Real Human Moments

Well, I am going to finish up the road trip tale once and for all. After driving the better part of the day across Americas upper heartland we arrived in the city of Chicago. We knew of nothing to expect other than we were staying at a high class hostel. I recommend the HI in downtown Chicago, a very professional and fun place to stay. We all checked into our rooms (although they were on different floors) and called it a night for the first time on the trip.

In the morning we woke up just in time to see the free breakfast being taken away, and we made our plans. We bought tickets to the observation deck of the sears tower, asked around for a good pizza place and a museum and began our day. We made the long walk to the “magnificent mile” and took in the beautiful architecture about which we new next to nothing. The sears tower was slightly anti-climatic, although it did afford amazing views of the city. After the tower, we made our way towards the Art Institute of Chicago. It was half price for kids, so it made the sights that much better. Among the many exhibits in the museum there were two which really stand out in my mind, even today. The first was the Contemporary wing which house a few exhibits in “new media”, one was a room with large ceiling to floor, kitty-cornered scrolling LED bars displaying various messages. I had never known that this type of “new media” was accepted at traditions art institutions. Another neat exhibition was one with miniature rooms from every period in modern times. Each little piece just reminded me of the many dioramas I created as a child, and how crappy they must of been.

Later in the day we made our way to the Museum of Contemporary Art which had an interactive exhibition of a skinny kid trying to cut a large tree using an old fashion lumberjack saw. He kept stopping every minute or so for breaks, you’d think they could have found someone with a little more muscle, even contemporary gym muscle (compared to old school lumberjack muscle) to man the exhibit? Another neat feature was they had a car cut to look like it fell from the sky and crashed into the sidewalk in front of the museum. Our penultimate destination of the afternoon was Millenium Park, which included the Cloud Gate, and Crown Fountain. Cloud gate is a large 3 story tall stainless steel, reflective, donut like structure, only with no hold. You can walk under it, and it provides awesome reflections and distortions of yourself and surroundings. Crown Fountain, is a huge rectangle structure with LED display that can change, and fountain fixtures that spew water out the front and sides. They had several images up, I believe the most interesting one was a female head which looked like it was spitting on everyone. We finished up the afternoon with a deep dish pizza from the original pizzeria UNO.

At night we made our way across town to the hip, jazz bar district where we caught a live act. It was an interesting evening, however I most distinctly remember Pete and I were drinking expensive beers, while Sasha managed to get free PBR from the bartender because he asked her what its “vintage” was. Back at the hostel we bumped into some Irish lads, who traveled all the way from the Green Isles for some KISS music festival? They apparently had gotten drunk that night and went to a strip club, then though they could take us in ping pong, hah.

What conclusions can I draw from the trip? Maybe in another post…

Wow, what a delay between postings? I apologize for the lack of narrative not only in finishing the tale of the great cross country epic, but also in the following months. I will do my best to summarize the events after our time in Utah. We drove most the morning, and afternoon through the canyon, bare rock landscape of Utah. We were slowly gaining elevation as the mountains in the distance were not so distant anymore. I can only assume that we were crossing the great continental divide, the Rocky Mountains. Our surroundings transformed from earthen shades of washed out red to beautiful green, mountain vegetation. We passed towering mountains, with rivers, rafters, bikers, and hikers all traveling orthogonal to the road. As we got closer to Copper Mountain, a ski lodge / venue for Trancegression we started noticing towering pine trees. Behind the towering tree’s were equally towering houses.

