3. Chandon, and on, and on.

By the time Ian got back, I had a beautiful buzz and had made myself at home behind the bar with my main man here. (we'll call him chief) Me thinks he may have done his job a bit too well as Ian seemed anxious to get me out of his place of employ as soon as possible upon finishing his duties. This also may have been due in part to another friend of his recently being taken from the grounds in an ambulance after unknowingly partaking in some marijuana cookies at a neighboring vinyard. She lost her cookies, both literally and figuratively, Ian wasn't taking any chances this time. He swooped me up and I left willingly and without incident, although homie did have to remind me that just cause I was holding the wine bottle, that did not make it mine. And here I thought possession was 9/10ths of the law. "Hey, where do you think you are you going with that Pinot?" "Oh, sorry chief" I said as I sheepishly returned him the bottle. Onward and upward!

2. We arrive at Chandon.

After driving my new car off the lot on Saturday night, I left on Monday, June 20th around noon. My original plan had been to head south to Santa Barbara, LA and San Diego. I had planned (very roughly) on my trip being a counter clockwise circumnavigation of the United States, making numerous inroads along the way. A funny thing happened on the way to the forum however. Ian Winget, one of my oldest, dearest friends, and his girlfriend Cathy Shinn invited me to join them in Napa for the evening. I had yet to visit Ian in Napa, even though it had been his home for the past several years. So I ended up scrapping the southern route, crossing the Bay Bridge (78 miles on the odometer) and heading north and east to Napa and Younteville. This was the first of many, many times where I planned on doing one thing and ended up doing something else entirely. Sort of a theme for the trip. I arrived at the Chandon Winery around 2:30ish (I got a bit lost, I was using a Tom Tom I'd bought and for the first little while. . . . To be honest, the first 3 months, I would often pass the turn it wanted me to make, thinking the distance it was reporting and the distance I was seeing didn't jibe. "It must mean the next one, that cant be 300 yards" I would think to myself. . . . . . "At next intersection, turn around" it would respond in a sexy, british accent) The grounds of Chandon are spectacular, It'd be difficult to imagine a more perfect place to start my adventure. I wandered in through the idyllic gardens, ponds and fountains and into the lobby where Ian met me with one of his substantial hugs. He's a big guy and not afraid to express his feelings through hugs. The same could be said of me. It was monumental and I knew immediately I had mad the right decision heading east. He gave me a quick tour of the building, introducing me to a few friends and coworkers before heading back into the bowels of the building to finish his days work. He told his boy here to make sure I was drunk when he got back. He was a really nice guy and did as he was asked. (Ian, can you help me with his name? Corey? Aaron? Chief? I'm pretty sure I called him all three)

1. Some background info before we begin.

This is the very first picture that I took on my trip. In front of Chandon in Younteville, I dug the Monet style pond. (Manet? Gaugin?, I'm pretty sure its Monet)
A little bit of background into the why and how of it. This is something that I have wanted to do as long as I can remember. Two of my favorite childhood memories are of family road trips, one south to L.A. (Disneyland! Woo to the Hoo!) and San Diego ( we stayed on the Queen Mary and at the Hotel Del Coronado, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed wandering the various decks of the enormous luxury liner, and I remember the arcade and the volleyball courts at the Coronado as vividly as if it were yesterday.), and the other north to Oregon (Dune Buggies!), Washington (rain forests and streams we could drink out of!), and Vancouver (Glass bottom boat, catamarns, wax museum, Killer Whales, pretty much everything that my young heart could desire). I hadn't really thought about it until just now but I am sure that these wonderful childhood adventures were the foundation for my insatiable urge to wander the country as an adult. It had been a dream that had always been percolating in the recesses of my mind, but one that that I hadn't thought of in any real sense until about 6 months before I left. My Uncle passed away a few years back and he left me enough money to make the trip feasible. My girlfriend of 4 years (nearly all of which spent living together) and I were having some problems that I had trouble seeing myself get past. I was bored out of my mind at a job I could do in my sleep, (or, more often, do while very drunk). So the plan started forming around November of 2008. Nothing solid, but it was then that it became real to me. It was no longer something that I wanted to do in some far off future, but something that I very well could do, in the fairly near future. By February I had built up the guts to confide in a few friends, (chief among them, one Evan Sutherland, who would go on to be a big part of the trip itself) and by doing so I took another step towards actually taking the plunge. The following month, after I returned home from a golf outing with a friend (one which I won handily, a rare occurrence) my girlfriend broke up with me, very unceremoniously, and there was no longer any question, I would be embarking on my long awaited cross country adventure. (I was a little drunk when she told me it was over, I was upset and emotional by the way it ended. I had a good cry for five or ten minutes before I started laughing, softly at first, hysterically by the end. "Please don't cry, you're just making this harder" soon became "what the hell is so funny you son of a bitch". . . ."I was gonna break up with you, but at least I was gonna take you out to dinner, and wait for our lease to run out!". She didn't really see the humor at first, but she came around.) I spent the next months, living in a 1 bedroom apartment with my now ex-girlfriend, planning my adventure. (there was a 3000 dollar penalty if we broke the lease, we were still friends, neither of us could afford it on our own, it was really our only viable option. Our sex life actually improved the first month or so, it was kinda like we were cheating on each other, with each other. It got a little awkward when she started going on dates during the final few weeks, but all in all, not too bad.) By planning my adventure I mean I bought two books and perused them occasionally. I came up with a basic outline of my route, and would have the books with me to examine as needed. This was to be an adventure, and I didn't want it to be overly thought out. I suppose a lot of adventurers have died due to that line of thinking, but why don't you mind your own business Captain Buzzkill? By the end of May I had quit my job, moved out of my place, she had my cats, my uncle was still dead, and I found myself in the unique position of having financial means and total lack of responsibility necessary to go on an outlandishly long, haphazardly planned, road trip accross America.