Introducing…the pomomobile

September 3, 2004

If you’re a regular reader, some of this information will be obviously not new to you…but just by the chance that my little ‘idea’ works, people should know this stuff.

Welcome to pomomusings! My name is Adam Cleaveland, and I’m a 24-yr old student taking off on a new adventure. I’m leaving Friday morning, 8.30am from Chehalis, WA and driving to Princeton, NJ. A little bit of a road trip to get to my new place of residence for the next 3-4 years, Princeton Theological Seminary. I’m hoping that maybe a few of you have seen me driving around the US, written down my URL and taken a look-see to see what the hell this random guy is doing driving around with a web-address on the back of his packed-to-the-brim Subaru. Well, that’s what I was hoping. If you’re here because you’ve seen me somewhere, please tell me where you saw me, if you waved, and what I was doing when you passed me (I could have been singing, eating, dancing a bit to keep me awake, talking on my cell-phone, reading (sorry mom) or any number of other things that people try to do while driving.

I’m just about to take off. I have a new Vanilla air-freshener pulled almost all the way out of the little plastic thing, a full tank of gas, an Idaho-country-mix-CD (thanks Swampcat!), food packed by my mom (thanks!) and a butt-load of miles to drive (2516.6 to be exact from Chehalis to New Jersey).

I’ll be stopping in Hagerman ID, Boulder CO, Elkhart IN & Cleveland OH before pulling into Princeton. Lots of miles, many hours, lots of CDs (but hey, I have my David Sedaris boxed-set, so I’m golden!) and…hopefully…not much nodding off. That’s a lot of hours (this is the first cross-country trek I’ve ever done).

Any of you out there (especially my regular readers), if you’re bored (especially on the weekend, because I have unlimited minutes), give me a call (360.556.1961). I’d love to connect with some of you while I’m traveling these next few days, it really helps keep me awake as well. I don’t know that I’ll actually do any blogging until I pull into Princeton, but we’ll see. Shoot up a few prayers for me, give me a call and I’ll catch you up on all the fun and exciting happenings with Cleave and his pomomobile when I get to Princeton! See ya!

Day One
Just a quick little update on my first day’s trip…pretty fun. I had a bit of a problem staying awake by around hour 6, but I took a little 15-min power nap and did wonderfully after that. Laughed a lot with David Sedaris. A few fun things happened. I pulled into Boise-area and passed this car with 2 little girls in it. A girl about 8 made a funny face at me, so I laughed. When I passed them a few minutes later, I made a funny face back at her, and she looked at me like I was a total idiot, probably thinking to herself, “God, now YOU are a dork. I’m the little person here who looks cute when I make funny faces at other drivers. You…you just made yourself look like an idiot…way to go.”

I stopped at Cracker Barrel and picked up some books-on-CD. They didn’t have the greatest selection, but I walked out with Anne Tyler’s “The Amateur Marriage” (she wrote Saint Maybe, which I enjoyed), Haven Kimmel’s “Something Rising” and Frank Abagnale and Stan Redding. So, we’ll see.

I forgot I was supposed to fill up my car with gas in Boise, so as I was on the phone with Jen Lemen, and about 15 miles past the closest town, in the middle of nowhere in desert-Idaho, I glanced and noticed I was on empty. SHIT! And how did my good friend Jen respond…? She laughed at me. She just laughed. It was pretty funny though, and I ended up finding a little tiny country gas-station in Hammett, ID just as they were closing, so I was able to fill up, and it turned out okay. After Jen and I got disconnected (thanks Idaho), I played Johnny Cash’s “Rusty Cage” over and over and over again until I found gas. It has sort of a dangerous-wild-west-adventure kind of sound to it, and it was just what I needed as I was driving around, on empty, looking for gas. So…thanks Johnny. I’ve been listening to Unchained since last night and I’m loving it. I got to Jean’s house last night and got some great food, and a nice comfy bed to sleep in and it was fun to see her…(thanks Jean!). Well, I’m late and I need to get to Boulder.

Day Two
I’m here in Boulder, CO now, at a friend’s house. Well, a person who WILL be a friend - I haven’t actually met her yet. She’s starting at Princeton too so we’re caravaning together from Boulder, tomorrow morning.

