Dirt Color and Burger King

We bid farewell to the throngs of 311 fans and sped towards the gulf coast.  Downtown New Orleans seemed fine in relation to storm damage, but as we made our way out of town on the interstate we passed whole apartment complexes and neighborhoods that were destroyed or still abandoned.  It got worse as we headed towards the Mississippi and Alabama coasts.  Nice new resorts stood next to giant hotels that had been abandoned since Katrina.  Workers had just reopened a major bridge into Biloxi and were still reconstructing the coast highway.  I ate at a Burger King that had just been rebuilt.  Apparently it was the first fast food place on the coast in years.  The lady who took my order used the word, “Babe” non-stop.  Similarly to how I would say, “Dude” or “Homie.”

We ate near the beach and Ryan was feeding seagulls from his hand.  I told him about bird flu and he said that none of the birds had sneezed on him.  So we killed one of the gulls and ate it.

Continued north towards a campground we spotted in the atlas in western Alabama.  On the way, we stopped in Greensboro, Alabama and picked up some hot dogs, Ritz Bitz Cheese Crackers, and some Colt 45.  With supplies we made our way to Payne Lake State Park in the Talladega National Forest.  The campsite was great.  Took a nature walk and learned about hickory and climbed fallen logs.  We had batting practice with pine cones and sticks.  Started a fire, drank some beers, and went to sleep.  Next day, no showers.

Drove north along Alabama backroads and saw a whole lot of nothing.  All of the dirt in Alabama is red or orange.  Stopped in Tuscaloosa where Ryan got a haircut and I ate at another Burger King.  There was a Goodwill next to the barber shop that sold single boots for a dollar.  I’m sure it was a peg-legged pirate’s dream.  Nothing in my size though.

The Prodigal Son Returns

With a full stomach we left Austin and headed for New Orleans. We circumvented Houston and crossed through Orange, TX and into Louisiana. We stopped for the night outside of Baton Rouge and parked the car in a crop field next to an oil refinery. It was warm enough that I didn’t have to sleep in my hooded sweatshirt for once.

A one hour drive the next morning and we were in New Orleans. Our hotel was a few blocks from Canal St and the French Quarter. Check in wasn’t for a few hours so we walked down Bourbon street. The French Quarter seems like another planet. The streets are narrow, the buildings are old, and it feels like a time warp to the turn of the century except for the drunk tourists that occupy every inch of the area (us included). On advice from my parents we ate at Port of Call which only serves hamburgers and baked potatoes. Best burger of the trip by far. I also had an Abita Amber Ale which was delicious. Abita seems to be the main microbrewery in Louisiana and on the way back to the hotel I picked up a six-pack of their Red Ale and the Voodoo mini-mart (similar to how Roswell milked the alien thing, New Orleans milks the Voodoo thing…and naked chicks).

While checking in we discovered a horrifying fact. Apparently, we had come to New Orleans during “311 Weekend.” If you don’t remember or know, 311 is the band that plays crappy college rap/rock with reggae influences. They had such hits as “Come Original” and…I don’t know what else. It seems that every year on March 11th (3/11) the band plays a huge concert in New Orleans and their hemp-necklace wearing fans flock from around the country to get drunk and celebrate everything 311. Although I’m no fan of 311, the idea is a good one. Besides, the fans were nice and it felt good to know that I could beat up most of the people visiting town.

I drank five of the Abitia Red Ales and then we went out drinking and watched a few blues bands do their thing. The French Quarter is full of people all day everyday. Most of the bars are pleasantly crowded and live music pours into your ears from every direction. The booze is reasonably priced and all the tourists are so happy to just be drinking and walking down the street. We drank in a few bars and then I split off to go see a punk show.

