Wilkes-Barre had a creepy feel to it, as if it were a graveyard. Towering buildings, idols of evil secret organizations, loomed above me like concrete mountains. The lemon light above me cast eerie shadows over our faces. As we drove to the Bennigan's where we would have a dinner of delicious ribs, my insides turned to ice. Was there something strange afoot? Some baby being eaten with gravy in one of those dingy, bar-windowed basements? Or maybe a mobster gunning down a squealer, his blood landing on the lamps and causing that red light that hovered about, a gaseous bird of ill-omen?

The next morning, I woke up to insurance gripings at 8:00--about quarter of a day earlier than I usually wake up. I took a walk, had a morning computer session and went for a walk. My father was cawing about my public revealing of his fetid halitosis. We walked into the hotel's breakfast buffet and found only three stale items, including biscuits with sausage gravy. Atrocious anywhere outside San Bruno.

At last, we left at 9:05. The mileage on the car was a total of 296. The cat was still meowing. The sun beat down on the car like a weird mallet. We drove off, passing the infernal buildings. A quick lunch at Panera--I had soup for breakfast, along with a piece of bread that was like chewing a rug. the soup was decent, although I disliked the choice of noodle. Its texture was far too slimy.

We reached Lock Haven near noon--I don't remember the exact time. The hills were beautiful, as flat as pancakes with little crags like a pangolin's skin. The color was outstanding. Like a million manicottis, the trees stretched below us, creating vibrant patterns on the earth. These forests were many miles wide and waved up and down with the earth.

We stopped in Clarion, a small town in western Pennsylvania, at around 1:30. The town greatly appealed to me. The residents were far more attractive than any found in Sudbury. While there were many handsome individuals in my hometown, the Clarionites were perfect. Not a single gigantic gut. All smooth and pale. After a quick lunch of dumpling soup (soup again) and a hearty filling of jelly beans, it began to rain. We put plastic sheeting over our luggage (the trunk leaked,) but by the time we did it, it had cleared up again.

Pennsylvania was endless. I thought we would never get to the next state, but at 3:36, we arrived at the border. Lo! there was Ohio, the name written in blue script just above Gov. Ted Strickland's name. We all agreed that Ohio was ugly, so I decided to amuse myself by hammering some Trainers down at the old Battle Tower in Pokemon: Diamond. After ages, we stopped at a burger-shaped rest stop containing a Popeye, a TCBY, a Burger King and a few Indians paraphernalia bazaars. I ate about a third of my yogurt, which was so slathered in sprinkles, it looked like some ethereal beehive. That yogurt must have had fifty grams of sugar. So I had my father eat a large amount of it. He devoured it like a dog, leaving only about half a teaspoon of yogurt and no sprinkles at all.

We drove a total of 622 miles by the time we got the next gas station. Speaking of cars, there were no foreign cars in The Nikira State at all. A few Toyotas every now and then, but nothing else. Ford, Lexus, GMC... and on and on and on. Just American.

By the time we passed Elyria, the blinding sun was keeping us all up--except the dog, who had turned our horseshoe-shaped travel pillow into her personal spit valve and rendered it useless. Ohio was just as endless. Perhaps it was just so boring, it seemed atrociously long.

We stayed at a town near Toledo called Port Clinton, right on Lake Erie. I am writing from that squalid saltpeter factory right now, and the people here are so bigoted, they won't let under-16s use the computer without a parent. So my mother is sitting there with no clue what I am writing, distracted by her magazine and cheap lobby reality show.

Save me.

I'm cold.

I'm hungry.

And there are wall-eyes after me.