March 15, 2008

Lance and I slept late as a result of the shenanigans of Friday Mack and Lance respectively. I got up a little while before Chris so I went down and put money in the meter, and removed the ticket from under the wiper. A cup of coffee and a bagel later, I went and Lance was just getting up and grumbling about how I snore (I think he is just hyper sensitive). So we went over to the border between mexico town and korea town for the best pastrami sandwich I have ever had – at Langer’s.

We planned on having brunch and then I was going to head out – but we were duped into hanging out in little mexico and the nearby area for over three hours waiting for photos to be developed. I didn’t get on the road until almost 5pm when a thunderstorm came through and snarled the traffic. What almost made it worthwhile – when I got east of the city and into the mountains, the higher elevations were blanketed in a thin layer of snow. There were dozens of cars pulling over on the interstate to look at, touch, and make balls with, the snow.

Pics: a) Glamer Shots; b) Handling business; c) Secret photo at Mak’s coffee shop; d) Lance self-photo

Today Miles: 194; Trip Miles: 11,200
Starting Point: Los Angeles, CA
Ending Point: Baker, CA
Route: 110E, 10E, 605N, 210E, 15N
Cost of a Parking Ticket in Los Angeles: $40.00
Citation: 2015321210
Number of States Visited: 22
Number of Parking Tickets in California: 2
Number of Parking Tickets all other states combined: 0
Other things that Cost $40.00: Poorly made Fake ID’s

March 14, 2008

After a morning of work, and waiting for UPS to deliver a couple of pairs of shoes to replace my beat footwear – I drove up the California coast for the second time on this trip. I got to Lance’s building and having learned from my parking challenges last time, parked immediately in a spot where it was legal to park overnight, but required feeding a meter the next morning. I decided to let Saturday Mack figure that out and locked up the vehicle.

Lance had a full evening planned, but required me to put on ‘LA Dress Up’ clothing. I don’t have ‘nice jeans’ and my ‘blazer’ is attached to a suit that I wouldn’t consider fashionable, so I put on a pair of pants with a cuff and a shirt with more than three buttons. We started with dinner at Pete’s Café & Bar, a short walk from his apartment downtown. We both had beef dishes and neither of us were disappointed at all.

After dinner Lance drove us to another part of town to a club called Blue Velvet where an event to support an Asian Pacific Women’s / Family Charity. There didn’t seem to be too much focus on the charity, but it was a really crowded place with a beautiful pool, outdoor seating by a few fireplaces, and an amazing bathroom that was outmatched by the large number of people consuming large numbers of drinks. We did catch up with Tia, Hoai (ref 1/31) and another friend Genevieve. After leaving Blue Velvet I twisted my ankle slightly so I managed to get Lance into a dive bar named Monty where I nursed it back to health with a drink, but a full bladder was safer than a trip to the restroom.

Pics: all in my mind

Today Miles: 123; Trip Miles: 11,004
Starting Point: San Diego, CA
Ending Point: Los Angeles, CA
Rest area nap: 25 minutes
Route: 805N, 5N

March 10 - 13

It is cliché, but true – life is better at the beach.

Home Office: As with all of the friends I have visited on this trip, Caleb graciously allowed me to set up my temporary office in his living room, which coincidentally is Caleb’s office as well. The chatting around the coffee pot tended to involve plans to purchase large tracts of land in the desert ‘just in case.’ We also enjoyed the lunch hour to make elaborate meals – the best of which was the crockpot pork tenderloin with spaghetti squash.

Settings: San Diego is in full bloom right now – birds of paradise, geraniums, chrysanthemums, margaritas, pansies, violets, wild rosemary, the weird plant with the black leaves, and thousands of species that I don’t know the name of – all are in some state of bloom. Even driving on the highway there are areas that are pools of fragrant flowers. It is fantastic.

Dana is definitely a foodie – so each evening there was usually some good wine and excellent food. While we went to a fancy steakhouse, asian fusion bistro, sushi, Mexican – my favorite (and to me the quintessential SD cuisine) was fish tacos at South Beach Bar & Grill in Ocean Beach. Being a few hundred yards from the beach, a few inches from a pitcher of beer, you'll be in heaven.

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving."
— Lao Tzu

I run the risk of becoming a local – wearing shorts and flipflops and smile all day... and wearing out my welcome with my great hosts, so I tear myself away from San Diego Friday morning. As Gibran described; "It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst. Yet I cannot tarry longer."

Photos: a) Creepy black leaves; b) Bird of paradise; c) Love birds in paradise


Counting Sand
Time Spent in SD: 7 days / 6 nights (longest duration of trip)
Long Song - Bob Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’: 11:25
Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’: 8:02
Allman Brothers ‘Mountain Jam’ (Live at Fillmore - March 13 second show): 33:47
Lincoln’s ‘Gettysburg Address’: 2 or 3 minutes
Address Word Count: 10 sentences / 272 words
Battle of Gettysburg: 3 days
Number of Americans Killed in Action: 7,863
Total Casualties (+ wounded or captured / missing): 46,286

Guess the number of puppies printed on the 'dog' blanket:
Dana: 777
Caleb: 294
Mack: 270
Actual: 466
Counter: Dana
Caleb’s Prize: 0 Dishes, 0 Cooking
Solution: going out to dinner

Note:

Caleb, the smartest person that I know*, has shown me how to manipulate the settings on this blog so anyone can leave a comment. Heretofore google accounts were required - an oversight and error. I apologize for any inconvience or frustration this may have caused.


*named caleb and living in san diego.

March 9, 2008

Gift Receipts: At first I thought that it was me – I gave a gift (durian – reference 2/4 post), and it wasn’t received with the appreciation I had expected. With the presentation of my most recent house-gift, I am starting to think that Caleb isn’t prone to accepting gifts with grace and humility. When I was off-roading in AZ, I took a chance to wrangle some Teddy Bear cactus buds so Caleb could start his own garden – to no avail as he attempted to ditch the little guys at his first opportunity.

