July 1, 2013
Monday morning dawned, and we set about getting ready to leave. Over breakfast, we debated which vehicle to drive. Maria’s truck was newer, but my car had a larger interior, was easier to park in the big city, and ran on gasoline which was cheaper than diesel. Also, Chrysalis seemed to think that more people looked at the bright orange Plymouth with respect and admiration, which apparently were emotions she found appetizing.
Maria and I got our luggage packed in the trunk. We also took along a bag of extra clothing for Chrysalis. The concept of things like toothbrushes, deodorant, and makeup was foreign to her, so she traveled light and without a lot of things most women would have.
I made one last trip through the house. I wore another long sleeve shirt today to cover the bandage on my arm. I left it untucked to cover my gun. The nonresident handgun permit issued to me by the state of Florida was also accepted by the states we would be driving across.
Satisfied that I hadn’t forgotten anything, I went out and joined Maria and Chrysalis in the car. The engine started easily and we were on our way.
We drove south and west, angling to meet the larger highways and interstates. The first four-lane we encountered made Chrysalis look around in surprise at the amount of traffic and the variety of vehicles including semi trucks.
The trip was pleasant, as I knew it would be. The bench seats in my car were about like La-Z-Boy couches and the 2.76 gears provided a good cruising speed. Acceleration was not a problem, due to something called torque. Never heard of it? That’s okay; if you don’t drive a V8, you probably don’t have any.
We made it to Minneapolis by the afternoon. The streets were crowded and so was the hotel where we had reservations. As Maria and I had not been expecting to have a guest, we’d only booked one bed. Chrysalis would have to continue sleeping on the floor.
When I apologized to her for it, she shrugged it off. “Carpet is still better than the floor of a cave.”
Somehow, with the title of Queen, I had expected a little bit better accommodations. There was still a lot I didn’t know because the TV show only revealed a small slice of the world. Depending on how long Chrysalis would be around, I should ask questions about the environment in order to better build the world in my stories.
Chrysalis, Maria and I joined the crowds and made our way towards the baseball stadium. As the closest professional team to my house that wasn’t the Brewers, I might as well be a fan of the Twins. Maria tolerated them, and I figured that Chrysalis might enjoy the experience.
After getting an extra ticket from a helpful scalper outside, we walked into the stadium. The grandstands weren’t full yet, but they were getting close as we found our seats. I could see Chrysalis’ eyes widening at the size of the place. “How many people are here?”
I vaguely remembered the answer. “Forty thousand, give or take.”
“Is this...is this a large sporting event?”
“Not really.” I grinned and indicated her borrowed sweatshirt. “The University of Michigan pulls in crowds of more than one hundred thousand to every home football game.”
“Don’t forget the Indy 500,” put in Maria, alway willing to top any Michigan story I told.
“Yeah,” I acknowledged. “The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has seats for a quarter-million, and sometimes standing crowds add up to about four hundred thousand.”
By this point, Chysalis’ mouth was hanging open. I thought it was partly in amazement and partly in appetite. In turnabout for providing information, I wanted to ask how many changelings were in her herd and how many ponies were in Equestria. I lost her attention, though, as she shook her head a little and glanced around the crowd. None of the other fans were paying us any mind. I wondered how the emotions related to the game would feel to a changeling.
The teams took the field. The game that night pitted the Twins against the Yankees. The crowd’s excitement and volume ramped up as the pitches were thrown and occasionally hit.
Unfortunately for the Twins, there were not enough hits and the Yankees won 10-4. This was apparently the first of a four game series in Minneapolis, and I hoped that maybe things would turn around by the end of it. The first night’s performance was not encouraging.
Chrysalis looked around, realizing that most of the hometown crowd was disappointed. “I take it things would be different if the outcome had changed.”
“Pretty much,” I replied as we walked back to the car.
“Why do you have so much emotional investment in how others play a game?”
That was a good question. I shrugged. “Maybe people like to be part of a winning team. If you’re going to do that, it also involves standing loyally by through the losses.”