The Trancegression festival was a slightly different atmosphere than what we were used too. Apparently the majority of attendees stayed in the ski lodge itself, which essentially eliminated the “shakedown” atmosphere that is, at least I though, ever present at music festivals. Instead there was a small parking lot, a bus rides away from the stage where people in tents congregated. The music was pretty good, we relaxed on the mountain side in the rain listening to Pharcyde, while watching the local police watch us with high powered binoculars. Evidently the local law enforcment was very worried about the type of people that are traditionally associated with a music festival, and went out of there way to harass festival goers. While listening to Pharcyde, we saw the police confront four people, each of which eventually ended up face down in plastic handcuffs. Apparently there was a representative from the ACLU lawyer in attendance and was helping people avoid from forfeiting any of their rights while dealing with the police. The Disco Biscuits and Umphrey’s McGee were very good, and played till sometime in the early morning.

We ended up just deciding to continue on with our journey, knowing we had to cross vast distances of America’s heart (flat) land. We did most the traveling at night, however not once during my turn at the wheel did I notice a speed limit sign outside of a town. Somewhere in Wyoming we stopped at a rest stop, which was supposedly self maintainable. Obviously, someone probably cleaned every once in a while, but all the toilets just dropped deep into the ground, where they somehow created a vacuum effect which kept all smells in the ground, and gave your butt a nice breeze. I believe this effect was what ancient Greek and Roman plumbing systems were designed to do, a 2000 year circle.

Following the GPS we eventually made our way into North Dakota and the foot of Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial. We only choose to see Crazy Horse from affar, fearing a large parking and admittance fee. We arrived at Mt. Rushmore before official park hours began, so we walked right in for free. Its quite amazing seeing these huge stone faces remove themselves from a photograph and be placed right in front of you.

After leaving the park, we began our long ride across South Dakota, past Wall Drug, and Minnesota, Illinois to Chicago.

We arrived at Arches National Park around noonish the next day. We lucked out and the outside temperature was only a cool 100 degrees, we stocked up on water at the visitor center and checked out the park. Arches is a beautiful national park of sand stone formations that sometimes form these amazing arches. They all have ominous names like the Fiery Furnace and Devil’s Garden.

If you disobeyed the posted signs they also turned out to be great places to do simple bouldering and climbing. The extra views offered on top of the boulders or arches were extremly gratifying.  We checked out all the different arches and structures for most the day,  around 7 oclock we  headed into Moab to grab dinner.

In New Orleans we met a beautiful lady from the Moab area who told us about an awesome hostel to stay at and a cool natural pond to go swimming.  We found our way to the Lazy Lizard hostel and asked directions to Left Hand to go swimming. We found our way to these sets of small swimming ponds and cooled off in the clear water. While swimming I felt such an overwhelming feeling of … connectedness, this really was a Real Human Moment. Someone in New Orleans was able to help us find a great place to stay and go swimming half way across the country. The few hours we spent swimming really solidified what I was looking for in the trip.

Back at the hostel we met our fellow travelers and chatted the night away. There was a couple traveling from a semester in California back home to Boston, another couple originally from Connecticut was on their way back to Texas after Bonnaroo. There were a few more permanent residents such as Carmine and John. There was also another traveler, 22, who was moving to Lake Tahoe, CA. She was a beautiful and charming woman who was making her journey’s by herself. We started chatting and talked most the night, only interrupted by the various characters and locals coming in and out. I felt as if I should have asked for her number or e-mail, but of course I didn’t. Oh well its moments like that which keep the traveling bug alive. If anyone knows a girl moving to the Lake Tahoe region, send me my email.

Jimbo

It seems that they raised the prices of visiting a national park such as the Grand Canyon is ridiculous. It cost me 250 dollars to see the Grand Canyon. 25$ per car and 225$ for a damn speeding ticket. We finally made it to the Grand Canyon about an hour before sunset. The North Rim is setup like a resort with many small cabins lining the rim and a great lodge right on the edge. The lodge had a pricey restaurant where you can dine on expensive food while looking out into the Canyon through the large picture windows. After dinner you could relax on faux Adirondack chairs outside while the sun sets.

For the poorer traveler we skipped these ameneties and just ate the beautiful views (ZING!). We walked out on a little secured outcropping built into the side of the canyon and absorbed the sites. The views are way to immense to try and capture with my simple camera. The immensity and scale of the canyon is even more impossible to capture physically, it truly is a site that you must see for yourself.

