Live Free or Die

New Hampshire ain't for sissies. Here, if you don't live free enough, *real* free, they kill you.

Or at least that's the impression that I get. I have yet to see any public executions for those insufficiently free, but I imagine this is only due to my short time in the state. They probably got a special freedom center or freedom days where they due stuff like that. I should probably look at the town's calendar of events or maybe just ask where the guillotine is.

As an imperative it is unfortunate, however, as there's a certain amount of ambiguity to it. Although it is written on all license plates, quarters, most signs, and many times is even shouted mysteriously from the rooftops at night, the command itself is not very specific. I mean how free do I got to be? Are we talking like... super free? Like tree hugging, polyamory, grow my own Quaker oats free? Or is this a different kind of free, more like advocating the abolishment of the wage system free? Or maybe free to take phone calls and text messages at all hours of the day free? Or am I way off and it's just a simple instruction to go commando? In any case it's not clear and lacks a standard. There's got to be a freedometer somewhere. Or at the very least a conversion of freedom from the English to the metric because I'm pretty sure I've got a lot of freedom in kilograms. In the mean time till this is all sorted out I'm just going to make sure I always wear a flag t-shirt under my white coat. Just in case.

Here's a sign warning of the Freedom Master. He apparently shoots liberty snakes out of his motorcycle tires.

A Dream Dies

It is with great sadness that I must report that New Hampshire does not appear to have my brand of frozen tortellini for sale in its supermarkets. Thus ends my quest to, as my parents say, become a tortellini. In compensation I commit myself to eating more of my other regular staples to include donuts and sandwiches. With any luck and continued perseverance I can obtain my alternate goal; that of becoming a pizza. I counsel everyone in this time of trouble and hardship to evaluate their own lives and to each consider in their own ways what frozen tortellini means to them. We are a strong people, and together we can be a strong nation. This crisis too will pass. Just like the refrigerated tortellini and frozen chimichanga crises of the past. Thank you for your time and thank you for your compassion. And please, if anyone has any frozen tortellini with them; please send it to me. Good night, God bless, and God bless America.

Thirty-Four Hours Later (Mexico to New Hampshire)

Patrick and I drove for what very well may have been forever. I haven’t added it all up yet. We crossed over 2,000 miles and drove through what must have been 400 different states. The last few hundred miles of which, it should be noted, were on small town country roads which are not particularly suitable for overladen U-Hauls with trailers attached. For all the talk of America being a patchwork of different and distinct communities and environments it all seemed to run together to me. Texas was dry and flat. In Arkansas trees began showing up. Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio were just more trees. And in New York mountains were added. And I guess in Vermont we started seeing signs warning of moose crossing, but we saw no meese. We had no schedule to start with and it quickly became evident that even winging it would require a fair amount of improvisation. The end string of events which we’ll call a plan consisted of a late start from San Antonio followed by a late arrival in Little Rock where we stayed at my good friend Trent’s family’s place. After waffles for dinner and waffles for breakfast we had another late start and decided, heck with sleep and time tables, let’s just drive until we puke. Or fall asleep and drive off a mountain pass, whatever the typical end result of driving more than humans were ever intended to drive. This led to dinner in Nashville that same day, a semi-delirious midnight drive through Ohio on my part, a completely unarousable period of sleep where I’m told Beeders drove through more of Ohio, lunch in some random Vermont town whose name I can no longer remember, and, finally, a reasonable arrival into Lebanon about 54 hours later. It is conceivable according to Google Maps that if we had driven continuously without eating, worn spaceman adult diapers, received inflight refueling by military aircraft, and somehow pole vaulted over all the mountain towns of New York and Vermont we could have done it in 34 hours, but I believe that has only been successfully completed once before by people far more industrious than us. Perhaps the Japanese. So all in all I got to say not bad. If there’s ever a national U-Haul racing circuit I think Patrick and I just very well may place. Maybe go semi-pro.

And now for a Beeder photo montage...

Pre-trip. Patrick wanted nothing but the finest of food on this adventure. So I took him to Rudy's. I think he liked it. Or we should never trust his thumbs up ever again.

Although the theme for this photo slide show adventure is "places Patrick ate," I felt we needed a picture of our crammed U-Haul + crammed MINI. In the sense that a MINI can be crammed at least.

First stop. The Czeck Stop! I was never truly a full convert to the cult of kolache during my time at Texas A&M (I will always love myself some donuts), but I did have to admit these kolaches were pretty great. And so I made Beeders eat some.

Beeders has kolache poisoning. He later gained 5 lbs and then woke up.

In the middle of Vermont. (I think I lost my picture at Coco's Italian restaurant in Nashville, the best restaurant.) This place had "spiedies" which were... I guess messy sandwiches? It was connected to a tire shop so they may just have been heavily sauced, bread wrapped vulcanized rubber scraps for all I know.

Lou's in Hanover. Good hamburgers. I approve. Patrick approves. Everybody approves.

First night in New Hampshire: Ramunto's Brick Oven Pizza! Made by robots in cast iron baking vaults. Although it was attached to a building made of brick, the only bricks actually in the joint were placed there by accident. Or as props. That said our super garlic pizza was pretty good.

Lastly: breakfast at Ace's Diner in Lebanon. The inside of this place was great, like a giant classic diner stereotype, and the food was tasty. Patrick on the other hand was not amused. Or just not happy that I was about to ship his butt off to Boston on a bus.

In the end the drive was long, but not too long. It was boring, but not too boring. The trailer amazingly never unhitched and the truck amazingly never exploded. Patrick forgave me for the bus ticket, and I think overall he had a reasonable time. He tells me such at least. He may just be saying that to practice his diplomacy as an aspiring ambassador, though. Perhaps he's secretly developing a covert nuclear weapons program. In either case, I appreciated his help and I'd be more than happy to provide him with fissile material should ever the need arise.