The other thing about Pennsylvania…my drill instructor always likes to insult people by guessing where they are from, and then implying that every negative stereotype of that place is a direct result of their existence. One of the guys in my class is from Western Pennsylvania, and his nickname is now “Western Penn,” said in a tone of voice that suggests this guy could only be the product of multiple generations of cousins marrying cousins.

I didn’t start this post with the intention of just bashing on Pennsylvania. I guess my point was that, when I started the road trip, I thought Ohio was backwards and Pennsylvania was relatively urban. However, now I think Ohio is lovely, and the Appalachian region of Pennsylvania makes those little towns way out in the woods in Humboldt County look like thoroughly modern centers of civilization. Anytime my perceptions are changed, I feel like I have learned something, and that is always good. Sorry Pennsylvania.

And, finally, unrelated but also new and weird – small hamburgers from the middle of the country.

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This is a picture of the back yard of the B&B my mom and I stayed in when we were in…the city before Indiana…I think it was Springfield, Missouri. It was very eclectic-Victorian, in a nice part of town, right across the street from a University. It was cute and comfortable, but I liked the place we stayed the next night, in Terre Haute Indiana, much better. It was called Sycamore Farms, although this barn (below left) was the only farm-ish thing I could find. Most notable – the breakfast was AMAZING.

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Next we have some leaves, in a park in somewhere…

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And at the bottom, a picture of the side of the road in Ohio. I should say something for Ohio here…it was, unexpectedly, one of the most beautiful parts of the entire road trip. Some of it was just flat cornfields, but once we entered the Eastern part of the state, it was all rolling hills and streams and fall leaves.

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There was this town, called Winterset, that looked like something out of a storybook. I thought that surely I would find a ton of great pictures of it online, but alas, this was all I could find – one image of a covered bridge. And we didn’t even see this bridge. I am seriously considering driving the 15 hours back to Ohio and taking some more pictures.

What are you doing? Specifically, I mean, what are you doing besides looking at the blog and posting witty replies to my posts?!

We used Yelp to find a good place to eat, and ended up at Sage Marketplace Cafe. Sounds pretty good, right? Like they might have smoothies and salads and maybe a take-out deli, or something to that effect, that would have prompted them to call themselves a “marketplace.” Well, that was not the case; it was a smallish lunch place with a full bar and no market to speak of.  Maybe Marketplace was just Sage’s last name? Regardless, Mom and I both had the slider trio, and they were delicious. After lunch, we went to get cupcakes at this place recommended by one of the local “marketplace” patrons, called SaraSara Cupcakes. Yum!

This is a junkyard for old cars, and by old, I mean they were probably abandoned here when route 66 was the only way through town. I wanted to get closer to get a better shot, but I felt like this was prime junkyard-dog territory and I am just not that much of a car buff.

Except I should probably explain what is going on in this picture. I was experimenting with Hipstamatic lenses, and unfortunately, you cannot read the sign out front, on the left side of the shot, but it says “amusement. open.” I believe it is referring to this wooden shack with boarded up windows. Also difficult to see, but there is a giant iron hook of some sort, maybe a type of winch, hanging from some solid looking rope over the door. I think they must be using the word “amusement”rather loosely.

In case you were skeptical…

Since this post was about to be really short and boring, I looked up Day of the Dead for some more content…

The Day of the Dead celebration takes place on November 1 and 2, which corresponds with the Catholic All Saints’ Day (November 1) and All Souls’ Day (November 2.) The holiday dates back to the Aztec culture and festivities to honor the “Lady of the Dead,” who has evolved into today’s Catrina doll.

In the Guatemalan celebration of Día de los Muertos, they prepare fiambre. Fiambre started out from the tradition of taking to the cemeteries the favorite dishes of dead family members. As all different families brought food to the celebrations, they became mixed, eventually mixing them together to this all-encompassing salad. Ingredients usually include numerous sausages and cold cuts, pickled baby-corn and onion, beets, pacaya flower, different cheeses, olives, chicken, and sometimes even brussels sprouts or shrimp. Something about that is very intriguing, I think next time I have a kitchen, I will find some fiambre recipes.

The picture on the left was taken in Williams, after we left our hotel. As a follow up on the last post, we did follow the pig tracks to breakfast, then immediately declined that option, and went to the Greek-Italian cafe across the street. After eating, we stopped at a gas station to fill up (more later about the gas prices here!) and I took a picture of this train. The train is significant because, apparently, much of the middle portion of the country exists only to support the train tracks that move stuff from one side to the other. I also thought it was funny that there was a school bus parked in an empty lot…on a Monday morning. In Arizona, they don’t go to school on Mondays; once they removed science and biology from the curriculum, there really wasn’t a need for five whole days of education.

The picture on the right is where the aliens landed. No, not really…it is a meteor crater, from a 80 ft wide meteor that landed outside Flagstaff about 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. (By the way, I am not impressed with this date range. I really thought we could carbon date stuff better than a 30,000 year window.) Anyhow…the aliens shot this asteroid at us, and it made a hole 4,000 ft in diameter and 570 ft deep. In the 60′s, NASA used it to train astronauts how to collect samples of moon rock…and hunt aliens.

So here is Day 1 on our way out to Rhode Island, otherwise known as gas station in The Middle of Nowhere, AZ. (This Hipstamatic is pretty cool, it really captured the heat and grittiness of this parking lot!)

Right now we’re in Williams, Arizona, at a B&B called Canyon County Inn. There’s live country music across the street, and in the morning we follow the “pig tracks” to the place where they serve breakfast. Weird.

Kinda tired now, going to bed. I’ll post again tomorrow, from Amarillo, Texas!