I’m exhausted! I woke up at 6.45am this morning and met my friend Tracy and one of my youth from Idaho, Joanna. We had a nice breakfast together in Wendell and then I stopped off at Java this morning for a bit of WiFi time. I got a bit of a late start today, but finally got on the road. Pretty boring…lots of…the…same…stuff on the road. Long day…again, Sedaris made me laugh, thank God! I was having a bit of a hard time staying awake today, but books on CD really help me. I’m on CD 5 (2 more to go) of Haven Kimmell’s “Something Rising” - it’s really very good, so I’ve been enjoying that for the majority of today. A little music, and some wonderful conversations with friends! Had a nice long convo with my buddy Chris, who does Web Design work at Whitworth College, and my friend Sarah, who finished up with Greek last week and is heading back to Columbia Seminary in a few days. We had a great conversation and she talked me through the shitty rain storm from around Cheyenne into Denver. The semis (I hate semis!) were horrible, and it was really hard to see for parts of the drive. But finally it stopped and I pulled into Boulder, which I’m sure is pretty beautiful, but it’s dark tonight, so I couldn’t see anything. Anyway, it’s good to be out of my car. I have no idea where we’re going to end tomorrow night, if we’re going to make it all 16hrs into Indiana…we’ll see. Thank God for the books on CD, they really help keep me alert…anyway, thanks for checking in - I’m hoping tomorrow there might be more traffic and maybe, just maybe, someone will actually check out the blog and comment! Give me a call tomorrow….weekend minutes!

Day Three
I’m sitting here at my aunt’s house in Goshen, IN. Yup, we made it last night (we being my new friend Emily Dumler and I). We got up around 5am yesterday, and as we were packing the car at 6am, we noticed my tire was almost flat! WTF!? Yah, but as soon as we got some air in it, it worked just fine, and hopefully (I haven’t checked this morning) is still good to go. We left around 6.30am and began the drive. We drove through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and half-way through Indiana. So long…so many miles. It was a really long day. We encountered some horrific sheets of rain (I’m hoping we’re done with that) in Nebraska and Iowa and that was really really annoying. But other than that, and other than a giant hawk swooping down and almost landing on Emily’s roof, the day was fairly uneventful. EXCEPT for my “Jersey or Bust” sign, which I saw flying off behind me about half-way into the day. The damn rain weakened the tape, and….well, yah. We made some pretty good time (maintaining a average speed of 90mph) and had a pretty good day.

Audio books are really the greatest thing! I started Catch Me If You Can yesterday and it’s great. I’m almost done, and it kept me going. I’ve not seen the movie, but the book is pretty amazing, and for some reason, keeps me awake SO much more than any music does (even my Metallica or Chevelle CDs). We had a great drive, and I finally pulled into Goshen around 1am last night. Yah, got a little tired at that point. I took the wrong road to my aunt’s house, and got frustrated with myself, so I sped up, not remembering that there was a bit of a bump in the road, and my car got a little air…which is fun generally, but not when you have a roof-top carrier on your car…yah, for a split second I thought it was going to go flying, but then I heard a…THUD, and realized I still had it. Got to sleep on the futon awaiting me around 1.30am and it was the most beautiful thing…a bed…eyes closed…yay!

I’m remaking the “Jersey or Bust” sign right now, and hopefully it holds up until we get there…we can only pray and hope…we’re off to Columbus today to pick up one of Emily’s friends (only 5 hours…thank you God!) and then hopefully a bit of chill time tonight, and then about another 8 hrs from Columbus to Princeton. And then we’ll be there. Thanks for all of your phone calls, it’s been great to hear from people, though I don’t have free minutes anymore, so…I still have my books on CD though. Take care…

Day Four
Today was a pretty nice little day of driving. We only had about 5.5 hours of driving time to our destination of Columbus, OH. A beautiful day for driving, though the state troopers were out in HOARDS, it being Labor Day and all. Anyway, it was a good driving day, I finished “Catch Me If You Can” and started on Tyler’s “An Amateur Marriage” - pretty good so far. I didn’t even listen to any music today - just books. Sorry if I’m overdoing this topic, but they are TRULY amazing, I just can’t get over that I made it all day yesterday driving without getting drowsy!

Met up with Emily today on I-80/90 and we began our trek through the Indiana Tollway and over into Ohio, before driving south and getting on a great 2-lane road which took us through the cutest mid-west towns. Seriously, I wish I had good pictures of these towns, but they were the picture-perfect mid-west, small town, but…everything was just so pristine about the places, they were seriously perfect. Just beautiful, quaint, old homes with large front porches, really great. Made me want to live there, but then I wonder…what would it be like to do ministry there…?

(By the way, I just received a txt message from someone which said: “I saw you on I-80 today between Des Moines and Iow City, and I just checked your site, just wanted to say good luck” — so, I’m thinking it very well could be a bogus comment, but I wasn’t on I-80 in Iowa TODAY, it was yesterday…so, if you’re the person who is trying to get my hopes up…but you’re lying….FESS UP! If not…well, that’s cool.

We ended up at a friend of Emily’s tonight, whose parents are the pastors of Columbus Mennonite Church, so we had an amazing meal waiting for us as we arrived in Columbus, and had some great conversation during and after the meal. It’s almost midnight now, and I’m thinking I need to sleep, because I have to get up around 5.15am tomorrow morning. We’re going to be leaving by 6am, so…yah. I’m just really not a morning person like that, but it IS nice to get on the road that early, and that should put us into Princeton by 2pm, which will be nice. I’m excited to finally arrive there…maybe then it will hit that I’m actually going to seminary and doing this whole grad school thing…

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