The show was at One-Eyed Jack’s. Line-up: The Slits, Peelander-Z, This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, The Future Virgins and a band that I can’t remember. The Future Virgins played punk rock and roll in the vein of Against Me!. They were great. This Bike is a Pipe Bomb came across as the elder statesmen (and stateswoman) of punk that they were. They cracked self-deprecating jokes between blasts of simple but genuine punk rock. My heart smiled. It hurt. The band I can’t remember came on so I took the opportunity to go explore a bit and get another drink. I went down the street to Pat O’Brian’s. The entrance to the place is a fairly narrow walk with a bar along the side. As you keep walking it opens up into a huge courtyard with a fountain and lights in the middle of the city block. After the cramped streets it’s awesome to enter a place with some breathing room. Pat O’Brian’s claims to have invented the Hurricane mixed drink so I paid my seven bucks and got one. It messed me up…in a good way! I walked back towards the show and saw some street kids playing guitar in an alcove so I stopped to B.S. with them. They shared their beer, which was nice, and Nick explained to me how he lived in a house in Detroit but traveled for months at a time when he needed a break. He played a few songs and I asked him how the busking was in New Orleans. He claimed that the police had the power of Napoleonic law in the city and could make up infractions to hassle anyone they didn’t like. Apparently his friend had gotten busted for “Leaning with intent to fall.” I told him that was whack then said my goodbyes and went back to the show.

The band I can’t remember was just finishing and sounded pretty weird, but cool. I wish I had seen their whole set. Next up was Peelander-Z. They were a crazy gimmick rock band from Japan who wore crazy colorful costumes and periodically handed their instruments to audience members while they climbed around the venue. At one point they passed out a shit-load of percussion instruments and the entire audience kept time by beating on pipes and buckets as the band held up signs explaining that we, “…shouldn’t say ‘what the hell,’ but instead say, ‘what the health!’” Can’t remember their music but they were entertaining. During the set break I drank two more PBRs and talked with this girl from Milwaukee. We were both wasted and telling stories that neither of us seemed to realize were boring. She told me that she had lived in N.O. for a few months and that her mom had recently come to visit her. I told her that I was born in N.O. and had come back to bury my long lost uncle. Then the Slits took the stage and she slipped into the crowd. These ladies kept a really good groove. They were much more reggae influenced than I had expected from one of the first all female punk bands and the singer kept doing a lot of that pseudo-indian howling where you go, “Wa-wa-wa-wa!” while slapping your mouth with your hand. It seemed out of place but reminded me of Rufio and the Lost Boys from Hook.

At this point I had the drinking hunger. I spent a good long time looking for a Popeye’s Chicken and found one, but it was closed. Hungry, but still happy, I walked back to the hotel, ate some chips and went to bed.

The next day we took the trolley through the Garden District and saw all the mansions with large pillared porches. We passed throngs of Catholic schoolgirls. Saw the river and a steamboat. Ate beignets at Cafe Du Monde and ended up in an antique weapons store. They had no weapons from after 1900. I saw swords from the revolutionary war, Colts that were used in the old west, and a crazy African ax blade. They also had coins from the Roman Empire and actual buried treasure found in New Orleans!

That evening we ate at Igor’s. Igor’s is a bar/gameroom/laundromat where my parents used to drink while they did their laundry. I had the Cajun burger and a porter called something “dog.” It was good. We walked back to our hotel and a bum was following us and yelling and I thought he was going to attack us. It was cool to be in N.O. doing the same things my parents did twenty-four years ago when they were a little younger than I am now.

Ryan’s friend Chelsey drove out from Pensacola, Florida to visit and party with us. We stopped and bought beer from a storefront that was basically a guy with a keg selling cheap beer on Bourbon St. He had a sign out front that informed everyone that, “It’s okay to drink on the street in New Orleans!” So we did.

At this point I split off again to go see another show at a place called the Dragon’s Den. It was on the far side of the French Quarter so I got a Hurricane and headed out. The houses in the French Quarter come right to the sidewalk. So basically, the walls of all these people’s living rooms are right next to every drunk asshole walking by, including me. It was because of this fact that I was able to place my ear against a house and listen to this couple argue for ten minutes. Apparently this woman was angry that the man came to bed hours after her each night with the dogs. This woke her up and she can’t easily get back to sleep because of his snoring. She also mentioned his drinking problem. Fuck, look where they lived. You probably do a beer bong when you sign a lease in that neighborhood.

