*CK THIS came screaming out of me and I have never looked back. I am so thankful I was dumped. I mean so, so, so, wicked, totally, mongo thankful. The best lesson I got from those few months of pure hell, was that my hell wasn’t about missing some guy or getting dumped, it was because I had left NOTHING for me. Nothing. I had given up friends, volunteer groups, my soccer teams- all of it. I had let work slide and not kicked my own ass to continue being the independent bad ass girl I had been/always wanted to continue to be. I had given up myself and had no foundation, so when I was left alone I felt like I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. Talk about hell. There’s nothing I can imagine worse than being a go-get it gal and finding yourself feeling pathetic and powerless.

To think that this summer I can feel confident enough to quit my job, sell everything I own, drive across the country to Alaska with absolutely zero plan, knowing no one there, not knowing what I’ll do when I get there or after I leave, is pretty awesome considering a year and a half ago I had to call my Mother to ask her if I liked cream and sugar in my coffee I was so lost and sad. I have only $817.00 in my Blue Lollipop Road bank account, 3,000 miles left to just get to Alaska, no job, no home, and even though I have a few loose thoughts on what’s next, I still have absolutely no idea where I’ll end up or what’s in store for me. I am a worry wort even though I have always been pretty carefree too. I have good and bad days ongoing, but I have never felt less worried in my life. I have to credit that to doing lots of hard work and putting myself through hell to get here. Looking in the mirror, looking hard in the mirror is really hard. Being real seems like it should be easy, but it’s not. Blue Lollipop Road is my mirror. I write things here that I share with lots of people, and some things I write I’ve never talked to anyone about. I figure if I put it all out there, I will always have to stay on my toes from now on, I’ll be held accountable for things I say and do, and I will never get to the point of losing my foundation again. If putting out the “I’m going to’s” here doesn’t put enough healthy pressure on me to reach for my stars and keep my solid independent ground, I’m not sure what will.

When thinking of the Eat, Pray, Love preview I saw last night as I fell asleep, I thought to myself I wonder how many people are going to say to me something along the lines of; “Hey Di! have you seen that movie that’s coming out? It’s totally like your trip!” I guess it is and I hadn’t thought the book at all it until last night.

I ate in NYC (and I’ve been to Italy and feasted there) I’ve “prayed” on the road thinking about just about everything (and I’ve been to India too) and while I haven’t been to Indonesia yet, a few of you know about my running joke of making out with a lumberjack named Ben when I get to Alaska, so?…

I’m laughing.

I’m loving my life, understanding more and more about who I am and what I want. I’m loving that I can write all this here and people will read it and appreciate it in whatever way works for them. I love every little moment I’ve had in my life. I love all the lessons I have learned. I love that I have finally started trusting the process and that I am exactly where I need to be. Best of of all I know that because of things that have been thrown at me and situations that I’ve been through, I’m less and less fearful of life’s obstacles every day. I’m thankful for women like Elizabeth Gilbert who fall apart, pick themselves up and write about it so we can read their stories and learn how to pick ourselves up too.

I have 14 hours in the car today. I better get going…

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