Allow me to introduce...

Pandarilla Jazzhands!

It's a trap.

Nikki is awesome and we love her now even more than we did before. She's one of those rare people that you meet and realize are just as wacky and inane as yourself, so you hit it off without preamble and pretend to still be friends with the person who introduced you just so there's a chance you'll hang out again. Just kidding, Chris.

And it's not Panda-rill-a, like pretty, pretty princess Cinderella. It's Panda-ree-a, like a quesadilla, because Puerto Ricans make the best drag queens, or at least the best drag queen contestants.

With Nikki's picture as a guide, we'll put together a stuffed panda bear with a blond wig, red heels and a green sequined dress to make an appearance in some of our road trip photos. Do they even make doll wigs? It seems rather silly. Maybe I'll just scalp an American Girl.

UPDATE: It's been decided that we need to make a Build-A-Bear with a sound thing-mbober in it so that when a cop pulls us over for speeding or for being from out of state or for almost swerving into oncoming traffic because we were too busy ogling the textured findings from our nose (true story... it's sooo awkward), we can shove Pandarilla Jazzhands out the window as the cop walks up and have her shriek:

"I'm Pandariilllla Jazzhands! Please don't arrest me! ... IT'S A TRAP."

Although on second thought, having her tell a cop that something's a trap before he even knows what's going on doesn't seem like a wise decision. But she's blonde, so I guess one shouldn't expect any common sense like that from her anyway.

UPDATE, AGAIN: I asked Ang what the hell she was talking about with the swerving into oncoming traffic:

It is awkward.

Because you know they're looking at you for being an asshole and totally watching you as you pull your finger out of your nose. And then you can't help but look at it to see what you got, and they see that too.

You can feel the disgust.

*insert transformer noise*

Ang called me one night and told me that Matt had found something at the dump that we "could probably use" on the road trip.

Eh, whatever.

Then she sent this:

What's that, you say? A grill? A cooler?

*insert transformer noise*

I eat puppies and shit unicorns.

BOTH.

WHAT. THE. SHIT.

Budgeting freakshow

We're going to get scurvy.

This is a guarantee, because we had budgeted for more Red Bull than we did food.

We also budgeted for souvenirs, souvenirs per state, expensive souvenirs, average attraction per state, speeding tickets, tolls, camping fees, the occasional hotel stay, the rental, gas, oil changes, and "that thing you know you're going to find but could never justify spending so much money on."

But food? Apparently we budgeted for $15 between the two of us per day, as opposed to 3 red bull each per day, totaling $18/day.

In addition to that, our food list starts with nori, bugles, and gummy rings.

Ang changed it recently to be $25/day for food, but really, the increase in budget will probably just go towards coffee.

Lots and lots of coffee.

And more red bull.

Just blame RuPaul's Drag Race

I know our boyfriends do. But they don't seem to understand what a wonderful show (and drinking game) it truly is. I mean, She-mail? Con-drag-ulations? Lip sync for your life?! If you haven't watched this show by now, you're missing out. 

But this isn't about RuPaul's Drag Race, although that's surely to blame for the reason drag queens were at the forefront of our minds. This is about the name of this travel blog. Britt had a Facebook status about our budgeting idiocy, and I made a comment that this trip would probably end up to be nothing like we planned. But as long as we came across a juggler, a drag queen and (because all good things must come in threes) a person in a panda suit, I'd consider it a success.

Now, we're going to travel for two whole weeks, from coast to coast and back again. Surely some quirky law of probability dictates that it's possible for us to come across all three such individuals. So then I demanded that we find a juggler, a drag queen and a person in a panda suit. Besides, if the rest of the continental United States should fail us, we could always spend an hour in P-town when we got home. 

That, too, seems almost easy to accomplish. So I upped the ante. I wanted to find a juggling drag queen in a panda suit. Now that's a quest! We'll actually have to hunt for this one!

Maybe not.

Within an hour, one of Britt's friends said he knew of a drag queen with a panda suit. He even sent us a picture. She doesn't juggle, but all she has to do is have someone take another picture with her holding a ball in one hand and a few tossed in the air, and it will totally look like we've found our juggling drag queen in a panda suit. And we haven't even gone on the road trip yet!

