The End

This is the end of a beautiful friendship.

I'm sorry I didn't blog much toward the end. I got some serious tunnel vision right around 1/2 way through the trip. I did update the final tally. It came out to:

ZERO cigarettes (congratulations poodle!!!)
897 fast food meals (this number is purely an estimate)
+/- 3 fights (none of which involved physical violence)
+/- 11,000 miles

oh yeah, and we were around 40% over budget (and I learned in my project management class that is just about normal)

About the fast food: It was maybe not a totally realistic idea for me to give up something that is kind of an addiction (fast food) on a road trip where it's usually the cheapest and easiest food option, and I'm forced to pass hundreds of stores (In and Out! Sonic!!!) while looking sideways at a dryersheet flavored egg salad sandwich. Well, I didn't gain too much more weight, I guess I just need to actually do something about it now that I'm making all these other changes in my life.

Anyway, poodle and I were very lucky to have made this trip together. We couldn't have done it with the financial support of someone to whom I am married. I shall not name names. :)

Poodle and I got to learn a lot about each other, face a few challenges, but overall we had a wonderful time, and I think it was a trip we'll both remember for years to come. I will post a link to the photos as soon as I get them uploaded somewhere, but for now, I shall bid you adieu.

Feel free to follow my personal journey on my personal blog if you are so inclined. If you want to follow poodle's journey, you'll have to convince her to start a blog of her own. I haven't been able to convince her yet.

warm regards
-wm

From the redwood forests...

To the gulfstream waters?

This is a photo of the tree we drove through today. Its pretty awesome.

We are camping at the koa in crescent city, ca and our site is the
prettiest single tent site of the whole trip. Our site is in the
forest in a stand of redwoods. It feels really secluded, even though I
can hear people talking about their grandma fifteen feet away from me.

We almost went to a drive-in movie, but the place looked like a horror
movie set, so poodle activated the "abort mission switch" and we
settled for a mediocre seafood dinner with an amazing view. Tomorrow
we are off to portland, where we will visit the smallest state park,
an amazing bookstore, a waterfall, and the house and lagoon from the
goonies before heading up to forks, wa to reenact scenes from our
favorite books.

Viva los angeles

After two lovely days in las vegas where we were spoiled by our Aunt
Marietta with home cooking (including my personal favorite--pecan pie)
separate bedrooms with separate baths, a pool party with most of our
cousins (including our 7 second cousins) and a visit with our other
cousins' newborn, we hit the road again.

We had a great time in vegas, but we are both desperate to make it to
Seattle on schedule, so we left for l.a. this morning.

When we arrived, of course we decided to see a movie, so we went to
the FABULOUS arclight in hollywood, where we saw brideshead revisited.

Laura joked about it being where the famous people go to see movies,
and apparently she was correct. Of only five people in the theater
(including the two of us) one person was famous. That's 20%! According
to our research, a whopping 20% of the people at the arclight are
famous.

So I got to see a famous person. They even held the door open for me,
and then fell asleep about half an hour into the movie and snored like
crazy-- "just like regular people."

At the end of the film, poodle said "what was up with the snoring guy,
I wanted to kill him." To which I replied, "oh, you mean Eric Idle
from monty python?"

"no way."

"yep."

"dang, I didnt even recognize him"

"I noticed"

"still want to kill him though"

"yeah"

I love Hollywood.

-wm

Sent from my iPhone

New state(s) yell(s)

Here is a picture of poodle at the four corners monument. Standing in
four states at once... An existential crisis.

72 oz. to glory

Here is a picture of someone at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo,
TX trying the 72 oz. steak challenge.

That's 4 1/2 lbs. of steak, 3 fried shrimp, a salad, baked potato, and
a roll in under an hour. If you can do it, you get your meal for free,
and you get your name on the wall.

Quite a lofty endeavor. Unfortunately poodle and I didnt feel up to
the challenge, but we enjoyed sirloin and prime rib in the kitschy
setting. We are really enjoying route 66, and taking our time getting
across the Texas panhandle. Tonight, we will meet up with our aunt and
uncle in Albuquerque, for what I'm sure will be another outstanding
meal.

Cadiz, KY

Here's a picture of our cousin Joe and great aunt Lucy taken at joes
beautiful home in Kentucky. We had a lovely meal prepared by Lee, and
are enjoying catching up with our family.

