Saturday, September 6, 2008

Day Twelve: Civilization Begins with Distillation.

Slept in late today. Walked around the area I was staying for a good but in the morning. Did a few errands, including getting a new cell phone, which was sorely needed. Settled on the LG Dare and after dealing with verizon's stupidity regarding account management and having to get my dad on the phone, finally got what I wanted and left. I really like it so far, apart from one inexplicable dropped call at an extremely inopportune moment.

Did alot of walking basically, soaking up the gorgeous 80-85 degree and sunny weather, which apparently is actually very uncharcteristic for SF this time of year. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. Got on the BART ( Bay Area Rapid Transit), which was great, imagine if the commuter rail in Boston was super fast, cheap, and actually useful. Thats what it was like. I met Beth over in Berkeley in east bay area. I realized on the ride over that I hadn't even eaten yet that day, so we promptly found a brewpub, thanks to my new phone, and I wolfed down an entire pizza, which was delicious, regardless of my obvious hunger, as well as throw down a few of the local beers. We met Beth's friend David when he got out of class and went to another very good berkeley bar and had several rounds of drinks. Had alot of good conversation and beer for a good while, then left to go meet lauren in the Marina district. Supposedly, this area is where all of the 'beautiful people who know it' go to party most of the time. But a place called the blue light on Tuesday nights is the exception. Taco Tuesday, as they call it, can be summed up very quickly. 3-2-1, as in 3 Dollar Margaritas, 2 dollar coronas, 1 dollar tacos. Happy hour/drink specials like that are making it pretty easy to deal with not being able to goto my favorite watering holes in Boston anymore. We met alot of cool people and had some good laughs and enjoyed the affordable prices. Took a cab back, dropping Beth off near Luke & Michelle, and I went back to Lauren's to sleep. Tomorrow, we conquer California and camp out at crater lake National Park, before heading Portland for the day on thursday and seattle that night. Where does the time go! It's been amazing so far, time to finish strong now.

Day Eleven: All your Hippies are Belong to us

I woke up and met up with my friend Lauren from high school and her boyfriend for brunch the next morning. Got some real good eggs benedict on crab cakes and wolfed it all down. We later took the Muni downtown and saw all the sights of SF, walked along the water, saw fisherman's wharf, the seals, some awful live entertainment/magician who was just horrible, and putzed around SF for the majority of the day talking and catching up.

We went to Delores Park ( I think that was the name? ) where lindsay met us and we drank some hard cider and people watched all the crazy san franciscan free spirits. I feel like, in San Francisco, they can't actually get laws like public nudity and open container laws passed through legislation... but it doesn't much matter since no one enforces it or even worries about it. We met up with Luke Michelle and Beth and some of their friends in the area for dinner at a mexican joint down the block. Got some good mexican grub, and a group of us went to a party with Luke & Michelle at their friend's place. The "appartment" was amazing. It was a converted old wharehouse, that was a 9 person living space with amazing open kitchen and living room areas. All the rooms had interesting features like lofts and they had great artwork everywhere. It was one of the most unique living arrangements I think I've ever witnessed. Anyways, we had a good time and decided to spontaneously bring a pinata, so had fun busting that open and got some pretty funny video's of both hits and misses which I'll post in a day or two. Played a round of Mafia, which is a fairly entertaining game, and befriended some of the housemates and a physics major who worked with Luke. They were all very nice people. Eventually we retired and I went back to crash at Lauren's place. Stayed up watching 'The Devils Rejects' a Rob Zombie horror flick, with Lauren then fell asleep around 3am, no nightmares to report.

Day Ten: Someone told me it's all happening at the Zoo.

After devouring a delicious breakfast made by master chefs Kara and Dan, we took off for the world famous San Diego Zoo. The zoo was absolutely enormous and was extremely entertaining. The chimpanzees were really amazing to watch the way the interacted with each other. Something so clearly human-esque is happening inside they're brains. Other highlights include the tigers, Jaguar, the Swamp Monkeys vs. River Otters fight, Gorrillas at feeding time, the lazy/stoned Koalas, and countless other interesting creatures. We spent many hours there, before realizing we were both hungry and thirsty, and the only acceptable way to deal with that situation was to goto the Stone Brewing Company in Escondido, just north of SD.

For those of you not familiar with Stone, most notably the brewer of Arrogant Bastard Ale (slogan: 'You're not Worthy'), they make some of the most delicious beers on the planet. Although the tour was booked solid and we couldn't get on, we ate/drank in their excellent/gorgeous outdoor grounds of the World Cafe. It was a wholly super-satisfying experience. At around 4pm, we got in the car, pointed it towards San Francisco and charged full steam ahead.

