The next morning is a Sunday, and the Pats and Red Sox are both playing. I leave Providence in the late morning on my way to Medford to see some college friends. As I drive by Foxboro I can see a blimp in the air covering the Pats game. Taking 93 through Boston I go through the O’Neill Tunnel and then over that really cool bridge. The tunnel is great because, as I have said earlier, it is beautiful to watch the lights reflect and spread off of my motorcycle’s chrome, but also because it is warm down there, and a real nice little respite from the cold air at sixty-five miles per hour above ground. I make it to Medford, but I botch the end part with the fine-tuned directions and end up somewhere near Mike and Matty but not exactly sure how to get there. Funny enough, I recognize where I am though, because I am by the Tufts athletic building, which I remember passing by sometimes when I was visiting my cousin here. When I get some directions, I find the place in a few minutes and see Dave Dillon is there too so it turns out to be a real party, especially when a boatload of food arrives and the Pats and the Red Sox both dominate. I consider staying here tonight and meeting some Utah friends in Boston tomorrow morning and heading back home in the afternoon, but I decide to take off tonight and meet my Utah friends later in the week. I get on as night is falling, and fill up my tank before I jump on the highway. The gas station attendant has an accent, somewhere in Eastern Europe, I guess, and is so impressed and interested in my trip that I can’t get away until another car happens to pull in. I have met a whole bunch of people randomly that are really interested in what I am doing which I think is great, and hopefully even one of them will get so pumped up on it that he’ll go out and do it on his own.
It’s a simple trip up 93, onto 95, and off in Seabrook, taking the more scenic route back to Exeter as opposed to going through the tolls and down 101. It’s chilly for sure, and for a minute it begins to rain lightly so I pull over under a bridge to put my rain suit on. The rain pretty much stops after that, but I keep it on for warmth, and I don’t feel like stopping again either. I take the back roads through Kensington and in into Exeter. I pull over by the skate park and shine my light on it, and see that it is completely redone. I continue up Court Street, past the PEA gym, and past the Rec Office and down South Street where, as I approach my house, I can see my parents sitting out on the porch with blankets wrapped around them, waiting for me in the yellow porch light. I pull in between their two cars and put my kick stand down on the stone patio bricks just past the pavement, and that is it.
Friday, October 19, 2007
New England
I have to weave my way around Manhattan’s one-way streets in right angles and squares before I can get on the FDR and afterwards to 278 to 95. Naturally I run into a very very long traffic jam in which I simply just sit and wish I were legally allowed to split lanes and get out of this mess. Some dude on a big old Harley rolls by doing that, and then two guys on sport bikes zoom by and I watch them disappear in the distance, past all these cars. I just don’t have the balls, plus I haven’t been pulled over in nine thousand miles and I would like to keep it that way. Eventually the traffic clears and I am on my way again. A ways up 95 the same sport bike guys pass me again, I can only assume they got off then back on again, and instead of giving me the standard nonchalant biker wave, the first turns all the way around once he is past me and has seen my Utah plates and gear packed on the rear, and gives me a thumbs up.
It’s an uninteresting ride to Providence where I have a friend I went to school with in Utah. I get off and find my way to downtown to get directions from Nate, and then I immediately get lost because I did not pay enough attention to the intricate directions, and end up back on the freeway, and have to exit, turn around, and find my way back into town once again. I at least know the street he lives on, so I go around asking people. There is some event being set up for tonight, and I pull over to a parking attendant in a pink breast cancer shirt, but he has never heard of Wickenden Street, or he just doesn’t want to bother helping me out. I ride over to a nearby fire station and the firefighters give me directions in the first Boston accents I have yet encountered on my trip, and it really sets in that I am about home. I go up some street they point me to, probably not the right one because it looks like I am going up a hill the wrong way on a one-way street, and then I take a right until the road is closed off for some festivities, and the guy standing there gives me more directions which get me lost even more. I ask one more woman who points me in what finally turn out to be the right way, and I finally get to Nate’s place. I get myself cleaned up and we head over to the local wine and beer store and stare at an entire wall of international microbrews for about twenty minutes before picking some fancy schmancy stuff out that we drink back at his apartment before walking to downtown, past Water Fire, which is what I saw people setting up for on my way in here. Apparently Water Fire is a recurring weekend event in which torches that line the center of a downtown canal are lit up and people gather around the park at the end of the canal and listen to music and take canal boat tours and generally stare at fire like a bunch of curious primitives. Not to say there is anything wrong with staring like a curious primitive, I do it all the time, but it’s an interesting habit of ours.
First we head to RiRa’s which catches me off guard because that is where Ben and I hung out in Charlotte, and it turns out that it is a small chain, which makes sense. Nate’s girlfriend works there and we have a few drinks there before we head over to McCormick and Schmick’s where they have ridiculously cheap bar food that is totally delicious. It’s like two dollars for a full size burger with fries, or mozzarella sticks or potato croquettes, and really cheap beer too. Pretty excellent. After stuffing ourselves for next to nothing we head back to RiRa’s for a bit before getting a taxi back to Nate’s and partying there for a bit before hitting the sack.
It’s an uninteresting ride to Providence where I have a friend I went to school with in Utah. I get off and find my way to downtown to get directions from Nate, and then I immediately get lost because I did not pay enough attention to the intricate directions, and end up back on the freeway, and have to exit, turn around, and find my way back into town once again. I at least know the street he lives on, so I go around asking people. There is some event being set up for tonight, and I pull over to a parking attendant in a pink breast cancer shirt, but he has never heard of Wickenden Street, or he just doesn’t want to bother helping me out. I ride over to a nearby fire station and the firefighters give me directions in the first Boston accents I have yet encountered on my trip, and it really sets in that I am about home. I go up some street they point me to, probably not the right one because it looks like I am going up a hill the wrong way on a one-way street, and then I take a right until the road is closed off for some festivities, and the guy standing there gives me more directions which get me lost even more. I ask one more woman who points me in what finally turn out to be the right way, and I finally get to Nate’s place. I get myself cleaned up and we head over to the local wine and beer store and stare at an entire wall of international microbrews for about twenty minutes before picking some fancy schmancy stuff out that we drink back at his apartment before walking to downtown, past Water Fire, which is what I saw people setting up for on my way in here. Apparently Water Fire is a recurring weekend event in which torches that line the center of a downtown canal are lit up and people gather around the park at the end of the canal and listen to music and take canal boat tours and generally stare at fire like a bunch of curious primitives. Not to say there is anything wrong with staring like a curious primitive, I do it all the time, but it’s an interesting habit of ours.
First we head to RiRa’s which catches me off guard because that is where Ben and I hung out in Charlotte, and it turns out that it is a small chain, which makes sense. Nate’s girlfriend works there and we have a few drinks there before we head over to McCormick and Schmick’s where they have ridiculously cheap bar food that is totally delicious. It’s like two dollars for a full size burger with fries, or mozzarella sticks or potato croquettes, and really cheap beer too. Pretty excellent. After stuffing ourselves for next to nothing we head back to RiRa’s for a bit before getting a taxi back to Nate’s and partying there for a bit before hitting the sack.
Monday, October 15, 2007
NYC
I am not looking forward to the drive from Philly to New York City, but I don't expect it to suck as soon as it does. I get on 276 right from Conshohocken, on my way to 95 right up to NYC. Not long after I am on 276 there are signs that say "To 95 Next Exit" and things seem to be going fine except when I take the exit, there is no 95. I have to take some road through a sea of traffic and lights and bullshit, with no trace of 95 around. I am heading back south towards Philly too, absolutely not where I want to go. After awhile, by pure chance, I notice a sign on an overpass pointing to 95 that is posted for people going perpendicular to the road I am on, so I bang a U-turn at the next opportunity and navigate some random neighborhoods until I finally get on 95 after an hour or so delay, and have to drive on it for fifteen minutes until I get to the place where I would have ended up had I ignored that first sign off 276. I don't know what cracked-out jokers put up these horribly-placed signs around cities, but they infuriate me. Once I am on 95 heading north, the drive is not as bad as I had anticipated. By no means is it fun, but I was thinking traffic would be backed up for no reason at random spots and people were going to be switching across every lane all the time and trucks were going to be boxing me out or in or whatever, but it was bearable. Maybe I had just steeled myself for something so horrible, it couldn't have been actually that bad. Either way, I make it through New Jersey until the Manhattan skyline rises up after a bend in the road, and I follow signs for the Lincoln Tunnel. I guess motorcycles aren't as expensive to get through the tunnel as cars which are nice. There seems to be a couple different tubes that bring you under the water, and I choose one at random which ends up shooting me onto thirty-fifth or forty-second or something a little farther uptown than I wanted to be, but I am familiar with how grid systems work from living in Salt Lake and it's not too hard to get around. In fact, it is almost fun driving through New York traffic because it is as close to lawlessness as I have yet experienced on this trip. There might as well be no lanes and people are zooming all over the place and anything goes I guess. I make my way past the Empire State Building on thirty-fourth and eventually work my way around to a friends apartment where I find some quick parking. Motorcycles are great when it comes to parking. Jenny is still at work, and so is Maggie, over in Brooklyn, so I just hang out on the street and read, then go get a snack which is like six-fifty for a juice and Clif Bar. When Jenny finishes work, I bring my stuff into her place, as I sure don't trust anything left on my bike to remain there, and in fact, I'm a bit concerned about my bike as well. We head out to a Red Sox bar to meet Maggie a little later, and then go over to Brooklyn to get dinner at a pretty slickly designed Thai place, and hang out at the bar Maggie lives above, which used to be a motorcycle shop a few years ago. That seems pretty cool to me. I meet Maggie's roommate Grace, whose brother owns the bar, and we hang out and play a little foosball until Jenny and I hop on the train back to Manhattan.
The next day I am greeted by a parking ticket on my motorcycle. Sixty-five bucks because apparently the street cleaner came that morning, and the days and hours are different on each side of the street, which is what threw me off. Oh well. I finished my bagel for breakfast and started walking around Manhattan. I ended up somewhere around Soho where I was eating lunch on a bench when I saw a woman open a cab door into a passing car. That's why you get out on the curbside. That was entertaining as the cars built up behind them and the door was bent forward and the Volvo was all scratched and dented. Then later on, I am walking down the street past a Hasidic Jew holding what looks like a mango and a giant stalk of asparagus when he grabs my shoulder and asks in a light accent if I am Jewish. When I tell him no, I am not, he doesn't seem to believe me and gets a real disappointed look on his face. I walk away feeling bad because he looked like he was really hoping I was Jewish. It's been awhile since I trimmed my beard, and my chops are getting a little bushy, but I guess I had let myself go longer than I had thought.
I had only anticipated staying in NYC for a couple days but I soon realize that my stay is going to be extended. That night I stay at Maggie's and spend the next day sitting around with Grace, watching movies and waiting for the cable guy to come, and then watching TV and going to New Jersey to Ikea. I spend the next few days in Manhattan or in Brooklyn, driving my bike here and there, leaving it here and there, avoiding parking tickets, walking around Manhattan one day when Jenny stays home from work, checking out the Staten Island Ferry and the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero and Central Park, where I find some more bouldering, and pretty much just wandering. I get to meet up with my college friend Jacie at a bar which is great because I haven't seen her forever. I almost make it to Saturday night, when Maggie and Grace are throwing a housewarming party, but after five nights, I feel like I have been in one place long enough and on Saturday morning I pack my things and go.
The next day I am greeted by a parking ticket on my motorcycle. Sixty-five bucks because apparently the street cleaner came that morning, and the days and hours are different on each side of the street, which is what threw me off. Oh well. I finished my bagel for breakfast and started walking around Manhattan. I ended up somewhere around Soho where I was eating lunch on a bench when I saw a woman open a cab door into a passing car. That's why you get out on the curbside. That was entertaining as the cars built up behind them and the door was bent forward and the Volvo was all scratched and dented. Then later on, I am walking down the street past a Hasidic Jew holding what looks like a mango and a giant stalk of asparagus when he grabs my shoulder and asks in a light accent if I am Jewish. When I tell him no, I am not, he doesn't seem to believe me and gets a real disappointed look on his face. I walk away feeling bad because he looked like he was really hoping I was Jewish. It's been awhile since I trimmed my beard, and my chops are getting a little bushy, but I guess I had let myself go longer than I had thought.
I had only anticipated staying in NYC for a couple days but I soon realize that my stay is going to be extended. That night I stay at Maggie's and spend the next day sitting around with Grace, watching movies and waiting for the cable guy to come, and then watching TV and going to New Jersey to Ikea. I spend the next few days in Manhattan or in Brooklyn, driving my bike here and there, leaving it here and there, avoiding parking tickets, walking around Manhattan one day when Jenny stays home from work, checking out the Staten Island Ferry and the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero and Central Park, where I find some more bouldering, and pretty much just wandering. I get to meet up with my college friend Jacie at a bar which is great because I haven't seen her forever. I almost make it to Saturday night, when Maggie and Grace are throwing a housewarming party, but after five nights, I feel like I have been in one place long enough and on Saturday morning I pack my things and go.
City of Brotherly Love
The next day I relax while Adam is at work. I sleep in a little bit and cook some burgers leftover from a party and lounge around and watch TV until I get restless in the early afternoon and feel like I should do something. The Internet tells me that there is some bouldering in a park not too far away and I get my shoes and chalk out and go over the directions until I get them down pretty well. I take the next exit on 76 and go up a hilly neighborhood. I get turned around at one point because I think I missed my next road, but I really didn't so I end up doing a loop on some side street, and skidding out when I hit the brake too hard because a turn came up on me faster than I thought. It's the first time I locked up either of my tires, and it's really not a big deal because its the rear and I wasn't going very fast in the first place. Kinda fun, actually, but not exactly a habit I want to get into. I get lost again when I am looking for Walnut Drive on my left, and I don't realize I pass it because at the intersection, the road on the right is the name I notice, and it is not Walnut. I drive for awhile before I turn around and see Walnut on the return trip, and I make it to Fairmont Park pretty easily from there. It's a short walk down a shady road with all sorts of small dirt paths leading into the park on my left. I'm not sure which one to go down, and so I keep walking until I get to the end of the road and go in there. I find the rocks after a short while and climb around for a half hour or so. It's hard to spend a good amount of time bouldering when you are by yourself without a pad because it's just not that safe to try new climbs or high climbs, especially on rocks you aren't familiar with, so I just mess around for awhile.
When Adam gets back in the early evening we head out to get some dinner in downtown Conshohocken, and the huge beer menu really causes me some problems when I am trying to figure out what to drink. After we order, some guy comes up to Adam and starts talking about Black Rebel Motorcycle Club because Adam's got the shirt on, and they guy says he loves their first album, and when we start talking about specifics in their music, he kinda spaces out. It didn't quite occur to me that he didn't actually know anything about them except that they are a band, and every band has a first album, and he probably thought we were gay. What's the world coming to when two high school buddies can't get some food without getting harassed by gay dudes pretending to be interested in the same music you are? Jeez. I guess some people take Philly's nickname a little too literally. Adam went off to some town meeting later, he's on some municipal board, which seems pretty grown up to me, but then again so does having a job. I end up watching The Day After Tomorrow on TV into the wee hours of the morning cause I have nothing better to do and it's not very good, which is nothing less than I expected but I dig things in post-apocalyptic settings so I watch it anyway. Adam's roommate and his girlfriend get back as the movie is ending and I realized I could have had a fun night out on the town with them and gotten to bed at the same time. Oh well.
In the morning I head into Conshohocken to catch the train into Philly. Adam is going to be doing some bike race in Jersey for the weekend and I am going to be staying with Beth in downtown Philly. I can't find the train station first, then I find it just as a train is leaving and I have to wait another hour for one to bring me into town. When I get to the Market East station I walk seven or eight blocks to Beth's apartment in Old City. The apartment is great, with cathedral ceilings and spiral staircase up to the loft, and it's right downtown too. We go out and walk along Boathouse Row, where all the schools have their boathouses along the river, pretty close to where I was the day before in Fairmont Park. In the evening we go out with her neighbor to a bunch of bars in the area, which are all walking distance. It turns into a mini pubcrawl, and I think we hit up four in about just as many hours.
