The Great American Road Trip
Eastbound route appears in blueReturn route appears in red
I didn't have the presence of mind to take any pictures for the first few days...
First day in Nevada
Monday, July 7thFirst day in Nevada
We headed out of San Francisco around 10 AM, crossed the bay bridge and took I-80 east just like we were going to Burning Man. A few hours and 213 miles later we passed out of California and stopped in Reno, Nevada. We gassed up in Reno and reset the trip computer in the VW.
Daisy took over driving and we continued east, but instead of going north at Wadsworth, as one would do if they were going to Burning Man, we continued east toward Salt Lake City. After about 75 miles Daisy noticed that the gas gauge was reading half full. This was considerable cause for concern as we didn't want to run out of gas in the Nevada desert while the thermometer was showing over 100 degrees. Meanwhile, the trip computer was showing that we were averaging about 25 miles per gallon. It was possible that we were leaking gas so we decided to stop for gas at the next opportunity, which was Lovelock, about 15 miles further up the road. When we gassed up, the tank only took about three and a half gallons, which was consistent with the mileage that our trip computer was showing, but hardly consistent with what the gas gauge had been showing. We decided that the gas gauge could not be trusted -- at least not while the outside temperature was hovering above 100 degrees. Sure enough, the gauge was down to a half tank when we pulled into Winnemucca about 75 miles later.
We had chosen to stay in Winnemucca because it was midway between San Francisco and Salt LakeCity -- our first real destination. Winnemucca is right on I-80 so you can't miss it -- but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. It's a grim, dusty little town with a handful of pathetic little casinos, and a bunch of 2 star motels. We checked into one of the Best Western motels. The other Best Western motel let us use their internet terminal so we went to Priceline and booked a room for the following night at the Sheraton in Salt Lake City. After that we went to the Red Lion for an appalling meal and then called it a night.
Distance: 377 miles
Salt Lake City
Tuesday, July 8thSalt Lake City
When we headed out of Winnemucca around 11 AM the temperature was still in the 80s and our gas gauge, which had come to its senses -- was indicating that we still had over three quarters of a tank. We passed through Elko an hour or two later. From the highway Elko looks much nicer and greener. Next time I'll go the extra miles and stop in Elko, A couple hours later we passed out of Nevada and into the salt flats that lasted about an hour and a half. The salt flats are surreal. Perhaps on a different day I might have enjoyed the experience, but on this day it struck me as the most desolate place I had ever been. It's as though you've passed into the back lot of creation, where the landscape and scenery have never been installed. It's just the same monotonous, flat, hazy expanse passing by like a Hanna Barbera meets Salvador Dali cartoon.
Eventually (but not soon enough) the scenery began to change. Mountains began to come into view through the haze, and more importantly, NPR began to break through the static on the FM dial. We had been relying on recent "Fresh Air" programs that I had downloaded from Audible.com onto my iPod before leaving San Francisco. But our Fresh Air Supply had been exhausted long before, and we had been listening to the unabridged "War And Peace" that I had also downloaded from Audible.com, and which incidentally consumes 62 hours and almost a gigabyte of space on the iPod.
We rolled into Salt Lake City around 5 PM, mountain time. We hadn't gassed up since Lovelock and our trip computer was politely informing us that we only had about 25 miles worth of gas left. After going the wrong way when we got to our exit on I-15, and then finding our way back to I-15 one entrance past our intended exit, Daisy called the Sheraton and had them guide us in.
We found a gas station across the street from the Sheraton and gassed up with less than 15 miles showing on the trip computer. Upon checking in we were informed that there was a convention of cheerleaders staying in our wing, so they couldn't guarantee that we would have peace and quiet. I inquired whether these were professional cheerleaders (for the Utah Jazz perhaps) but alas they were highschool cheerleaders.
As we were unloading the car a bunch of the cheerleaders were practicing in the parking lot and they asked us for our opinion on whether they were loud enough. Having never attended a pep rally in my life (one of only a few educational achievements that I am actually proud of) I told them that I had never heard better, but Daisy told them they needed to be louder. After glaring at Daisy for the requisite interval we finished unloading the car. Once we had everything moved into our room we freshened up, made a few phone calls, and then headed into town.
I figured that my Morman uncle would want to take us to see the Mormon temple in the center of town so I decided to do the American thing and take preemptive action. We found parking at the Mervyn's across the street from Temple Square and wandered in to have a look around. Almost immediately we were approached by one of the tour guides, who wanted to know if we'd be interested in going on one of the free tours that started at ten minute intervals. After being assured that the tour only takes about half an hour I said that we would be delighted to go on a tour. Before long however, I fear that they were not delighted to have me along on the tour. Oh well -- the lord works in mysterious ways.
After going on the tour we listened to the calm, reassuring, tape recorded voice of Jesus telling us about how we too can enter the kingdom of heaven simply by accepting him, and only him as our saviour. We filled out the survey cards, declined to provide our email or street address, and then departed.
After returning from dinner the chearleading had ceased, only to be replaced by the sort of shouting and squealing that one would expect from a slumber party of wholesome Mormon cheerleaders. Fortunately this too abated before long, as it was getting a little late for wholesome, corn-fed Mormon cheerleaders to be awake -- and we all called it a night.
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Logan, Utah
Wednesday, July 9thLogan, Utah
I called my uncle to get directions to his home about an hour north in Logan, and he told me to take I-15 to highway 98, and then to take that till we got into Logan. After the previous day's debacle getting lost coming into town we decided this would be a good time to fire up the GPS that Daisy brought along to use in conjunction with her laptop. The first thing we noticed on the map was that there was no highway 98. However, there was a highway 89 that went straight up to Logan so we assumed that this was the right way to go. It wasn't. It got us there eventually -- after a couple hours of stoplights Logan came into view on the GPS, and it became apparent then that we should have taken I-15 to highway 91.
Once we got to Logan we told my uncle and aunt about our trip to Temple Square the night before. Since we were obviously enthusiastic about all things Mormon they took us around to see the temple and the church in Logan. This time we were not required to listen to Jesus or fill out survey cards so things moved along a little faster.
I should mention that they have a lovely house right next to a stream, on the outskirts of town. Like the day before in Salt Lake City, the temperature was in the mid 90s, but it was a dry heat. After the tour of the town they took us up to see the university and then we went to supper.
That evening after the ladies had gone to bed my uncle and I had our usual philosophical exchanges about religion and politics. As usual we eventually agreed to disagree on a few salient points in the end. Small things really, like Iraq, Vietnam, and eternal damnation. Overall it was an enjoyable exchange, and I think we both appreciate the opportunity to talk about such incendiary topics. For some strange reason, people outside my family seem to have difficulty exchanging opposing ideas about religion and politics without exchanging blows, but we eat it up.
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Montana
Friday, July 11thMontana
Upon returning from coffee my uncle had a hearty, sleep-inducing breakfast waiting for us. After eating we packed up, loaded the car, and bid my aunt and uncle farewell. Getting out of town was a simple matter of getting on 200 North and going west about 20 miles through some beautiful wetlands to I-15. From there we headed north. As we rose in elevation and latitude the geography became greener. We passed once again into Idaho and proceeded on to Idaho Falls, where we got onto highway 20 and headed northeast toward the corner of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. As we approached Yellowstone we could see the Grand Tetons to our right. Ordinarily I'm a leg man but I had to get a picture:
I was now in familiar territory, having passed this way twelve years ago heading from Yellowstone to Idaho, and on to Boise. The scenery becomes progressively more beautiful even as the radio stations grow progressively more faint. I fired up the iPod again and we listened to a few more chapters of "War And Peace". I find Russian novels difficult because it's hard to keep track of the names (unless the cast of characters and scope of the story is limited to a tidy little gulag). I'm not good with names in any case, and I'm worse when most of the names are unfamiliar to me. As difficult as it is keeping track of the names on the printed page, it's a lot harder keeping track of them with an audio book. To make matters worse, the iPod wasn't really optimized for sound files that are seven or eight hours long (the novel is broken up into eight parts, two per book), and it's risky to try to rewind. Hence, I'm not sure how well I'm keeping track of the story so far. The main character seems to be a fellow named Pierre, but I could be mistaken: maybe it's just because I've heard that name before so it's easier to remember.
But I digress. About the time Pierre and his friends get in trouble with the authorities for tying a policeman to a bear and throwing them in the river, the iPod batteries went out and I was forced to focus on other activities. Fortunately, I was able to keep myself amused by passing every vehicle that had the temerity to occupy the road ahead of me. Daisy however was not amused, so when we got to highway 191 at Yellowstone we stopped for a sandwich, and she expressed her desire to take over the driving duties as we headed north into Montana. It wasn't long however before she too was passing cars and trucks alike.
We rolled into Bozeman an hour or two later and got onto I-90. As beautiful as Montana is, I was getting an uneasy feeling that we weren't in the most politically progressive place in the world. I was pleased therefore, when I saw a bumper sticker that said "We are making enemies faster than we can kill them". I wish I had thought of that one. Anyway, amidst all the christian and country radio stations I was pleased to find a few rock stations. Very white rock stations, mind you, but rock stations nonetheless. Not much in the way of R&B or Hip Hop, oddly enough though.
Another thing that had been conspicuously absent since leaving Logan was Sprint PCS coverage. In Bozeman we briefly had the option of roaming, but other than that it was out of the question to try to send any email from my sprintpcs.com address. As it turned out, we would not have coverage again till we reached Fargo. Ya, you betcha.
We saw some curious things along the way.
Between the lack of coverage and the lack of my iPod, it was fortunate that the scenery was so beautiful -- and the Big Sky State IS beautiful,
...at least until you get near Billings where I had had the poor foresight to reserve a room at the Historic Northern Hotel. I didn't take any pictures because it wasn't a very pretty town even though it still has much of the wild west flavor to it. There's a big rail yard and lots of saloons. I was surprised to discover that almost every establishment also had gambling. Like most towns with lots of gambling, it also has lots of pawnshops. I was tempted to go into a saloon and order a shot of redeye but then I saw a microbrewery so we went there instead.
I had brought along my guitar and hard-disk recording system so that I could keep up my chops and maybe practice a few new songs after Daisy flies back, but I had thus far been unsuccessful in getting it to work. I was using new software that Erik and I had invested in, and I just hadn't delved into the manual enough. In the middle of the night I awoke from a dream where I had called Erik up in desperation to ask him how to configure the hardware with the new software. Something had to be done obviously, and I knew from past experience that if I wake in the middle of the night after an evening of drinking -- I'm not going back to sleep for a few hours. So, I got out of bed and connected all the hardware, and then cracked the 900-page manual. Either by luck or divine intervention I opened to the page that told me how to monitor my inputs and a couple minutes later I was jamming away (with headphones on, of course) with The Black Crows. After a few more hours alternating between reading, jamming, and recording, I was once again feeling weary, and soon I was able to get back to sleep.
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On to North Dakota
Saturday, July 12thOn to North Dakota
We gassed up and headed east out of Billings on 90, and then caught I-94 about 7 miles out of town. For the next two and a half days our itinerary would be a simple matter of staying on I-94. About an hour out of town we passed a turnout to Custer. The nearest point of interest to Billings is Little Bighorn where General Custer uttered his famous last words: "Look at all those fucking indians".
I'd been meaning to get a haircut and this seemed like a logical place, but we had a long drive ahead of us so I decided against it. Lunchtime was approaching, and I considered pulling off the highway at Custer's Last Hamburger Stand, but instead we just munched on some food that we had brought with us.
I continued to marvel at the landscape, but there seemed to be something strangely familiar about it. Eventually I realized that I had been over this countryside countless time playing ATV Offroad Fury II. I had to admit though this experience was even more immersive, and the resolution was even better.
We pulled into a rest stop to get some pictures of the Offroad Fury terrain And daisy noticed some silly sign about rattlesnakes.
I wasn't worried about rattlesnake bites because I had one-inch thick soles on my flip-flops, so after Daisy got a picture of me to prove I'd been there,
I decided to venture up over the hill for some better scenery.
Another phenomenon that we couldn't help but notice once we got out of Billings was the bugs. I had heard about the legendary Minnesota mosquitoes but the front of our car had been collecting bugs by the thousands long before we hit North Dakota.
I've usually approached windshield cleaning with a meticulousness and zeal befitting a skilled trade, rather than the minimum wage job that it was actually associated with. By the time we had gotten to North Dakota though, I would clean the windshield at a gas station next to an on-ramp and we would pick up a bug before we had merged onto the freeway. This was something that we were just going to have to get used to. After all, the bugs seemed to have gotten used to it. This phenomenon was to continue until we were heading south out of Wisconsin. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's easy to get ahead of yourself in country where the posted speed limit is 75. I had the cruise control set at a eighty, which I regarded as a prudent excess in the highly unlikely event that we were clocked by one of Montana's eight state troopers. The further we got from Billings, the fewer cars that I saw on the highway. I-95 is two lanes in each direction but there were plenty of times when I couldn't see another car on my side of the highway -- ahead or in the rear-view mirror. If I had wanted to test out my car's top speed this would have been the place to do it, but my tires are only rated at 130 m.p.h. and besides, I'm hoping to make this whole trip without getting any tickets. Unlike a certain entrepreneur that I know, I'm trying not to amass an impressive portfolio of divestments.
Having said that, if you are the sort of person who likes to explore the governed speed limit on your Z06 or C32 (and you know who you are), this is the place to do it. On a stretch of highway as sparsely populated as this, it's interesting to note that I saw two Vipers on the same day.
After a while we passed through a town and I noticed lots of mobile homes. That could only mean one thing: Tornado Country*. Then as we got closer to North Dakota the terrain began to change. Fifty miles before the North Dakota border it was obvious that we were approaching The Badlands.