... And we haven't even gone on the road trip. As amazing as it is to find what we were seeking, the victory feels a little empty. We didn't have to work for it. And we didn't find her, someone else did. Well, whatever, we still came across the improbable.

Britt and I have talked about making a travel blog to document our road trip, and what better name for it than "Juggling Drag Queen in a Panda Suit"! But when she sent me the link it said "Juggling Drag Panda"...

Perfect. 

We are looking for a juggling panda bear dressed in drag. Now that is a real quest, a worthy dream because what's the point of having feasible goals for an inane adventure?

Life or death

Ang and I began preparations for this trip back in August. We created a spreadsheet with an embarrassing amount of tabs, entitled "This spreadsheet has tabs."

We have a list of supplies, color coded by their importance.
Red: Will die without
Yellow: Will be fucked without
Green: Really ought to have
Blue: Will be unhappy without
Purple: Would like to have it
Black: But I waaaaant it

So. According to our supplies list, the items that we would die without, in red, are as follows:

water bottle
big knife
sleeping bags
headlamps
sunscreen
no-doz
U.S. atlas
SHAM-WOW!!
fire extinguisher
coloring books
BIG PACK OF COLORED PENCILS!!
and dice.

The dice are the most important item on this list, by far. Ang and I are the most indecisive people ever to grace this planet, so we decided we need a set of dice to roll and make the decisions for us.

The SHAM-WOW is on the list because when we made the spreadsheet, we were under the assumption we were taking Ang's Jeep Wrangler. Her windshield wipers sort of...kind of...yeah, don't really work. So, whoever was in the passenger seat would be tasked with reaching over and wiping down the windshield so the driver could still see. This is how a SHAM-WOW is the difference between life and death.

(My windshield wipers are fine, thank you very much. I just don't have one for the inside... ~Ang)

Also, we were going to bring crayons, but thought better of it since we'll be in the desert in the summer and they'll probably end up a gooey mess and I imagine the rental company won't appreciate fingerpainting as much as we would. Colored pencils are the inferior, but more practical option.

Shed a tear for the Juggler

Several years ago, Britt and I went camping up in New Hampshire. Now "camping" is a word open to a wide range of interpretation. Some people think camping is hauling a giant RV out to a log-cabin resort in the middle of the woods, complete with a pool, all-you-can-eat buffets and exercise equipment. And some people don't consider it camping unless you come with blood on your face, bear teeth around your neck and a story to tell. I'd like to say we're somewhere in the middle, but we're not. We're idiots.

For some reason, it rained every time I went to NH that summer and this trip was no exception, although it might have had something to do with Britt's repeated yelling of "Is that the best you can do?!" and fist-shaking at the heavens all throughout the ride up. 

We arrived at a campground on the Kancamagus Highway just after it had started to drizzle. Again. So we set our tent up in the rain and were fortunate enough to find a pile of wood and birch bark at our site. My father always says that birch bark is your best friend for starting a fire in the rain.

It's not. Gasoline is. 

I already told you we're idiots, didn't I? And I doubt that this has changed at all, which certainly doesn't bode well for the trip to come...

In any case, we got a fire going without any harm to ourselves or the woods around us. Except we didn't bring any food. Instead, we had two boxes full of booze, a large tub of peach gummy rings, and some sweet potato french fries from Britt's dinner the night before. So we dined on soggy reheated french fries marinated in American Honey, peach gummy rings soaked in grapefruit vodka, and HOLY COW Riesling. And you know what? It really was pretty awesome.

In the morning we drove through to North Conway, and ate a nice breakfast at a hometown diner with the shittiest service we'd ever had. Pretty sure that waitress got a two cent tip, or something equally pointed. After kicking around town for a bit, (and Britt pretending to be a car in an ATM line) we started back towards MA. On the way out of town, Britt pointed out a Burger King on the other side of the road and asked if we could stop for some Cheesy Tots. There was a lot of traffic and since I wasn't sure where we could turn around, I told her we'd stop at the next one.