The next morning we walk around the Old City, and we wait in line for forty-five minutes for a cheese steak. It's Philly, and I have to get one. It's one of the more famous places for cheese steaks, and it's pretty good, but not worth a wait so long when you can get one that tastes the same or better probably at any sub shop in the States. Oh well. We hit some random stores around town, a book shop, and music shop, so on, so forth. That evening Devendra Banhart is playing in town, but we already have plans to meet Beth's friend out for his birthday party at some club called Lucky Strike, which turns out to be a club with bowling lanes marketed toward the hip younger crowd. It's on three floors or something like that and pretty crowded until they open a lower level where it's a lot quieter and we get a pool table. The next morning is Sunday and Adam is back from his bike race, and I miss the train I was planning on getting because the ticket line was so ridiculously long. I guess it's just too hard to put up some machines where people can get their own tickets. For some reason, the train system in Philly wants you to wait in line and miss your train because you have to deal with people ahead of you not being able to complete a thirty second transaction in less than five minutes. I want to go here, I have this money, thank you. Whatever. I finally get on a train, fortunately I had just bought a new book that I could read to pass the time, and get back to Conshohocken and when Adam picks me up we head out of town to his grandparent's place to have dinner with the whole family. It is a delicious beef roast. A home-cooked meal is always welcome.
The weekend is already over and I get my stuff ready for the ride to New York tomorrow. From here it's right up the Jersey Turnpike, tolls and traffic all the way, and that's just how it's going to be for the rest of the ride. The northeast just isn't the place for motorcyclists, but that's life.
When Adam gets back in the early evening we head out to get some dinner in downtown Conshohocken, and the huge beer menu really causes me some problems when I am trying to figure out what to drink. After we order, some guy comes up to Adam and starts talking about Black Rebel Motorcycle Club because Adam's got the shirt on, and they guy says he loves their first album, and when we start talking about specifics in their music, he kinda spaces out. It didn't quite occur to me that he didn't actually know anything about them except that they are a band, and every band has a first album, and he probably thought we were gay. What's the world coming to when two high school buddies can't get some food without getting harassed by gay dudes pretending to be interested in the same music you are? Jeez. I guess some people take Philly's nickname a little too literally. Adam went off to some town meeting later, he's on some municipal board, which seems pretty grown up to me, but then again so does having a job. I end up watching The Day After Tomorrow on TV into the wee hours of the morning cause I have nothing better to do and it's not very good, which is nothing less than I expected but I dig things in post-apocalyptic settings so I watch it anyway. Adam's roommate and his girlfriend get back as the movie is ending and I realized I could have had a fun night out on the town with them and gotten to bed at the same time. Oh well.
In the morning I head into Conshohocken to catch the train into Philly. Adam is going to be doing some bike race in Jersey for the weekend and I am going to be staying with Beth in downtown Philly. I can't find the train station first, then I find it just as a train is leaving and I have to wait another hour for one to bring me into town. When I get to the Market East station I walk seven or eight blocks to Beth's apartment in Old City. The apartment is great, with cathedral ceilings and spiral staircase up to the loft, and it's right downtown too. We go out and walk along Boathouse Row, where all the schools have their boathouses along the river, pretty close to where I was the day before in Fairmont Park. In the evening we go out with her neighbor to a bunch of bars in the area, which are all walking distance. It turns into a mini pubcrawl, and I think we hit up four in about just as many hours.
The next morning we walk around the Old City, and we wait in line for forty-five minutes for a cheese steak. It's Philly, and I have to get one. It's one of the more famous places for cheese steaks, and it's pretty good, but not worth a wait so long when you can get one that tastes the same or better probably at any sub shop in the States. Oh well. We hit some random stores around town, a book shop, and music shop, so on, so forth. That evening Devendra Banhart is playing in town, but we already have plans to meet Beth's friend out for his birthday party at some club called Lucky Strike, which turns out to be a club with bowling lanes marketed toward the hip younger crowd. It's on three floors or something like that and pretty crowded until they open a lower level where it's a lot quieter and we get a pool table. The next morning is Sunday and Adam is back from his bike race, and I miss the train I was planning on getting because the ticket line was so ridiculously long. I guess it's just too hard to put up some machines where people can get their own tickets. For some reason, the train system in Philly wants you to wait in line and miss your train because you have to deal with people ahead of you not being able to complete a thirty second transaction in less than five minutes. I want to go here, I have this money, thank you. Whatever. I finally get on a train, fortunately I had just bought a new book that I could read to pass the time, and get back to Conshohocken and when Adam picks me up we head out of town to his grandparent's place to have dinner with the whole family. It is a delicious beef roast. A home-cooked meal is always welcome.
The weekend is already over and I get my stuff ready for the ride to New York tomorrow. From here it's right up the Jersey Turnpike, tolls and traffic all the way, and that's just how it's going to be for the rest of the ride. The northeast just isn't the place for motorcyclists, but that's life.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Beginning of the End
I wake up pretty early considering I didn’t get to bed until three AM the previous night. After breakfast and some reading, Grandma and I go to the local bowling alley because she got a league match. I bowl a couple quick game alone while she is warming up with her team. My first game is miserable, an eighty-four or something like that, one of my worst scores ever. My next game is much better, a one thirty-three, which is one of my highest scores ever. I’m not the world’s best bowler. Grandma is not doing her best either, when I go over to watch, but she picks it up after the first game just like me. I go over to shoot pool after awhile and play my right hand against my left. My right is undefeated. After bowling we head back and relax and read. Later on, my cousin Meghan, who lives with my grandma, shows up. That evening we play cards and I come in a solid last place, but I consider it a warm-up because I haven’t played for awhile. The next day I help Grandma with yard work - trimming a bunch of trees and shrubs and bushes in the backyard with a dilapidated low-power electric hedge trimmer, and cleaning out dirt and leaves from the gutters. I end up getting the electric cord to the trimmer caught in the teeth and accidentally sever it, but it’s not a huge deal because the cord can be replaced by any extension cord. That night we all go out to dinner with my aunt and then play another round of cards which I once again thoroughly lose. Last night was my warm up, so I just don’t have an excuse for this.
The next morning I hang around until Grandma’s a friend picks her up to go play bridge and I am off. I supposedly have directions out of Cleveland but once I get out of Grandma’s neighborhood, and make the first couple steps successfully, I go straight where I should have gone right, and just try and make my way, thinking I couldn’t be too far out of the way. It turns out that I am too far out of the way. I eventually get on the road I want to be on, except it’s way behind where I would have gotten on had I not screwed up the directions. I guess that I wasted a good forty-five minutes or an hour driving through the Cleveland ghetto, trying to get on a road where I can actually move. I finally get on 422 which will bring me about halfway through Pennsylvania towards Philadelphia. At first it is not much better than the crowded ghettos I just wasted a bunch of time driving through, but east of New Castle, it clears out and there are a lot of pretty stretches. At one point, as I am driving down a shady stretch of road, something comes at me from my right and nails my handlebars near my brake fluid reservoir. It was in my periphery so I can’t say for sure it was a bird that just accidentally killed itself with my motorcycle, but after thinking for a second how clumps of leaves, if somehow a bunch of leaves got clumped together in a tree, don’t fall laterally, I realize that it must have been a bird. I figured at some point on this trip, I might have a run-in with a bird. A friend of mine said he had a bird run into his chest on a bike once. At least it didn’t hit me in the head. I imagine a bird of good enough size could really knock my skull around, and who knows if I would veer off into a car or a ditch or tree or what. I guess that’s just a risk one assumes on a motorcycle. I am on 422 until I get to 219 which brings me south to 56, which brings me southeast to US 30. This road will bring me all the way into Philadelphia, and it looks like it would be a nice calm ride, but I don’t know how long it will take, or if I have enough time to get there tonight, which I would like to do, rather than leave a measly two or three hour drive for tomorrow. I am right by I-76, and I cringe as I think it might be a more expeditious choice to jump on the interstate for the rest of the way. Dusk is falling and it is almost six. I ask a couple people in a convenience store how long it would take to get to Philly and they give me an answer of six hours, which I know is completely ridiculous. I call up Adam and have him Google it, and it’s a three and a half hour ride which I can deal with. Then I think, hell with it, I’ll take 30 all the way there, and start to head out on 30 before I reconsider yet again and find my way to the interstate, which is also a turnpike, meaning I will have to pay a hefty toll by the time I get off in Conshohocken, just outside of Philly. I soon realize I am going to have to contend with a lot of tractor trailers on this ride, which has it’s plusses and minuses. On the plus side, a trucker is a professional driver and more likely to notice a motorcyclist than your average schmuck in a car despite the larger size of his ride and larger blind spots. They are just better drivers because that is their job. On the negative side, trucks can blow you around when they pass, and their sheer mass just makes you think of the many many bad interactions one could have with them. Plus, when you’re behind one, it ruins the view. There is actually some pretty land that 76 goes through, but night soon falls and now I am just driving to make time and get off this road, the very antithesis of how I liked to ride out in the west and south, but this is the northeast and I know quiet easy back roads that go for any amount of distance are now few and far between and I submit to the fact that most of my driving from here on up with probably be on roads I do not really want to be on. 76 goes through a couple huge tunnels which is always fun on a motorcycle. On a motorcycle, I like watching the sickly orange-yellow light that you find in all tunnels quickly roll off the chrome of the headlight towards me and split off at the handlebars and then shoot off to both sides while there is some that makes it to the chrome console on my gas tank and follows the curves and contours there. Each bulb I drive under sends its light over my bike and I like to take my eyes off the road for a second and watch it go, even though it is just as much fun to see it in your lower periphery. After I go through a couple tunnels I am back on the dark, loud interstate and have to stop for gas. I check my voicemail for directions to Adam’s and get back on the road. To make the drive even more pleasant, I start to hear and feel a couple raindrops on my helmet that are the harbingers to the further rain that is about to soak me. I manage to get under a bridge before I get soaked and change into my rain suit as eighteen wheelers are flying by me in the night. I continue on the highway, glad that I am headed in just a straight line so there is less chance of me sliding out in a turn and dying a wet, cold death. The rain picks up and lets down and gets pretty heavy at one point, but I continue on, just going slow and steady. By the time I am almost to Adam’s exit, it has stopped and it looks like the sky has cleared up for the night so I repack the suit when I stop for gas and double check the directions. He is three thirty-two off of 76, but the signs on the turnpike say the next exit is three twenty-six, and then something above three thirty-two, so I ask a woman in line at the gas station I am at, and it turns out that she is going right by the Conshohocken exit and says I should follow her. I get off the turnpike behind her and pay my ten dollar toll before I realize that the exits continue off the highway, that the sign that confused me is only for turnpike exits and even though I am off the turnpike, I am still on 76. I see the Conshohocken exit and manage to find Adam’s road pretty easy considering the exit system was giving me a hard time. I drive up it once, keeping an eye out for his bright yellow car, but miss it, and have to call him to find his house. It’s been a long day, and maybe the first of more to come on crappy northeastern interstates.
The next morning I hang around until Grandma’s a friend picks her up to go play bridge and I am off. I supposedly have directions out of Cleveland but once I get out of Grandma’s neighborhood, and make the first couple steps successfully, I go straight where I should have gone right, and just try and make my way, thinking I couldn’t be too far out of the way. It turns out that I am too far out of the way. I eventually get on the road I want to be on, except it’s way behind where I would have gotten on had I not screwed up the directions. I guess that I wasted a good forty-five minutes or an hour driving through the Cleveland ghetto, trying to get on a road where I can actually move. I finally get on 422 which will bring me about halfway through Pennsylvania towards Philadelphia. At first it is not much better than the crowded ghettos I just wasted a bunch of time driving through, but east of New Castle, it clears out and there are a lot of pretty stretches. At one point, as I am driving down a shady stretch of road, something comes at me from my right and nails my handlebars near my brake fluid reservoir. It was in my periphery so I can’t say for sure it was a bird that just accidentally killed itself with my motorcycle, but after thinking for a second how clumps of leaves, if somehow a bunch of leaves got clumped together in a tree, don’t fall laterally, I realize that it must have been a bird. I figured at some point on this trip, I might have a run-in with a bird. A friend of mine said he had a bird run into his chest on a bike once. At least it didn’t hit me in the head. I imagine a bird of good enough size could really knock my skull around, and who knows if I would veer off into a car or a ditch or tree or what. I guess that’s just a risk one assumes on a motorcycle. I am on 422 until I get to 219 which brings me south to 56, which brings me southeast to US 30. This road will bring me all the way into Philadelphia, and it looks like it would be a nice calm ride, but I don’t know how long it will take, or if I have enough time to get there tonight, which I would like to do, rather than leave a measly two or three hour drive for tomorrow. I am right by I-76, and I cringe as I think it might be a more expeditious choice to jump on the interstate for the rest of the way. Dusk is falling and it is almost six. I ask a couple people in a convenience store how long it would take to get to Philly and they give me an answer of six hours, which I know is completely ridiculous. I call up Adam and have him Google it, and it’s a three and a half hour ride which I can deal with. Then I think, hell with it, I’ll take 30 all the way there, and start to head out on 30 before I reconsider yet again and find my way to the interstate, which is also a turnpike, meaning I will have to pay a hefty toll by the time I get off in Conshohocken, just outside of Philly. I soon realize I am going to have to contend with a lot of tractor trailers on this ride, which has it’s plusses and minuses. On the plus side, a trucker is a professional driver and more likely to notice a motorcyclist than your average schmuck in a car despite the larger size of his ride and larger blind spots. They are just better drivers because that is their job. On the negative side, trucks can blow you around when they pass, and their sheer mass just makes you think of the many many bad interactions one could have with them. Plus, when you’re behind one, it ruins the view. There is actually some pretty land that 76 goes through, but night soon falls and now I am just driving to make time and get off this road, the very antithesis of how I liked to ride out in the west and south, but this is the northeast and I know quiet easy back roads that go for any amount of distance are now few and far between and I submit to the fact that most of my driving from here on up with probably be on roads I do not really want to be on. 76 goes through a couple huge tunnels which is always fun on a motorcycle. On a motorcycle, I like watching the sickly orange-yellow light that you find in all tunnels quickly roll off the chrome of the headlight towards me and split off at the handlebars and then shoot off to both sides while there is some that makes it to the chrome console on my gas tank and follows the curves and contours there. Each bulb I drive under sends its light over my bike and I like to take my eyes off the road for a second and watch it go, even though it is just as much fun to see it in your lower periphery. After I go through a couple tunnels I am back on the dark, loud interstate and have to stop for gas. I check my voicemail for directions to Adam’s and get back on the road. To make the drive even more pleasant, I start to hear and feel a couple raindrops on my helmet that are the harbingers to the further rain that is about to soak me. I manage to get under a bridge before I get soaked and change into my rain suit as eighteen wheelers are flying by me in the night. I continue on the highway, glad that I am headed in just a straight line so there is less chance of me sliding out in a turn and dying a wet, cold death. The rain picks up and lets down and gets pretty heavy at one point, but I continue on, just going slow and steady. By the time I am almost to Adam’s exit, it has stopped and it looks like the sky has cleared up for the night so I repack the suit when I stop for gas and double check the directions. He is three thirty-two off of 76, but the signs on the turnpike say the next exit is three twenty-six, and then something above three thirty-two, so I ask a woman in line at the gas station I am at, and it turns out that she is going right by the Conshohocken exit and says I should follow her. I get off the turnpike behind her and pay my ten dollar toll before I realize that the exits continue off the highway, that the sign that confused me is only for turnpike exits and even though I am off the turnpike, I am still on 76. I see the Conshohocken exit and manage to find Adam’s road pretty easy considering the exit system was giving me a hard time. I drive up it once, keeping an eye out for his bright yellow car, but miss it, and have to call him to find his house. It’s been a long day, and maybe the first of more to come on crappy northeastern interstates.