A mile after we passed into North Dakota we decided to pull into the teeming metropolis of Beach to gas up.
The only gas station we saw at the base of the off ramp was some off-brand that we didn't recognize, so we decided to drive the short distance into town. It was only about a mile to the south and about seventy-five years into the past. This town wasn't sleepy; this town was comatose. After driving up and down the main drag at the posted speed limit of 25 m.p.h. and back and forth we decided that our choice was off-brand gas or no gas.
The further we traveled east the more the terrain looked like we were entering the Badlands. Daisy had the GPS going so we wouldn't miss our turnoff to drive along the Little Missouri River -- said to be the best stretch of scenery in the Badlands. Just after we saw the turnout Daisy's GPS crashed and took down her laptop with it. Once we had taken the turnoff we saw a line of cars to the left entering Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but the map that I had looked at previously had indicated that we wanted to go right so I proceeded along the road. Before long we discovered that we were inexorably being routed back onto I-94. Shortly thereafter Daisy got her GPS rebooted, and it indicated just after the nick of time that we had somehow missed our exit to the most scenic section of the Badlands. By the time we reached another turnout we had gone a considerable distance so we decided not to go back. We just took some pictures at the scenic turnout...
...and proceeded on to Bismarck, North Dakota.
North Dakota is some very scenic country (at least the eastern half -- I missed the western half, but more on that later). It's a constant evolution from Bozeman, Montana to Bismarck, North Dakota, but with the exception of Billings it's all quite beautiful. If we had proceeded directly east from Logan to Chicago we could have saved 500 miles but once we had passed Wyoming it wouldn't have been worth it. I've never actually been to Nebraska, but from what I've heard I'm convinced that we did the right thing by taking the northern route.
About 100 miles from Bismarck, I picked up an NPR affiliate that was playing "A Prairie Home Companion". It didn't look like we're on a prairie but I knew We were in that neck of the woods. We couldn't be more than a couple hundred miles from Millet and Lake Woebegone. I've always liked the program (except for that gospel crap) but now I really felt like I was part of it.
We rolled into Bismarck around 6:30 and set our clocks ahead for the second time. After checking into the Radisson and unpacking the car we headed back across I-94 for what I figured a big night out in Bismarck would be: We went to Red Lobster. I had noticed at the hotel that we were in "you betcha" territory and our experience at Red Lobster was similar. In retrospect I suppose we could have gone to a smorgasbord for the full "Fargo" experience. Anyway, dinner was not bad and they had Sam Adams. No Sierra unfortunately, but I was just thankful that they had more than Pabst Blue Ribbon.
It was still light outside when we left the restaurant shortly before 10. I was surprised at how long the sun stays up at this latitude, but then again, I'd never been this far north before -- at least not in America, and not in the summer.
I was looking forward to getting back to the hotel to start writing this journal, as I had been receiving emails requesting a travelogue. As we walked back to the car however I noticed that our left rear tire was flat. My right arm has been giving me trouble for several weeks now and lately I have taken to wearing an arm brace. The last thing I needed was to have to change a tire. As soon as I pulled the wheel off Daisy noticed that there was a nail stuck in the tire so it wasn't hard to figure out why we had a flat tire. I had the tire changed in about fifteen minutes, and after cleaning up a little we drove back to the hotel with one of those stylish donut spare tires that you're supposed to drive no farther than fifty miles and no faster than fifty miles per hour.
It turns out that Bismarck is the wrong place to get a tire repaired on a Saturday night. We called AAA but they were no help. They recommended a few places that might be open at noon on Sunday, but we wanted to be on the road at 9. It was about a quarter past 10 when I asked at the hotel desk for suggestions. They confirmed that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time for an automotive emergency. I pressed the issue and asked if there was a parts store open at this hour. "No", they said, but I might be able to get a repair kit at Wal-Mart, they're open 24 hours -- except Saturday night, when they close at midnight and don't open till noon.
So with the clock ticking, Daisy and I piled back into the VW and drove (cautiously) to Wal-Mart. We got there around 10:30 and they did have a patch kit. They also had a pair of pliers for removing the nail, and a pair of dikes for cutting the plug after inserting it into the tire. I've never done this before and I've only seen it done once, but it turns out that it's such an incredibly simple process that we had the hole plugged in about ten minutes. Not before my elbow was thoroughly thrashed of course, but it had been thrashed for weeks anyway.
Once the hole was plugged it was a fairly simple process of finding a place where we could fill it. We only had to stop at two gas stations before finding an air pump that worked, and it's interesting to note that air is still free in Bismarck. By 11:30 we were back at the hotel with the wheel back in place; Too late to work on the travelogue but not too late to take a shower and read a few pages of my book before passing out.
*and Western
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Minneapolis
Sunday, July 13thMinneapolis
On this day I discovered a way to make the miles fly by. I had been doing most of the driving so far on the trip but on this day I prevailed on Daisy to drive while I typed in my travelogue. After a while Daisy stopped in Fargo and I was amazed to discover that we had already traveled 200 miles. After gassing up and getting lunch, we got back on the road and in what seemed like an instant we had traveled another 150 miles. At 4 PM we only had about 85 miles to go. Unfortunately, I had failed to see much of the landscape for the previous 350 miles but on those rare occasions when I did look up I seem to recall it was green with gently rolling hills. And lots of lakes. At least after we entered Minnesota. There must be 10,000 lakes there!
This was the first day that temperatures hadn't risen above 90 degrees. In fact, the warmest we saw was 86 degrees. I'm not sure if that's because of all the lakes or if the whole Midwest was cooling down, but even as the weather had cooled a bit, the humidity had increased a lot.
About 40 miles out of Minneapolis, we ran into traffic for the first time since Salt Lake City. It was 5 PM on a Sunday, and I'm not sure why there was traffic at that hour. Maybe it's people coming home from church or something. The traffic wasn't that bad -- it occasionally slowed to about 30 m.p.h. and then sped up again.
Minneapolis has a beautiful skyline, and it's obvious that a lot of thought has gone into designing the downtown area.
We pulled up to the Marriott, and a bellhop helped me with the bags while Daisy parked the car. After checking in I called Daisy on her cell to tell her our room number. By the time she found her way back from the garage the bellhop had arrived with the bags. It turns out that the Marriott is laid out in an incredibly confusing manner. You have to go in at the ground floor, go up to the fifth floor, walk around the lobby to the other side of the triangular tower, and catch another elevator up to our room. When I took an architecture class in high school I made the mistake of designing a triangular building and my instructor chastised me for using a shape that makes such inefficient use of space. If you've ever tried to place furniture in the corner of a triangle, you will be acutely aware of the space inefficiencies in a 60-degree corner.
As we were wending our way back out of the hotel I performed an informal survey of some of the people that we rode with on the various elevators. The results were unanimous: the architect should have been shot.
We went for a walk down to the Mississippi River to take in the scenery. At the river, we wandered down past the mill ruins, and these were no run-of-the-mill ruins!
Then I went over and watched the lock system in operation. Daisy followed in lock step.
The Mississippi River has a series of waterfalls, and the Army Corps of Engineers constructed an extensive lock system to allow ships to travel up and down the river. In addition, the old limestone waterfalls have been completely replaced with a massive concrete spillway so that the city wouldn't lose its hydraulic power.
It was hot and muggy, even at 7 PM, and although we considered crossing one of the bridges and having dinner at a restaurant on the other side, we chose instead to hurry back to our room so that we could catch "The Wire" on HBO. We ate in and the room service prepared a surprisingly good meal -- especially for room service.
The Marriott had broadband internet access available so we took the opportunity to book our hotel for the following night in Chicago. For some reason, Priceline couldn't find a three or four-star hotel for us with our usual discount of 40% so we eventually had to resort to using Orbitz, and we had to settle for a four-star hotel fourteen miles north of Chicago, in Evanston.
Based on that sobering experience we took preemptive action (in typical American style) and booked our rooms for the French Quarter in New Orleans, and Orlando, while Priceline could still find rooms that met our criteria.
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Minneapolis to Chicago
Monday, July 14thMinneapolis to Chicago
I went to sleep around 12:30 and woke four hours later. After trying for half an hour to get back to sleep I eventually accepted my fate and got up. I availed myself of the internet once again and then headed out a little before 6 to find the nearest Starbucks. When I stepped out of the air-conditioned hotel I was surprised at how warm and muggy it was for so early in the morning. I haven't had this experience since the last time I visited Hawaii. I was clearly the first customer at Starbucks -- they had just opened when I got there. I wandered back to the hotel, showered, and kept myself occupied reading the paper and surfing the web till about 8, when I decided it was time to turn on the lights and wake up Daisy. She sent me back out to Starbucks while she took a shower, and then we started packing up. Before checking out I had to run to the corner to get a picture of the statue of Mary Tyler Moore throwing her beret in the air. What a proud legacy.
There had been storm warnings on the local TV station the night before, and by the time we left town at 10, rain appeared to be imminent. There is no shortage of public radio stations in this part of the country, which is not surprising since Minneapolis is NPR Mecca. However, most of the stations featured spectacularly boring panelists discussing amazingly uninteresting subjects about local ordinances and various down-home issues. Now I understand the public radio parodies that I used to see on Saturday Night Live. For my money, KQED and KALW have it all over the Midwest public radio stations, and they don't intersperse it with jazz or classical music shows.
With the exception of Billings, we had seen nothing but green landscape since we had left Utah. Having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area I'm continually amazed by the vast expanses of greenery in the middle of July. This isn't the way it works out west, at least not south of the Oregon border -- and not even in eastern Oregon, which is one of the most isolated deserts in North America.
Once we got through Wisconsin and into Illinois we immediately became acquainted with the state's delightful system of toll roads, where for just forty cents you can drive at speeds of up to twenty-five miles per hour while all but one lane is closed for construction. Due to these unexpected and repeated delays we didn't hit Chicago until 5 PM, a bad time to hit town in any big city, but especially bad in a city as big as Chicago.
Now, I've got a lot of friends from Chicago and some of them are really aggressive drivers, if not downright dangerous (and you know who I'm talking about, Jim), but I hadn't realized until now that while California schools had been teaching defensive driving, Chicago schools had been teaching offensive driving (or nothing at all about driving). It's like everybody thinks they're driving a BMW or a Honda!
Anyway, we survived the Chicago traffic and made it to the town of Evanston. Once you get near the campus it's a delightful neighborhood. I would have thought I was in downtown Palo Alto if the thermometer had not been reading 89 degrees outside (about ten points lower than the humidity, I might add); there was a Peet's Coffee, a Whole Foods, and various overpriced boutiques to keep the ladies occupied.
When we got to the Omni Hotel, two blocks from Northwestern University, we found out why it had been so hard to find a room at the last minute: the All-star Game was being played in Chicago. It's an outrage when you can't book a room at the last minute in a big city. What is this, Bethlehem?! Oh well, once Al Qaeda makes it's next big play I'm sure vacancy rates will come back up to an acceptable level...
Anyway, Daisy's friend, Curt heralds from the Chicago area and he had taken the liberty of booking a dinner reservation for us at a place called Gene and Georgetti where various celebrity crime bosses are reputed to hang out. I had been meaning to put out a contract on our president, so this seemed like a good opportunity to network.
It was about a four-block walk to the Chicago Transit Authority, and then about a half-hour ride downtown. The Chicago Transit Authority is a vastly more convenient and efficient mass transit system than our BART system. It seems to go everywhere, it only costs $1.50 to get anywhere. and the trains run a lot more frequently than BART. On the downside, they're noisy as hell. If you remember the apartment that Elwood Blues had in "The Blues Brothers", you'll know what I'm talking about. Anyway, if the noise bothers you, you can always bring an iPod.
Downtown Chicago is an awesome place and we both would have liked to have stayed for days if it hadn't been for the oppressive humidity and the fact that I had to get Daisy to Miami on time. I would love to do Chicago when the weather is not too hot and not too cold, but unfortunately there's not that much that you can do in thirty-six hours.
But seriously, I'll definitely be back to Chicago. I had visited family in Chicago once when I was thirteen and I didn't have that much fun, but that could have had something to do with the fact that I broke my arm. That and the fact that the Illinois wing of my family is about as hip as that family in American Gothic.
But I digress. Once we got into town and got off the red line at Lake, we found our way to Gene and Georgetti. They didn't have Sierra Nevada, but they had Beck's dark so my initial impression was favorable. After about ten minutes we were escorted upstairs to our seats, and within minutes we had ordered a T-bone steak and angel hair pasta with tomato sauce and basil. When our salads arrived I told Daisy to remind me in the future (until I get back to The Bay Area) to ask for my dressing on the side -- in a casserole dish or some other vessel of sufficient volume to accommodate what seems to be regarded as a typical portion in this part of the country.
Once our entrees arrived I gained some insight into why so many of my Illinois friends hold Bucca Di Beppo in such high esteem. Life is cheap in Chicago, at least where cows are concerned -- and arteries. The steak was huge. Similarly, there was enough pasta to feed a horse, if you could find one that had not itself been eaten.
Since we had not been getting a lot of exercise on the road I wasn't that hungry, and I was only able to eat a couple pounds of my steak. I had asked for it medium-rare so I was a little annoyed when it appeared to be well done. However, it was aged (which is a nice way of saying it was in the early stages of decay.) and it proved to be tender. Once I had made my way a few inches toward the center of the steak I got to the medium section, and eventually I reached the medium-rare section. I'm sure if my stamina had held up I would have gotten to the rare section eventually. These steaks have something for everybody! Daisy helped me eat a few bites of my steak and I in turn helped with her pasta.
