road dispatch.

ok, first of all. i am at a quality inn. let's just get that out there. we were at a quality inn last night, too. the prices at both? can't be beat. the rooms and locale? well, tonight is definitely better than last night on both those fronts. but the quality inn of northwest ohio at which i slept last night, well, suffice to say i will never be back there.

in fact, after paying the tolls at the ohio/pennslyvania border, BoyCat and i decided that we will never go back to ohio, period.

ok, a random collection of other notes and impressions from the road:

- i took a moment on the indiana toll road while driving past south bend to flip the bird to notre dame. and it felt good, people. the drivers around me must've been somewhat perplexed at the sight of a disheveled girl in a corrolla waving her middle finger wildly in the direction of nothing. except, you know, it was notre dame.

- guess what i found on a random radio station in eastern indiana last night? "the sign" by ace of base. and i rocked it out. you know if you had been in middle school in 1993, then you know you would have done the same thing.

- guess what else i found on a random radio station in northwest ohio last night? "desperado." which, let me tell you, is the perfect late night driving song when you no longer care about the cheesiness factor of anything to which you're listening. well wait, that's not true, because i did find myself hoping that the song would end before i got off the turnpike, so that the toll booth operator didn't know i was listening to desperado. luckily, i was not found out.

- this morning, i drove down the street to mcdonald's to get some coffee for BoyCat and i. (no dunkin donuts in the visible vicinity...so sad.) as i was picking up my order and heading for the door, an older man behind me barked, "levi! get over here!" i was like, "levi? really? ok." and of course i turned around because i had to see this person that someone christened levi. it was a regular-looking adolscent boy. i was hoping for a cowboy hat, or a mini-mullet, or something.

- while driving out of said mcdonald's, a guy was walking across the crosswalk in front of the entrance. since we were near a mid-sized ohio university, i immediately sized up the guys as "grad student." i literally thought to myself the complete sentence (in a pre-caffeinated state, no less!), "you are a grad student." isn't it funny how sometimes you can just spot them a mile away? semi-beat up brown blazer? check. semi-beat up dress shoes? check? hipster winter hat? check. venti coffee? check? ipod earphones in ears? oh, absolutely check.

- today, about halfway through our car journey from ohio to southern pennslyvania, CatCat decided she'd had enough of two days of tranquilizers and movers and riding in the car. after having sat fairly quietly for about two hours, she stood up inside the cat carrier and just started wailing. she cried and howled, pulled ferociously at the carrier gate, and generally raised hell. i, of course, walkie-talkied BoyCat to tell him of this uprising. however, despite a few encouraging cries of "gato libre!" from BoyCat over the airwaves, CatCat eventually gave up the fight. tuckered herself out, too, because she sait quietly through the rest of the trip. she is currently installed in the window of our hotel room.

ok, it's on to virginia tomorrow. see you when we get there...