all content © Sarah Hepola Dot Com, 2005
June 2002
On the Run (Niagara Falls)
June 28, 2002
Crossing the border into Canada is like the opposite of going to Mexico. Everything looks better on their side. Back in Detroit, the buildings are abandoned and the convenient stores have bullet-proof glass in front of their counter. Windsor is... more
As my cousin Joe and I were driving to lunch yesterday afternoon, he pointed out all the stores that had changed. "I don't think that Home Depot was there. The Best Buy is new. That Chili's wasn't there." In Kalamazoo,... more
Backlogged in Kalamazoo
June 25, 2002
This is getting frustrating. People think I'm in Alaska when I'm really in Wyoming. People think I'm in Wyoming when I'm in Detroit. A resolution: I will add a line at the bottom of every entry with the location I'm... more
Hopelessly Backlogged
June 25, 2002
This is getting frustrating. People think I'm in Alaska when I'm really in Wyoming. People think I'm in Wyoming when I'm in Detroit. A resolution: I will add a line at the bottom of every entry with the location I'm... more
Oh, Say. Can You See? (Mount Rushmore)
June 22, 2002
"I ain't payin' $8 for that," the guy from Jersey says. I can't pay $8 for that. My wallet contains exactly $3 and a coupon for Canadian Tire. "You sit in a car, look up at the thing. Big... more
Half-Way There (2.5 Months and 16,000 Miles)*
June 19, 2002
*Another semi-serious road report, this time written in the style of Esquire Magazine Cover Sarahhepola naked, covered in caviar, hair dripping with bourbon, sucking on banana Cover Copy Unnecessarily Naked Woman + Booze + Pretentious Foodstuff + Overused Phallic Symbol... more
Montana, Won't You Take Me Out Tonight?
June 18, 2002
Montana is all majesty and lonliness. I wave at buffalo. I have imaginary conversations with John Denver. I finish off a roll of film at a red barn silhouetted against the prairie in the dwindling light. Only the side of... more
*This is the second in a groundbreaking 2-part series that dramatizes exchanges with quirky employees of eccentric enterprises run by Dave Eggers. The first was posted almost a year ago today in June 2001. The second is about lard. It... more
A Retrospective (Tales of the West Coast)
June 16, 2002
Hopelessly backlogged and oddly nostalgic for the West Coast, Sarahhepola presents the following unfinished pieces. A Memory The Los Angeles Library, an old woman with a pinched face, sitting like a man, knees agape and one arm resting on the... more
Some Things I Know About Alaska
June 13, 2002
No highways lead to Juneau. I'm not being poetic, there's really no highways. To get to Juneau one has to fly or take the ferry, which is pretty ridiculous when you consider that it's the state capital, for crying out... more
Just as Confused as You Are
June 12, 2002
I write this from a farm in Iowa. This is after a week of tear-assing across Wyoming and South Dakota -- our motto: never again -- and after a week spent in Montana, where I called a friend from a... more
From the Lower 49 (Alaska)
June 01, 2002
Alaska always seemed like a dangling thing to me, not a state so much as an idea, the kind of place I thought about fleeing to when life started to suck. How nice to be away from all this: the... more