Alive!

I'm literally in the middle of the campground, having found the one spot where the internet works. Since I'm in the middle of a canyon, I of course have no phone service, so am relying on this post to let my parents know I survived. :) I even put my tent up and everything, and other than the bike convention that seems to be happening here, things are peaceful and I might even get a good night's sleep.

Thanks to Kevin F. for making me realize that I would be much happier driving down 101 instead of 5 - so true!!

So far I've crossed a bunch of things off my road trip to-do list:

1. Don't die (Gary's advice)
2. Drive over the musical road in Lancaster, CA
3. Learn all the words to "Careless Whisper"

So actually, an overall goal is to learn all the words to all the songs on my road trip playlist. This is a useful goal for a number of reasons:

1. I tend to get sleepy while driving. If I concentrate on the lyrics, I won't fall asleep at the wheel.
2. I'd like to expand my karaoke repertoire beyond "I got you babe" and "Mr. Jones" but let's be honest, even with the words on the screen, you really have to KNOW the song you're singing so you don't do that awkward "er, uh, what note does this song start on again?" thing.
3. The part of my brain that knows how to mathematically model the rate of oxygen diffusion through 15% hyaluronan gel enclosed in a 10kDA MWCO membrane? That's prime real estate for the lyrics to "Tom's Diner" - lyrics that will serve me well through the rest of my years.

So that goal is a little harder than I thought. I thought I'd start with something easy, like Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" but dammit, I keep tripping up over if I'm taking a risk, a chance, or making a damn change. Also, that damn Cobra Starship song about good girls gone bad is (unwillingly) taking up valuable lyric space.

I suppose tomorrow is another day.