"80 miles and still no Cheesy Tots"

We didn't come across another Burger King until we hit Manchester, where Britt screamed "CHEESY TOTS!! I WANT CHEESY TOTS!!" into the drive-thru speaker, scaring the poor girl working the window. She still hasn't forgiven me for that one. Never mind the fact that BK doesn't even carry them anymore. In fact, she still gets bitter about it whenever anyone brings it up, and thinks Cheesy Tots were discontinued just to spite her. 

It was still grey and dreary when we got to Nashua, but it didn't matter. We were having the time of our life singing, joking, and laughing for no particular reason other than we were young, carefree and enjoying the last summer I'd ever have before starting my first real job. Now, I forget if we were hunting for Headlines or Pier One, but it doesn't really matter. We drove up and down the road several times trying to find it, looping back around near the on- and off-ramps for the highway. 

And there, with bag on the ground and balls in the air, was the Juggler.

Yet, although we wondered where he was going and why he was juggling of all things, we kept on driving. But every time we passed him, we felt a little worse about ourselves until finally, as the rain really started to come down, we asked each other if we were willing to pick up this total stranger. Then we looked at the back of my Jeep, completely filled with camping gear, backpacks and bottles of alcohol, and realized we couldn't possibly fit him if we tried. 

We found our Pier One. We also found that the gas can we'd used the night before wasn't closing properly and our euphoria was likely due in part to being high on fumes all day. On our final loop around to turn south, we passed the Juggler one last time. He wasn't juggling any more. He was sitting on the ground in the pouring rain, with his head in his hands, and his bag between his legs. Thoroughly soaked.

The further away we drove, the more we talked about going back. But we didn't, and - it doesn't matter that we had no seats and a cab full of gas fumes - we still regret it to this day.

So now Britt and I have decided that if we pass a person juggling on the side of the road during this road trip, we have to give him (or her) a ride. We owe it to the Juggler we left on the side of the road so long ago. 

We're so sorry :(

The Quest

This is a rough map that doesn't encompass all the places we intend to go. Apparently our road trip itinerary is too epic for Google Maps to process without crashing.

 

View Larger Map

• Starting in Massachusetts on August 18th
• Through Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan(?) and Indiana
• Dinner in Chicago, Illinois
• Photo op in Iowa!
• Badlands National Park, South Dakota
• Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota
• Devil's Tower, Wyoming
• Through Idaho and Washington
• Portland, Oregon
• Heceta Head Lighthouse, Florence, Oregon - 7 course breakfast!!
• Pacific Coast Highway!
• Redwood National Park, California
• Trinidad, California
• Jackson, California
• Napa Valley, California
• San Francisco, California
• Yosemite National Park, California
• Death Valley, California
• Las Vegas, Nevada, baby!
• Bryce Canyon, Utah
• Zion National Park, Utah
• Sunrise at the Grand Canyon, Arizona
• Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
• Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
• San Antonio, Texas
• New Orleans, Louisiana
• Through Mississippi to Birmingham, Alabama
• Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia
• Drop B off in Maryland
• Through Delaware, New Jersey and some others again
• Ang arrives back in Massachusetts, 17 days later. Hopefully.

Obviously, nothing could possibly go wrong.

Fuck it, we need to do a road trip.

We've always wanted to travel. Almost as long as we've been best friends, we've talked about doing a cross-country road trip. Back in high school, we wanted to take an adventure on a Green Tortoise bus after we graduated, but for one reason or another it was never more than a dream. Either we were too young, too broke or too busy. So we wistfully said, "Maybe someday..." and went on to college. 

After college, we were still too young (depending on who you asked), waaaaay too broke and even more busy. So once again we pushed the idea off until that magical Someday. We got full-time jobs, moved out of our parents' homes, and moved into the Real World. 

Except Someday is a horrible, horrible tease. She's the holder of so many hopes and wishes that you keep thinking are just around the corner, only to find the corner keeps moving further and faster away, and you'll never catch up because the rewards of growing up only weigh you down for this kind of chase.

Someday we're gonna settle down. Someday we're gonna get married. Someday we might even have kids. 

Fuck Someday. 

We want this road trip NOW. 

-Ang