When I was in California, I was starting to be proud, er, not embarassed about being from New Jersey. Now that I'm here again, I have a feeling I'm gonna be wondering a lot where/if these people were educated, or whether they're really from West Virginia and getting to the point where they are proud, er, not embarassed about being from West Virginia.

Anyway, I went and returned the rental truck the other day and had trouble finding the place, despite knowing the name of the place and having mapquest directions (am I the only one starting to get disillusioned by mapquest, or am I finally getting disillusioned by mapquest?). I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions...oh wait, I'm a guy, I stopped to look for a phone but ended up asking the attendant if he knew the place, and he didn't specifically. But he thought the address number was curious. When I asked if the numbers went down or up going west, he replied, "Sometimes they go up, sometimes they go down". Indeed.

Further down the road, I found a phone and called the number I had, and it turned out the place was right there next door from where I was calling, "Oh yea, there you are, I see you", she said on the phone. All of the workers at the drop-off location had the name of the place nicely embroidered on their shirts. However, there was not a single sign outside on the building indicating the name of the place. I'm back to thinking New Jersey as a mutant state. With only West Virginia to look down upon.

I brought my bike to get home from the truck place in Lodi. It's odd. I grew up in this area, and Lodi always seemed way out there - definitely driving distance, along with Hackensack and Patterson. But it's only about 13 miles from my parents' house. In San Francisco, that distance would get me as far as Sausalito without the return ride. But this distance from Lodi to my parents' house still seemed like a big deal. I wonder if it's my old perceptions of scale and distance around here that made it a big deal to ride those paltry 13 miles, or if it was my unfamiliarity with riding in this area. Maybe it was the semi-bike-unfriendly roads (car traffic isn't unfriendly to bikes, they've just never seen it). Maybe I'm just weird.

Moving pics. How this:


became this:


happy as a clam near the Great Salt Flats in Utah.


Isn't that special (Nevada):