when we last left our heroes...

Despite what the blog may read, I am not still in Boise (although it was a great town). Many friends have remarked that the roadtrip posts went from terribly lengthy affairs down to briefer and briefer updates, then finally the occasional batch of photos.

Frankly, I got so far behind on posts and my memory banks began to overflow, so that by the time I left Boise I wasn't really looking for inspiration. There was certainly cool stuff between Boise and Knoxville, including Mormons and a killer brunch in Denver, but my mind was mostly on getting home. It's a bitter-sweet feeling to be homesick on a trip, but I took it as a comforting sign that I was looking forward to life in Knoxville. 

So I pushed pretty hard from Denver, and made it across the midwest in two days, arriving home in the wee hours of the morning, almost exactly a month from my departure, and a stone's throw from an even 8,000 miles. I hit the ground running, though, and started scheduling house-viewings the next day, as our lease was about to expire.

Fortuitously, a group of guys from church were planning on moving out of their 4 bedroom house in Parkridge at the end of September, so I called up the landlord and snatched it up before he had a chance to put it on the market. Then, somehow, we cobbled together a group of 4 to move in.

On Monday we started moving in, and on Thursday I left for a wedding in Wisconsin. After the Kansas-Knoxville leg of my roadtrip, the 13 hour drive north felt like a trip across town. The wedding weekend was a blaze of  testosterone, reminiscence, and good company. I was sad to leave old friends behind, but I had to rush home to wrap up the move and get ready for an art show I'm participating in at Carson-Newman this weekend. I've got a couple of shots from the roadtrip framed up and looking pretty. They'll be on display in the Class of 2010 Alumni show for the next month or so.

With the new house we inherited a couple of raised beds in the backyard, and I spent awhile today cleaning up a jungle of tomatoes and clearing out a pair of beds for planting. Onions? Garlic? Greens? We'll see.

In the works:

-Designing a board game (working title: Terraformers), think Catan meets Carcassonne meets Civilization meets Risk

-Jotted down the beginning of a short story during my trip back from the wedding, might amount to nothing

-About to put out the gardening business ad, see if I can't get a couple jobs in before winter

Roadtrip update #2: Kentucky-Iowa

Eldridge, IA - 7/4/11

My windshield serves gruesome testament to the carnage I have wrought upon the insectoid populations of Indiana and Illinois this past weekend. Back in red-winged blackbird territory.

Packed up camp at Mammoth Cave National Park Saturday morning and headed off to wait for the ferry, after completing my first ever successful snot-rocket. It was pretty awesome. The route to Indianapolis took me through some great little Kentucky towns before feeding into the all-powerful Interstate.

Met the family in a suburb outside of Indy. Happy times. Some missionary friends graciously loaned us their house while we were in town for an old friend's wedding. That subdivision was something else though... Definitely apropos for the holiday, but frighteningly Pleasantville-esque. I certainly didn't feel American enough to be frequenting its manicured streets.

The wedding was on Sunday, and I tell you what, Cameroonians know how to get down at a wedding reception. It was great to see a bunch of familiar faces from the good old days back in Dakar.

The Aisenbrey caravan left this morning, making stop #1 in Freeport, IL to see my dad's mom, who entertained us with tales of nursing home shenanigans. Then it was on the road again, through beautiful northern Illinois and across the grand Mississippi to stop #2 at my mom's mom's place here in Eldridge, where I'm currently typing to the sounds of her wheezing cat, Belle, and the lonely popping of leftover fireworks.

We'll head up to Cedar Rapids tomorrow, completing phase 1 of the roadtrip, so I may not have another update for you till Saturday when I head off to South Dakota. You'll just have to get over it.