We spent the last two days reliving our childhood in lake lure, north
carolina. While there, we rented movies (unfortunately no "teen wolf")
swam in the indoor pool (all by ourselves) and did a drive-by of our
grandparents former home--where a great many of our favorite childhood
memories occurred. All in all, those two days were the most nostalgic
for us, and it made me desperate to buy a home there to host family
get-togethers. Tomorrow lee has promised us a home cooked breakfast,
and then we are off to Memphis where we will visit elvis. (his home
anyway.)

Busch Gardens -- Williamsburg, VA

Here is a picture of "England" at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg. We had
a great time there. Our favorite ride was "the big bad wolf"
rollercoaster. We paid extra money for a pass to buypass the queue for
the most popular rides-- it was totally worth it. Thanks to moms
boyfriend, Richard, for the free passes, which also got us some
excellent discounts inside the park.

The rest of our trip here (Charlottesville) has included pub trivia
with dan (who just submitted his dissertation-- congratulaions, Dr.
Kent) and lots of the video game "rock band."

Obviously I never finished catching you all up on NYC and D.C. But I
hope to do that when I can sit down at an actual computer. :) Patience
is a virtue, friends.

Tomorrow (well, today actually) we leave for lake lure, nc where we
will attempt to relive our childhood by playing air hockey and eating
snow cones.

Washington D.C.

Folk art made of found objects/scrap (mainly aluminum foil) at
smithsonian museum of american art.

New York City

Hi readers,

Sorry for the lack of updates, but the city that never sleeps also has
absolutely no patience for blogging. :)

So this entry will probably be a long one. On Monday of last week, we
arrived in nyc after a brief detour in rhode island to catch up with
my friend sean over lunch, and then a stop at Yale to see where the
"gilmore girls" went to college. Then, because we'd be late to make it
midtown to christine's office to pick up housekeys, we decided to stop
in CT to kill a little time watching Hellboy 2. (which was pretty good.)

So Monday night, christine made us an awesome taco salad and we went
to sleep. Tuesday, we took the train into times square, had lunch and
got tickets to see Mary Poppins on broadway. Of course the show didnt
start for five hours... What to do... Oh, there's a movie theater down
the block?... So we saw Journey to the Center of the Earth (in 3D) and
The Stone Angel (in 2D).

After our movies we went to the theater for Mary Poppins which was
beautiful and magical. Definitely worth seeing. Except for the
incessant chattering of the three year old sat behind us, whose
parents and grandparents thought it was entertaining for all of the
rest of us that she talk the whole time (for the record, it wasn't).

That's all I have time to update on right now. Stay tuned for the rest
of our time in nyc and our trip into D.C. this afternoon. We are going
to the spy museum. :)

-wm

Provincetown

Good morning dear readers,

It has been brought to my attention that we have gone far too long
without blogging. Sorry!! We've been busy girls.

This picture is from the home of a sculptor in Provincetown on cape
cod in Massachusetts, where we were last Sunday. We had a lovely day
there. We saw whales on our ferry ride, we bought lovely soaps, and
looked at some cool art.

We ate seafood in a seaside restaurant with eastern European servers.
When our server asked us to guess where she was from I guesses
Belarus, and she got very excited. I was the first person who had ever
correctly guessed where she was from. What can I say? I'm a geography
genius (thanks to the world map shower curtain in my bathroom.)

When we left ptown, our ferry got called out on a distress call, so we
were an hour late, and the seas were pretty rough. But we all made it
without getting sick.

Then Karen made turkey meatloaf burgers and we watched the grifters
before calling it an early night so we could drive to NYC the next
morning.

Staying with barb and karen was wonderful!! Very relaxing, and a lot
of fun!

???

Well, our 30 minute (each way) detour for the distress call appears to
have been for naught. We circled the boat a few times, waited for the
coasties and then left. I'm glad that the boaters appear to be okay,
but the sea is angry this day, my friends, and I could have done
without the extra hour.

Sent from my iPhone

S.O.S.

We are currently on the Boston fast ferry from p-town when our ferry
got called to answer a distress call by the coast guard.

We could almost see the skyline when we turned in another direction.
So much for my afternoon nap.

Sent from my iPhone

Donna Summer at the pavillion

Last night our lovely Boston hostesses, Barb and Karen, took us to the
Donna Summer concert at the bank of america pavillion. We all had a
great time. Barb is still singing "Hot Stuff" this morning.

In the picture you can see our awesome VIP seats with table service,
with our favorite people watching victims in the foreground. The man
in the green shirt is "tall skinny ice-t" and his date is "hair
extensions boob-falling-out-of-dress lady." They had some serious moves.

