Day 1

current location: Joplin, Missouri
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Woke up this morning at 6:30am in order to pack all my stuff, had coffee, packed the car, hopped in, got gas, got some fruit at Jewel, stopped in Schaumberg to have some Subway- THEN WE WERE OFF!

In Caucci's new Corolla we rolled down what was once Route 66 and headed towards sunny California.

As we rolled through St. Louis, we contemplated the meaning of the St. Louis Arch and whether or not there were offices in it. If there's an elevator, if it goes up, it must just come down on the other side!

That reminded us of chips, and we pondered the origin of those little black things in tortilla chips... anyone know what they are and how they get there? Also how we definitely need to stop at a mexican restaurant, hopefully closer to the mexican border.

Our first rest area in Missouri was desolate and really hot- the chained and barred vending machines dispensed over-priced melted candy bars. The bathrooms had a really cool thing though: automatic hand soaper/washer/driers. We didn't have to touch a thing! Which is good because in general everything was pretty gross except the 21st century hand cleaning machines.

We stopped and had some Steak and Shake in some town outside of St. Louis (by the way, since that's the only big city in this state, is everything really outside St. Louis?). I really like the way Steak and Shakes are the same everywhere- whenever I go into one, I think of all the good times I've had there over the years, and because the layout is the same I feel like I'm coming back to an old hangout. Except this one had a smoking section and was in Missouri.

As it got dark, it got really dark! It's crazy to me to look out the window and see no lights but headlights. I think that things will only get more desolate and far apart as we head west. Maybe as people get farther and farther apart so will the deer; I really don't like deer.

By about 10:30pm we made it Joplin, Missouri to the Super 8 with the free wireless internet. We immediately got to work importing the video we shot earlier, putting it in Logic, scoring it, putting them together in iMovie, getting that movie on YouTube, starting this blog, typing this text, and embedding the video in this blog for your viewing pleasure. Today's video blog features Beth Caucci and myself - Chris Beckstrom, aka the Documenterrorists- and this time I scored the video.

The idea is to update this daily and share with you all our travels, so check back often!

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for more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Arch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steak_and_shake