For those of you who failed middle school geography, Los Angeles is in between San Diego and San Francisco. Also, there is essentially no way to avoid it. Also, it has the worst traffic of anyplace ever always. Except for apparently the Sunday before Labor Day at 6pm. Expecting a horror show and 4 hours of standstill on 25 lane highways, we cruised through LA, 90% of the time at 65+ MPH. We didn't speak a word of it till we were completely out, as it was totally unexpected and we were terrified to jinx it by reminding LA that it is supposed to have traffic in it. We cruised through the barren California countryside, which is much more like the empty swaths of land in the South/Texas/New Mexico than people often realize. You can go 30 miles in between exits in places. There simply aint nothing there for most of it.

We rolled into SF at 1230-1amish. I knew 3 different sets of people there, and they all managed to(extremely conveniently) live within 1.5 miles of each other. So I got to know the Bernal Heights/Mission/Noes Valley area very good. I dropped Beth off with our friends Luke & Michelle and proceeded to my friend Lindsay's place, yet another NU physicist of course, because we rock excessively hard. We stayed up for several hours talking about life and work and friends and moving and the west coast and everything else under the sun. Finally, exhausted, I collapsed on the air mattress and went to bed.

Day 9: Penguins in the Desert

We left after a quick breakfast from our gracious hosts, and headed west to the Desert Museum. I thought it would be an interesting thing to see, but my expectations were totally blown out of the water. The museum is almost entirely outdoors, but features many very natural settings in which classic examples of desert vegetation and life were displayed. Black Widows, Rattlesnakes, Ocelots, Bobcats, coyotes, wolves, foxes, some crazy bugs and other creepy crawlers as well as endless cacti and agave etc etc. It was really just the presentation of the whole place that sold me so heavily on it. Set right on the edge of the Saguaro National Park, with rocky orange mountains covered in towering saguaro cacti. We spent over 2 hours and only saw under 2/3 of the exhibits that they had there. But alas, the clock was ticking and we had lots to do.

Beth had 2 good high school friends who were recently married in Phoenix so we dropped in to say hi to/meet them. They made us a great and bountiful Jumbalaya and were really fun nice people. Browsed through their extensive record collection, marvelled at the enormous and awesome fish tank, and went for a brief tour of downtown Phoenix which had apparently been ravaged by the storm we saw in Tucson the night we drove in. Uprooted trees and knocked down walls were everywhere. It was pretty amazing. As always though, it was gorgeous that day as we were there, though the storm clouds were closing in on us as we were there, and we decided to take off for San Diego.

The drive out was gorgeous as anticipated. I-10 runs about 1/4 mile from the Mexican border for quite some time as well, so we had to go through about 5 border patrol checkpoints, but we were pretty clearly not mexicans, nor did we have any room in my car to store whatsoever. Then we got into some really windy awesome roads in the central California Desert area which was pretty neat. A really good drive again, mostly empty till just outside of SD and even then no traffic to mention really.

We got in at about 9:30 and were greeted by my old friend from physics classes, Dan Knudsen, who is doing some awesome neuroscience PhD research at UCSD, and his girlfriend Kara who apparently sat next to/befriended Sarah in an english lit class at NU which was really unexpected and entertaining connection for both of us. Furthering the small world bizareness, Beth had worked at almost all of the same labs that Dan had at NU, but never at the same time, so they traded stories about all their old coworkers' antics.

Dan and Kara were amazing hosts, fueling us with beer and raviolli and cooked us a huge breakfast the next morning. It was great to spend some time with them, as anyone who knows either of them will certainly attest to. But we had another super full packed day coming up, so we turned in finally.

Day 8: Rocket Man

Ahh Tucson. Relaxed and caught up with some neglected emails in the morning. Good some good mexican for lunch at a place Jared recommended.

Then went to the Titan Missle Museum. The Titan II missle was the primary method with which during the cold war we would have used to annihilate all life on earth as we know it. One of the old silos 20 miles from Tucson was converted into a museum to show the public what the working conditions were like on a missle silo crew. They showed off all the safeguards and explained why everything had to be engineered the way it was. It was an extremely cool place, meant to be able to withstand a direct nuclear blast and still fire off its payload and scorch some serious earth.

Came back and relaxed with Jen & Elliot a bit before heading out to dinner and then to get some drinks with their nerdy physics friends. They were a pretty dorky group, and I instantly remembered the mentalilty of socially awkward physicists in a weird sort of nostalgic way. Also, it reinforced my already firm belief that I dont want a physics PhD. Regardless, they were all nice, had some beers then went back to sleep early since we wanted to goto the Desert Museum just west of Tucson early in the morning before the sun forces all the critters to go hide.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Massive Photo Upload #1