After the remainder of our dishes had been wheeled away the busboy asked if we wanted any coffee. I asked if they had espresso and he explained that they did not. We weren't in the mood for Folger's Coffee Crystals so we paid the tab and waddled back out into the night.
We went in search of Buddy Guy's Blues nightclub but apparently we were looking for 754 N. Wabash when we should have been looking for 754 S. Wabash, By the time I realized my error we were fourteen blocks away from our intended destination and the weight of the meal was beginning to weigh us down, so we caught the CTA back to our hotel and called it a night.
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Indiana & Louisville
Tuesday, July 15thIndiana & Louisville
Before checking out we wandered over to Peet's Coffee to get a civilized cup of coffee, and we picked up a pound to leave with my old Navy buddy, who we were going to be staying with next in New Pekin, Indiana. His name is Dan, or as we say in New Pekin, "Dayan". We made typically slow progress getting through Chicago, but once we got out of Illinois and their delightful system of toll roads, we made good time. I noticed that now that our windshield was periodically colliding with a different type of bug that would bounce off the windshield rather than making a big mess on the windshield. This was obviously happening too fast to get a good look at what type of bug it was, or if it was a bug at all rather than a pebble of tar being kicked up by another vehicle, but they always appeared to be descending when the collision occurred so I was proceeding on the assumption that it was some sort of scarab or similarly hard-shelled insect.
Just before we got to Indiana I saw this truck getting towed. I don't know why it caught my attention but it did.
On Dan's recommendation I took the 265 bypass around Indianapolis to avoid roadwork but I was not able to avoid the rain because sure as god made the little green apples, it does rain in Indianapolis in the summertime. As soon as I turned on the windshield wipers, my windshield was smeared with a bunch of black streaks that appeared to be tar. At this point I was unable to decide whether the aforementioned bugs had in fact been pebbles of tar, if they had been bugs that left a tar-like residue, or if the two phenomena were unrelated. Anyway, in the course of the next fifty miles of drizzle interspersed by heavy cloudbursts -- the windshield-wipers very slowly rid the windshield of the mess, and the windshield was once again clear by the time I rendezvoused with Dan in Salem, Indiana.
Salem is a substantially larger town than New Pekin and even has a couple of traffic lights. It also has Amish residents -- although we didn't see any as we cruised through town. What Salem doesn't have is cell phone coverage, so I had to call from a pay phone to set up the rendezvous. Dan told me to go about 8 miles and to meet him at the liquor store where the highway meets with state highway 335. In the heart of New Pekin I saw a liquor store but no highway 335 so I kept going. When it appeared that I was leaving New Pekin I decided to turn around and return to the liquor store to see if I had overlooked the intersection. When I got back I confirmed that there was no highway 335 so I decided to go inside and ask.
It was not a typical liquor store as it had no windows that you could see in, and when I entered I realized it was more of a bar than a liquor store. I was wearing my best wife-beater undershirt and I immediately realized that I was over-dressed for such an establishment. I asked a guy that was sitting at a table if he could tell me whether I had missed highway 335, but it was difficult to make out his answer through the few teeth that he still had remaining. I then asked the guy behind the bar, and he explained that I had to continue out of town and I would find the highway right at the liquor store. Even though New Pekin didn't have any traffic lights, it did have more than one liquor store.
Sure enough, once I continued to the outskirts of town I saw Dan's Ford F-150 parked at the liquor store. We exchanged pleasantries (he threw a pack of cigarettes at me) and then I followed him up some back roads, over hill and dale (where I almost ran over Chip 'n Dale), and eventually arrived at his home.
He and his wife own a house situated on a hill overlooking a pastoral scene of rolling hills, grazing livestock, and mobile-home pads that have had their trailers removed by tornadoes. Dan's wife, Lona related a story about the time she came home from high school on a day when they had had tornado warnings, only to discover that her home was no longer there. For whatever reason, their current home had managed to escape fairly unscathed through 115 years of varying incarnations. The original structure was that old, and had consisted of only three or four rooms. Over the years the house had been added on to, eventually extending all the way out to the bathrooms. I would estimate the square footage of the primary structure at around sixteen hundred square feet, and there were several additional garage-sized structures situated about the property, which Dan estimated at about three acres. The estate also included a propane tank, a septic tank, a cistern and a well, although they now were getting their water piped in. Among its more modern amenities, the place had air conditioning and DirectTV. He also had one of those lawn mowers that you can ride, which helped keep the task of mowing the lawn down to a manageable three hours. I'm not sure how frequently he executed that task but he had apparently done it recently because the grounds looked like a golf course. Except for the oppressive, swamp-like humidity, the place was truly beautiful.
I would estimate that a similar patch of land would fetch several million in Los Altos Hills.
Beginning with the evening that we arrived, we drove into Louisville each day for our dining and entertainment needs. The first night we went to Joe's Crab-shack, where I was tempted to buy one of their charming "Got Crabs?" T-shirts, but thought better of it. The fish was good, the beer was good enough (Sam Adams), and the entertainment was watching an electrical storm from our perch overlooking the Ohio River.
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Wednesday & Thursday, July 16th & 17th
Indiana & Louisville
In this part of the country at this time of year, you pretty much want to confine your activities to air-conditioned spaces, and my arm injury precluded us from bowling or billiards. There are of course other reasons that would have precluded us from bowling, such as my distain for the sport -- which may or may not be related to my abysmal skills, but for the sake of moving the story along we will attribute it to my injury. Instead, we chose to go to the movies. On the first day we saw my choice, "Finding Nemo", which I enjoyed, although not as much as I had expected. On the second day we saw Dan's choice, "Pirates Of The Caribbean", which I enjoyed more than I had expected. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't have difficulty with the willful suspension of disbelief.
In addition, I gave Dan the boxed set of the first season of The Sopranos, which he had never seen. We watched the first disc with him -- to be sure the hook was in before we left.
Birmingham
Friday, July 18thBirmingham
By the end of our third day in New Pekin we had racked up over 200 miles, mostly from our repeated trips into Louisville. We got an early start the next morning when we bid farewell to Dan and Lona. I awoke around 6:30, Indiana time and started loading up the car as soon as I got out of the shower. We were on the road by 8:30 and reached Louisville around thirty minutes and one time-zone later. It was smooth sailing all the way to Birmingham, which seemed like a good thing until we saw Birmingham. I had always wondered why Lynrd Skynrd made a point of mentioning the fact that in Birmingham they loved the governor (George Wallace, at the time) until I arrived -- at which time I started to wonder why they mentioned Birmingham at all.
Now, I believe that your experience of anything has a lot to do with what you bring to it, and maybe I wasn't in a good mood when I pulled into that smoggy, muggy, grimy-gray collection of unattractive buildings that is Birmingham -- but I didn't much care for the place. If Montana is The Big Sky State, then surely Birmingham must be The Big Sty City. Maybe I was tired from getting up at 6:30 and driving 400 miles, but once we were checked in at the Sheraton (around 3 PM) I had no inclination to explore any further than the bar & grill downstairs.
Later that night when the bar & grill had worn off, Daisy prevailed on me to go out and see a little bit of the town, so we asked for recommendations at the front desk -- and they pointed us across town to "The Southside", also known as "The Five Points".
Had I been with a bunch of good ol' boys it might have been amusing to go down there and hang out and drink beer, but since Daisy doesn't drink much, and since I had already been to the Bar & Grill at the Sheraton, it didn't have much to offer either of us. In the end we shared a turkey sandwich from Subway and scooted back to our room to call it a night.
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New Orleans
Saturday, July 19thNew Orleans
With all the praise-Jesus stations clogging up the radio dial in the South something has to give, and it obviously isn't gonna be Clearchannel. No, it's public radio. I guess I shouldn't be surprised really. Anyway, it was extremely fortuitous that I had had the foresight in Birmingham to log onto Audible.com and download all the new episodes of "Fresh Air". It was tedious downloading them with a dialup connection but it would have been a lot more tedious driving through the deep south with nothing to listen to but Clearchannel, praise-Jesus, and sixty hours of "War And Peace". Anyway, I had four new episodes of "Fresh Air" to get me through most of the drive.
We left the Sheraton a little before noon and got back on highway I-59 South with hopes of getting out of this backwoods hick-town as quickly as possible. Naturally we immediately encountered a traffic jam, so I switched to the AM dial to see if we could find a traffic report. As with the FM dial, we were able to find plenty of praise-Jesus programming but we didn't find a traffic report. Before long we saw the source of the traffic jam: a fairly spectacular car wreck in the fast lane. In spite of the fact that at least two of the vehicles were obviously totaled, there didn't appear to be any injuries and we got by in short order. Before I had the presence of mind to change back to the AM dial we did get an opportunity to listen to an advertisement for a particular brand of 22-caliber rifle. Now that's something you don't hear often in California. Praise Jesus!
Before the traffic had cleared I had the opportunity to look at a few of the Alabama license plates, which say that "Stars Fell On Alabama", but if that's the case, why aren't the dinosaurs extinct? Anyway, we caught another good rainstorm getting out of Alabama and headed back southwest for New Orleans. This would be the first time that we would be heading west to any appreciable degree, and we would have to set our clocks back an hour as we once again crossed into Central Standard Time.
We were in "Smokey And The Bandit" country now. It's beautiful country really...
...provided you have the air-conditioning cranked up and you can avoid talking to the natives when you have to stop for gas. We were in some kind of middle- latitude rain forest, with a variety of pine and/or fir trees lining the highway, and with their trunks choked by kudzu.
Shortly after passing into Mississippi we stopped at a rest stop.
The rest stops in Mississippi are genuinely charming affairs compared to anything we had seen thus far. There were attendants manning the information kiosk, and the structures looked like small-scale southern colonial mansions with marble columns and brick walls. Inside, they were furnished with really nice furniture that made you feel like you had just been transported 150 years into the past. Outside, you felt like you had been transported 25 years into the past, to the set of "Dukes Of Hazard", except that most of the female visitors looked more like Ma Kettle than Daisy Duke. Most of the male visitors wore tank tops and Caterpillar ball caps, and they were driving seventies or eighties model American sedans or vans. Ordinarily I would have liked nothing more than to strike up a conversation about who my favorite Nascar driver is, but we were looking forward to getting to New Orleans so we just got back in the car and proceeded southwest.
About 100 miles before we got to New Orleans we drove into a pretty heavy rainstorm, which slowed our progress somewhat, but the rain lifted just about the time we passed into Louisiana. Even with your eyes closed you can tell when you've left Mississippi and entered Louisiana -- the smooth drive suddenly becomes very bumpy. Instead of having one smooth expanse of asphalt, in Louisiana they have opted for a succession of individual pads so that your car passes over about three seams every two seconds. A Maybach might be able to smooth that out but the Passat was no match for it. Anyway, we were able to get a pretty good view of New Orleans as we crossed a couple of large bridges that reminded me of the San Mateo bridge. Throughout the south I had been seeing lots of billboards for personal injury lawyers, and on the way into town I saw a billboard that said "(800) NOT-GUILTY".
We rolled into town about five and checked into the Marriott in The French Quarter. We used Zagat to get a good recommendation on a restaurant, and found a highly rated one about three blocks away, called K-Paul.
We got there at 7 and there was a shop next-door with all kinds of books and spices by Paul Prudhomme. I'm assuming that the restaurant was his. It was very good, but like most of our dining experiences lately, there was more than we could possibly eat.
We got back to our room shortly before sunset, and I was able to get a photo of the town from our hotel room.
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Sunday, July 20th
New Orleans -- day 2
I hadn't been practicing in about a week and my calluses were practically gone, so when I got up around 8:30 I hooked up my portable studio and practiced for a while until Daisy was ready to go eat.
The Marriott featured a jazz brunch in the River View room on the 41st floor, so we went up and availed ourselves of that at 10:30. If I had applied my usual metric for judging a Sunday brunch (the availability and quality of the eggs benedict and cheese blintzes) then this brunch would have failed. However, if one were to judge a Sunday brunch by the availability of crayfish, crabs, and shrimp, then it was a huge success. There was also reasonably good sushi so I just had to adjust my expectations and give it a thumbs-up.
In spite of the fact that this was The Big Easy, I opted against the champagne and mimosa, and instead loaded up on coffee and juice for the sweaty day that lay ahead.
We were running low on bottled water and we had been generally trying to avoid the tap water, so we walked four blocks to the local Walgreen and bought a gallon of water. It had not been refrigerated, but within two blocks of leaving the air-conditioned space, the bottle was covered with condensation -- THAT'S how humid it was. Daisy wanted to take the St. Charles streetcar to see the sights, but the oppressive humidity made me disinclined to ride in an open car for two hours when we had things we needed to do back at the hotel.
We had hoped to have our laundry done while we were in New Orleans, but since It was a Sunday there was no laundry service available. There was, however, a coin-operated laundry so I decided to spend an hour and a half in the laundry room down by the pool, reading and watching the scenery.
Before the laundry was dry I ran out of quarters, and because we were in New Orleans, the dryers would only take French Quarters. I kind of felt like I'd been hung out to dry but I had no choice but to hang up our laundry to dry. Then we Ventured back out into the French Quarter...
...and Jackson Square.
Maybe it's the off-season or maybe they just roll up the sidewalks on Sundays, but there wasn't a heck of a lot going on. We caught an early dinner at a Creole place so that we could hurry back to the hotel room in time for Daisy to see "Sex And The City", and for me to see "The Wire". Imagine my surprise when "The Wire" was pre-empted in order to give us back-to-back episodes of "Project Greenlight"!
