Real Human Moments Various bits of information organized for someone’s viewing pleasure.

Vegas

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

San Fransico

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

High Sierra

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

San Diego and 101/Big Sur

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

White Sands

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

Houston

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

Day 3 – Key West

Wow, I didn’t know America had beaches like the ones we saw on the Keys. The beaches are post card worthy, with white sand that almost feels like clay. We drove US-1 from outside of Miami straight into Key West, the trip took us about 3+ hours with some traffic, but it is one of the coolest drives I’ve ever done in America. There are points on the road where you have the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Ocean both visible on your right and left sides. Of course we drove through Key Largo (Montiego, baby why dont we go to the cocomos…), and went over the 7 mile bridge while keeping a sharp eye out for any Harrier jets who might want to take us out True Lies style.

Key West it self has a very strong “Island” feel even though its attached with bridges. We ended up staying at the Key West Seashell Hostel which is at the end of Duval street, 2 blocks from “the southern most point”. We walked around Key West, took in the sites and stores. There are many famous places to eat and drink, we didn’t try them all, but then again were not millionaires. Its funny, everywhere in Key West you’ll hear this strange (well i guess for us city folk) crying noise. Theres a large wild chicken population, its neat seeing chickens walking around the bars and such.

Were are finding out that staying in hostels is the way to lodge while traveling, even in the US. After we spent the day walking around, we went back to the hostel and had dinner. We met some more travelers who of course were from Australia and New Zealand. When I spent some time traveling in Europe a few years ago I noticed that any bar you went to, if you listened long enough, eventually you’ll hear an Australian accent. I wonder why Australians are always traveling, or working abroad and its so uncommon in the US?

We left the hostel with our new Mates and hit up the Duval street bars and clubs. Needless to say its a crazy town thats open till early morning, we went to Irish Nicks and then to Sloppy Joe’s. At Sloppy Joe’s there was a rocking cover band which played great modern rock. Somehow I made it back and apparently fell asleep in the common patio/gazebo area.

We went swimming the next day and started our drive to New Orleans. Florida is a big fucking state.

~ Jimbo

Day 2 – South Beach, FL

Originally our plan was to get down to Key West and party 2 nights down there, however we ended up getting a late start leaving SC and decided to find a closer stop for the night.  A quick search found us http://www.jazzhostels.com/ a very nice clean hostel right down in South Beach. Its about 4 blocks from all the clubs and a block away from the beach. We ended up getting in around 10:30, we shared some cheap whiskey with some other people hanging around the hostel. There was a unique mix of people staying there, the majority of them were European or Australians seeing America. There was also some Americans just looking to get a start in Miami and were staying here while trying to find a job.

We went out to the bar street and really weren’t feeling a club so we found a nice Irish bar “The Playwright”. Its the sister bar of The Playwright in New Haven.  Good place. Anyways the moral of the night is, even if its raining and two girls offer to share a cab, they still could be prostitutes which you have to run away from.

To Key West,

Jimbo

Day 1 – Charleston, SC

Keeping things fresh in my mind I figured I’d make my first real post. We just got into our sleeping bags in the KOA of Charleston, South Carolina. How did we get here? Well we ended up leaving my parents around 730pm on Tuesday night after having dinner at the “Athena II” in Wallingford CT. After that we still needed to get our GPS/Laptop working so we B-lined for Comp USA in Milford. Around 8pm we began our trip for real… skip ahead 15 hours and we made it to Charleston SC.

Our reason to stop in Charleston was to visit a good fried of mine, Ryan Okeefe. He had joined the Navy and is currently in School near Charleston training to be a nuclear engineer. He’s been gone since late december when he shipped out to boot camp. His school days are from 5am to 4pm so we had to entertain ourselves for a few hours. We found some free parking at White Point Gardens and just started walking. Charleston is an interesting city it has a style very similar to what I saw in Old San Juan. Very bright colors with cement or plaster walls. It was a 91 degree day and we quickly got parched so we stopped by a local brewery, restaurant for a cool one. The beer was mediocre. We walked through an open air market that sold various crap, and then we got bored and drove out to Sullivan Island outside the city.

Sullivan Island is looks and feels like Hilton Head. Word of warning, “Wild Dunes” is an expensive resort, not a sweet place to play on sand dunes. We parked our car and went for a swim in the piss warm water (in a good way). By the time we got showered off it was time to go pick up Okeefe at his base.

In quite the coincidence, Greg Weinrod’s friend Rapple called me on Greg’s phone pretending to be Greg. Me not recognizing the number gave my phone to Ryan who pretended to be me. Two pretenders on the same phone. Any ways, we spent the evening in downtown Charleston with Okeefe. We had dinner at an Irish pub called Condon’s and visited various bars and reminisced and caught up on recent gossip. For all those who have heard from Oderf in a while, he is doing very well, really enjoying his time in the Navy and is actually number 1 in his class, which helps him avoid severe punishment for his antics. We dropped Ryan off back at his base around midnight (after another pitcher at the base bar).

Our campsite was a few minutes away, we pulled in a little after midnight and met our neighbor, “Chuck who dont give a fuck” . We had a beer and chatted with Chuck for an hour, he was an extremely nice guy and told great stories. Chuck is a modern day lumber jack who trims and cuts down trees for a living. He camps were there is work and knows how to make quite the complete campsite. Chuck even hooked us up with a roll up green turf to keep in front of our tent and to keep our shoes on. In the morning he even gave us his home made hammock which should be a sweet addition at High Sierra if we find a place to put it up.

As usual I haven’t uploaded any pictures yet but I may be able to tomorrow morning. Right now we are on I-95 just south of Daytona heading to Miami for the night. We are staying at the Jazz Hostel in South Beach.

Cheers,

Jimbo