We spent the day running errands (grocery, farmer’s market, sushi, ineffective carwash for caleb's whip) and heading to Mission Beach to meet up with Dave and Julia – to keep the effort of meeting up with and enjoying friends wherever we can find ourselves. It is not a lot of effort when it involves sitting on the beach in the San Diego during late afternoon enjoying the sun, the sand, the people-watching, and good friends who have interesting things to say. While it was only about half an hour of sitting on the beach, it was an injection of happiness to the being.

The only caveat to sitting on the beach – it isn’t what it used to be. I’m not just being a curmudgeon, San Diego had a voted referendum to enact a one year booze ban on the beach. When I spent a few months here a million years ago, Luis and Bryan and the gang would bring a cooler to the beach and spend hours lounging and goofing off, the only harassment from the authorities was when a glass bottle was produced. Now all alcohol is banned on the beach – and the campaign included a radio announcement to the potential spring breakers when I was in Phoenix.

Portal: It would be a shame to drive cross country to sit in front of a television playing a video game, but Caleb shamelessly introduced me to this small (and potentially overlooked) component of The Orange Box game… it is a first person game that is a great logic and problem solving game. Warning: There is the opportunity for some frustration as the logic is progressive and impressively challenging at certain points (I had caleb who had beat the game to hassle for hints periodically). The total gameplay depends on the logic abilities of the player, but for 4 to fifteen hours of mentally stimulating entertainment, the $60 bucks is on par with the 2 hours of intellectually numbing ‘semi-pro’. (I will refrain from saying how long it took me to complete the game – and disavow any assistance from Caleb)



Pics: a) Give your new houseguest a hug (note potholder used to handle plant); b) tilt your head to the right a little



Fillets in 2 lbs of Tilapia: 11
Person Meals provided: 5
Number of unique shoppers discovering strawberries are on sale: 2
Containers of strawberries purchased: 5
Number 1 producer of strawberries worldwide: USA
Number 2 producer of strawberries: Spain
Como se dice ‘fresa’ en ingles: Strawberry
Word of the day: Gewgaw
WOTD usage: 3

March 8, 2008

Imperial Dunes / Glamis: I took a Saturday morning detour North once inside California – so I could check out the planet of Tattoine – or at least the setting used for Star Wars and Lawrence of Arabia. The Imperial Dunes Recreational Area is a portion of the Algodones Dunes – a fluffy white sand dune that is 45 miles long by 6 miles wide. There were hundreds of RV’s and thousands of people on motorcross bikes, atvs, souped-up golf carts, and dune buggys, driving like maniacs over the contours of the dunes.

I got to Caleb’s house early afternoon, just in time to go for brunch with him and his lady Dana. She was getting ready for a big pharmacology exam so she couldn’t hang out. In an effort to take advantage of the beautiful weather and be active, Caleb and I visited the Torrey Pines State Reserve along the coast, ‘home of our nation’s rarest pine tree – pinus torreyana.’ It is a well maintained and popular site that unfortunately closes at 6pm – we arrived shortly before 5. We still had plenty of time to hike a series of trails that work down from the cliffs to the beach, and back. Which was just a preview of later that night when Caleb, his buddy Daragh, and I couldn’t get a cab back from the Pink Elephant and ended up walking about three miles home.

Pics: a) boys and their toys; b) sand everywhere; c) desert in bloom amid the machines; d) they aren’t windmills, they are propellers that keep the earth rotating; e) brunch; f) guys having a photo at the beach – and this time we aren’t the clowns in the back waving too.

Info-Mashun:
Today Miles: 208; Trip Miles: 10,881
Starting Point: Yuma, AZ; Ending Point: San Diego, CA
Route: 8W, Ted Kipf RdNW, 78W, 86S, 8W
Price of 87Octane Gas – Yuma, AZ: $3.16/gal
Price of 110Octane Racing Fuel: $5.89/gal
Imperial, CA: -59ft
Tecate Divide: 4,140ft
San Diego, CA: 72ft
Distance from Imperial to San Diego: 118mi
Word of the day: Kizmet
WOTD usage: 1

March 7, 2008

Piestewa: When I lived in Phoenix the best (free) activity in town was climbing Squaw Peak – the Phoenix Mountains Park inside the city’s limits. I headed there directly from skyharbor. In the ensuing ten years the name has been changed to Piestawa Peak (Squaw is actually an offensive term) and either they have added a few hundred feet, or I have added about thirty pounds.

Thunderbird: I drove around the area I lived, the restaurant at which I worked, and my alma mater. In the ensuing ten years the name has changed twice and either they have made the campus bigger, or I have added about thirty pounds. What actually did expand was the city: Phoenix streets are numbered, starting from the center and the roads running north south expand out, Streets East and Avenues West. When I lived at 63rd Ave and Bell, I could ride my bike to the end of civilization – today I drove west to the Desert loop and never lost sight of subdivisions and traffic.

Regret: I had a chance to take Agua Caliente Road from just west of Buckeye – it is a dirt road that loops around and through the Gila Mountains. It was a lot of fun driving through the desert on the dirt road, and I even took a side trip offroading (with Arizona Dept. of Resources Blessing). It was awesome! I was kicking myself for not going to a grocery store so I could have camped out there, with two granola bars and three bottles of water it wasn’t an option, so I pushed on to Yuma.

Books: in 2003, JM Coetzee won the nobel prize for Literature. I read ‘Slow Man’ and recently completed ‘Disgrace.’ Both books are entertaining and I recommend them, but with the warning that Coetzee’s forte is character rather than plot. The subtle nuances of the personae and their perceptions of the world are rich and fulfilling where the thread of the story is tenuous at best.

God’s Little Instruction Book, The Book of Questions, lists of 1,000 Things (insert social group) Should Know. Haiku. It is a series of exponentially more compact ideas. While I still look forward to the return of prose, Kerry mentioned, then NPR made multiple references to ‘not quite what I was planning’ a collection of six word memoirs by famous & obscure writers (edited by Smith Magazine).

From the introduction: Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. Papa came back swinging with, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Some say he called it his best work. Others dismiss the anecdote as a literary folktale. Either way, the six-word story was born, and it’s been popping around the writing world for years.