Monday, October 8, 2007
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
From the ferry, I get back on 163 to head out of Marblehead. I get onto a large road which I plan on taking to US 6 which will bring me along the northern edge of Ohio to Rocky River, a suburb of Ohio where my grandmother lives. I get off on 6 and begin following it with no problems until I run into a detour. Fine, I will just follow the detour signs and get back on 6 except it turns out not to be that easy. I follow the signs for awhile and I keep going down smaller and smaller roads to the south and east and west and everywhere else, and the signs keep getting smaller and less frequent until I am convince I missed something. I keep going in the direction I am heading in for awhile then decide to just take a road that seems like it heads east towards Cleveland and see where I can get to from there. I know I am south of 2, a large interstate-sized road that leads to Cleveland and runs parallel to 6 to the south. I figure if I cross 2 and continue north, I will get to 6. Of course it is not that simple and I get turned around all sorts of different ways. I drive down a spiraling downhill road into some park somewhere, and turn around and backtrack a bit until I find a more promising road. Eventually I can see 2, the large road I don’t really want to be on, but I know if I take it for a little bit I can get off and head north and hopefully skip all the construction that was causing the detour on 6. I get off and head north and run into 6 just as I had anticipated. From there it’s a ride through all sorts of suburbs along the shore of Lake Erie until it runs into Rocky River. I stop to fill up my tank and ask for directions, and I am happily right near where I want to be. A couple of turns takes me to Detroit Road, and another brings me onto Wooster, and one more to Parkland Drive, and I am at Grandma’s. I drive halfway down the road and I see my aunt’s van in the driveway, and then see my ten-year old cousin Isaac walking down the street towards the park. I pull up to him on my bike, donning fully my road gear, and say hello. He gets an odd look on his face, the why is this stranger talking to me look, and says a cautious hello, until I take my helmet off so he can recognize me. I pull into my grandma’s house and greet my aunt and grandma and my two other younger cousins. It’s around five and soon dinner is on and we eat a good meal except for Isaac and Makela, who have to be prodded to eat their veggies and meatloaf.
I rest up and clean up and get ready for the Brian Jonestown Massacre show at the Grog Shop, which is on the other side of Cleveland. The band has just finished a small west coast tour and Eric in Seattle told me that when he arrived part way into the show, they were jamming out hard, but also the lead singer got into a yelling match with a fan. Jared in Salt Lake told me that when he got to the club early the lead singer was banging on the door and in a generally pissed off mood. Later when the show started the lead singer started yelling at a fan who was antagonizing him after three songs, and when that guy got kicked out, they played two more songs and the lead singer just quit, and that was the end of the show. This is to be anticipated, based on the reputation of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. I have heard that their shows are either laced with fights and bad starts and early quits and such bullshit as that, or else they are incredible and long and perfect. I can only hope the show goes well tonight at the Grog Shop. I take my grandma’s car for a change of transportation. It’s amazing how less stressful it is to drive a car. You are protected from the wind and cold and elements, you can sit comfortably and move around and readjust yourself and listen to the radio, and not have to worry about other cars not seeing you. You don’t have to balance and lean and use your body as a steering mechanism. I make it to the general neighborhood of the club before getting lost. I am getting turned around in circles among a bunch of different hospitals, and the directions I scrawled down quickly in Cincinnati aren’t helping much. Eventually I find the road I am supposed to be on, but it seems like a quiet residential street that doesn’t have a rock club on it. I follow it for a little bit and see it opens up into a square with businesses and restaurants, and there is the club too. Parking is easy and there are a bunch of people milling around outside of the club. I walk up to get my ticket and show the bouncer my ID and since no one asks me for money and I already have a stamp on my hand I just go in. I thought they were charging fifteen bucks, at least that is what the website said, but maybe they aren’t. I’m not complaining. I enjoy a PBR tallboy while I am waiting for the first band to come on, and they eventually start, and they are pretty mediocre. I think they are called Coffinberry. Not really worth listening to. The second band, The Stereo Workers Union, is much better, with a real sixties psychedelic sound. It’s good, but it sort of sounds like they are trying to hard to be The Brian Jonestown Massacre on Their Satanic Majesties Second Request. They rock pretty hard though. All the while, Anton Newcombe, the lead singer and nucleus of The Brian Jonestown Massacre is hanging out in the back in the DJ booth, standing around with some tight mailman pants and beads. Before they start, I buy a limited edition print with the venue and date and bands on it, and a weird picture of a dude on an old timey bike that one of the band members in The Stereo Workers Union made. It’s a pretty rad design, and I feel fortunate to have a unique piece of artwork from the show. Even after both opening bands are finished, and his band is all set up, he is back there with the DJ putting records on for at least a half hour. Everyone is getting restless and looking back at him, thinking when the hell is this guy getting on stage?
Finally he gets on, and they open the set with Whoever You Are, which has probably the best drum, uh, breakdown?/mini solo?/riff? ever. Anton is shaking and bouncing and yells at his band members constantly through the first few songs. They go into Nailing Honey to the Bee from there. They have to stop When Jokers Attack and restart it because he is pissed off it doesn’t sound right. I have tried to push my way to the front, but at this point I am about fifteen feet out. Some dude next to me starts talking to me and it turns out that he is down from Detroit where he has a band that has a similar psychedelic sound and he is into motorcycles so he is pretty impressed when I tell him about my trip. He’s a cool dude, but really Tony, I just want to watch and listen to the show. During the first part of the show, I can’t tell if Anton is going to explode and ruin the show or not. He yells at his band members a few times, and yells at some fans that are harassing him and gets a few booted out, including one who threw a lit cigarette on stage. Smoking isn’t allowed in the bar anyway, but at one point the whole place smells like pot nonetheless. They keep playing all of their most awesome songs and Anton occasionally yells at a fan, but overall he gets into a good mood and even begins joking around with the crowd. At one point a half-assed mosh pit begins which opens up enough space for me to push into the second row right next to the stage, so I can get up close and see the band and have my ears hurt with how loud it is. It’s well past two AM when the bar has to shut down and they have to finish their set. They go out with Swallowtail, and drag it out for a good twenty minutes, laying down their guitars by the amps for the feedback and leaving the stage. Of the six members, only Anton and one other guy stay and manipulate the amps for the finale. Everyone is booted out as soon as they are done since it’s “way past bar hours” according to one of the bouncers. All in all it was nearly three hours that they played, and for The Brian Jonestown Massacre, one of the most calm, face-meltingly awesome sets one could ask for. Especially after hearing about The Brian Jonestown Massacre botching shows at other places, and seeing Dig! (even though by now it is well dated) I feel like I got all I could have hoped for, and I drive home with my ears ringing, thoroughly rocked.
I rest up and clean up and get ready for the Brian Jonestown Massacre show at the Grog Shop, which is on the other side of Cleveland. The band has just finished a small west coast tour and Eric in Seattle told me that when he arrived part way into the show, they were jamming out hard, but also the lead singer got into a yelling match with a fan. Jared in Salt Lake told me that when he got to the club early the lead singer was banging on the door and in a generally pissed off mood. Later when the show started the lead singer started yelling at a fan who was antagonizing him after three songs, and when that guy got kicked out, they played two more songs and the lead singer just quit, and that was the end of the show. This is to be anticipated, based on the reputation of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. I have heard that their shows are either laced with fights and bad starts and early quits and such bullshit as that, or else they are incredible and long and perfect. I can only hope the show goes well tonight at the Grog Shop. I take my grandma’s car for a change of transportation. It’s amazing how less stressful it is to drive a car. You are protected from the wind and cold and elements, you can sit comfortably and move around and readjust yourself and listen to the radio, and not have to worry about other cars not seeing you. You don’t have to balance and lean and use your body as a steering mechanism. I make it to the general neighborhood of the club before getting lost. I am getting turned around in circles among a bunch of different hospitals, and the directions I scrawled down quickly in Cincinnati aren’t helping much. Eventually I find the road I am supposed to be on, but it seems like a quiet residential street that doesn’t have a rock club on it. I follow it for a little bit and see it opens up into a square with businesses and restaurants, and there is the club too. Parking is easy and there are a bunch of people milling around outside of the club. I walk up to get my ticket and show the bouncer my ID and since no one asks me for money and I already have a stamp on my hand I just go in. I thought they were charging fifteen bucks, at least that is what the website said, but maybe they aren’t. I’m not complaining. I enjoy a PBR tallboy while I am waiting for the first band to come on, and they eventually start, and they are pretty mediocre. I think they are called Coffinberry. Not really worth listening to. The second band, The Stereo Workers Union, is much better, with a real sixties psychedelic sound. It’s good, but it sort of sounds like they are trying to hard to be The Brian Jonestown Massacre on Their Satanic Majesties Second Request. They rock pretty hard though. All the while, Anton Newcombe, the lead singer and nucleus of The Brian Jonestown Massacre is hanging out in the back in the DJ booth, standing around with some tight mailman pants and beads. Before they start, I buy a limited edition print with the venue and date and bands on it, and a weird picture of a dude on an old timey bike that one of the band members in The Stereo Workers Union made. It’s a pretty rad design, and I feel fortunate to have a unique piece of artwork from the show. Even after both opening bands are finished, and his band is all set up, he is back there with the DJ putting records on for at least a half hour. Everyone is getting restless and looking back at him, thinking when the hell is this guy getting on stage?
Finally he gets on, and they open the set with Whoever You Are, which has probably the best drum, uh, breakdown?/mini solo?/riff? ever. Anton is shaking and bouncing and yells at his band members constantly through the first few songs. They go into Nailing Honey to the Bee from there. They have to stop When Jokers Attack and restart it because he is pissed off it doesn’t sound right. I have tried to push my way to the front, but at this point I am about fifteen feet out. Some dude next to me starts talking to me and it turns out that he is down from Detroit where he has a band that has a similar psychedelic sound and he is into motorcycles so he is pretty impressed when I tell him about my trip. He’s a cool dude, but really Tony, I just want to watch and listen to the show. During the first part of the show, I can’t tell if Anton is going to explode and ruin the show or not. He yells at his band members a few times, and yells at some fans that are harassing him and gets a few booted out, including one who threw a lit cigarette on stage. Smoking isn’t allowed in the bar anyway, but at one point the whole place smells like pot nonetheless. They keep playing all of their most awesome songs and Anton occasionally yells at a fan, but overall he gets into a good mood and even begins joking around with the crowd. At one point a half-assed mosh pit begins which opens up enough space for me to push into the second row right next to the stage, so I can get up close and see the band and have my ears hurt with how loud it is. It’s well past two AM when the bar has to shut down and they have to finish their set. They go out with Swallowtail, and drag it out for a good twenty minutes, laying down their guitars by the amps for the feedback and leaving the stage. Of the six members, only Anton and one other guy stay and manipulate the amps for the finale. Everyone is booted out as soon as they are done since it’s “way past bar hours” according to one of the bouncers. All in all it was nearly three hours that they played, and for The Brian Jonestown Massacre, one of the most calm, face-meltingly awesome sets one could ask for. Especially after hearing about The Brian Jonestown Massacre botching shows at other places, and seeing Dig! (even though by now it is well dated) I feel like I got all I could have hoped for, and I drive home with my ears ringing, thoroughly rocked.
Ohiooo!
It's getting late when I arrive at my aunt and uncle's place. We catch up real quick, and I shower and we head out to dinner at Skyline, which kicks off my tour of staple Cincinnati cuisine. Skyline chili is pretty much a delicious chili sauce that is served over spaghetti with onions and cheese. The next day I have to myself since my aunt and uncle are at work. I do laundry and clean up and tune my bike. It's been a long time since I cleaned my bike, and all the chrome is fogged up from thousands of miles of roads, and the paint has water spots from rain and dirt gathering in random spots. The base of my radiator is blasted with dirt from the front wheel. When I am done with it, it's no show piece, but it is a whole lot better, and I have thoroughly cleaned off and re-lubricated my chain. That evening we continue the Cincinnati cuisine tour at the Montgomery Inn. I get pork chops and ribs. Apparently this place is famous for its ribs, which are certainly good, but nothing worth calling famous. Our waiter is pretty snotty, and the place isn't classy enough to have snotty waiters. I don't know what his deal is, but he sure wouldn't cut it at Faustina.
The next day is Friday, and Uncle Mike takes the day off. We go over my bike some more, adding air, adjusting the chain, checking the spark plugs and spokes, and the air filter. The paper in the air filter is half dark red, half black, and I'm not sure how dirty is too dirty. Uncle Mike suggests getting a new one just to be safe, which makes sense. Fortunately there is a Honda shop right near by, and we pick up a new filter. Up near the ceiling, the shop has raised a whole bunch of classic motorcycles for display. Uncle Mike recognizes most of them which is pretty cool, because I really don't know much about motorcycles. I can hardly recognize a Harley from a Honda from a Yamaha on the road, but I think that is more from a conscious design choice the Japanese bike makers have made. The new air filter is a clean, bright orange, and comparing the old one to it shows how badly I needed the new one. After putting it on the bike, we head into town for another stop at a classic Cincinnati restaurant, Camp Washington. This is another chili place, and is pretty similar to Skyline, but I guess it has more of a reputation in the area. The next stop is the Cincinnati Museum Center which is in an old train depot. There are a few museums here, but we just go to the Cincinnati History Museum. The big deal at this museum, as far as I'm concerned, is a sprawling model of Cincinnati circa the thirties and forties. This model is humongous and ridiculously detailed. It takes about forty-five minutes to go over the whole thing, and probably not notice all the little details like the tiny people arguing over a car accident, or a lit up furnace on the street next to a moving pulley for roofers, or smoke coming out of a building with firetrucks pulled up next to it. They have ever neighborhood and the old baseball stadium and probably many more things that I didn't recognize since I am not intimately familiar with Cincinnati. The rest of the museum is pretty standard stuff: and old streetcar, a bunch of World War II displays and info about industries and pre-colonial history, and boating industries and so forth. From the museum we met up with my aunt at Dana's, a bar my aunt and uncle have been going to for decades, since they were in college, where my uncle used to both work and play at in a band. It's a pretty cool bar, small and worn down and dark, they way I like my bars. That night we eat grilled brats instead of going out because maybe we hit all the standard Cincinnati restaurants already.
I am leaving the next day to head up to Kelley's Island on Lake Erie, and have to miss the Oktoberfest celebrations in Cincinnati, which has a large German heritage. I eat a great big breakfast and pack up my bike and go over my route one more time. I have to get on I-275 for a little bit, then take 28 northeast until I get to 68 which runs north through most of the state. 68 is a pretty nice road that runs through farm country and small towns. After a couple hours, I stop for gas and lunch in a town called Arlington. I fill my tank at a BP and see an IGA down the street that I get a pre-made sandwich from. This is clearly a tiny town and I can tell I am getting the stranger look from everyone at the grocery store as I am sitting on my bike in the parking lot eating my sandwich and chips. I check my map before I go to figure out where I am and I notice I am just about where 68 ends. From here I see that I can take 12 to 53 to 163, which brings me to Marblehead, where I can get the ferry to Kelley's Island. I have noticed that when I am studying a map to plot out a route from point A to point B, I often overlook roads even smaller than the ones I am initially planning on taking. It's a matter of focus, because I look for the obvious route, outside of interstates of course, first. When I find that route I am looking for, only then can I look at it with more scrutiny, to see if there are better looking roads around, or roads that will cut off some time or miles. Often, I have to be on the route I initially found to focus on the smaller roads because at that point I have already found a road and begun driving on it, so my focus is available for something else. Case in point, 12 and 53 and 163. This is not the path I had planned on taking, but I am in a good position to take it and it would be better than going on I-75 north to another road going east since it would be more direct and avoid an interstate. A great score.
I soon find myself near Marblehead and the ferry. The farm country has faded into strip malls and traffic lights, but I eventually make it to the ferry, which is easy to spot, but still I drive past the entrance and have to turn around. The sun is bright still, and the ferry soon comes, making this the second time I have been on a ferry on this trip. This time I am on the opposite end of the country, north instead of south, and I am not out of gas. When I get off the ferry, I wait for Terry to come meet me. Terry was my one-time uncle, or ex-uncle, or uncle once-removed (if that is the term - I cannot wrap my head around family/relative jargon) or whatever the term. He is the father of two of my cousins, and looks identical to his son Jesse, the only member of my family that I have not yet, or will not see on my trip. This is the only reason I recognize him, since I have only met Terry when I was three and don't remember at all. I follow him back to the bed and breakfast he owns and runs and we jump in Lake Erie for a swim before dinner. It's pretty chilly in the lake, but I get used to it quickly. We hang around the kitchen before heading out and I tell him about my trip and he tells me about his travels when he was younger. The conversations spills over to dinner where I get an awesome steak with an equally awesome heap of mashed potatoes. Terry seems to know everyone at the restaurant which makes sense because he owns it, but when we go to a bar down the street, he knows everyone there too. I guess that's just what happens when you're a friendly person living in a small place for long enough. That night I relax in my personal jacuzzi tub in my own room with my own deck. In the morning I take a bike around the island. I find my way to a dead end that nearly runs into the lake, and to a nature walk around a marsh, and to a three hundred foot long set of glacially-warped and grooved rock, and to a rock covered in old Indian inscriptions. I make it entirely around the island in under two hours, and back to Terry's around noon. He is getting ready for a week-long bicycle trip in Florida with Jesse, packing up and checking his bike. We go into town for lunch and sit on the water and eat where everyone knows him of course. I feel like I have gotten the VIP tour of Kelley's Island in the short time I was here. I am glad I go to know Terry and I thank him before heading to the ferry. I have a short ride to Cleveland, where I absolutely need to be tonight so I can see The Brian Jonestown Massacre play.
