We  began to hang out with several of the attendees and by the end we were good friends. The variety of people was amazing. There were professionals and students from Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, Columbia, the United States, Canada, Germany, Austria, Austrailia, Denmark and England. Early on a large number of us, maybe 20 or so had dinner at a brew pub creating a table the size of the entire room. It was such an awesome moment because so many people, with no connection got together and had a great time. We found differences and commonalities in our work, social experiences and politics. In fact if you wanted a new perspective on politics, or a world event you only needed to pick up your beer and walk to a different part of the table. It is interesting discussing revolution with people whos country has recently gone through one in the past 50 years, where as its a much more abstract discussion for Americans.

After leaving the bar, I suggested that several of us try and walk to the  shore. Severall people agreed and I picked a direction and lead the group. I really had no idea where we were going but I found my way and we made it to the water eventually. We were able to spend the nights and weekend of our stay exploring downtown seattle and the surrounding areas. It was a very relaxed atmosphere as most of us had put on hold our daily responsibilities for this trip, a very rare situation in which to meet new people. We celebrated a fellow compute programmers birthday who was from Denmark by all packing into a sushi restaurant where you can pick your dish off of a large conveyer belt, and finished off the evening awkwardly remembering our childhood piano lessons in the dorm.

All good things have to come to an end, and slowly we began loosing members of the group as they finished up their courses. I luckily had a few extras for my first north western adventure.

Most my posts have been more in the travel log format, simply a glorified list of where I’ve gone, and what I’ve done. I haven’t really been diligent in keeping it current because I find that writing that information is not entertaining to me. I am going to try and switch my posts focus to the human situations which I encounter in every day life, or travel.

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…

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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