http://picasaweb.google.com/brownell.s/SeattleRoadTrip

Ride to Seattle: Episode 3: Tucson & Phoenix

The problem we seem to be having on this trip is that whenever we leave a place, its immediately placed in imminent threat of destruction. Hurricane Gustav is currently evacuating New Orleans and placing warnings as far north and east as Tennesee and East Texas. As we drove through West Texas, there were thunderstorms following just behind that brought severe flooding to a normally dehydrated desert. As we entered Tucson, Steve and I saw the most spectacular thunderstorm we've ever seen: the sky turned all sorts of amazing colors, and huge bright flashes of white lightning struck down upon the mesas all around us, 20 miles in every direction. We played Riders On The Storm, Thunderstruck, Thunder Road, Explosions in the Sky, and anything else that was appropriately epic. It brought us very little rain, and no wind; just an amazing view. Certainly though, someone was getting their ass kicked. After leaving Tucson, we stopped into see my friend Emily and her husband Mark in Phoenix, and we realized who's butts we saw being whupped. All through the city, trees were torn up by the roots or splintered to smithereens, windows were shattered, tall stone walls blown over. As I hugged them goodbye, the clouds darkened, thunder rolled in the distance; the weather was taking a deep breath to start again.

We are riding the leading edge of danger.

Friends of California, Oregon or Washington, beware. In the coming week you may find yourself caught up in horrible storms, mudslides, earthquakes or volcanoes--it is a very dangerous time to be friends with Steve or I. Perhaps you should take a break from that for a while, or just go on vacation somewhere else till long after we've passed. Or, maybe you should take it as a sign from God that you ought to flee your homes immediately and join us. After all, Steve and I have yet to be victims of any calamity. If you stay with us, you too can avert catastrophe. As Steve says, "We are the eye of the hurricane".

Anyway, besides discovering that we are two of the four horsemen of the apocolypse, we've been enjoying ourselves. The southwest is ridiculously beautiful, and our thirteen hour ride was actually extremely pleasant. Just set the cruise to 80 and hold the wheel straight for a very very very long time. Mountains, mesas, cacti and sunsets-- I cannot get bored of these things.

In Tucson we stayed with Steve's friend Jen and her boyfriend Elliot. It was funny, Jen was friends with all of my friends before I was their friend, and she left before I became their friend. Therefore, I'd heard all about her in stories told as if she were still there, but had never actually met her, she was just some mythic character in the saga of my friends. I found the real life incarnation of her to be super pleasant, she made really good beer and coffee, and thats really all I can ask of anybody. Also while in Tucson we went to the Titan Missile Museum, a decommisioned nuclear missile silo. It was really cool and somewhat frightening. Really cool in that the engineering and logistics going into this place is flawless, they thought of everything. I have never felt safer in my life than when I was in this silo. What was frightening was learning just how real the threat of complete annhilation was, and how extremely necessary all that engineering and logic was. The place was wired for Mutually Assured Destruction. We're going to hell all right, but Russia's riding shotgun.

We left Tucson and stopped by the Sonora Desert Museum, which was way cooler than I had expected. I kinda want to go back, the place was huge, and we only got through half of it in the few hours we spent there. Its sort of like a zoo, with all the animals you'd find in the desert put on display, all the kinds of cactus and agave and such too. But it was done so sooooo well, it didn't feel like a zoo at all, it felt like you were just walking around in the desert and seeing really cool things. I recommend it if you're ever near Tucson.

From there we rode the couple hours to see Emily and Mark in their new apartment in Phoenix, and were greeted with homemade jambalaya, beer and a record player. This is why I love Emily, she knows exactly what I need in life. We hung out with them for a few hours, toured downtown Phoenix briefly, took a group picture, and then we reluctantly left.

Six hours to San Diego. The Mexican border is 500 feet to our left. The sun is setting, but if we keep driving west, the day will last a little longer. I'm still technically a hobo, I have no job and no apartment meeting me at the end of this trip, but meh.















Friday, August 29, 2008

Day Seven: The West is the Best

Per Lauren's suggestion, we got breakfast at a great place called Taco Deli which does breakfast Tacos which are super delicious and really cheap! Yum. Tastes like Mexico... in a good way.

I have to admit, I was kind of dreading the drive through western Texas, hearing all sorts of awful things from alot of people, but I actually really loved it. It was a really interesting countryside with sweeping views almost the whole time. Terrain varried from grassland praries with really neat looking trees, to total desert, to rolling desert hills, to outright mountains in the western portion of the state. It was a long drive, but incredibly easy at 80 MPH and almost totally abandoned highways. We could see rain clouds about 10 miles ahead and scattered around us so we always knew what was coming up ahead. The ability to see several hundred square miles of weather at a given time was pretty unreal. There's really no need for the weather station if you can see the weather you're likely to get for the next hour or so in the distance.

Both me and Beth put in some pretty serious marathon-esque driving shifts. We had a super classy McDonalds dinner... because there was no other food for literally 70 miles in New Mexico. And then the fun started.