The next day is Friday, and Uncle Mike takes the day off. We go over my bike some more, adding air, adjusting the chain, checking the spark plugs and spokes, and the air filter. The paper in the air filter is half dark red, half black, and I'm not sure how dirty is too dirty. Uncle Mike suggests getting a new one just to be safe, which makes sense. Fortunately there is a Honda shop right near by, and we pick up a new filter. Up near the ceiling, the shop has raised a whole bunch of classic motorcycles for display. Uncle Mike recognizes most of them which is pretty cool, because I really don't know much about motorcycles. I can hardly recognize a Harley from a Honda from a Yamaha on the road, but I think that is more from a conscious design choice the Japanese bike makers have made. The new air filter is a clean, bright orange, and comparing the old one to it shows how badly I needed the new one. After putting it on the bike, we head into town for another stop at a classic Cincinnati restaurant, Camp Washington. This is another chili place, and is pretty similar to Skyline, but I guess it has more of a reputation in the area. The next stop is the Cincinnati Museum Center which is in an old train depot. There are a few museums here, but we just go to the Cincinnati History Museum. The big deal at this museum, as far as I'm concerned, is a sprawling model of Cincinnati circa the thirties and forties. This model is humongous and ridiculously detailed. It takes about forty-five minutes to go over the whole thing, and probably not notice all the little details like the tiny people arguing over a car accident, or a lit up furnace on the street next to a moving pulley for roofers, or smoke coming out of a building with firetrucks pulled up next to it. They have ever neighborhood and the old baseball stadium and probably many more things that I didn't recognize since I am not intimately familiar with Cincinnati. The rest of the museum is pretty standard stuff: and old streetcar, a bunch of World War II displays and info about industries and pre-colonial history, and boating industries and so forth. From the museum we met up with my aunt at Dana's, a bar my aunt and uncle have been going to for decades, since they were in college, where my uncle used to both work and play at in a band. It's a pretty cool bar, small and worn down and dark, they way I like my bars. That night we eat grilled brats instead of going out because maybe we hit all the standard Cincinnati restaurants already.
I am leaving the next day to head up to Kelley's Island on Lake Erie, and have to miss the Oktoberfest celebrations in Cincinnati, which has a large German heritage. I eat a great big breakfast and pack up my bike and go over my route one more time. I have to get on I-275 for a little bit, then take 28 northeast until I get to 68 which runs north through most of the state. 68 is a pretty nice road that runs through farm country and small towns. After a couple hours, I stop for gas and lunch in a town called Arlington. I fill my tank at a BP and see an IGA down the street that I get a pre-made sandwich from. This is clearly a tiny town and I can tell I am getting the stranger look from everyone at the grocery store as I am sitting on my bike in the parking lot eating my sandwich and chips. I check my map before I go to figure out where I am and I notice I am just about where 68 ends. From here I see that I can take 12 to 53 to 163, which brings me to Marblehead, where I can get the ferry to Kelley's Island. I have noticed that when I am studying a map to plot out a route from point A to point B, I often overlook roads even smaller than the ones I am initially planning on taking. It's a matter of focus, because I look for the obvious route, outside of interstates of course, first. When I find that route I am looking for, only then can I look at it with more scrutiny, to see if there are better looking roads around, or roads that will cut off some time or miles. Often, I have to be on the route I initially found to focus on the smaller roads because at that point I have already found a road and begun driving on it, so my focus is available for something else. Case in point, 12 and 53 and 163. This is not the path I had planned on taking, but I am in a good position to take it and it would be better than going on I-75 north to another road going east since it would be more direct and avoid an interstate. A great score.
I soon find myself near Marblehead and the ferry. The farm country has faded into strip malls and traffic lights, but I eventually make it to the ferry, which is easy to spot, but still I drive past the entrance and have to turn around. The sun is bright still, and the ferry soon comes, making this the second time I have been on a ferry on this trip. This time I am on the opposite end of the country, north instead of south, and I am not out of gas. When I get off the ferry, I wait for Terry to come meet me. Terry was my one-time uncle, or ex-uncle, or uncle once-removed (if that is the term - I cannot wrap my head around family/relative jargon) or whatever the term. He is the father of two of my cousins, and looks identical to his son Jesse, the only member of my family that I have not yet, or will not see on my trip. This is the only reason I recognize him, since I have only met Terry when I was three and don't remember at all. I follow him back to the bed and breakfast he owns and runs and we jump in Lake Erie for a swim before dinner. It's pretty chilly in the lake, but I get used to it quickly. We hang around the kitchen before heading out and I tell him about my trip and he tells me about his travels when he was younger. The conversations spills over to dinner where I get an awesome steak with an equally awesome heap of mashed potatoes. Terry seems to know everyone at the restaurant which makes sense because he owns it, but when we go to a bar down the street, he knows everyone there too. I guess that's just what happens when you're a friendly person living in a small place for long enough. That night I relax in my personal jacuzzi tub in my own room with my own deck. In the morning I take a bike around the island. I find my way to a dead end that nearly runs into the lake, and to a nature walk around a marsh, and to a three hundred foot long set of glacially-warped and grooved rock, and to a rock covered in old Indian inscriptions. I make it entirely around the island in under two hours, and back to Terry's around noon. He is getting ready for a week-long bicycle trip in Florida with Jesse, packing up and checking his bike. We go into town for lunch and sit on the water and eat where everyone knows him of course. I feel like I have gotten the VIP tour of Kelley's Island in the short time I was here. I am glad I go to know Terry and I thank him before heading to the ferry. I have a short ride to Cleveland, where I absolutely need to be tonight so I can see The Brian Jonestown Massacre play.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Four States, One Day!
I pack and check over my bike in the morning. My next set of roads is simple: 236, the road that I turn onto after leaving Sarah's neighborhood to US 50, all the way west into Ohio, then to 32 right into Cincinnati and to my aunt and uncle's neighborhood. Of course, 236 is miserable for a long time. It takes awhile to get away from the urban guts of suburbia, and of course, the way is convoluted. I see a sign for 50 pointing to my right at one point in traffic, so I follow it, even though I know the map showed me staying on 236 until the two roads run into each other. Sure enough, the road I turned onto does lead to 50, but only after it takes me twenty minutes to move a half mile. And once I do start moving again, I see it would have been faster to stay on 236 when I notice where it merges into 50. What a pain in the ass. I can't believe how unnecessarily complicated people make roads sometimes. It drives me nuts because I hate wading through unnecessary traffic, and I hate wasting time when I have a lot of ground to cover. 50 is a nice road though, and if I wanted to, I could take it west across the entire country, but that would be backtracking. Some of the towns I pass through on 50 are picturesque Virginia towns with quaint, compact downtowns that I slowly drive through, surrounded by rolling hills with sturdy white fences going this way and that across them to pen off horses. Some towns I drive through suck and the signs for 50 lead you in every direction but what seems to be the fasted way, and I have to drive past bland industrial buildings or down a hill one way just to turn and go right back the same way nearly. The towns get farther apart slowly, and the hills get bigger. I am starting to get into the mountain country of West Virginia. I start seeing warning signs for curves and steep grades, and I know I am in for some fun like I have no had since I was going through the desert hills of southeastern California, or even earlier on Route 1. There are shady trees along the road which keep me cool as I bend and zoom up and down the mountains. I stop for lunch and gas in a township on the top of a hill that I can't find on my map, and a little girl at the pizza place I eat at keeps asking her mommy about "that stranger." No doubt this is a small town. I briefly pass into Maryland before I am done with West Virginia, and I know that geography doesn't recognize states or political boundries, but it seems like it because the short stretch in Maryland is more beautiful than anything just before or after it. Here the farmland has a different yellow in the fields, which roll off in all sorts of directions, and there are tall silos and red barns tucked off of turns and dips in the highway. It's like a short drive through a postcard. As the evening is approaching, I need to pull off for gas in Parkersburg. I am dangerously close to empty according to my trip odometer, and I miss the first exit where I can see there are the standard fast food restaurants and gas stations of a busy highway exit, so I take the next exit which brings me into downtown. I drive around about four blocks before I realize there are no gas stations here, and I navigate my way toward the first exit I missed and manage to get to a gas station before I run dry. I have only actually ran out of gas twice in the past eight-thousand plus miles, but that is enough for me. I get back on the highway and follow the signs for 50 but the highway I am on soon ends in construction, sending me and anyone else dumb enough to drive this far off on an exit. I am about to get pissed off at more inept sign posting until I see a sign for 50 at the bottom of the exit. Then I do get pissed off when I see it points me right back onto the same highway but in the other direction. Then I see signs for 50 East, which I have no interest in, and it's not until farther on that I see signs going west. I get off and monkey around in traffic through some congested part of town, only to realize that up there in the distance, at the light, is a sign for 50 and I am in the wrong lane. I could just work my way in, but I decide not to be a dick and just stay in my lane which goes to the right, planning on pulling a U-turn, and getting myself on track again. Of course, when I go right, it puts me right on a bridge back into West Virginia. At the other end of the bridge there is a toll booth. I hate this goddamn town. I pull a U-turn in front of the toll booth and gun it back over the bridge in a bad mood, and finally get back on 50 going west.
Dusk is falling when I get off 50 onto 32. This is not a bad road. It is wide, empty, and straight and in good condition for the most part. This is the final stretch of over one hundred miles to Cincinnati, and I just drive and space out and lose myself in my thoughts, and whenever I look down at the odometer to get a sense of time and distance, I am always surprised how little of both has gone by. There isn't much in the way of scenery, so I just sing songs to myself and drive until I start to get drowsy, at which point I stop at a gas station for a snack and an energy drink to keep me up, even though it will probably cause me some cancer down the road. After a lot of road has gone by, I am approaching Mt. Orab when I am getting low on the gas again. I pull off and fill up my tank and top it off. I fit in almost tenth of a gallon more than my tank supposedly holds, and I am lucky I filled it when I did. I call up my relatives, and get the exact directions to their house. It is nearly twelve hours since I left Alexandria, and well over five hundred miles. Not my longest day, but it's right up there.
Dusk is falling when I get off 50 onto 32. This is not a bad road. It is wide, empty, and straight and in good condition for the most part. This is the final stretch of over one hundred miles to Cincinnati, and I just drive and space out and lose myself in my thoughts, and whenever I look down at the odometer to get a sense of time and distance, I am always surprised how little of both has gone by. There isn't much in the way of scenery, so I just sing songs to myself and drive until I start to get drowsy, at which point I stop at a gas station for a snack and an energy drink to keep me up, even though it will probably cause me some cancer down the road. After a lot of road has gone by, I am approaching Mt. Orab when I am getting low on the gas again. I pull off and fill up my tank and top it off. I fit in almost tenth of a gallon more than my tank supposedly holds, and I am lucky I filled it when I did. I call up my relatives, and get the exact directions to their house. It is nearly twelve hours since I left Alexandria, and well over five hundred miles. Not my longest day, but it's right up there.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Art Class Deja Vu
I am nearly to the northern end of the Parkway, so I take my time getting there because the road is so good. It is still early and I am riding in all of my layers, basically what I woke up in. The sun is shining but there are so many trees that I am mostly in the shade, and there is a very noticeable difference in temperature than in the sunlight. There are still deer out everywhere, and often I come around a turn and see one just chilling out on the side of the road staring at me, and all I can do is hope that when it jumps, it jumps towards the forest instead of the road. Fortunately, that is what always happens, because if deer aren't dangerous enough in a car, they would surely be thoroughly devastating on a bike. Near the end of the Parkway, I am stuck behind a group of three bikers. Up until now, I have only been stuck behind cars on this road, which I have had no problems passing, but now that I am behind bikes I feel like I would be insulting strangers that share a common bond with me if I passed them. So I stick behind them for awhile until I get sick of it and realize I'm being a dork and I pass them all on a straightaway. I give them all the biker wave at least. Not long after, I pass a pulloff that looks stunning, so I turn around and check it out. It looks down over the Shenandoah Valley from a rocky outcrop, and the bikers I had just passed pulled up and began all yelling at me for passing them. Not really, though. They were all from Canada and nice guys, and were on a long road trip sort of like me. After I take a few pictures of the valley and chat with some other people at the pulloff, I get back on my bike and finish up the Parkway. Instead of continuing north through Shenandoah National Park and paying twenty dollars, I hop on 250 to US 29 which brings me north to I-66. 29 is not the most exciting road, and in fact, it's crap compared to the Parkway, but still it is not bad. It brings me through some strip-mall towns on a divided road, and I stop at a gas station with a deli for a sandwich, a drink, and some gas. While I am eating my lunch out in the sun by my bike and reading the front pages of all the papers on display, a guy comes up to me and starts chatting about motorcycles and how he used to ride and how I should do this while I am young. This is something I have heard many many times since I left, and I don't get tired of it. I am always glad that I can make this trip happen, even though I feel bad that pretty much everyone else I know has to go to an office every day, or report here or there for work. So when a stranger tells me I should do what I am doing while I can do what I am doing, it reinforces my sense of fulfillment of what I am doing, and it feels nice.
I-66 brings me to I-495 which brings me into Alexandria, Virginia where I have a cousin. I eventually find her place in a massive constructed neighborhood of townhouses, and soon I get to meet my newest relative, her son Thomas. Now I have never been able to get straight family titles outside of cousins and brothers and parents, so I don't know what Thomas is to me. A second cousin? A cousin once removed? Who knows. He is a cute little guy, but cries a lot because his teeth are coming in. Sarah's husband Chris has an absolutely stunning Harley in the garage that I stare at for awhile, but apparently it hasn't been out since Thomas was born. Oh well. Sarah and I take a walk around the neighborhood with Thomas in the stroller dropping everything he can hold, and it's dinner time afterwards.
In the morning, Sarah drops me off at the subway, and I take the train into DC to walk around the Mall and get some American culture in me. My first stop is the National Gallery East. I want to see some art, and the West Gallery looks too traditional and classical and boring. When I am in the East Gallery, I go first through the Edward Hopper exhibit, and see pretty much all of his famous paintings. Next is an exhibit of Jasper Johns' print-making processes. Then onto the permanent collections where I see about half of the art works that we studied in a Visual Arts class I took at Utah, because my professor took a trip to DC and obviously came here to get photos for his lectures. It is nice though, being familiar with a lot of the collection already. After a couple hours I am beat and needing food. I walk along the Mall some more and don't see much food besides street vendors so I head into the Air and Space Museum before I realize I am by far too hungry to walk around another museum, but not hungry enough to eat at the overpriced McDonald's in the food court. A quick look at a map Sarah had given me shows that Chinatown is maybe a fifteen minute walk north, and I feel like Chinese, so off I go. It is a pretty busy street I am walking up, with plenty of places to eat at, but I am determined to find some good Chinese. I finally make it to Chinatown because I see an ornate, massive gate which means Chinatown in any major city. This Chinatown is pretty lame though, it looks like any standard downtown DC block, but with a few signs in Chinese. It is not like Boston's Chinatown, where there are Chinese-language newspapers blowing across the streets, and chickens hanging in the windows of shops in the maze that gray streets make up, or even like San Francisco's Chinatown, the DC Chinatown is just not very Chinese feeling. Nonetheless, I get some unremarkable food and continue wandering around. I head down to the White House to see where our fearless Terrorist, I mean President, lives. It's not a hugely exciting place, but the building next to it, the Old Executive Office Building is really sweet. It is absolutely massive, constructed solidly of dark stone, and covered with gorgeous decks and columns and Classic-world styling. I wander down to the Lincoln Memorial, visiting the Vietnam Memorial on the way. At this point, I am tired and my feet are sore, but since I am here I feel like I should hit all the sights. I am not that into it, and all the foreign tourists seem more into everything than me. I walk past the Washington Monument toward the subway to meet with a friend of mine from high school in Arlington. We get some food and drinks conveniently right between Casey's apartment and the subway, and shoot the shit for awhile before I realize I should be getting back to Alexandria. Once back, I take care not to wake up little Thomas and I get my things ready to go in the morning.
