Maggie Walters. 

New faces, old places

I helped tape Maggie Walters for Local Live on 91.7 KVRX last night. I've talked with her a few times now, and she's a real sweetie. She'll be playing South by Southwest in a few weeks, and she has a beautiful voice, so I won't be surprised if she gets big fast. It doesn't hurt that she's pretty easy on the eyes, either.

My roommate produces the TV version of the show and I help him out sometimes, so I've met a few bands that way and seen some interesting performances over the last year. The music scene here is so rich it's not hard to find talented people to play the show, and in fact very few bands that submit their work are offered the gig. Scott H. Biram released his Local Live show as a CD, and Local Live also puts out compilations, one of which was called "It Came From the Basement". Appropriate, since it's actually recorded in a basement, although that won't be true next semester, when they move so the building can be demolished.

Hopefully, I'll get to see Maggie's SXSW show next month. She'll be performing with her band at that one, and when they played Cactus Cafe the place was packed for a reason.

Notes from the Road - Day 30

2/28/04 10:50pm Mountainair, NM

I was supposed to be up for breakfast at 7:30am this morning, but when Carl came over to the trailer to get me, he said he didn’t see any signs of life and let me sleep. I didn’t have an alarm, so it was ten ‘til eight when I made it over there, and everyone was finished but still at the table. Scott took off to set up the shop for the day, but Steve and Linda stuck around for a bit to chat. I met Linda at Ruth and Carl’s 50^th anniversary party last year, but only briefly, so it was good to see that she’s very happy and easygoing. I had a little bit of everything to eat, then went into town with Carl to see the store. First, though, we dropped by a couple properties he’d acquired: an old house that used a steam heating system he’d bought and fixed up for Joe before they found out he’d be staying in Washington, and the house Scott’s currently living in, where Mary will soon join him.

The shop has seen at least one new addition since the last time I was here, two and a half years ago. They built a new garage on one side of the building for Scott’s business, and he’s still putting up the insulation and collecting the equipment he’ll need. Steve found out this morning that one of his good friends in Arizona just passed away, and he’s been calling people with the news. Carl still takes part in the everyday business of the shop, and we saw three or four people come in for various things. Then we came back to the house, and while Ruth and Linda met somewhere to work on wedding decisions, I stirred the beef stew we had for lunch.

Everybody made it in just in time to eat before Steve and I had to leave to make our tee time of 2:30pm in Socorro. It was snowing while we were at the shop, and we were afraid conditions might not be good enough, but Socorro is more than an hour south, and when we called, the golf place said conditions were great there. As we drove we escaped the snow, and it warmed up as we descended altitude, so that we were comfortable with sweatshirts and no jackets as we played. My game today has improved over the previous outings, but on the eighth hole we started getting hail and by the ninth we decided to call it a day and try to make it back for Ruth’s home-cooked supper. A huge, dark cloud covered the mountains as we neared, and we ran into some hard snow, but nothing was sticking to the road.

Strangely enough, Mountainair hadn’t seen much of any snow when we got back, and Steve and I sat down shortly after everyone else had started. Eric and his wife Maggie, and their son Isaiah, were there this time, and Scott had a lot of fun teasing them. They’re clearly two young people in love. After supper and a blackberry cobbler with ice cream, we sat in the living room and talked for a bit while Libby the cat made the rounds. When Carl decided to turn in, I headed over to Steve’s house just down the street to watch the end of the college basketball game and Shallow Hal. I couldn’t stop yawning however, so I came back to the trailer to write and get some sleep. I’ll leave for the last leg of my trip after breakfast.

The Van(Dyke) that grew too much. 

Hair today,...

I shaved off most of my facial hair today, and I shaved my head yesterday after several weeks of letting it grow out. It was more out of laziness than anything else that I let it get so long, but the fact is I like to change how I look about once a year. For whatever reason, I get bored with looking the same way for long periods of time. For most of a year now, I've been shaving my head and growing a Van Dyke (commonly and incorrectly referred to as a goatee), which I've been told makes me look a bit like wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, to which I would add "without all the muscles."

When I was growing up, my dad was always clean-shaven. Then, about ten years ago now, he started growing a moustache, which he's kept ever since. As a little boy, I would stand on the bathroom counter and watch him shave, and he took the blades out of a disposable razor and gave it to me to go through the motions along with him, complete with shaving cream. There's a funny picture of me doing this in one of our photo albums.

I was going through some pictures today and was surprised by just how differently I kept my hair from year to year as a teenager. I guess it's just a character trait I've kept even as I lost a lot of my hair over the last half-decade or so. In Spanish class, my teacher called me "Dόgo Pelo" because she thought my hair looked different every day. This, however, was simply due to the fact that my hair was extremely curly and I didn't spend a lot of time on it in the mornings.

Anyway, so long to the scary biker look.

Notes from the Road - Day 29

2/27/04 10:50pm Mountainair, NM

I got a good night’s sleep last night, and didn’t even wake up when Michael and Jason went to school and Diane went to work. By the time I got out of bed it was 8:30am, and when I walked into the dining room, John was reading the paper with a pot of coffee brewing. After drinking a cup I got my shower, killing my second daddy-long-legs before getting in. I killed the first one last night, and there was a third in the ceiling corner I couldn’t reach. John said it’s just the time of year for them to come out.

First we headed to IHOP for a New Mexico breakfast. I told him I’d try some authentic New Mexican food while I was here, and ultimately chose breakfast over lunch. This was apparently a good thing, because John said the food was even hotter at the place he would’ve taken me for lunch, and the huevos rancheros I had at IHOP were already too hot for me to eat much. I ordered the red chili only, but John had the red and the green, “Christmas” the waitress called it. I drank a couple glasses of ice water and sweated under my baseball cap, but he didn’t bat an eye finishing the whole plate. He said it’s something you get used to, and eventually everyone here buys their own peppers, peels and seeds them, and keeps them in the freezer for use throughout the year.

We came back to the house to check messages, then picked the Crest as our first destination. From Albuquerque you can see a dozen huge radio towers on the top of the enormous mountain range towering over the city like a sentinel. That point is more than 10,600 feet above sea level, and more than a mile above the desert floor and the city. As we ascended, I caught glimpses of the view through breaks in the tree line, but we didn’t stop for any pictures. We were seeing snow as soon as we got on the road leading up, and by the time we reached the top, it was several feet deep, covering stairs and paths, but the road was almost entirely clear except for a few patches near the top. A trickle of snowmelt running down the center line shimmered and sparkled in the sunlight, but undoubtedly hardened into solid ice at night, when the temperature dropped. At the top of the mountain, it was 34 degrees, whereas it was 58 degrees at the bottom.

We parked in the lower of the two lots because the top was full, and this necessitated a climb up the uncleared steps or a longer walk by the road. I followed John’s lead up the steps, or tried to. Several people before us had packed the snow in places, and I tried to follow the footprints that were at least six inches deep, but where they ran together, it was so slick my tennis shoes couldn’t find a purchase and I figured I must look like a cartoon character with my feet spinning in place. Luckily, I didn’t get any snow in my shoes. When I finally made it to the top, I found I was having a hard time catching my breath because of the altitude. I pictured myself having to sit down to avoid fainting, but luckily the feeling passed.

There are some amazing views from up there, as far as Santa Fe on a clear day, but you wouldn’t want to linger this time of year. The snow was so deep in places that only the top few inches of the hand railings were visible. There is a path along the ridge of the mountains that runs to the other side that John said he’s taken, in addition to other hiking in the area which leads to an old stone house where he and his friends spent some nights when they were younger. He said they’d met some strange people up there in the night. As we came down, we passed two hitchhikers carrying snowboards, looking for a ride to avoid buying a lift ticket. There was also an area halfway up designated exclusively for sledding.

