KANSAS CITY, MO— The drive to San Francisco has begun — in fact, my mother and I are damn near halfway there, having crossed the mighty Mississip a few hundred miles back. This is an epic trip — three thousand some odd miles in five days, mother and son 2 feet from each other the whole time — and I figured a few Blurbex updates were in order.
So look out for more posts from this horribly named voyage. But for now, a few important details:
1) Ma and I boarded the Civic Sunday morning. It was the first time in ten years that she had left New York City in a car and didn't plan on being back within 24 hours. It was also the first time she had embarked on a cross-country drive since she was a 22-year-old hippie.
2) She isn't a hippie anymore.
Now she's a badass New Yorker with a fitness obsession that would put Donny Deutsch to shame.
3) My backseat is filled with protein shakes and these vegetarian jerky things that Milo wouldn't eat.
4) We spent our first night in Akron, OH, home of LeBron James and...that's about it.
5) This is not what you want to see when you wake up in a hotel in Akron, OH and have 800 miles of driving to do that day: 
Living in Florida softened me; the snow actually scared me when I first saw it. Soon I was convinced that the folks over at the U.S. Interstate headquarters were going to call an I-70 snow day and strand us in Akron until March. But we got moving, and by Columbus the sky had opened up. The ability to outrun bad weather is one of the perks of driving through five states in one day. So I got that going for me.
Which is nice.
6) Our three favorite town names thus far, in decending order:
3) Snow Shoe, PA
2) Plain City, OH
1) Scotrun, PA (Both of us thought the sign said, um, something else. Something more...genetaliac.)
7) Audiobooks are the key. So far we've gotten through Malcolm Gladwell's Blink (excellent), a Hiaasen novel called Flush (I'm pretty sure it's for young adults, but the book is about murder and fishing and the Keys, which means it's gotta be the best young adult novel ever), and Sedaris' Corduroy book, which he read himself. He sounds more tame than you'd expect.
More Mamafest Destiny from Colorado.
