UPDATE: I am alive and I am thrive.

Hey Gram!

We've talked a few times on the phone since I last wrote, and every time, you say I loved that 'Hey Gram' blog! and I say Thanks! I'm going to add a new post soon!

So, I thought it would be a good time to follow through on that.

I moved into a new apartment the Monday before Thanksgiving! I was fortunate enough to get a job doing accounting work at a wealth management company in downtown Los Angeles, so I signed a lease. I started the job last Monday and I can already tell that it's going to be better than a lot of my past work experiences. The people are all great and the commute from the new apartment is ten, maybe twenty minutes on the worst of days.

Echo Park, with a view of downtown Los Angeles

The new apartment is my favorite thing in the world. It's in Echo Park, which is a tiny little neighborhood on the East side of Los Angeles off Sunset Boulevard. I can walk to Dodger Stadium!

I'm on the top floor of a triplex that sits on the top of a hill. When you first pull in the driveway, my level looks like its a one story ranch house, but theres a staircase that leads to the next two floors down the hill. I have two roommates on my floor. One is Kris, who acts and sings and dances in musicals. I'm going to see a show of his sometime soon. Freza is the second roommate. She's at a small company in Santa Monica that takes on startup artists (painters, sculptors, etc.) and works with them to develop their professional careers. They're both great people.

I went to an awesome furniture store called Zentiques. They had a lot of unique options, and I ended up with a dresser, two side tables, a lamp, a mirror, a tiki totem pole, a buddah statue, and an asian box. I ordered a large tapestry with a neat persian looking design on it that I hung above my bed. I also hung a roadmap of the U.S. above my desk with highlights of all of the routes I've driven. I'm looking forward to highlighting a lot more!

Upper right corner: Hummingbird Tree

I have a balcony off of my room that overlooks the interstate. The road is far enough away that it kind of sounds like the ocean, with its own tides of light and heavy traffic. Following the patterns of the traffic is fun - especially at night when it's all lit up. I bought a bird house yesterday, and I'm working on getting some humming birds to come take a drink of sugar water. There are four or five of them that I can see every morning around 7:30 in a tree just outside my window, but they haven't ventured over yet. I'm afraid that it's because the feeder isn't getting direct sunlight so that they don't notice it, but I have a few tricks to try out.

My roommate Kris is hosting his parents for Christmas at my apartment. He said that they celebrate on Christmas night with some Norwegian songs and dancing around a tree and then warm wine and great food. I'm planning to join them. Then, I'm planning to take the next day off and spend an extended weekend in San Diego with a good friend from college.

Everything is great out here! I'm leaving a lot out, but I won't wait as long before writing you again! I love you very much. I think that the next time I'll be in New Jersey will be June - for Long Beach Island and the 4th of July! I hope to have some visitors from the east coast shortly.

Talk to you soon,

Mikey

Days 5 - 6

Hey Gram!

Adam, also in town for the ND game.

I'm in Boulder, Colorado right now! I drove here all the way from Springfield, Illinois yesterday. It was 930 miles. I left at 8 am Central Time and got in just before 12 am Mountain Time.

I left Chicago on Monday morning after an hour bike ride around the city. I arrived in Champaign, Illinois around 1 in the afternoon. My good friend Frankie, a fellow Siegfried Rambler from Notre Dame, lives there. He took me to his favorite Mexican restaurant, Dos Reales, which reminded me of a scene from the popular hit TV series Breaking Bad. He showed me the Acapulco tacos, which came with a delicious combination of chicken, shrimp, and steak.

YUM.

We drove through the University of Illinois campus, watched some TV, and I hit the road.

I met my friend Rob in Springfield, Illinois. He's from Little Silver, but was coincidentally in Springfield for work. I got in around 830, so we went to a local restaurant for a beer. He had a hotel room where I was able to sleep for the night.

Arch you glad to see me?

I got up at 8am and, after chasing my parakeet around the Candlewood Suites parking lot for a few minutes, hit the road. I stopped at the Arch in St Louis for a quick selfie before making the push through Missouri and Kansas to Colorado.

Those states were a lot different than I expected. Yes, there was a lot of nothing - but more rolling hills than Ohio or Indiana, more trees and rivers and streams. The 75 mph speed limit was also great. I think they know that most people are just trying to get in and out of those states as fast as possible.

When filling up for gas in Junction City, Kansas, I locked my keys in the car. I called AAA, and they were there in 10 minutes. It was a nice break from driving, lol.

It hit 98 degrees in Kansas yesterday. The car sauna was in full effect! My wax ear plugs had gotten too dirty to use, so I had the windows rolled up for much longer. I bought an air-freshener, but it gave me a headache. I threw it in the back seat, and now the car kind of smells like a diaper. A relatively clean diaper, but a diaper nonetheless.

Filling up before heading into the storm.

Right after nightfall, a severe thunderstorm rolled over I-70 in Kansas. It hit while I was filling up for gas at an abandoned gas station, and I have to admit that I was a little scared for my life for a few minutes. I have no experience with tornadoes or giant Midwestern summer storms, so I didn't really know what to expect. It was an amazing storm and thankfully there was no damage done.

I got to Boulder at midnight - 16 hours door to door. That's with an hour stop in St. Louis plus 6 or 7 roadside pit stops for gas and various forms of caffeine. My friends were already asleep when I showed up at their house.

I ate breakfast at the Village today, which is a great diner spot here in town. They had free bumper sticker for me, which was cool.  I would love to own and operate a place like that one day.