I found the venue, got a drink, and found a band to talk to. Being in an underappreciated, yet up-and-coming touring band myself, I knew that these guys were desperate for someone to talk with them and acknowledge their existence. I met the guys from Omega Rising and we drank and talked about the scene in N.O. and their home town of Philadelphia. Red Rockets played first and they were good. I, Octopus played next and they were also good. I can’t quite remember what I drank before I got to the venue, but after watching to bands play and drinking many bottled High Lifes I was bombed. So naturally, I called my folks and talked about the trip and N.O. I nodded off on the bar’s balcony during the set change and decided I needed to rock myself awake. My new friends Omega Rising were setting up and I meandered over all cool-style. They were a total trip. They had a keyboardist with three boards, a clarinet player, a singer/violin/guitar player and a bass player and a drummer. They were so off the wall and awesome that I perked right up. Even a zombie would stop trying to eat brains and rock out to these dudes. It helped that they all wore fur costumes and fish masks.

I left the Dragon’s Den and stumbled back towards the motel. It was after 3am at this point and there was still a mob of kids screaming 311 lyrics to each other outside of a margarita bar on Bourbon St. A girl grabbed my ass and I pretended not to notice and walked quickly in the other direction. Not only do I have an amazing girlfriend, but there is no way in hell a 311 fan is getting a piece of this ass (sorry for all the music snobbery). The “It’s okay to drink in the street” placed was closed down so I got a slice of pepperoni pizza and my final beer of the evening.

Next door to our hotel was an abandoned parking garage. I was getting my second wind and decided I had to scale the thing. I first made my way to the second floor by pressing my feet against the sides of a narrow hallway. Once on the second floor however I was trapped in a small room, so I jumped down and looked for another way. I found a crumbling brick wall and started climbing it while holding onto a chain link fence right next to it. As I grabbed the top of the wall I pulled some bricks down and they almost hit my face. Once atop the wall, I found the stairway and made my way to the top of the building (the fourth floor). At the top I found a fire extinguisher, so of course, I threw it off. No explosion or anything. I was bummed. After taking in the view of the city for a few minutes I climbed down. I found the fire extinguisher and decided to empty the motherfucker in a courtyard. After I realized that the enormous cloud of powder I was creating might draw attention to the drunk moron spraying a fire extinguisher in a courtyard in the middle of the city at 4am, I dropped the tank and ran to the hotel where I ate some chips and went to bed.

Sex (none), Drugs (prescription) and Rock and Roll (noodlers and hippies)

We left central Texas and headed steadily toward more trees. After living in the northwest for most of my life, anytime I go anywhere that isn’t crammed with evergreens I constantly think, “Where the hell are all the trees? It must be weird to live without pine needles all over the floor mats.” After a three hour drive and a few stops at thrift stores, we made it to Round Rock, TX. Round Rock is a suburb of Ausin where Ryan’s uncle, aunt, and two cousins live.

The family was great. His uncle Patrick works for Dell and his aunt Denise made sure we got some free Dell shirts as parting gifts. Ryan bought Justice League Heroes for Gavin (8) and Isabella (7) and they played the hell out of it. I had to be called in as a ringer to help defeat the Key (Damn you Wittner!). Gavin hadn’t upgraded Flash with Supersonic Evade so I had to rely on Green Lantern’s Energy Bolt for ranged damage against the Key and Sledgehammer for AOE damage and stun against the Quadlerks and those flying ray bastards. It’s almost as if I’d played the game for thousands of hours before…

The days were spent with Ryan rough-housing with the kids while I tried to crack jokes suitable for third graders from my sickbed. Ryan’s aunt saw how weak and miserable I was, and probably didn’t want me infecting her family, so she gave me some anti-botics she had left over from a sinus infection (Side Note: you should always take the entire bottle of anti-biotics a doctor prescribes even when symptoms disappear. This not only makes sure the bacteria is actually dead in you body, but stops the breeding of drug resistant superstrains. Seriously, these staph infections in ERs are getting scary). I am normally against taking medication not specifically prescribed to a person but I was on the road, had taken the meds before, didn’t have health insurance, and had talked to dead people in a fever dream not two nights before so I said FUCK IT and popped some amoxycilin.