We had talked about going out to a local jazz club called "Funky Butt", but the weight of the meal was not inspiring much funkiness, so in the end I just took the opportunity to avail myself of the broadband connection and I uploaded the pictures that appear on these pages. Unfortunately, I overlooked an entire compact flash card, and now I'll have to wait till I get another broadband connection before I can get the rest posted.
Tallahassee & Orlando
Monday, July 21stTallahassee
Getting out of New Orleans was fairly uneventful. We were on the road around 10 AM and before long we were traveling west over the bridges that brought us into town two days earlier. Pretty soon our path diverged from the route we had taken coming from Birmingham, and instead of getting back on I-59, we stayed on I-10 east. This took us through the southern tip of Mississippi, then Alabama, through Mobile, and on into Florida.
When we got near Pensacola we took a little excursion into town and out to the coast. Pensacola is a charming little coastal community, and I would have loved to spend a couple more days there but our schedule only permitted us to linger briefly. Some folks call it the redneck Riviera but we weren't there long enough to really get acquainted with the inhabitants. I'd like to go back and spend more time but I suspect that won't be happening on this trip.
Once we got back on I-10, we continued east and inland to Tallahassee. Like the previous two days in New Orleans, it had been storming on and off and the skies were overcast. Sometimes we'd get a break in the clouds and you could actually get a view of the cloud formations. I'm always amazed by cloud formations in the tropics. The locals were probably amazed by the guy from California who was taking pictures of the clouds. Unfortunately, the grandeur and hugeness is somehow lost when you take a picture.
On a few occasions we would drive into a heavy downpour and we would have to slow way down as our visibility was restricted a shorter distance than our braking distance. I've rarely encountered such ferocious downpours in California, and only in the central valley. It takes some getting used to.
Somewhere along the line we passed back into the eastern time zone, and we hit Tallahassee around 5. Tallahassee seemed like a pretty cool town, in spite of the fact that it's where Jeb Bush works. I saw three guitar stores, and took that as a good sign. We had dinner at a local grill that the hotel staff recommended, and it wasn't bad. I remembered to order my salad dressing on the side.
We got to bed at a reasonable hour but we were awakened around 3:30 AM when our neighbor got in, started talking loud, and turned the TV way up. I'm not sure what he was watching but it sounded like "Saving Private Ryan" or something. I made a call to the front desk and after about ten minutes I heard his phone ring. After that he turned things down to a low rumble and we managed to get back to sleep.
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Tuesday, July 22nd
Orlando
On our way out of town the next morning around 9:30 I got to wondering if our neighbor was still asleep. I called the hotel and navigated the voice-mail to his room. Sure enough, he was still asleep -- that is, until I called. Daisy says I shouldn't be so vindictive. She's right of course, but where's the fun in that?
We passed a sign that said "shortcut to Orlando" but it was a commercial sign, not a state sign -- so I opted to stick with the original itinerary. That decision probably cost us close to an hour but we got to drive down the eastern coast of Florida from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach, before heading inland for the last hour to Orlando. On the way I saw a billboard that addressed a fairly common problem in Florida that we don't have to worry about much in California. It said "Sinkhole?". Another billboard that I saw said "Flooding?".
Orlando is a sprawling city in the middle of Florida and you actually have to drive about twenty miles past Orlando before you get to Disneyworld. Disneyworld is huge and surreal. Everything is manicured and pristine. I kept trying to decide what it reminded me of, but I couldn't decide if it reminded me of "Westworld", "The Stepford Wives", Topeka from "A Boy And His Dog", or Salt Lake City.
What I needed was some magic mushrooms to go with The Magic Kingdom, but Daisy would not have approved.
We stayed at the Disney Dolphin hotel, which we had gotten on Priceline for about $75 a night.
It was a perfectly nice hotel until you got to the room, which had that smell of mildew that is so common in the tropics. Very quickly though you would no longer notice the smell (until you left and returned to the room) and then the only way you would know that you were in the tropics during the rainy season was by the damp rug. Broadband access was free however, so I seized the opportunity to upload a lot more pictures and to update this journal.
The dining at the Disney Dolphin is as good as one can expect from a resort that has you as a captive audience. It would be at least a half-hour drive into town if you didn't want to eat there, and I found a brewery on the boardwalk so I was content to eat in this surreal environment.
Wednesday, July 23rd
Orlando
We should have gone to Epcot because neither of us had been there but I foolishly had thought that The Magic Kingdom would be different from Disneyland. It was only different in that it was bigger, hotter, more humid, and lacking the Matterhorn. The last time I went to Disneyland it was thirteen years ago with my 11-year-old daughter.
I had fond memories of that visit but I failed to realize that you really have to experience it as a kid or with a kid. We thought about getting some McDonalds in Frontierland until we realized that all they sold were the fries.
We did the obligatory Pirates Of The Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion,
After about three hours of asking ourselves what we were doing there, I took a picture of Daisy,...
...and then we took the bus back to the Dolphin, and did our laundry, before going to dinner and calling it a night.
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Miami -- part 1
Thursday, July 24thMiami -- part 1
We started out of Orlando by getting lost. We had been given precise, preprinted directions from the hotel staff at the Disney Dolphin, but the one thing that the directions lacked were indications of distance from one waypoint to the next. We did all right until we got to the last leg of the directions, which said to head east until we got to the turnpike. We headed east. Then we continued east. After we had gone east for a couple miles we saw a sign that said airport straight-ahead, and toll-road right. In the last few years at PayPal I have grown accustomed to not taking specifications literally, and so I inferred that when the directions said to take the turnpike, they meant to take the toll-road. Alas, this was not the case and we hadn't gone far along the toll road before we realized that we weren't going the right way. By the time we were able to find an exit I decided we should use the GPS to find our way back to the turnpike. This worked, but it was not an optimal route and we ended up losing about a half-hour in the process.
No matter. We had allotted ourselves plenty of time to get to Miami before we were to meet up with Daisy's old college friend, Yvonne. The remainder of our trip was uneventful and we arrived at the Wyndham Hotel in Coconut Grove with time to spare. I took a picture looking out our balcony. Oddly enough, Coconut Grove has lots of coconut trees.
It was going to be a couple hours before Yvonne's husband got home from work so we went for a stroll in Coconut Grove. We wandered across the street and got a picture looking back at the hotel.
Then we wandered over to the marina and got a picture of a sailboat that was down on its luck.
Eventually Yvonne and her husband, Peter made it out to our hotel and we went to dinner at a local restaurant that was noted for it's Cuban food. As I remembered from our last trip to Miami in '91, Cuban food is heavy, meat-centric, and generally not to my taste. Still, there's probably no harm in having it once every twelve years. After dinner we followed Yvonne and Peter back to their home and visited with them and their family.
They gave us directions on how to get back to our hotel and we did fine until the last leg of the directions. Does this sound familiar? The last leg of the directions said to turn right on "Grand". Unbeknownst to us, they have a curious system in Miami of announcing streets two blocks before they occur, and when I saw the sign that said "Grand", I ended up turning a block too early off highway 1. It was dark and impossible to see the street signs, so it was some time before Daisy was able to convince me that we were going the wrong way. To compound the problem, the street had one of those European-style roundabouts, and since it was dark we ended up taking the wrong spoke off the roundabout on our way back. When we finally got back to highway 1 we realized pretty quickly that we were seeing the same streets that we had seen before making that fateful turn where it said "Grand". After about twelve blocks we once again saw the sign that said "Grand", but this time I was not going to be fooled and I kept on going. It was at the next corner that we realized that they have this system of announcing streets two blocks before they occur. This intersection was much better lit and sure enough, there was a street sign that said "Grand".
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Key West -- day 1
Friday, July 25thKey West -- day 1
It's hard to get lost going to Key West. Once you get on highway 1 you go south until it ends, and there you are. There are, however, faster ways to get out of Miami than highway 1. We used the GPS to get south as quickly as possible before our options inexorably narrowed down to highway 1 again. From then on we were on a two-lane highway most of the way to Key West. There was an exception of a few miles in Key Largo where there were two lanes in each direction and I tried to wend my way through traffic to get past as many potato-chip trucks and Federal Express trucks as possible. The trick was to find two cars where the lead car was moving as fast as I wanted to go, while the trailing car was moving slightly slower. Then it was just a matter of setting the cruise control to something in-between, and sticking the camera out of the sunroof occasionally to take a picture.
It's about 150 miles from Miami to Key West and there are practically as many keys along the way. There's Key Largo, Duck Key, Rubber Duck Key, Okey Doh Key, Hokey Poe Key, Roman Polans Key...
Anyway, it's surprising that it should take four hours to go 150 miles, but it does. Long before we rolled into Key West we had caught up with traffic, and traffic had in turn caught up with us. I stopped at a light on the way into town, and the truck behind me stopped, but apparently the car behind him was a little late in stopping -- proving once again the value of maintaining a safe following distance. Anyway, right after I stopped I heard a BANG behind us and looked up to see the guy behind me getting out of his truck and going around to talk to the guy that had slammed into him. The nice thing about full-size pickup trucks is that they absorb a lot of kinetic energy before getting pushed into the car ahead -- so when the light changed we proceeded to our destination.
It turns out that Key West is a much bigger island than I had realized. On the road into town I saw a Chili's, a McDonalds, an International House of Pancakes, a Wendy's, a Taco Bell, a KFC, a Sears, an Outback Steakhouse, a Blockbuster, an Albertson's, a Walgreen, a Pizza Hut, a Burger King, a ton of car dealerships, some jet-ski dealerships, and that's just on the main road that goes downtown. Once we got down into the old, quaint part of town we were surrounded by quaint traffic, oblivious pedestrians, and inexperienced scooter-riding tourists. There are lots of bars and restaurants and shops and boutiques and tourists. Kinda like Santa Cruz Avenue in Los Gatos, only with more traffic, more pedestrians and lots of inexperienced scooter riders. It's always frustrating when pedestrian traffic is moving faster than your car, and because I had assumed the island would be small I hadn't had the foresight to fire up the GPS. After a few minutes of crawling in traffic we decided to swallow our pride and let the GPS bail us out. As it turns out the map software enabled us to find our way to the Wyndham Hotel before the GPS even had its bearings.
After we had decompressed for about an hour we ventured out on foot to have a look around the old part of town. In short order we found ourselves at the southern-most point in the continental United States. There's a big concrete marker just north of the water, marking the point.
Once the novelty had worn off (in about five seconds) we proceeded north and quickly found ourselves in the southern-most ghetto in the continental United States.
Eventually we found our way out of there and came upon the Ernest Hemmingway house. We considered going on the tour, but it was $10 and the place was going to be closing in a half-hour. Besides, I've never been a huge Hemmingway fan, and from what I'd heard the big draw was the seven-toed cats on the premises. I figured I could catch the seven-toed cats the next time the carnival comes through town, so we kept walking.
By now I was sweating profusely and we were getting pretty parched, so we ducked into a little market and got a Gatorade. Once we had replenished our electrolytes I started thinking about other kinds of beverages so we wandered to Duvall Street (the main drag) to find a place where we could get something to eat and I could get a beer. We ended up at an outdoor cafe where we had Oysters Rockefeller and conch fritters, and I had a couple Coronas. After that we headed back to the hotel, and I situated myself at the bar on the beach for the evening.
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Key West -- day 2
Saturday, July 26thKey West -- day 2
I woke up early with a headache (oddly enough) and a dry mouth. Our supply of bottled water was almost exhausted so I drove out to Albertson's to load up on more water, and to get half & half for our coffee. After I'd rehydrated and had my coffee with an ibuprofen chaser we were ready once again to venture out back to the beach.
We wandered over to the hotel rental shack, greased up with sunscreen and then rented a jet ski. Neither of us had ever ridden a jet ski so I took it slow at first. The water was pretty choppy so I wasn't really able to open it up all the way. I had it floored briefly once but although the spray was refreshing in the morning heat, I didn't think either one of us really wanted to dismount at that speed so I backed off on the throttle. After thirty minutes of going back and forth out in the water we decided to head for shore.
Back on land I was kicking myself for not having had the presence of mind to bring my diver certification card, so a scuba excursion was out. We thought about renting a kayak next but instead we decided to lounge on the beach for a while. We wandered over to where they issued towels and lounge chairs, but just about the time we got there it started raining -- hard. Fortunately the outdoor bar was a few paces away, and we were able to secure a couple stools before the place filled up. Since we were at the bar anyway and there wasn't much else to do I ordered a beer and we both ordered lunch. After lunch I ordered another beer, and about the time I was finishing my beer the rain stopped so we headed back out to the beach to get some towels and lounge chairs.
Once we had staked our claim on the beach we went for a swim. There was a platform about a hundred yards out that I swam out to, and when I got there I was surprised to discover that I could still stand up. In retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised; the keys and most of Florida is only a few feet above sea level so it's really not surprising that you have to get out pretty far before the bottom is appreciably below sea level.
Anyway, once I had cooled off I swam back to shore and we returned to our lounges. Shortly thereafter, a waiter came by and asked if I'd like something to drink. This was to be my undoing. Ordinarily I have the sense not to sit out in the sun for any length of time, and especially not without maintaining a healthy base coat of sunscreen. Unfortunately, as the day wore on and my sunscreen wore off -- so did my judgment. Considering how many beers I ended up having (and I'm not exactly sure how many that was) I was pretty relaxed. Well, really relaxed. Every time I got dry I would swim back out to the platform to cool off. I don't remember how many times I did that either but it proved to be enough times for my sunscreen to wash off.
We didn't realize how much sun I had gotten until late in the afternoon after we had finally returned to our room. By the time we went downstairs for dinner my face, chest and stomach were as red as a lobster. After dinner I went to bed early but I slept fitfully and finally gave up trying as the sun was coming up.
