To the newbies....

PLS124550 (Kara Barney, Kim's sister): so i went on your site today laughed my 
ass off
wondergurl 007: so you liked the ghetto?
PLS124550: loved the ghetto

8.26.03 GUESS WHO'S BACK, BACK AGAIN
Here’s your much anticipated update. Sorry it’s been so long, I’ve been busy and just plain lazy. I tried to update earlier today, but of course the server timed out and erased EVERYthing.

I had an internship interview this morning on 40th Street. I really liked the people there and it went pretty well, so I guess I’ll see.

I was pretty lazy and busy on the South Dakota trip, too, so I only have a few entries from SD. Live with it. Perhaps I’ll update more often.

Oh, and I put our pics of our room in a photo album for now because I’m too lazy to PhotoShop them and put them on here. Enjoy the Journey entries!

Day Numero Uno: 580 miles

Left Fernley at 10:30. Drove all the way to Puckerbrush (Pop. 28), where the gas station had both Taco Bell AND a Subway….. it’s the little things that make me happy. The Taco Bell manager laughed when I asked if she lived in Puckerbrush. I think the little toothless helper was a Puckerbrush resident, though.

We almost died about 25 miles away from Fernley. There was this white work van with Minnesota plates. I saw it, noted its plates and went back to staring off into space. A minute later, Kimmie says to the white van, “Will you just pick a speed?” Kara and I look over at the van, when it starts PULLING INTO OUR LANE. All 3 of us let out a little “AHHH!!” and the van returned to his own darn lane. Later on in Puckerbrush, lo and behold, who is getting gas behind us but the bad driver from Minnesota. We were scared we were gonna be stuck with him the whole way to Minneapolis.

On the road again, we drove all the way to Wendover, located on the Nevada/Utah border. As we came over the hill into Wendover, you could literally see where Nevada sagebrush ended and Utah salt flats began. It was very amusing. Luckily I took a pic of the weird sight right then, cause as we got gas in Wendover, it started POURING. Kara drove from Wendover to Salt Lake City, where we picked up Nick. In the claw machine, there was the cutest little cow, monkey, and bear-mine, Kim, and Kara’s “animals.” I tried to get the cow-spent two bucks on the sucker, with no luck. After dinner, the ladies went to the restroom and then we found Nick out at the claw machine, where he asked “Does anyone need a stuffed animal?” I said, “I could use another cow,” and voila-Nick got the cow. Just like that, the punk. He also retrieved the Hulk and Captain America, which were given to Kimmie and Kara. What a stud. After racing each other through Salt Lake, I took over Kim’s car. We played games with Nick and Kara while racing through Salt Lake and part of Wyoming. Now we are in Evanston, chillin in our hotel room. We’re driving all night tomorrow (hopefully), so we’re not getting up till about 10 a.m. Booyah.

Day 7: Sweet Home South Dakota

We’re at the lake house now. It’s prettier than I thought it would be. I imagined it to be dry and sandy like Lahontan, but instead it’s green and luscious. The house is really cute. It has a nice deck, where it’s sunny in the morning and shady in the evening. Kim and I have already found our seat for the summer-a nice little rocking bench that faces the lake, is shady in the evening, and rocks just so perfectly. There’s no phone line, which means no internet for Ronnie, but with these views I can live with that. Kim and Kara’s aunt and uncle live in town (10 miles away), so we can go there to do laundry and use the Internet. We have a pretty sweet setup

. Oh, about the rest of my week…..

Day Two, we woke up in Evanston at the crack of 11 and got on the road by 12. I was sad to leave Wyoming because it was so pretty. I drove most of the way through Nebraska, until we stopped in a one-horse town called Adair because Kara and Nick just could not make it another few hours to Omaha. We got to the hotel at 4 in the morning and left around 9. Wimps.

Day 3, we drove the rest of the way through Nebraska, over to Des Moines, and up to Minneapolis. The hotel was relatively easy to find. We got settled in to our room and met up with Kim’s family. It was a pretty easy night.

Day 4, the day of the wedding, we woke up at a decent hour to get ready. Kimmie and I had planned on maybe hitting the Mall of America, but we just slept way too late and ended up going to the mall across the street. We went to American Eagle and found the biggest sale of our lives. Kimmie got a whole outfit (a very cute one at that) for only 8 bucks and I found one for 15. If you have ever shopped at AE, you know that’s a good deal. Shoot, at any store these days, eight and fifteen dollar outfits is a pretty good deal. We were stoked.

The wedding was in this beautiful cathedral and went pretty smoothly. The bride was beautiful, the flower girls were adorable, and the groom showed up-couldn’t have been much smoother. There, of course, was a bit of drama: the bride’s late father’s wife showed up, even though she knew she wasn’t really wanted. She clung to poor Mr. Barney (Kim’s dad) throughout the wedding. Anyways, after the wedding we headed back to the hotel for the reception, where they served steak, pasta primavera, and free beer. Poor Lancette and Michelle (Kim’s oldest sisters) were so bored that they had a contest to see who could get drunk the fastest. There were no single guys there and the DJ was like a radio station. He even told us when certain bands he played we going to be on tour-it was terrible. Kim and I managed to have fun anyway.