I-66 brings me to I-495 which brings me into Alexandria, Virginia where I have a cousin. I eventually find her place in a massive constructed neighborhood of townhouses, and soon I get to meet my newest relative, her son Thomas. Now I have never been able to get straight family titles outside of cousins and brothers and parents, so I don't know what Thomas is to me. A second cousin? A cousin once removed? Who knows. He is a cute little guy, but cries a lot because his teeth are coming in. Sarah's husband Chris has an absolutely stunning Harley in the garage that I stare at for awhile, but apparently it hasn't been out since Thomas was born. Oh well. Sarah and I take a walk around the neighborhood with Thomas in the stroller dropping everything he can hold, and it's dinner time afterwards.
In the morning, Sarah drops me off at the subway, and I take the train into DC to walk around the Mall and get some American culture in me. My first stop is the National Gallery East. I want to see some art, and the West Gallery looks too traditional and classical and boring. When I am in the East Gallery, I go first through the Edward Hopper exhibit, and see pretty much all of his famous paintings. Next is an exhibit of Jasper Johns' print-making processes. Then onto the permanent collections where I see about half of the art works that we studied in a Visual Arts class I took at Utah, because my professor took a trip to DC and obviously came here to get photos for his lectures. It is nice though, being familiar with a lot of the collection already. After a couple hours I am beat and needing food. I walk along the Mall some more and don't see much food besides street vendors so I head into the Air and Space Museum before I realize I am by far too hungry to walk around another museum, but not hungry enough to eat at the overpriced McDonald's in the food court. A quick look at a map Sarah had given me shows that Chinatown is maybe a fifteen minute walk north, and I feel like Chinese, so off I go. It is a pretty busy street I am walking up, with plenty of places to eat at, but I am determined to find some good Chinese. I finally make it to Chinatown because I see an ornate, massive gate which means Chinatown in any major city. This Chinatown is pretty lame though, it looks like any standard downtown DC block, but with a few signs in Chinese. It is not like Boston's Chinatown, where there are Chinese-language newspapers blowing across the streets, and chickens hanging in the windows of shops in the maze that gray streets make up, or even like San Francisco's Chinatown, the DC Chinatown is just not very Chinese feeling. Nonetheless, I get some unremarkable food and continue wandering around. I head down to the White House to see where our fearless Terrorist, I mean President, lives. It's not a hugely exciting place, but the building next to it, the Old Executive Office Building is really sweet. It is absolutely massive, constructed solidly of dark stone, and covered with gorgeous decks and columns and Classic-world styling. I wander down to the Lincoln Memorial, visiting the Vietnam Memorial on the way. At this point, I am tired and my feet are sore, but since I am here I feel like I should hit all the sights. I am not that into it, and all the foreign tourists seem more into everything than me. I walk past the Washington Monument toward the subway to meet with a friend of mine from high school in Arlington. We get some food and drinks conveniently right between Casey's apartment and the subway, and shoot the shit for awhile before I realize I should be getting back to Alexandria. Once back, I take care not to wake up little Thomas and I get my things ready to go in the morning.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Missing Something and the Blue Ridge Parkway
I don’t leave until maybe noon on Sunday, after getting a delicious breakfast of Jack-in-the-Box burgers and fries. I head back towards town to get on the freeway out of the city, and I finally get off I-85 and onto US highway 321 which will bring me up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. As I am just getting on 321, I see another motorcyclist and give him a wave because that’s just what motorcyclists do. It’s sort of like the Jeep wave, but not nearly as lame. Anyway, he makes this odd leaning and pointing his head motion towards me, as I am going by that leaves me temporarily nonplussed because I have never seen anyone do that before, but by the time I can think that thought I am gone. At the next light I check to make sure my saddlebags are latched and my load on the backseat is secure, in case he was trying to point something out, but all is well, and I just think, boy he was weird. I am doing a steady sixty-five north on 321, lost in thought and singing songs to myself when I hear a sound like something is going wrong on my left, but it is brief and fades into the distance just as the black thing in my left mirror fades into the distance behind me, bouncing along the road, getting tinier and tinier. That was my side cover, I realize, a mostly cosmetic piece of plastic that covers the little compartment that holds my tool kit and owner’s manual on the left side of my bike, right by my knee. I finish singing the song in my head while debating whether or not I should turn around and go back for it. By the time I get back there, off on the next exit and then going back on the other side of the divided highway until I reach yet another exit where I can circle around behind the cover, it will probably be run over and smashed. But then again, it would be a shame if it is still in one piece and I abandon it since my bike looks that much uglier without it, and it would probably be ridiculously expensive to replace. I guess I don’t have anywhere to be so I get off on the next exit and turn around. I drive south, spotting the cover in what looks to be one piece on my way towards an exit. I get off and head north again to pick it up. So this is probably what that odd gesture was all about. It’s a wonder that the cover stayed on as long as it did, driving through Charlotte and on the freeway and whatnot. I spot it ahead and begin to slow down. I drive a little pass it and pull off to the side. There is no shoulder of course, only about two inches of pavement on the other side of the white line before the grass starts, so I park my bike on the grass off the pavement and run up the side of the road. I feel just like the guy in Road Rash after he crashes his bike. I’m plodding up the side of the road while cars are buzzing by me. Running isn’t easy with boots and a full face helmet and a motorcycle jacket, and I’m sure people are confused when they see me, but I make it to the cover and it turns out that it is still intact, although it is covered in scratches from getting blown around the road by the whoosh of air trailing cars and trucks.
I feel pretty good that I got my cover back in one piece so now my bike can look normal. It is uneventful the rest of the way to Blowing Rock, a small town with access to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I would have liked to do all of the Parkway, but because I didn’t want to drive really far out of my way, not that I exactly have “a way”, I settle for getting on here, about one-third of the way up from Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. When I get on the road, I can instantly see why this is one of the most popular roads to drive in the world, and why almost everyone in an online forum concerning great motorcycle roads mentioned it. It is a two-lane road that runs along a mountain ridge for four hundred and fifty-nine miles. There are spectacular views around pretty much all of the numerous turns, and there are no signs besides those telling you a scenic pulloff is ahead, or the occasional junction sign that indicates where you can get off the Parkway, and what road you will be getting on. It is soon evident that the majority of people driving this road are on motorcycles, which I find pretty cool. I make a couple stops at pulloffs early on to snap some photos of the Blue Ridge Mountains rolling off in the distance. The hills of green have a bluish tint to them, and I presume this is where the name comes from. It reminds me of the mountains west of Sydney in Australia where the eucalyptus leaves lent a bluish tint to the mists above them, giving them the name of the Blue Mountains. The speed limit on the Parkway is forty-five, so it is not the best road to take to make time, which I am okay with. I keep it around fifty and enjoy the endless scenery. It seems that whenever I make a stop to eat some food or use the bathroom or take some pictures or get some water or just have a rest, someone is always talking to me about where I am riding from and wanting to know where I’m headed and so on. It’s a nice feeling, because they are obviously asking out of friendly curiosity and everyone seems to be impressed with my ride from Utah. It seems I hear the phrase “do it while you’re young” a lot, and this is not unique just to the people I talk to on the Parkway. The scenery is not just limited to lush mountain vistas. Once in a while I am stuck behind a slow moving car and have to wait a long time to pass because there are few stretches with enough open line of sight to overtake a vehicle, and even less such areas that are marked as passing zones, so I take my chances and pass when I can. I’m sure the police I very infrequently see on the Parkway would disapprove, but I have to take my chances or suffer from not only being forced to ride at someone else’s pace, but have a large chunk of my view consist of a rear end of some clown’s automobile. Often the road goes through woods and absolutely picturesque farmland. There must be some sort of ordinance for anyone living on the Parkway that makes them have their fences pristinely painted and even as they roll up and down the hills and mark off fields which are just recently hayed and have smooth rolls of hay evenly distributed over the perfect green grass. There are farmhouses at various distances from the road with manicured lawns stopping directly at the gravel driveways, or sometimes there are just straight paths worn in the grass from years of driving the same exact ground. Each house might as well be out of a magazine, if there are any ugly modern fixtures on them, like cars or telephone lines, or electric meters, they are neither seen by my eyes nor recalled by my memory.
The miles go slowly by, and the time passes too quickly, and it’s late afternoon when I need to fill up my gas tank. I get off the Parkway at the first intersection I come to, and pull up to a gas station that is not far from the junction. I am just starting to fill up my tank when another biker walks up to me and starts saying, even before I can see this guy, “Hey man, you gotta learn the rules out there.” At this point I am thinking I did something stupid on the road that he noticed and I can now actually see the guy as he is to my side now and I mumble something noncommittal as he goes on, “Sometimes these people just go thirty-five with a trailer or something and then when you can finally pass them they go up to sixty and so I tell these coppers you just gotta go up to seventy-five or something, you know?” I am about finished filling up my tank and say yeah, I know what you mean just because I don’t know where this is coming from and I push my bike off to a parking space to go inside the store. A couple of guys on a pair of beautiful polished Harleys that are sparkling in the sun chat me up for a bit. “Youu-tah, well you’re a piece from home.” Yes, I sure am. I can’t help but admire their bikes, super clean and detailed, but I look at my bike, caked in dirt and grime from the road, a cloudy mist over all the chrome, high on mileage, and stuffed with gear, and I see it is gorgeous in a way that you can’t get with some cleaning agents and a couple of hours of work. All of a sudden I think back to the old stranger that came up to me and was talking about passing people and I look around and I don’t see him, or maybe I just didn’t actually look at him in a way to register his face in my mind. I really was distracted and I realize that it was very odd because he just came without a warning and left just as fast, and maybe this phantom was just cryptically telling me, “Go moan for man.”
After winding up and down the Parkway for some time more, I decide to get a late lunch, except there is nowhere to stop and no roads to get off on that look like they go anywhere. Eventually I see a little store on the side of the road, one of the very few I have seen all day. There are some people hanging around the porch by their bikes and I figure I’ll just pull up next to them. I may have been riding my motorcycle a whole lot but I don’t know the unwritten laws of biker interactions. I get off and just say hi but they don’t seem too talkative, maybe because I don’t have a big old Harley like them. Either way, they aren’t too talkative until one of the women reminds me my lights are on, and again, I have forgotten to take my key out. Maybe they weren’t too outgoing because I am clearly an amateur on motorcycles. Inside the menu has homemade sandwiches for something cheap like four dollars or something, so I get one with ranch dressing and it’s delicious and filling. I consider getting another to eat later since I plan on camping, but I just don’t. After I come back in from eating out on the porch, I ask the couple that owns the store that are sitting amongst the trinkets and Parkway photo books and handcrafts about a campground in the area. They tell me there is one about twenty miles up the road, which I calculate to be about thirty minutes away, and after telling them I like their place they hand me a piece of paper with all its realty information on it because apparently it’s for sale. About four hundred and sixty thousand for the store and the house behind it and the property it’s on. Not bad, considering how amazing this area is, but a little steep for my budget, so I fold it up and put it in my pocket and tell them I’ll pass the word along to someone who might be interested. They told me to watch out for deer and were surprised I had not seen any yet, but almost immediately after getting back on the road, I start seeing them all over. Late afternoon is the time when they come out to feed, they told me. I eventually get to the campground and pull up to the little ranger station and have a quick chat with one of the rangers who gives me the rundown on the camp area. Looking at the map, there are dozens and dozens of sites, but when I go in to choose mine, I see only two occupied. I pick one out that is close to the bathrooms, annoying labeled as a “comfort station”, and someone what near the other people, but not too close. I walk back to the station with a check. I ran out of cash a while ago and have not had the opportunity or the need to get more from an ATM as of yet, and they don’t take debit or credit cards, so I have my first opportunity to use one of the checks I have been dragging around with me for a month and a half. Sixteen bucks for the night, not the cheapest campground I have stayed at but I don’t mind supporting this sort of enterprise on this sort of road. I still have a couple hours of sunlight, and I don’t have a whole lot to do besides set up my camp and gather some wood to start a fire with. My tent goes up easy as always and soon I am walking around the area looking for sticks and kindling. I go past one of the other guests, a guy in a small Winnebago who has just been sitting at the window, listening to the radio since I got there, and bring a bunch of wiry sticks over to my campsite. I grab a few handfuls of dead leaves from the base of a tree nearby, and I start to make a little pile on the concrete slab where there is an upturned grill. I use a lighter to try and ignite the leaves and the small twigs I placed above them. It must have been wet here a few days ago as none of the stuff I have is entirely dry, but it all should burn. I burn out all the leaves, and go back for more. The entire undertaking is an uphill struggle, but after about thirty minutes of babysitting a tiny blaze by feeding leaves onto it until the smaller stuff caught, and then feeding small stuff on until the bigger stuff caught, I have a nice fire to enjoy just as nighttime fully descends. I even have to go out in the dark with my little flashlight to gather more wood. By the time I have a healthy fire going strong, I realize I am tired and have to wait until this thing mostly burns itself out. I play my guitar a little bit, but in the stillness of the night, even my little travel guitar has a loud sound, and I am not too worried about my rugged neighbor in the Winnebago, but I think that the older couple actually camped in a tent a few sites down can probably hear it, so I don’t really play a whole lot, especially since the guy was nice enough to bring me some good sticks to burn even though they were camped downwind of the smoke. Eventually I just dump a bunch of water from my CamelBak on the fire once it’s down to mostly embers, and I head to my tent to sleep.
It always takes me a long time to get to sleep when I am camped out, and I always spend the night twisting around while making sure to stay in my blanket because it’s usually cold, as it is tonight. I am in all the clothes I was wearing during the day, plus my track pants and lined jacket that I have not worn since I took them off in Escondido, California. I also have my motorcycle jacket covering my upper body and my camp towel over my head and nose so I don’t get a cold during the night. When I camp I sleep on and off and have all sorts of wild dreams that I usually can’t remember, but know are just out of this world. I don’t bother setting an alarm. In the morning, I awake to the sound of my camping neighbors breaking their campsite down. There is a noise like a high-pitched zipper that I cannot place in particular. I get outside and start packing up. When rolling up my tent, I have to brush off the sand from the bottom with each roll, and I figure out what the high-pitched zipper sound I woke up to was. The guy in the Winnebago gets up and just drives off, a real woodsman. I never saw him leave the car. I start to wonder why he even bothers coming up here if he’s going to sleep in a bed and listen to his radio with the electric lights on, but I think maybe there is some sad story about how he used to go camping with his wife every year until she died, and maybe he can’t bring himself to stay home every September anymore than he can actually go out and have fun in the woods without her once she’s gone. I don’t know how it is, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. I get on the road by about eight-fifteen AM, the last of the three campers to leave the campsites.
I feel pretty good that I got my cover back in one piece so now my bike can look normal. It is uneventful the rest of the way to Blowing Rock, a small town with access to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I would have liked to do all of the Parkway, but because I didn’t want to drive really far out of my way, not that I exactly have “a way”, I settle for getting on here, about one-third of the way up from Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. When I get on the road, I can instantly see why this is one of the most popular roads to drive in the world, and why almost everyone in an online forum concerning great motorcycle roads mentioned it. It is a two-lane road that runs along a mountain ridge for four hundred and fifty-nine miles. There are spectacular views around pretty much all of the numerous turns, and there are no signs besides those telling you a scenic pulloff is ahead, or the occasional junction sign that indicates where you can get off the Parkway, and what road you will be getting on. It is soon evident that the majority of people driving this road are on motorcycles, which I find pretty cool. I make a couple stops at pulloffs early on to snap some photos of the Blue Ridge Mountains rolling off in the distance. The hills of green have a bluish tint to them, and I presume this is where the name comes from. It reminds me of the mountains west of Sydney in Australia where the eucalyptus leaves lent a bluish tint to the mists above them, giving them the name of the Blue Mountains. The speed limit on the Parkway is forty-five, so it is not the best road to take to make time, which I am okay with. I keep it around fifty and enjoy the endless scenery. It seems that whenever I make a stop to eat some food or use the bathroom or take some pictures or get some water or just have a rest, someone is always talking to me about where I am riding from and wanting to know where I’m headed and so on. It’s a nice feeling, because they are obviously asking out of friendly curiosity and everyone seems to be impressed with my ride from Utah. It seems I hear the phrase “do it while you’re young” a lot, and this is not unique just to the people I talk to on the Parkway. The scenery is not just limited to lush mountain vistas. Once in a while I am stuck behind a slow moving car and have to wait a long time to pass because there are few stretches with enough open line of sight to overtake a vehicle, and even less such areas that are marked as passing zones, so I take my chances and pass when I can. I’m sure the police I very infrequently see on the Parkway would disapprove, but I have to take my chances or suffer from not only being forced to ride at someone else’s pace, but have a large chunk of my view consist of a rear end of some clown’s automobile. Often the road goes through woods and absolutely picturesque farmland. There must be some sort of ordinance for anyone living on the Parkway that makes them have their fences pristinely painted and even as they roll up and down the hills and mark off fields which are just recently hayed and have smooth rolls of hay evenly distributed over the perfect green grass. There are farmhouses at various distances from the road with manicured lawns stopping directly at the gravel driveways, or sometimes there are just straight paths worn in the grass from years of driving the same exact ground. Each house might as well be out of a magazine, if there are any ugly modern fixtures on them, like cars or telephone lines, or electric meters, they are neither seen by my eyes nor recalled by my memory.