Story of six word stories short – Ideas in six words are eloquent.

Unwords
Starting Point: Memphis, TN
Waypoint: Phoenix, AZ
Ending Point: Yuma, AZ
Today miles: 266; Trip Miles: 10,673
Offroad Miles: 53.4
Route: 303S, 10W, Old 80S, Agua Caliente Rd., random dirt, 8W
Dirt Road Soundtrack: Sonata in C by Domenico Scarlatti
Piestewa Peak Trail: 1.2M
Piestewa Peak Height: 2,608ft
Phoenix elevation: 1,117ft
Do I subtract to get vertical distance traveled? 1,491ft
Height of antenna of Empire State Building: 1,472ft

Pics: a) using photo-op as an excuse to take a break on squaw peak; b) tower of power; c) i'll devour - after a couple of honks to get this character off the road; d) how i roll in the dirt; e) about 95 miles west of Glendale - the avenue count continues

March 6, 2008

Bulletized, for your reading pleasure:

Lyrics (partial) to Dead Milkmen, 'going to graceland' from album Bucky Fellini:
“Goin' to Graceland
We're goin' today!
I'm so happy I just can't wait!
Gonna see the place where Elvis Presley died

When my time comes; That's how I wanna go -Stoned and fat and wealthy; And sitting on the bowl; Lots of people say That it's sad The King is gone; Well Elvis might be dead But his cash flow lives on.”

Price of Graceland tour when Bucky Fellini was released (1987): $8.50
2008 Graceland Mansion Tour: $27.00
2008 Graceland Elvis Entourage VIP Tour: $68.00
Children 6 & under: $0
Visits to Memphis in 15 months: 5
Graceland visits: 0
Lisa Marie Presley Current Age: 40
Number of husbands: 4

Delightful Dinner at Flemings Memphis (chain rule suspended for business trip):
Fantastic wine: Fritz
Fritz location: Dry Creek Valley, Cloverdale CA
Fantastic Port: Dela Force – Colheita
Colheita Vintage: 1986
Port Source: recommendation from waiter from bartender from leftover from winetasting from prior week from portugal
Preposition From: 6

Delightful beer: Dogfish Head 90minute IPA
Description: it is a sweet beer that is reminiscent of the unibroue's 'la fin du monde' but without some of the more complex (and potentially distracting) flavors. a tremendously clean finish! the only downside is this is a one & done beer - the flavor is too rich to have a second beer, but after the flavor roller coaster any subsequent beer is a disappointment process.
Delightful bourbon: Blanton's
Booze Background: The world of potent potables is vine vs. grain - everything is either fruit that is fermented (wine) and then distilled (broad array) or grain that is brewed (beer) and then distilled (broad array).
Bourbon unBared: 'bourbon' is distilled corn alcohol. it is unique from 'scotch which is usually distilled barley (and by definition from scotland) and the eponymous 'rye.'
Description: Bourbon doesn't have the sophisticated reputation that has developed for scotch. this is odd as both hillbillies and reluctant brits are equally annoying when blotto. my benchmark for bourbon is Woodford Estate - this bourbon is much more complex in flavor, and unfortunately has a strong after flavor. With a little water it is much smoother.

A friend asked me if I drink naught but alcohol (paraphrased)? As I am careful to not imbibe impairing quantities when driving is involved, and most of my life is driving oriented - the answer is no. I have come to be a connoisseur of bottled water as well - but while my taste buds are discerning, I am not very picky.

Memphis Accent observation: Client security guard
Preposition used: ‘here’
Preposition pronunciation: ‘her’
Preposition pronunciation part of speech: pronoun
Noun used: ‘beer’
Noun pronunciation: ‘bee-ah’
Noun pronunciation syllables: 2

While I have been away, my fellow travelers have been busy, uploading their content to the web as well. Here is a video of Lance vs. Teddybear Cactus:



if that doesn't work for your browser, here is the link through to it, and many entertaining videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45dzNB0KjcM

courtesy of:
http://seelance.blogspot.com/

March 3 - 5, 2008

Duty calls: I parked the beast at sky harbor (sorry buddy, but it is covered parking at least) and caught a flight to Memphis, TN for the week to handle some important business.


FF Miles PHX - MEM: 1,261
Parking Space: BB19
Lance Pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninedragons/sets/72157604051039861/

March 2, 2008

To the lake: What everyone should do when they are in the Sonora Desert – wake up a little bit early and go to the man-made lake! So David, his father, Lance and I went to Saguaro Lake to see what a lake might have to offer. The parking lot was jammed with cars and motorcycles but we found a spot among the other people that had bloomed with the desert. On a whim, David went to see what the cost to rent a boat and…. An hour on the water was just what the we needed to check out the desert cliffs, hills, and the distant mountains. It was a shame Mrs. Afzal was in Italy and didn’t get to join us on our excursion.

There will be blood: Oddly enough, none of us had seen the academy award winning movie so we drove into Scottsdale to catch an evening showing. Daniel Day Lewis definitely played a role that was amazing and worthy of an Oscar.

The most self-explanatory pictures ever taken:

Topics that required research during our daily discussions:
Adiabatic Cooling
Bernoulli’s law
Opium Poppies (Wizard of Oz)
Saguaro Lake
Altitude of McDowell Mountain Regional Park
22nd Constitutional Amendment
Yeast Mothers
Space Shuttle Heat Shield

March 1, 2008

We woke up early (single digits) according to the plan (except for David) so we could head over to McDowell Mountain Regional Park and try to catch some of the desert in bloom. While Dave stretched, Lance and I spent time with his father, Amir, as he worked setting his garden – and warning us of the dangers of snakes, scorpions, and the dreaded ‘jumping cactus.’ (foreshadowing)

We took the civic over to the park (very close) and decided to hike the Lousley Trail (1.2 mi). The hike was only of moderate difficulty, but we were like cliché Japanese tourists shooting photos of every cactus, flower, and piles of rocks so it took us over an hour. About 2/3 of the way through the trip, Lance managed to be attacked by the ‘jumping cactus’ – it first attached itself to the sole of his shoe, and his attempt to shake it free resulted in the cactus actually working (via the barbs of its spines) itself up his shoe, to his sock, and into his flesh. We tried to pry the bud off, first using a stick, then attempting to clamp the bud between two rocks. Finally, I took off my undershirt and wrapped my hand like an oven mitt and pulled the sucker free – only to be stabbed through four or five layers of shirt myself.

