Okay, so FINALLY, I am posting my Honeymoon story, yes, over a month after getting back…
Oh, and since I’m too busy running around to post some pictures, you can see many pics on Blair’s Facebook Account: http://tinyurl.com/blair-facebook-08 (you need a facebook account, but they’re FREE!!!)
Blair and Rich’s Honeymoon
-or-
There’s So Much Beauty in this Big Dumb Country of Ours.
Disclaimer 1: I want to say for the record, this sums up a month in a short amount of space, and as I write, I notice a lot of it mentions drinking- let me explain: we tended to TRY beer more than get rounds and rounds of us, and much time passed between drinks and other activities- we never drove drunk, or even buzzed. Believe me, I’ve seen what drunk driving can do to ruin someone’s life. That, and the lifestyle of a honeymooning couple is not our normal day-to-day lifestyle, remember that we spent the last 2 years prior to this in a vegetarian religious institution!
Disclaimer 2: Blair noted that I switch tense and generally don’t have the best grammar for this. I just wanted to cobble a story together from a month’s worth of notes. I promise to be better editorially when I’m doing professional stuff or being graded. I swear.
We started are honeymoon with a bit of a stagger, rather than leaving straight from the reception, we stayed one last night at Dharma Rain, our spiritual home, but also our physical address for the last 2 years. Blair especially was overcome with emotion as we left this portion of our lives to start a new one.
We had breakfast with our families at Wild Abandon, and drove south to Breitenbush Hot Springs, a natural hot springs resort east of Salem, OR. It’s completely off the grid, features amazing meals, and is a place we’ve both been a number of times. In fact, at dinner, we ran into another couple we met years before at a retreat; Jacob and Bridgette. They themselves were on their own honeymoon, having gotten married just a day before us! Slightly more impressive to see them there, since they were from Michigan. We discussed how we met at a retreat led by a guy named Elias, who was no longer working at Breitenbush. Ironically, we immediately saw him anyway; he was there for a few weeks.
Jacob and Bridgette invited us back to their cabin for a sampling of their homemade mead (Including ginger mead and hops mead), and send us away with a growler filled with one of their selections. Good omens for a good honeymoon.
Elias showed us a good place near Breitenbush to see the Perseids meteor shower-which we normally drive to the Columbia Gorge to see, but had the extra opportunity of being completely far into the woods for this year. We saw eyes reflecting our flashlights and realized we were near a herd of deer. After seeing a few meteors, we left, as lying in the grass meant getting eaten by bugs. We had a better time on the bridge over the Breitenbush River, but still retired a lot earlier than we would if it was just a meteor night.
Tuesday we awoke, spent most of the day at Breitenbush, and left after lunch. Elias made Blair a special lunch for here specific diet concerns (no tomato, etc). We had no specific plan for Tuesday after that, and drove south along the coast. Realized the problem with such a large trip is that we’d miss details along the way, since tight scheduling meant we’d have to drive past some scenery in the dark. We ate dinner at a strange German/ Seafood themed place with a lot more vegetarian food.They even started us with free beer samples. After driving by the first dinosaur park (which was closed at 10am and not important enough to camp out for) we stayed at the least overpriced motel in Brookings.
Wed, Aug 13. We wake up and start driving, stopping for breakfast at a diner on the Klamath Reservation. The Oregon Coast is typically hiding its beauty under fog. The fog burns off as we get closer to the Redwood Forest. We drive through the famed “Avenue of the Giants” which is dotted with amazing sites. After I ask about the tree you can drive through. I’m told that the closer tree is not as impressive as the tree a half hour drive away, but I decide to drive through both, because that way I’d have a standard of comparison of what a “good tree to drive through” really is. In addition to many large chainsaw sculptures of bears and the like carved from huge logs, we find many tree houses- not children’s forts in tree branches, but actual houses carved from single trees. Some one-roomers in still living trees, others like a trailer carved from a felled tree. Blair keeps remarking that each tree house is more of a tree house than the last.
We drive slightly out of the way to have lunch at the Ukiah brewery, which is excellent. They keep filling our water because it is now HOT out. They also have wireless internet, which is nice since we hadn’t quite gotten used to being “unplugged” yet.. However, they didn’t know wireless internet is nicknamed “WIFI”, so there was some initial confusion.
We arrive in Sacramento. I had stayed in Sacramento before, with a friend who has since moved away. The city is less visitor friendly without a guide- or perhaps has gotten less fun. We stay at the beautiful Sacramento Hostel, but are disappointed by it since the Oregon Hostels we know are like staying with friends, where this is like a fancy hotel with certain compromises. It was nice, but not worth repeating. We went to the Pyramid brewery and got a sampler tray. The kitchen was closed, but the bartender took pity on our tales of long drives and sparse food choices downtown and gave us free soup.
We then stumbled upon some very impressive public art and wound up at Capitol Grill, which did have late night food (irony!) and sold packaged food we bought for breakfast. We had some amazing cocktails and desserts. Sitting outside, we realized we were in a high traffic path for spare changing folk who had the theory that the longer their story was, the more likely you’d give. I did have some thoughts about me and my fancy drink refusing to give a beggar money, but the tactics and vibe turned me off a bit. After I saw the pattern, I simply said to the next guy, “no thank you” as he approached. He laughed and went to the next table saying, “My man said ‘no thank you’!”
Thurs, Aug 14. We eat our breakfast from last night and drive through a surprising amount of wooded scenery. Pollock Pines, CA has the largest vegan grocery we’ve ever seen. Beginning to understand stereotypes of CA better. We had lunch in Bridgeport at a “sweet little restaurant” (-Blair) that had a number of veggie options and apparently locally raised chicken. As we were leaving, we realized the place was a biker bar! Drove by Mono Lake, which has tufa deposits, and many signs saying that there were tufa deposits. Looking it up later, we learn this means there are calcium carbonate deposits that tend to look interesting.
Driving through Death Valley is much more scenic and enjoyable than we’d expect. We did it partially to say we did and partially for short distance, but the Valley was beautiful, and the driving was hilly enough to rival a rollercoaster, without being too hazardous. Mountains in the distance, trees that looked like Dr. Seuss drew them, actual sand dunes. At the bottom are a seemingly closed hotel and a convenience store and gift shop, which is shockingly reasonably priced. We do buy water since the free water fountain is hot enough to burn when touched; both pipewise and waterwise. The thermometer reads 120 degrees, probably the hottest temperature we’ve personally experienced. But it’s a dry heat. Driving out you can almost see back in time looking at rock striations. The water is the best tasting water we’ve ever had.