Miami -- part 2
Sunday, July 27thMiami -- part 2
I ventured back into town, this time to Walgreen, to load up on aloe vera. When I got back to the hotel I showered and then applied a generous coat of aloe vera to my sunburn. Once the stickiness had worn off we packed the car and headed out. Because it was early I was able to get a picture of Duvall Street without the hordes of people.
As we were heading out of Key West I noticed a sign that said "17 fatalities this year -- drive safely". Why not "17 fatalities this year -- have a nice day", I thought. Anyway, I reflected on the fact that it was probably a good thing that Daisy was driving this time instead of me. I thought about continuing the journal as this would be my last time as a passenger, but I was burnt in more ways than one, and instead I spent much of the time scanning the radio dial for NPR stations that would fade in and fade out as we crossed one key and then another.
We got back to Miami long before the official check-in time at my hotel but at Daisy's suggestion I called ahead to see if they would take us a couple hours early. They said they could so we headed up to Bal Harbour and checked in. Despite the assertion by Hotels.com that the Sea View was a four-star hotel, I was not impressed. We wandered over to the Bal Harbour shops, which is a little mall with the kind of stores you would find on Rodeo Drive. I felt out of place in my old tennis shoes, but we managed to find a little bistro that wasn't too exorbitant and where I could hide my feet under the tablecloth. After lunch we went back to the hotel for a couple hours and then I took Daisy to the airport.
For the next couple days I spent most of my time applying aloe vera, reading, and practicing guitar. A couple times I applied copious amounts of sunscreen to my face, stomach and chest and ventured out back for a dip in the ocean. I was hoping to get a little more sun on my back to diminish the two-tone color scheme but I didn't press my luck; after about a half-hour I would retreat to my hotel room.
On the second day there, with the help of Zagat I found a tavern up the street called Norman's that proved to have a respectable beer selection and good food. I found a spot at the bar and asked the bartender if they had any other beer besides the five taps that they had on draft. She pointed up to a shelf, and sure enough, they had about 20 different kinds of bottled beer. Ordinarily I might have been adventurous but since it had now been about a week since I had had a pale ale, and since they had Sierra Nevada, I opted for the old reliable. Zagat said that Norman's had a respectable New York Steak so I opted for that.
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Tampa
Thursday, July 31stTampa
My friend, Mike is from Tampa and he told me I should drop in on his brother, Dennis, while I was in Florida, so I made arrangements to meet up with him Thursday night. This was going to be the first time that I used the GPS solo, so I made sure I had origin and destination programmed in before leaving Bal Harbour. I never figured out how to get the text-to-speech working (my suspicion is that it doesn't) with the map software, so I periodically had to take my eyes off the road to see where and when my exits were coming up. Once I got on I-75 West, known as alligator alley, it was a no-brainer -- just head west through the Everglades and try not to run over any alligators.
They've erected cyclone fences on either side of the highway so there's not a big problem with alligators on the highway anymore. This is a good thing, because the Passat really doesn't have the ground clearance to get over one of those things, even with all-wheel-drive. As it turned out, I never saw an alligator but I did see a ton of vultures. In fact, apart from a few small birds on the roadside, that was about all I saw.
Now that I was driving alone I had an opportunity to get back to "War And Peace". I had sensed that it had been boring Daisy so we hadn't listened to it too much on the way out, but now I had the opportunity to listen to it for about four hours uninterrupted. I'm still having difficulty keeping track of all the names but I think I'm following it, and it's definitely getting good. By the time I rolled into Tampa, the Austrians had been defeated by Napoleon and it looked like the Russian infantry was finally going to see some action.
It also appeared that I was going to see some action, as I was driving directly into a huge electrical storm -- so I turned off the iPod and directed my attention to matters at hand. I was seeing lightning strikes every ten or fifteen seconds so I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out the camera. I put it in movie mode and pointed it straight ahead. Naturally, there wasn't another lightening strike for thirty-one seconds, which is one second longer than the camera remained in movie mode. By now the memory card was completely maxed out, and I was driving directly into a huge rainstorm, so I put the camera away and directed all my attention to not getting killed.
I'm still getting used to these cloudbursts, and before long my visibility had forced me to slow to about 30 m.p.h. and to turn on my 4-way flashers. Not everybody was doing the 4-way flasher thing but fortunately, everybody but the stupidest drivers were slowing down, and it was a fairly simple matter of getting out of the fast lane so as not to interfere with their death-wishes. Near as I could tell from the limited visibility, I was now right in Tampa. I was also right in the middle of the electrical storm and I would frequently see the sky light up, followed almost immediately by a thunderclap. I was tempted to pull off under an overpass but I was afraid that I might get rear-ended in the process so I kept going, and in a few minutes I was coming out the other end of the storm. I turned off my 4-way flashers, turned the windshield wipers down to interval, and proceeded on to the Holliday Inn in New Tampa.
Once I was settled into my hotel (which I had chosen primarily for its free broadband access) I called up Dennis, and made arrangements to meet with him at 7. I still had a couple hours to kill, and since it had been a week since I had updated my journal I took the opportunity to start reconstructing the last weeks events. Because I had driven most of the way from Orlando to Miami, and after Miami, to Key West, I had not had much opportunity to log our activities until returning to Miami -- and by that time I had been more inclined to spend some quality time with my guitar.
When 7 o'clock approached I headed south to meet Dennis in Ybor City, a trendy bar district just north of Tampa. Using his directions I found my way to the Ybor City Brewing Company where we were going to meet. Before long I saw him pull up in his F-150 and then I followed him to the main drag where we found parking. We dined at a Spanish restaurant and by the time we were done with dinner it was around 9. As it turns out, things don't start jumping in Ybor City till around 11, so we wandered up the main drag, and he pointed out the various nightclubs and drinking establishments, and gave me some history on how the neighborhood had become gentrified over the last ten years. Not unlike a lot of hot spots in San Jose and San Francisco, the neighborhood had fallen on hard times over the last couple years since the bubble had burst, but there were still plenty of establishments to choose from.
In the course of about ten blocks we passed a couple concert halls, a Goth club, four tattoo parlors, a couple blues clubs, a multitude of bars, and I forget what else. Ultimately we found ourselves at a respectable microbrewery at the other end of the street where we sat outside upstairs and I had a chance to enjoy their IPA.
By the time we left the microbrewery the street was starting to fill up and things were happening. He took me to a place off the main drag where a band appeared to be setting up and they had an extensive beer selection. So extensive in fact that it was hard to decide what to order, but in the end I somehow managed. It turns out that Dennis has an electrical engineering background, and he works at a place where they do a lot of welding, so we had lots to talk about. Like what a terrible welder I am, and how we had both seen fit to get the hell out of electrical (or electronic, in my case) engineering. We also had plenty to talk about Mike, since he wasn't there to defend himself;-)
I was speculating on what kind of music the band was going to play, but after a while I noticed that there seemed to be fewer drums on the stage than when we had arrived. It didn't take too much longer to realize that the band was actually breaking down, and not setting up. By now it was approaching midnight and we had finished our beers so we ventured back out to the main drag. The main drag was definitely jumping by now, but clearly not with people our age. We passed a number of clubs with people lined up outside, behind the velvet ropes, hoping that their attire was sufficiently chic to gain entrance. I suspected that my shorts and sandals weren't going to make the cut, and besides, Dennis was going to have to work in the morning (poor bastard), so we headed back to our respective abodes and called it a night.
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Friday, August 1st
Tampa -- day 2
I had asked Dennis for recommendations on good a tourist spot that I might check out during the day and he recommended the Salvador Dali Museum in Saint Petersburg (or Saint Pete to the locals). That sounded good to me, so after some more quality time with my guitar I headed south to Saint Petersburg. Before leaving I availed myself of the broadband connection and downloaded about a dozen more episodes of "Fresh Air" from Audible.com, because I didn't want to be trying to listen to "War And Peace" while trying to find my way.
Saint Petersburg is south of Tampa and I had to cross the bay to get there. On a map, Tampa Bay looks about the same size as the San Francisco Bay, but it looks much larger when you cross it because there are no mountains on either side to give you a sense of scale, and the bay seems to extend to the horizon.
I'm not sure if it was "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" or one of the "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" volumes, but there is a guy in one of Douglas Adams' books who, unbeknownst to himself, is a rain god. Wherever he would go, rain clouds would follow. I was beginning to feel like this guy as I once again drove directly into an electrical storm on my way to Saint Pete. It took me about an hour to find my way to the museum, and by the time I got there the storm had passed, or I had passed the storm. Although it wasn't raining as I pulled into the parking lot, I did have to navigate around some pretty deep puddles, and I had to try to find a parking place on fairly high ground so that I wouldn't have to wade back to my car in the event of another downpour.
Anyway, the museum was awesome. I'm not very fond of most 20th Century painters, but Dali is an exception. He was heavily influenced by Vermeer, so that even as he evolved into a surrealist he still had a knack for photo-realism. The paintings are generally arranged chronologically so that you can see how his skill and style evolved. The museum culminates with four huge paintings. Unfortunately, these are roped off so that you can't get real close to admire the detail, but they were still awe-inspiring. My favorite was called "The Hallucinogenic Toreador" which is about 13' by 10'.
I would love to be able to get a full size print of this, although I don't think I have a wall large enough to display it.
Savannah
Sunday, August 3rdSavannah
Dennis had agreed to serve as my post office box while I was in Tampa so that Daisy could mail various things to me. First and foremost, she needed to send me the registration and tags for the Passat, which had arrived in San Francisco after we had left. The registration expired on the 1st of August and I was anxious to update the tags before I attracted the attention of any state troopers. When Daisy got home there was a new set of tags waiting in the pile of mail, so she forwarded it to me via Dennis. A couple days later when another set of tags arrived in the mail she realized that she had sent me the tags for the pickup truck instead of the ones for the VW.
I was planning on leaving Tampa on Sunday, so it was a relief when Dennis got home Saturday night and determined that the tags had arrived in the mail. I met up with Dennis on my way out of town on Sunday, at a place called The Cracker Barrel for breakfast. For those of you like myself who are not familiar with The Cracker Barrel, it's a chain of breakfast restaurants spanning the east coast. If you like big heavy southern breakfasts with eggs and sausage and bacon and biscuits and gravy and grits, you'll like this place. I had the eggs and grits and biscuits and gravy, and except for the biscuits and gravy I quite enjoyed it. I also loaded up on coffee to help offset the drowsiness that inevitably follows a big meal like that.
After breakfast I bid farewell to Dennis, and he assured me he would be out to visit San Francisco in the not-too-distant future. I pointed out that if he would rather meet in Amsterdam, that was another option. And with that I was on my way.
Between my forays into Petersburg, Ybor City, and out to Dennis's place I had racked up a couple hundred more miles since arriving in Tampa, and by the time I got on the road my trip mileage was up to 5837. The first leg of my journey took me east across Florida, through Tampa again and eventually to I-95 north. From Tampa to Daytona, and on to Jacksonville, I was essentially retracing the route that Daisy and I had taken ten days earlier when we went from Tallahassee to Orlando. This time I had the presence of mind to stick the camera out the sunroof to get a couple shots of the terrain as the flora gradually transitioned from palm trees to pine trees.
After Jacksonville I continued northeast out of Florida and into Georgia. It's some really beautiful country in this part of Georgia. Mostly wetlands, but I was so engrossed in War And Peace by now that I neglected to get any more pictures until I got to Savannah.
Downtown Savannah has been preserved as a historic district. Its old southern charm has been used to good effect in many movies, including "Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil" and "Forest Gump".
I noticed that the GPS got confused as I crossed the bridge heading out of old Savannah, going to my hotel. According to the GPS I was flying through space about 100 feet to the east of the bridge. When I got to the other side I realized that the old bridge (the one that the GPS was referencing from the map software) was about 100 feet to the west of the bridge that I had just crossed. I'm using map software that's several years old, and my guess is that the bridge is newer than the map software.
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Monday, August 4th
Tybee Beach, GA
Before heading north on Monday I decided to first travel east to Tybee Island and Tybee Beach. It was about an hour out of my way but it was well worth it. It's a beautiful drive out to Tybee Island. The road to Tybee Island crosses a lot more wetlands, occasionally passing over a bridge that crosses a small slough or creek, and at some point you see a sign announcing that you are now on Tybee Island. I'm not sure exactly how it's decided when you are officially on the island because you never actually cross a large body of water, but I guess at some point you cross a saltwater slough that encircles the land mass known as Tybee Island.
Anyway, I continued east and after a few miles I entered the charming little town of Tybee Beach. I guess it's a town. Whatever it is, there are all these little residential streets that run up to the sand dunes, and then there are wood walkways that you can cross to get to the beach. At this time of year and this latitude, the beach is where you want to be, and I would have liked to have spent the day there, but alas I had reservations for that night at the Hilton in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Note to self: Next time skip the crowded tourist trap that is Myrtle Beach, and spend a couple days in Tybee Beach. Better yet, rent a bungalow for a week.
I noticed that most of the beach homes are raised up on stilts, with only the parking area at ground level. That suggests to me that it can get pretty stormy in these parts. It is hurricane country, after all.
South Carolina
Before too long I had to pull myself away from Tybee Beach because I had a long drive ahead of me. Once again, I fired up the iPod and listened to War And Peace, which by now had me riveted, and the miles flew by. I don't know how close I got to Mayberry, but I got pretty close to Raleigh. At one point I passed a place called "Don's Cabinet Shop", which took me back about four decades to when my father (who's name is Don) had a cabinet shop. Of course, his shop was never very successful and it wasn't long before his business (and his marriage) failed.
It would appear that there is little or no new construction in this area. Instead of fixing up old houses or building new ones, it looks like people are buying more and more mobile homes. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I saw a lot of houses like this one.