I was too sick and feverish to go out drinking the first two nights, but we did explore the Austin during the day. We ate at Damn Good Tacos. And they were. Bone Thugs N Harmony was playing in town. We had become inadvertant groupies again. We visited the capitol building and took a tour of the grounds. We were the only two people on the tour. Apparently the Texas capitol building is seven feet taller than its counterpart in Washington D.C. I also learned that my belt buckle is the Texas state seal. An interesting fact about Texas is that while not everybody in the state is a redneck republican, EVERYBODY thinks Texas is the greatest thing since breathing. Were Texas its own country it would have the eleventh largest economy in the world.

On the third night I felt strong enough to go out on the town. They say Austin has toppled Seattle as the “Live Music Capitol of the World” and they are right. Seattle can’t hold a flame to Austin in that respect. Sixth Street in downtown has the highest bar/live music density I have ever seen (I held this opinion until I saw the French Quarter in New Orleans). We went out on a Friday night and the street was closed to traffic due to the overwhelming amount of drunk assholes in the street.

A NIGHT IN AUSTIN OVERVIEW:

-Listened to Dropkick Murphys play from the other side of fence.
-Saw way too many dudes play way too many cheesy guitar solos.
-Saw one guy play way too cheesy a bass solo. Do you ever watch a band and think, “I wish this bass player would slap and pop more.”? Me neither.
-Met some girls busking in the street. They played a song by Nico and were very nice.
-Twice walked through a giant bible-thumper get-together on the corner. They were banging drums and singing hymns or something. They weren’t handing out literature or anything but they had that glazed look in their eyes that led me to believe they were all going to go back to their HQ, pat each other on the backs and probably engage in every type of sexual act except vaginal intercourse.
-Found the punk/rock clubs on Red River Ave. Did not pay the five bucks to see an Iron Maiden cover band.

The next morning the family took us out for lunch at the Overlook (wasn’t that the name of the hotel in The Shining?). It’s a giant hotel and restaurant overlooking Travis Lake in Austin. Our watress had a scar on her neck that Ryan tells me was probably from a rope burn during a suicide attempt. She seemed nice. On old hippy was playing spanish sounding mood music on a classical guitar while we ate. I complimented him and he seemed genuinely happy that someone noticed. I saw him loading his gear into an early 90’s Astrovan on our way out. At this point I was feeling much better; almost 100%. The lesson here is that drugs work. Or that the flu had run it’s course. I’d like to think that the music healed me but, in my experience, music has mostly damaged my body and poisoned my mind. That’s probably why I like it so much.

Fever Dreams and White Boys

After a late night drive we rolled into Brownwood, TX and slept at my aunt April’s house.  In morning we drove out to the small town of Bangs and ate at their restaurant.  They have the best BBQ in central Texas.  After a delicious meal we headed out to see historic Brownwood.  We found the smallest city block in America, it’s a locksmith shop with apartments above it, and then we stopped at a bunch of pawn shops in the city.  I bullshitted with a guy about guitar gear in a Gold Pawn and he informed me about which beers the locals drink.  Apparently the locals don’t really drink Lone Star Beer.  (Side Note: he claims the Russian Big Muff fuzz pedal by ElectroHarmonix is better than the American version.  We’ll see.)  Brownwood has a dry line, near the railroad tracks, over which no hard liquor can be sold.  What a stupid state.  In another pawn shop I found a 1950’s Telecaster.  It wasn’t for sale.  The guy also had a Megalodon tooth (that’s the giant ancient shark for you non-ancient-biologists).  It also wasn’t for sale.  WTF?  It’s weird to see semi-priceless (is that an acceptable word?) artifacts in a pawn shop.  The archaeologist who pawned that tooth must have come upon some hard times.  Maybe he needed the money to buy the last dodo egg.