First of all, eastern AZ is gorgeous. Amazing rock formations, just super raw, powerful landscape. Desert on steroids. To add to that we were driving through this just at sunset, which was absolutely beautifully accenting everything around. About 2 hours before Tucson, we started seeing some distant Thunderstorms, which was pretty neat. As we got closer, they just got more and more intense. The last 90 minutes was a show put on by nature that I will never forget. Enormous bolts of lightning individually ripping probably 5 miles or more across the sky from cloud to cloud, every 10-15 seconds or so, with the gorgeous sunset backdrop. It was just about the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. The lightning wasn't even the normal blue tinge I am used to seeing, it was a brilliant white. Some earth shattering strikes to the ground within a mile or two of us were easily the biggest bolts I've ever seen in my life. We cranked some Riders on the Storm, Thunderstruck, and assorted epic music, and soaked it all up.

Got to Jen&Elliot's place, went out and grabbed some beers at the store, came back and chatted for a long time. I'm really enjoying catching up with so many people I haven't seen in forever and meeting new ones on the way. Heard news that New Orleans is possibly going to be evacuated on Saturday, so it seems we're leaving a somewhat literal wake of destruction in our path. Once we hit Portland, I fully expect California to fall into the ocean.

But yes, today was truly our first day in the American West. And I love it. Everytime I've been in the west I have really. It's so much bigger and more dramatic and powerful than the endless sprawling uber-burbs of the Northeast. The northwest is different I know, but I think I'm going to enjoy it just as much if not more.

Day Six: Don't Mess With Texas

There is so much fucking land in this country with NOTHING on it. Maybe they just stick it all next to the highways, but I have a feeling it only gets worse the further from them that you go. If you can't tell yet from this post... we've reached Texas. The drive out of NO was pretty wild though. There's about 100 miles of highway going west on I-10 out of NO that goes through swamp and is elevated the whole way, essentially a continuous bridge that goes on forever. It must have cost a goddamn fortune to build that thing, but its a pretty good road, so credit where credits due.

Got some great Texas BBQ at Willie Rays in Beaumont Texas as recommended by Beth's friend Nick who is from there. It was deeeelicious, authentic, affordable, and fast. Pretty much the perfect lunch stop. Next on to Austin via huge portions of Texas. We got into Austin and fought with the GPS to get us to a coffee shop. We then met my friend Lauren and chatted for a bit before heading out to grap some drinks and watch the famous Austin Bats. For those not in the know, Austin has the largest urban bat colony in the US(World?), and at sundown they all come out and swarm around the bridge. It was pretty neat to see, though I think it had been overhyped a little bit about how spectacular it was, but still a totally unique experience to see thousands of bats just endlessly streaming out of the bottom of this bridge.
Then we went to Stubbs, yes the one makes of that barbecue sauce you've probably seen in a store somewhere, which is also a great music club in addition to being a restaurant. We saw the Devil Makes Three who were absolutely excellent live. Tons of energy, lots of fun, great musicians all around. Might catch them in Tucson on Friday night as well, but don't know for sure. We shall see what the future holds.

Got back to Lauren's crashed on her futon pretty early, as we knew we had a super long drive ahead of us.

Day Five: Down South in New Orleans...

Started the long drive to New Orleans, first crappy driving weather of the trip, lots of right up till Mississippi. Crossed over an enormous (~10 mile???) bridge that goes east into New Orleans. the bridge reminded me alot of driving through the Florida Keys to Key West with Sarah last spring break.

Checked into the only hotel stay of the trip, a holiday inn, and hit the town. Initially in search of food, we instead found cigars made by the New Orleans Cigar Factory. I had the rum soaked one and Beth had a hennesey Cognac one. They were really quite excellent. We then continued our search for food, but were quickly accosted on Bourbon street and dragged into a bar with a great live blues/rock band playing lots of hendrix/black crowes/etc. covers, and playing them really well. We discovered the horrifyingly inexpensive drink specials of bourbon street, and had to tear ourselves away and get some food before things got too rowdy. We went and found a great and mostly affordable Cajun Restaurant Pierre Antoinnes I believe, on Royal st. and stuffed our face with delicious Cat/Crawfish and Gumbo. We moseyed over to some other bars afterwards and indulged in 3 for 1 drink specials (not even happy hour! putting a huge exclamation point on how crappy Boston's lack of drink specials is). Watched some above average but not great rock band, in a pretty cool place, then got some 'To-Go' cups for walking around and drinking. Got dragged into the Jazz Emporium, which was pretty lame. Left after about 5 minutes, avoiding the crazy guy who dragged us in on the way out.