Chrysalis considered that. “I think I’m a Yankees fan. They have a better win-loss ratio.”
“You can’t science baseball! Think with your emotions, not with your statistics!"
She seemed confused. “Why? That logic doesn’t make sense.”
I could make a joke about Mr. Spock, but she wouldn’t get it. I shook my head. “Sometimes it’s just more important. Love, or something like it, trumps a lot of common sense.”
It seemed like I had given Chrysalis a lot to think about. She didn’t say much for the rest of the night. We went back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. There was a long drive ahead of us.
July 2, 2013
We had a couple of options in planning our route west of Minneapolis. The three of us talked about it over breakfast in the hotel.
Chrysalis inspected the hotel’s offering of small pastries and cereal while not contributing much to the conversation. Maria glanced at her and then back to me. “Why don’t we take a more southern route? If she feeds on love and positive emotion, North Dakota is definitely not the place for her.”
I opened our travel atlas on the breakfast table and traced a route with my finger. The drive wasn’t that much further if we cut a bit more south. Either way, we needed to get going.
We drove south on I-35 heading for I-90 to take us west. The Spam museum was nearby, a few miles out of our way, but Maria firmly said no. I suppose Chrysalis wouldn’t think it was so novel because she had never even heard of the stuff. She did say she could eat anything, though.
The drive was mostly uneventful. We stopped in Sioux Falls for lunch. Mitchell came into view that afternoon. I’d heard about the Corn Palace there and we had a few minutes to spare in order to drive by.
It was a building with minarets and onion domes that was completely covered in colored corn.
“Huh.”
“Imagine that.”
“Let’s keep driving.”
Unfortunately, between Mitchell and our next destination there was nothing. About an hour into the drive, we crossed the Missouri river and passed the town of Chamberlain, population 2,400. The next two hours revealed even less, only open prairie with low rolling hills. The road only curved once every few miles.
As we continued driving further west, however, the horizon started to rise. The Badlands of western South Dakota were drawing closer. Finally, a little elevation change.
A sign beside the road caught my eye and I instinctively took the exit it pointed to. Maria had been dozing and woke up as the car slowed down.
“Roadside attraction,” I told her.
“What is it?”
“It’s the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.”
She rolled her eyes in the exasperated way that a woman does when her husband is slightly obsessive about nuclear weapons. I pulled into the parking lot of the visitors center, getting out and tipping the seat forward so Chrysalis could climb out of the back seat.
She looked at the building and the equipment sitting nearby. “What is this?”
“Just a little history lesson.” In terms of a demonstration of human capabilities, this was perfect. I escorted her into the museum, pointing out interesting things as we went along. Old black and white photos, sketches of missiles, a video of a nuclear explosion.
The looping film had no sound, but Chrysalis stared at it with her full attention. After a moment of silence, she asked, “How powerful are these weapons?”
“They used to test these things out in the Pacific Ocean. There used to be some islands out there that were wiped off the face of the Earth during the tests.”
I paused for a moment and then added, “There are several thousand of these weapons produced by several countries around the world.”
Chrysalis tore her eyes from the screen. “But why could you need so many? Why could you need them at all?”
“It’s a concept called mutually assured destruction,” I explained. “If one country wanted to destroy another, the second country would have a large number of weapons so that any of the weapons not destroyed in the initial attack could be used to strike back.”
“But if that many of these nuclear bombs were used, would it completely annihilate the planet?”
“Probably,” I admitted. “It would be even worse with the aftereffects and fallout continuing to poison the environment.”
There were a lot of other things at the museum, including a tour of a bunker and missile silo. I didn’t want to keep Maria waiting, though, and Chrysalis didn’t seem to want to stay either.
When we went outside to the car, Maria was sitting behind the wheel. I paused for a moment in mild surprise and then got in the other side after helping Chrysalis into the back. Maria started the car and drove us away.
It was easy to criticize my wife’s driving. She wasn’t as practiced with the Plymouth, and didn’t handle its operation nearly as smoothly as I would have. As I glanced at her, I saw Chrysalis looking at me curiously. I turned back to the front and kept my mouth shut about Maria’s driving.