Unfortunately, there weren’t the vast fields of Mexican Poppies that were described by most ‘desert in bloom’ articles. It was actually on the road outside the park that we pulled over to the side of the road and found a small patch of flowers that had sprung up thanks to the recent precipitation.

We headed back to HQ and had a fat barbeque with BBQ chicken, steak, sausage, grilled peppers & tomatos & onions, and 2 salads. Then we took another walk down to the fountain for some delicious gelato. We headed back up the hill with an ad hoc race between david and I to my truck from the beginning of the block (Winner! Winner! Chicken dinner already in my belly) and spent a few hours in the hot tub recovering.

Quote of the day:
Dave: commenting on a photo Lance is taking ‘wow, that is a really good shot!’
Lance: ‘yeah, it will be. If you ever decide to get out of it.’

Pics: a) At the trail head 'bring a comb?' b) look up there! c) when cacti attack; d) 3 friends; e) desert in bloom; f) Amir gardening.






Entry Fee to McDowell Mountain Regional Park: $6.00

Jumping cactus real name: Teddy Bear Cholla (Opuntia Bigelovii)
At last developed pics from J-Tree: http://web.mac.com/bshawley/sharktank/Road_Trippin.html

February 29, 2008

Happy Leap day! It was a work day really. So by late afternoon David and I had spent most of the day handling the responsibilities that subsidize our lives, we went for a walk down to the fountain of Fountain Hills. We had a snack and a beverage and then walked the mile plus back uphill for a rest before picking up Lance from Sky Harbor (Phoenix’s wonderfully named airport).

We picked up lance at 6:50 pm and he mentioned that we could see a cool event at 7:11 so we drove to a park that stunk like its dumpsters and waited to see an Iridium Flare – the reflection of a satellite moving several miles overhead in the form of a shooting star type celestial body. Unfortunately I was getting my camera out of the car to take a picture of three jerks waiting for a shooting star, so I ended up missing the image during its twenty second transit across the southeast corner of the sky.

So we went to an English pub: The Rose & Crown in historic Phoenix (by the museum) for dinner. The food was good pub food, and the two page menu of bottled beers made it an excellent adventure. Lance went with the chocolate stout from Young’s and I tried a ‘peculiar ale’ but was more impressed with their tap selection of Moylan’s ‘Kilt Lifter’ Scotch Type Ale. If you get a chance, this as an ass-kicking ale that will satisfy both your flavor receptors and your objective of being less stressed out about standing in a stank parking lot looking for a satellite that you never saw. Sometimes the best compliment of a beer is that it is not trying to be more than it is – and this beer is a great ale with a good kick that doesn’t try to hop or season the beer to its own detriment. If you see it on a menu – please check it out.

Pics: a) The fountain from casa afzal (Long Walk!); b) professional photo of the fountain; c) sunset in the valley of the sun, on the way to pickup lance; d) the 80's called, and lance answers the phone.




Things i think about:
Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona: Joseph M. (Joe) Arpaio
Joe’s Description by Harper's magazine 2001: “a loving husband, proud father, idealist, megalomaniac, liar, and bully. His nose is purple, his neck is red, and he has the charm of Archie Bunker."
Stated goal: To have the most populated jail in the country.
Fountain hills fountain – number of pumps: 3
Maximum height of water: 560ft
Number of Iridium satellites originally planned: 77
Atomic number of Iridium: 77
Number of satellites working in array: 66
Number of keys on a piano: 88
Number of days on my trip: 44
Number of days on the ocean blue for Columbus: 40

February 28, 2008

Breakfast was so good yesterday, I did it again. Then I headed north through the desert until, at Silver City, NM the elevations started increasing and so did topographical changes. Gila and Apache National Forests abut at the border between NM and AZ.

I lived in Phoenix for a year (’96-97) but never saw the desert in bloom during that period. The hills were covered with non-brown colors – in one area, the north face of each hill was a different shade of yellow or orange as it was covered with wildflowers. It made me question my recognition of the city as I drove in.

I’m staying with David and his father for a few days (and waiting the arrival of lance on friday) – the three of us made a trip to costco and got enough vegetables and meats to last weeks, so we grilled and ate outside by the pool.

Pic/Map: Didn't I see this road in a mazda (zoom zoom) commercial?

Forensics
Today Miles: 334; Trip Miles: 10,407
Starting: Deming, NM
Ending: Fountain Hills, AZ
Route: 180N, 78W, 191S, 70W, 60W, 182ndN, 87N
Longest Coast: 4mi
If I had a bar at the foot of Pinal Mountain: S. Pinal Tap
Location of that joke: Tonto National Forest

February 27, 2008

When I was a kid, my father used to ask, “do you know the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut?” and of course the answer was, “about three weeks.” Considering my father was also my barber, it wasn’t the type of joke that inspired confidence.

Restaurant Review: If you are ever in Deming, NM and was to have a fantastic breakfast, you don’t have to go any further into town than the diner at Grand Motor Inn. It is actually a hangout for the older crowd of Deming, where they can gossip and joke and laugh over a cup of coffee – it doesn’t hurt that that motel proprietor Ed Khanbabian is running for Municipal Judge and is constantly working the room gladhanding. That doesn’t take away from the delicious Spanish omelet (I choose green rather than red sauce) with hashbrowns and sourdough toast. While it comes out as an indistinguishable mass of eggs and vegetables and starch and melted cheese, the contrasting textures and flavors of the smothered omelet against the hashbrowns. The mother daughter waitress team is never without a coffee pot leaving the patrons never without fresh hot coffee.


