"You're lying," he sneered.

I was stuck at that booth for a while.

This time I had a more acceptable answer — I was stopping in London, Ontario, to visit a friend from grad school — but I also had all my worldly possessions with me, or at least those that would fit into my car. I assumed the agent would have me drive over to the inspection area where all of my bags would be dumped out and then left for me to repack, assuming I didn't get arrested for having some Jock Sturges books with me. Instead I just got waved through after about twenty seconds. Both times! Maybe the Ontario guys are just slackers. The guy on the crossing into Port Huron, Michigan, seemed a little out of it. He asked, "Where you coming from?" I said I was moving from Massachusetts to California and had spent the night at a friend's house in London. "Just the one carton?" he asked.

"Carton?" I said.

"Didn't you say you had a carton of cigarettes?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Oh, I thought you did," he said. "So everything in the car you brought with you from Maryland?"

"Massachusetts," I said.

"Oh yeah," he said. Then he gave me my passport back and waved me through.

But that was on the way out. Shortly after getting in, I missed an exit and started heading up towards Toronto instead of west to London and the Pacific. So I figured that instead of going all the way up to the next highway junction I would cut through the city of Hamilton. Hamilton turns out to be one of the most phantasmagorical places I have ever seen. For miles the only structures were enormous, dystopian, brightly colored Kirbytech heavy industrial plants belching smoke in various directions. I should have taken pictures, but there was nowhere to pull over. If I ever go back I will make a point of photographing the place. I'm telling you, Darkseid would feel totally at home there.

While visiting Mandy in London I met her husband and their 15-month-old daughter Charlotte. In the morning I got to watch her enact two clichés in the space of about ten minutes. After breakfast she was literally bouncing off the walls — ie, running from wall to wall, ricocheting off each one in turn. She had her hands out in front of her so at least she wasn't taking any hit points off the bounces. But even that was less impressive than her stunt a few minutes earlier, when she had actually slipped on a banana peel. She'd been eating a banana, she'd tossed the peel on the floor, John had let her down from her chair, and before he could pick up the peel, bam, down she went. It's Jim Henson's Vaudeville Babies!

You know you're in the Texas panhandle or Oklahoma when you see dead armadillos lining the roadside. For southern Ontario and Michigan, swap out armadillos and substitute raccoons. Sad.

My second day of driving I ended up in Davenport, Iowa. Iowa proved to conform to the stereotypes. First of all, everyone was really nice, from the rotund gas station proprietors to random people I ran into in parking lots and restaurants to the hotel clerk (a smokin'-hot half-Asian girl who'd been born in southern California but been raised from age seven in a small town in north-central Iowa). They would say hi, chat in a friendly manner, etc. I could see why Ingrid had taken to the place. Then the next day I got back on the road and flipped around on the radio to see what I could find. I got a business station: "Traders expected a decline today after yesterday's sharp increase, but markets continue to rise this morning..." Wait, I thought — I listened to NPR's "Marketplace" yesterday and the Dow had fallen thirty points! You can probably fill in the punchline: yes, the guy was talking about corn futures.

I was about to gas up the car in Stuart, Iowa, about ninety miles east of Omaha, when I stopped: this gas station was lying to me! The sign said gas was $2.59 a gallon, but when I was reaching for the regular 87-octane gas, I noticed that the pump said $2.69! And premium was $2.79, and mid-grade was— hang on. The mid-grade, 89.5 octane, was $2.59. Huh? I looked at the gas station across the street. Regular $2.78, premium $2.88, mid-grade $2.68. I had always wondered why mid-grade gas existed in the first place. Either your car needs super unleaded, in which case you get that, or else it doesn't, in which case you get the cheap stuff. What's the in-between gas for? People who wish they had a BMW? But it turns out that in Iowa, the mid-grade gas is made of corn, and thus is subsidized by the state. Nebraska does the same thing.

Iowa also has free wi-fi at all its rest stops, but I could never get it to work, despite a helpful rest stop custodian who saw me with my laptop and told me to hang on while she got me a brochure. (See? Iowans are nice!) But usually my computer couldn't find the signal. The one time it did, I had to spend a bunch of time creating an account, and then when I tried to log into my account the gateway software kept dumping me back into the login screen. Red and orange beetles bombarded me all the while. It was both literally and figuratively buggy.