We headed on down the road and my thoughts went back to the museum. While I felt a little bad about depressing Chrysalis, nukes sure served as a valuable lesson about why you shouldn’t mess with the human race. Still, she could do with some cheering up. So could Maria and I.
It was fortunate, then, that the town of Wall appeared. All across the state we had been seeing billboards for a place called Wall Drug. The signs advertised things like statues, music, food, and free ice water.
Because there isn’t much else to do in South Dakota, the billboards had been like a beacon inviting us to a worthy destination. And what a place it was.
Wall Drug was sort of like a shopping mall with restaurants, a museum, a chapel, gift shops, an art gallery, dinosaur statues, and a large fiberglass jackalope that you could sit on. Everything had a decidedly western theme. It was a tacky tourist trap, but I must admit some fascination in walking through the corridors and spotting something new with every step. Sure enough, they had free ice water.
There was a smile on Chrysalis’ face at the novelty. I’m sure that among all the tourists there was probably plenty of emotion to snack on. Speaking of, it was time for dinner and we ate average food with above average prices in one of the shops of the complex.
Sitting across the table from Maria and I, Chrysalis pulled down her sweatshirt hood for the first time in days. The hair she had grown looked realistic and glossy enough to be in a shampoo commercial. Her arm was still just a nub, but overall she was looking healthier all the time.
After dinner we got back on the road again, heading for our reserved hotel room in Rapid City. After arriving, Maria claimed first shower. As the water began to run, Chrysalis asked, “Why did you seem so annoyed when Maria started driving?”
“Well, I sort of feel that it’s my job. It is my car, after all.”
“Was she somehow getting back at you for stopping at a landmark that she had no interest in?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I probably deserved it. Honestly though, the chance to relax a little and let someone else drive was nice.”
Chrysalis leaned towards me, evidently disagreeing. “I saw you keep throwing her looks. If you were so displeased, why didn’t you say something?”
“Well…my dad once gave me a piece of advice about being married. ‘Pick your battles.’ Telling her how I felt was only going to make things worse, and for what? Neither of us will probably even remember this tomorrow.”
That thought was clearly a new one to Chrysalis. She sat there pondering it for a moment. “Marriage is like a give and take working relationship? I didn’t realize love was complicated.”
“Heh, really? I thought you were the expert on love.”
Her face flushed. It was a nice touch to her human disguise, I must say. Chrysalis said, “Well, I just have a very specific view of love.”
“Wait…so you subsist on love, but don’t really have any of your own?”
“I didn’t say that,” she quickly corrected. “We just don’t have a formal concept of marriage or family groups.”
“Hmm. What would happen if you tried? Then maybe you wouldn’t have to rely on ponies to get your love?”
“It won’t work,” she said suddenly, forcefully.
“Have you ever tried?” I pressed.
“It’s not a concept that could be applied to the changeling lifestyle.” Her tone had changed and it was clear that Chrysalis no longer wanted to continue this line of conversation.
“Well, okay.” I said. “If that’s how it really is.”
“Would I lie to you, Sandy?”
Would she?
“Well...I guess not,” I said. The water in the bathroom shut off and I collected my things for a shower. True to my guess, Maria seemed to have forgotten the earlier incident with the car and we went to bed with no hostility between us. I glanced over the edge of the bed before going to sleep. I saw one of Chrysalis’ green eyes give me a wink in the darkness.
July 3, 2013
We got up early and backtracked slightly on our route in order to visit Mt. Rushmore. We got to the surrounding national park early. Not only was the visitor’s center still closed but the parking lot was practically abandoned.
The complimentary breakfast at the hotel had not been very filling, and so we had stopped at a Starbuck’s near the park for muffins. I didn’t drink coffee, especially not the crap Starbuck’s claimed to have roasted, but Chrysalis apparently liked the smell so we bought her a cup. Fortified with caffeine and sugar, she was rather cheery and energetic this morning.
