I'm at a Budget Host motel in Julesberg, Colorado, which is the first stop on I-80 past the Nebraska border. I stopped here in honor of Jules Coffee Shop in La Crosse. The atmosphere at this Jules is a bit different, it seems. Sign in my room: "Cleaning of fowl is prohibited in this Motel. You will be charged for damages if such an incident occurs."

I made it all the way across Nebraska on I-80 today without encountering a hill or a turn. I wish I had cruise control. I could have slept the six hours it took me to cross the state.

My Hyundai is scraping the ground, laden with all my life's possessions which include 300 books and about 15,000 football cards. There's a canvas cargo bag atop my car and a bike rack holding my Cannondale behind it. I feel both adventurous and foolish, which seem always to go together.

I spent a lot of the day listening to the news from Southern California. It's on fire, exactly where I'm going to be, in my new job covering, among other things, wildfires. I'm heading to my job at the most interesting time possible. Those fires are just unbelievable. I can't imagine leaving my house knowing I'll never see it or anything in it again. How sad.

But the journalist in me can't wait to cover the story, although I wish I could have been there from the start.

I always seem to miss the biggest story by a week or so. Cases in point: I started at Time Magazine in Hong Kong two weeks after the tsunami. I started at the Tribune in La Crosse a week after the Phillip Schuth circus. My timing blows.

But I expect I'll be put to work in SoCal as soon as I arrive, which probably will happen mid-day Wednesday. It will be a trial by fire, to use an obvious and bad pun.

Otherwise life on the road has been great, with Pearl Jam, Cat Stevens and Louis Armstrong keeping me company. And my motel has cable TV. Score! Almost makes up for not being able to gut pheasants inroom.