Our next stop was downtown to continue my streak of photographing city skylines, although in Albuquerque’s case, there’s precious little to see. Still, we had a hard time finding a good shot because of the flatness of the area, the many trees, and the relative shortness of the buildings. I could’ve gotten a great shot from the I-25/I-40 interchange, but it was on the driver’s side and John was driving. The interchange is a characteristic (for out here) pink color that is nonetheless unusual for highway design, with a blue stripe.

After we had some Arby’s for lunch, we headed to the west side of town to check out the Petroglyph National Monument. Only a small part of the park is open to the public, but we saw at least a hundred of the 20,000 petroglyphs carved in the basalt rocks lining the hills in the area. The black coloring is actually caused by exposure to the elements, and people as long ago as 1000 B.C. found that chipping lightly at the surface revealed a much lighter coloring underneath that made for strong contrast, so they started creating all kinds of pictures and designs on the rocks found at these places that were sacred to them. We saw drawings of people, demons, insects, animals, spirals, and some markings no one knows the significance of. Most of these were done between the 1300’s and 1700’s, but some are much older, and some are recent graffiti.

There has apparently been some controversy in the area over a proposal to connect two roads through part of the site. John said he could see both sides of the issue, since the rocks with petroglyphs could be moved, but I pointed out some of the meaning in these archaeological findings is derived from their context. Still, this is a debate being played out in many areas all over the west, mainly because so much has been found out here preserved in a state that’s possible to study. North of Flagstaff, the stretch of 89A I was on yesterday was expanded some time ago, and that project proceeded only on the condition that the study and recovery of ruins in the area would be conducted at the same time. There are things to be learned from these sites, but that has to be balanced against the needs of those living today.

When we got back to the house, Diane and the boys were there, but there were things going on, as I’m sure there always are, so I decided to come on out to Mountainair for supper and to stay the night. I have one more day before making the trip back to Bedford. Ruth, Carl, and I went to a restaurant in town that’s apparently been having trouble, but was likely the only place open at 7:00pm in this small town. The server informed us it was only her third day, never a good sign, but we all got the correct orders, which is something. The building dates back to 1923, and was renovated recently. It has high ceilings, and many framed pencil drawings by a local artist line the walls. It looks like a fine place for a restaurant, if only the food were better. My cousin Steve is in Albuquerque tonight getting fitted for a tux. He is getting married in three weeks, which I plan to be back for. I’ll get to see him tomorrow, and maybe play some golf. Mary’s husband Scott and one of her sons, Eric, work with him in his auto shop in town, so we’ll likely get together for supper, too.

Notes from the Road - Day 28

2/26/04 10:50pm Albuquerque, NM

I’ve seen so much today it’s going to be a struggle to remember it all. I got started early thanks to rain outside and the cold in the room, since I’d turned off the noisy heater before I went to sleep. I packed up and left the room key on the front desk like the sign said, then headed out of town into another dreary day. I followed the road labeled 89 South but quickly deduced from the map that I wasn’t going south, so I turned around to catch 89A down to Flagstaff.

When asked to picture Arizona, snow is generally not the first thing to come to mind, but as I ascended into the higher elevations, I ran into a very strong snow storm. The rabbit brush and snakeweed had given way to juniper and ponderosa pine forest, and suddenly snow covered the ground and blew as hard as anything I’d seen up north. As soon as I crossed the mountaintop and started heading down the other side, the snow disappeared and I was greeted by the desert surrounding I’d expected, although the temperature stayed below 60 degrees. The sun began to peek out and where it struck the sandstone cliff faces, they glowed pink, although the valley floor had turned a pale yellow. The vegetation was surprisingly thick, but it was still the same tufts I’d been seeing before this morning.

Soon I came to the crossing of the Colorado River, and the Cliff Dweller village shortly before it. These Native Americans had built their homes around precarious rock formations rising out of the valley floor. None more than 20 feet tall, most of them looked like an elongated golf ball set on a tee. The river crossing had places to stop on either side so you could access the pedestrian bridge, right next to the one for cars, to get a better view of the gorge cut by the river through miles of rock over millions of years. Just on the other side of the bridge, empty stalls began appearing along the road, which it became obvious were used by Indians selling their wares in warmer weather.

The next couple of hours were a straight drive across a flat plain with a line of red cliffs or buttes on the left hand side and nothing on the other. I listened to NPR on the radio, which surprisingly came in enough to follow most of the way, discussing the Martha Stewart trial. Eventually, I came to a large, red roadside stand called Chief Yellow Horse, which had both indoor and outdoor areas. The indoor area had an old-fashioned iron stove. I bought a decorated arrow and a leather dream catcher. One of the signs on the outside read “Nice Indians”.

Moving on from there, I came across the entrance to the Wupatki ruins and Sunset Crater National Park. There were several groupings of 800-year-old Indian houses along the road, but the largest one housed about 100 people at its peak. I went ahead and took the self-guided tour around the site, which took me by the ball court (one of hundreds found in Arizona and New Mexico), and a geological feature called a blow hole, that the Pueblo Indians believed was the breath of the wind spirit. When I held my hand above the hole in the ground a strong current of cold air was blowing up out of it.

Sunset Crater is actually a cinder cone volcano, now dormant, similar to the one I saw in New Mexico at the start of my trip. It had some interesting lava flow formations, but the winds blowing down the pass that the road occupied were some of the strongest I’ve ever encountered. They nearly prevented me from opening my car door, and when I got it open, they nearly knocked me down. The wall on the other side of the pass from the volcano looked like smooth asphalt with a few trees growing out of it, some with their roots exposed, but it was actually basalt lava. It looked like these flows had engulfed and maybe petrified some of the trees in at least one area I passed.

Finally, I made it to Flagstaff, where I got a bite to eat, got some more film, and got on I-40 heading east. Not too far out I ran across a place billed as the only proven meteor crater site in the world, but it had closed 15 minutes before I got there. A new, paved road led six miles back to the museum and crater, and ended right there. I wondered if the taxpayers got the bill for that one. I gassed up and made the decision to press on for Albuquerque even though the light was fading so I’d have more time to spend with my family in the area. Around dusk I passed the entrance to the Petrified Forest National Park, which I’d seen once before on a trip to the Grand Canyon with my folks. When night came on, I saw a huge shooting star streak down towards the horizon.

A little after 9:00pm, I rolled into my cousin John’s driveway. His friend Jeff, who I’d met last time I was out and he was visiting from Arizona, was here, and John and Diane’s sons Michael and Jason were still up and remembered the games of Magic: the Gathering we played that Thanksgiving. For some reason, their dog Checkers doesn’t remember me fondly and barks whenever I look him in the eye. John and I sat up for a bit having a couple of beers and talking.

Notes from the Road - Day 27

2/25/04 10:10pm Kanab, UT

I kept waking up periodically last night, which meant I didn’t end up getting out of bed until nearly 10:00am. The other three beds in my room were still occupied and the curtains were drawn, so I packed my things in the dark, then moved my car outside the security fence and checked out.

There were still two things I wanted to see in Vegas before I left: the Luxor and the indoor acrobatics at the Tropicana. I parked at the Luxor, which is shaped like a giant glass pyramid with a sphinx in front of it, and walked all the way through it and out the front, since I didn’t have time to stop or I’d miss the Tropicana show. All of the parking at the places on the strip is behind the casinos (because who wants to look at a parking garage when you could be seeing a giant sphinx or the Brooklyn Bridge?), so it is a bit of a walk. The Luxor is gorgeously decorated inside with mock statues of all things Egyptian, and you can see all the way up to the inner apex of the pyramid from the ground floor. If I were in Vegas on my honeymoon, I’d either stay there or Caesar’s Palace for the sheer opulence of the surroundings. Interestingly, those two casinos both have rooms with a Cleopatra theme.