Numbahs
Today Miles: 0
Candidates for Municpal Court Judge: 4
Date of election: March 4
Song: ‘You’re so vain’ by Carly Simon
Clouds in my coffee: 0

Februrary 26, 2008

A windy night makes it easy to get up early when you are sleeping in a tent. Good though – my wheels were turning before 8am which made for an easy day to make miles. The first 250 miles only involved a few small towns, gas management is key in West Texas because many of the smaller towns don’t have gas stations. Oddly enough, halfway between Marfa & Van Horn (74miles), there is a small building on the side of the road that is a Prada outlet! Sure, it is enough to make a person turn around, and then after reading the placard to learn that it is an art installation from 2005 – but with the nearest police station 38 miles away, the bags and shoes would be a tidy getaway.

I stopped at Hueco Tanks (near El Paso) to do a little hiking. It is a historic site dating back tens of thousands of years where the first inhabitants of the area painted the caves. It was the first park I’ve ever visited that required an orientation video. Lots of rock climbers bouldering around the formations.

Pics: a) just doing a little shopping; b) climbing aid at hueco tanks; c) if rockclimbing required wearing a tie, would hippies still do it?



ecStatics
Today Miles: 475; Trip Miles: 10,073
Starting: Terlingua, TX
Ending: Deming, NM
Route: 118N, 90W, 54N, 62W, 10W
Distance from Terlingua to Alpine: 78 mi
Gas stations / towns: 0
Border patrol stops: 1 (65mi N of Terlingua)
Questions: 5
Total immigration stops today: 2
Song: ‘Sometimes (Lester Piggott)’ by James

Februrary 25, 2008

Good thing they aren’t holding elections – I would run for mayor of Terlingua, TX. I have decided to stay here for a second night. I started the day by heading over to Santa Elena for a nice hike. Then I did a drive over to Presidio, TX along the Rio Grande along what I will say is the most naturally unsafe road that I have driven to date. Presidio wasn’t unlike most of the other small towns I’ve visited, with the exception of the large number of white SUV’s with logos on the doors – evidence of a border patrol station. While I didn’t find anyone speaking English in presidio, I also saw a lot of cars full of groceries and comestibles heading south.

Profiler: If you want to spot an RVer (sorry George & Dawn) here are the tell-tail signs – over fifty, white, from a state (or province) north of Nebraska, teva sandals, jean shorts, tan / sunburn. Common conversation topics: how low/high the prices are relative to [insert Canadian province], where I am keeping residency so I can keep my [insert hunting / tax / child college explanation]. However, RVer’s are accepting of all races, ages, and genders wherever they are.

Jerkalert: Being a jerk driving around in a truck for a couple weeks, it gives a body a chance to see a few things and ponder a few more…. WARNING: Political rant: [Hugh, go ahead and skip] Immigration – I invite anyone who supports the idea to build a fence, to come to Southwest Texas to see exactly where this multi-billion dollar fence would live. I am wondering if, when considering the choice to go through the desert, the mountains, and the river, if a fence is going to really serve as the incremental impediment that causes the contemplative border jumper to change his/her mind? A fence is a passive aggressive response to an issue that America doesn’t want to face – the more indignant we are that we have to speak Spanish at wal-mart, the taller the fence will be. Sure the border states will support the idea – if you told them you would invest a billion dollars into rubber dog-crap factory, they wouldn’t complain about that either.

Insert parable: In india, they had great trouble dealing with the cobras in their village – to get rid of the cobras, they didn’t try to build snake traps, they instead got rid of the mice and rats. Without prey to lure them into the villages, the snakes stayed away from people. I encourage people to avoid thinking of fences, and start taking daily activities to dissuade immigration. The most passive approach would be to ask your homeowner’s association to not assign the landscaping and maintenance contracts to companies that don’t comply with current I-9 requirements. Then, write to your congressman and ask them why I can’t find any sort of recycling anywhere in texas!

Pics: a) the mack homestead; b) driving into santa elena canyon; c) walking into santa elena canyon; d) a flower in the rio grande river basin; e) my camera has a ten second delay, then shoots three one second pics - this is the least funny of the pics showing me running from the timer.

Numeros
Today Miles: 181; Trip Miles: 9,598
Starting: Terlingua, TX
Ending: Terlingua, TX, via Presidio TX
Route: 170
High Temp on beast thermo 2/25: 96
Low Temp on beast thermo 2/15: -3
Surprising Cultural Group to see in Presidio: Menonites
Common trick in TX gas stations: ‘see inside for receipt’
Drama in Presidio: brush fire
Most common shortage at Hobby Lobby in sw tx: burnt umber oil paint

Februrary 24, 2008

Drove south through the desert, stopping only at the town of Marathon long enough to walk through a couple of galleries (pricey for the product). Then more south to Big Bend National Park. I didn’t really plan on it, but just a few miles into the park there was a two mile hike to Dog Canyon – so I went ahead and did the round trip. Unfortunately the last third of the trail was in a dry creek bed that alternated between sand and rocks, all the while only providing a view of the walls of the creek – until it did run through a canyon which was lined with towering steep red rocks.

I had to do some work so I gambled and went to Terlingua Ranch – hoping that I would not only be able to stay there, but have access to highspeed internet to avoid driving seventy miles north to Alpine for the night then trek back Monday evening to spend more time at big bend. The map didn’t warn me, but ‘road’ is an overstatement – it was more of a sandy path with no marking that went over yonder. An hour later I made it to the ranch – RATS! No internet, but a really friendly woman that I chatted with for about fifteen minutes. She saved me going all the way back to Alpine and pointed me to the nearest hotel with wi-fi, about thirty miles away. If only there was Verizon coverage here.