Back at my aunt’s ranch, along with my cousin Jonathan, we explored their property and wrangled some cattle.  We had to swap a pregnant heifer with some other cows that needed to get it on.  Ryan caught the calf and tossed it over a fence while a stupid goat stood in a bath tub that was in the middle of the pen for some reason.

That night I had a fever so high that I was hallucinating.  For some reason I was singing Ryan Adams lyrics out loud.  And even though I knew he wasn’t really there, I had an out-loud conversation with my dead Grandpa Louis.  We came to the conclusion that life is hard and some people don’t know how to deal with it.  That’s why he was a drunk asshole.  I dropped my grudge.

We had lunch the next day at the restaurant again and got the scoop on the dirty underbelly of Brownwood history.  It consists of rich, old, white, racist men controlling the town and crushing all opposition.  By the way, thank God I was born a middle-class, white, straight male in American.  The sky’s the limit baby!

One-Trick Ponies and Rodeo History

Roswell, NM knows that they have only one thing going for them: crappy aliens. They have little grey men everywhere. There were alien murals plastered on their Walmart. There were alien footsteps painted on the sidewalks. Every business name had an extra-terrestrial tie-in. Example: Out-of-this-World Coffee. Ryan claims the coffee was only okay.

We went to a gift shop with more alien crap than you can imagine. Homemade “I got probed in Roswell” velcro wallets. Little green men beer cozies. Photocopied Agent Mulder and Scully FBI tags. And the ringmaster was a nice old man with narrow brown teeth.

Next stop was the UFO Museum. I walked slowly because I felt like I was dying. Five bucks to see some photocopied documents and pictures and a painted cow. The favorite line I found was in the section on ancient UFOs. It went as such, “It is generally accepted that extra-terresrials visited ancient cultures and shared technology.” Accepted by who? You crackpots in the desert?! Open a theme park already!

From Roswell we headed south to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. On the way we stopped at a gas station that sold whole chickens. I passed on the entire bird meal and instead ate my first, but not last, beef brisket. If you are like me and don’t know what a beef brisket from a gas station in southern New Mexico is, it’s beef and green chilis in a flour tortilla. 65% on the satisfaction scale.

The caverns themselves kicked ass. We found a rock that looked exactly like a boob. Exactly. I have the picture to prove it. The rangers prowled the walkways looking for graffiti and pointing out rocks that looked like wolves and iguanas. Apparently they hadn’t seen the boob rock. Or maybe it’s against the Park Ranger Code to refer to natural objects as appearing as anything in the bathing suit area. Side note: there were a lot of Quakers visiting the caves that day.

The caves were great and all, but now it was time to drive to the middle of nowhere Texas; Codename: Brownwood. On the way we passed through Pecos, TX which claims to have had the first ever recorded rodeo. I wondered where the first ever recorded hoedown was and what exactly a hoedown is. Sounds like something Snoop Dog would say. “Welcome to the hoedown. Light ‘em up, beeeatch!” Now I’m wondering where the first recorded gay rodeo was. I’m betting it wasn’t in Texas.

Giant Junk Statues and Jesus!

When I woke up in the rest area outside of Tuscon I could barely move. I was very weak and obviously ill. Luckily, Ryan was tired of driving so we made it to town and got a motel room. Ryan had to carry my bags upstairs for me. I lay in the bed sweating and shivering while Ryan took a shower. When it was my turn, I lay in the tub and let the cold water wash over me. I miraculously found the energy to masterbate and it was awesome.

Ryan went to explore Tuscon while I took a nap. I basically spend the whole day in bed watching TV and napping. Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew is WAY more boring than it should be. I mean, half the people on that show SHOULD be doing drugs because their lives are so obviously crap. I assumed the dude from Crazy Town died a long time ago. I did finish my second book of the trip, Dune Messiah. Awesome book; I can’t wait to read the next one. “Fear is the mind killer.”

Ryan concluded that Tuscon sucked ass and he brought me some food from a place called Hamburger Stand. It’s basically Dick’s from back home with slightly worse fries. We slept in the same bed. There was only one and nothing happened…we just talked. In the rush to check out in the morning I forgot my pillow. This would prove to be most distressing to me.