We get to Vegas, get to Binion’s and shower. Binion’s is the most reasonable place on the Fremont Street Experience, which is a miniature and Disneyfied version of the Las Vegas Strip. It’s a combination of a downtown street and a shopping mall. The sky has literally been replaced by a series of lights that do animated shows.
We meet F. Andrew Taylor, older brother of my old friend Jef Taylor, for dinner. Andrew suggests the “place with the giant beer” at one end of the Experience. Seeing a 10-foot lamp and a 10-foot martini glass, we look for a 10-foot beer until we realize we’re next to a 5-story beer. Dinner is excellent, but pricey. The days of the almost free dinners in Vegas had gone, Andrew explains, with the arrival of families and Wolfgang Puck. Andrew takes us to see hidden Vegas sites, such as a huge, almost hand shaped gold nugget on display in one casino, and a stretch of the Berlin wall in another. The Berlin Wall is serving as the wall that Urinals are installed on in the men’s room. No fooling. Along the way, we see assorted carnivalesque things, such as a metal ball/ cage where up to 3 men ride motorcycles in circles and upside down.
Friday, Aug 15. We wake up and eat at the Buffet. This was a point of contention, but I feel an important part of experiencing Vegas. An attempt to drive around the strip is foiled by way too much traffic and heat. The Hoover Dam, while scenic and cool in it’s way, is a horrible way huh? to have an interstate route.
We drive through a thunderstorm so ominous, it looks like Armageddon is upon us. We stop in Williams, AZ, a small town clearly influenced by being a gateway to the Grand Canyon. We find its brewpub and enjoy another sample tray. We pull into the Grand Canyon just in time to set up camp before dark. The rim of the Grand Canyon is actually a town of sorts. It has grocery stores and the like. Basically, you can drive in with no supplies and with enough money camp comfortably. (Granted hiking INTO the Canyon is another story.) We buy some corn and roast it over the fire, and cook beans and have tacos as well. We sleep as the thunderstorm comes.
Saturday, Aug 16. We wake to find our sturdy tent has survived just fine, but that a small river has formed under it. Seriously. Not just that there’s water, but that there is a sizable creek in the middle of where we pitched the tent. Ironically, if anything, making the hard dirt into mud gave us a better sleep. Dry and getting sunny now, we take the time to organize the van, we packed for the trip under chaos and duress and were now able to fine tune what needed to be where. We headed to the rim, and planned to hike along it for about 4 hours, then return. We were able to hike along the entire rim trail in less than 2 hours. We say “wow” a number of times, and hike down into the canyon for a few hours. We decide to play safe as we notice that the further down we go, the more exhausted people are, and that people in much better shape are sweaty and puffing.
We took many pictures. I have some pictures of Blair looking like she’s somewhere dangerous but is just standing, and some pictures of Blair defying death, but these look safe. Blair uses her rock climbing shoes to climb some formations most wouldn’t dare, and a Japanese tourist takes pictures of her. Blair poses. Blair then comes down when she realizes she’s giving teenagers bad ideas.
We stop for cocktails because I feel the need to take advantage of the numerous bars along the edge. I take a picture of Blair at the Canyon’s edge, and turn around to take a picture of a guy on his cell phone on the pristine lawn of a building that looks like a college campus. We also stop in many of the other attractions, such as mini museums about the Great Depression and CCC, and how they made the Canyon into a park. Thunderstorms come and go, but we are dry enough to cook veggie dogs and more corn.
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Most of the people here are from other countries- staff and visitors both. Most of them are French. We hear Spanish, Russian, Hindi and Japanese spoken, as well as British accents. Perhaps most Americans knew that it was freakin’ MONSOON SEASON here, or perhaps it’s like how nobody visits the tourist sites in their own town. Another hike is stopped by a downpour, so we drive to the town on the outskirts of the park and go to, of all places, a Carvel. We return to the park to get showers. The showers cost money, but not much. We meet to find that each of us attempted to make full use of the allotted 8 minutes, only that 8 minutes is actually a lot of time to wash yourself.
Sunday, Aug 17. We wake at 5am and break camp. We get to the Rim just as the sun has risen, only to see it hide behind a cloud briefly and re-rise. We hit the road; I pull over at the Meteor Crater Park. Blair had fallen asleep and is confused by the situation. The other visitors all seem to be French bikers and South Asian Buddhist Monks. As we continue to drive, I see assorted dinosaurs at gas stations. One station had two raptors that were really well done, another had a series of dinosaurs that were animated, but looked like they were based on kid’s drawings.
We pull into Flagstaff to eat breakfast. Without trying, I find the place I ate breakfast at the last time I was in Flagstaff, some 7 or so years ago. Great place, friendly army of hipsters for staff. Blair enjoys the locally smoked trout but not much else; I enjoy the meal in earnest.
Driving through New Mexico scenery, we stop in Albuquerque for lunch. Desert cities are very sprawly, so we’re guessing where to go. A summer Sunday before school’s back in session makes the city look like a ghost town, the only people are public art; few actual humans in sight. La Isla restaurant, on Bridge Blvd, just west of Rio Grande, seemed named for an island in said river. Mexican so authentic, they don’t need to say they are. Live music, amazing food, and I was expecting to have to order in my broken public school Spanish. (Nope, while everyone else spoke Spanish to each other, the staff was fluent in English). Having eaten, we like the city more. Blair writes…
“1) Brightly colored Civic everything; bus stops, highways, etc. 2) Tons of pretty murals 3) The Rio Grande is given space to breathe: a block on either side is undeveloped and people are swimming in it. 4) La Isla…”
We realize that thunderstorms happen when Blair drives. Stopping for gas, Blair is almost blown away. NM motels advertise $20 rates, but we’re nowhere near a full day’s drive yet. We finally stop in Childress, TX where we do find a reasonable place.
Monday, Aug 18. Wake up, it’s still raining. The Weather Channel informs us that pretty much every state South of Iowa is raining. Some parts of the Grand Canyon have been evacuated, and the people interviewed on TV are, of course, French Tourists. We leave, driving past signs that say “Quamah-where FUHA lives”, “Rifle Range Road”, and “Valley Pecans, Dang Good!” Instead of rest stops, Texas highways are lined with picnic areas. This would be nice if we had nice weather, a packed meal, and no need for bathrooms or water. Wichita Falls is a sizable city, but looks broken down. We cannot for the lives of us find an open breakfast place …or anyplace to eat at all at 8:30am on a Monday, just crazy murals. We do have a dog run out from a yard in FRONT of the car, bark at us, and chase us at 30mph for a while. Out of town, we see Camels, standing in a pen in the rain. Still no restaurants after hours of searching, but plenty of XXX stores.