Then, we made our way down to Fritzels. A German bar, which is the oldest jazz bar in the french quarter (or so they claimed). Within 10 seconds of walking in the door, I knew I was in the right place. The band was amazing. Playing beautiful, fun, and just all around excellent straight Jazz. Drums, Piano, Upright Bass, and Trumpet/Vocals. Got some hurricanes, New Orleans' famous drink, and just soaked up the music for hours. One of the best shows I've ever seen in my life that had no cover. With the night getting late we enjoyed the stroll through Bourbon street one last time, which for a random Tuesday night at the end of August was a ridiculously hopping party. Anyplace that has multiple stores in less than a 1 mile stretch where the name is: 'HUGE ASS BEERS TO GO!', has to be pretty good. And so it was. Sleep in a real bed was a much welcomed thing.

TO AUSTIN!

Day Four: Music City.

Had a nice relaxing morning, made some much needed phone calls and organized some of the later parts of the trip before going into town. We decided to hit up centennial park which was built primarily in the last decade of the 1800's for some sort of world's fair celebration type thing. It may have been the strangest park I've ever been to in my life. For starters, they have a life sized replica of the Parthenon which was just a really really bizarre thing to see in the middle of the South. Plopped down in the middle of this huge expanse of park, for seemingly no reason at all, to 'inspire the greatness of ancient greece in Nashville' or some baloney like that.

We kept wandering and found... with no explanation at all for its existence, a huge prow of a ship in the park, again plopped down, as if flung through the sky at random and just fell there and no one decided to move it since then. An enormous concrete piece of confusion. Also, there was a giant clam shell in the park (like 10 feet high). You get the idea... it was weird.

Tried to find some authentic Nashville cooking for lunch and failed miserably by winding up at a chain roadhouse, but the food was decent enough so whatever. Went to public library, local brewery, got ripped off for parking, other tourist crap etc etc.

Then went to Opry land to see the grand ole opry, which if you don't know is the place that housed the radio station(of the same name) that 'started' country music. It was extremely depressing. The building was torn down/rebuilt in the late 60s I believe (the original is known as Ryman Auditorium, which I have heard is still an amazing venue). What was once known as an impromptu free-wheeling relaxed good time featuring musicians like Johnny Cash, Flatt&Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Minnie Pearl, and countless other classic and excellent bluegrass/country/old-timey music, is now a huge commercial mega-stage with absolutely no soul, surrounded by huge malls and right next to Opryland, the largest hotel in the country. Evan had worked at Opryland as a caterer so gave us a bit of an insider's tour, which was pretty neat. The have indoor atriums that are practically jungles and everything is just enormous. It reminded me a bit of the Venetian hotel in Vegas, in that over the top, fake, touristy crap everywhere sense. Definately interesting to see, as well as a little depressing.

Next we dropped in on Beth's other friend from Rochester, Mike, who was having a birthday party that night and didn't know Beth was in town. It was a good surprise, and stayed at the party for a bit and met some pretty cool kids. Took the long drive back to Christiana with visions of N'awlins ahead...

Day Three: From Mountains to Music

Woke up early Sunday morning made some more jetboil oatmeal and found a good loop hike to do in the Northwest section of the Great Smoky Mountains. Ran along a really nice lush riverside and through some really gorgeous forest which was practically rainforest thickness at points. Finished the hike through 'Millionaires Row' which was a stretch of 1/2 mile or so where there were some really old houses that used to be vacation homes of local wealthy families in the area. It basically looked like a really gorgeous ghost town in the middle of a national park, a very strange juxtaposition for sure. Only saw one bear on this hike, and likely our last for a good while.

Hit the road after that, 5 hours to Nashville, or rather...Christiana, a small farm town outside of Nashville where Beth's friend Evan lives. We got took much needed showers caught up with emails and Went into the city and got a drink at a local watering hole, had some delicious Nashville BBQ Ribs, and checked out a local bluegrass jam later that night. Went home and chatted over scotch and went to bed, not in a tent for the first time of the trip!

Ride to Seattle: Episode 2c: Austin

Its an eight hour drive between New Orleans and Austin TX, and at least half of that is just driving through the swamp, miles and miles and miles of it. Its really pretty and strange looking, with dead tree stumps and snowy egrets poking out of the water everywhere. On the recommendation of my friend Nick who calls Texas home, we stopped in Beaumont TX for lunch at Willy Rays BBQ. It was some of the best BBQ I've ever had, Steve and I hardly spoke, just ate.

From there, straight on to Austin to Steve's friend Lauren's place. There are two main things to do in Austin for an out of towner I think. One is to go see some live music, and the other is to see the world's largest urban bat colony, conveniently located under a bridge overlooked by a TGI Fridays. The menu had bats on it, there were bat shaped cookies, and supposedly some building nearby is shaped like a bat when viewed from above. Yes, friends, Austin is bat town USA. The colony has about 4 million individuals in it, and every day at dusk they're supposed to shoot out from under the bridge like a huge black cloud shot out a cannon. We sat and ate some chips on the TGI friday patio and waited and waited and waited. Finally, long after the sun had set, we began to see handfuls of bats fly by, no more than 4 at a time. We walked to the bridge and looked over, and could see thousands of them swarming in a circle around the bridge posts, but as long as we had waited, there never was any cloud setting of for the hill country. We walked away disappointed, but we all agreed we had never seen more bats in our lives.

