A day or two before we embarked on our cross-continental jaunt, my mom presented me with a Garmin Nüvi 255. Matt had been suggesting that we pick up a GPS unit for the trip, but I wanted to do it the old-fashioned way, relying on our instincts and a Triple-A atlas.

While I have no doubts that we would have reached our destination just fine without the navigator, the Garmin helped tremendously in ways I had not anticipated. Whether we needed to find a Papa John's pizzeria in Billings, Montana, a motel to stay for the night in Kadoka, South Dakota, or the route to tourist attractions off the highway (Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD), the Garmin was there. Riding on those long stretches of highway with little in sight, you often wonder when you will have another chance to stop at a rest area or gas station. Even though it wasn't always 100% accurate, the unit was able to give us some inkling of what was to come.

Seattle driving is a bit of a mess. Downtown always has heavy traffic, streets intersect in the middle of steep hills, parking is expensive ($1.75 an hour at the meter -- if you can find a spot). There are many one-way streets and thick highways criss-crossing one another. It gives us directions to the entrance of the Arboretum, to the co-op, to the movie theater and, when we can't find it ourselves, to home.

Like I said, it's not perfect. It doesn't have every single destination in its pre-programmed list. Sometimes the route is not direct (three left-hand turns?!), but all in all, it is incredibly useful. The size allows it to be stashed in a pocket in case I'm shopping downtown and want to find a specific store. I look forward to taking it on all my forthcoming trips as I get more familiar with the city -- even if it means sacrificing the better (read, more engaging) way of doing things.

(Plus, it's just one new gadget to accessorize. Last week I ordered this little, leather protective cover in brown.)

With mountains as its jagged teeth, the horizon loomed ahead like a devouring mouth stretched wide, hungry. With nothing to block the way save for a rare tumbleweed or cornstalk snake, the smooth highway lapped us deeper inside.

Like this, we drove across South Dakota, through southern Montana and on into the slick, snowy hills of Idaho. The small towns along the way hosted truck stops and the occasional IGA, selling knives and bison jerky to the pilgrimaging hunters. Schools resembled penitentiaries. The pit-stop motels of these towns are tropes for the modern-day writer, plucked by the likes of Cormac McCarthy and the beloved Nabokov, signifying the simultaneous freedom and imprisonment of anonymity. No one knows you, no one can track you down. But no one will save you, and no one cares. You become a target.

On the highway, the scenery romances its tourist. A cattle ranch in Montana doesn't sound so bad after all, especially considering the easy access to four-packs of sarsaparilla.

The Badlands, as Matt describes them, resemble some alien planet or lunar surface. For hours there is little to see except for flat grasslands, then with a slight detour off I-90, long-eroded ravines and towering rock formations in gray, yellow and sienna dominate the landscape. Signs warn of rattlesnakes and cars pull off the road to photograph mountain goats. Just outside of the park, we passed a large prairie dog colony and, nearby, a patient hawk.

Idaho possessed none of the flat potato fields I expected. Instead, we drove nervously along high ridges, overlooking the snow-covered evergreens of national forests and wondering if it was too late in the season to spot a bear. Our iPod, fueled with over 24 hours of short fiction and other storytellers, kept us going.

We arrived in Seattle midweek, reaching our short-term sublet just south of downtown. The next day I began a Netflix account (our apartment has a projector and large pull-down screen), and Matt walked down to the central library. Yesterday - Thanksgiving - we went for a run around Green Lake on the north side of town, putting up with a little drizzling rain. Our dinner was late (9:00), but neither of us minded. We made a small vegetarian feast complete with pumpkin pie. For our main course, we made a broccoli-portobello-gouda quiche with homemade crust. For our sides, we had a cranberry-walnut sauce, garnet yams with a butter and mustard vinaigrette and garlic sauteed green beans. And with plenty for leftovers!

As it currently stands, my blog is a poor representation of what I'm up to. By the time I get to writing, events pass and my news is no longer relevant. Without a web-enabled mobile device, such short entries struggle to stay current (though a personal Twitter account would be too much so). So what's the best solution? I should make a point to write more often only if I have something to say. An idea I like much better is to write longer articles, but reader interest wanes with each additional paragraph and side note. Especially when my blog has no particular focus other than to provoke communication about art, sociology, literature, language and travel. And myself, of course.

My new site will have separate divisions, based less on subject than on the type of entry. I am planning two types, one for a Twitter-like feed that still is not instantaneous, but archives short and sweet (one-paragraph) entries about what I'm up to and links to articles or sites that I find interesting or relevant. These will help my readers track my points of reference (in case you notice that I'm obsessing over environmental non-fiction, that one host on NPR, the latest SEO strategies or peanut butter-based Thai cuisine and question the validity of my sources). The other division will house longer entries -- products of my own writing, whether in the form of essays, stories or reviews.

I hope to make some long strides over the next few days in the development of my site. It's a slow process, as I taught myself CSS and am only now putting it to practical use. Once I get this site done, I can focus on other design projects (like the brochure for the animal hospital or my jewelry design portfolio). And then there is always the nitty gritty: the actual job search.

Now, back to rebranding the super-ego.

It's snowing in northern Michigan!