Finally, a gas station has a diner attached to it; it’s labeled simply as “Cafe”. A mostly toothless woman takes our orders. We shy away from what might be burritos but are described as ingredients, “wrapped in white thing.” The rest of the menu is written in Mark Twain style southern accent writing. Each of our breakfasts takes 3 plates to deliver, when they say “big Tex plate”, they ain’t kidding.
Getting into Louisiana, we see the bayou and billboards reading, “I likes Da Ribs” and “What do 80,000 Louisianans have in common? Hepatitis C.” We pass a massive Pipe being carried on a truck, followed by the standard “Wide Load” signs and a police escort. Blair is interested enough to take pictures, and I am happy this doesn’t lead to us being arrested for national security concerns. It does seem like most of Louisiana is built on water. We get to the O’Keefe Plaza Hotel, a scant 5 blocks from the French Quarter- just enough of a walk to save quite a bit on rates. We get a really amazing dinner, but it makes me realize I’m allergic to fish that eat food I’m allergic too, and shellfish fed catfish leads to feeling off. We do see a tacky blues band led by a huge, HUGE black man in a red pin striped suit, playing off a number of old fat blues guys stereotypes. Next is a classy European style jazz band. Next is sleep.
Tues, Aug 19. We wake and head back into the ‘Quarter, and have obligatory coffee and beignets (a kind of donut covered in powered sugar) for breakfast at Cafe Du Monde. We find a gallery where one artist has an amazing array of paintings of fantasy tree houses- such as a pirate ship with two trees for masts. The owner, from Montana, chats with us and helps us find Hot Chocolate, the erotic cake bakery my friend Erin owns. Fortunately, it’s a block away. Unfortunately, it’s closed the exact part of the week we’re in town. We got the famous alcoholic slurpees, and found another gallery where the white co-owner is related by marriage to the Balinese craftspeople whose work he sells. He tells us stories about Vegas and Blair buys a small Buddha statue, which is the ideal one she’s been looking for for years. Lunch was at the Market Cafe, great food and live music.
Hearing some sort of strange Calliope music, we wandered towards the river, where we realized that a steamboat was being played as a musical instrument. Then we went to a huge record store where Blair got a CD collection of Mississippi Fred McDowell. Blair then went to use a bathroom when a downpour came down and caused everyone to scatter and briefly lose each other. Blair wound up at the “New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park”, and I wound up at a tourist info place where I learned the state of various Voodoo places- including how the least touristy and most sincere one has closed. We popped into Hot Chocolate, which was technically closed but Derrick was physically there.
Next stop was the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum. I had been there before, but not since I’ve gotten as involved in my own spiritual practice as much. Not long after, we came to a very sincere Voodoo store where the owner gave us a number of free things for a friend we asked about. (Just a note, neither of us practice or are into Voodoo, but we’ve seen how serious Voodoo is as logical a practice as many others, and not all about sticking pins into dolls.)
Blair was feeling sick towards the evening, so she stuck around the hotel. She sent me out to have fun in her absence. I bought her some treats, a “game over” T-shirt with a bride and groom, and some “wake the fuck up” brand coffee. I tried both a Hurricane and a Hand Grenade. Neither was all that great, and the Hand Grenade was just plain bad. I did also have some standard yummy pina coladas.
Wed., Aug 20. Blair had a free continental breakfast with grits. I slept in, and fell back asleep again as soon as I got into the car.
Blair drove us out of town and we stopped and had an awesome meal at Waffle House. To do this justice, let me stop and make a point about bacon. I’ve said before that food in Portland is either vegan or has bacon. Friends of mine have made long standard jokes about how bacon is the starter meat. And the deal with this trip, is that after years of being a vegan-leaning vegetarian and trying to eat healthy in certain parts of the country, we agreed we’d eat based on what was presented and seemed like it would taste good. So, when the waitress asked “sausage or bacon” and I said “bacon”, she asked “chewy or crispy?” I almost said “God Bless You.” But I said crispy.
When we were in a Florida rest stop, I saw lizards. Otherwise, we mostly saw trees and road.
We got to Savannah late. We stayed at a Pension, sort of a half-step fancier than a Hostel. The manager strangely had a Brooklyn accent. Apparently, he had just started running the place and hadn’t really set it up to the way it was- we actually wound up staying alone in a big bed surrounded by bunks. We went out to find food and came randomly across a place advertising itself as “Savannah’s Only Late-Night Kitchen!” within a few minutes. They have rye beer, rum drinks named after Blackbeard, and transformer-themed cocktails with mystery ingredients. We wished we had more chances to return. We played a game of pool and headed to Tybee Island.
Okay, to explain Tybee Island, Blair has been telling me about Tybee Island for years, since we met. She misremembered it as being right next to Savannah, not a 45 minute drive. Since she had been there, the Island has been greatly developed. And most importantly, when she was last there, 6 years ago, the beach was renown for having phosphorescent microorganisms in the sand, so when you step on the sand, it would glow. So, after years of telling me this, we take longer than expected to get there, take longer than expected to find the beach, and then it didn’t glow. Frustrated, we retreat to the Pension and sleep.
Thursday, 8/21. Wake up and explore the historic district, including the historic cemetery. A downpour comes and we retreat to the downtown art square kind of place for cover. We have a fancy cafe lunch: I eat blackened grouper. One gallery is filled with Big Lebowski themed art. We stop at the Moon River brewpub and have a number of delicious samples. We hid from rain in “Africa in Savannah” which was filled with cool African art. As we’re about to leave, we see they also sell umbrellas, and get a nice one for two. Another store has lots of amazing Asian art, much of which is more unique than the sort of stuff we see in most places like that.
Blair had been discussing how much she wanted to walk around Savannah, and it took me until I actually was there to understand why. It’s like New Orleans’ clean sibling, lots of amazing architecture. I found a spiral seashell randomly on the sidewalk. A crosswalk speaks, saying, “Wait….wait…wait…” I start using this to sing the YeahYeahYeahs song, “Maps”, which goes “Wait…they don’t love you like I love you.” After the third time I say “they don’t love you like I love you”, a guy walks into the street from a doorway, points to me and says, “That’s a funny guy”.
Driving north, we pass through Georgetown and dub it the New Jersey of the South. Just south of Myrtle Beach, we see an Art Co-op. We can tell it’s an art-related place, because it had the word “ART” in bigger than human sized letters. They were just closing, but the guy there was kind enough to reopen for us. There were amazing driftwood sculptures- live sized animals made with minimally (if at all) carved wood. Blair brought a print of a fish- done in an obscure method of actually printing with fish.