It rained all morning, but turned nice around 1pm. I just got back from a fun bike ride on this awesome path that goes around the entire city of Boulder. I ended up on the CU Campus, which was beautiful. My friend Tyler is finishing his Masters at Boulder this year, and is working until 7:30 tonight.

I''m going to stay here for at least a couple of days - I have some planning to do for the final stretch of the journey!! I will let you know as soon as I decide what I am doing.

Talk to you soon!

Mike

Bike trail with a view of the Boulder Flatirons <333

Days 2 - 4

Hey again!

I just arrived at my friends’ apartment in Wrigleyville, Chicago. They have an awesome spot on the top floor of their building and it’s just a three minute walk from the stadium.

Picking up where I left off, the rest of Friday was fun! I met up with a couple of friends to walk around campus and stop at the bookstore. I got a bumper sticker.

We're #1!

After the bookstore, I hopped on my bike and rode to the golf course where a couple other friends were shooting a round. It was over 85 degrees, and boy did I work up a sweat! The winds were really whippin’ at the end too – a big storm was rolling in. The storm was well timed, though. It cooled everything off and brought perfect weather for football.

I got a Papa Smurf from a local watering hole with a few friends. That’s a 32 oz. neon blue vodka drink that you’re only allowed to drink 2 of. After we finished, I went over to an apartment that my friends had rented for the weekend. We played a few drinking games and called it an early night.

Gameday was perfect. The weather had cooled off to a blissful 73 degrees, and because it was a night game, I had plenty of time to visit each of the tailgates that various friends were hosting.

The game speaks for itself. ND 31 – UM 0. Beautiful.

Daaaaa beach.

I woke up the next morning to discover an empty parking spot where my car used to be. It was towed, not stolen, and I had to pay $160 to get back on the road.

Being back on campus was fun. I especially liked watching the freshman bustle around campus on Friday night. I kept equating them to toddlers learning to walk - stumbling around clueless, with no real sense of where they are or what they are doing.

I finally got on the road around 4 on Sunday and headed right for Lakeshore Drive and the Chicago beaches. I was extremely impressed by The Windy City’s waterfront. There’s a long bike path, volleyball galore, and about 2 miles of beautiful sandy beach. The only thing that was really missing were some waves. Lakes don’t really have waves.

I got back to Carlos and friends’ apartment around 10, we watched the Mark Wahlberg/Michael Bay cinema classic Pain&Gain, and now I’m heading to sleep. Tomorrow I drive to Champaign, Illinois to visit Frankie for lunch and a movie, then backtracking to Bloomington, In. before a long Tuesday to Kansas City. 

Tim's roommate Rick has a lot of road trip experience. He told me a bunch of good roads to hit in Utah, and I can't wait to get out there. 

Chicago has a beach!

Day 1

Me, pulling out of the driveway

Hey Gram, 

Yesterday’s drive was awesome! Since I have no CD player and no air conditioning, you might think otherwise – but the weather was beautiful, there was no traffic, and I made the most of FM and AM radio. Sean Hannity and other personalities from The Answer: Conservative Talk Radio had me riled up about ISIS and border protection all afternoon. It’s always easy to find a conservative talk radio station but never so for liberal channels. Probably because much less people are listening to talk radio, but conservatives are trying to, conserve it. Otherwise, I chased Ryan Seacrest around the FM dial and listened to All About that Bass by Meghan Trainor over 20 times.

In an attempt to do some real thinking, I also spent a couple hours in complete silence. It was an interesting experiment and my brain went to interesting places. One example was an extended internal debate over whether plants and animals have free will and what the true definition of free will is.

Do trees have souls?

I stopped once for McDonald’s and twice for gas. My bird seemed pretty happy the whole time.

Due to the aforementioned lack of A/C, I had to make the majority of the trip with the windows down. This is an issue because 75 mph winds are loud, and when my ears are exposed to their sound for hours on end, they feel the same way they do when I get home from an unnecessarily loud rock music concert.  

But I had some ear plugs made from wax that helped a ton! The only problem was that then I couldn’t hear the radio. I consequently turned it up so loud that I almost blew out the car’s speakers. When I realized this mistake, I decided to settle for duller music.

Phone calls are interesting. I’ve encouraged all of my friends and family to call me while I’m on the road. I love phone calls on road trips – they make time fly. However, the loud winds can’t be blaring during a conversation, so I need to roll up the windows. Then I start to sweat. My car does this awesome cool trick where, as soon as I roll the windows up, it immediately transforms into a sauna.

I bought a miniature, battery-powered fan from Sports Authority and it kind of works.

It wasn’t the fastest I had ever made the drive (almost 12 hours door to door, 10:30 am to 10:15 pm), but it’s the fastest the trip ever felt. Probably because I know this is just a stop and not my final destination.

Just me and some trucks, chillin' all day!!

As soon as I got in, I drove to Tim’s apartment. He longboarded and I rode my bike to Bond Hall (the architecture building, which I had never been in). He picked up some paint supplies for a project, and we went back to his apartment. I rode my bike around for about 45 minutes, and then we watched Breaking Bad until 2:00 am.

Right now, I’m sitting on campus at an all new Au Bon Pain in the Hesburgh Library. I got a free refill for my coffee but I’m not sure if I was really allowed to. I wish this place was here when I was a student! They have 99 cent any-sized coffees and the breakfast sandwich was rather yummy. All of my friends will be showing up between now and 5pm tonight, which is when Tim gets out of class. I’m excited to chill for a few days before another long drive. That will be next Tuesday from Springfield, Il. to Kansas City, MO. If I stick to the plan I currently have laid out. I might make some changes, though.

Talk to you soon!

Mike