Today Miles: 159; Trip Miles: 9,417
Starting: Fort Stockton, TX
Ending: Terlingua, TX
Route: 385S, Terlingua Ranch Dirt SW, 183S
Cost of entry to big bend: $20 (7 day)
Hiking Temp: 80
SPF Worn: 0
Current Skin-hue: sutter home white zinfandel
FM radio stations in Terlingua: 0
AM radio stations: 1 (1260am out of Chihuahua)
Cost to stay at the Big Bend Motor Inn room: ~$89
Cost to camp behind BBMI: $12.00
Cost of 6minute shower: $2.00
Filling and delicious dinner at Chile Pepper Café across the street: $9.82 (pre-propina)

February 23, 2008

The stars at night, are big and bright: The sounds of the coyotes howling and barking wasn’t exactly a lullaby, so eventually I got up and went for a walk. The full moon rose around 8:30 and lit the landscape in a way that it looked like night in the old John Wayne movies where they just put a filter over the camera. It was cool. It also put me nicely to sleep.

When I lived 150 years ago, I was definitely the old scraggly guy in the last wagon with a pot of beans going and some country aphorisms for anyone who would listen to me. I had a hearty breakfast, did a quick hike in the park, and headed to Abilene where I could use the library and get a used coffee mug so my beer mug wouldn’t have to do double duty going forward.

Pics: a) cookies' pots; b) boyle's law; c) grass; d) cotton fields; d) me, the beast, and JC in Ballinger





Today Miles: 421; Trip Miles: 9,258
Starting: Breaks State Park, TX (near Margaret)
Ending: Fort Stockton, TX
Route: 6S, Random Dirt SW, 83S, 67W
Number of roadkill tallies: 0*
Number of times I refrained from tallying: >20
Famous American from Abilene, Tx: Jessica Simpson
Famous American from Abilene, Ks: Dwight David Eisenhower
March 16, Midland Texas, The Ranch Nightclub, entertainment: Micro Wrestling Event (midget wrestling – http://www.microwrestling.com/)
Other tidbit of wisdom from The Ranch Nightclub website:
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting, learned to live
off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly barbecues and doing
the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the
liberal movement. An interesting evolutionary side note: some of these
early liberal men eventually evolved into women.

Liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the trade
union, the invention of group therapy and group hugs, and the concept of
democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that the
conservatives provided.
Number of comments I can make about the quote: 0**


*Today was a count-free zone.
**Except that.

February 22, 2008

I spent the morning dealing with a point of contention between the Internal Revenue Service and I. I know that I was wrong on the form, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to write a kneescraping letter begging for mercy. The night before I had tried to go to ‘I love this bar & grill’ by some country music star, but they were making a racket with some sort of singing contest so I went next door to the Bass Shop – a somewhat lesser attempt at the palace to the outdoors created by Cabela’s. So this morning I got off the dime about a camping stove I had been hemming and hawing over and went ahead and got a lantern for good measure.

That stinks: I drove southwest and enjoyed watching the thermometer periodically tick up a degree until I was over forty degrees! Unfortunately with the warm weather, some of the less pleasant aspects of the road are brought to the fore – no longer masked by a few inches of snow, or having their rotting smells frozen inside, the roadkill was omnipresent. During the short trip between Apache and Lawton (maybe twenty miles) I tallied no less than fourteen skunks that were smashed. [I chose skunk because they are easily recognized by stark black and white that avoids confusion with most other road kill – unless pepe lepew was out, and they normally are small enough to stay in the vicinity of the road bed, and when all else fails the smell was the secondary indicator]

I stopped in Lawton long enough to stretch my legs in a local park near Fort Still, and I was amazed by the prairie dogs – there were hundreds of the little bastards, everywhere! They were tame enough that they didn’t flee into one of the thousands of holes around the park immediately, instead they all communicated to each other about my presence with tail wagging and little barks that were like chirps. The devils were cute as hell to watch run – but seeing the destruction the bring, I can see why they are trapped, shot, and vacuumed. Somehow I got turned around in Lawton with a couple bad turns and ended up in the school zone at last bell – hundreds of little bastards, everywhere, but not as cute. So I ended up taking a revised route south rather than west (I refused to backtrack through the school zone).

I cruised through some beautiful plains of Southern Oklahoma and into the panhandle of Texas. It was downright beautiful outside, and I decided that I was feeling pretty good and I would go ahead and try camping – so I stopped at a grocery in the next town, and also visited a wal-mart, and started making tracks. I have complained in the past about getting to a town late – there is no option with camping. I haven’t used my tent in years (not the one lance and I drove cross country with – that was lost in SF, and not the one I got a few years ago – Jin Ah left that one in Hawaii [who brings a tent to Hawaii?]) and I wasn’t even sure I had all the parts anymore. But I made it to the park with about forty minutes of sunlight left, and no park ranger, and not another soul in the park…. Except for a couple of armadillo that weren’t so keen on my arrival. I pitched the tent on a dry, flat, and soft space, did the late check-in paperwork and made camp with about ten minutes before the sun had dropped off the horizon. Unfortunately, while I am only about twenty yards from the restrooms / showers, I observed several piles of presumably armadillo droppings between the tent and the shower, so I am leery of stepping in yet another species’ feces. FYI (for you skat lovers – not ella though) imagine a deer, but constipated.

So, in the spirit of ‘roughing it,’ I fired up the lantern and the stove and made some Kosher hotdogs and chased it with a gourmet beer from the Boulevard Brewery Limited Edition Smokestake Series (no review – beer may have been frozen) while I tuned in a classic rock radio station for eine kleine nachtmusik. My laptop was charged up (via the Beast – love the outlet in the bed) so I nestled in the super sleeping bag I got for Christmas and tapped away this entry.

Movie Review: Last night I made the mistake of letting a movie start, and I can’t turn them off. I was up until 2:30 watching ‘Brick’ – and it was tremendously worth the slow start this morning. I’m no movie scholar, but for my taste it was a great combination of Teen Angst, Pulp Dialogue, and Film Noir – imagine splicing ‘Three O’clock High’ & ‘Heathers’ with ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘Miller’s Crossing.’ The dialogue is indecipherable at first until it is clear (sorta) that it is basically American hackney. Probably not a film for my parents, but it has no boobs and limited f-bombs so it is safe for a Thanksgiving rental that will have the grandparents shaking their heads.