Myrtle Beach. Hmm. Myrtle Beach, SC is what all of America would be like if Capitalists were just honest. Almost every surf shop had a shark mouth for a door, some with just heads, some with huge shark bodies. We saw at least 3 life-sized pirate ships, dinosaurs, volcanoes…every seafood place had a giant crab. Every other block had a mini golf place, and you could tell the center of town, because the mini golf places got bigger and more spectacular, until finally at the center was “MINOTAUR GOFF”, which was a 4 story volcano. Many other places had waterfalls, some died blue so, I guess…you could tell it was water. One place called “Droopy’s” which had a logo of a cartoon dog that also looked like female genitalia. Mayday Body Piercing had a life-sized plane set up to look like it crashed into it.
Many eateries advertised 120 item buffets, that number seeming important. We ate at Seafarer, where Blair was actually stopped in her tracks of overstimulation: even after New Orleans, Burning Man and Vegas. The first thing you see is the “Mermaid”: a local teen girl in bikini and fake tail, sitting in a shallow pool. The staff are all dressed in decent pirate outfits. The walls are lined with nautical stuff. Pirate dioramas abound, including one with fake cannons that fire. The buffet itself was in a real, 20 foot or so, boat.
The beach itself is amazing, but hardly populated compared to the stores. Finally, we make it through and get to Wilmington, NC, hang out with Emily and Chris, and sleep. They have a nice big place, and we get our own room and big bed.
Friday, 8/22. We sleep in! We have nowhere we have to be! We have breakfast at Salt Works, amazing Southern Hospitality place, where hushpuppies are free, and cherry cobbler is considered a side. Brains were on the menu.
We go downtown and have samples at Front St. Brewery. We shop at nifty little shops, and Blair buys green shoes for $2. We go swim in the Ocean, which is mostly playing in waves. Blair lost her earrings in the surf, but was excited to get new ones. We return downtown and have sushi with Emily and Chris, and Blair gets new earrings at a piercing place called Hardwire. Hardwire is toted as the biggest piercing shop (also a tattoo parlor) on the East Coast, but is just okay by Portland standards.
The highlight of the evening was the first of a monthly series of mini-W.E.Fests put on my friend Kenyata. W.E.Fest is normally a weeklong music festival around Memorial Day. In this case, it’s a warehouse-type club where for one dollar; one could see the punk and metal bands in the basement, the pop rock on the main floor, dance to the DJ spinning Motown and 70’s on the 2nd floor, indie rock and singer-songwriters on the 3rd floor. We end the night at another Waffle House. Waffle House on a Friday night in a kind of hick town where the college students just returned is interesting; there were 3 cops on duty. One of the cops was pretty much acting like a doorman.
Sat., Aug 23. We slept in late again, and then went for a quick swim at the beach. The waves were really intense, and when I got home to shower a good pint’s worth of sand came out of my bathing suit. We ate at the famous Flaming Amy’s burrito barn, noted for an enviable salsa bar. Amy’s is across from the Wilmington Health Access for Teens building, which meant we were across from a building marked simply as “what”.
We searched for the famed Whirligig Park in middle-of-nowhere North Carolina. This is a public art park in one of those places so rural it wasn’t even in a town; the directions just said which towns it was near (“near Lucama, NC”). One town had many houses and farms, but seemingly only one business- a gas station and mini mart. The employee spoke hardly any English, but the well-spoken local, who had a remarkably well done deer tattoo, suggested we ask directions in the next town, since it was much bigger. He had seen the whirligigs himself, but couldn’t recall the directions, as they where “way out in the country.” The next town being “Much bigger” meant TWO stores and a restaurant. The waitress there knew nothing, but asked the 4 patrons. A tiny, elderly woman exclaimed that she “ain’t never seen no whirligigs”. The others knew what we were talking about, but again, they “were way out in the country.” One gentleman suggested some directions, but made no guarantee if he was recollecting correctly. Following his directions, we wound up close enough to the highway to give up on this mission?, having spent many hours driving around tobacco farms.
We get into Charlottesville late and meet up with former Ben Jones. Former Ben Jones was named Ben Jones and changed his name to John Broderick Jones, however, his friends noticed he didn’t turn when you shouted that, so kept calling him benjones ™, or sometimes just “jones”. Blair called him former Ben Jones, and I just called him assorted insults. We ate, drank and made merry, then retired to fbj’s house to watch the American Astronaut and cartoons.
Sunday, Aug 24. Today is the day that many of my long trips involve, the day of hanging out with benjones ™ at some point and watching cartoons all day. We did eat an amazing breakfast at Blue Moon Diner, and later have dinner with benjones and James’ friends; amazing nachos and burritos served by a telepathic waitress who enjoyed pushing amazingly crafted margaritas. Mostly, we stayed home and watched stuff, notably the Don Herzfeld collection.
Monday, Aug 25. We ate breakfast at one of those Southern Diners where 3 people get stuffed for $15. Then we drove to Natural Bridge. Natural Bridge, as one would imagine, is named for a rock formation that looks like a bridge over a valley. A great tourist industry grew around this, and much of it involves Mark Cline. We forsook the expensive admissions to the Natural Bridge, but did go to the toy museum, which was equal parts historically informative and equal parts, “Hey! I had that! But it broke/ got lost when…”
Mark Cline is a man who is responsible for many great fiberglass sculptures in the South. Not sure how many, as they tend not be signed. But, in Natural Bridge alone, he created Foamhenge, the life-sized Stonehenge recreation made of Styrofoam; a more-creative-than-usual haunted house; and “Escape from Dinosaur Kingdom”, which was a recreation of a civil war battle where Northern Soldiers attempted to use dinosaurs to invade the South. Dinosaurs know no loyalty and ate the Northern Soldiers. Hilarity ensues.
We stop on the way home at the most stereotypically 50’s diner ever: the pink Cadillac Diner, which had not only said car in front, but a Cline-ish looking King Kong and Humpty Dumpty. I ate a foot long fish stick sandwich. Back ‘home’ we watched “Fishing with John” and “the State” episodes and slept.
Tuesday, Aug 26. Blair insisted on another Waffle House trip before we left the South. Granted, there are a few in Maryland, but it’s not the same. We go to the amazing Luray Caverns and a amusing, but low-quality dinosaur park. We eat our one disappointing meal of the trip at a Shoney’s buffet. We arrive in DC at the former Squished Penny Museum, chat with Pete and Christine and their cats, and go to sleep.
Wed., Aug 27. We wake to learn our car was broken into. They stole Blair’s CD case, I think because it looked like a laptop case. Nothing else was stolen, despite several stealable things if someone bothered to move an object or too once they were inside. Great amounts of frustration ensue since Pete, Christine and I all assured the area was safe and crime-free the night before, but we later learn from a local street character that someone specific was being a jerk like that. Much of the day was spent filing police reports, getting the car window fixed, getting the car door fixed as the window fixing seemed to affect the lock somehow. We do make the most of it by waiting for the repairs at IHOP and having a guilty pleasure breakfast and sundaes.
