Leidt, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness... now playing at a theater near you.

(Credit where credit is due, Kate Jones definitely came up with the title for this post and our eventual feature film...)

A week back in Toronto and the 10 (11?) hour stretch that finally got us to our destination seems so long ago. We drove 2,562.5 miles from Clinton, Connecticut to Kate's door in Park City, Utah. We spotted license plates from 36 of 50 states, (Hawaii plates, and others, are rather thin on the ground. "Thin in the air! Generally pretty trim." We did see Alaska though!) we saw a black bear, drove through the Rocky Mountain National Park and added quite a few new hotspots to our list of Random Cities Of The World Kate Jones And Lady Liberty Have Inhabited At The Same Time.

Our last day we drove from Denver, visited Boulder briefly and then drove the rest of the way through Colorado and halfway through Utah on our way to Park City. We didn't realize at the time, but Route 36 runs right through Rocky Mountain National Park and so Luna huffed and puffed through the mountains and beautiful scenery. At 14,000 feet everything was suddenly "Awesome!" and I can only attribute it to the lack of oxygen. Hairpin turns? Awesome! Freakily tame chipmunks? Awesome! Rocky Mountain High? Awesome! I would have loved to camp out there forever, it was beautiful.

Kate Jones miraculously managed to drive almost the entire day. Definitely thanks to seasons 1 and 2 of How I Met Your Mother.... which was LEGEN...wait for it... DARY. We drove into Utah in the dark and after a slight detour made it into Park City to stay chez my WONDERFUL godmother in her lovely hotel room on Main Street. The next morning we went to go check out Kate Jones' apartment and after meeting Tallulah, the cutest-French-bulldog-puppy-ever, we found her brand-new, ski-in/ski-out, winter-ready apartment not twelve steps from her new place of employment. And yes, of course I beat her up.

We spent the weekend exploring the sights and sounds of Park City, from the resort amusement park where we roller-coastered, zip-lined and sled down the dormant ski slopes to Park Silly which was an impressive manifestation of craft show and farmer's market, and also checked out a few neighborhood eateries and grocery stores. The countdown is on for a certain festival in January, and we'll see if there might be a Part Deux to 'Lady Liberty in Park City.' Holy Sundance, here we come! I left Park City last Sunday and then got to see my aunt and uncle's home and the sights of Salt Lake City before catching a plane to see my Mr. Liberty in Toronto... via Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Minneapolis. (It's ok, I don't even remember the last three flights.) And there he was, waiting for me with a beautiful bunch of sunflowers!

In other news, poutine sales are up, LSATs are swiftly approaching and in Toronto it's cool with a chance of rain... ah yes, the abrupt end to a summer that never truly began. Happy September!

A view of Kate Jones' backyard...

"Hey, remember that day we drove from Chicago to Denver?"

We broke our 2000 miles! At least I think we did, the trip counter started over again and it could have only been me who did it... But we did as much driving yesterday as we did in the first two days combined and it was relatively painless. We hit 1000 miles yesterday as we were leaving Chicago and then crossed through the highly uneventful states of Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. I was hoping for some giant balls of yarn or something on the side of the road to keep it interesting, but the best we got was the World's Largest Truck Stop. As you can imagine, we passed. The scenery was very pretty, but there's only so much rolling corn field you can take. (And yes, Nebraska is loooong...) However, I loved the fields of windmills--giants gracefully whipping their long arms around and around and giving us clean happy energy in the process! Makes me all warm inside.

The Almighty Skinny B*tch would have been so proud, I denounced diet coke for our longest drive of the trip and instead drank water... and a "natural" energy drink. And she would have been very pleased that we hit up a Whole Foods in Chicago to get veggies and fruit. Munching keeps me awake while driving so I figure better celery than say, the bag of Popcorn, Indiana Kettle Corn that we had earlier devoured. However, the B*tch definitely does not do road trips, eight glasses of water?? How many rest stops do you think there are along I-80, O Skinny B*tch?

We drove into Colorado in the dark. We might have missed out on our first view of the Rockies but the stars were amazing! (We only have a few in Toronto.) The last few hours we kept ourselves alert by discussing some of the more important questions of life. For example, if Denver is the Mile-High City, does that make its residents automatic members of the... Mile-High Club? The jury's still out. It seems like it would be an unfair advantage, don't you think?

Today is my birthday! We're starting with an AMAZING breakfast at Snooze in downtown Denver then possibly stopping off in Boulder before heading to Park City! I'm trying to get Kate Jones on a horseback trail ride through the mountains, wish me luck!

"South Bend... It sounds like dancing."

It's possible that we broke our 1000 miles today! ...but we have to check the odometer. Ohio was a brief but welcome reprise (with nice rest stops) from the expanse that is Pennsylvania--we spent most of the first day driving across it and still needed another hour to get out of it the next morning. After leaving Zelienople we hit Ohio, Indiana, then Illinois.

We stopped in South Bend, Indiana, Macauley Connor's hometown in 'The Philadelphia Story' (clearly more significant than its other associations) and when Katharine Hepburn's Tracy Lord hears this she proclaims, "South Bend... it sounds like dancing!" And we know this... because we listened to it in the car. That and a chorus of "Gary, Indiana, Gary, INDiana, Gary, Indiana..." greeted every other exit sign through Indiana.

Finally, we made it to Chicago and the Central Time zone. Amid much confusion we decided that our time of arrival was 5:30 pm and promptly made it to the first and nearest pub we saw. The traffic was pretty awful on the way in, we were told it might have something to do with Oprah blocking off half the city to celebrate 24 years on television. Our newest driving companion, Skinny B*tch, frowned upon us as we enjoyed a meal of beer and delicious, large and creative burgers with our lovely hostess, but we've decided that she's probably just not used to road trips. (I mean really, how many vegan cookies do you find in the average American rest stop?) I can tell you that the Goose Island Brewery (just across from Wrigley Field) makes an excellent Hefeweizen and black pepper burger with Stilton and roasted garlic on top... It was wonderfully un-skinny.

So, today it's on to.... NEBRASKA! When complaining about the length of Pennsylvania, recent blogger, Pooper McRoadTripperson told us, just wait until Nebraska... Should be exciting. Today we have no set plan and no person to see. So we plan to drive until we feel like stopping. Where will end up? Nebraska? Wyoming? Colorado?? Tune in to find out....