On the Road (with Dane Cash)

So I'm finally here in Los Angeles, like I never thought I'd be. It's been a few days, I'm acclimating, I haven't yet been victim to death by L.A. traffic.... things are going well. A few weeks ago Dane and I decided to go on an epic road trip to get my car here. I drive a Prius, so all in all we managed to make it across the entire country in three days on maybe six tanks of ten gallons of gas. That's pretty damn good. But anyway.

We met up in Richmond to start things off (I had already been driving from Lake Gaston for a few hours before, so I was psyching myself up the whole time). Didn't really have much of a plan, just knew that we had to do it, and do it fast- we spent about fourteen or fifteen hours each day on the road, only short breaks for food or gas. Out of Richmond we took 64 to 81, and once we were on 81, we right in the middle of the Blue Ridge mountains, which was absolutely beautiful. I knew I had to appreciate the greenery, because as soon as we hit Arkansas, it was all gonna change. We sped along 81 through Bristol, then took off across Tennessee, picking up I-40, which we were going to get to know way, way, way too well. I-40 literally took us the entire way to California, and we left it about an hour or two before reaching our destination on the last night.

We made our first big city stop in Nashville, where we just wanted to get a simple bite to eat. We were like, "hey, this place is famous, right? they have to have some decent food, right?" Wrong. Never make a food pit stop in Nashville. Or a pit stop for anything other than some quick-fix cowboy boots. Or a hat. Because those two apparel items independently sustain the economy, I am convinced. Upon coming out of the parking garage, we were arrested with the sight of a strip club two feet away, with a friendly teaser video playing outside. This was located in "Printer's Alley." Sounds homey, right? No. If you're seeing a trend of my assumptions being bucked, you're right on track. So anyway, we hang a left into the city, look around, notice that the whole place is dead. It's a Sunday, and as Dane properly noted, Nashville was split half and half between churches and banks. We had arrived at the epicenter of unwholesome wholesomeness.

We get to the main drag where there's finally activity, but honest to God the only things open were tourist bars, and the touristy touristees were just streaming in and out with their boots and hats, and if they weren't, they were headed for the Chris Daughtry concert happening. You would have thought it was a Brooks and Dunn, Rascal Flatts (did I spell that right? I think I get bonus points if I didn't), but no. Daughtry. Another mindblowing realization, not in a good way. Dane thinks that Daughtry is pretty big and that the crowd was warranted, but I turn my nose up at Daughtry. You're too whiny. And your name is womanly. It's sounds like a futuristic factory for churning out plastic-perfect women. "Oh hey man, just headed to the Daughtry for my new Double-D Deluxe Damsel."

But on to lesser things: so after an hour of walking, and asking a girl tasked with the mind-numbing job of overseeing parking for the overrated aforementioned, we finally hit the best the city had to offer: a McDonalds. That's right. The one place that was open in the entire forsaken wasteland. Those of you who know me (and let's be honest, if you're reading this, you do) know my undying hatred for McDonalds and all that it stands for. But on this one occasion, I swallowed my pride and ate a chicken sandwich. My stomach hated me, I hated myself, but after seeing all that Nashville had to offer, I needed to eat, and I needed to leave. So we did. But not before I saw a news blurb on the thoughtfully placed television about a man killing his wife in Target and then committing suicide. What?

So that's it for Nashville. We made it to Memphis that night, right on the western border. And what a breath of fresh air. We paid way too much money to stay in a Sleep Inn that night, but when we threw our stuff in the room, we ended up out on the street again (it was like 1 in the morning, but what the hell, we wanted to see the place before saying goodbye in the morning). We walked over to Beale Street, because of course, we had no choice. That place is fucking lit up like a Christmas tree on fire. There were clubs lined up in an endless row, people hanging off balconies, cops everywhere. I was the ultimate drag of the night for Dane, seeing as I don't turn 21 until July, and you had to show your ID to even get onto the clubbed-out section of the street. I've never even seen anything like that before. I think if you took Memphis in one hand and Nashville in the other, and squashed your hands together, you'd have racial equality. Take note, Obama. I'm for real on this one.