After watching the sun descend behind the back of the canyon we restarted our never ending travels. Fearing the strict rules and wizardy of the Mormon commanders in Utah we stopped at the last open liqour store just before the border in Arizona. This small esetablishment was half bar / half liqour store, an interesting idea. We all bought our liqour with our 3 different versions of the CT license and crossed the line into the much feared Utah. We found a motel around midnight and crashed.

Jimbo

Well of course we had to make a stop on our pilgrimage at the city of sin. We drove into town early with out a destination, so we had to pull over, get on the internet and find some hotels. Surprisingly the hotels in the city are pretty cheap, we were able to find a room at the New York, New York Hotel for 80 bucks a person for 2 nights.

The city was pretty fun, I would surely go back, but probably with a larger group of friends and or a girl. If your not gambling the drinks can be very expensive. We did some gambling at the Blackjack table but lady luck was not on our side at all. We also walked around to all the other major casino’s on the strip to check out the sites. Not wanting to spend too much money we didn’t check out any of the many shows available. Nor did we want to spend the 20 dollars cover to go into the “ultra lounges/clubs”.

We went to the Circus Circus casino way down at the other end of the strip because we wanted check out the spinning bar from Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Unfortunately it was closed that night for some reason.

All in all Vegas was sweet, I’d like to come back with more money for gambling or with a significant other.  We stopped at the Hoover Dam and began our drive to Northern Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Jimbo

Following High Sierra we gained another traveler in San Fransico. My friend Pete O’Connell flew in to complete the road trip with us. We stayed the night in downtown San Fransico at the Adeligh Hostel. We took a stroll and had dinner in Chinatown, followed by an evening of drankin at the Irish Bank bar. After a late night food run and about a half hour chat with one of the many bums we called it an evening.

In the morning we checked out the Golden Gate bridge and went shopping at the Haight/Ashbury area to complete or San Fransico portion of the trip. It was a nice city but expensive. I’ll eventually make it back there to learn more about its secrets.

Our next stop was to visit Pete’s friend who was staying in Berkley. We drove through the campus and I made my Kerouc references constantly.  We ended up going to a bar in downtown Berkley called the Albatross which had good beer and darts.

Next stop, Vegas.

Jimbo

We arrived at High Sierra at 4:30 am and were first in line for will call the next day. High Sierra is a smaller yet prestidgious music festival in northern California. Quincy California, the host town of the festival, is a small logging town up in the Sierra mountains. There were around 4 stages at the event and several other side stages. We camped in the Shady Grove camping area and had our own stage right under the pines.

The weekend was full of great music, peoples and atmosphere. There were some awesome bands playing such as The Slip, Les Claypool, Disco Biscuits and many more amazing smaller ones. The stages were all of decent size yet still provided an intimate atmosphere to dancing, listening or sitting in the distance. Although there was a heat wave in the area yielding temperatures of 110 degrees people were still out there at almost every show.

We had very nice and polite neighbors mostly with kids, although we were also next to a group of travelers from Ohio. There really was no sketchy characters to be had the whole weekend. People looked out for each other, there was no reports or theft or problems with the police. You really couldn’t ask for much more.

The coolest part about the festival was the lack of seperation between artists and fans. The artists had a camping section that they kept open to everyone, or even some just camped in with everyone else. During the day between big sets, or late night after the big acts you could walk around the camping areas and find “sneak attack” stages everywhere. Blue Turtle Seduction played ontop of their RV drawing a huge crowd. After Saturday nights show, the guitarist from The Slip and some other musicians were jamming in a tent till late night then just got out and were talking to everyone, answering questions.

When Monday came around, despite the fact we were hot, sweaty, dirty and hungry it was still hard to leave that awesome environment. I’ll be back High Sierra.