I had dinner in Lincoln, Nebraska, which was also swarming with a wide variety of insects. This sort of thing is not unusual. Lincoln is the home of the University of Nebraska, whose mascot used to be the Bugeaters. I still had some daylight left after dinner so I continued on to Grand Island, Nebraska, and stopped there. As there are no islands around, I have to assume that the "grand island" the town name refers to is the continent of North America. In my motel room I found a plastic thingie with the cable TV channel lineup and an ad for Pizza Hut. "Voted Best Pizza In Grand Island!" the ad proudly declared. That's quite an honor! I wonder whether Wal-Mart was voted best superstore. The thing is, it's easy to laugh at the hicks who think of Pizza Hut as haute cuisine, but even in New York City these newspaper polls tend to pull up Domino's as Best Pizza and Blockbuster as Best Video Rental and stuff. A lot of people only go to places they've seen commercials for.

Heading west things got increasingly dire. I stopped being able to find anything on the radio other than Christian stations and right-wing radio hosts declaiming against ultra-liberal Fox News for acting like all the indictments and investigations against top Republican leadership figures constituted some sort of scandal. "It's not bad!" one caller declared. "The ultra-liberal media makes it bad!" Also, in both Iowa and Nebraska, pretty much every radio commercial was directed squarely at corn farmers. "This is corn. 'Meow!' This is Myc-Out Fungicidal Hybrid Corn. 'ROAR!' If you want a more profitable yield..." This struck me as odd, because I don't recall hearing too many occupation-specific ads elsewhere. "Lawyers! Tired of bright yellow legal pads that sting your retinas? Consolidated Paper is pleased to announce our 500-Z series of legal pads in soothing lavender!" But I suppose it makes sense. If you're not a corn farmer, what the hell are you doing in Iowa or Nebraska?

I stopped in Cheyenne to visit a net.friend. I got off the freeway and was tooling down Wyoming state highway 212 when I got pulled over. I had heard that speeding tickets in the northern Rockies used to be like $5, payable immediately to the cop who pulled you over, but I assumed that that policy had ended at least twenty years ago, and besides, the main penalty in a speeding ticket isn't the fine but the insurance hike. But I didn't get a speeding ticket. Instead I had to explain what I was doing with Massachusetts plates so far off the freeway and nowhere near a gas station or anything. So I explained that I was moving to California and that on the way I was visiting a friend and that this friend wasn't actually from here either but had come down from Montana to visit her sister, whose address I rattled off to the cop. He said he wasn't going to give me a ticket but that I'd better be careful because the speed limits changed frequently along this road. "A citation is a hundred and eight dollars," he said, "so you have to ask yourself whether it's worth a hundred and eight dollars to you to see this girl." That was the sort of calculation I hadn't anticipated I would have to make until I got to Nevada!

I got to the house, where Wendy and Linnaea treated me to lunch, which was very nice of them considering that I was some random off the net who had very recently fallen afoul of the local authorities. I told a couple of the above stories but mostly sat and listened to the banter between the sisters. At one point they were lamenting that one of the young'uns, age three, was going to need a bunch of dental work. I had read that childhood cavities, which had fallen to near zero by 1990, were again on the rise due to families using non-fluoridated bottled water, but this turned out not to be the culprit: she just hadn't developed enamel on her teeth. Eek! Not only that, but they knew three other people with the same problem. You know how state tourism boards develop slogans like "Virginia Is for Lovers" and "Arizona: If You Knew It, You'd Do It"? I'm thinking Wyoming may need one like "Please Bring Fresh Genes" or something. (Hmmm... it occurs to me that all three of these are basically suggesting that you come have sex with the state. I guess the logical next step would be "Kansas: Come Tap That" or perhaps "You Better Make It with Idaho or Sport'll Get Mad." Just thinking out loud here.)

I was interested in exploring Cheyenne, so I drove around for a while. There is nothing there. You know those little freeway towns that have nothing but gas stations and some motels? In Wyoming, that's the state capital. Laramie, seat of the university, was even worse. I pressed on westward and noticed a bunch of aircraft with white trails flying around — it looked like the sky was full of comets. No idea what they were doing. My map indicated five municipalities of note in Wyoming along I-80 and the sun went down as I approached the third, Rawlins, so I got off there. I saw a motel that advertised net access, but when I pulled into the parking lot I noticed there were ladders and things in the lobby; the place was evidently still under construction. A large scowling man angrily advanced toward my car, and since I do not like being accosted by large angry men at night, I drove away. I went to another motel where two clerks stared dully at me. There was a squinty one who looked like she was 25 going on 70 and had just been sprung from the pokey. The other one had spikes in his face. Now, I think all piercings are grotesque, and I still recoil in horror when I see people with barbells through their tongues and stuff, but it seems to me that spikes in your face send a special message, much as a spiked collar does. "Look! Spikes! Pointy! I'm a badass! I stick you, man!" If you want to intimidate me by putting spikes in your face, I will happily oblige you by being intimidated and not getting a room at your motel.