The three of us stood in the parking lot leaning on the car. The carved mountain cliff with Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and of course T. Roosevelt, was about half a mile away. It looked smaller than I expected. It must have been an effect of the distance. A nearby sign indicated that if they had bodies, each of the presidents would be 400-something feet tall.
Chrysalis took a sip of her coffee, using the nub of her healing arm for assistance. It had been slowly regrowing, and this morning reached almost down to the elbow. She nodded towards the mountain. “So who were these men?”
“Influential former leaders of the country,” I explained. I would have loved to go into the histories of each, but reluctantly decided that a simple one-sentence summary would suffice.
“It’s impressive work,” Chrysalis noted. “Equestria doesn’t have any rock carvings nearly so large. Of course, I don’t think ponies have egos that big, either.”
She grinned to confirm that it was a joke. Maria laughed. I rolled my eyes.
We got back in the car. Chrysalis shed the hoodie she had been wearing. As more and more of her body healed, she had started wearing fewer layers. I couldn’t blame her. The car’s old air conditioning unit struggled during the hot afternoons.
She still wore jeans, as well as some sneakers that vaguely fit. In place of the hoodie she had a borrowed blouse with a row of buttons. That had been something new for her. Buttons were not common in a place where most of the population had hooves. Chrysalis was getting better at blending in as a person.
In the spirit of humanity, our next stop was a milestone in mankind’s evolution: the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Well okay, maybe we were a month or so too early for the actual event, but the town was interesting to drive through.
Chrysalis studied the pictures on the local billboards. “Motorcycles? Why would you willingly ride something that looks so unsafe?”
I shrugged. “I never really understood it myself. I owned a motorcycle for about a year and decided that lifestyle just wasn’t for me. As a whole, however, I think humanity’s passion for building reckless machines of death for our amusement is probably the main reason for motorcycles.”
“And monster trucks,” added Maria. She and I shared a fist bump. I love it when we’re on the same wavelength.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully as we left South Dakota and passed through Wyoming on the way to Montana. Our stop for the night was in the city of Butte.
We all were strung out from the road, but not quite tired enough to go straight to sleep. Instead, we caught the late showing of Monsters University at a local theater. That movie seemed like a safer bet for introducing Chrysalis to Earth cinema than either World War Z or Man of Steel. Maybe she could even relate to being the outsider, the “monster.” Or maybe I was overthinking things.
We had unanticipated difficulties with the 3-D projection, but luckily the theater was mostly empty and only a few little kids got to see Chrysalis freak out at the visual effects popping in her face.
Once she calmed down, we enjoyed ourselves for the rest of the show. It was quite enjoyable, as Pixar films tend to be. I think Chrysalis learned quite a bit about Earth’s college customs and social experiences. The general good mood of people leaving the theater also seemed to be something she enjoyed. She didn’t even stay up that night to watch Maria and me sleep.
July 4, 2013
We got up a little early in the morning. The knowledge that we only had one more day of driving to reach Seattle helped.
During the night, Chrysalis’ mending arm had sprouted fingers and was at least close to being the right length. We chalked it up to the various emotional inputs from the movie audience the previous night.
The drive from Butte was fairly uneventful. We finished crossing Montana and drove through northern Idaho. The Rocky Mountains cropped up and some scenic views presented themselves. Maria would occasionally take a picture. Lunchtime found us in the city of Spokane, in eastern Washington.
Driving slowly through and looking for a place to eat, Chrysalis’ head suddenly snapped to the side and she pointed out the window. “There!”
“Hooters?” asked Maria incredulously.
Chrysalis nodded. “There’s a lot emotion in there. It’s not love, only lust, but that’s almost as good.”
Maria gave me a look.
“If that’s what she wants…” I tried.
My wife sighed in the way that heterosexual married women do when forced to go to Hooters. “Whatever.”
I turned into the parking lot, my nerves already tensing. I knew that many, many pitfalls awaited me in a place like Hooters and was going to be on my best behavior.