We also went to fanueil hall yesterday, and got to sleep in a real bed
and have our own bathroom in Barb and Karens fabulous south end
brownstone. That would have been enough to be the highlight for us,
but the concert was wonderful.

Today, they're taking us to Provincetown on the fast ferry for some
shopping, dining and people watching. We are having such a wonderful
(and comfortable) time it will be hard to leave tomorrow. :)

House of the seven gables

Today we left the air conditioned comfort of our Laconia hotel for a
cute little riverside campground in Gloucester, Massachusetts--home of
the "perfect storm" fishermen.

We chose Gloucester for its proximity to Salem, where we went to the
witch museum and the salem diner (thanks roadfood.com) and the house
of the seven gables. The house of the seven gables was definitely the
coolest part of the day. Our tour guide was outstanding and had a cute
little Boston accent. Tomorrow we head into Boston to stay with Barb
and Karen. I'm looking forward to seeing them and poodle is praying
for cocktails. :)

-wm

Bye bye saco

We gave up on the Saco cause my forehead blistered from the sunburn.
It looks like we made the right decision. Its raining cats and dogs
here in the white mountains region. Flash floods, hail, etc. etc.

Sent from my iPhone

Mars Rover?

Is that a photo from the mars rover? Nay! That is an extreme closeup
of my knee. That's what we call sunburn friends.

Poodle is enjoying the canoeing much more now that I'm not saying how
much I love it every two minutes.

We are currently at a campground right before brownfield bridge in
fryeberg, me and we have canoed 26 miles in two days. Not bad
considering we didn't get started until 1:30 yesterday afternoon-- and
we had a 300 yard portage with a giant canoe and all of our gear. (I
am certainly lamenting that extra-roomy four person tent right about
now) It took us three trips to get all the gear around the falls.
Fortunately that's the only real portage this trip, but getting the
gear to the campsite this evening wasn't particularly fun either.
Anyway...

Now, before anyone gets preachy about sunscreen here, I have been
using SPF 50 on my body and 70 on my face, I just didn't reapply it
enough (apparently)

Yes, we do have a full first aid kit, and sports tape for blistery
fingers. Strangely enough, my muscles havent been sore at all (which
is why poodle has threatened more than once to knock me unconscious
with her paddle) but I did not sleep well last night. (which is to
say, I did not sleep at all.)

One of the coolest things about canoing the Saco is that you can camp
primitively on sandbeds. We have been pretty much the only people on
the river the whole trip because most of the social Saco goers went
out for the holiday weekend. (I planned it this way intentionally)
anyway.. We are the only people for miles. We are on a sandbed, and
there's a forest behind us, and something keeps rustling the leaves.
I'm completely paranoid about bears and every time I was just about to
fall asleep, another twig cracked and I peeked outside to see if we
were about to be attacked. Of course we weren't. And we were actually
like 1/2 a mile from a major road, but we were the only people on the
river and I don't take any anxiety medication. Although maybe its time
to consider some.

Well. 26 miles, strong headwind, two days, no sleep. I'm going to call
it a night. If my sunburn doesn't stop freaking out, I might just call
the shuttle to pick us up tomorrow. We will see how I'm doing in the
morning.

-wm

Saco river

Poodle missed our new state yell for Maine, cause we did it on the
river. Fortunately, the river isn't super rural, so I have just enough
service to send this message. We have been about 10.5 miles today and
we are getting ready to set up camp for the night. Poodle is not
nearly as excited to be canoeing as me, and we nearly had a mutiny on
our hands, but we worked it out and powered through. Hopefully we will
make it all 45 miles without killing each other.

-wm

Sent from my iPhone

Shootin

Just to complete the new hampshire experience, we went to the shooting
range today. Good fun!

Fireworks -- Bradford, NH style

Bradford is awesome. I worked at a camp in Bradford in 2000 & 2001 and
jon and I found this awesome town celebration for 4th of July right
down the street.

Now jon is lucky enough to live one town away from this magic. I mean,
seriously, they even have funnel cakes. The fireworks display lasted
almost a full half hour. I'm afraid none of the photos I took can do
it justice, but I'll include one anyway. I hope that all of your
celebrations were as wonderful as ours.

-wm

New Hampshire

This is a picture of jon changing my oil. What a friend!!!

