Days Early- to Mid-Thirties: Why I could never have a storied year

So, I'm way behind on my daily blargs, as I'm assuming the few of you (Mike) who checks this URL compulsively several times before lunch have noticed. Partly this is because my good ol' lappy has been out of commission since her power cord lost the ability to conduct "the juice" from the wall socket to the battery. I blame this on Conor, and he, I'm sure, knows why. Rather than try to write twice a day in a Sisyphusian struggle to catch up, here is a quick overview of the days leading up to today (Day Thirty-Four) and a hearty entreaty for you to read Mike's blog for the rest of the story.

Day Thirty-One; Niagara Falls proves to be powerfully awesome, despite our fears that it will be powerfully underwhelming. This is in stark contrast to other large American tourist attraction which shall remain anonymous for the sake of preserving the dignity of the four huge-headed presidents for whom said attraction may hold special significance. We also visit the Buffalo campus of the University of New York where Mike goes into that Joyce-induced drooling trance that only Laurel has had the pleasure of seeing in person.
Day Thirty-Two: We decide to skip Cleveland, much to Drew Carey's disappointment, trading it for five hours at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH. This proves to be an excellent choice, and we spend our half day hob-nobbing with the bronze-encrusted greats. I wish I had brought my Jeffy G jersey, but as we test-drive next season's Madden game, I quarterback scramble him into the endzone, so all is as it should be.

Day Thirty-Three: We drive into Indianapolis and spend a couple hours finding some important Vonnegut sites that will, in a few years (at most), be stops on a pilgrimage route and home to societies and museums. For now, it took a lot of Googling to find them, and we seemed to be the only ones to have been looking. I want to write more about this later, so hopefully I'll get a chance. Suffice it to say, I'm glad we did it. We spend the night with Mike's famously awesome aunt in St. Louis.

Day Thirty-Four: We take a day trip to Hannibal, MO, which is Twain country, in case you haven't noticed. Their vending machines have his face on them, every business in Historic Downtown is named after his characters, and there is the constant threat of living history actors. We hop on the Mark Twain Riverboat, which takes us on an hour-long tour down the Mississippi, then grab some delicious treats at Becky Thatcher's Ice Cream Parlor. It's all fun and games until my camera falls out of my lap, Mike gets a speeding ticket, and we get lost on the way back to Holly's house. But we have an amazing dinner, frozen custard for dessert, and Holly even loaned us a handsome kitty to sit on the foot of our bed. What a lady.

We listened to: Joshua Tree (U2), Whatever & Ever Amen (Ben Folds Five), The Great Gatsby, Songs for Tomorrow Morning (The Bobs), The Essential Vonnegut Interviews, Good News for People Who Love Bad News (Modest Mouse), The Essential Mark Twain, Roll On (The Living End) and Mike and me singing the Monday Night Football theme all the way to and from Canton.

Mystery words: "Niagara Falls: a mob front?" Although it's not really a mystery, because the answer is yes.

Mike turns his drools into pretty words: astoriedyear.blogspot.com