By contrast, the Tropicana is a little bit older, and more geared toward the gambling. I had envisioned the glass-domed ceiling the athletes performed under as being at least 30-40 feet high, but it was actually more like 15-20, and no less of a feat for that. In truth, two of the three acts I saw did physical tricks like the ones I’d seen before, but the third were truly acrobats, swinging just a few feet above the heads of the patrons sitting at the slot machines below on a long tether. These two guys were very impressive.

Just before the show, I bought a coffee and put one of the quarters that made up my change in a slot machine and won another $5.00. I thought to myself, “I’ll take it,” and cashed out. For my time spent in Nevada, that put me a little over $30.00 in the black, which is better than I expected to be. After the show, I picked up a free deck of playing cards at the promotion desk and headed back to my car. This left only Circus Circus as the sight I missed that I wanted to see. There’s always next time. At least that gives me a reason to come back.

It was 1:00pm by the time I hit the interstate north, and it was not crowded. Few people enter or leave Las Vegas from the east side, apparently, as I was one of only a few cars visible for miles. At a turnout for trucks, I got off and followed a side road a little ways out to take a look at some of the date palms that were showing their colors. I’d earlier mistaken them for cacti, but they’re really trees up to 10 feet high. I had to walk about 100 yards out into the sand to get a picture of the one I liked, and I started to get a little nervous when I noticed all the pool-ball-sized holes in the ground burrowing towards the roots of most sage bushes. I don’t know what was living in them, but snakes and scorpions came to mind so I started walking faster. While I was out there I also saw tumbleweed, a purple cactus, and some strange white station a long ways down the road, with a cone shaped sensor coming out of the middle. It wasn’t identified by any signs, so I don’t know if it was military, weather, or science, but I resisted the urge to drive out and knock on the door. Shortly thereafter, I stopped in Mesquite, which from the highway looks like an oasis of golf courses, to eat at McDonald’s.

As I headed out again, the mountains got steeper and canyons and washes started appearing, huge cracks in the landscape weaving their way into the scrubland toward the peaks in the distance. There were many spots on this drive, as there have been everywhere, when I wished there was a place to stop for a good picture. In some of them, I just held my camera up to the window and took the shot anyway, just hoping for the best. I’ve done this quite often.

I crossed the border into Arizona to find more rocky desert scenery that took my breath away. I even turned the radio off to appreciate it by giving it my full attention. At one point, these huge earthen landscapes became the red mirror of the Continental Divide I’d crossed up north. The Virgin River runs through here, brownish-red, reminding me of the creek running by Friendship, Indiana, at flood stage. The sides of these elaborately slant-stacked mountains are virtually bare, meaning the process of breaking them to rubble goes unaided by vegetation. Wind and water still do the job, but they’re not as thorough, leaving precarious rock formations standing on mountaintops.

Eventually, I crossed the border into Utah, but the landscape didn’t change, since nature doesn’t recognize the borders we see fit to impose. Perhaps the soil got a little redder, but it was hard to tell. In my haste to find a restroom, I missed my exit since some of them have signs declaring “No services,” and it was one of them. This cost me a precious hour of daylight, which was already beginning to dwindle through the increasingly overcast sky. I made my way at last to Zion National Park, which thankfully wasn’t charging admission by the time I got there. The best way to describe the peaks here would be jagged, like the lower jaw of a carnivore with some of the teeth missing. It was some truly stunning scenery, and sadly I couldn’t get any pictures after I entered the park because the light was too dim. It was enough that I could still see though, and what I saw reminded me of the Grand Canyon, which is nearby. Zion also requires a trip through a small tunnel that digs straight through the upper part of a mountain for 1.1 miles. There were periodic breaks in one wall of the tunnel offering breathtaking views but the signs said no stopping inside the tunnel. There is a pedestrian walkway through that side, but you can only go through it with a ranger.

As I’d started making switchbacks up the road leading through the park, I’d begun to wonder if this road was going to be disturbingly similar to my terrible time on Highway 1 in California, but when it got to the tunnel it straightened out considerably and was rather smooth driving by comparison. It was something else entirely that made me slow down as I descended the mountain and left the park: I saw three groups of deer grazing along the side of the road within a mile of each other. Night had fallen by this time, but I could still make out the snow clinging to the land around me, the first I’d seen since Washington State more than a week ago. I kept my high beams on and my eyes moving.

Finally, I reached the town of Kanab and decide to call it a night. A brochure I picked up in the office of this cozy family-run inn says the town has been home to many Western productions of both television and movies. The walls of the office are lined with pictures of actors signed to the proprietors, Bob and Bon.

Fun with film

Reason I Love Austin Number 203:

Tonight, I rode a white school bus around town for an hour and a half while drinking beer and watching school bus safety films from the 70's and 80's. It was all thanks to the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow. I even won a T-shirt for correctly spelling "Schmoadle". Don't ask.

If you don't live here, you should.

Notes from the Road - Day 26

2/24/04 9:45pm Las Vegas, NV

First thing today, I headed back to the Fremont Street Experience for breakfast, and ended up eating in a McDonald’s accessible only through a casino. I walked the ten blocks or so there and back from the hostel, the beginning of a long day on my feet. Fremont Street is lined with cheap motels, liquor and convenience stores, and XXX shops. One tattoo parlor I’ve noticed every time I’ve passed it always has a couple pigeons poking around inside its sign. In the window, there are pictures of the parlor’s work, and it’s good.

There are many professional quality pictures of staff and guests of the hostel hanging mounted on the walls of the break room here, the first time I’ve seen such quality. I wonder if they were a gift. This hostel is unusual in a couple of ways, including the fact that the building it’s in was a modern hotel at one point, complete with magnetic key cards.

When I got back from breakfast, I was so tired I went back to my room, read a little, then took a nap. While I was lying there, a procession of guys with plastic gloves came in for “housekeeping”. One cleaned the bathroom, another oiled the hinges of the door, which squealed horrendously every time it was opened, and another just seemed to be checking everything out. Around 12:30pm, I went ahead and got up, since there was a lot I wanted to see today and my window for seeing it all was pretty small.

My first stop was Caesar’s Palace, where I parked and walked right out, intending to head for the indoor rainstorm at the Aladdin. I just grabbed a piece of pizza in Caesar’s food court and didn’t take the time to really see the place because I knew I’d be coming back for my car. As I hit the street, however, I realized I was too late to catch the 2:00pm “show”, so I just crossed the road to the Flamingo. The first incarnation of this casino, on top of which the current Flamingo Casino was built, was Bugsy Siegel’s hotel, complete with his private room featuring bulletproof glass and four secret exits, but only one entrance. He was killed at his girlfriend’s mansion in California, where he hadn’t arranged any similar protection. In the courtyard area, where the pool, wedding chapel, and wildlife now are, there’s a plaque commemorating him.

The sunlight reflecting off the pink windows that cover the building gives everything a peach glow, and the abundance of birds and plant life in the open air gives it the feeling of a zoo habitat. This is only enhanced when the animal keeper comes out to feed the African penguins. She knows them all by name, and distinguishes them by the freckle-like black marks on their otherwise white underbellies. One of them was molting, that is, losing old feathers that had been replaced from underneath with new feathers. Right before this happens, they start gaining weight because their feathers aren’t waterproof during this process, meaning in the wild they couldn’t hunt for food. Unlike the flamingos, black swans, and the crowned swan also on-site, the penguins do not have hollow bones.

After losing another $10 of the $60 I made the other night, I headed for the Aladdin. The “indoor rainstorm” essentially consisted of turning on the equivalent of fire sprinklers in the ceiling above a small pool, the only difference being they used mist dispersal and far less water pressure. Most of the effect was achieved by really good sound effects coming through the speakers in the ceiling. This area is right in the middle of the walkway leading past shops and cafes, but only about thirty feet long. After it was over, I ran across some Jamaican acrobats performing the limbo, among other tricks the likes of which I saw last night at “Jubilee!”. One of them got under a bar no more than a foot above the ground, and the group of four wasn’t paid with anything but tips.