From Tuscon we headed towards the White Sands National monument in New Mexico. Along the was we stopped at a rest stop outside of Las Cruces. The rest stop has a giant roadrunner made out of junk. Seriously, it was made out of scrap metal and garbage. It was great. The wind was blowing in gusts up to 50 mph and the bird was bobbing up and down. The belly of the bird was made out of white sneakers and people had taken to writing message on them. Along with the usual “Trish and Rob Forever” a trucker had written, “I drive a truck so my son can go to college and do better than his old man.” My heart literally smiled. It hurt…literally.

We kept on truckin’ and ended up at the White Sands National Monument. This place is near a national missile test site. They tell you that the park can close at any time due to missile tests. The monument itself is dune after dune of pure white sand in the middle of the New Mexico desert. We climbed a few dunes, got sand in our drawers, cameras, and eyes, and considered the monument fully dominated.

Heading on down the road, we ended up at a town called Alamogordo. A ranger at the park told us of a free place to camp near the town and we figured we’d eat some dinner and kill some time in scenic New Mexican Nowhere. And kill time we did! We found this weird pinball/arcade hall. They were closing down but turned on all the games for us when we walked in. Remember the red-headed kid with the mullet that is John Connor’s friend at the beginning of Terminator 2? Well, that guy was working and the arcade. I played some kick as pinball from the 70’s. I dominated both Dolly Parton and Pac-Man pinball. They also had Terminator 2 pinball which I used to rock at Champions at the South Hill Mall.

Next, we ate at this pizza place that claimed that they killed all competition. It was pretty good. We changed clothes in the parking lot and I showed my sweet ass to cars that drove by. At this point we realized that the ranger gave us directions to a ski town way up in the mountains and that was worthless to us. I was sick and there was no reason to drive out of our way when we could just head towards our next destination: Roswell, NM (let me kill the suspense now and tell you that Roswell was a let-down and a waste of time).

Unexpected to us, a huge fucking snowstorm hit as we made our way to Roswell. I tailgated this SUV as it dangerously made it’s way through the snow and we eventually made it to the UFO capitol of the world. We slept in a Baptist church parking lot. I found this funny since Jesus is kind of like and alien, only more handsome. Ryan tried his first of many probings of me that night. I guess he figured that it would be funny and a great addition to our road trip experience. It wasn’t. We had a long talk and now have better boundary awareness.

In the rush to leave Tuscon, we realized that we forgot to search for the Robotron machine we knew was there. Oh well.

Smart Shoppers and Line Dancing

As our last act in Winslow we bought postcards and took our picture on the corner like tourists.  The ladies working at the gift shop were having a loud discussion about their personal relationships with God.  The taller of the two tried to hide her horror when the shorter lady described how she “…just couldn’t bring herself to baptise her children.”  Thank God the Catholics got rid of Purgatory, am I right?  Although, Purgatory couldn’t be much worse than living in Winslow, AZ.

After finding out that Flying J Truckstops charge $8.50 per shower for non-truckers, we put on some more deoderant and headed for the greater Phoenix area (Side Note: Farting etiquette was established on day one of the trip.  The “wind breaker” must casually crack their window as soon as they can after letting one rip; being as inconspicuous as possible.  Never draw attention to the fart unless absolutely necessary, such as in the case of a beef of extraordinary tone or duration).  Along the way we stopped at some small thrift stores and scored big.  I bought a David Sedaris book and a great necktie for 25 cents apiece!  I also found a book about criminal invenstigation.  What was especially fascinating was the large section on investigating sodomy, homosexuality, and other lewd conduct.  I’m guessing the book wasn’t published in Massachusetts.  Take THAT! different value set from a past generation!

We made our way to Tempe, a city part of the Phoenix area, because we heard it was a “crackin’ college town.”  So naturally, we tried to find the Robotron machine we heard was there.  Once again the Gameworks corporation fucked us royally.  The machine was gone, but there was plenty of Virtua Cop 2 to play.  Virtua Cop is still fun, right guys? Right? (Side Note: the more children in an area the stickier every surface becomes).