From there we walked to the world famous Stubbs BBQ and concert hall to see Devil Makes Three. You should look them up if you don't know them, I describe them as Country Death Music, and Steve describes them as Alcohol Soaked Americana. They look pretty much exactly as you'd expect from those descriptions. According to some source which I don't really believe, the three of them (2 guys, 1 girl) were orphans together, worked as carnies for a while with some traveling circus, and then learned to play music. Whether thats true or not, its looks like it COULD be true, which is what really matters anyway. They were really really good. We may see them again in Tucson.


Speaking of Tucson, we're currently en route there. Its a thirteen hour drive.


God help us.

Ride to Seattle: Episode 2b: New Orleans

Back to what I was saying, we left Tennesee and headed down through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, getting to New Orleans by the mid-afternoon. We drove across Lake Pontchrain, which is a HUGE bridge that is maybe ten miles across? Its enormous, I can't believe it withstood Katrina as well as it did. Or maybe it fell apart and they repaired it really quick. I'd be surprised if this was the case, as it became apparent that there really hasn't been a whole lot of effort to repair New Orleans. Yes, we stayed in the French Quarter, and yes, the French Quarter was doing just fine, but looking at the houses off the sides of the highways, or looking out our hotel window at the roofs of the buildings nearby, you could see the damage thats just been left to rot. Houses with the roofs caved in, mold eating away the wood, and where there isn't mold there's Kudzu, growing like a scab over the gaping holes in the houses. It's really pretty disheartening.

But we didn't stay in those places, we stayed in the French Quarter, and let me tell you about the French Quarter. We started out there early, walking around and checking things out, and it was all very tame, very family friendly at first. We bought cigars at a cigar factory where they were all hand-rolled, and then strolled around for a while. An indian man wearing a fake badge walked up to us and handed Steve and I citations: Steve for not smiling enough and me for being too pretty. Aw, shucks, mister. Then he demanded a ten dollar penalty from each of us as he handed us novelty hats. He said he was from Feed the Hungry. I told him I didn't have a job, and reluctantly handed my novelty hat back.

We were literally pushed into the next bar down the line, but there was a live band so we decided to stay and grab a beer. We were very surprised when the waitress came out with four beers after having only ordered two--it was buy one get one free on bud lights, which is something completely shocking to hear after having spent the last few years in puritanical Massachussetts. Imagine our shock, then, our horror, our utmost admiration when later in the night we discovered buy 1 get THREE specials. The french quarter is an excellent demonstration of how capitalism works in the consumers favor. All the bars offer the same selection, the same crowds, the same live music. The only thing they can change to compete with eachother is price. And good lord, the prices--the beer is practically given to you as you walk down the street, the to-go cups are endless and overflowing.

As the sun set, New Orleans showed its true colors. The doors that had been closed earlier in the evening were beginning to open, signs were put out. Every other shop is a burlesque, a cabaret, a strip club, advertising topless dancing, bottomless dancing, free porn, lingerie, toys-- there were families walking around with young children, I wanted to tell them to go back to their hotels, there was nothing for them here. The bar hawkers began to get more aggressive: As we walked down the middle of the street, a man rushed out, took my by the hand, dragged me into the nearest bar and sat me down at a stool, with Steve worriedly following behind. It was beginning to get insane. Still in all the bars we were pushed, pulled or lured into, we'd yet to find decent New Orleans jazz. It became a mission. Finally, having run the gauntlet of Bourbon street, we found a tiny german bar called Fritzel's, and there was playing an amazing three piece jazz outfit. We ordered hurricanes, and finally found some authenticity.

Ride to Seattle: Episode 2a: Nashville

We left Nashville tuesday morning, and were on the road by 8 am, heading for Alabama. The previous day we'd driven into the city to see the sights, and what sights did we see? A full scale replica of the Parthenon, a bow of a ship made out of concrete with steps leading up to it, and a sculpture of a giant clam-- all presented without further explanation or flare in Nashville's Centennial park. It was raining, so we headed to the bar and were drinking by 2pm. From there we checked out the new library, because why the hell not? It was huge and beautiful, but we couldn't use the internet without a library card, so it was a futile endeavor. We got back in the car and drove to Opryland, meeting up with Evan and his girlfriend Jesse there.