Fun & Games: Can you name the states that have panhandles? (Answer in comments)

Pics: a) Cute little bastard; b) pimp his ride in hollister, OK; c) cribs at copper breaks SP

Today Miles: 232 Trip Miles: 8,837
Starting: Oklahoma City, OK
Ending: Copper Breaks State Park, TX (near Margaret)
Route: 62S, 36W, 5W, 54S, 70W
Exercise in Redundancy: City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (official name)
Businesses currently on Do Not Use (DNU – pronounced ‘nyuah’) list: Ramada (product), Office Depot (service)
Cost for camping in Copper Breaks State Park: $10.00 (I waived myself on the $2.00/person use fee)
Semi-scientific tally of radio station genres in OKCity, OK
Christian: 10
Jazz/Classical: 3
Rock / Classic Rock / R&B: 8
Country: 5
Talk / Spanish: 4

February 21, 2008

A place where even squares can have a ball: a point to anyone who can tell me the song from whence that line came – a counter-counter culture anthem of the late 1960’s. by the way, this is like ‘who’s line is it anyway’ where the points don’t really count and the host is a fat white guy. Your hint for the day – I started and ended today in Oklahoma (for only the second time have consecutive travel days ended in the same state – the other was Montana).

Cosmo’s: Trying to patronize the businesses that support the programming I enjoy – I visited Cosmos Cafe at 69th and Memorial where the connectivity was good, the music was great, and the service got me a couple cups of coffee in a reasonable period of time. From there, I took memorial south until it became 75 and then I headed west using the force (and beast compass), parallel to I-40W through a series of interesting and small towns and Indian reservations until the countryside became the edges and then the center of Oklahoma City.

Famous People & Tragic Events: It is interesting to me that towns are put on the map based on the famous people that came from there, or the tragic events that occurred there. It is hard to believe that it has been 13 years since the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building. The national monument is tasteful and moving. However, the rest of Oklahoma City merit attention that is more uplifting and enjoyable ie Automobile Alley and the other districts; especially BrickTown where I ended up staying and having dinner at the BrickTown Brewery. (no beer review as the taste-buds of the reviewer are limited by current bout of llness)


Pics: a) one of at least two yanta cowboys waving to me; b) ok city nm, Reflecting Pool and Field of Empty Chairs; c) The Survivor Tree










Games: Match the famous person with the Oklahoma Town that has a street sign or origin sign describing their Okie Heritage… (answer posted as a comment to this entry)

Mickey Mantle
Troy Aikman
Woody Guthrie
Jim Thorpe
Johnny Bench

Spavinaw
Henryetta
Okemah
Prague
Oklahoma City

Today Miles: 206; Trip Miles: 8,605
Price of gas in Prague, OK: $2.99
Cost of 30 minutes parking, OKCity, OK: $0.25
Times ‘she likes it in the morning’ played on country radio: 3
Candidate for Primary Chief of Okmulgee: Tiger
Unpleasant Freeze Experience (mess): Vlasic Kosher Dills

February 20, 2008

I resolved myself to drive south until the temperature gauge in the beast was above freezing. I have spent the past couple of weeks while traveling using the growler I got from Firehouse Brewery in Rapid City, SD - filling up with warm water in the morning and leaving it in my cooler while on the road to keep the grocery contents from freezing.

The great thing about most of the towns in the MidWest is that you can take virtually any road in a general direction, and rest assured that it will keep going in that direction until it ends. I took Holmes south out of Kansas City (driving a couple miles east long enough to get a lottery ticket I had neglected to get last week) until it became simply Rte D. I went east far enough to get on state highway 71 south to Lamar – birthplace of Harry S. Truman the 33rd (32nd according to the site monument) President of these United States. Media References: Jim Carey movie, In Cold Blood, Fletch, Will & Grace.

Advertising: Oklahoma is not unlike most markets where the television networks generate money by selling advertising space to entities that hope to promote their products (& causes) by reaching the masses. For some reason, the Cherokee Nation is a key advertiser in Oklahoma – describing the good deeds the tribe does for the community. I am not sure why they are compelled to do this, but somehow I am going to think it has something to do with gambling.

Gambling: The Oklahoma license plate has the slogan ‘Native America.’ In case you didn’t see it on all the cars, you can count that every county has a tribe and you will know that because there will be a casino that is open 24 hours. I have rethought my position on gambling – I once considered it an unnecessarily regulated activity that caused governments to forego regulatory revenue.

But driving through dozens of Indian reservations and states that allow for legalized gambling – and seeing the way it is ubiquitously, conspicuously, and tastelessly thrust upon the public in every diner, grocery store, and gas station… I can only imagine a cluttered and littered environment – before I even consider the fact that these all seem to be self-sustaining (demand) with potential for ancillary social problems and their related public cost.

Quote: "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." (O.W. Holmes, Sr. 1858)

Pics: a) Ice along a highway cut, b) HST birthplace, c) bowling ball lawn ornaments across from GWC National Park

Max Fax:
Today Miles: 290; Total Miles: 8,399
Morning Temp In KC MO: 8
Wind Chill: -8
Price of gas in Lamar, MO: $2.97
Price of one post card at birthplace of Harry Truman: $0.27
Unpleasant Freeze experience (unusable): Barbasol Shaving Cream
Astronauts from Carthage, MO: Janet Kavandi

Scientists from Diamond, MO: George Washington Carver

Famous battles of carthage:
(c.149 BC): The only major engagement of the Third Punic War, which was a protracted siege starting somewhere between 149 BC and 147 BC, and ending in the spring of 146 BC with the complete destruction of the city of Carthage.

(238): The decisive conflict in the revolt of Marcus Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus Romanus Africanus (Gordian II) against the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus (Maximinus Thrax).

(533): also known as the Battle of Ad Decimum, fought between the armies of the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimer, and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), under the command of general Belisarius.

(698): part of the Islamic conquests, fought between the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa, and the armies of the Umayyad Caliphate.

(1861): a battle of the American Civil War, occurring on July 5, 1861 in Jasper County, Missouri. It was the first victory for the Confederate Army in Missouri.