Jimbo

After a long drive through the blistering heat (118 degrees) of southern Arizona, New Mexico and California we arrived at the oasis of San Diego (75 degrees). We drove right to our hostel the USA Hostel in downtown San Diego where we grabbed a much needed shower and dinner. The cute check in lady seemed to be quite proud of telling us that the bathrooms were COED, as if we were gonna freak out or something?

Anyways they had a free keg of Heineken in the party room so we took advantage of that  before heading out to my buddy Soop’s (Matt). He lives in the Pacific Beach area so we hopped in our car and took off like we knew where we were going and actually arrived at his place before the fireworks. From there we Tom and Jerry’d it to his friend Tom’s place were they were having a limbo contest in his lawn with all the cute girls walking back from the beach. We then proceeded to light off some big mother fireworks in the road to everyones enjoyment.

Eventually we made our way back to the hostel, hung out for a bit and proceeded to pass out.

The next morning we began our trek up to Quincey California via the scenic route. We passed through all the famous beaches of southern California such as Long Beach, Malibu and Ventura. After leaving the more populated areas and getting onto Route 101 the scenery was jaw dropping. The highway winds along the coast with amazing cliffs or vistas looking right into the pacific. Going through areas like Los Padres National Forrest and Cambria afforded similar sights. As night fell we made our way up into the mountains of Big Sur and had dinner right on the beach in one of the valleys. There were  plenty of cliff side restaurents and cabins, I’d really like to take a few days camping or staying in that area.

Stay tuned for photos,

Jimbo

Texas is one big mother of a state. It kept going on and on, driving on Rt. 10 we narrowly escaped some big storm that was suppose to cause all this flooding in the Dallas area. The sky opened up so hard, I literally couldn’t see anything past 10 feet in front of me. However we must have been on the very edge of the storm system because all of a sudden it stopped. We made a quick stop in El Paso, TX to get some camping food and begin our drive to Alamogordo and White Sands New Mexico. By the time we got into that area (around 9) it was already almost totally dark and still 95 degrees outside. We drove past and watched the Alamogordo fireworks and got to our Campsite at Oliver Lee State Park around 1030.

The park was so damn windy, and our tent was not made to stand up to those conditions. It was clearly a camping tent, not a hiking tent. We abandoned our attempts and just resigned to sleeping in the car, but not before taking a few photos of the moon quickly creeping up over the mountain.

In the morning we went to White Sands National Park, but not before getting harassed but a border check point guard. He said our pupils were pin point and asked us why. I said that we had woken up 15 minutes before and also just took off our sun glasses to speak to him. Being an EMT he obviously knew that your eyes don’t dilate when introduced to brighter conditions. America, land of the free, well at least your free when you prove yourself innocent.

White Sands was like walking onto the moon. Everything is white for as far as the eyes can see, except for the looming mountains in the distance. While walking on the dunes I made sure to stagger my steps as any unnatural rthym would surely attract a sand worm (who gets the the reference?). Rather than attempt to summarize with words what I saw, please check out my pictures once I post them.

To California.

Jimbo

After pulling ourselves away from New Orleans we set our sights on Houston in “The Great State of Texas”. On the way we got some more regional cuisine at Opie’s Cajun Cafe in Baton Rouge, LA. I can’t get enough of the cajun food. We made it to our friend’s place of residence around dinner time. The community where he lives was basically built because of Johnson Space center and the houses are all very nice, along with the neighborhood. We went out for some Mexican food at Mamasita’s in South Houston, and then made our way to go bowling with some of Kane’s fellow NASA nerds. I rock at bowling…sometimes.

So far into this trip I’d have to say that the most interesting things we’ve done or seen has been the people. At every place we’ve stopped so far we’ve seen some really neat sights however who’ve we met has been what we talk about during the car rides. From Ryan O’Keefe, Kane, to our fellow travelers this trip has shown us some really cool people with interesting stories.

Jimbo