Where has Jack been?

I recently got back from a fantastic spring break adventure! Woo! Four of my friends and I drove from Cleveland to St. Louis (10 hours) to visit a friend, then east to Boulder, Colorado (14 hours) to visit another friend and hang out in the Rocky Mountains. While the Rockies may not have the most creative name, they are stunningly beautiful. We then drove back through St. Louis to get home, putting about 3000 miles on the car. And speaking of the car, in case you missed it, that's 5 dudes in one vehicle. A Toyota Camry to be exact which means not much room. However, we overcame the cramped space to have a fantastic time with many great discussions punctuated by delicious food, breathtaking scenery, and tasty and tipsifying micro-brews. One of our secrets: equal sharing of front-seat time. People were eager to drive 4-5 hours at a time just because it meant more leg room. A less intuitive secret: standup comedy on the iPod! It provided entertainment that we could all participate in without actually talking to each other, preventing boredom and/or getting on each other's nerves. Thank you David Cross, Mitch Hedberg, Dave Chappelle, Dane Cook, Bill Hicks, Jon Stewart, and George Carlin. To Richard Pryor: thanks for trying, but none of us were/are black dudes in the 70's so we found it difficult to relate. I will try again later when I am not self-conscious about the other people in the car not enjoying it.

Did you know?
- St. Louis has the coolest bar (Vienna Cafe) and the single coolest place (City Museum) that I've ever been! And that's in addition to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery/Headquarters and the St. Louis Gateway Arch. What a place it was!

- Colorado has more days of sunshine than any place I could imagine. Unless it is hardcore snowing it is clear and beautiful, thus the sunniness makes it not as cold as you would expect.

- People in Colorado love micro-brewery beers. Even the little suburb that our friend's uncle lived in had 3 microbrews! Yum!

- Elk don't give a crap if you drive your car right by/through their herd. We were like this close!

- Kansas is as flat and boring as any place ever possibly could be. Especially in winter, when there are no amber waves of grain, it is just miles of flat dirt until the horizon. I'm glad someone else wants to live there, because I sure as hell don't.

- Many "edgy" comedians like to make fun of church. I guess it is a slow-moving target, as are most gigantic institutions with really old rules (see: governments, fraternities, ethnic-groups). Everyone should be able to laugh at their group(s)'s idiosyncrasies without being offended! Hear that, Scientology?