I was close enough to walk to the MGM, which I’d heard was really good, so I went in there and just barely caught a presentation featuring two of the male lions they display in a clear enclosed area. There were two trainers inside playing with them, and it was impressive. Apparently, they keep a sizable pride of lions on a preserve outside the city and rotate them in, two different ones every day, including cubs.

Next, I high-tailed it back to the other side of Caesar’s to Treasure Island, which was now a couple miles away, in order to catch the 6:00pm outdoor show of the “Sirens of TI.” I didn’t get to see it yesterday because of inclement weather. They must spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a day on the three, half-hour shows performed. There were a couple dozen actors, explosions, water sprays, and a moving, sinking, pirate ship. The actors lip-synched to cheesy lines and hip-hop songs, and hundreds of people crowded the sidewalk for an entire block to watch.

My feet were killing me, but I’d signed up for the 7:30pm bus from the hostel to Rio, and I made it back just in time. One of the hostel managers drove and happened to be from Melbourne, so I had something to talk with her about. The Mardi Gras (which is today) turned out to be an every day thing there, but it was still impressive. A stage rose up out of the floor with dancers and three “floats” suspended from the ceiling traveled a track around the room dispensing beads to those lining the balcony and in certain areas below. When it was over, we got back in the van, dropped off some of the guests on the Strip, made a liquor run to Albertson’s since the hostel was apparently running low on alcohol, then came back for an early night.

My feeling about Las Vegas, which means “the meadows” and was named for the vegetation surrounding the oasis the city eventually sprang up around, are pretty mixed despite the fun I’ve had here. It’s a metropolis in the desert whose only purpose is to legally fleece the tourists who pay for the privilege of escaping laws that exist in most other states and countries. It’s huge, and growing huger all the time. There are at least two new casinos under construction on the Strip right now. Las Vegas has no shame, and seeks to strip it away from those who do in order to get whatever it can from them. Yet it makes use of engineering and technological advances, with the money to invest in and promote whatever the new thing is, ensuring there will always be a place for the new thing as long as it’s entertaining. There is no imagination here whatsoever, but the ability to find the creative endeavors coming out of anywhere else in the world, and use them for its own purposes, which often as not coincide with the popular culture’s. In this way, it has the capacity to contribute to the society that likes to disdain its aberrant ways. I think the two probably need each other to continue to progress on the course they’re on. The question then becomes, is this course leading to a place we really want to go?

Notes from the Road - Day 25

2/23/04 Midnight Las Vegas, NV

I had nightmares last night, at least two of them, the first I’ve had in a while. At least one of them featured some recognizable actors, which in my dream I thought about casting in those roles if I wrote a movie based on the dream. Weird. Anyway, the result of this was I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep. I finally gave up and got a shower, then went down to breakfast. It was decent, but it cost $6.00, and I was hoping for better for some reason. I decided against taking any of their stinky oatmeal soap (what’s up with that anyway?), but I snagged the shampoo, loaded up and set off for my first glimpse of the Las Vegas strip.

The surrounding desert had done a pretty good job of soaking up last night’s rain, but mud was still visible on one side of I-15 stretching for miles. In fact, I encountered rain showers off and on all day, but the sun was there in the intervening time, and for that I was grateful. About an hour from Primm, the city skyline appeared unceremoniously through the low lying clouds, but something stopped me from going straight in when I saw a sign for the Hoover Dam. I took the exit the sign marked and started bumbling my way around the Las Vegas suburbs for a while before giving up and getting back on the interstate. The directions I got from some bystander in a tire and lube shop sent me through the strip anyway, and I snapped a few pictures while I was at it, then shot straight out the other side and on to Boulder City.

When the Hoover Dam was built, it took half a decade, so the government established Boulder City as a base of operations. However, they proceeded to outlaw everything the construction workers liked to do with their free time, so they all headed for Las Vegas after their shifts, and since the building went on 24 hours a day, there were people getting off work at all hours. Boulder City continues to be the only place in Nevada to forbid gambling. The site finally chosen was Black Canyon, which beat out Boulder Canyon just a short distance away because it was narrower. This meant less concrete would have to be used, since they were using the mountainsides as part of the structure of the dam itself. As it is, they used enough concrete to make a 4’ wide, 3” thick sidewalk around the equator. The dam is made entirely of concrete, no rebar or steel was used. The blocks were lowered into position like Legos, interlocking almost but not quite perfectly in a slight curve. The remaining space was closed by the pressure of the water in the reservoir squeezing the dam into the space between the mountains. This created Lake Mead, the largest man-made lake in the hemisphere, in addition to the reservoir, and enabled the southwestern states to finally solve many of their water problems, like irrigation and the perpetual flood/drought cycle of the Colorado River.

Before I took the dam tour, I snapped some pictures from the top and saw more than a few chipmunks scampering up and down the sides. The tour of the dam, which has been shortened considerably due to security concerns, took about an hour. One of our three tour guides, the one who took us to see the Nevada-side turbines, sounded profoundly bored, and they all seemed personally offended not to be able to complete the tour like they used to. There are 17 turbines total, but they have to limit how much energy they generate in order to keep water levels up. The reservoir is currently at its lowest level in 20 years, and this area has been in kind of a running drought for the last five years. After the tour, it started sprinkling. Of course, the rain they’re experiencing now that I’m here is a fluke, and something they needed badly, I’m sure. (Author’s note: It’s worse than the guides let on, as many scientists now believe the relatively wet weather in the west for much of the last century was a brief part of the climate cycle, the dry part of which once lasted 400 years. It may have been a mistake to allow the population explosion in most of the west for the last twenty years.)

When I got back from the dam, I drove around town for a bit looking for a hotel the AAA book said had a cheap rate, but it was almost twice what was listed, and they didn’t have any vacancies anyway, so I checked into one of the local hostels instead. I got so much information there on what to see and do on the strip that it took me a while to get out and do anything at all. Finally, I saw the pedestrian mall on Fremont Street, and it kind of blew my mind, just like the Strip did and continues to do. The display of wealth, greed, and glamour everywhere you look made me literally laugh out loud more than once. I’m not sure if these casinos co-opting famous landmarks, themes, people, even entire cities, diminishes the original or brings them closer to the average American, but it’s certainly something to see.

I stepped in the Mirage looking for an affordable show, and stopped to look at Siegfried & Roy’s white Bengal tigers in a glass habitat along the way. After touring several casinos and failing to see any shows for various reasons, I finally got a ticket to “Jubilee!” at Bally’s. It’s billed as a show in Vegas’s traditional style, and it doesn’t disappoint on that count. Half the female cast was topless for most of the big musical numbers, but I still almost fell asleep near the end. There were three sets of very good athletes performing in between stage setups (which included Samson and Delilah and the Titanic), the first of which was a pair of Asian contortionists who could have been brothers and immediately brought to mind one of the thieves in Ocean’s 11, which was filmed partly at the Bellagio. All in all, I probably would have rather seen one of the three Cirque de Soleil productions, but they were ungodly expensive. It’s sad to say, since the production was so extravagant and well-put-together, but “Jubilee!” felt like a relic of a bygone age when such stuff was titillating and provocative, whereas tonight the bare skin didn’t merit a second glance from anyone in the audience, at least a third of which was women.

I’m planning on more of the same tomorrow, along with a trip with some other people at the hostel to the Rio casino to celebrate Mardi Gras. Time for some sleep.