New Hampshire

We made it to new hampshire safe and sound. We finally got to sleep in
real beds at jon and catherines lovely house. Catherine made us a
really nice dinner with a salad and homemade bread and everything, but
poodle got a terrible migraine and missed it all.

Jon and catherine and I tried to go see some fireworks last night, but
we got the date wrong, so we will try again tonight. In the process of
waiting for the non-fireworks we got eaten alive by massive mosquitoes
and I stepped in dog poo which I managed to track into catherines car.
All in all, a red letter day, I think.

We are also going to go see a campy 1950s sci-fi film in concord, nh
this afternoon. I'm psyched!!!

Sent from my iPhone

Ontario, Niagara, "Cooperstown"

Let's see... When last we left you, intrepid reader, we had paused for
a brief soujourn at Circus World.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the chicago KOA, which was ok. We
met a wanderer named derek who invited us to join him and his dog
eddie for a drink by the fire and some tunes on his guitar, but we
were both wiped out (and just the tiniest bit frightened of him) so we
passed.

Then we drove from chicago to ontario, which took longer than it
should have because of an accident somewhere in michigan that resulted
in an hour long detour. When we arrived in Ontario, we set our tent up
in the rain (in record time, I might add) and went to sleep early.
This morning, we accidentally overslept a bit due to the time change,
so we packed up our wet tent and left around 11 am.

We stopped at niagara falls (much, much better on the Canada side, by
the way) and then drove through a torrential downpour through serious
back country roads (we passed several Amish on buggies) to make it to
the cooperstown koa. We sagely decided to wait until after dinner to
set up our tent because it finally stopped raining. Now we are getting
ready for bed. We heard some horses naying, wolves howling, and rifle
fire. This should prove to be an interesting night.

Tomorrow we drive a few hours to Warner, New Hampshire where we will
celebrate the 4th with my friends jon and catherine, and hang with
them for a few days before our big canoe trip in Maine.

Its been a great trip so far. We are thinking of you guys as we go.

-wm

Sent from my iPhone

Multimedia message

This is as close as we got to Chicago. No pizza or Oprah sightings to be had.

Circus World!!!

Today poodle and I decided on a whim to stop at the Circus World
circus museum in Baraboo, WI. We both enjoyed it so much that we are
considering it the highlight of our trip so far.

The attached picture is of a scale model of one of the giant circuses
of old. The model took up a space about the size of my living room and
is reported to be worth in excess of $250,000. It is absolutely mind-
blowing.

We were also both enamored with the exhibit of circus posters and
advertisements and the costumes on display.

We did not partake of any of the contemporary circus activities on
offer--including a clown show, animal rides and magic-- because we
wanted to get to Chicago to set up camp, but the history and
memorabilia were well worth the $14.95 ticket price.

Today we also had the pleasure of dining at the norske nook in osseo,
wi--which never disappoints.

We left minny early this morning on little sleep after a rivoting
evening of board games with maria and chris and michael. Because we
are so exhausted, I'm going to sign off and get some rest. Tomorrow we
visit Chicago and drive to London, Ontario to camp before hitting
niagara on Thursday.

If you have any ideas of things for us to do (cheaply) in NYC, Boston,
or D.C., we'd love to hear about them. Also, any great roadside
attractions like circus world or the norske nook. We love that stuff!

-wm

More pie

Here are some individual slices. Of note: the green and brown slices
are chocolate mint.

Pies!!!

Here is a display case at national pie champion "norske nook." I got
the banana cream and poodle got pecan cream cheese. Awesome.

More adventures at the ren faire and movie update

I wanted to throw in one more picture from the ren faire. Here are the
gentlemen from the mud show. It was hilarious. I would have liked it
even more if we hadn't gotten splashed with mud.

Now we are back in Minneapolis. While here we have basically been
hanging out with poodle's friends and catching up on our movie
watching. We saw "Get Smart," "Wanted," and "The Happening."

Get Smart was a lot better than either on of us thought it would be.
It was predictible, but hilarious.

Wanted was also better than we thought it would be. Some of the action
scenes were really good, it was also a little funny, and we got to
hear Morgan Freeman say the f-word. That alone was worth the price of
admission (we snuck in.)

The Happening, which we unfortunately paid for, was something of a
disappointment. Now, before you say something like "no duh," please
understand that we are big, big M. Night Shyamalan fans. BIG. Like, we
both liked "lady in the water" big. This is the level of commitment I
am talking about here. So i don't say disappointment lightly here. For
starters, marky mark never took his shirt off. Not even once. I mean,
seriously, what man sleeps in a shirt and jeans? Secondly, despite the
R rating and some impressive b-movie violence, the movie just wasn't
all there. It needed more or it needed less, either way, we were left
wanting.

