I know how to pack a car, but I don't know how to pack an apartment. The dichotomy makes a fair amount of sense, I suppose, considering that despite using the same word, 'pack,' the two tasks entail entirely different skill sets and objectives.

To pack an apartment, in order to move to another apartment or, in my case, to simultaneously move to another apartment with the constraint of fitting the new-apartment-bound contents into the backseat and trunk of a Civic; three small boxes to be shipped media-rate, and three computer-boxes (okay, computer, monitor (flat panel, thank all that is good and holy (or, failing that, Apple)), and printer), while at the same time putting a good portion of the remainder into a new storage space of questionable size and location, or at least the remainder which is not one of the several pieces of furniture being held/used by friends for the coming year (65 book-feet worth of Bonde wall bookcases to the girls, four chairs and a good Pier One wood table to join their five twins (err, twin and fellow octuplets?) at Emily's, a 240lb, 36" TV at Ali and Mark's, two floor lamps at Ammy and Rick's, and a multitude of permanent givts to fellow (err, former) neighbors at the Palazzo, and slightly more distant (physically and socioeconomically) neighbors who frequent the People's Park Berkeley Free Box) and all through the sorting and packing process, being swept into the throws of nostalgia and the anxiety of seperating ones-self from one's past enough to part with the lingering physical instantiations of same, is a subtractive affair.

In comparison, packing a car is intelligently stuffing a lot of stuff into a space that is demonstrably smaller than the stuff to be packed.

This, honestly, is a much easier job.

[note: the sentence three before this one should be taken out and shot (with respects to the late Douglas Adams), but if you try to sort out the clauses, parentheticals, and asides, you'll have some small idea of exactly how difficult a task this organizing, sorting, historical divesting, and moving actually is.]

Okay, so this is written after the fact. The above was written in a sparse but comfortable hotel room in Elko (sorry, no elk in elko, as it's in the middle of the desert, but we did see the world's largest polar bear, trapped by an Inuit Indian over half a century ago, and now overseeing the terminator between Elko's 24-hour coffee shop and a curiously muted casino, all sitting in front of the Elko Bus Stop.

In turn, the above paragraph (along with this one) was (is being) written in a room in the Three Bears Inn. It's right around 1am here in the Mountain time zone, just barely inside Montana sandwiched between recently (and quickly) traversed Idaho, and recently (and again to be) visted Yellowstone Park. Ammy has an annual National Parks pass, allowing free access, saving us $20 at the entrance, as well as more untold yuppie foodstamps at the three additional nathonal parks we're scheduled to visit on our continental sojourn.

We've been taking a bunch of great pictures and a few small mpeg movies, but despite unpacking more of the car than I'd anticipated in the search, I'm unable to find the USB cables to connect my camera or camcorder, so the thousand-word pictures will have to wait until the next stop, after a stop into a sufficiently-equpped geek-shop.

Sadly, for all the Wal-Marts, DQs, and McDonalds we see at every turn, CompUSAs and Frys are nonexistant out here. We'll find out tomorrow if Radio Shack has what we need.

Anyhow, for another perspective, be sure to read Ammy's Elko to Yellowstone account!

We're leaving through Yellowstone tomorrow, and plan on getting most of the way to Mt. Rushmore, the Crystal Caverns, and Devil's Tower, which some of you might recall from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

And of course, Wall Drug is just past Mt. Rushmore, so there's another thing not to be missed!

Oh, care to keep us entertained? Send us an SMS message! (PCS#: 5103341620). We'll get it when we reemerge into a cell-equipped stretch of road, and we can only hope that I'm the one behind the wheel when it comes in!