75 hours WHAT.

"The butterflies are passive aggressive
and put their problems on the shelf
but they're beautiful."
-Ben Kweller, "In Other Words"

We pulled into Liz's drive at about 1 in the afternoon today.

I was so tired, I ended up staying at her house for about two hours even though Eia went to her parents' house and Liz went upstairs and went to bed. I just stayed, creepin' in her living room because I did not have the will to get back into my car after driving all night.

Okay, to recap. We left Lincoln, Nebraska at about 10 am on Tuesday, and began the incredibly long remainder of our trip pretty energized. I took a 5 hour shift, and then Eia took an 11 hour shift because she is absolutely ridiculous. That brought us to about midnight on Tuesday, after a long day of good conversations and eating just ridiculous amounts of junk food. We had massive meals at both Burger King (lunch) and then Taco John's (dinner). We also seemed to just be snacking, the whole day.

One of Liz's tweets sums it up pretty well:

@kristinahorner and @eiaradio's new driving strategy: Eating. Constantly.

We also spent a good portion of the drive playing the Oregon Trail on Liz's phone, because we were amused that we were taking nearly the same route in our car. Our actual journey was a little more successful than our video game one… since Eia died of a broken arm, I got lost for 3 days going to the bathroom outside, and Liz died of cholera? Pretty bad.

So at midnight, Eia woke me up from a pretty solid backseat nap and told me it was my turn to drive. I don't know about other people, but if I have already slept about 3 hours at a normal sleeping time, getting up and driving a car full of people I love and whose lives I want to keep intact is not my idea of a good plan. But we really didn't have much choice because Eia needed to get home for work the next day and so we couldn't stop and get a hotel.

Conversation started getting pretty silly as well when Eia was sleeping and Liz and I were just losing it from being so tired. I am copying these over from twitter just for posterity's sake.

Liz: "You know what? Evolutionarily, it makes sense to have your mouth on your head."

Liz: "Can you imagine what this trip would be like without technology?"
Me: "Like covered wagons?"
Liz: "...no like with cassettes."

Liz: "I dont wanna put shoes on and throw this bag away."
Me: "Well, your options are do that, or don't do that."
Liz: "Well when you put it that way…"

So Eia needed a longer nap, Liz was nodding off, and I couldn't keep my eyes open. Great. So I called Luke and he told me stories and kept me awake for about 2 hours in the middle of the night which I really appreciated, and then I was able to do another few hours after that, getting us to about 5:30 in the morning when Eia took over again and Liz napped. Then I napped. Then we stopped at a truck/store/gas place in Pendleton, Oregon, where even though it was like 6AM, Eia, Liz and I collectively decided we wanted hotdogs. So that was breakfast.

Then Eia got us to Yakima, and I drove us home from there. Which brings me to now. I finally came home after my few hours of resting at Liz's house. I brought in my suitcase, but left all our pillows and blankets and junk and food and garbage out in my car because I just didn't care. I didn't go grocery shopping or shower or... anything productive. Best day.

And now, the adventure is over.

We went through a total of TEN states!
Washington, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Utah and Oregon.

And we drove a grand total of 4,387 miles, which added up to about 75 total hours in the car. It was awesome. I am so glad we decided to drive.

This last week has been amazing!

Now I am sitting on gchat where Luke is trying to teach me to play guitar. So far I can just about play his incredibly emo song "Happy". I feel pretty cool singing that song in my post-wrockstock scratchy voice and am also considering painting my fingernails black. #NaNoEMO

I am so behind on all my TV shows! I'm going to go watch last week's FlashForward with my housemate Justin. It's good to be home, even though I miss everyone loads.