Well, that's about it here. We are planning to go see Wall-e tomorrow
before our three big travel days from Minneapolis through Chicago,
Ontario, and Cooperstown, before landing at my friend jon's house in
Warner, New Hampshire for the cutest fourth of July ever.

-wm

Wisconsin state renaissance faire

We are at the wisconsin state Renaissance faire right now. It is way
better than the travelling faire we caught in the keys. They have
actual buildings! And cheese curds! I love Wisconsin!

Here is a picture of poodle on stage during the "pizpor show."
Pizpor's magic is nothing to write home about, but his comedy was
outstanding. We had a great time.

We also saw an awesome whipcracker do a firewhip routine. It didn't
hurt that "Adam Crack" is pretty darn cute either.

We are getting ready to go see some armored combat and we will stick
around for the peaceful joust before heading back to Minneapolis.

The Sioux falls koa...

...is bullshit.

Our tent site was so lame weve decided to skip it all together and
spend an extra night with poodles best friend in Minneapolis. A long
day of driving but totally worth it.

-wm

Deadwood and Rushmore

Here's a picture Poodle took of the grave of Wild Bill Hikok. She swears the ghost in the image is a fence post, but I'm pretty sure it's Wild Bill himself.

Today we went to Mount Rushmore, visited the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane, and went for a swim in the pool. We also finally got to use the computer to upload images from our digital camera (instead of the cell phone pictures we've been posting). We've added a widget to the bar on the right for the slideshow of images. You can click through them by hovering over the image and clicking the forward arrow, or go directly to our picasa site by clicking on any image.

Mount Rushmore was rather anti-climactic. We both somehow thought it would be bigger.

We slept much better now that we're on level ground, but Poodle is still getting sick of camping, so we've changed our plans to omit the camping in Lake Wissota State Park in Chippewa Falls, WI, and instead will spend three nights at her friend Maria's house in Minneapolis.

Tomorrow, we break camp early to drive from Deadwood to Sioux Falls. We're staying there one night (just to sleep really) and then heading out to Minneapolis bright and early.

-wm

Stupid picture didn't show up...

The drive from yellowstone to deadwood

Greetings, faithful readers. It appears that I lost track of how many days we've been gone already, so I'm going to start titling the posts by the major event of the day.

Today was mostly a driving day. With construction and a misread of the map (we took the NE exit out of yellowstone instead of the mid-east exit, adding 25 seriously chicane-ridden miles to our trip) our trip wound up taking around 9.5 hours instead of the 7.5 we had planned. BUT as a result of this detour, we got to drive a lovely stretch of road, and see a bear, a wolf, and a moose.

We very nearly ran out of gas before cody, wy, because i thought gas at yellowstone was too expensive, and the sign said cody was in 65 miles. 65 miles doesn't really mean 65 miles when you're going 30 mph in lower gear through some very serious mountains. Our gas light came on 16 miles outside of town We stopped at the first gas station we saw, where prices were more expensive than they would have been in yellowstone. Oops! Damn the lack of cell phone reception in Wyoming, or gas buddy would have told us what's what. (if you don't know what gas buddy is, google it, it will save your life--or at least a few cents at the pump.)

Anyway... We made it to deadwood in one piece. The picture here is of one of the actors in the main street reenactment of the shooting of wild bill hickock. The shooting part was cheesy. We are hoping the "trial" we go to tomorrow will be somewhat more entertaining. We're also planning on panning for gold, visiting some graves, and other wild west type stuff.

Hope all of you are doing well. We're excited to finally be sleeping on level ground again, in a place without snow.

Still no fisticuffs on our part. I guess we must be growing up.

-wm
{picture didn't upload for some reason, is now attached to subsequent post}

Old faithful

Day 3

Sorry for the delay, it turns out there is no cell service in
yellowstone, except right around old faithful, where we are currently
awaiting said geyser to do its faithful thing.

We saw some more bison today, still no bears or wolves, but mike says
that if we take a night drive, we'd definitely see wolves. I'm not
sure I want to drive these dark, windy roads at night though.

Yesterday we saw mammoth hot springs and went back to our site to play
trivial pursuit, book lovers addition. We left it at a draw, both of
us missing the "non-fiction" pie. At one point we were laughing so
hard we were crying. We've been having a great time, although poodle
is pretty much sick of sleeping in a tent already.