Notes from the Road - Day 24

2/22/04 9:30pm Primm, NV

I got up about 7:30am today, took a shower in the community bathroom with a nearly overflowing toilet, then found I had no desire to attempt to make a free pancake on the stove that was being fretted over by a little girl. Having burned her own pancake, she was offering it around. There are several children running around this hostel, and it just doesn’t feel right for some reason. I went out for donuts and French vanilla coffee instead, which I brought back to the hostel and ate while reading the paper. It was raining a little when I went out, even as the sun was shining, and the weather finally broke for a little while, so around 10:00am I checked out and drove around the city. I started with nearby Mission Beach, and was impressed with both the atmosphere and the wide array of boats lining the copious piers. There were little bays everywhere, many of them public, with their own little tide pools and eddies of current.

The neighborhood had the same bohemian feel as L.A.’s Venice area, but without the looking-over-your-shoulder quality. I could easily see how one would be happy there next to the beach, and the boats, and the nightlife. There was next to no one on the beach itself this morning, but many people were walking and riding their bikes on the boardwalk. One guy was even flying a kite at a nearby harbor point, and at others I saw a man in a camouflage wetsuit with a spear gun and another wet-suited guy getting into a kayak. Unsurprisingly, the ocean really seemed to make up a lot of San Diego’s character.

Driving around the area a bit, I stumbled on a memorial park for cancer victims. As I was walking the sidewalk, a jogger went by, turned around, and called out to me, saying it really pained him to see a Purdue hat (which I was wearing) out here. “I hate being from Indiana,” he told me. The memorial consisted of a twisting walkway lined with columns bearing plaques with tips on fighting cancer and sayings to encourage victims, and a small stone gazebo on one end. Halfway down the walkway were sculptures representing cancer sufferers stepping through several square, symbolic hurdles, and coming out a happy family.

I was determined to see downtown, so I followed the signs and discovered San Diego was bigger than I had thought it was. Taking I-5 around a bend, it suddenly emerged, a base of skyscrapers with a long blue ribbon arcing over the water to Coronado Island. I took the bridge without thinking and was gratified to see there was no toll today when I got to the other side. It started raining again, so I snapped some quick pictures of the city, including the docks where some very large ships were anchored, and decided to head for Las Vegas.

Several hours out, I was back into mountain country, snow-capped peaks rising in the distance as the sun fell behind the clouds. Around 4:30pm, I came across an old ghost town called Calico, which was written in large letters on the mountainside, visible from the road. The town was so-named because of the extraordinary coloring of the slopes around the mines that once anchored the colony. There were varying shades of green, red, and purple, all mixing with and emerging from the standard beige and brown. The town was about to close according to the hours posted, but there was no one in the booth and almost no one in the parking lot, so I drove on in and snapped a couple shots. From the entry point to the town, a train station was visible on the desert floor in the distance.

It was getting dark and the rain came on harder as I once again found myself descending out of the mountains at a 6% grade, with signs for trucks to check their brakes. I started seeing steady traffic heading west, back to California after spending Mardi Gras weekend in Vegas. On the radio, they were reporting how long the traffic stretched by the names of the towns it backed up to, but all I know is it must have been a hundred miles. Those headlights just stretched out before me like a string of pearls while the rain followed me out into the desert, creating mud flats on either side of the highway that only exist for a few days each year. Once in a while, before the light failed entirely, I could see date palms, and the ground had a green tinge to it, as if tiny blades of grass had sprung up a quarter of an inch, to see if the rain was real and drink it in while it lasted.

Then, night came on, and in the distance I could see neon lights rising up out of the desert, like jewels on the end of that pearl necklace. At first I thought it could be Vegas, but as I got nearer, I realized it wasn’t big enough. Instead, it was Primm, the first town across the state line, first chance for Nevada gambling. Three hotel/casinos made up almost the entirety of the town, with a McDonald’s and a gas station filling the only other positions visible at night. I stopped for a bite to eat at the McDonald’s, then accidentally sat on the drink I had left on my seat while negotiating the umbrella back into the car. The spill wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was still a mess. I grabbed a bunch of napkins and wadded them into the seat crack to absorb what they could. Then I checked into Whiskey Pete’s Casino because it had the cheapest rooms at $19.95 each. It is easily the largest, classiest hotel room I’ve stayed in on this trip, and it cost half as much as the dinky room at the hostel I stayed in last night. The money they make from gambling enables them to discount everything, from food to clothing to lodging, all to keep you within walking distance of a slot machine or blackjack table.

A big part of gambling, like life, is knowing how to quit while you’re ahead. After watching an hour of the Simpsons on TV, I decided to try my luck with $5.00 on the slots. On the third machine I stuck a quarter in, I made $60.00 on a triple play when I pushed the button by mistake. Now theoretically, I could’ve turned that money into enough to pay for this entire trip. Or I could’ve lost my original five dollars. For tonight, the three new twenty dollar bills in my wallet are enough to make me feel lucky. Tomorrow, there’s always Las Vegas to try my luck again.

R.I.P. Hunter S. Thompson

The obituaries are coming fast and furious for Hunter S. Thompson, who apparently shot himself in his kitchen at the age of 67. His writing was one of a kind.

I first read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas over one summer during my college years, and it blew me away. The movie, starring Johnny Depp, was released my senior year, and I loved it. Thompson was wickedly funny, aggressively insightful, and at times unexpectedly moving. In fact, he might not appreciate the sentiment to "rest in peace", given his propensity for actively taking part in any given story.

If anything ever does happen with INdTV or its offshoots, they could do worse than devoting a show to his style of gonzo journalism. On the other hand, it's unlikely we'll ever find another writer capable of filling his shoes. If you'll excuse me, there's a copy of The Great Shark Hunt I need to get back to.

Canoe at Emo's. 

Notes from the Road - Day 23

2/21/04 6:00pm San Diego, CA

Today was a little driving and a lot of getting over a hangover. I got out of bed around noon and walked next door to a bar to get something to eat. A woman there was playing guitar for a crowd of about five patrons and two bartenders. She had long, curly, blonde hair and was very good. I tipped her a dollar when I left. She frequently addressed several of the others, so I think she must have known them. She played a cover of “Wish You Were Here.” I wish I’d gotten her name.

I could only eat about half of the food, so I took the rest in a box back up to the hostel refrigerator and labeled it “For Anybody”. Guy was up, so I told him so long, turned in my sheets, and checked out. I was on the road by 2:30pm. It didn’t take too long to reach the San Diego county line, but it was another hour before I reached the city.

I found a hostel in an outer suburb and opted for a single room this time, for some privacy. The young woman manning the high security booth at the door locked it up to give me the tour and show me to my room. There doesn’t seem to be much of anybody here, and it’s still raining. I went to bed about 6:30pm with no supper and woke up periodically the rest of the night, leaving the lights on in the room.

Notes from the Road - Day 22

2/20/04 Midnight Los Angeles, CA

I take it all back. The hostel I stayed in last night was the worst I’ve ever encountered. I grabbed some coffee and a donut, and then checked out and hauled my stuff out to my car. I had the feeling I’d be hightailing it to San Diego tonight, but it didn’t turn out that way.

Instead, as soon as I’d packed everything up, I just toured around the city, first simply looking for gas (which ranged from $2.39-$2.69 per gallon in just three blocks), then looking for San Pedro, the southernmost tip of L.A. It turned out the HI hostel at San Pedro was closed for the season. Instead, I drove to Hermosa Beach after checking out the view of Port Los Angeles from a bluff overlooking the ocean. There’s a traditional Korean bell and garden there, dedicated in 1976 for America’s bicentennial, that I think was used in The Usual Suspects.

At Hermosa Beach, I found a spot to park and somehow I’d instinctively recognized one of the hostels advertised in the guide, even though there was no sign for it, and it was located above a Chinese restaurant that was being renovated. I asked a bystander to be sure, then checked in. It has coed rooms, the first I’ve seen in a hostel, and I have at least one female roommate tonight. The parking was about three blocks up a hill, but it’s free and the French woman running the place said it was safe.