We then drove to Baltimore to the American Visionary Museum, an amazing collection of folk art. Cheered up, we return to DC where Pete and Christine make us tiki drinks and wheatless (Pete’s allergic) and tomato less (Blair’s allergic) yet awesome pizza.
Thursday, Aug 28. Blair had decided that while she likes visiting Pete and Christine, she hates DC. I want to show her reasons not to, but understand her point thus far, so we leave. We attempt a few stops, but DC geography and horrible weather and construction gang up on us. Thus, we miss seeing the World’s Largest Rubber Band ball from 1998-2006, which is when the sport got too commercial and was ruined by someone getting sponsored by an office goods store.
We drive to Philly and visit the Mutter Museum, home of the world’s largest human skeleton, world’s largest human colon, and all sorts of cool but gross stuff.
Philly has signs that say “Obey traffic signs” and a city hall that looks like a giant penis with Ben Franklin on top.
Okay, so we’re semi-unexpectedly in Philly now, so I decide we need to go to the place I went to like 7 years ago that has vegan cheese steaks. But, being unprepared, I have no idea where it is, or how to get there, or even what it’s called. So I figure we’d hit South Street, the “cool” street, and ask there. We wind up on one end of the cool section, and almost immediately find a cool musical store with bat guitars and all sorts of amazing used percussion instruments. Chatting with the owner, he shows us his amazing recording studio downstairs. I buy a few new toys and learn the place we were looking for is next door.
Exploring South Street, we see many amazing murals and functional public art, more cool bars than we can imagine, and a unique combination of subcultures existing back to back. I buy the new Jodorowski biography and a few other treats.
We return to check with the guy about the unlikely possibility of recording the next day, only to have him say he’s free the rest of the evening, so we could come back and record a few songs, to sweeten the deal, he offers to do the first one on the house to see how it goes. 2 hours later, we have 3 songs we’d written about 13th century Zen Master Dogen, only to then realize the recording studio was named “Buddha Zen” It was amazing! We didn’t have instruments, but easily worked with the studio drums and guitar. Normally, I play the song Koku (Space) on a washboard and box drum, neither of which I have. I wound up playing on a tabla I wound up buying, and putty knives that sounded like bells. We haggle over the price- him underselling. Blair talks him up to a fair price, and in return he gives me an ocarina. Then he drives us to our car across town.
We drive through New York City, which reminds me of the final Death Star trenches scene in the original Star Wars. We go to Mark and Emily’s…last we knew they lived in Bronx, but now they live on a small horse ranch in Long Island. Mark welcomes us briefly and we sleep.
Friday, 8/29
We wake to Emily making crepes. Most places, if you ask for soymilk, the answer is either, “Yes”, “no”, or “What’s that?”. Mark’s answer is “No, we only have oatmilk and ricemilk.” We meet the horses and head into NYC.
I drag everyone to Alex Grey’s museum, the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. The other 3 indulge me, but are uninspired themselves. I buy a few things at the gift store.
We eat Thai food while drinking sake, and go to the Met. I learn that my background as a TV watcher sets me to an advantage over kids raised in TV-less hippie homes, at least in terms of how much NYC or Museums I can stand. At the met, we come across an impressive Buddhist art collection. I’m amused to see Blair encounter a huge statue of the fierce and fiendish Fudo and call his name like that of a puppy. (This makes sense if you knew Fudo was a figure of compassion, but I bet this statue usually gets gasps of fright.) All in all, the Met is amazing. Leaving the Met, we encounter a man exclaiming how “It’s really coming down!” as it drizzles.
Blair and I feel strongly that we must have NYC pizza, I get one slice to eat while walking, but we wind up eating some of the best pizza I’ve ever had- and drinking the best deal on beer ever- at a nondescript place inside Penn Station. We take the train to the commuter rail and make it to Norwalk, CT. Blair and my mom commence with their habit of staying up way to late chatting.
Saturday, Aug 30. We wake up late, and sneezy from cat allergies. My mom has a cat that seems genetically bred to make people sneeze. We eat at Overton’s, a take-out place on a pier on the Long Island Sound. Then to the obligatory trip to Stew Leonard’s’- the Worlds’ Largest Dairy Store. We get a call from Dave Fleece that he missed his train stop and is stuck in Westport, likely meaning he is the darkest skinned person for a mile in any direction. We pick him up and go to our East Coast reception.
As people filter in, Mark (same Mark as NYC) and Dave hit it off, as we imagined. Must be the poetic, flute playing, Zen-influenced New Yorker thing. They immediately decide to explore the function-room style club and find why it’s called and athletic club.
The DJ is above par, and seems to know what he’s doing, even when he’s doing something annoying, like serenading us. Everyone gets along, barring some small drama between old friends of mine. Dave plays shakahachi, which seems to confuse my relatives. Karaoke ensures. Blair wow’s everyone, of course. My uncle and cousins sing “My Ding A Ling” to close out the evening.
Some of us retire to my mom’s house. Travis Wigglesworth, Matt Mullarky and I are hanging out outside and befriend a Mexican gangster-type (or at least a really tough looking dude) who comments positively on my tattoos.
Sunday, Aug 31. I take forever to wake up. Partially because I’m kind of sick with cold, but greatly because we learn that underneath the bed are mounds of discarded cat fur. Nobody believes that I’m not hung-over, except Blair who knows what sort of sick I get when. Blair and I caravan with her parents to Rochester. We eat at a diner famous for something- I think just because it’s a well-advertised diner. Lots of family time, but not much to report adventure wise.
Monday, September 1st, it’s Labor Day and everything’s closed. Normally, I’m all for nobody working on Labor Day, but in planning this all, I forgot to account for it. Blair goes out and meets up with old friends Russ and Erika, they say, “Wow, you’re a real person!” to her. Together, we eat lunch at Wegman’s, a sort of more than the sum of its parts grocery store. Then we eat amazing ice cream at Abbots, which seems to have been half of Blair’s goal for the trip. We see the infamous inbred ducks of the Erie Canal.