February 18-19, 2008

February 18-19, 2008

These were a couple non-travel days. I worked from the comfort of Kerry’s house in Kansas City and from the local library – where the wi-fi was solid and there are even loaner laptops for visiting patrons!

Kerry and I even went back to PotPie to see James play the accordion again; by coincidence I was in town again for his monthly session. Unfortunately, however, James called in sick! But I can’t blame him, after another good dinner, I went right to bed when we got back to Kerry’s house, because I too was starting to feel under the weather.

Getting sick stinks: By this point, I know when I am going to get sick. It isn’t just the sore from exercise, it is aches in the small of the back and in the hips that don’t come from normal muscle use. I went to bed early and read about a third of the book I’ve been working through (‘disgrace’ by J.M. Coetzee). Over the course of the night my fever kicked in and woke me up periodically – in the spirit of the blog I went ahead and took notes on my neurosis during the fever, but after reading my notes, realized that I don’t know who is reading this, and I don’t need my future employer hiring me merely because I was a future alibi-as-mentally-deficient in the making.

Green Machine Ingredients: Apple Juice, Mango Puree, Pineapple Juice, Banana Pureee, Kiwifruit Puree, Green Machine Mix (spirulina, chlorella, broccoli, gree tea extract, spinach, barley grass, wheat grass, blue green algae, echinacea purpurea extract, odorless garlic), natural flavor.

February 17, 2008

It always snows: When we woke up Sunday morning the heavy rain had turned to thick wet snow covering everything in a thick blanket of white – fortunately it wasn’t bitterly cold so we figured that the orienteering event that Kerry was going to would not be cancelled. Kerry had convinced me to participate in the event, so I can give a first-hand account of this unique sport:

The event was sponsored by the Possum Trot Orienteering Club (www.ptoc.org) – at Monkey Mountain (about thirty miles east of Kansas City). We arrived at the parking lot of the park where there were about five vehicles. Kerry handled the financial transactions – five dollars to participate plus a dollar to rent a compass for me – in the first car, and the participant comes away with a detailed map of the park that outlines the geographic features (eg forest, open field, stream, etc) and topography, a key to the map, and a card with numbered boxes to be marked at each of the waypoints. In the second vehicle, a van-agon with camper fit-out, a second man shares a map with waypoints – depending on the difficulty of the course chosen – there were five different difficulties for this course, Kerry had of course convinced me to do the most difficult (red) course that she would be doing.
You take a couple of minutes to mark your map with the waypoints (control locations) on the guide map – thirteen scattered across the park, and numbered so you have to visit each of the controls in order, and a key to the lettered controls and hints on where they will be found (eg. Ditch, rootfall). The great thing is that this is actually a race – the timer starts the clock when you leave his van for the trail. But since there is a staggered start, and people are doing different courses that have sometimes overlapping controls, it isn’t prudent to spend much time following other people because they may be on a different course, or they might be on a different control, or they may just be bad at finding the controls.

Kerry left the parking lot about a minute before me – and I could have followed her to see where she went for the control, but I took a different route and ended up finding the control with her about the same time – a orange and white flag with a letter code (to confirm that it is the correct control based on your map) and a hole punch with a unique pattern that is used to mark a numbered sheet that comes with the map. From there we only saw each other a couple of times, the weather changed from light snow, to light rain, to cold wind, to eventually sunlight. The weather helped because periodically I would find Kerry’s footprints and it comforted me that I was in the right general area looking for the control.

At control number 5, I passed Kerry and ran north toward control 6. I didn’t see Kerry for another hour as I tried to keep ahead of her by finding the controls and running as much as I could, but the muddy conditions led to a lot of jogging, walking, slogging, splashing, and periodically falling on my ass. Because of the pressure of having Kerry chase me, I felt like Dr. Richard Kimble moving over uneven terrain, hopefully at four miles an hour from the unseen, menacing, US Marshall Lt. Gerard. Just before I got to the 13th and last control, I looked over my shoulder and there was Kerry’s red sweater, her first comment was, ‘why are you covered in mud?’ she shot me with her comment and we laughed and punched our cards and walked back to the parking lot together – we finished with 2 hours and four minutes each. Partially frozen, covered in mud (at least me), and pretty damn tired, we headed into KC for some Vietnamese food (pho) to warm us.

Cabelas: We took a detour into Kansas to visit the most outrageous sporting goods store I’ve ever seen – and while it was probably bigger than most Costco stores (with two levels) it was completely full of things that have nothing to do with soccer or football – this was an outdoors outfitter. The most striking feature of the store was the taxidermy – there were stuffed animals everywhere; birds in the display cases around the counters, hundreds of deer heads lining the walls, and three key features:

1) A faux (not pho) mountain of at least two stories in the center of the store with (all stuffed) bighorn sheep in action climbing up and down, while at the base and in crags leading up the summit were varying levels of dear (mule and white tail), bison cornered by three wolves, a bobcat snaring a rabbit out of mid-air, moose... the display complete even with animal skat.
2) The mule deer room – a room that is filled with over 100 full size deer displaying the different types and sizes of mule deer racks; both typical and non-typical rack types. Many of the record holders for each category were on display with even a couple of human mannequins that every couple of minutes would come to life via animatronics and tell us that the racks on the deer displayed are rare, but there are more out there!
3) The African savannah – here is an alcove that features taxidermy of big game from Africa – lions tackling a zebra that is kicking, two elephants in combat, even a crocodile grabbing at a group of five wildebeest!

Besides being the most amazing store, there was even an olde time shooting gallery where a person can pony-up some tokens and use a rifle that shoots a beam of light at targets scattered across a room for points and bragging rights. Kerry challenged me, but I didn’t have the courage to face her – in the bb gun wars of woodbridge, va, I was usually one of the targets rather than the shooter; and I wasn’t inclined to climb into the display and run around screaming like I did as a kid. I was already too tired and sore from orienteering.

Pics: a) the snowy start at kerry's house, b) check-in process vehicle, c) Kerry, D!) the detailed map (original in color), e) Control #8