Instead of walking the beach like I did last night, I sat in the common room watching Just Married with several of the other guests, including some French Canadians and an Australian named Guy that I ended up hanging out with. I walked back to my car to get a jacket when it started getting dark, but neglected to stop at any of the restaurants for supper. The Comedy Club had a couple available tickets since someone cancelled, but I didn’t buy one because I thought I’d see if anyone else wanted to go first. When I got back to the hostel, though, I didn’t ask because everyone was going to a bar for happy hour. I met a bunch of people there and had some fun conversations, then me and Guy went to another bar called the Poop Deck where they sell an entire keg in $1.00 pitcher increments, and met a couple guys new to the area who lived nearby. We all ended up hitting on some girls who came up to our table, then headed out in different directions. Guy had just flown in earlier in the day and was still looking to go to another bar, but I was too drunk by that point. I went to one more bar with him anyway, but the memories are hazy. I ended up getting sick, but at least I made it to the toilet. If I’d had supper, it probably wouldn’t have happened.

Notes from the Road - Day 21

2/19/04 9:50pm Los Angeles, CA

I was up before 8:00am today, and the room was freezing. I couldn’t find any means of heating it last night, so I just relied on the blankets, and they did their job. I was anxious to get out of there, as my excitement has been building for reaching L.A. I don’t quite know the reason for this, as I’ve been there before, and I’m aware of all its problems, but I guess the thrill of movie-making and the famous all congregating in one place gets my motor running for whatever reason.

Both yesterday and today I encountered many vineyards along the road, but today I also ran into oilfields along the coast. At one point, I saw a small island full of palm trees just a few hundred feet out, connected to the mainland by a small bridge, no wider than a two-lane road. On the island, just visible, was a large flame dancing in the wind. I couldn’t see where it was coming from or what it was doing there, and it got me so fascinated I turned off and drove back as close as I could get to it via the exit road, which dead-ended in both directions on that side of the highway. There happened to be a truck on the other end, so I drove over and asked the guy if he knew what the island was. He told me it was actually part of the oil drilling system in the area, disguised to look like something natural and beautiful. “Fucking pollution is what it is,” he said.

I had suspected that the rest of the way down, littered with towns and popular beaches as it is, would be one long stretch of buildings, but I was wrong. There are many places down here just as marshy and desolate as those I’ve seen further north. I stopped at the beach in Carpenteria and ate lunch at a deli there with an open back porch that looked like it would’ve been great for a kegger. They keep it closed unless a customer like me asks to be served outside, which apparently isn’t often. They had nice wooden tables supporting large umbrellas, but only green, plastic lawn chairs to sit in. Many more chairs were stacked against a wooden fence, on the other side of which someone was raking their lawn. A bubbling fountain was running on one side of the lot, and there were at least half a dozen young trees sitting in pots, waiting to be planted, two of which were lemon trees, the first I’ve seen. The guy who served me was a young Hispanic, probably a teenager, with two pierced ears. He didn’t act like a waiter, instead talking with me like an old buddy, which was fine by me. The sandwich I ordered was twice as big as I expected, but I ate it all.

I followed Highway 1 past famous beaches and towns like Malibu, but the beaches charged for parking so I didn’t stop. As I got further south, I started seeing more traffic, but my hunch paid off and there was never stopping or a delay, which I probably would’ve encountered on the interstates, and I found myself in downtown L.A. before I knew it. The first hostel I stopped at only took international travelers with passports, and the man running it said the only hostel that would take me was down a few streets, right on the beach, so I went there and checked in. In marked contrast to San Francisco, most non-beach parking in the area is free, and I found a decent spot with no difficulty. This hostel is very lived in, but not too bad. I made the guy at the desk show me the room before I’d pay though, which I haven’t done before.

Once I’d gotten situated, I headed out onto Venice Beach and the boardwalk. They happened to be filming an episode of “The Guardian” on a basketball court right near the hostel. It was pretty cool, and there were lots of bystanders nonchalantly taking it in. It’s a very thick mix of types of people out there, and I didn’t feel at all out of place among the skaters, bikers, artists, musicians, and street vendors lining both sides of the sidewalk. The sun, which had been out in the morning, was now firmly enshrouded in cloud cover once a gain. Around 4:00pm, all the vendors were packing up their wares and I was halfway to Santa Monica, so I went ahead and completed the trip. I got a picture of the amusement park, with all the rides set out on the pier, then moved into the city a couple streets and started heading back. About halfway there, I stopped at a converted fire house that was now a bar and restaurant for dinner, and by the time I got out of there it was dark outside. I headed out into the night with just a little trepidation, staying in the light whenever possible and switching sides of the street every once in a while. That might not have kept me safe, but it made me feel better anyway. Then, all of a sudden I saw a familiar sight that welled up from my memory: a giant moving sign consisting of a model doll that moved its leg standing atop the doorway to a giant store. I believe I got a picture of this when I toured the city seven years ago on my way to Australia, as well as a giant pair of binoculars just down the street.

Just when I started to think maybe I’d gotten further away than I’d thought, I saw the sign for the road that the hostel’s on and breathed a sigh of relief. I was back in Venice. I went straight to the common room and took off my shoes. There were three other people there having a conversation that I eventually joined. Then we started playing cards, and after playing a few hands of poker for fun, I tried to teach them euchre, but it’s pretty complicated and we eventually just fell to talking. One of the guys, Alistair, did a card reading for the English woman, then said he wanted to do one for me. It was uncanny how close he got to my actual situation without me telling him anything about myself except my name and that I was from Texas. He predicted I would be a very successful businessman with a lot of money, and said he saw me living in a big blue house. Pretty interesting, and I’ve never had anything like it done before. On top of that, he asked me rather than the other way around, and it was free.

I decided to call it a night instead of trying to find someone to venture out with, so I can get up tomorrow and see some of the stuff nearby before heading to San Pedro.

If you're going to San Francisco...

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that while I was in San Francisco, the weather cleared up and I stayed a little later than I'd planned. One of the things I did with that time, while I was driving around looking for Haight-Ashbury, was try to find City Hall. The gay marriage explosion had just recently hit the papers, and I read about the lines and thought I'd try to catch a glimpse for myself of this sure-to-be-newsworthy event. I drove by a large, official-looking building at one point, but there were no crowds and I don't think it was City Hall. I didn't say I tried all that hard.

Anyway, I was right about it being newsworthy, since 2004 turned into the Year of Gay Marriage Debate. While the San Francisco effort collapsed into futility and all those marriage certificates were ruled to be nothing more than pretty pieces of paper, the State Supreme Court of Massachusetts paved the way for the real thing up north and kicked up a hornets' nest.