Myrtle Beach did not inspire me to take any pictures. It reminded me of Santa Cruz boardwalk on steroids. It has an amusement park and about as many high-rise hotels as Waikiki. It has water that is a lot warmer than you will find in Santa Cruz, but it also has a sleaze factor that I haven't noticed in Santa Cruz. When I finally got to the Hilton about ten miles north of the heart of Myrtle Beach (it's that big), I barely had the strength to wander down to the hotel bar.
Fortunately, after a couple Sam Adams and a fajita wrap I had my strength back I was ready to take a taxi into town. Then I got to talking to guy named Steve who was in town for the week on business. It turned out that we had a lot in common. In spite of the fact that Steve is an Army Reserve officer, he's not a big fan of the current state of affairs in Iraq. Steve has a degree in history, and you don't have to know a lot of history to understand what a botch job our foreign relations have been in the last couple years.
Anyway, we talked and talked. About politics; about our similar experiences with military life; about what a pain it is in civilian life having to worry about people's feelings in the workplace. And so on, and so forth. Somewhere in the course of our conversation I learned that Steve lived in Manhattan, and since I would be going there in a couple days I asked him for some recommendations on what a tourist should do while there. In the end we decided it would be best if I just looked him up when I got there. By this time I had lost track of how many beers I had had, and I became more interested in finding my way back to my hotel room rather than finding my way into town.
When I got back to my room I stepped out onto the balcony of my eighth floor room to enjoy the humidity and a smoke. While I was out there I kicked a 1" oriental cockroach off the balcony. It was too dark to see where it landed but I assume it didn't land on anybody because I didn't hear any screaming. Oh well...
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Tuesday & Wednesday, August 5th & 6th
Richmond, VA
I awoke the next morning with an excruciating backache. I wasn't looking forward to the 300-odd miles that lay between my and Richmond, Virginia -- my next destination. I have almost no recollection of the drive to Richmond except that I was engrossed in War And Peace, when I wasn't adjusting the lumbar support or wadding up sweaters and wedging between lower back and the car seat. Up to this point in the trip the drive had been painless, even though I had been experiencing occasional back pain when I was standing, but on this day I don't think I would have been comfortable in an isolation tank. I have vague recollections of thinking that I wasn't going to be able to make it to Richmond, and if the room hadn't already been paid for I'm sure I would have thrown in the towel shortly after I started. However, the room was paid for, for two nights in fact, so I kept driving.
When I eventually reached Richmond and got checked into the Omni Hotel, I laid down on the bed for a while and tried to emulate various stretching exercises that I've seen Daisy do over the years. The one that worked best is the one where I would lay on my back, swing my left leg straight out to the right, over my right leg, while twisting my right shoulder across my left shoulder, to where I had placed a bottle of beer.
After about twenty rigorous minutes I decided I should wander down Cary Street to see what's happening in Richmond on a weeknight. I hadn't gone far before I came to a micro brewery called Richbrau or something like that, where I sampled a couple of their pale ales. After that had some dinner and got to talking to a guy who had ridden up on a Segue. After dinner I noticed for the first time that they had India Pale Ale on the menu so I had one of those, and compared notes on the virtues of my Handspring Treo, compared to his Sony Clie. He was all excited about the 300 Mhz processor, and the fact that he could listen to MP3s on it. I was all excited about the fact that mine has a phone and it's the same phone number that I've had for the last five years. I told him that as soon as I can get my phone number transferred over to a Danger HipTop I'm gonna sell my Treo. I could tell he's a gear geek so I was surprised when he confessed that he didn't know what a Danger HipTop was. I told him all about it and assured him that he needed to get one so that he wouldn't have to carry around a Clie and a cell phone. I didn't tell him that he wont be able to play his MP3s on it, but there will be plenty of time for him to find that out.
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The next morning my back was feeling better and the heat was not too oppressive, so I decided to go for a walk around downtown Richmond. I was only a block from Canal Street so I first wandered down to the canal walk to have a look around. It was very pleasant. It reminded me of Guadalupe River Park in San Jose, only instead of a creek they have a canal.
When I tired of the canals I wandered northeast in search of the Edgar Allen Poe museum. I found Richmond to be a charming old town with a cool mix of the old and the new. Being a California boy I always have a sense of being in a very foreign place when I'm surrounded by so many brick buildings.
I eventually found the Edgar Allen Poe museum. It was vaguely interesting, but it involved a guided tour and a lot of standing around listening to the guide explain little known and frequently contradictory anecdotes about Edgar Allen Poe. As my back was still bothering me a little I wasn't keen for standing around, so I was relieved when the tour ended up in the video room where we were given a chance to sit and listen to videotaped reading of The Raven, accompanied by spooky animations. Afterward I told the guide that I preferred the Homer Simpson reading of The Raven. He agreed.
I proceeded northwest now in search of the capitol building, and I passed this McDonalds on the way. I think it may have been the first brick McDonalds that I've seen.
I continued northeast past the train station, in search of the capitol building, but at some point I must have missed it by a couple blocks because before long I found myself in a neighborhood with quite a different demographic, and I sensed that I didn't fit in. Judging from the stares that I was getting from some of the locals inhabitants, I think that they sensed that I didn't fit in either. So, I worked my way back to my hotel and called it an afternoon.
Manhattan -- day 1
Thursday, August 7thManhattan
I had been advised that I would encounter traffic on epic proportions if I didn't make it past Washington D.C. before 7 AM, so I got up at 2:30 AM and pulled out of Richmond around 3:30 AM. Unlike most of my trip so far, this portion of my drive involved about 25 individual legs and I was constantly going to be getting off of one highway and onto another. Fortunately I had the trip programmed into the GPS, so all I had to do was take my eyes off the highway about once every mile to see if an exit was approaching.
The early start served me in good stead and I was past D.C. by 6 AM. I still had to get past Baltimore before the traffic picked up, and everything was going well until my route took me through a long tunnel that went under the harbor. The GPS lost its bearing, and was unable to regain it in a timely manner when I came out the other side. Since I was traveling on a highway I didn't have the option of pulling over while the GPS re-oriented itself, so I made my best guess at where I should exit, and I guessed wrong.
I found myself on the outskirts of Baltimore in a somewhat hilly neighborhood. The thing about hilly neighborhoods is that the streets are not laid out in a convenient grid, but instead they tend to conform to the contours of the terrain. This did not aid me in re-orienting myself, and the GPS was resolutely refusing to get its bearings. It still had the route programmed in so I knew what highway I needed to get to next, I just didn't know where I was. Eventually I found a McDonalds and got directions. The GPS was not able to re-orient itself until around 7 AM when I was well beyond Baltimore.
As the sun came up I started to get a look around, and I didn't like what I saw. The air was extremely hazy. I guess I've gotten spoiled living in the Bay Area, because we haven't had air pollution like this in thirty years. You have to go to Los Angeles to see air pollution this bad in California. As I proceeded along the New Jersey Turnpike I would occasionally stick the camera through the sunroof to get a couple pictures.
It was now around 8 in the morning and I really didn't want to hit New York City until the morning traffic had subsided, so after about another hour I pulled off the road to take a nap. Because I had only slept about three hours the night before it wasn't difficult to get another hour of sleep.
When I awoke I got back on the turnpike and proceeded on to New York City. By now the sun was up completely although I couldn't actually see it through all the haze. The scenery on the side of the highway reminded me of the scenery that rolls by at the beginning of The Sopranos (only in the opposite direction), so I dialed up "Woke Up This Morning" on the iPod.
Shortly thereafter I passed an airport on the left, and at this point the GPS gave up the ghost. I don't know what it is about these busy metropolitan areas on the east coast that prevent the GPS from working but I bet it has to do with radio interference. Anyway, I still had the map software but I was not going to have the assistance of the GPS again until I left the New York City area the following week.
To compound my problems the smog was so severe that I could not see the Manhattan skyline. I knew it was somewhere off to my right -- probably where I saw a huge bridge disappearing into the haze,
but I really couldn't tell where exactly, and I wasn't sure where I was supposed to get off the turnpike; it was not clear reading the route in the map software -- particularly not when you're hurtling down the highway at 60 miles per hour. Shortly after I decided I had to get off the turnpike, the turnpike ended. People complain about the cost of gasoline in California but I'm convinced that it's cheaper to drive in California, where you don't have to pay tolls except when you cross a bridge. I paid six or seven dollars to get off the turnpike and then I took the exit to the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop.
Once I was parked and had the opportunity to scrutinize the map I figure out where I was. I was now VERY close to the Hudson River but I still couldn't see the Manhattan skyline. I realized that I had just missed my exit for the Lincoln Tunnel, so I got back on the highway, this time heading south, and took the exit for the Lincoln Tunnel. The Lincoln Tunnel set me back another $6, so along with the New Jersey Turnpike and the various toll roads that I had traversed since leaving Richmond, I had spent somewhere between $15 and $20 to get to Manhattan.
It was about 11 AM when I rolled into Manhattan, and it was fairly simple to find my hotel. It is not easy driving in Manhattan but it IS simple. Most of Manhattan is laid out in a convenient rectangular grid with the streets running east to west, and the avenues running north to south. For some reason the map software suggested that I should go north to West 57th Street, east to 2nd Avenue, and then south to 44th Street where my hotel was located. In retrospect, it probably would have been quicker to just cross town, since I had come out of the tunnel around 42nd Street -- but Manhattan is sufficiently intimidating when you're operating a motor vehicle so I just followed the directions.
I was now too close to see the Manhattan skyline -- something about the forest and the trees, but I was able to see the individual skyscrapers, and I stuck the camera out the window to snap a couple pictures of buildings that particularly caught my eye. This one was on top of Toys R Us.
I'm not sure what it was that impressed me about this one, maybe it was the height.
In about half an hour I rolled up to my hotel, the Millennium UN Plaza Hotel, which not surprisingly is situated across the street from the United Nations. Being eternally paranoid about terrorist attacks, and particularly in a popular target like New York City, I was a little apprehensive about camping out next door to the UN. I needn't have worried of course -- it's not like I was in Baghdad.
Anyway, a bell captain rolled up a cart and I gave him my guitar case, my brief case (that holds all my guitar gear and effects unit), my gym bag, the cooler, and the two cardboard boxes that perfectly fit into the remainder of the area under the cargo cover. I then grabbed my iPod, my Treo, my camera, and my computer bag, and then I surrendered the car to the valet for the duration of my four-day stay at the hotel. It's worth noting that parking costs $35/day in New York City, so unless you're driving cross-country there's probably no sane reason for driving a car onto the island of Manhattan.
Once I got checked into my room I took a few pictures out of the view I had from my room. Had I been feeling despondent this would have been an ideal room because even though I was on the 38th floor my room feature a window that opens! Fortunately, I was not feeling despondent, so I just took advantage of the opportunity of taking some pictures without having to take them through the window. Unfortunately, I still had to take the pictures through the haze, as you can see from this picture of the east river,
...and this one that I stitched together from three pictures.
Next I grabbed my camera and ventured out to do some sightseeing. The concierge recommended a place where I could get a good meal. I had asked for recommendations on a deli but he recommended a diner so I trusted his judgment and went there and had a nice healthy chicken dish. That's what it said on the menu, "A Nice Healthy Chicken Dish", and so it was. The menu was kinda kitschy, as though it had been written by somebody's Jewish mother -- with "A Nice Bowl Of Soup", "A Nice Meatloaf", and so on, but the concierge had not lied. It was a satisfying meal.
New York City is a great place to be hungry, and even if you're not hungry you will probably get hungry if you walk around a while. There are lots of places to eat in midtown Manhattan and the smell of food permeates the air. The air definitely smells better than it looks.
It had been drizzling on and off all day, and that night it rained in earnest. I realized that what I had mistaken for air pollution was (at least in part) actually precipitation. After the rain I was able to get a somewhat clearer picture out my window.
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Manhattan -- day 2
Friday, August 8thManhattan -- day 2
I hadn't walked around long my first day in Manhattan before my back was killing me, so the first thing I did on my second day there (after going to Starbucks, of course, to catch up on my email) was to go to The foot Locker to get pair of shoes with lots of cushion. I've been told that Manhattan is a great place to go on a shopping spree so when I saw that they were having a sale I went crazy and got five T-shirts for $20, in addition to my new pair of running shoes. I have no intention of running in them but I wanted as much cushion as possible. I went back to my hotel to drop off my old shoes and my new T-shirts, and then headed back out.
I went back to Grand Central Station to get a one-week pass for the subway, which cost $21. After that I took the number 4 uptown where I got off within a few blocks of the Guggenheim Museum. I arrived at the museum around 1:30, in time to stand in line outside for twenty minutes before they let us in. The sky was once again threatening rain, so it was a relief when we finally got inside. Once inside I found myself in the ticket line. Eventually I got my ticket and worked my way upstairs to the exhibits.
They were having an exhibit called "Pollack to Picasso". I thought "oh good, two of my least favorite overrated artists!". After a couple hours I had seen just about everything. Now I can say I've been to the Guggenheim. It's good to have that behind me.
In fairness to Picasso, I did see a couple of his paintings that I kinda liked. They were early works before he started delving into cubism. I liked "Fernande With a Black Mantilla" and "Woman Ironing". I also saw a number of paintings Vasily Kandinsky that I kinda liked: Capriccio, Free Relationship, and Two Zigzags. Probably the biggest surprise was a Van Gogh that I actually liked. It was called La Viaduc (or Roadway With Underpass). I also liked The Italian Woman by Matisse because it reminds me of someone I used to know.
The Metropolitan Museum Of Art is only about 8 blocks from The Guggenheim but by the time I got out of The Guggenheim it was only going to be open for a couple more hours, so I decided to come back another day when I could devote a day to it.