We head back to the homestead, where Blair’s aunt Suzie and cousin Adam come visit. Adam is forming a Jewish hardcore band called Menorah Threat. His party game is “Who’s your favorite anti-Semite.” I pick Henry Ford- an industrial genius that was downright evil. I think I win. Blair reclaims much of her music collection by liberating CD’s from her dad. um, that makes it sound like i just stole his cds
Tues., 9/1
We go to the New Yorker Diner and eat “Crack Pancakes”- pancakes with huge amounts of sugary goodness syrup so sugary it has undisolved sugar grains!!! in various forms. We drive towards Niagara Falls. The border guys are very friendly but ask us to pull over to be searched. They continue to be friendly, and one officer asks, “So, do you guys have any weed?” We collectively say “Ohhhh!” I was thinking we looked unassuming enough, but yes, we probably do look like pot smokers, and we realized that most people with so much Buddhist stuff aren’t actually Buddhists, ironically. We laughed and they guy apparently thought us sincere and we headed into Canada.
On the way to Niagara Falls, we say what we think is a new Pure Land Buddhist Temple; Pure Land is a form of Buddhism which is more devotional, say, than Zen. This means Blair and I don’t entirely agree with all its doctrines, but Lo-ove the art and architecture, and enjoyed visiting. Apparently, the huge statues are too much for many passerby to resist, there were signs saying, “This is a religious temple, not Jurassic park, please act appropriately.”
We saw the falls themselves, loitered in assorted tourist traps, and left, only to be eaten by Toronto. We escaped Toronto, stopped for a Tim Horton’s snack, and had to deal with the American Border Patrol. While the Canadians stopped us for longer, they were polite and noted a reason for doing so. The American guy basically seemed like he wanted to annoy someone. He kept asking grammatically incomplete questions and get mad that I didn’t understand him. Oh well. Joe Kraus lives almost right on the entrance into the US. After venting about the grumpiness paid for by our tax dollars, we slept.
Wed., 9/3 Joe Krause makes us oatmeal, a delightful treat after weeks of fried food for breakfast. He then takes us on a tour of Detroit, noting the creation, history, and, more-often-than-not, destruction of everything around us. We see the Heidelberg project, a city block of folk art; urban farms, including chickens and goats; the Arcadia Bakery (yum!); Hamtramck, including the local folk art “Disneyland” and amazing Indian food; and amazing lobbies of downtown office buildings. We realize that Joe, Blair’s Dad, and James Howard Kunstler should hang out.
Leaving Detroit, we drive to Tecumseh, where Jacob and Bridgett live. We meet their friendly dogs and adorable baby, and get even more mead. They lead us to the highway on a scenic road featuring many dinosaur-laden minigolf courses and other sites.
Driving to Chicago takes us into the most intense rain we’ve seen of a very rainy trip. We get into Chicago late, about an hour after I should have started sleeping. Chicago traffic drives me insane, and parking is even worse. I’ve lost my East Coast parking desensitivity. Just as I find a place to park for the night- but would have to move from in the morning- Dan calls us from a spot in front of his apartment that just vacated. We stagger into Dan and Christa’s place to be met by French Vietnamese tofu sandwiches that make everything better.
A word about the sandwiches. Apparently Banh Mi are not uncommon, but somehow I had never come across one before. They are a French- Vietnamese hybrid and AMAZING, especially from the place around the corner from Dan and Christa. They also retail for like $2 each or something, buy 5 and get one free. I eat 2 that night. I then curse Dan with the same curse Janaka Stucky cursed another Dan in Pittsburgh- the curse of someone who just had an amazing sandwich that will not be recreated in any other setting.
Thursday, 9/14. We wake up and walk down the main drag near the apartment. It’s time for late breakfast or brunch, we’re both in picky moods and bypass many good looking eateries until we both agree on Frida’s Café; a fancy Mexican place with a heavy Frida Kahlo atmosphere. I eat some sort of vegetarian torta based on the fact it says “yum” next to it on the menu. We encounter a carved relief Fudo figure in the outer wall of a bank, of all places.
One of my goals for Chicago is to visit the Intuit gallery; a folk art museum and sort of conceptual home of Henry Darger’s legacy. Sadly, they are officially closed to change shows, but they let us see the permanent exhibit, and more importantly, the Darger Room, which is a detailed recreation of Darger’s home and workspace. To us, it serves as a sort of shrine.
Living in Portland, we forget how big big cities are, and take the train for an hour to downtown Chicago, visiting the Art Institute. The main show is art from African Kingdoms from the last few hundred years- it’s cool, but too monarchic and monotheistic (king=god) for me to empathize with, and not really my aesthetic. I do enjoy seeing some of the major official art class works, and almost miss the basement; which had a hands on exhibit and some great photos that border on optical illusions.
We take the L-train back and go out with Dan and Christa for insanely cheap and delicious Lebanese food. Then we cross the street to Hop Leaf, an impressive but overcrowded beer hall. Then we return home to watch the American Astronaut (which we brought knowing some people just need to see it). I eat another two Banh Mi and we sleep.
Friday, 9/5. We wake up, sort our things and hit the Vietnamese Bakery to get some sandwiches to take on the road. Sadly, someone just ordered like 50 of the tofu ones, so we make do with just enough for breakfast. (Yes, breakfast, it’s early!). Mine has Thai peppers in it that are so intense, I feel like I’ve been dosed with speed mixed with mild hallucinogens. My sinuses completely liquefy and I can’t talk- oddly, it’s not unpleasant so much as it keeps me from doing anything but gesticulating at Blair like an insane person. Blair’s sandwich is much saner, and she also has an avocado smoothie on her side.
We drive to Milwaukee, making the mandatory stop at the Mars Cheese Castle, and visit our housemate Nick’s studio, which he co-owns and physically built, called the Shampoo Horn. We meet his business partner, Heather, who is almost 7 feet tall and dressed in clothes she made out of other clothes. (This sounds crazy but looks stylish). (Blair reminds me that I need to denote business partner, since the definition of ‘partner’ has switched over…) We chat with Heather for a while, and she convinces us to go see Dr. Evermore’s sculpture park, out in middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin. We had planned on going to House on the Rock, but only had time to make one before either closed.
Dr. Evermore’s is the coolest place ever. It needs to be seen in person, but you should call before you go. Some highlights include the Forevertron, the largest scrap metal sculpture on Earth, which is a Jules-Verne sort of monstrosity make from old generators and such. There are armies of small creatures of all sorts, and a full orchestra of ostrich-sized birds. I could go on an on and on. We chatted with Dr. and Lady Evermore, and their friend/ collaborator. The Dr. is post-stroke, is wheelchair bounds, and was described as ‘less active’ these days…although the standard of comparison seems high, given the sheer volume and size of the art everywhere. Lady Evermore is also an artist, and acts as the sort of gatekeeper/tourguide/salesperson. Their friend, I think his name was Tom, but Dr. Evermore’s name was Tom, so I might be wrong…anyway, he looked like a stereotypical biker. He walks with a cane, but still looks like he could kick ass. We spend a good amount of time there, and are still not entirely sure how much of the personalities were results of being creative or eccentric, or somewhere in between. Tom gave a hint after the Dr. explained how the sculptures “worked”, by saying, “And remember, None of this is pretend!”