I've known very few gay people, and none that were "married", so I'm no expert on this issue by any means, but here are a couple of my thoughts for and against recognizing gay marriage.
First, the cons:
1) Against: The word "marriage" has denoted the union of a man and a woman for hundreds of years, in all but the most fringe of groups. Even in polygamist circles, the women don't marry each other, but the man. Why dilute the meaning of the word? Isn't it better to use another term, like civil union?
2) Against: Marriage began as a religious institution, and, as evidenced by the reaction of the country to all this movement on the issue, it stirs up a lot of emotion based on religious convictions that are not easily assuaged or changed. Forcing the issue will cause a lot of bitterness and resentment at a time when the general public is adopting more tolerance for homosexuality.
3) Against: In Canada, shortly after they began allowing gay marriage, two women decided it wasn't working out and discovered there were no laws by which they could divorce. When divorce laws are adapted to gay marriage, will the same reasoning apply? For instance, will a man owe another man alimony despite the fact that he doesn't face the same working issues a woman might?
Now, the pros:
1) For: By recognizing gay marriage, we would be removing a very visible case of discrimination by the U.S. government. The opposite is true as well: if an amendment to the Constitution banning gay marriage is ratified, we would be enshrining discrimination once again (after so much struggle to remove other instances of it) in the country's most important document protecting the rights of its citizens. And it is discrimination, by definition, in that it treats one group of people (gays) differently from another group (straights). It doesn't matter how large or small the group of people is, equality is equality.
2) For: "Separate but equal" has a history in this country, and it's not a good one. Civil unions could be used to institutionally deprive married gays of some rights under the cover of granting others. Or they could simply be commonly perceived as somehow less legitimate than marriages, which isn't acceptable either.
3) For: Marriage makes for more stable families, regardless of sexual orientation. Two loving parents are always better than one. It's also harder to walk away from a long-term relationship when there are legal consequences than when there are not, and people typically put more thought into it in the beginning and work harder to salvage a marriage.

You may have noticed I don't question the idea that homosexuals have a right to some kind of marriage-like arrangement under the law. I find it a little bit ironic that many religious conservatives would prefer that homosexual marriage not be permitted on religious grounds, but since some churches are willing to marry them, they settle for using the state to enforce their views.

Personally, I think that pushing for "marriage" instead of settling for civil unions may alienate so many Americans that homosexuals may lose their chance to gain many of the rights they believe marriage would entitle them to. I find it repugnant that a family that shunned a gay family member all their adult life could swoop in upon his or her death to claim an estate promised to his or her partner, or that a hospital would refuse to allow visitation because they weren't family, regardless of how long they had been "married". Those are the two horror stories cited by proponents that stick out in my mind, and I have no doubt they have been a common problem in this country for many years.

Which is why I think this, like most if not all marriage law, should remain an issue left to the states. That leaves open the possibility of one state not respecting the marriage laws of another, but it would at least also present an opportunity, like the one in Massachussets now, for gays to find equality somewhere in America. They're not the first group to have to look for it.

Notes from the Road - Day 20

2/18/04 10:00pm San Luis Obispo, CA

Well, I didn’t make L.A. today, because when I woke up the sun was out in San Francisco. For the first time since I got there, I realized I could get some great, clear views. I loaded up everything in the car, checked out of the hostel, and took off for Haight-Ashbury. On Haight Street, I came to Buena Vista Park (which means “good view” in Spanish), so I pulled over and decided to walk to the top. I’ve gotten more exercise in the last week or two than I had in the preceding year. It turns out, the view from the top of the very steep hill wasn’t worth the effort, since the trees were so thick and tall you couldn’t see much of anything.

I got in the car and continued west to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, and maybe it was just too early in the morning, but the place seemed pretty dead. Endless brightly decorated shops selling every thing under the sun lined both sides of the street, but most were closed, with the black barred sliding gates locked tight. There was construction going on in a couple places, too, so I went on by to get to Golden Gate Park. This place is enormous, bisected by several roads and located right along the western beach. I didn’t walk around the park, but I did stop by the windmill and walked along the beach a bit. From the parking lot, it looked as though lots of white paper trash was blowing around and collecting in a depression that was holding a little water, but as I got closer I realized the white stuff was just sea foam, light as the air, that was rolling in off the ocean waves, getting picked up by the breeze and moving ashore. When I picked some up, I was surprised once it evaporated to find sand on my hand.

I then headed north towards the Golden Gate Bridge, first stopping at a museum on top of the hill that sported a holocaust memorial and apparently the original sculpture “The Thinker”, since there were no signs that said it was a replica. The art museum charged admission and was already full up with two school bus loads of kids, so I skipped it and kept moving. I was now in the Presidio area, where Fort Point, a battery housing cannon to protect the city, once stood. The Spanish had originally claimed the territory in the 1800’s. I managed to find a parking spot and walked around getting some great pictures. Then I bought lunch and prepared to wish San Francisco a fond farewell. However, it took me another hour or more to make my way out of the city. It was almost 2:00pm when I left.

I drove past San Jose and Santa Cruz without stopping, and gradually the land changed, becoming first farmland, which resembled Indiana for miles around, then back to mountains. One descent easily equaled anything I’d seen before for percent grade and length of drop in altitude. After that, I found myself in a familiar position, with a mountain range on either side of me while driving on a mostly flat plain.

It was during this time I looked to my left and saw a tremendous rainstorm falling on the green mountainside. When I turned to my right, my first thought was of a huge mountain range, but I quickly realized the top was all clouds. It looked like a giant tidal wave frozen in the very moment of cresting, with the sun just above and casting a huge, dark shadow just below. I turned the radio on and heard the surrounding areas were getting several inches of rain, but I was still dry and happy when I saw the signs pointing to the Pinnacles State Park. First, I passed an exit for the west entrance thinking to skip it, then I went ahead and took the exit for the east entrance. The road first went through a little town that looked 9/10^ths Mexican, then wound up into the mountains east of me. I followed it maybe 15 miles, hardly seeing another car on the two-lane road, but conscious of the time. At the top of one crest I got out for a picture, and at another point I saw the first rainbow of the trip. When I checked my guide book, however, I saw the park was about to close, and I didn’t know how much further I had to go. The map could be misleading, and even if I got there, I could’ve lost the remaining light to storm clouds and dusk, so I turned around and got back on the highway. Maybe next time.

I got into San Luis Obispo relatively early, but decided to make it a quiet night anyway, so I could catch up on sleep and shower before putting in at another hostel where both may be scarce.

Notes from the Road - Day 19

2/17/04 9:30pm San Francisco, CA

I managed to get up early this morning, but my hopes for sunshine were quickly dashed. It wasn’t raining, but it looked like it might at any minute. I got breakfast at the hostel, then walked up the steep hill behind the building to get some good photos. I decided to make a walking day of it, since San Francisco is not a city friendly to cars. Parking is extremely limited, and it’s not cheap. In fact, I’m paying as much for the parking for two nights as I am for the room. At any rate, the hostel is centrally located so I went east to the docks, then followed them north and around to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. It was a good hike but well worth it. By the time lunch rolled around, my feet were getting pretty sore, but thankfully no blisters.

Pier 39 is kind of an open air mall with an aquarium and lots of California-themed shops, but the real attraction is the sea lions. As I walked up and down the wood steps, I thought I heard seals, but the sounds weren’t coming from the direction of the aquarium. Finally, I came around a bend to see a crowd of people gathered next to a railing. Out in the water, maybe a dozen wooden platforms floated in the harbor, apparently anchored between the piers, and on them rested about 100 sea lions, barking, crawling over one another, play-fighting, and sleeping. Some of them were arching their heads up into the sky like they were sunning themselves, even though the sky was completely overcast. On one raft, they were three deep until the one on the bottom started complaining and neatly slid out from under the others. On another raft, there was just one sea lion and some seagulls.

Several placards had been placed on a wall facing the action to explain things. They told how the animals started appearing after the 1989 earthquake, and their numbers have occasionally swollen to as many as a thousand. They’re all males, even though some have the “bumps”, or ridges, on their heads and some don’t. This is because they don’t develop until the sea lions are five years old. They feed on herring in the bay, and it’s thought that they don’t have to worry about predators there because sharks don’t like the fresher water, but not enough is really known to be sure. Apparently, most animals that are billed as “trained seals” are actually sea lions. Real seals have very small flippers and different ears, as well as different colored fur.

I ran across a couple street cars on my walk, but at first I thought they were all modern now, and the old ones must’ve been retired. It turns out the older ones are still in use for tours of the city, and I almost booked one until I saw they mostly just covered streets I’d already seen, and others near enough to the hostel I could walk to them. Instead, I got a ferry ride to Alcatraz Island.