The miles go slowly by, and the time passes too quickly, and it’s late afternoon when I need to fill up my gas tank. I get off the Parkway at the first intersection I come to, and pull up to a gas station that is not far from the junction. I am just starting to fill up my tank when another biker walks up to me and starts saying, even before I can see this guy, “Hey man, you gotta learn the rules out there.” At this point I am thinking I did something stupid on the road that he noticed and I can now actually see the guy as he is to my side now and I mumble something noncommittal as he goes on, “Sometimes these people just go thirty-five with a trailer or something and then when you can finally pass them they go up to sixty and so I tell these coppers you just gotta go up to seventy-five or something, you know?” I am about finished filling up my tank and say yeah, I know what you mean just because I don’t know where this is coming from and I push my bike off to a parking space to go inside the store. A couple of guys on a pair of beautiful polished Harleys that are sparkling in the sun chat me up for a bit. “Youu-tah, well you’re a piece from home.” Yes, I sure am. I can’t help but admire their bikes, super clean and detailed, but I look at my bike, caked in dirt and grime from the road, a cloudy mist over all the chrome, high on mileage, and stuffed with gear, and I see it is gorgeous in a way that you can’t get with some cleaning agents and a couple of hours of work. All of a sudden I think back to the old stranger that came up to me and was talking about passing people and I look around and I don’t see him, or maybe I just didn’t actually look at him in a way to register his face in my mind. I really was distracted and I realize that it was very odd because he just came without a warning and left just as fast, and maybe this phantom was just cryptically telling me, “Go moan for man.”
After winding up and down the Parkway for some time more, I decide to get a late lunch, except there is nowhere to stop and no roads to get off on that look like they go anywhere. Eventually I see a little store on the side of the road, one of the very few I have seen all day. There are some people hanging around the porch by their bikes and I figure I’ll just pull up next to them. I may have been riding my motorcycle a whole lot but I don’t know the unwritten laws of biker interactions. I get off and just say hi but they don’t seem too talkative, maybe because I don’t have a big old Harley like them. Either way, they aren’t too talkative until one of the women reminds me my lights are on, and again, I have forgotten to take my key out. Maybe they weren’t too outgoing because I am clearly an amateur on motorcycles. Inside the menu has homemade sandwiches for something cheap like four dollars or something, so I get one with ranch dressing and it’s delicious and filling. I consider getting another to eat later since I plan on camping, but I just don’t. After I come back in from eating out on the porch, I ask the couple that owns the store that are sitting amongst the trinkets and Parkway photo books and handcrafts about a campground in the area. They tell me there is one about twenty miles up the road, which I calculate to be about thirty minutes away, and after telling them I like their place they hand me a piece of paper with all its realty information on it because apparently it’s for sale. About four hundred and sixty thousand for the store and the house behind it and the property it’s on. Not bad, considering how amazing this area is, but a little steep for my budget, so I fold it up and put it in my pocket and tell them I’ll pass the word along to someone who might be interested. They told me to watch out for deer and were surprised I had not seen any yet, but almost immediately after getting back on the road, I start seeing them all over. Late afternoon is the time when they come out to feed, they told me. I eventually get to the campground and pull up to the little ranger station and have a quick chat with one of the rangers who gives me the rundown on the camp area. Looking at the map, there are dozens and dozens of sites, but when I go in to choose mine, I see only two occupied. I pick one out that is close to the bathrooms, annoying labeled as a “comfort station”, and someone what near the other people, but not too close. I walk back to the station with a check. I ran out of cash a while ago and have not had the opportunity or the need to get more from an ATM as of yet, and they don’t take debit or credit cards, so I have my first opportunity to use one of the checks I have been dragging around with me for a month and a half. Sixteen bucks for the night, not the cheapest campground I have stayed at but I don’t mind supporting this sort of enterprise on this sort of road. I still have a couple hours of sunlight, and I don’t have a whole lot to do besides set up my camp and gather some wood to start a fire with. My tent goes up easy as always and soon I am walking around the area looking for sticks and kindling. I go past one of the other guests, a guy in a small Winnebago who has just been sitting at the window, listening to the radio since I got there, and bring a bunch of wiry sticks over to my campsite. I grab a few handfuls of dead leaves from the base of a tree nearby, and I start to make a little pile on the concrete slab where there is an upturned grill. I use a lighter to try and ignite the leaves and the small twigs I placed above them. It must have been wet here a few days ago as none of the stuff I have is entirely dry, but it all should burn. I burn out all the leaves, and go back for more. The entire undertaking is an uphill struggle, but after about thirty minutes of babysitting a tiny blaze by feeding leaves onto it until the smaller stuff caught, and then feeding small stuff on until the bigger stuff caught, I have a nice fire to enjoy just as nighttime fully descends. I even have to go out in the dark with my little flashlight to gather more wood. By the time I have a healthy fire going strong, I realize I am tired and have to wait until this thing mostly burns itself out. I play my guitar a little bit, but in the stillness of the night, even my little travel guitar has a loud sound, and I am not too worried about my rugged neighbor in the Winnebago, but I think that the older couple actually camped in a tent a few sites down can probably hear it, so I don’t really play a whole lot, especially since the guy was nice enough to bring me some good sticks to burn even though they were camped downwind of the smoke. Eventually I just dump a bunch of water from my CamelBak on the fire once it’s down to mostly embers, and I head to my tent to sleep.
It always takes me a long time to get to sleep when I am camped out, and I always spend the night twisting around while making sure to stay in my blanket because it’s usually cold, as it is tonight. I am in all the clothes I was wearing during the day, plus my track pants and lined jacket that I have not worn since I took them off in Escondido, California. I also have my motorcycle jacket covering my upper body and my camp towel over my head and nose so I don’t get a cold during the night. When I camp I sleep on and off and have all sorts of wild dreams that I usually can’t remember, but know are just out of this world. I don’t bother setting an alarm. In the morning, I awake to the sound of my camping neighbors breaking their campsite down. There is a noise like a high-pitched zipper that I cannot place in particular. I get outside and start packing up. When rolling up my tent, I have to brush off the sand from the bottom with each roll, and I figure out what the high-pitched zipper sound I woke up to was. The guy in the Winnebago gets up and just drives off, a real woodsman. I never saw him leave the car. I start to wonder why he even bothers coming up here if he’s going to sleep in a bed and listen to his radio with the electric lights on, but I think maybe there is some sad story about how he used to go camping with his wife every year until she died, and maybe he can’t bring himself to stay home every September anymore than he can actually go out and have fun in the woods without her once she’s gone. I don’t know how it is, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. I get on the road by about eight-fifteen AM, the last of the three campers to leave the campsites.
Charlotte
I have directions to get to Charlotte next, on roads that will probably take me twice as long to drive on than the interstates, but that is the idea after all. Out of Charleston, I am on 52 for the first short leg, and I am not too sure I am on the right road a couple of times, all the strip malls and lack of signs throw me off – I guess this is the area I missed coming into Charleston – but my natural sense of direction and finely-honed sensitivity for roads and destinations, tuned over the last seven thousand or so miles, comes through and I am indeed where I want to be. I am driving through farm country, of which there is plenty in America, I have found out. Don’t be fooled by the sprawl of the cities, it is the farmland that dominates this countries geography. It sort of looks like it will rain, and having been caught twice unprotected, both with damp and miserable results, in Louisiana and Mississippi, I have learned my lesson, and I put on my rain suit before the sky opens up. I get to a junction in the middle of nowhere, and as I turn right off one road onto the next, I consider stopping at the tiny store at the corner. I am about one hundred yards down the road when my brain delivers the verdict to turn around and get some food and drink. Inside, a trucker is ordering food ahead of me, and he starts asking me about where I am riding to and I tell him, and I also tell him about my trip. Oo-oweee, he sings in his thick southern accent, if I ever got enough money to do that I’d probably have a heart attack. I laugh to myself, feeling rich all of a sudden, and thinking about getting such a massive quantity of money your heart simply fails. Interesting way to go. I eat my deep-fried porkchop, and chicken. The porkchop is delicious. It’s probably the first deep-fried porkchop I have ever had, but I sure hope it’s not my last. The trucker, as he is going out the door, calls into me and says I left my light, on, which means I left my key in the ignition, and the ignition switched on. I tend to do that a bunch, which is not a good habit. It’s asking for someone to steal my bike or to wear out the battery. Neither is a good option. I continue on towards Charlotte, trying to remember the sequence of roads I have to turn down once I get towards the outskirts. The sky is still gray as I zoom past the fields and the pivots, but it doesn’t feel like it will rain, and in fact, it’s not quite as gray as it was earlier so I take a gamble and take my rain suit off. When I get towards Charlotte, I find my way onto about half of the streets I need to be on before I get lost. There is Sharon Road and Sharon Heights and all sorts of streets with the word Sharon in them and it’s confusing as hell, and where the directions say go slightly left, the road bends right, and I’m just about to get real pissed off after taking some trial excursions down this road and that to see if that is the way I’m supposed to go when I finally get on the right track and find Ben’s apartment complex. Of course it’s gated, and so I pull up in front of the gate, in between the enter and exit gates when I get a call from Ben who is on his way back and he gives me the code just as some girl who is leaving tells me her code too. I’m finally inside and unload all my stuff just as Ben is pulling up, all spiffed up and dressed like a responsible adult, and I can tell he’s not fooling anyone but the kids he teaches, but they’re all he needs to fool so it’s all good. It’s been about a year since I have seen Ben, and in that time I cut my hair and he got a real job.
I meet Ben’s girlfriend briefly when she comes over with her roommate’s dog, and we make plans to meet up with her downtown after she has dinner with her friends. I sort of organize my stuff and we head into downtown Charlotte to get some food and drinks. There are all sorts of things going on in downtown as we walk to an Irish pub. There are bands playing here, and bands, there, and a street is blocked off and people are setting up tents and stuff. Seems pretty lively. We get some burgers and beer, and wait for his girlfriend to call and head over to another Irish bar for another drink and then hear from his girlfriend who is already back home and tried calling him a bunch, but that’s cell phones for you.
Ben has to teach since today is Friday, so I take my bike into town and try to find the artsy district that Ben said was somewhere down North Davidson, or so he heard, but I find nothing and turn around and head back to town. I walk around a museum, Museum of the New South, or something like that for a while, looking at a southern music exhibition, and a cool exhibition of Southern stereotypes in comics. By the time I am worn out of museums, I head back to the parking garage and am about to head back to the apartment, but it’s raining hard all of a sudden. I sit inside the parking garage entrance, and fortunately don’t have to wait long as the sun comes out within fifteen minutes. I get a little lost on the way back, accidentally getting on some highway for a couple minutes which sucks because my glasses are just getting full of spray, and the bottoms of my jeans are too. We take it easy this evening, since we have plans to go out on town with some of his young teaching colleagues tomorrow. We cook up a feast of baked chicken, pasta and garlic bread, and get some beers and just lie around.
In the morning we hang out at the pool for a bit. From the crowd out here, pretty much everyone in the complex, and it is a large complex, is our age, which is nice. Except for the dudes grilling and pumping out Billboard’s Top Ten from last year, but whatever. I spend a little time servicing my bike, and graciously decide to let Ben take it around the parking lot for a spin. He doesn’t crash it which means he did good as far as I’m concerned, and I think I sold him on the idea of buying a motorcycle. Nice. In the evening, a bunch of his teacher friends come over, and I forget most of their names within seconds of meeting them, but that’s just how I am sometimes. We hang around the apartment for a while, until a cab comes to get us, and then we head back to the same Irish bar Ben and I got dinner at the first night. It’s a fun night and the bar is packed. There is an upstairs which I didn’t know about the first time I was here, and they have a band playing covers of songs and it’s pretty crowded and hot, but they happen to sell drinks here to cool you down.
I meet Ben’s girlfriend briefly when she comes over with her roommate’s dog, and we make plans to meet up with her downtown after she has dinner with her friends. I sort of organize my stuff and we head into downtown Charlotte to get some food and drinks. There are all sorts of things going on in downtown as we walk to an Irish pub. There are bands playing here, and bands, there, and a street is blocked off and people are setting up tents and stuff. Seems pretty lively. We get some burgers and beer, and wait for his girlfriend to call and head over to another Irish bar for another drink and then hear from his girlfriend who is already back home and tried calling him a bunch, but that’s cell phones for you.
Ben has to teach since today is Friday, so I take my bike into town and try to find the artsy district that Ben said was somewhere down North Davidson, or so he heard, but I find nothing and turn around and head back to town. I walk around a museum, Museum of the New South, or something like that for a while, looking at a southern music exhibition, and a cool exhibition of Southern stereotypes in comics. By the time I am worn out of museums, I head back to the parking garage and am about to head back to the apartment, but it’s raining hard all of a sudden. I sit inside the parking garage entrance, and fortunately don’t have to wait long as the sun comes out within fifteen minutes. I get a little lost on the way back, accidentally getting on some highway for a couple minutes which sucks because my glasses are just getting full of spray, and the bottoms of my jeans are too. We take it easy this evening, since we have plans to go out on town with some of his young teaching colleagues tomorrow. We cook up a feast of baked chicken, pasta and garlic bread, and get some beers and just lie around.
In the morning we hang out at the pool for a bit. From the crowd out here, pretty much everyone in the complex, and it is a large complex, is our age, which is nice. Except for the dudes grilling and pumping out Billboard’s Top Ten from last year, but whatever. I spend a little time servicing my bike, and graciously decide to let Ben take it around the parking lot for a spin. He doesn’t crash it which means he did good as far as I’m concerned, and I think I sold him on the idea of buying a motorcycle. Nice. In the evening, a bunch of his teacher friends come over, and I forget most of their names within seconds of meeting them, but that’s just how I am sometimes. We hang around the apartment for a while, until a cab comes to get us, and then we head back to the same Irish bar Ben and I got dinner at the first night. It’s a fun night and the bar is packed. There is an upstairs which I didn’t know about the first time I was here, and they have a band playing covers of songs and it’s pretty crowded and hot, but they happen to sell drinks here to cool you down.
Heading North
Of course the only way to get out of big cities is on the freeways that run through them, so after I pack up my bike on Monday morning I head for I-20 to get me out of Atlanta. I get turned around a couple times trying to get on the freeway but it’s not too difficult to find my way after a few minutes. Once out of the city I am looking for a US highway, 278, which will bring me a good part of the way towards Charleston. I see a sign for 278 west, which is not what I want as I am going east, but I have not heard of any one-way highways so I get off and as I am on the exit ramp, I see the sign pointing one way for west, and no sign for east, so naturally I go the opposite way of the sign. I’m on a road going through a mall and chain store district, and I see no signs indicating I am on the road I want to be on. Once I get away from the stores and all that crap it’s pretty certain that this is not where I want to be so I stop and ask some guys working on the side of the road where 278 is. In broken English he points me back the way I came and says it’s not too far once I get on the highway. It turns out that I needed to go farther down 20 to get the east exit, and although I had never heard of any one-way highways, this makes sense because this is just an example of when one road temporarily merges with another before splitting off again. I kind of feel like an idiot, but oh well.