After the geyser, we'll be making our way down to teton for some more
sightseeing. Tomorrow we break camp early at yellowstone and drive
about 8 hours to deadwood, sd.

We'll be keeping up with the blogging better when we reach civilization.

-wm

Days 2 and 3

After we dried out our waterlogged tent, day two was a whole lotta
driving. We kind of got into a minor fight about watermelon being too
bossy, but it was worked out using only words.

The drive from Missoula to yellowstone was beautiful and rather
uneventful, which is good, because at&t apparently feels no need to
provide cellular service to either Montana or Wyoming.

We got to our campsite at canyon campground around 6:30, and found our
campsite waterlogged with standing snow. Rather than setup camp in a
freezing, muddy puddle, we decided to set up on a slightly inclined
(but level) spot nearby. We spent the whole night sliding down the
incline in our sleeping bags like it was a slip-n-slide but it was
probably still better than the puddle. The temperature also dropped to
33 degrees overnight, but our sleeping bags kept us plenty warm.

Poodle had a great day of firsts. It was her first campfire (that she
remembers) and the first time she's seen snow (also that she remembers).

Yellowstone is absolutely gorgeous. We've seen bison and elk so far,
and some amazing scenery. We're still holding out for a grizzly
(hopefully at a significant distance) and maybe some rams.

We'll be incommunicado for the next couple of days here in
yellowstone, but we'll be back to twittering in no time.

Sent from my iPhone

Day 1 (& 1.5) - It's raining, it's pouring...

Missoula, MT (Missoula KOA)

Well, we made it to our first campsite safe and sound. I am writing
this from the relative safety of our Big Agnes Big House tent, where,
if you can't tell from the picture, it's raining like it means it. Of
course it was beautiful out when we set up the tent, so we didn't
bother staking out the extra eight cords of the rain fly, but right
now (5:30 am mountain time) the tent is doing a great job keeping us
dry.

I'm awake because the sound of the rain is so overwhelmingly loud.
Hopefully it will shut the hell up so I can get some more sleep, and
so the tent can dry out a bit before we head down to yellowstone.

Our first day (yesterday) went very well. We covered around 350 miles,
got a better-than-expected 35 mpg in the Corolla, and my iPod playlist
has been awesome.

Sorry to report to those of you who took the "under one" in the
"turning around" or "someone gets killed" betting pool, but we managed
to make it thru day one (and two weeks of prep) without a single fight.

In all honesty, I did get a bit snippy when I thought that poodle lost
my headlamp, but she managed to find it without me having to punch her
in the face, so it all worked out.

On today's agenda: dry out tent (fingers crossed), buy some groceries
for dinner, drive to yellowstone, set up tent, chill.

-wm

T-minus 14 hours (and some change) and counting

Omniscient Narrator:
This blog chronicles the epic journey of two sisters through a strange land known as the "United States." Their journey begins in the Pacific Northwest where they will travel in a conveyance known as a car, using (lots of) a resource known as gas. They will then head East until they reach the Atlantic ocean, south until they see Elvis (or at least his house), West again to the Pacific ocean, and North to Seattle. All of this will take a little less than two months to accomplish.

Their journey will be chronicled here for all to see. Of course, it wouldn't be a proper epic without some serious struggle--overcoming obstacles and whatnot--so one of these sisters (we'll call her Poodle) will be giving up smoking for the trip, while the other will give up a near-daily fast-food habit (we'll call her Watermelon).

Those of you who know our heroines are probably scratching your heads trying to figure out why they have been named Watermelon and Poodle... these names came about during dinner when one of their parents, concerned about the notoriously vicious siblings safety on such a long journey, suggested that they use "safety words" to let each other know when they need a break. The use of safety words is a fairly common practice in the S&M community, and putting these two (completely opposite) ladies in a car together is somewhat akin to a steel cage death match without all the extra space.

Watermelon:
Anyway, we're looking forward to sharing our journey with you. We hope you're looking forward to it too. Please post comments or suggestions of things for us to keep in mind during our journey. We'll be posting frequently. We'll also be micro-blogging via twitter. You can find the last five posts of our twitter feed at the bottom of this blog, or you can subscribe to updates at www.twitter.com.

Poodle:
...

Watermelon:
Poodle was supposed to post something here, but she's being a crabby b*tch cause she hasn't had a cigaratte in four days.