Or maybe I should just go reread Blue Highways...

May I suggest River Horse instead?

   Yeah. Rethinking that line, I realize now how rhetorical was that statement. You'd think working in a book store would whet the appetite of a life time reader, but man, a lot of days the last thing I want to do after work is crack open a book. I'm stockpiling good books, and reading one or two (the history The Mirror is fairly good, at least for the first half) as I go. I'll give River Horse a look when I have a few moments at work, and see if it grabs me like I remember Blue Highways doing.
    And lest I sound too incurious: the store inventory has no data base of any kind, yet the book staff is expected to know what we have well enough to know what to buy from customers, as 97% of the merchandise comes from trading. Carrying around 300,000 titles in your head- or at least trying- is fairly exhausting mentally. (Sci-Fi alone is 10,000 books and about 6,000 titles, for example.) And it gets worse, but I won't bore you with the details. It's a good job, and lots of folks have way worse jobs, but the reality is turning out to be less appealing than old daydreams.

Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras

I once got offered a job in Tucson. Didn't go because I couldn't handle the heat. It's hotter than balls there!

Anywho, I've driven across country twice so far. Best times I've ever had by far. Wouldn't trade it for the world, and I think it's something everybody should do at least once before they get married, graduate high school, insert significant life decision here.

Perhaps a favorite road trip story thread should be in the works?

Spread it on!

Hey, MAYOR, can you confirm that this is the place?

Yeah, that's the general location. I'm local to the area and it's one of those "open secret" things around here.

Somewhere in my soul, there's always Rock -n- Roll... Joe Strummer

Reminds me of the time I first discovered Google Earth. I was bored at work and followed the DMZ from the west coast of Korea all the way to the east.

Spread it on!

I was bored at work and followed the DMZ from the west coast of Korea all the way to the east

It's a bit hard to follow the DMZ near the Yellow Sea because it runs nearly north-south rather than east-west as most folks would expect. (Or is it marked somehow in Google Earth?)

Anyway, I lived here for two years, where I could look out my window and see a rice paddy and a minefield. Interesting place. Except in the spring when they spread "nightsoil" on the paddies. Organic farming, dontcha know.

Yup, that's the place Ken.  For three years I lived and worked inside that hill, mountain, or whatever you want to call it, pulling three or four days shifts, with seven days between shifts.  It was a sweet assignment and preparation for duty in Korea where I pulled a year in the underground command room at United Nations Command at Yongsan.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

I know they wanna be close to Washington but I would assume they've got to have something out there in Cheney's favorite state of Wyoming. It's nearly impossible to keep a secret in the open society we live in, even one as important as this. "Secret sight" after secret sight has been revealed going back to the '50s. But I'd put good money on there being an even more secret sight or sights out in the West were there's bigger mountains and more open space.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Don't know about any secret or not so secret facilities in Wyoming.  There are a few spots west of the Mississippi worthy of a visit from the stealth Vice President:

1. During the height of the Cold War the Strategic Air Command (SAC) used to be home to and control all of the daily B-52 patrols flying around the Soviet Union from Offutt Air Force Base, outside of Omaha, Nebraska.  With the folding of the Soviet Union back in the 1990s, the need for all those bomber patrols ceased.  However, the facilities formerly used by SAC are now used by the US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM).  USSTRATCOM today is the command center for all US missile forces.  This command location was one of the stops made by Bush after he was interrupted reading "My Pet Goat" back on September 11th, 2001.

2.  Another vestige of the Cold War was the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) located at Cheyenne Mountain outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado.  NORAD is a joint US-Canadian organization and still monitors potential ballistic missile or bomber attacks against the North American continent.

3.  There is, of course, Area 51 located in an isolated patch of Nevada desert.  This is not a hardened site, however it is an extremely secure facility.  It is reportedly where they house the UFO the USAF recovered from Roswell, New Mexico.  I have no information on whether Dick Cheney was one of the pilots of that UFO and, if I did know, they'd kill me if I said so.  
   

Illegitimi non carborundum.