We started making out; she took off my pants...

If you want to hear more about the story the title of this blog is referring to, then please listen to the Blink 182 song "What's my age again." There will be none of those shenanigans in this blog.

The feeling has come over me to sit back, loosen my belt, smoke a Fisher Price bubble pipe, and relate to you a story of adventure.

St. Louis (not to be confused with the “Lewis” of Lewis and Clark) was our most recent overnight stop. If there has ever been a city that was less crowded than St. Louis, it’s the city/town/hole of Buffalo. Since the drive from Chicago to Denver seemed too much asphalt in one day for our tastes, Peter and I decided to break the trip up into two parts and visit a friend of mine from college in St. Louis.

The Cardinals were playing and winning. Busch Stadium was big, new, and nothing compared to Fenway, but, you know, nice. We rolled into the city about the 6th inning, so we opted to see the Gateway to the West instead. That’s right, the greatest single symbol of Westward Expansion, a representation of balance and ingenuity that is an apt metaphor for Peter’s own Manifest Destiny. The St. Louis Arch.

On a previous drive cross country with a friend moving out to LA (I don’t have a job, and I like to drive. I can do this whenever I want, but also wouldn’t mind being employed some day), the Arch was the point at which things really hit. My friend, Mike, realized that he wouldn’t be going back east and had left much behind. He became quiet and reflective. There was moistness in his eyes. I, every time I looked at him, laughed at his pain. It’s a hobby. The experience was similar for Peter, but with less laughing on my part.

There’s so much to tell post this part of the trip that I’m going to speed by it. One of the Arch workers gave Peter a hug and that seemed to fix things, in addition to the magnet and postcards he got from the gift shop.

We left St. Louis in the mature am hours, leaving nothing behind but broken hearts and a couple thank you notes. Arthur Bryant was our destination—bbq in Kansas City, MO, recommended by blog-enthusiast Paul. “Worth going to Kansas City for.” “The only reason Kansas City is still available on GPS systems.” “We sell our sauces online, but there’s still a good reason to come here—the food.” “If this place hadn’t been here, this part of town wouldn’t exist any more.” These were just a couple of the marketing slogans we came up with. I have never had better pulled pork, and we left with 5 bottles of bbq sauce packed in the back of the Lexus. Peter chose to use the bathroom at the restaurant. I followed apprehensively, and that was, more or less, the better attitude to have. No doors on stall for Kevin and capacity of 2 ½= I’ll wait for the next pit stop. I’m surprised Peter is still alive and doesn’t have a new boyfriend.

The second-best part of this leg came when we saw a carwash on the route to the highway. If you’ve never driven for long hours across wide open states, then explaining how many bugs die at high speeds on windshields will not make any sense to you. We didn’t count them, but at least a gatrillion, and they weren’t coming off without power-washing.

Mind you, the following statements and descriptions were thought and will be written void of judgment and meanness (except on Peter’s part).

The woman working the front of the carwash had fewer teeth than I have fingers—on one hand. Most of them were missing in the front. But that was good because her tongue was pierced, and it gave us a better view of the navy blue stud whenever she smiled, spoke, stuck her tongue out between her teeth and whistled. There was obvious pride in the mouth accessory. She was skinny and about 5’6”. The XXL windbreaker she wore did not compliment her petite figure, but was accented well by the inordinate amount of oversized rings on both hands. This might be a MO style that escaped the conservative blue jeans and t-shirts we east coasters were in. She tried to up-sell us from the basic carwash to one that included a Teflon coating so that bugs would no longer splatter on our windshield but slam into, slide smoothly off it, over the car and into the road behind us, too maimed to live a normal life, but not dead enough to forget that imminent doom by tires was upon them. Peter refused with some manly words, “We’ll just lick them off with our tongues the rest of the way.” Both laughed, whilst I cringed and felt awkward witnessing an obvious connection between two people who couldn’t be any more different (I thought to myself, “What would have happened if Peter didn’t have to go?” We’ll never know). He paid his eight dollars with a hundred dollar bill (in an—all too obvious—attempt to impress her). She handed him his change and her touch lingered longer than necessary upon Peter’s palm. He couldn’t even look at her when he said, “Thank you, we’ll be moving on now, immediately. Windows up, up UP!!!” Awkward love, always gets me, right here (pointing to heart).

Men, women and boys washed our vehicle with rags and bars of soap inside a tunnel in which we were pushed forward by stray dogs and squirrels that had just awoken from their winter slumbers. Ok, it wasn’t that bad, but there were guys with power washers, hoses and rags. Carwash technology hasn’t reached that part of MO quite yet, but when it does, there will be a revolution.

There was the pulling out of the carwash, the turning onto the highway, fond farewells to MO, then 45 minutes later another bathroom stop at Kansas University. Pulled pork is delicious, but… well, that doesn’t need to be part of the story.

We roamed around campus shouting “GO JAYHAWKS” while Peter said, “Will you shut up!! You went to Boston College.” However, he did share my love for college basketball and an odd fondness of the soon-to-be NCAA championship Jayhawks team. After a quick stop at the bookstore to buy final four apparel and support a school neither of us have any affiliation with, we went to the gym—Allen Field house—so Peter could take some pictures. While he was photographing, I was pretending to be an undergrad and hitting on coeds, trying to find the best places to party when the title finally came “home to us.” “Yeah, so we could party at my dorm, but I’m renovating and, yeah, bombing for termites as well. They’ve tented it and I can’t go back until Wednesday. Is your place open?” Peter made me leave (he wouldn’t even wear the t-shirt he bought or the little Jayhawk temp-tattoos I provided and offered to lick so we could stick them to our cheeks). However, he didn’t get me out of there before Yvonne and I had had an over-exaggerated moment together. If only I had actually gone to KU and was 5-8 years younger. After winking suggestively at my new girlfriend as she walked away, we left campus in our trusty steed.

That would make us now on the road to Denver. And if we haven’t lost your respect yet, then I can tell you, you’ll want to stay tuned because Vail will definitely be interesting… and if it isn’t, I’ll lie about it.

Before I post this and sign off, I have a question for the masses. In a carwash, you obviously exit with your windows closed because water is being directed at you at high speeds. Should your windows have been open, there would have been a damp interior post carwash. Well, since the end of this wash consisted of people with rags and oscillating fans on “high”, do you take the time right before pulling out of the tunnel to roll down your window and give the good people a tip? Or is that awkward? Or is it more awkward to salute from your eyebrow with two fingers and peel out before the guy on the passenger side has cleared from drying off the rims? We could have really used your advice.