space coast to space needle

it is quite likely that this blog will disintigrate into a stream-of-conscious randomfest. a randompallooza, if you will. enjoy. and just remember, i am as lost as you.

observations from a quarter of a day spent in travel, in no preferential order, and completely nonsequitor:

3:00 am is too early to be up. memphis is extremely proud of their musical heritage. and their bbq. i live in the most southern state, but had to travel considerably north to tennessee to actually hear a southern accent.

ever notice how when you ask a guy for his id, he slaps his ass like he just suddenly realized that despite the fact that his wallet has been with him all day he isn't really sure if it is still in his pocket? like the words "can i see your driver's license?" make him think that it is possible that his wallet has vaporized right under his very bum? a guy will even have a brief look of relief cross his face when he feels it. i do it too. i take it one step further. i not only slap my back pocket, but suddenly and maniacally check for my keys, too. like, if my wallet can magically disappear, what's stopping my keys from doing the same?

in the town of orting, wa, pierce county, there is a bell tower, erected in the center of town in 1989 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of logging and the moving of coal down from the mountain (also known as orting's centennial), and under this bell tower is a time capsule to be opened in 2089, and in this time capsule is an orting centennial calendar, and the majority of the artwork depicting scenes from orting's 100 years, and the things that it is famous for (namely, logging, the shipping of carbon (later to be used as fuel), and daffodils) were drawn in pen and ink by yours truly.

oh how disappointed the future openers of said time capsule are gonna be on that day.

i stop at orting's liquor store to pick up the fixings for tom collinses, and not far in front of me parks a classic car. out pops an older gent, resplendant in pegged 501's, black boots, and slicked back pompador. "sweet ride daddy-o" i say, without the slightest hint of irony. "what is that, a '50, '51?" "'51." "niiiiiice." we shoot the shit about rat rods and early fifties caddies (my favorites) and later when i leave, it occurs to me that despite my apparent lack of sufficient hair for a duck's ass, and the skinny puppy t-shirt i was wearing, i still was pulling down a fair bit of street cred in my dorkboy glasses, dickies, and converse all-stars. the devil knows his own.

there should be an "annoying" section of the plane, where the people who want to be annoying can go be annoying together, and not bother the fucking people who fucking want to fucking sleep cause they had to fucking get up before fucking 3 am to fucking get to their flight to fucking make the fucking connecting flight so that they could fucking sit next to the fucking annoying fucking people who won't allow them to fucking sleep in the first fucking place.

the day was clear and bright, and as i looked out of my window i see mt st helens. at least i think it is mt st helens. well, it must be cause there to the south is mt hood. which would mean that mt rainier is somewhere off to my ri--and as i think this, the plane banks some and there it is: my mountain! there are mt rainier (in all of its pierce county country hick glory), mt st helens, and mt hood, all lined up in a straight row, beautiful. and i know it is near.

but it doesn't fully hit until i am outside in the indian summer breeze and i get the mountain-lake, fresh-fruit, evergreen, clear-stream smell that i always equate with home, but had somehow managed to quit smelling till i moved away.

fuck, it is nice to be back.

darth sardonic

gasfoodlodging

live, from j's computer, keller, tx.

compiled from notes written on a denny's napkin, needles, ca, 8:02 pm:

the first day on the road was gonna be a bust. we already knew. because my wife's final out appointment from the base wasn't until nine, after which we were meeting friends for one last lunch before set out, and then meeting her family in portland for dinner. we made it a few hours past portland before we were tired and needed gas and just decided to call it a night.

the next day, we made it to ashland, or, the last stop before we launched on what we figured would be our one possible bane of the trip, the siskiyous. we got to know ashland incredibly well. too well. like five fucking hours circling around and around waiting for the pass to open up well.

then we were forced to chain up to continue, so it was 20 miles an hour whilst the car sounded as if it was going to part out, and stopping constantly to make sure the chains weren't destroying our fenders with the unnerving buzzsaw grinding of the semi trucks driving quickly by, the noise of the chains eating a whole into the panic centers of my brain. i have a mental image of me fighting to tighten the chains on my tires when one of the links breaks on a passing truck and blood and carnage ensue...

once we leave the chains-on area, we quickly pull over, yank the chains off, chuck them disorganized into the back, and beat feet out of there, hellbent for leather.

but for some reason, our headlights aren't very bright. again, panic is eating at the joint of my skull and vertabrae as i realize i can't even be sure of which lane i am in.

"maybe the lights are really dirty..." my wife suggests helpfully.

i exit. indeed. dirty. fucking filthy, more like. a wipe with some napkins and the entire world is again brightly illuminated, and the bile taste in the back of my throat fades, and we drive like jehu south.

we arrive in sacramento at the ungodly hour of 2 am.

then into the desert. bakersfield, then across the mojave like lost pagans with the very devil biting our tails.

as night falls, las vegas, a fair hundred miles away and not visible below the horizon, casts its bright lights against the thin layer of clouds.

the siskiyous were not done with us yet. like the ghost of a recently-passed nemesis, they raised one last ugly hand from the grave to plague us one more time.

day dawns sunny and early, motel 6, needles, ca.

our tire is flat.

after getting it off, we discover half a chainlink embedded in the rubber, a full inch deep. a quick repair at the local 76, and we are off again.

the remainder of our trip to date can be described in a handful of words: long. hot. dull. dry. empty.

"i spy, with my little eye, somethiiiiiiing...brown!"

which more or less described the entire panoramic view.

more soon as we leave texas and venture into the deep south.

darth sardonic