The Spokane Hooters had a casino attached for some reason. Chrysalis didn’t seem interested in gambling, and I figured that mostly only depression would be coming from that side of the building.
The restaurant was having some kind of 4th of July celebration. I don’t think it was strictly about the United States’ Independence Day - probably more about selling hot wings - but either way there was a lot of business.
Chrysalis looked curious and eager to find out what was going on inside the building. As we had agreed, she put on her hoodie for extra concealment in public and then marched up to the front door. She opened it with her good arm and stepped inside. Maria and I were right behind her.
I saw Chrysalis’ head go left and right, taking in the Hooters waitresses and the attention most of the customers were paying to them. A small grin of understanding crept across her face.
“Hi, I’m Hayley! Table for three?” asked one such waitress.
I nodded to the skimpily-clad woman and she led us away from the door. Chrysalis paid particular notice to her movements and manner, including how she leaned forward over the table while setting out our places.
“I really like your mohawk!” said Hayley brightly, giving me a smile as she stood upright.
“Thanks, I cut it for him,” replied Maria.
Slightly taken aback, Hayley departed and the three of us examined our menus. I hadn’t been to Hooters since getting married and needed to refresh my memory.
Nothing terrible happened in the next few minutes and I started to relax. We got our drinks and after placing our orders Chrysalis got up. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to the little fillies’ room.”
About a minute passed while Maria and I waited quietly. She suddenly touched my arm. “Wait, since when does she need to use the restroom?”
“Huh, now that you mention it… I don’t know; maybe changeling digestion doesn’t run on a regular cycle.”
Unfortunately, we were not left to wonder. The bathroom door opened and who – what – it was that stepped out drew every eye in the restaurant.
It was Crysalis’ human form, but not the same as before. She’d removed the hoodie and hung it over her sickly arm to conceal it. Her lips were fuller and redder, and the effect of artful makeup complete with eye shadow had appeared. The rest of her body had been reshaped by either a Greek sculptor or a comic book artist. It was, quite frankly, astonishing.
Of course it didn’t end there. This freight train of lunacy couldn’t be stopped that easily. The first few buttons of her blouse had been undone to leave only a little to the imagination. She wasn’t wearing any undergarments, after all. Chrysalis wore a smile so sultry that it would probably put a PG-13 movie over the top into an R rating, and the way her hips moved as she walked – strutted – back to our table probably caused several rappers to reevaluate their definition of badonkadonk.
As she passed by one table full of 4th of July revelers, one of them murmured “God Bless America!”
Chrysalis sat down across from Maria and I. There was an almost audible sigh of disappointment from every man within sight as she slipped her hoodie back on.
“That was stupid,” Maria hissed under her breath. I should point out that I was thinking the same thing, but having a harder time getting words to come out of my mouth.
“I just wanted to try it.” Chrysalis sounded taken aback. “At any rate, I’m not doing any harm.”
She had a point. Maybe if someone had tripped and gotten hurt while staring at her it would be different. Either way, I thought that as much as the show had, ah, caught my interest, it would probably not be a good idea to do it again.
It was then that I remembered who her appearance had been based on and I immediately felt extremely conflicted.
Chrysalis seemed properly chastised and did nothing nothing sexy for the rest of the meal. I did notice, however, that Hayley was remarkably less friendly after her little stunt.
The last leg of our trip took the rest of the afternoon. Finally arriving in Seattle, we checked into the Hilton. Beginning the next day, the attached convention center would host Everfree Northwest.
Within a few blocks of the hotel, we had a couple of choices for dinner. They ranged from Burger King and Denny’s to a local gourmet restaurant named 13 Coins. I asked Chrysalis what she wanted to eat.
“Oh, it’s fine.” She smiled. “I can feel this whole hotel filling up with feelings of love and excitement. These - bronies, you called them? - are certainly an emotional bunch. I think I’ll just dine in tonight.”
All this time I had been worried that maybe she wasn’t ready for all the convention goers. Now I was concerned that maybe they weren’t ready for her.