I had noticed from my window back at the hotel that all the tall buildings had water towers on the roof. I would later learn that these were used for the fire sprinkler system, which seems like a pretty good idea. Walking back to the subway station I took this picture of three buildings, all with their own water tower.
I took the subway to the southern-most part of Manhattan, just before it crosses over to Brooklyn. Once I got out I wandered around Battery Park, caught a glimpse of the Statue Of Liberty, took a picture of a 9-11 memorial that was made from some of the damaged remnants of a sculpture that had been at the World Trade Center.
After that I set out to find the World Trade Cellar. It wasn't hard to find. When I saw the tall skyscraper with hole in its side I was pretty sure I was there. Ironically, when I made a note of the nearest street signs I found that I was on West, where Liberty ends.
And speaking of irony, I took this picture of an unfortunately named item of construction equipment that was located underneath a skyway that had been blocked off.
I wandered around the perimeter but it was clear that they wanted to obscure as much of the site as possible, as it was surrounded by fences. There was a huge sign on the side of a building that said "The human spirit is judged not by the size of the act, but by the size of the heart". I suspect that would depend on who you asked, and when. For more than half a century the essence of American might has been size, not spirit. Still, I had to agree that it was the appropriate sentiment for this place.
After leaving the World Trade Cellar I worked my way north. I was hoping to scope out the Tribeca district, followed by Soho and then Greenwich Village. I was particularly interested in seeing Greenwich Village. I wanted to see how it compares to San Francisco.
Before I even reached Tribeca I came upon this building, and after consulting my map, determined that it is City Hall. It's not that far from where the towers fell, and it's not hard to see how Giuliani was able to be on the scene so quickly. It's quite a formidable building. This is one city hall that I wouldn't want to fight. A few weeks earlier it had been in the news when one of the city councilmen was shot dead there. I don't know about Greenwich Village but there are obvious similarities between New York and San Francisco.
By this time it was getting pretty late in the afternoon and I was both hungry and thirsty. I worked my way northwest toward Tribeca hoping I would find a place where I could get a beer and maybe a sandwich. I didn't have any luck in that department, but when I saw this building I had to get some pictures. It had to be thirty stories tall and I couldn't help but notice that it had NO windows. It had some large vents but no windows. I dubbed it the Deathstar Building.
On I wandered. It was hot but it was a wet heat, which means that you can sweat all you want pal, you ain't gonna cool off. I needed to replenish my fluids so I quickened my pace as passed through block after block of warehouses and lofts, but no place to get a beer. They didn't even have a Starbucks!
When I crossed Houston St. I realized that not only had I blazed through Tribeca but now that I was north of Houston I could safely assume that I had also gone right through Soho, which is short for "South Of Houston". According to my map this meant that I should now be coming into Greenwich Village, and sure enough I started seeing the similarities to San Francisco.
Before long I was a sign for some kind of cafe that featured sandwiches, wraps, pitas, and most importantly, cocktails. I hastened across the street and wandered inside. Not only did they have beer but they also had air conditioning. I ordered a beer and a veggie wrap, followed by a beer. It was a pleasant enough place. There were a few customers but not that many. By the time I was ready to leave it was starting to fill up. I stopped at this restroom and I was amazed at how clean and well decorated it was for a public restroom. It was only then that it occurred to me that all the couples I had seen were of the same sex.
Now that I was sated, what I wanted was rest, but first I had to diagonally traverse midtown Manhattan. There was a subway entrance two blocks from the cafe so I ducked in there. Unfortunately I used my one-week pass to get past the downtown turnstiles. When I realized my mistake I had to go out, up, over and down to go through the uptown turnstiles. About this time I was thinking it was a good thing that I had a pass that entitled me to unlimited rides. But of course that would have been too easy. When I swiped my card through the reader for the uptown train I was not allowed entry, but was instead presented with a message stating that the card had just been used. I savored the irony. Apparently they have had problems with multiple people using the same pass at the same turnstile (presumably by handing it to the next person in line) so they have implemented code that prevents you from using it more than once at the same station and/or within a short period of time. Once again, through no intent on my part I was drawing on my god-given gift for finding bad software design. This didn't get me any closer to my hotel however, so rather than writing a bug report I plead my case the attendant in the booth, and with the press of a button she opened a side gate and let me through.
It occurs to me that nobody is going to swipe their pass, then climb down off the platform, step over the third rail twice, and climb up onto the opposite platform so that they can allow a friend to fraudulently use the system. Therefore, it seems to me that the software could have contained an additional statement to test for the turnstile direction where the card had last been used. A cynical person might then anticipate that the developer would have contended that this was a corner-case, and then marked the bug as "fixed" without actually fixing it. But I digress.
Instead of taking the subway all the way back to 42nd street, I got out one stop early in the low 30s because my map indicated that that was where I would find the Empire State Building. Sure enough, there it was, much bigger than the Chrysler Building without having anywhere near as much style. One might even argue that this only goes to show that the human spirit is judged not by the size of the act, but... I digress.
Anyway, walking back from the ESB I went back by the Jesus H Chrysler Building just to reaffirm my original impressions. They were reaffirmed. I should point out also some of the details that may not come across in the picture such as the fact that the building is plated in copper-nickel. While not as shiny as nickel, it still looks sharp and unlike copper, copper-nickel stays shiny. Another detail that isn't adequately represented by these little pictures is the gargoyles. Copper-nickel plated, Art Deco gargoyles. This is the kind of building that Batman or Spiderman would be proud to climb up the side of.
Manhattan -- days 3 thru 6
Saturday, August 9thManhattan -- day 3
First thing Saturday morning I went to Starbucks and checked my email. By now I was enchanted by Manhattan and I had decided to extend my stay an extra two nights for a total of six. The morning after I had booked my room through Priceline for $150/night I saw an article in USA Today (I didn't buy it, it came with my room in Savannah) about people booking hotels online and it said that you could get a room at the Plaza Hotel for $229/night through hotels.com. I figured that as long as I was going to have to make arrangements for two more nights, why not stay at The Plaza? Well, I'll explain why later, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Anyway, like so much that you read in USA Today, this article was not completely accurate, and when I went to hotels.com I was quoted a price of $259. Anyway, I'd come this far so why quibble about a few extra dollars, right? Besides, it was only going to be for a couple nights, so I booked a room at The Plaza for Monday and Tuesday night.
Steve was back in town from Myrtle Beach and we had spoken on the phone the night before and made arrangements to meet for dinner that night at 7. I had planned on going to the Met on Saturday but by the time I dragged myself out of bed it was noon and I figured that wouldn't give me enough time, so instead I spent most of the day reading, taking pictures out the window, and playing my guitar.
Around 6:30 I headed back out to Grand Central Station and caught a subway to 14th Street. From there I walked to Irving Place and then north to 18th, where Steve and his wife were standing outside looking expectantly up the street in the direction of my hotel but not in the direction of my approach.
After being introduced to his wife we went inside Pete's Tavern for dinner and drinks. Like Steve, his wife knew a thing or two about history, and was as appalled as we were with current state of foreign affairs, so there was much to talk about but little to disagree about.
In spite of having the word "tavern" in its name, Pete's Tavern turned out to serve pretty respectable food. And wine. And beer. After dinner we went for a walk around Gramercy Park and then they took me to a really good (and commensurately crowded) Italian pastry place. I didn't want to spoil my buzz so I just had biscotti with my Bailys-cappucino. Afterward we ventured out into the light rain and dropped off Steve's wife at home before proceeding to another neighborhood bar at the corner of 1st Avenue and 20th. There we had a few more beers, solved the world's problems, talked about rock & roll, and I forget what else. Steve finished his third beer before I did and I bid him farewell. By now I was in the zone so I decided to stay there till it closed. Fortunately, the bars don't close till 4 in New York.
I made various acquaintances over the next couple hours. I don't remember too much of it except that there was some guy from MTV. Amy, the waitress insisted that I must recognize the guy but I had to confess that I had only seen the commercials with the screaming plastic doll that looks like him. In retrospect, the screaming plastic doll is more articulate than this guy was. I don't know what he'd been doing but he'd been doing too much of it. Anyway, after watching him mumble and slobber all over himself for a while I started getting self-conscious about how much I had consumed and by this time I didn't know how much that was, so even though it was only a quarter to four I decided to head back to the hotel. The rain had subsided by now so I decided to walk the distance. It was only a couple dozen blocks and I needed to metabolize before going to bed. When I got in I drank a quart of water and went to sleep.
Sunday, August 10th
Manhattan -- day 4
I didn't do much on Sunday. I got up at the crack of noon, and nursed a hangover for a couple hours. I spent the remainder of the afternoon downloading and editing pictures, and then I went to Starbucks to upload them.
That evening I broke another guitar string, so I needed to get my wire cutters from out of the car. One of the reasons I don't like to leave my car with a valet is that it's a hassle to get anything out of the car that you might have forgotten. Anyway, the valet pointed out may car wedged all the way in the back of the garage behind four rows of cars. I told him I needed the key and he told me that it was in the ignition. Not only was it in the ignition, but the windows were rolled down so there would be no risk of them locking themselves out of the car. This had the added benefit of giving the interior that grease monkey smell that I like so much.
Anyway, I got my wire cutters, left the key in the ignition, and went upstairs to replace my E string.
Monday, August 11th
Manhattan -- day 5
I got up early and took my clothes to the local laundry, where I could get them all laundered and folded for $12. They told me they would be ready for pickup at 6 PM. I went to Starbucks as usual to check my email, and then I went back to my hotel to pack up and get checked out.
On my way back into the hotel I informed the valet that I was preparing to check out, so he might want to start extricating my car from the back of the garage. I then went upstairs and started packing everything up. A few minutes later the phone rang, and it was the valet. He said "We can't move the car because you took the key". Another one of the reasons that I don't like to leave my car with a valet is that you have to give them your key. Now he was telling me that he couldn't find it and he was trying to blame me. Although I have a spare key, it's the valet key ironically. I had left him with the folding one that includes the keyless entry and alarm activation. I've been told by another VW owner that they cost $300 to replace. Anyway, I didn't lose my temper; I assured him that I had not taken the key and suggested that he try to find it.
After I finished packing I went back down to the garage to supervise the search operation, but upon my arrival he cheerfully informed me that it had indeed been located. By the time I showered and got a bellman to help me down with all my bags, the car was ready. I suspected that my room would not yet be available at The Plaza so I took this opportunity to drive around Manhattan a little. Not through Manhattan, mind you, but around Manhattan. I took the expressway runs up the east side of Manhattan. Before I knew it, and much like the hapless character in "Bonfire Of The Vanities", I missed my exit and ended up crossing the bridge into the Bronx. As soon as I crossed the bridge I found my way to the 3rd Avenue bridge and crossed back over into Manhattan. Harlem, to be more specific. Anyway, I found my way over to 5th Avenue and headed south. It was interesting watching the neighborhood transition pretty suddenly around 100th Street. Before long I was alongside Central Park, headed straight for The Plaza Hotel.
It was still too early, so as soon as I passed The Plaza I worked my way west. This time, unfortunately I was going "through" Manhattan, but the island really isn't that wide and before too long I found myself on the expressway that runs up the western side of the island. When I got to the George Washington Bridge I decided to cross the Hudson and see what Jersey looked like. In retrospect, I don't think I got a very typical representation of what New Jersey is like, because I took my first right when I got off the bridge, and in short order I was driving through some pristine nature preserve that runs along the Hudson River for quite a while. I must have driven ten miles before I found a chance to work my way inland, and in that time I had seen about four bicycles and two or three automobiles. It's really a beautiful area, and one of the things that keeps it so pristine is the fact that there is no parking along the way. I imagine it gets a lot of bicycle traffic on the weekend because there are a lot of picnic tables and barbecue pits along the way, but it was virtually deserted on that Monday.
Once I found my way inland I decided I must be in a pretty posh neighborhood. It was still kind of rural and it reminded me of Los Altos Hills. I eventually found my way back to the George Washington Bridge, and crossed it again. It wasn't as hazy as it had been the last time I had come into Manhattan, so I snapped a picture of the Manhattan skyline while I was crossing the bridge. It was still hazy, but not so hazy that you couldn't see the skyline.
When I got to the other side I paid my $6, and got back on that Westside expressway where it separates Harlem from the Hudson. I wish I had a Westside story, but all I did was pull off long enough to take a picture of the bridge.
By now I figured they would have a room ready for me at The Plaza, so I pulled up to the valet and handed my bags to the bellman. The valet informed me that parking would be $45 per day, and gave me my receipt for the car.
The Plaza is certainly opulent. One might go so far as to say excessively so. It's one of those "If you have to ask, you can't afford it" kinda places, and I had to ask.
I was a little worried that the bellman would balk at my standard $2 tip, but apparently it was more than adequate, as he obsequiously told me all about the facilities, the spa, the minibar, and room service. All I was interested in at the time was the broadband internet access and he informed me that it could be mine for only $25/day, proving once again that if you have to ask, you can't afford it.
I guess I should have paid the extra $80 for a suite, because my room only afforded me a view of the light well and the rooms on the other side. Furthermore, the room was a little cramped. It did have high ceilings that created the illusion of space, and it had a spacious closet and hallway, but not much in the way of usable space. Furthermore, once my eyes had adjusted to the light, or lack thereof I noticed that everything looked a little worn and threadbare. The chandelier was missing a few pieces, the walls were scuffed, and the paint was peeling from the window frame. Oh yeah, and it had one of those noisy air conditioning units that one usually has to go to a Comfort Inn to see.