 Disillusioned, Ryan bought a pretzel and we headed to the main drag in Tempe.  It was a little too trendy for us and we ended up going to a country-western bar called Roosters out in Mesa.  Played some pool and watched old cowboys dance to a decent band.  Ryan was totally hitting on this 50-60 year-old.  “Just mention you’re from Alaska and people open up,” he tells me.  We stayed for a few drinks and then headed out of town.  Ended up sleeping in a rest area just outside of Tuscon.  This was the beinging of my illness.

Arizona: Land of Mystery!

From the Grand Canyon we headed south into Flagstaff.  Neither Ryan nor I knew that Flagstaff was a mountain town.  It’s like a ski town in the middle of Arizona.  Pretend you’re walking through the forest and you find a bear singing showtunes; that’s what it was like in Flagstaff.  We went to a music store and had lunch at a brewery.  I had a decent ESP and Ryan had a Baba Ganoosh IPA which tasted strange but not unpleasant.  As has become the norm on the trip, we drove around neightborhoods until we found a wireless network we could pirate.  Both George Thorogood and Bone Thugs N Harmony were playing in town that night.  Ryan wanted to see a white guy do covers of classic blues songs and I really wanted to get my gansta groove on.  Rather than letting the decision tear us apart we decided to head south to Winslow, AZ, get drunk at a bar and sleep in the car.  And that’s exactly what we did.

On arrival in Winslow we drove around looking for bars.  We couldn’t find any so Ryan asked these two Mexican cooks on the street where we could get drunk.  He told us that PT’s down the road was, “…a good place for white people.”  We were happy he was looking out for us.  PT’s had Playboy pinball and this arcade game called “Bags” made by Midway which simulated throwing beanbags onto a square.  I shit you not. The salt in the wound was that this piece of crap cost 75 cents to play.  Ryan got the top score of the week.  A cool thing about PT’s is that it’s always 2 for 1 drafts.  Everytime you order a draft beer you get two. 

I’ve been having some strange instances during this trip where I think, “Wow, this place is weird.”  But Winslow had the most intesting one thus far.  Every kareoke I’ve ever been to ends up having the same 20-25 songs sung by everyone.  At the very least it’s one classic rock anthem after another.  Then “Baby Got Back” is sung by a group of drunk girls who, in fact, have huge asses.  But Winslow was different.  Everyone was singing these pop country and gospel tunes I had never heard.  No one busted out “Cowboys From Hell,” any CCR or AC/DC.  I thought rednecks LOVED Pantera!  It just goes to show my own prejudices. 

Canyon Craziness!

Left Vegas and headed for Zion National Park. Beautiful country. We got some great pics. We’d planned on staying there but they wanted $16 to camp and we were like, “NO WAY!” and they were all like, “THEN CAMP SOMEWHERE ELSE UNBELIEVERS!” and we were like, “How’d they know we were unbelievers?” And then I realized that I was wearing my “I’m An Unbeliever” baseball cap with matching Heathen belt. Ryan and I climbed some steep sloped canyon walls and I became very out of breath, but not before I discovered someone’s underwear at the top of the mini-mountain I’d scaled. Love reigns supreme in Zion.

We decided to skip Zion camping and head towards the Grand Canyon with the intention of sleeping in the Arizona desert along the way. Ended up twenty miles outside of the Grand Canyon near a washout. We collected brushwood and started a fire. To cook our hotdogs we strung them up on a guitar string with each of us holding and end. Best four hotdogs I ever ate. That night ended up being the first of three nights spent sleeping in the car (surprisingly not horrible).

Woke up and headed to the canyon. Did the normal stuff: took pics, climbed dangerously near the edge, tried to arm wrestle foreigners. There was snow on the ground which made our rock climbing that much more difficult. Did you know that the Grand Canyon gets an annual snowfall of 60 inches? Me neither! Took the Subaru off-road and ended up driving through snow, over railroad tracks, and in mud to the middle of nowhere. Then we ate lunch.