Dearest readers:
We begin this belated road update in the passenger seat with a belly fully of ramen after a stop to visit with one of the crew’s family members. And fueled by that meal, and the many miles we’ve come, we offer you a handful of facts:
– We are currently in Michigan, which is the 25th state we have driven through.
– The trip-tracking meter in the Big Friendly Vehicle reads 7300+ miles.
– We have collectively consumed 5 In-n-out burgers and 5 Dairy queen Blizzards since we last wrote you, August 15th. Between these instances of fine dining, we have filmed at 2 venues, a bar in Oklahoma City and a private home in Oakland, California, in addition to filming more interviews and b-roll while in transit.
– Other culinary / dining experience highlights since we last updated include Ken’s Steakhouse in Oklahoma, El Tovar in Grand Canyon, a window-less Denny’s in the middle of a casino in Nevada (actually this is probably more of a low-light,) Vegan & Tikka Masala in Oakland (we highly recommend the “Carter Special”) and Mitsuwa Marketplace in Chicago.
– In the midst of all that we also took our mid-trip break at the Grand Canyon (many thanks to the donor who helped make our lodging there possible!).
We hope that these facts give you a small taste, so to speak, of what we’ve been up to.
Since August 15th, we have covered a lot of ground. We have driven from Texas up to Oklahoma, over through the Grand Canyon and Yosemite into Oakland. We stayed at a subject’s home in Oakland for three nights, then began the long haul over to Michigan. This long haul has lasted about 4 days, and has brought us on highway I-80 through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa. Across those states we’ve seen the terrain change from desert to grassland to cornfields with towering windmills.
The Big Friendly Vehicle has now made its way to the offices of Lesbian Connection magazine, a bimonthly publication, in Lansing, Michigan. We will be speaking with a handful of the people who help maintain and publish LC and also, with their help, we will host a second reading of the play that inspired this project. After staying with them for 2 nights, we will be heading back to New York through Ohio and Pennsylvania, making a short stop in Detroit.
Thank you to our generous donors, social media dwellers, and patient readers. More later!
[Update compiled by anonymous crew member.]