Illinois and Indiana have the most consistently bad roads from one end of each state to the other. I had to stop several times to check that my pickup was still secure on the trailer. I don’t even want to open the U-Haul to see what has happened to my stuff.

I realize, of course, that I have more states to travel, so the title for worst roads is not final yet.

My days have been longer than I anticipated which is why I haven’t been as faithful with my posting. The first 2 days were the longest by distance. Today (Wednesday) was shorter by distance but turned out to be long, too, because of traffic and accidents (not involving me). I’m in Elyria, OH which is outside Cleveland. Tomorrow I’m hoping to stop at Niagara Falls and then stay in Syracuse. But if Thursday’s leg also takes longer than anticipated, I’ll have to skip Niagara Falls.

The weather has been almost perfect. I had about 2 hours of rain on Tuesday in Nebraska and Iowa and I’ve seen a few snow flurries that lasted only a few minutes at a time. I haven’t even seen snow on the ground since Wyoming. I think that will change on Thursday and definitely on Friday in New England.

Here’s a teaser for my next post. I’ve been listening to a lot of music on this trip. So I want to write about what I’ve been listening to and what it means to me. Stay tuned.

Kristofur has been one of my housemates for the past several months. We became pretty close. Real mano y gato. My hosts have been so generous in letting me stay with them. I’m truly grateful for their hospitality. But sadly, they refused to let me take Kristofur with me when I left this morning. Totally unreasonable.

So, meet my travelling companion.

I know, right? You’re thinking that looks like Simba. He gets that all the time. But his name is Kristofur2.

Anyway, Kristofur2 and I left the Bay Area this morning and arrived in Salt Lake City this evening, safe and sound…and tired. We had a couple of snow flurries, but it was amazing how most of the bad weather passed in front of us and behind us.

Here is my last photo from California. Symbolic?

And how about this one from Nevada?!

My inaugural post is to let you know what to expect on this blog.

For now at least, I’m choosing to keep my identity concealed even though many of you already know who I am. For privacy, I don’t want this site to come up in search results using my name. I would appreciate it if you didn’t use my name or the names of any of my family members in any comments. Just call me The Gargoyle.

I came out as gay to my wife last spring and to my three adult kids last fall. For the past several months, I have been ostracized by all of them. Oh, and I’ve been unemployed for the last year. I’m about to embark on a new adventure, moving from the San Francisco Bay area to New England for the purpose of finding a job where the cost of living is lower.

I’m scheduled to depart California in a small U-Haul on Sunday, March 18. That’s when I’ll start blogging my road trip across the country. I’ll also blog about building my new community of friends and (I hope, I hope, I hope) coworkers in New England.

In addition, I’ll blog about my hobbies, passions, random thoughts and whatever else I feel like.

I hope you’ll register and comment (respectfully and positively) whenever you want.