You can see the island clearly from any of the docks, since it’s only 1.5 miles away from shore. It has a very eclectic history. In the 1800’s, it was established as a fort, and made up one of three gun concentrations for defending the city from the Confederates. They used military prisoners and others as labor to build the prison they were eventually housed in. In 1906, it was decommissioned and in the 1930’s the main cellblock building was opened. It operated into the 1960’s, but was never entirely full. It could have housed 360 inmates, but never had more than around 300 at one time. It was conceived of as a prison for the “incorrigible” inmates other prisons didn’t want. Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, and the so-called “Birdman of Alcatraz” all did time there. The Bird Doctor of Leavenworth, as he was actually called, never actually had any birds during his stay at Alcatraz, but he did get a college-level education from the 15,000-book prison library and became fluent in 3 languages. There were actually only a very few famous names on the list of inmates, and interestingly, it’s not known what cell Capone was even in, though they hazard a guess.

According to the tour, Alcatraz got a somewhat undeserved reputation for harshness to prisoners, when in fact they got three meals a day, a bed and toilet at all times, even solitary confinement, and as social norms changed in the 50’s and 60’s they could have musical instruments, jobs, and exercise in the yard. The first warden broke the rules and left the lights off for those in solitary, but subsequent wardens didn’t. The food was universally praised. When headset plugs were installed in the cells, the prisoners had two channels, music or sports.

Even with all that, it was no picnic. All mail in and out and visitation conversations were closely monitored and censored. The prisoners were not beaten or tortured, according to the tour, but the inmates could get no news of the outside world.

The cells were about 5’ by 9’, and the effect of the saltwater and howling wind was to quickly deteriorate the building and facilities, so after only a decade the place started falling apart. Part of the mystique came from the media blackout, under which the authorities refused to reveal any information about the prison to the public. There were 14 escape attempts, one resulting in a prison riot and the death of two guards, another which was possibly successful involving four inmates, three of whom were never recovered and are still listed as fugitives. The other one chickened out or intentionally turned back and bragged to authorities that he had been the mastermind behind it.

In 1969, a few years after the government shut the prison down, a group of Native American students occupied the island, drawing worldwide attention and thousands of people to their cause for 19 months. This event is now regarded as the beginning of the Native American civil rights and cultural reclamation movement, and amazingly never resulted in bloodshed.

Due to all the development over hundreds of years, the island now supports a wide array of bird and plant life it didn’t have to begin with, and is the sight of many field trips. The Boy Scouts even spend a weekend in the cells once a year. The prison facilities are in the middle of a $4 million structural renovation at the moment, but most of it is still open and the self-guided walking tour was very evocative and informative about life on “the Rock”. It started pouring shortly before it was time to board, and the wind was so strong it blew my umbrella inside out and almost knocked me down.

When I got back from that, I grabbed some pizza, talked to Carl a bit in the dining hall, then took in a showing of The Triplets of Belleville, preceded by an animated short film collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney. Both were excellent. Tomorrow, sunny L.A.!

Small world

So Tuesday night I was meeting some people about a job, and halfway through a guy showed up late and sat down at the end of the table. I was sure I recognized this man, even though he's got a shaved head and I hadn't seen him in ten years. His voice was the same, and his smile, and I asked him his name. "Nate", he replies. "From Aurora, right?" "Yeah, how did you know?" I introduced myself, and of course we both slapped our heads at the odds. We'd been friends in high school - band, theater, lunch room. It was great to see him again, since I thought it unlikely I ever would due to the fact that I live so far from home.

Well, that wasn't the weirdest coincidence I've experienced.

My best friend freshman year at Purdue who lived across the hall from me was from Rhode Island, and essentially flunked out that year, so I never expected to see him again either. After I graduated in 1998, I moved back home and went to work at a riverboat casino in Lawrenceburg, one of two (now three) that had sprung up after I went off to college. As I was walking out the door from my interview, I ran into this guy walking in. And in fact, I didn't even register that it was him until he shook my hand and said hi. He had moved in with his mom in Lawrenceburg just a few days before.

The week after I moved down to the Dallas area, I went to set up a new bank account. I thought I recognized the man in front of me in line, and asked him his name. Sure enough, he was the cousin of one of my best friends in Ohio, and I had met him at that friend's wedding the summer before.

I'd been living in Dallas for a year when I came down to Austin for the first time on Easter weekend. My parents drove down to visit, and we wanted to see a little more of Texas. We picked a church to go to out of the phone book that Sunday, and at the service, a couple of rows behind us was a familiar face. Afterward, I caught up to him: it was the guy who was rooming with the friend mentioned above during our freshman year in the dorms. We kept in touch, first by email, then by weekend trips, and now he's my roommate.

Life is strange, and it really is a small world.

Notes from the Road - Day 18

2/16/04 10:20pm San Francisco, CA

I woke up late again today, but this time it wasn’t my fault, since I didn’t get the 8:30am wakeup call I requested. I decided not to rush, and showered and grabbed breakfast before I headed out of town. Based on conversations I had and overheard, the locals dread the stretch of Highway 1 that I drove last night. The woman at the hotel said, “That is a bad road.” She told me the rest of Highway 1 was a smooth drive, twisty but not nearly as bad, and with a beautiful view. I decided I’d continue, but if the weather didn’t let up, I’d cut east to 101 at the first opportunity. I figured, what use is a good view if you can’t see it through the rain? Well, the rain didn’t let up so I took another mountainous road back to 101, but this one wasn’t nearly as bad, nor for nearly as long, as the one I was on last night. When I got back to 101, it was smooth, if wet, sailing to Santa Rosa. This region is wine country, with many vineyards visible from the road, some flooded. In fact, the radio said there was a lot of flooding going on here, and in some areas the road was overrun with several inches of water that I plowed through. Approaching Santa Rosa, I ran into some inexplicable traffic, but it eventually gave way to highway speeds.

I stopped at a gas station in town, where the attendant behind the counter had to give you a token to use the restroom. She denied the Mexican girl in front of me access, saying she couldn’t give it to customers, then gave me the token, saying “You’re a decent guy” and that she just didn’t want to give me the token while the other girl was there. When I went around back, the Mexican girl was just leaving the bathroom. I don’t know how she got in there, but good for her.

The rest of the way into San Francisco was uneventful. I was talking to my cousin Jim on the cell phone when I went through a tunnel lit by neon lights, rounded a turn, and all of a sudden, there was the Golden Gate Bridge. For some reason, I hadn’t even considered that I might have to cross it to get into San Francisco. It was six lanes wide, and the speed limit was 35mph. A line of cones separated the directions traffic was flowing. On the other side, I was charged $5.00 to enter. San Francisco is a white city, full of Victorian architecture and exceedingly steep hills that make for great views, which were today diminished by the weather. I resolved to take a bunch of pictures tomorrow regardless. When I was getting settled into the Green Tortoise hostel, a companion to the one in Seattle, I met a guy from Sweden in my room named Carl. He seemed cool, so I struck up a conversation with him. Turns out he’s traveling the west too, but he’s going on down to Mexico for a month. We ended up going out to a couple of historical bars in the area after supper, Vesuvio, where Jack Kerouac made a name for himself, and Specs, right across the street. Both were good with Guinness, full of atmosphere and newspaper clippings. Carl floated the idea of hitching a ride south as far as San Diego with me, and I told him that was cool, but then he found out about a half-price bus trip to Mexico he could take instead, and I recommended he do that. I remember my own bus trip around New Zealand fondly.

The building this hostel is housed in has been a hotel and brothel in the past, and it could use some fixing up, but it’s still pretty interesting. It reminded me a little of the house in Fight Club. They serve food and have monthly parties in the ballroom, sometimes including live bands, like the one they had last Saturday. It also has an open air atrium that looks cool from all 3 stories.