After they closed the reception room, we went out to the courtyard. We sat and talked for a while, when someone’s cell phone rang. It rang and rang and rang, so I picked it up, and after reading “JIM’S CELL” on the caller ID, I said “It’s Jim,” hoping the owner of the phone would say, “Oh, great. I’ll take it.” But no one did. People started telling me to answer it, so I did. Jim asked for Sarah, who was the bride, so of course I responded, “I’m sorry, she’s in the honeymoon suite with her husband.” The guy kept on asking and asking for Sarah, so I went off on him about how rude it was to call someone that late on their wedding night, because it’s obvious what that they’re gonna be busy. But Jim just didn’t get it. Finally, someone said that they wanted to talk to this Jim character, who was pretty mad and unaccepting that Sarah was with her husband in the suite. Well, it turns out that there was ANOTHER Sarah who was at the reception, left her cell phone out on our table, and (you guessed it) was dating Jim. Sarah came out and everyone was like, “Uhhh, you should call Jim.” She did, they got in a huge fight, and ended up hanging up on one another. I felt really bad that I screwed up someone’s life at the celebration of a couple coming together, but the bride actually thanked me later for doing that, as Sarah had invited herself to the wedding and the reception, and therefore deserved it…..

Day Four, we woke up to late to go to the Mall of America. After being notified that our room was reserved for the night, we moved all our stuff down to Lancette’s room and got ready to go to Valleyfair, an amusement park on the south end of the Twin Cities. It was a long drive, but well worth the drive. Kim and Kara hate roller coasters, but went on a few anyway (I have the best friend ever). The roller coasters were pretty cool. There was this old, rickety one called the High Roller. It was wooden and everything. Well, since it was so old, the drops weren’t that bad and Kara decided she could handle it. She screamed the whole way, even going up the hill, but I don’t blame her: my and Kim’s seatbelt was so loose that when we’d go up and hill and shoot back down, I was literally almost thrown out of the car. It was terrifying!!! Almost as terrifying as the Power Tower, which I am proud to say both Barney girls went on. Not with out cursing me and my future children, though. About 200 feet up in the air, in between her "Ohmygawdohmygawd"s, Kim says ”VERONICA!!! YOU’VE HAD SOME BAD IDEAS, BUT THIS ONE IS THE WORST!!!” But they later admitted that they like it…. We met up with the Barney cousins a little later and went on the Steel Venom, a roller coaster that is shaped like a U, with a corkscrew going straight up on one side and a straight edge on the other side. The start you off at the bottom of the U, where you go literally 0-60 in about .5 seconds. No kidding. Then you shoot up the corkscrew, fly back down (backwards), go screaming backwards up the straight thing, then flying back down to the corkscrew, up the corkscrew, fly through to the straight edge, where they HOLD YOU for about 2 seconds the very top-you really start to value life after being held about 100 feet up in the air by a little yellow plastic harness, while listening to the machine groan at the process of saving your puny little life. It was quite a ride. Everyone who got off it just went circling back to the line. At only 50 seconds per ride, the line moved pretty quickly. The second time we went, Jesse (a cousin) and I sat in the very back, which was even more terrifying, because when we went up the corkscrew the first time, we were in the middle, so we went halfway up. But in the back, you hardly go up and I thought the darn thing broke on us when we only went about 2 feet up the corkscrew. I thought I was going to cry, especially when we went flying backwards. But I soon imagined a new death when we went farther up the backside, to the maximum like 200 feet that we could go. Yes, good times at Valleyfair.

The trip from Minneapolis to the lake was slow, but smooth. Now, it’s about 9:30 and I’m looking out my front window at the lake, 20 feet away and the beautiful greenery on the other side. Last night on the jet ski, Kara and Nick saw two baby fawns eating on the other side. Yes, I live a tough life.

And there concludes my journey. It was awesome.

6.22.03 HOW YOU SAY.... UPDATE?
No, your computer isn't broken--- I have updated. I actually updated about a week ago. I had this looooong, VERY interesting summary of my vacation so far, but alas my NYU account timed out and all of my work was lost. Boo hiss.

Anyway, I'm leaving for South Dakota very late tomorrow night/very early Tuesday morning. Have I packed? No. Do I have a list of things I need to bring? No. Am I going to do it in the next 36 hours? Nah.

I'm bringing my laptop to South Dakota, so there'll be updates from there, when I actually have something to talk about. Until then, you can go to my happy place or read Ellen's LiveJournal, Anita's newly improved website, or Lauren's website. Or you can email Keith and ask him how the fire is going (in Tuscon, where he lives) or why he hasn't given me my copy of RENT that Angela told him to make for me....

Either way, have a good few days and check back for my updates of the voyage and good times in the North.