I eventually get on 278 which parallels the interstate, sometimes on the north, sometimes crossing it to the south. These are the quiet sort of roads I like where you can stop to take a leak in the woods without getting run over or even seeing another car go by usually. I go through the small towns of Madison and Greensboro where 278 runs right through their downtowns which are old fashioned and colorful and lively and very appealing and nice to drive through. I consider stopping and eating at any of the small cafes or diners, but when I am in the mood for riding I like to stay on my bike unless I need to eat or fill up the tank. Somewhere towards Augusta 78 splits off from 278 and I follow 78 through North Augusta, and I have to stop for gas and food here. I pass by a bunch of cheap restaurants and Waffle Houses looking for a gas station which is my first priority, and I ask about more restaurants from the attendant once my tank is full. She points me back the way I came, but I don’t like backtracking so I decide to take my chances towards the east. Eventually I come to another Waffle House, a cheap breakfast chain that I have noticed is copious throughout the south, but have never yet ate at since they all look dingy and unappetizing. I decide to stop here though, partly out of hunger, and partly out of Carrie’s claim that they have the best waffles ever after I told her that they look pretty scrubby. It’s certainly cheap, and the waffles are pretty good, and I get a breakfast sandwich to go along with my meal, and an order of hashbrowns as an afterthought since I am still hungry. The sort of food that is gross and delicious all at once. The women who work there both serve and cook the food along a kitchen line behind the counter and they yak and yak about all sorts of gossip with each other and the regular customers that come in, and the regulars seem to be everyone but me.
Back on the road, I get out of the urbanized halo around Augusta and back into the countryside, and as I am approaching Charleston I get on an even smaller road, state highway 61, that brings me down a quiet two-lane road that is covered like a tunnel by ancient trees of deep green with moss hanging off them, much like the ones I saw lining Canal Street in New Orleans. Probably the same kind actually, but what do I know about trees? Not enough considering I had just spent a few months working with them. As I get closer and closer, I find that I don’t run into the slowly increasing level or urbanization that is common on the outskirts of cities, and naturally culminates in the city itself. The absence pleases me, and I imagine that Charleston will be a small city that just pops out of nowhere. I don’t exactly have directions, or an idea of where I am heading. I have an address where a family friend lives, but I am not too sure how to get there since when June last give me directions, I didn’t have a chance to write them down. I stop at a gas station and borrow their phonebook. I turn to the city maps and street indexes in the front and try to find where I am and where she lives and how to get from one to the other. I am too far out from the city still and can’t find myself, so I just continue driving in. Eventually the city begins to emerge, and I merge from one road to another, following signs towards downtown and I cross over a beautiful white bridge that brings me over the crisp blue water of the Atlantic which I have not seen for awhile and is now a welcome and familiar sight. Space is starting to get congested now that I am over the bridge so I pull into another gas station and look at the maps in the phone books. It turns out that I am almost right where I need to be, and I take the road that runs down one side of the gas station to a small lake, which I remember from June’s directions, but streets are so small and narrow and often one-way here, that I eventually stop to ask for directions from a lady driving a golf cart in the street, and she gives me some directions which turn out to useless, and so I just call June, tell her where I am and get some directions that actually help.
A long-time family friend of ours in NH, June is originally from Charleston and now lives there. That evening, she invites some college kids who live in her townhome complex over to meet me, because, as she claims, she doesn’t know what us young people like to do, and she thinks they would be able to tell me what’s up in the area. They are all pretty nice and I end up going out to Metal Mondays at a local bar with Natalie. Metal Mondays is a weekly even at a bar in downtown Charleston and it is basically live-band karaoke to eighties metal songs – Judas Priest, Guns N Roses, Journey, Joan Jett, Iron Maiden, Billy Idol, etc. She was about halfway through describing to me what this was about when I knew it was for me. It is obviously a great time and the lead singer looks like a young Ted Danson. Afterwards we walk through the university that is right downtown and looks more like a neighborhood than a school, and I can see why a lot of people like going to school here, especially because I learned the guy to girl ratio is something ridiculous like one to three. Nice.
Over the next couple of days, June takes me around Charleston like a personal tour guide. I get to see the building where she lived when she was younger, I learn the history of nearly every church and building we pass, she tells me about the rich families that have houses along the battery, I learn how to recognize the real old houses from structural bolts installed after an old earthquake, and I learn about the gentrification of the poorer neighborhoods we pass through. I get these tours both on foot and in the car. We go to the Citadel, a military school where you can see kids walking like they were battery powered in straight lines and making abrupt ninety-degree turns with their heads up and arms swinging and all that sort of ridiculous military show. Pretty amusing. We go to the library and I meet all the people she knows, who are numerous and very interesting, and I sit at the computers using the internet until some guy next to me who is sniffling and coughing and hacking up god knows what grosses me out and I can’t take it anymore.
The day before I plan on leaving I ride my bike up to Sullivan’s Island so I can lie on the beach for a while. This will probably be my only chance to swim in the Atlantic this season, as it will be frigid in New England by the time I get up there. The water is very warm, certainly not the sort of water I am used to in the Atlantic. It is also really shallow, and I have to walk out about fifty yards before I am even chest deep. I alternate my time between reading on the sand and lying in the water, and enjoying the peace and solitude of the beach. There are only a dozen or so people in eyesight, and the beach continues for a long way in either direction. It’s very picturesque, especially with the lighthouse looming above. On my way back to Charleston, I stop at Poe’s Tavern, a little restaurant I saw when I was looking for the beach. I like Edgar Allen Poe a lot, The Raven is probably my favorite poem, and I have enjoyed reading his short stories since I was a little kid. I thought I would check this place out that was conspicuously named after him. I sit outside, out of the sun on the deck and order a Thomas Creek. This is a local beer that turns out to be really really good – slightly hoppy with a subtle sour aftertaste that I really like. I enjoy getting local beers from wherever I am at. I guess this is a pretty self-explanatory habit of mine. I have a couple of these and some fries and sit and read and watch life go by on the road for a couple hours before I head back into Charleston. It’s not a long drive, which is fortunate because there are clouds coming in and it can rain at any moment, it seems. I shower and clean up at June’s and then walk through town back to the library to use the Internet. At some point during my time in the library, the heavens open up and the rain is absolutely torrential by the time I am about to walk home. I chat for a while about traveling and road trips with John, a friend of June’s who works at the library whom I was introduced to the day before. It is still raining out though, and June comes and picks me up after it has eased up a bunch. My bike is soaked in the parking lot but I really don’t care because it’s better soaked alone than with me and my stuff on it.
I eventually get on 278 which parallels the interstate, sometimes on the north, sometimes crossing it to the south. These are the quiet sort of roads I like where you can stop to take a leak in the woods without getting run over or even seeing another car go by usually. I go through the small towns of Madison and Greensboro where 278 runs right through their downtowns which are old fashioned and colorful and lively and very appealing and nice to drive through. I consider stopping and eating at any of the small cafes or diners, but when I am in the mood for riding I like to stay on my bike unless I need to eat or fill up the tank. Somewhere towards Augusta 78 splits off from 278 and I follow 78 through North Augusta, and I have to stop for gas and food here. I pass by a bunch of cheap restaurants and Waffle Houses looking for a gas station which is my first priority, and I ask about more restaurants from the attendant once my tank is full. She points me back the way I came, but I don’t like backtracking so I decide to take my chances towards the east. Eventually I come to another Waffle House, a cheap breakfast chain that I have noticed is copious throughout the south, but have never yet ate at since they all look dingy and unappetizing. I decide to stop here though, partly out of hunger, and partly out of Carrie’s claim that they have the best waffles ever after I told her that they look pretty scrubby. It’s certainly cheap, and the waffles are pretty good, and I get a breakfast sandwich to go along with my meal, and an order of hashbrowns as an afterthought since I am still hungry. The sort of food that is gross and delicious all at once. The women who work there both serve and cook the food along a kitchen line behind the counter and they yak and yak about all sorts of gossip with each other and the regular customers that come in, and the regulars seem to be everyone but me.
Back on the road, I get out of the urbanized halo around Augusta and back into the countryside, and as I am approaching Charleston I get on an even smaller road, state highway 61, that brings me down a quiet two-lane road that is covered like a tunnel by ancient trees of deep green with moss hanging off them, much like the ones I saw lining Canal Street in New Orleans. Probably the same kind actually, but what do I know about trees? Not enough considering I had just spent a few months working with them. As I get closer and closer, I find that I don’t run into the slowly increasing level or urbanization that is common on the outskirts of cities, and naturally culminates in the city itself. The absence pleases me, and I imagine that Charleston will be a small city that just pops out of nowhere. I don’t exactly have directions, or an idea of where I am heading. I have an address where a family friend lives, but I am not too sure how to get there since when June last give me directions, I didn’t have a chance to write them down. I stop at a gas station and borrow their phonebook. I turn to the city maps and street indexes in the front and try to find where I am and where she lives and how to get from one to the other. I am too far out from the city still and can’t find myself, so I just continue driving in. Eventually the city begins to emerge, and I merge from one road to another, following signs towards downtown and I cross over a beautiful white bridge that brings me over the crisp blue water of the Atlantic which I have not seen for awhile and is now a welcome and familiar sight. Space is starting to get congested now that I am over the bridge so I pull into another gas station and look at the maps in the phone books. It turns out that I am almost right where I need to be, and I take the road that runs down one side of the gas station to a small lake, which I remember from June’s directions, but streets are so small and narrow and often one-way here, that I eventually stop to ask for directions from a lady driving a golf cart in the street, and she gives me some directions which turn out to useless, and so I just call June, tell her where I am and get some directions that actually help.
A long-time family friend of ours in NH, June is originally from Charleston and now lives there. That evening, she invites some college kids who live in her townhome complex over to meet me, because, as she claims, she doesn’t know what us young people like to do, and she thinks they would be able to tell me what’s up in the area. They are all pretty nice and I end up going out to Metal Mondays at a local bar with Natalie. Metal Mondays is a weekly even at a bar in downtown Charleston and it is basically live-band karaoke to eighties metal songs – Judas Priest, Guns N Roses, Journey, Joan Jett, Iron Maiden, Billy Idol, etc. She was about halfway through describing to me what this was about when I knew it was for me. It is obviously a great time and the lead singer looks like a young Ted Danson. Afterwards we walk through the university that is right downtown and looks more like a neighborhood than a school, and I can see why a lot of people like going to school here, especially because I learned the guy to girl ratio is something ridiculous like one to three. Nice.
Over the next couple of days, June takes me around Charleston like a personal tour guide. I get to see the building where she lived when she was younger, I learn the history of nearly every church and building we pass, she tells me about the rich families that have houses along the battery, I learn how to recognize the real old houses from structural bolts installed after an old earthquake, and I learn about the gentrification of the poorer neighborhoods we pass through. I get these tours both on foot and in the car. We go to the Citadel, a military school where you can see kids walking like they were battery powered in straight lines and making abrupt ninety-degree turns with their heads up and arms swinging and all that sort of ridiculous military show. Pretty amusing. We go to the library and I meet all the people she knows, who are numerous and very interesting, and I sit at the computers using the internet until some guy next to me who is sniffling and coughing and hacking up god knows what grosses me out and I can’t take it anymore.
The day before I plan on leaving I ride my bike up to Sullivan’s Island so I can lie on the beach for a while. This will probably be my only chance to swim in the Atlantic this season, as it will be frigid in New England by the time I get up there. The water is very warm, certainly not the sort of water I am used to in the Atlantic. It is also really shallow, and I have to walk out about fifty yards before I am even chest deep. I alternate my time between reading on the sand and lying in the water, and enjoying the peace and solitude of the beach. There are only a dozen or so people in eyesight, and the beach continues for a long way in either direction. It’s very picturesque, especially with the lighthouse looming above. On my way back to Charleston, I stop at Poe’s Tavern, a little restaurant I saw when I was looking for the beach. I like Edgar Allen Poe a lot, The Raven is probably my favorite poem, and I have enjoyed reading his short stories since I was a little kid. I thought I would check this place out that was conspicuously named after him. I sit outside, out of the sun on the deck and order a Thomas Creek. This is a local beer that turns out to be really really good – slightly hoppy with a subtle sour aftertaste that I really like. I enjoy getting local beers from wherever I am at. I guess this is a pretty self-explanatory habit of mine. I have a couple of these and some fries and sit and read and watch life go by on the road for a couple hours before I head back into Charleston. It’s not a long drive, which is fortunate because there are clouds coming in and it can rain at any moment, it seems. I shower and clean up at June’s and then walk through town back to the library to use the Internet. At some point during my time in the library, the heavens open up and the rain is absolutely torrential by the time I am about to walk home. I chat for a while about traveling and road trips with John, a friend of June’s who works at the library whom I was introduced to the day before. It is still raining out though, and June comes and picks me up after it has eased up a bunch. My bike is soaked in the parking lot but I really don’t care because it’s better soaked alone than with me and my stuff on it.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Don't Go To a Coke Museum
I am on the road to Atlanta, and not just any road, but the interstate. The whole way there. I have not heard the best things about Atlanta so if it's shit I want to find out sooner than later. I am meeting Kris from New Orleans at a hostel there, and I may be able to meet up with a motorcyclist acquaintance of mine. It's I-20 the whole way there, and it shouldn't take too long, but I naturally run into a traffic jam for what must be an hour. This is another time I wish I could split lanes like in California but instead I wait and inch forward with the rest of the public. Eventually, the jam dissipates, just like that, no accident to explain it, no construction, we just go. But not for long, because a mile down the road there is another jam, and I have to sit in the sun on a road I don't like being on to get to a city I hadn't planned on visiting. This jam does not last as long, and at the end of it there actually is an accident, so as much as I hope no one died, I feel like I was held up for a good reason. Over a rise in the road, the skyline of Atlanta looms up all of a sudden and I drive past the Six Flags theme park towards downtown. I miss the exit I want to be on, onto an interchange that would put me on I-75 and into downtown, so I have to turn around at the next exit, and as I am waiting to make the turn, there are little black kids in football uniforms at the stoplight, wandering through the lanes of cars like it was their neighborhood park, asking for money for their football teams. Seems sort of dangerous, especially compared to hanging around outside of grocery stores in New Hampshire looking for change for Little League teams. Different cities, different methods I suppose.
I find the hostel relatively easy, but there is a code to get in the door, and when someone lets me in, there is no one at the desk. This hostel seems to have only certain hours when one can check in which is entirely new to me but whatever. I bring my bags inside and park my bike out back and get some food across the street and then take out a book and wait. Kris shows up before the office personnel does, and tells me how miserable the World of Coca-cola is, and I can't say I am surprised after I learn that it's an entire museum devoted to the soft drink. I bring my stuff up to her room and jump in the shower. I always feel dirty after riding. Tonight there is a massive Dave Matthews concert in a park just a few blocks from the hostel that she is going to. I don't particularly like their music, nor feel like finding a scalper to give a hundred bucks too, so I just walk down there with her and witness the rivers of people pouring into the park before I turn back and take a quick stroll through part of downtown Atlanta, past some very beautiful hotels and the Fox Theatre. I get dinner at the same place I got lunch at, a Cuban sandwich shop across from the hostel which is superb. The sandwiches are so good I even like the mustard on them, and I think that is the first time I have ever eaten mustard and not threw a hissy fit about it. At the hostel, I meet a guy named Eric who is working towards becoming a commercial pilot, is already working for an airline, and just flies around to places when he isn't working. He just came from Tel Aviv, where he spent about an hour in the airport before flying back, just because he had nothing else to do. We shoot the shit for awhile in between reading our respective books. When Kris gets back from the concert, only slightly more impressed by it than the Coke museum due to the overwhelmingly large crowd, long distance away from the stage, and high amount of guys pissing everywhere and people being generally wasted, we organize a somewhat entertaining game of Scrabble which I dominate, followed by a few rounds of Scattergories which turn out to be a lot more exciting.