Opryland is the country's largest hotel without a casino attached, and ostensibly it exists because of its proximity to the Grand Ol' Opry, but the hotel has long sinced surpassed the Opry as an attraction in its own right. The Grand Ol' Opry is a structure built to commemorate the original Grand Ol' Opry, which was a radio show that featured the hottest country acts of the day (Johnny Cash, June Carter, Hank Williams, Emmylou Harris, etc) and from the photographs in the museum, back in the day it looked pretty damn fun. Today the Grand Ol' Opry is a tacky looking auditorium that advertises its gift shop more than its acts, charges 15 dollars for tours (no way in hell I paid that) and hosts such shitty acts as Big n' Rich. For ultimate consumer gratification, there is a large Mall of America style mall directly adjacent to the Opry, called The Opryland Mall. The way the place is arranged, it looks like the mall was put there first, and then the Opry auditorium was added off to the side as an afterthought, as a way to draw in patriotic country-loving suckers.

Maybe I'm being harsh. I don't know why I care. I don't even like country music.

Anyway, the Opryland hotel was pretty neat, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Ride to Seattle: Episode 1

Well, we left Boston on Friday, a day earlier than we'd discussed, vetted, voted and planned. We'd packed the car thursday night, expecting some sort of packing issues that would require some 3D tetris-style maneuvering all day friday, followed by some hard decisions about what should and should not be brought. However, 30 minutes after we started, all of our stuff fit perfectly, and we could even see out the back window. We tried to think of reasons to stay in Boston friday, but couldn't think of any good reasons to stay besides trying to say goodbye to a ton of different people, and that just sounded like more work than anything else. Trying to see someone, spending a few minutes with them and then taking off to see someone else-- it's not quality time, its not a quality good bye, and it doesn't represent the friendship very well, y'know? You're not a friend, you're an item on my itinerary. Things like that make me feel like a jerk, so my solution is always not to do it, which might make me an even bigger jerk, I'm not sure.

So we went to the bar and saw a whole lot of people that I hadn't seen in a very very long time and drank and sang loud songs. Colleen bought me two beers at the same time and tried to lure us into staying friday with promises of fresh baked cookies and more beer. Another friend tried to get us to stay till saturday afternoon so we could participate in a neighborhood-wide water pistol fight, but Steve and I, we are two rolling stones, baby. This bird you cannot chain, etcetera. We left friday morning.

We drove down through horrible traffic in NY, NJ and Delaware (Such big traffic for such a little state!!) and grabbed dinner at a shopping mall in some suburb of DC with Steve's friend. Steve had been working for Dept of Homeland Security, and his friend was working for Dept of Defense. I felt like such a Washington insider. Did you know Julia Childs was a spy? Apparently she was, and threatened to tear the nuts off some poor DoD employees unless she got some codebook. Or something like that.

We kept driving to Shenandoah Nat'l park and got there after the sun had set. It had been a 12 hour day, so we set up the tent and went to sleep. The next morning we woke up and went on a quick 5.5 mile hike. The trail didn't seem like a big deal, just a little loop near the campgrounds, but we saw THREE bears, and heard others in just that little duration. Granted, they were baby bears climbing in trees and near brooks, but baby bears--they don't travel alone. We hoped we weren't between them and their momma, so we clapped loudly and sang songs like 'Someone's in the kitchen with Dina', but changed the lyrics to 'There's a bear over there oh my God, there's a bear over there I kno-o-o-ow, there's a bear over there oh my God, please don't eat my face!'

From there we traveled south to Asheville NC where we stopped in Asheville Pizza and Brewing Co for dinner, which was mighty tasty. We then drove west to the Smoky mountains. They really are beautiful. We saw a herd of elk on our way into the park-- they are huge!! I thought they were moose with no antlers at first. We kept on into the park and set up camp with the sun still up. We started a fire, broke out my flask of whiskey and a guitar and settled in for the night. The next morning we went on another 5 mile hike, which was very easy and nice, and saw another much larger bear. They really don't seem all that scary, although apparently they'll charge from time to time. I would probably pee myself. The last mile or so of the hike was just rows and rows of old abandoned houses in the middle of the woods where old timey millionaires had their vacation homes. It was cool, like being in a ghost town.

From there it was a quick 4 hour drive to Nashville, where I am presently. Well, not exactly Nashville, we're in Christiana TN, 45 minutes away. We're staying with my friend Evan, who within the last two months decided to rent an old farmhouse in the Tennesee country side. Its a really nice place. We drove into Nashy for dinner at a sweet BBQ joint, hung out at a bar and then went to a bluegrass jam for a little bit before heading home. Today, we're just gonna hang out in Nashtown, maybe go to the Grand Ol' Opry, and then crash my friend Mike's bday party. I don't think he knows I'm here.

Surprise?!


To be continued!
Ride to Seattle: Episode 2: New Orleans!

Day 2: The Bear Necessities

...of life will come to you.

Breakfast was a hearty serving of oatmeal du jetboil. Broke camp fast and went to talk with a ranger about our planned hike. We got our map, and hit the trail.

