Day One - St. Louis here we come.

After a brief and wonderful detour to Michigan to visit family and friends, we loaded the Saab to maximum capacity and our adventure began.
Our first stop was the Polk-A-Dot Drive In in Braidwood, IL on the very beginning (or end depending on which way you're coming from) of Route 66 for some fried chicken. Renae met Elvis.



Next we hit up Springfield, IL to pay our respects to Honest Abe and try and find the Simpsons.



Then we tried to meet Leslie Knope in Pawnee. Alas, no success.

Finally we made it to St. Louis, which is an unexpectedly beautiful city. Nobody ever told me. After checking in to our hotel, we all had one thing on our minds: BBQ! So we walked to Pappy's Smokehouse, which according to my extensive research (I don't mess around with BBQ) is supposed to be the best in St. Louis. It did not disappoint! Bruce and I both got ribs with sides of pulled pork and Renae got a pulled pork sandwich. All some of the best BBQ I've ever had. The sides were amazing too. They know how to make some fine slaw here. The only thing that could have made this meal better would of been a nice cold beer, but Pappy's does not serve alcohol! A BBQ joint with no beer! What kind of travesty is that?





Today, maybe a nice long jog to the arch and back to work off some of this BBQ and then on to Tulsa, OK!

"Lillian"

I’ve never been a ‘baby’ person. Beyond family-lines, I find myself going to great lengths to avoid other people’s children. More to the point, babies frighten me. Babies certainly don’t frighten me in the way that some people have a paralyzing fear of something as innocuous as, say, a clown or a golden retriever. No, the fear has more to do with my own inadequacy as both a caretaker of—and, more to the point, my general lack of wanting—a child of my own. I feel, perhaps out of the Catholic guilt instilled deep within my psyche from my youth, that babies are the sole meaningful contribution one can make to this world. I also see the unabashed joy and sense of wonderment they bring to their doting parents, extended family and such. Thusly, as a gay man who harbors a distinct aversion to ever parenting a child myself, I feel as though I automatically fail on some basic human level.

Yesterday I was in Michigan before Billy, Renae and I took off on our road trip, and something, er… happened. My very dear (and very pregnant) friend of over thirteen years, Kristy, went into labor and birthed a beautiful baby girl, Lillian Beatrice. Upon receiving the news, my sister Anna and I rushed to Hutzel Women’s Hospital in downtown Detroit. There I was afforded the luxury of holding Kristy’s new baby girl in my arms. Gazing into little Lillian’s beautiful eyes, smitten with all her inconceivably cute involuntary noises, her precious fingers tightly curled into warm little fists,and her thick head of black hair, I was suddenly struck by both the fragility of life and the humbling, grounding effect this tiny little life was having on everyone in the room. Here before me was something so much bigger than any one of us standing in that room, something that needed to be taken care of in order to grow into something strong, adept, and self-preserving. Her life force demanded that we step outside ourselves and contribute to something so much bigger than ourselves: her future. I wasn’t expecting such a walloping life lesson so early on in my journey, but that’s the funny thing about said life lessons, they often come from the most unexpected sources.

-Bruce

The Map

Here is our proposed cross-country route. Beginning from our place in Jersey City to Detroit to see our families and drop off our pets. Then, with our friend Renae, on to Springfield, St. Louis, Tulsa, Amarillo, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Sedona, Santa Barbara, and many others - finally landing in San Francisco to begin our new life.