So I decided to not climb up onto a balcony and dive into the crowd, and we went back to the hotel. Fast-forward, we're crossing the Mississippi River like heroes. Arkansas. What a waste of time. And space. And also uncomfortable to read while you're saying it in your mind. Just doesn't quite make sense. But it was nothing compared to its next-door neighbor. Oklahoma. Dane and I agreed that this was just the low point of the trip. Too many endless farms and not enough of anything else. But then we hit Texas in the late afternoon, and this is when it really hit me. I was driving across the entire country, doing something that was truly epic (and not like winning-at-Guitar-Hero-epic). When we entered Texas, we were crossing that point of no return. It was all or nothing, and unlike in Memphis where we could have been like "Fuck it." now we just had to push on to the end. Unfortunately Texas is also where I got pulled over for going 12 over. This is the best part though. He saunters up and says, in that undeniably Texan voice, "Texas State Patrol. The reason I pulled you over...was for your speeding." It wasn't because I was speeding. It was because of my speeding. The difference is negligible, but all-important. He goes on for another five minutes, and I finally have to ask him what speed I was actually going. Oh well. I guess they do things differently there. Also, did you know that in Texas they have a different speed limit for after the sundown? It's 65 instead of 70. And that makes a lot of sense. A lot. Dane and I experienced a true Texas storm, with hail-sized chunks of rain beating down on the car, and truly black sky in an otherwise beautiful day. Oh yeah, and I think up to this point we had seen no hitchhikers on I-40 this entire time. Isn't that kind of sad? Are the beatniks so thoroughly extinct as all that? We saw one in New Mexico, our next state.

New Mexico was great, for some reason it rode like a dream. I think I was getting my second wind or something, but I was feeling really good as we rolled into Albuquerque that night. Dane and I didn't play the eponymous song until the next day, but when we did, it felt oh so right. If you haven't heard it, go check it out. Weird Al. His best. We stayed at the stuccoed residence of Rachel, one of Dane's fraternity friends. It's like the Sleep Inn, but better, and with fulfilling conversation. I like it when I actually get to know someone instead of just saying hi and a few choice words. We rolled out the next morning, and I have to say, Albuquerque is beautiful. Although Rachel doesn't think so apparently. But that's okay, since she's moving to D.C. for the summer soon to do an internship. Who isn't?

So the next milestone was the one, the only stop that we had decided beforehand to make on the way. El Grande Canyon. Just pretend that what I just did was cool, and that I don't not know Spanish. It really was mindblowing though, and I'll have pictures up soon. We literally were about two feet from our doom, seeing as the main viewpoint near the entrance was closed, and the tourists were climbing down the side of the canyon onto a rock outcropping that was no wider than eight or ten feet, with no fence anywhere. It was terrifying vertigo, and I can't believe that I actually did it. But I'm glad that I did, and I hope you get a sense of how awesomely close to falling I was through the pictures. So we took that in for about half an hour... that's all you can do, but it's all you need to do. It's ten miles wide and probably more than a mile deep, and I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but holy fuck is it massive when it's literally just cut straight down into the ground. Go see it someday. Really. No matter how big your penis is, you'll go away feeling small. And if you don't have one, I promise, it's still worth it.

So it was the afternoon of the last day, and we were in the final stretch. It was such a huge payoff (I've got to stop saying huge, but...it was) when we crossed the California state line. Dane fired up a playlist he had prepared specially for the occasion and we rolled down the windows getting blasted by the wind and not caring. When we exhausted that, it was straight U2 for the rest of the ride, and it was absolutely perfect. We experienced the most desolate desert of the trip in California, and although it was nearing night when we did, still a very cool experience. There were places where humanity still hadn't set foot, something that was really comforting after seeing so many urban sprawls, which Dane and I decided would very depressingly cover large portions of the country in the distant future, even entire states. As long as there are places like that desert though, there's still hope.

So we burst through the Cajon Pass (yeah, like "balls" in Spanish) in the mountains, and laid out before was a show of lights, which Dane informed me was called the Inland Empire, everything reaching out past Los Angeles. We were out of the desert and into the real deal. From then on it was agony, really, so close to our destination, and when we finally pulled up to Dane's brother's house, it was blissful relief. I finally got to sit in a chair that wasn't moving. Dane's brother took us out to the beach to experience what we had come so far to see, that massive, overwhelmingly huge (I know, I said it again) ocean. We stuck our feet in and the road trip was done, right then and there. There's no question in my mind that it was so worth it, and if any of you have the chance to, grab your best friend and just go. It was a beast, but if it hadn't been difficult, it wouldn't have felt like one of the best things I've done in my entire life. Things are too easy these days, in some ways. It was nice, for once, to do things the old fashioned way and go on the road.

Oh and thanks Dane.