About an hour in to the hike, chit-chatting and passing time without being particularly aware of our surroundings, we heard movement off to our right about 500 feet. Big movement. My eyes then registered two brown bear cubs about 3 feet long, 50-75 pounds maybe, jump from at least 10 feet out of a tree onto the forest floor.

Beth had never seen a bear before, and me never from outside the safety of a car. It was quite a jolt, probably for the bears as well, and an immediate awakening for both of us. Coffee is nothing compared to unexpectedly realizing that you are within a stones throw of likely 3 bears. We immediately began clapping and singing songs about friendly bears very loudly. And we were mercifully not torn limb from limb, for which we were very thankful. About 40 minutes later we heard another one farther away to our left dart through the bushes, away from us(resume clapping, singing). And even once more, about 20 minutes later, after just crossing a river, Beth saw one again on the river that heard us and darted away again.

With about 1/2 mile left on our 6 mile hike, we encountered our first person of the hike. When we told him to be aware of bears, he asked us if they had charged us, as if it was no big deal at all. When we said no, he seemed unimpressed, and shrugged it off, as if he gets charged on a weekly basis by 700 pound mammals and thinks nothing of it.
For those of you that don't know, here's the general procedure for not getting killed by bears:
1) Make alot of noise, they do not want to interact with you anymore than you do them, and have very good hearing, so they will go away as soon as they hear you coming. Only real danger is surprising them or getting between cubs & mama.
2)If the bear sees you, stand very tall and try to look big. Do not yell, but you can talk very loudly and calmly. Wait for the bear to lose interest and go away.
3)If the bear is upset with you, they often will charge you. 95% of the time, they will veer off a few feet before reaching you. You must remain still, look big, and basically do nothing except pray to everything you can think of that would listen.
4) If you are actually struck down by the bear, play dead. Hopefully all you have to do is play, not become. There is basically nothing else you can do.

Luckily we never had to go past part 1.

So we made it back alive with some good stories and more or less completely out of things to say since we had just used up about every story we could think of along the 2+ hour hike to make sure that the bears could hear us. We loaded up our faithful steed, Black Betty. Dialed in Asheville, NC Pizza and Brewing Co. , turned the bluegrass up to 11, and headed south.

Traffic was thankfully a thing of the past.

Good beer, good pizza in Asheville, headed into the Great Smoky Mountains Took in the usual cheesy touristy signs that accompany small towns on the outskirts of just about every national park in the country. (MOST PHOTOGRAPHED VIEW EVER HERE! BEST CAMPGROUND IN THE SMOKIES HERE! etc.). Enjoyed the drive and views as the sun slipped over the horizon. Set up camp in Smokemont campgrounds, which was almost empty. Got some firewood from a real friendly and real southern campground employee. Got a good blazing fire going and whipped out the bourbon and the Gee-tar and jammed for awhile until exhaustion once again took over.

Day 1: Counting the Cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

As Thursday night wound down with the car fully packed, good friends properly and drunkenly said goodbye to, and basically no reason not to, we made the decision to leave a day early on our trip. Friday morning, we would attack.

While at Stop & Shop the next morning gathering essential nourishment and thinking we were seconds from hitting the road, I discovered two important things. I forgot to close my tab at the Squealing Pig at the night before, and we definitely did not remember to put my bike on the car that morning.

The bike was easily remedied, the credit card, not so much at 8am on a Friday. Luckily Jared was able to pick it up a day later, and probably charge a few drinks to my card for good measure. Me and VISA will rendezvous in Austin again it seems.

The drive was deceptively smooth right into NYC, creating illusions of getting into Shenandoah National Park by 5PM. Or so said our fearless and often stupid navigator, Sally Nuvi. The GW Bridge, New Jersey Turnpike, and whatever the fuck Delaware is doing with its highways, had a very different idea.

Everyone hates New Jersey.

While Beth was driving through Baltimore, I fought with an impossibly stupid person from recreation.gov on the phone who was charged with the simple task of finding us a campsite that night. The issue made all the more difficult by her endlessly appologetic and generally pleasant demeanor, as I could not rally the energy to actually become upset with her. She assured us that every single non group campsite was completely booked that night, and the same at Great Smoky Mountains for the next night as well. After trying to explain to her how to use her own website, I conceded defeat, hung up, and decided to just show up and see what happens. Of course, at both places, both campgrounds were less than 50% occupied.

We met Jeremy, my good friend from high school for dinner just outside the DC beltway, at the Gordon Biersch brew co. Our first of many breweries to be sure. Said hi and bye to our first friendly face of the trip, and moved on south to the park.

We arrived, after 20 miles of night driving on a windy national park road, and found a spot with ease, set up camp, and immediately passed out, wondering what America has in store for us, and us for her, in the days and weeks to come.