This is especially true when you're charging a hundred bucks, which seemed to be the going rate in Wyoming. In Iowa the motels had been extremely cheap, sometimes under thirty bucks, and I figured Wyoming was even smaller-time than Iowa and so would be even cheaper. But I guess they figure that there's no way you would be in Rawlins, Wyoming, unless you were absolutely exhausted and couldn't go on. Bam, captive audience. I was pretty tired. Also starving: I hadn't wanted to make a pig of myself at lunch and hadn't eaten much. I figured I'd find dinner in Laramie. Surely a college town would have something for me to eat — even Lincoln, Nebraska, of all places, had had a small bohemian district with a vegetarian wraps shop. Not Laramie. And definitely not Rawlins, which only had a Pizza Hut. I thought, "Dick Cheney used to live in Wyoming... what did he eat?" Immediately I realized the obvious answer — babies — but that didn't help me any. I was about to faint from hunger, and hey, Pizza Hut had been voted the best pizza in Grand Island, Nebraska, so I went in. In the waiting area were a bunch of toughs who scowled at me. One of them either flipped me off or flashed me a gang sign. I guess he could have been saying "good day, sir" in American Sign Language but this seems unlikely. I got a small cheese pizza which was so bad it was almost funny. I also thought I should gas up my car, but the gas station was full of trucks with a bunch of My Name Is Earl types sitting in the beds and on the roofs of the trucks just hanging out. Whoo, Friday night! I had steadfastly avoided driving after dark on this trip but at this point I just wanted to get the hell out of Wyoming. Back on the road! Back at lunch Linnaea had mentioned a friend of hers who'd been freaked out by the metal barriers that swing down over the freeway when the roads are closed in snowstorms. I'd thought that was weird, but what I hadn't known at the time was that they don't just say "ROAD CLOSED"; they say "ROAD CLOSED" and then "RETURN TO LARAMIE" or "ROAD CLOSED" and "RETURN TO RAWLINS" or what have you. I can see why that would be upsetting. That's not a weather advisory; that's a failed jailbreak.

Anyway, I made it to Rock Springs and slept there. In the morning I went out to the parking lot and found that there were capsules on the ground. Hrm. Then on the way out of Wyoming I was passed by a truck bearing signs saying "DANGER RADIOACTIVE." Swell. I guess that helps to explain the thing with the enamel, though.

If you're in Wyoming and you're not sure which direction you're going, wait until you start picking up radio stations again and listen to the ads. If they're all about corn, you're entering Nebraska. If they're all about parenting, Utah. Also, for whatever reason, people on Utah radio keep saying "if needs be" instead of "if need be." Not sure what's up with that.

I actually like Utah, though. I mean, not politically. But Salt Lake City is very clean and well-organized. You drive down its handsome streets full of attractive middle-class housing and you could be in a Canadian city. Brigham Young, upon reaching the future site of Salt Lake City, famously declared, "This is the place." I don't know whether I'd go that far, but I will say that at least it is a place. Pretty much the only one between Sacramento and Omaha (or maybe Chicago). No, nothing in Nevada or Wyoming counts. But Salt Lake is very pleasant and provides all the comforts of civilization. I was able to sit down at a cafe and get a lime Torani soda. It was well made, too! They gave me lime wedges! In Wyoming you probably can't even buy a lime.

Heading west I saw the Great Salt Lake for the first time. The shoreline was a huge smear of salt with little piles of salt here and there. Then came Nevada with its blinky whirly casino towns and self-deprecating billboards. "Battle Mountain, Nevada: Voted Armpit of America by the Washington Post." I had previously traveled from Winnemucca, Nevada, to California along I-80 in January 1992, and I recalled the route as being very ugly — no scenery other than a few mountains that were just piles of brown dirt. It's not that bad. There's some scrub. But it's not great. For hundreds of miles it looked a lot like Wyoming. Then suddenly the mountains turned majestic, covered in conifers, and alongside the freeway was a river whose banks were dotted with fiery orange deciduous trees. This all happened just past the "Welcome to California" sign. And even more beautiful than the scenery? California finally has exit numbers on its freeway signs! As I reached the fruit check booths, California's version of customs, I knew I had finally made it out of flyover country.

Then I immediately got stuck in traffic, but we'll ignore that.

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