We pull into Wisconsin Dells as it gets dark. Wisconsin Dells is a “tourist haven”, and while not a planned destination in it’s own right, was a better place to stop than any random small town. Despite being in the middle of Wisconsin, it seems like a beach town, and many stores seem to sell beach wares. We pop into the chamber of commerce tourism office and meet a very chummy guy who turned out to own a copy of my first book. I trade him a copy of my second for access to his coupon book, which gets us a buy-one-get-one-free coupon at the festive eatery next door. he also hooks us up with a deal at the most family-run seeming motel, right in the middle of “Downtown”. We window shop and sightsee. We see a karaoke bar, but it’s overrun by college jocks and young women making a point to show how drunk they are, so we explore further.
I’ve always found it’s worth checking a block away from the tourism. You find smaller businesses, local people, and often half the price. We wind up at the Sandbar, emphasis on “BAR”, with the slogan “Get marooned at the Sandbar!” It’s a dive, but has the community nature of a pub. There’s a photo of 2 middle-aged and one elderly lady doing shots off a surfboard. Long Island Iced teas are so cheap they are almost free, and we sample local beers such as “Fat Squirrel” and “Spotted Cow” by New Glarus Brewing Company. (Both are awesome!)
Saturday, Sept. 6,
We wake early to make good travel time. We ate at Paul Bunyon’s something or other, it was all you can eat, but we were shocked once we paid to get in that it wasn’t a buffet; they bring food to you. This would be cool, I suppose, except they bring more food than you should eat, and being “all you can eat”, you don’t get the leftovers, so there is huge potential for waste. Granted, we ate almost all we got, and it was good, and for the trip I liked going to such a gimmicky place complete with giant Paul Bunyon, but I wouldn’t endorse or support someplace so wasteful again.
Driving through Minnesota, “The Heartland”, we pass a billboard for the Brandenburg Gallery, with a beautiful photo we can’t quite tell what it’s of. At the gallery, we see it’s a stampede of Buffalo, kicking up dust at sunset. The Gallery seems to double as Chamber of Commerce, and all the photos are amazing. The rest of the town seems outdated and closed, despite being Saturday afternoon, but as we leave we get a shot of a Buffalo statue labeled, “Those darn things.”
South Dakota is the land of wonderful billboards and ridiculous and amazing stuff. South Dakota is the apex of roadside tourism. Its unofficial motto is “Welcome to South Dakota, Please Do Things While Inside Us!” Perhaps it’s as boring to live in as North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, or Oklahoma, it’s the only state in that whole strip that’s fun to drive through instead of painful. (Granted, the bottom of the strip is the more interesting part of Texas, but that’s balanced out by having to drive through West Texas.)
We drive by a sculpture park with critters, dinosaurs and a giant upside down hammer, but it’s closed. Apparently, half of tourism shuts down on labor day.
The first major tourist stop in SD for us is the famed Corn Palace, a regularly built building covered in murals made from corn of all shades corn comes in. One mural is a picture of the Corn Palace itself. Inside, the building is a tourist center and apparently connected to the high school. Inside, there are more corn murals and photos of the Corn Palace’s corny murals from every year since the beginning of time. One from the 20’s or 30’s features swastikas and many disclaimers about how the swastika was an Indian good luck charm.
Across from the corn palace are a lot of old-timey tourist places emphasizing frontier life. We eat Buffalo, which is delicious, plays no havoc on our digestive track, and causes moral conundrums about how in a way, it’s better to support the buffalo meat industry because it’s what’s responsible for bringing the Bison back from the brink of extinction, and how Bison is better food and ecosystem material; yet it still is a dead animal.
We drive through the Black Hills and get to the Badlands just as the sun is setting. We’re sad to have such limited time in this amazing place, since it does indeed look like another planet and puts the Grand Canyon to shame. However, seeing the rock formations against what was probably the most amazing (and long) sunset we’ve either seen is more than a fair trade off.
Blair notes that the Badlands renders Burning Man useless, and we’re expecting to see William Shatner fighting the Gorn at each turn. Hawks and Owls divebomb the car.
We pull into Wall Drug, and it’s CLOSED! Apparently another casualty of post-labor day is a serious restriction of Wall Drug hours. Between my desire to experience Wall Drug, Blair’ desire to actually tour the badlands, and our mutual tiredness and hunger, we decide to stay the night here instead of pressing on to Mt. Rushmore. We get a room at the Sun Shine Inn, which is very cheap and a block away from Wall Drug. We explore downtown, which is mostly a strip of bars of various sorts across from the Drug store. Ironically, the bar has better food and the restaurant has fancier drinks. We try some carafe sized rum cocktails with dinner, and have beers at the Badlands Bar.
At the Badlands Bar, we realize we’re in another friendly Biker Bar. Most of the people there at that point are women with thick Russian accents (or perhaps somewhere else in Eastern Europe I misidentify) who are related somehow to one bartender; and their respective dates. Apparently, some of these folks got married today, as one couple was still in full wedding gear, and many of the women were in sort of bridesmaid dresses half recreated as casual outfits.
The other bartender, Jim, looks like the bartender you’d expect to see here, and asks where we are staying. When he hears the Sun Shine Inn, he says that it’s a nice place, but did we know that where they found the body. “Yeah, a few weeks ago, they found this guy dead in the bathtub, naked, looked like he was eating a bowl of cornflakes when he died. He was drenched in milk…” He built up details for about 3 minutes before saying, “They think it was the work of a CEREAL KILLER!” We congratulate him on the best delivery of the worst joke, and he tells about how telling that joke has almost gotten him beat up.
Sunday, September 7
We wake up, and go to Wall Drug. Blair, taking notes on the trip, ended the discussion there. I, however, LOVE Wall Drug. It’s actually a working drug store, but has every bizarre tourist thing you can imagine- a model Mt. Rushmore, animated cowboys, an old time drugstore counter, sculptures of giant Jackalopes, “free ice water”, a huge Tyrannosaurus Rex that threatens to eat you, hundred of photos from the 1800’s, etc, etc.
Blair interjects to note that the animated cowboys are more correctly described as “animatronic post-stroke cowboys” as many of them moved somehow wrong, and had lopsided facial features.
We return to the Badlands but take another route, so we end up in Mt. Rushmore. Explore a few different planets. We see Buffalo, pronghorn and a Prairie Dog city. We stop at one of the towns in the badlands, which seems abandoned, or perhaps populated by cannibalistic mutants. Actually, it’s populated by one old fellow who sells us soda.
