I’ve milked this road trip enough to get a few writing exercises out of it. Now it’s time to put it to bed with an index of one-sentence reviews (with a few exceptions), which is an idea I took my friend Alex’s travel blog.

States Touched

• New York. “Launching pad.”
• New Jersey. “They have cheap gas here, and a former/current conman/mobster will pump it for you free of charge! (or maybe it’ll cost you your life?)”
• Pennsylvania. “One hell of a bitch to drive across — endless, long, long! — but the parts of the farmland you’re awake for are New England-caliber beautiful.”
• Virginia. “I’ve been to Shenandoah National Park and The Blue Ridge Parkway here a couple of times before, so this time we just drove straight through it on the interstate.”
• West Virginia (barely). “I’ve never actually gotten out of my car in any of the numerous times I’ve driven through this state, but I always find myself humming John Denver tunes when I’m here.”
• Tennessee. “It was bone-chilling cold in the Smoky Mountains so we played ‘Quick! Your turn to run outside, read the sign, snap a picture, and then get back inside the car and let’s never do anything like that ever again!’”
• North Carolina. “The Native American town zoo of Cherokee (a.k.a. “land of unsold tchotchkes”) right outside of the Smoky Mountains is one of the saddest places I’ve ever been too — imagine Atlantic City with only one Ho Jo-quality casino, no ocean, and a million Burger Kings and Dairy Queens.” (Yes, we stopped for lunch at the BK.).
• Kentucky. “Where the birthplace of bourbon and Tanveer meet. And fall in love! And get married…etc.”
• Indiana. “An excellent location to play Guitar Hero on the Nintendo Wii.”
• Ohio. “I didn’t even know I was driving through this state until I was beyond it.”
• States intended to but not covered: Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia. “Ah, well, there’ll be more road trips.”
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Amber’s workplace, the Green Building, is the first commercial building in Louisville, Kentucky to go for LEED platinum certification (the US Green Building Council’s designation of a sustainable building). When completed, it’ll house a café, art gallery, and event spaces. I took a few images from a private tour from Amber herself.

I loved the massive wooden support beams.

Personally, I’d be way more excited to come into work if my setup was like this.