After buying some breakfast food at the nearby Publix, plus some fried chicken for a homeless guy that claimed to have not eaten in two days, we find the guy who was telling Kris about the Braves game scheduled for today. Terry is a Canadian who is living in Mexico and came up just for the Dave Matthews concert, so he and Kris, being an Australian which is like the Southern Hemisphere's version of Canadians, have something in common as she came to Atlanta just for the concert as well. The game is at one PM and we walk down to the subway station and ride the few stops to pick up the shuttle to Turner Field. We even get a ride on a little golf cart thing through this mall place packed with souvenir stands that regular suckers have to walk through to get to the shuttle. Out front of the ticket booth, a young couple offers us two tickets for free, so we buy a third one between us in the same section and head on in. The seats are next to the couple who couldn't find anyone to go with them, and Terry buys them some beers at their suggestion, but they aren't the kind they like, so we drink them, and the two take off before we can finish them and go get some more. We are right down on the first base line, just past the infield, and it has been awhile since I have been to a baseball game. The Braves get off to a quick start, getting a few runs on the board, but over the course of the game, the Nationals slowly come back and then go ahead. Terry is way into the chop even though he wants the Nationals to win. I figure the Braves would win in the end but they don't. We get to see about four home runs and soak up some sun and drink some beers and spend a Sunday in a generally American sort of way, so it's fun anyway. Sitting in the sun though, for some reason, is exhausting in a way that I haven't felt after a ten hour day of hard labor in the summertime, so by the time the game is over we all are beat. At the hostel, Terry disappears and Kris takes a nap and I shower and look up movie times because we still have the evening to fill up and I want to see Shoot 'Em Up. Kris and I drive up to a classy mall for the late show and see one of the most ridiculously spectacular violence-filled movies I have ever seen. Paul Giamatti is great as a despicable hitman, and what any movie with The Ace of Spades on the soundtrack is good by me.
I find the hostel relatively easy, but there is a code to get in the door, and when someone lets me in, there is no one at the desk. This hostel seems to have only certain hours when one can check in which is entirely new to me but whatever. I bring my bags inside and park my bike out back and get some food across the street and then take out a book and wait. Kris shows up before the office personnel does, and tells me how miserable the World of Coca-cola is, and I can't say I am surprised after I learn that it's an entire museum devoted to the soft drink. I bring my stuff up to her room and jump in the shower. I always feel dirty after riding. Tonight there is a massive Dave Matthews concert in a park just a few blocks from the hostel that she is going to. I don't particularly like their music, nor feel like finding a scalper to give a hundred bucks too, so I just walk down there with her and witness the rivers of people pouring into the park before I turn back and take a quick stroll through part of downtown Atlanta, past some very beautiful hotels and the Fox Theatre. I get dinner at the same place I got lunch at, a Cuban sandwich shop across from the hostel which is superb. The sandwiches are so good I even like the mustard on them, and I think that is the first time I have ever eaten mustard and not threw a hissy fit about it. At the hostel, I meet a guy named Eric who is working towards becoming a commercial pilot, is already working for an airline, and just flies around to places when he isn't working. He just came from Tel Aviv, where he spent about an hour in the airport before flying back, just because he had nothing else to do. We shoot the shit for awhile in between reading our respective books. When Kris gets back from the concert, only slightly more impressed by it than the Coke museum due to the overwhelmingly large crowd, long distance away from the stage, and high amount of guys pissing everywhere and people being generally wasted, we organize a somewhat entertaining game of Scrabble which I dominate, followed by a few rounds of Scattergories which turn out to be a lot more exciting.
After buying some breakfast food at the nearby Publix, plus some fried chicken for a homeless guy that claimed to have not eaten in two days, we find the guy who was telling Kris about the Braves game scheduled for today. Terry is a Canadian who is living in Mexico and came up just for the Dave Matthews concert, so he and Kris, being an Australian which is like the Southern Hemisphere's version of Canadians, have something in common as she came to Atlanta just for the concert as well. The game is at one PM and we walk down to the subway station and ride the few stops to pick up the shuttle to Turner Field. We even get a ride on a little golf cart thing through this mall place packed with souvenir stands that regular suckers have to walk through to get to the shuttle. Out front of the ticket booth, a young couple offers us two tickets for free, so we buy a third one between us in the same section and head on in. The seats are next to the couple who couldn't find anyone to go with them, and Terry buys them some beers at their suggestion, but they aren't the kind they like, so we drink them, and the two take off before we can finish them and go get some more. We are right down on the first base line, just past the infield, and it has been awhile since I have been to a baseball game. The Braves get off to a quick start, getting a few runs on the board, but over the course of the game, the Nationals slowly come back and then go ahead. Terry is way into the chop even though he wants the Nationals to win. I figure the Braves would win in the end but they don't. We get to see about four home runs and soak up some sun and drink some beers and spend a Sunday in a generally American sort of way, so it's fun anyway. Sitting in the sun though, for some reason, is exhausting in a way that I haven't felt after a ten hour day of hard labor in the summertime, so by the time the game is over we all are beat. At the hostel, Terry disappears and Kris takes a nap and I shower and look up movie times because we still have the evening to fill up and I want to see Shoot 'Em Up. Kris and I drive up to a classy mall for the late show and see one of the most ridiculously spectacular violence-filled movies I have ever seen. Paul Giamatti is great as a despicable hitman, and what any movie with The Ace of Spades on the soundtrack is good by me.
Friday, September 14, 2007
I Wish I Knew That Bands Name
It is about time for me to change my oil, so when Carrie is at class I drive down the highway to a Honda shop to pick up a filter and some oil and supplies. Much like when I changed my oil in San Francisco, I don't bother with a filter wrench, under the logic that if I got it off with my bare hands last time, I can do it again. Back at the apartment, I drain out the oil thoroughly, and now I need to get the filter off. I reach under to try and get it off, but since I just recently was riding the bike, its pretty hot. I try again a couple minutes later, and its a little cooler but I can't get it off. I wait for my hand strength to get back up, and try again with no luck. I do this on and off for near an hour, cursing myself for not getting a filter wrench over and over again. Finally a young guy comes up and starts the conversation with "Changin' the ol' oil huh?" Trying to, I say, and I explain how I am a retard for not getting a wrench. He must've been watching me wriggle around on the ground, futilely trying to get the thing off. He offers to lend me one, for which I am very grateful, and I notice his University of Utah shirt, and we get into a conversation about school out there and I tell him about my trip, and he tells me how he has a Shadow too. He is almost certainly Mormon, and this is as good as confirmed when I hear him use "dang" as an adjective after he has come back with his tool box, young wife, and young kid. Since he is kind enough to help me out I am careful not to drop any expletives. I get the oil changed finally.
When Carrie gets back, I am almost done cleaning up from my oil changing debacle, and we get ready to go bouldering with one of her friends. I guess there is a good area to climb at nearby. It turns out that the area is awesome. It's about fifteen minutes away by car and another five on foot. The rocks are enormous, and have every sort of climb, from caves to slabs to highballs and all sorts of good stuff. It has been over two weeks since I climbed, from back in Tucson at the gym I found, but I do all right, even despite the fact that my hands were worn out from trying to get my oil filter off earlier in the day.
It is Wednesday night at an Irish bar near the UAB campus. I am here listening to a band with Carrie and two of her friends. The band is fantastic. I don't know their name but they have these great funky bass lines with fast blues guitars on top. Eventually a full brass section comes in and the horns and sax really make it even better. Over at the pool table, I am watching the girls play pool having a beer, and I am thoroughly entertained to see guys constantly trying lame pick up methods an routines. Usually I am not out with three beautiful girls and it is very interesting to see things from a different point of view. A couple of guys keep coming over and try to talk to them by starting off with advice on shots and angles and what balls they should try and put in. The girls don't ask any advice, or look around like they want any, but I guess these guys feel it is their obligation to help out these girls whom they assume are clearly in need of some help. It's pretty sad, especially when the guys are in general overtly ignored. God, I hope that I don't ever look like those clowns.
Carrie skips class so we can go for a ride, and I don't really know the area of course, but it looks like there is a lake about an hour away that might make a good ride, so we head out toward that. After getting through a couple outlaying towns of Birmingham, the roads are mostly clear and fun to ride on. It's a nice day, even though once or twice we get a few drops of rain that blow over from a cloud somewhere. The roads are tree-shaded and occasionally dip and curve, and after a while we finally get to the long and narrow lake, and cross it on a long concrete bridge. I am looking for some roads that go down to the water where we can find some beaches or stores or anything, but after the bridge the road just keeps going on past the lake. Eventually we just turn around and head for a sign that pointed towards a marina and restaurant. I turn onto the spotty paved road which soon turns to a spotty dirt road and goes down a steep hill to what turns out to be a quaint family owned restaurant and boat gas station. I am not sure if it is even open, and the dalmatian lying in the dirt doesn't seem to want to help us out, so we just walk in and there are a couple women and a little girl just sitting around waiting for someone to come in, it seems. We get some drinks and order some food and walk around the area while they are cooking it. The dalmatian is gone now but there is a black dog in its place. The little girl, who was shy at first, comes out and leads us around the restaurant, which is evidently a house as well, in search of the other dog. Instead we find a hideous looking spider the size of a hockey puck chilling in its web, with yellow stripes on its belly that scream to me, "Stay the hell away." Staying away works for me, and now our food is ready so we head inside and I eat a BLT. We have a chat with one of the women who works there, one of the family that owns it I presume, before heading out for one more look at the quiet lake that stretches by and the long dock that follows it down the shore for a ways. Back on the bike, we go up the hill and head back towards Birmingham on the same peaceful and gentle roads.
It's my last night in Birmingham, and fortunately for me come tomorrow morning, we don't do anything wild, just see a movie. 3:10 to Yuma is the choice, and seems like a good choice, as I enjoy Westerns and really like Christian Bale. I despise Rusell Crowe so much that I am not even aware if I can spell his name right, but he plays the bad buy so I can enjoy hating him. The movie turns out to be great, and surprisingly, I really end up liking Rusell Crowe's character, so even if he is a dirtbag in real life, or even if I have an unfounded dislike of him, I must admit he is a good actor.
When Carrie gets back, I am almost done cleaning up from my oil changing debacle, and we get ready to go bouldering with one of her friends. I guess there is a good area to climb at nearby. It turns out that the area is awesome. It's about fifteen minutes away by car and another five on foot. The rocks are enormous, and have every sort of climb, from caves to slabs to highballs and all sorts of good stuff. It has been over two weeks since I climbed, from back in Tucson at the gym I found, but I do all right, even despite the fact that my hands were worn out from trying to get my oil filter off earlier in the day.
It is Wednesday night at an Irish bar near the UAB campus. I am here listening to a band with Carrie and two of her friends. The band is fantastic. I don't know their name but they have these great funky bass lines with fast blues guitars on top. Eventually a full brass section comes in and the horns and sax really make it even better. Over at the pool table, I am watching the girls play pool having a beer, and I am thoroughly entertained to see guys constantly trying lame pick up methods an routines. Usually I am not out with three beautiful girls and it is very interesting to see things from a different point of view. A couple of guys keep coming over and try to talk to them by starting off with advice on shots and angles and what balls they should try and put in. The girls don't ask any advice, or look around like they want any, but I guess these guys feel it is their obligation to help out these girls whom they assume are clearly in need of some help. It's pretty sad, especially when the guys are in general overtly ignored. God, I hope that I don't ever look like those clowns.
Carrie skips class so we can go for a ride, and I don't really know the area of course, but it looks like there is a lake about an hour away that might make a good ride, so we head out toward that. After getting through a couple outlaying towns of Birmingham, the roads are mostly clear and fun to ride on. It's a nice day, even though once or twice we get a few drops of rain that blow over from a cloud somewhere. The roads are tree-shaded and occasionally dip and curve, and after a while we finally get to the long and narrow lake, and cross it on a long concrete bridge. I am looking for some roads that go down to the water where we can find some beaches or stores or anything, but after the bridge the road just keeps going on past the lake. Eventually we just turn around and head for a sign that pointed towards a marina and restaurant. I turn onto the spotty paved road which soon turns to a spotty dirt road and goes down a steep hill to what turns out to be a quaint family owned restaurant and boat gas station. I am not sure if it is even open, and the dalmatian lying in the dirt doesn't seem to want to help us out, so we just walk in and there are a couple women and a little girl just sitting around waiting for someone to come in, it seems. We get some drinks and order some food and walk around the area while they are cooking it. The dalmatian is gone now but there is a black dog in its place. The little girl, who was shy at first, comes out and leads us around the restaurant, which is evidently a house as well, in search of the other dog. Instead we find a hideous looking spider the size of a hockey puck chilling in its web, with yellow stripes on its belly that scream to me, "Stay the hell away." Staying away works for me, and now our food is ready so we head inside and I eat a BLT. We have a chat with one of the women who works there, one of the family that owns it I presume, before heading out for one more look at the quiet lake that stretches by and the long dock that follows it down the shore for a ways. Back on the bike, we go up the hill and head back towards Birmingham on the same peaceful and gentle roads.
It's my last night in Birmingham, and fortunately for me come tomorrow morning, we don't do anything wild, just see a movie. 3:10 to Yuma is the choice, and seems like a good choice, as I enjoy Westerns and really like Christian Bale. I despise Rusell Crowe so much that I am not even aware if I can spell his name right, but he plays the bad buy so I can enjoy hating him. The movie turns out to be great, and surprisingly, I really end up liking Rusell Crowe's character, so even if he is a dirtbag in real life, or even if I have an unfounded dislike of him, I must admit he is a good actor.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Why the Rain
It's just past noon when I leave New Orleans for Birmingham. I take I-10 out and go past the Superdome and over Lake Pontchartrain and into Mississippi where the clouds begin to look gray and ominous. I hope they look dark because of my sunglasses but that is not the case when I check. As I am coming up on one of the first exits in Mississippi, which has signs for a welcome center, I consider the weather, and whether or not I should stop and see if they have maps there or just continue on. I decide to continue on. As punishment for my choice, the skies open up just as I get beyond the exit and I am getting soaked with rain with no place to pull over. I am told that the first five minutes that rain falls on a road are the most dangerous, as the initial rain fall leeches the oils and whatnot out of the road, making it its most slippery before the oils and dilute and wash away. This is not a reassuring thought to have when you are caught on a freeway in a torrential rain at sixty miles per hour. I pull off into a rest stop, but there is no shelter, so I change into my rain suit as I am getting soaked out in the open. I pull over under some trees but that is not much help and after getting rained on for awhile I decide to just go and see what happens. Eventually the rain tapers off, and it looks as if the sun is going to come out again. I get of the interstate and stop to get some lunch at a Subway. I park my bike underneath the roof sheltering the gas pumps where I can see it from the window. The rain follows me, and it is really dumping as I eat my hot sub. A chicken bacon ranch sub, to be specific. Really good but not as good as dry sunny weather. I get directions from Carrie in Birmingham, and tell her I don't know how long this rain will keep me out. After the worst of it, when the rain is lighter, I decide to take off again. I feel that the first time I got caught in the rain I was able to ride ahead of the storm, which is when I stopped, and that the sooner I got back on the road, the sooner I would be able to ride ahead of it again. The road is bad at first, but at least interstates are in a straight line so there isn't much risk of sliding out on a curve. I am eventually able to get ahead of the storm and into the sunshine, and I am determined to stay there. I am considering taking I-65 all the way into Birmingham from Mobile, instead of taking the time to do it on smaller roads. After all, I am wet, miserable, and already behind on schedule thanks to the rain and a late start on the day. I get to Mobile, and just like when I left West Baton Rouge for New Orleans, I instinctively get on 43 going north, a much smaller road. I am beginning to dry off and I take off my rain suit and let the wind blow through my jeans and jacket to dry them out. 43 seems to go forever in a mostly straight line. There isn't anything to exciting about the road, but it is quiet, except for one accident scene that confuses me. There is a car in the middle of the road, and an old woman sitting in the driver seat looking very spaced out. Neighbors are slowing cars down and there are a few vehicles on the side of the road. At first it looks like she just broke down in the middle of the road but as I pass I see some debris from the front of her car. I can't figure out what happened and no one seems to be hurt and there are a lot of people there already so I just keep going, and soon pass an ambulance zooming by me on the way there, and then a police car. I get off 43 and onto 5, an even smaller road that is much more beautiful as evening is falling. There are more dips and curves on 5 and it is a nicer ride, but the sun is setting and I am ready to get to Birmingham and quit riding for the day. I finally get to I-459 which will bring me to I-65, and to Carrie's place, but when I get off I-65 I am driving down what looks like the middle of nowhere. I am still south of the city and I wonder if I am way off. A quick phone call sets me straight and confirms that she does in fact live in an apartment complex in the middle of nowhere, which I soon find and I am very grateful to arrive.
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