Coming up on Mt Rushmore is a charming tourist town which is actually pretty unimpressive once we get out of the car. The amazing views afforded by the Cliffside motels don’t seem to justify the extra expense, so our Wall stay seems even better in retrospect. Mt Rushmore itself is pretty anticlimactic. The idea of paying an extra $10 to park ever-so-slightly closer seems silly.
The Crazy Horse memorial, on the other hand, is amazing. It’s still in progress, being the biggest thing ever, so large that Crazy Horse’s head could fit all 4 Mt. Rushmore heads inside. Watching the documentary on how the sculpture came to be proposed and created, Blair and I both cry. We are overwhelmed by the story of the Native people wanting to show that they had great leaders, the story of the sculptor and his family dedicating their lives and enduring hardships, and the fact that you can make art by blowing stuff up.
Driving through Wyoming, we are on a road that is a highway for miles, then goes through the center of tiny towns. This means the speed limit goes from 65 to 45 to 35 within a mile or so. In one small town, I’m still at 45 or so, slowing to the speed limit, when I get pulled over by the friendliest cop ever. “You didn’t even see me coming, did you?” He takes me license and such, goes to his car, and complains that I “Ain’t robbed any banks or done nothing fun! The worst thing I could do is give you a speeding ticket, but I’d rather go back to sleep in the car under the shade tree.” Never have I actually enjoyed being pulled over.
Unfamiliar with Wyoming, we chose one squiggly road over another, and wind up going for what seems scenic. Scenic it is, as we head up a mountain into snow. Then an outright blizzard. I’d put the chains on, but I left them in Oregon, thinking who needs snow chains in the summer? Luckily, there’s no other traffic to skid into, and I err on the side of driving in the middle of the road instead of close to cliffs, so we get out alive. At the base of the mountain, we eat at the Crazy Woman Café, just one of many places named Crazy Woman this or that.
As we get into saner, flat, fast roads, the car starts shaking (Blair would like to say that the shaking that was there for a while that Blair has been complaining about since NY gets very bad.) We get a flat, only to find a chunk of the tire was missing. I have a jack and spare (well, a donut) so no worry, except that we see that the dead tire isn’t punctured so much as worn through. Lesson for next time we drive on unpaved badlands roads on old tires. As expected, nobody pulls over to help until I’ve changed the tire and start cleaning up, where friendly hunters offer to tow us with their huge pickup. We drive to nearby Cody, where we expected to stay anyway. The first motel we stop at seems too clean and patriotic, like they’re hiding something. They also don’t know of any auto repair shops in town, which seems odd; Cody’s big enough to expect such places, but small enough that you’d think the locals know what’s where. Many other motels have no vacancy, but the last- and the coolest looking, has inexpensive rooms and directions to the locally-owned tire place.
Monday, September 8. We eat breakfast made with love at “Our Place”. Standard breakfast food on paper, but clearly made well. We get to Bear Co tires. A good omen as we come in is the desk guy telling an elderly fellow that there was no charge for whatever got done. Long story short, the guys there clearly didn’t want to try and get more work than we needed, we got two tires replaced (the other front was pretty shot as well) and our brakes fixed and headed on.
Pulling out of Cody, one is immediately greeted by some of the most amazing highways views imaginable. Yellowstone itself, while beautiful, is on par with the Columbia Gorge, so I’d recommend that fellow Portlanders stay close to home. I pull over to photograph a Bison which is across the street, but Blair suggests I drive on lest it kill us. Deer also approach us. Yellowstone park is filled with roads with rest-stop sort of parking lots anywhere there is an especially good view.
Pulling over to see some steaming formations, a raven spies me spy a $20 bill on the ground and grabs it as I bend to get it. I chase it around for a few minutes. The fact that it never flies off makes me think it’s taunting me. I realize it has as much right to the bill as I, but decide that since I can trade it for goods and services, while the raven can only line its nest or something, I should get it. Eventually, it drops it, and I’m $20 richer, although I would have gladly traded other paper had I spoke bird.
Old faithful is overrated, but we get to say we saw it. The various rainbow-colored hot springs, however, are a sight to behold.
The Wyoming-Montana drive is gorgeous, but seems an extension of Oregon. We’re pretty sure that there are ziplines which people use to cross the river the road follows. The state line features one of the most full-function info centers, with free coffee and tea, and I get a free insect poster.
We figure we’d stop in Bozeman, Montana, for dinner. We attempt to go to a local brewpub we learned about at the Organic Brewfest, but it’s closed on Mondays. We immediately find the Montana Alehouse, which has a yin-yang in a gear for a logo. Montana apparently has a huge number of it’s own beers, but the place stymies us by not offering sample trays. (Again, we want to try as many beers as we can, but not actually get drunk, especially when driving!)
Somewhere in Montana, we stop for gas and learn we just passed a huge monument of the Virgin Mary, which overlooks us from a cliff. We get a decent view from around the corner, and a postcard from inside.
We debate the merits of driving straight through to Portland- possible, arriving the next morning, but probably at the expense of our health and mental well-being. So we opt to sleep in Missoula. The first affordable place advertises “Jacuzzi Suites” which aren’t much more than the cheap rooms. So we spend our final night in style, with a Jacuzzi for two in the BEDROOM, kitty corner to the TV. We soak and watch cartoons and drink assorted treats we got on the trip.
Tuesday, September 9.
I need to be reminded after the fact that we spent part of today in Idaho. Not a potato to be seen.
For lunch, we stop in the middle-of-nowhere, after seeing signs for a promising Mexican place. When I asked the woman who sells me gas where to eat, she confirms the same place, which is decorated with Mayan themes. The food is amazing, but outside eating is cut short when bees decide to harass Blair. We see several Ron Paul signs and realize we’ve seen more Ron Paul propaganda on the trip than anything for McCain.
This final day is a blur. We basically follow 84 along the Columbia River, prairies and mountains and the Gorge. We’re going home. Ironically, “home” is actually housesitting for a friend in Milwaukie, OR. We get in later than expected, perhaps as a combination of milking the Jacuzzi for all it was worth, and perhaps since we stopped for many breaks.
September 10-Oct 2
We’re staying in a big house in the ‘burbs. We are taking care of a dog, have full cable TV, and pictures of a son at college, as if we inherited a real-grown up lifestyle. Blair drives into the city to work at her office, and comes home to find a home cooked meal; she’s living the dream of the American Man from a 50’s sitcom.
Oct 2- we move into our place with Nick, Isaiah, Carey, Anthony and Sam (two of whom are dogs) in NE Portland. Normal life ensues.