On the other hand, The Plaza is conveniently located across the street from Central Park, and I took this opportunity to get acquainted with it.
After I'd gotten about halfway through the park I consulted my map and determined that there was a subway entrance nearby, just to the east of the park. It was about 4 in the afternoon now and I figured I'd go check out Times Square and kill a couple hours until it was time to pick up my laundry on 43rd St. When I exited the park I came upon The New York Museum Of Natural History. I recognized this from what I'd learned about Joseph Campbell. According to him, his parents took him there when he was about ten (ninety-five years ago), and that he was so impressed by what he saw about the American Indians (a.k.a. native Americans) that it inspired him to devote his life to the study of comparative mythologies (a.k.a. religions). I would have liked to have spent some time there, but I still hadn't been to the Met, and I resigned myself to the realization that it wasn't going to happen on this trip.
I exited the subway on Broadway, a couple blocks north of Times Square, and headed south. Now I can say I've been there. Three days later at just about this time, the lights were going to go out here, and throughout Manhattan and much of the northeast. Fortunately (for me), by then I would be in one of the few states that was unaffected by the big blackout. But more about that later.
After wandering around Times Square for a while with no clear idea of what I was supposed to be doing there, and with another ninety minutes to kill before my laundry was going to be ready, I wandered to Bryant Park, and around to the library. I figured that would be a good place to kill some time, but alas the library was closed. How lame is that? This is the MAIN branch, or a damn big branch anyway. Leave it to the public sector.
So with an hour to kill I wisely decided to take advantage of the fact that it was happy hour, and I found an Irish Pub where I had no difficulty keeping myself occupied for the next hour.
Tuesday, August 12th
Manhattan -- day 6
Tuesday I was determined to spend the day at The Metropolitan Museum Of Art. Naturally, the first order of the day was to go to Starbucks and to check my email. When I got there it was pretty crowded so I had to squeeze into a corner behind a table where three businessmen were seated. While I was checking my email I couldn't help but overhearing the conversation between the three businessmen. Without looking up I quickly figured out that two of the guys were pitching some kind of service to the third guy, who sounded like an old Jewish guy.
Near as I could tell, he had some kind of business or technology for scanning shipping containers for explosives, and the other two guys were trying to convince him that they had all kinds of business connections to put him in touch with the right people in order to sell his product. The more I listened, the more it sounded like these two guys were trying to scam the old guy. They talked about how they knew people at the FDA, the NTSB, and the department of Homeland Security. One of the guys said he also had connections with the CIA and the Mossad, and he related a story (that supposedly had not made it into the press, for security reasons) about how a couple industrialists had been taken hostage during the Yom-Kippur War in 1973. He went on to explain that he had personal knowledge that a couple F-16s had been dispatched to bomb a strategic target if the hostages were not released -- and that as a result the hostages were released before the F-16s arrived at their target.
At this point I was convinced that these two guys were trying to defraud the old Jewish guy. From what I could hear, he sounded impressed by the story about the freed hostages, and I had an unpleasant feeling that he was buying their whole pitch, hook, line and sinker.
About that time the old buy got a call on his cell phone, and he excused himself from their table. He only walked a short distance away and he was still within earshot, and the other two guys carried on a conversation (loud enough for him to hear them) about how busy they are putting deals together. When the old guy returned to the table, the older of the two scam artists said something about how he would start billing the old buy $20,000 a month, and then he would pay $10,000 back to him under the table so that the guy could take a bigger tax write-off. The old guy sounded like he was out of his league. Then one of the two scam-artists said that they also had connections at Halliburton. The old guy acted like he didn't know what Halliburton was, and asked how to spell it. I was beginning to wonder how a guy could be this ignorant and still have a business.
By now I had finished my coffee and read all my emails, so I packed up my computer and asked the old Jewish guy if I could squeeze by him. He got up to let me by, and I said to everybody at the table "By the way, they didn't have F-16s in 1973." I was surprised when the old Jewish guy immediately said "You're right. You're absolutely right." He looked at me and gave me a knowing wink. The other two guys were speechless, and I realized that the old guy was in no danger of being defrauded by these other guys.
I went back to my room to drop off my computer, and then I walked the 22 blocks to The Metropolitan Museum Of Art. They have an impressive collection of European art, and I think I got lucky with my timing because they were also showing a collection by a lot of the Dutch masters, including Rembrandt and Vermeer. I had the feeling that I had seen some of the Rembrandts before, maybe at the Riyksmuseum in Amsterdam, but who knows -- if you've seen one Rembrandt you've seen them all...
They also have an impressive collection of American artworks.
Portland, Maine
Friday, August 15thPortland, Maine
Somewhere between Kennebunkport and Portland we heard a crack as though a rock had hit our windshield, and sure enough, we noticed a crack about 3/4" in length in the lower right corner of the windshield. We decided we would try to get it repaired in Portland before the crack got too big to repair. About five minutes later we heard another crack, and much to our dismay the crack had suddenly grown to about 6" in length. We decided to get the windshield replaced in Portland.
By the time we got checked into our appalling little hotel it was past 5 PM and we knew we wouldn't be able to get the windshield repaired that night. We hoped that we could get it repaired on a Saturday however, so we looked in the phone book for an auto glass place. The only one we found was Portland Glass, so I gave them a call and was routed to a corporate office. According to the representative at the corporate office, they would not be able to repair the windshield until at least Monday and we didn't want to be stuck in Portland any longer than necessary. We hadn't decided on what our next stop would be, but we knew that the power was still out in parts of New York and Ottawa so we determined that our westward progress was going to be limited to about 200 miles before we would potentially encounter power outages. We asked if they had a branch in Burlington, Vermont that would be able to replace our windshield on Monday. They assured us that they could so we set up an appointment for 8 AM Monday.
After it got dark we went into town for dinner. We had to take a detour because there was some kind of major accident involving a bicycle. The streets are not well lit in Portland. We first went to the local Starbucks so we could hit the internet and book our room for the remainder of the weekend in Burlington. Alas, none of the Portland Starbucks have internet access, so we found a place to eat and then headed back to our appalling little hotel. They were still clearing crumpled bicycle parts and bicyclists when we returned so we once again took the detour getting across town.
Once back at our hotel we used a dialup connection to book a hotel using Priceline. We got a decent room at the Radisson for two nights at $100/night.
Saturday, August 16th
Burlington, Vermont
In the morning we scurried to check out of our appalling little hotel, and then we hit the road for Burlington. It was only a 200-mile drive and we took the scenic route. We hadn't actually intended to take the scenic route but the GPS calculated the "quickest route" and sent us on a three-hour tour (a three hour tour) through the back roads of Maine and New Hampshire, and we managed to cover about 100 miles in that time. Fortunately, it gets progressively more scenic as you work your way northwest from Portland so it was a relatively enjoyable ride. We would come around a corner and encounter a beautiful little lake or stream, but I was rarely quick enough on the draw to get my camera out before we past it. On one occasion we came up on a late that was large enough that we still weren't completely past it by the time I was able to take these pictures.
After the first hundred miles we found ourselves on relatively fast highways and we were able to cover the remainder of the distance in less than two hours. The further we traveled, the more mountainous the landscape became. As pastoral as Maine was, New Hampshire was more beautiful.
I wasn't exactly sure when we passed into Vermont, but it just kept getting prettier. Eventually we came to Montpelier, which I believe is the capital. I would go so far as to guess that this is the capital building, where I guess Howard Dean works.
One of the first things I noticed on the final leg of our drive was that for the first time since our trip had started almost six weeks earlier, I was able to turn off the air conditioning. The temperature was in the mid-seventies and the humidity was way down. I had noticed in Maine that the humidity was beginning to decline but now it was at levels that I associate with the west coast.
When we got into Burlington we kept getting closer and closer to the waterfront as we looked for the street where we were supposed to turn. We were pleased to discover that it was the street nearest the waterfront, and we only had to go about a block before we came to the Radisson. We got checked in and moved our bags up to the room, and then we decided to head back up the hill into downtown for dinner. As soon as we left the hotel, which faced west toward Lake Champlain, we noticed that the sun was approaching the horizon, so we went back up to our room to get the camera. By the time we got back out the sun had slipped behind the Adirondack mountains on the other side of the lake but I was able to get a picture before it got too dark.
Downtown Burlington has a lot of restaurants to choose from, and the New England Culinary Institute is also located there. In spite of the large number of restaurants, they were all doing a brisk business so we had to wait about twenty minutes for a table at the Italian Restaurant that we chose. In the interim we walked around the outskirts of downtown and got better acquainted with downtown Burlington.
Burlington, Vermont -- day 2
Sunday, August 17thBurlington -- day 2
It's fortunate that Burlington is such a nice town because we were stuck for the weekend. The power had been restored by now in New York, but we didn't want to drive much further until we had replaced the windshield. We considered driving north about forty miles to Canada but instead we opted to go on a tourist cruise of Lake Champlain.
We learned a lot of interesting things on the trip. For example, Burlington is the largest city in Vermont, with a population of OVER FORTY THOUSAND PEOPLE. I was frankly surprised; I would have assumed that there were at least sixty thousand residents. Anyway, suffice to say that Burlington is very different from what we are used to. But in a good way.
Another fun fact is that we learned is that "Vermont" is a condensation of the Latin words for green mountain: verte monte, or something like that. This explains why so many things are named Green Mountain in Vermont: Green Mountain Road; Green Mountain Auto Glass; Green Mountain Coffee; and Green Mountain Ad Nauseum.
Because the humidity is so low a cooling effect is created by the lake, which according to our tour guide is the sixth largest lake in the continental United States. Although it's cool on the lake, it's certainly not cold. It was just pleasant.
There were a lot of sailboats out on the lake, and it occurred to me that Lake Champlain in the summer is an ideal place to own a boat. If you run into trouble you're never more than about six miles from shore, and the water isn't nearly as cold as the ocean is on the California coast. Furthermore, the waves never get too high and the storms are also commensurately milder than they are in a larger body of water.
Kayaking is another popular sport on the lake, and we saw a lot of folks who had sailed out to a peninsula to do a little cliff diving. You will note that they are not wearing wet suits.
Across the lake are the Adirondack mountains of New York. This is the upstate New York that people visit in the summer. To the south are the Catskills and further west is Lake Placid. There is a ferry that runs continuously back and forth between Burlington and New York, and we were hoping to continue our trip in this direction.
Later that night we wandered back into town for supper and I spotted this tricycle parked outside the sidewalk cafe where we dined. I've never seen one before and I felt a little self-conscious when I went over to take a fed pictures.
It's chain driven and powered by a water cooled, inline four Kawasaki engine. The name of the beast is T-Rex and the license plate said Quebec. In each of the two seats there was a crash helmet, and the passenger compartment was surrounded by a fairly beefy roll cage. I didn't notice seatbelts, but I guess you're not required to have seatbelts on a motorcycle.
For the remainder of the time that we sat there at that sidewalk cafe, there was a constant stream of gawkers, so needn't have been too self-conscious. I couldn't help but notice that with the exception of the occasional wife or girlfriend that got dragged along, all the gawkers were guys. Women would walk by without even noticing. Go figure.
Upstate New York and beyond
Monday, August 18thSyracuse, New York
Because our car was going to be tied up at the auto glass shop till 2 or 3 in the afternoon, we decided not to plan too ambitious of a drive for this day. I had originally planned on being in Canada by now but cracked windshield and the blackout had conspired to keep us in New England. After having seen much of New Hampshire and Vermont though, I have no regrets, although I wouldn't be surprised if the landscape is just as beautiful north of the border.
While we waited (and waited) for the windshield to be replaced we did our laundry, had lunch, got coffee, and generally loitered at the local Barnes & Noble. Around 2:30 the car was ready, and we got back on the road.
We headed south for a few miles and then took the southern ferry across Lake Champlain to upstate New York. Whenever I'd heard people talk about upstate New York it had never occurred to me what a beautiful and postural region it could actually be. I had always had visions of Buffalo snowbound in the dead of winter. As we approached the western shore of Lake Champlain I was astonished at what a beautiful, rural setting we were approaching. Most of the landscape consisted of trees and farmhouses, interspersed occasionally with green fields (probably of corn). When we rolled off the ferry we proceeded up a narrow road and then toward what appeared to be a very small town. Just before town however, our path diverged to the west into the Adirondacks.
For the next few hours we drove through a beautiful landscape. It reminded me somewhat of the Sierras, only the mountains were not as tall and the forest consisted primarily of deciduous trees. There were also a lot of colorful wild flowers along the side of the road. As we got further into the Adirondacks the farms disappeared and we were traveling through some kind of state or national park. After a couple hours we started seeing the occasional small towns, private homes, and summer resorts. Much like Maine, this region is dotted with hundreds of lakes, and every third or fourth car had a canoe on top of it. I would definitely like to come back here some summer to spend a week or two canoeing and relaxing.
Unfortunately, as is often the case in back-country regions like this, after a few hours as we started coming down out of the mountains we began to see a lot of mobile homes and general evidence of a less desirable demographic. As I was driving I was this house and had to turn around to get a picture. It needs a little work.
When we came into the foothills we started seeing a lot more farms. Another thing we noticed was a lot of lavender colored weeds (perhaps they were actually lavender bushes) along the side of the highway. We would continue to see these lavender weeds for days. As we approached Syracuse the scenery became less spectacular and more like California's central valley, only with lavender bushes along the highway instead of California poppies.
We had chose Syracuse for no other reason than the fact that it was a good stopping point before proceeding on to Niagara Falls and Canada. It proved to be all that and less. After checking into the Wyndham hotel, we headed into town by the university for dinner. The guy at the desk had recommended a pizza joint called The Acropolis, so we went there. It appeared to be a fun place to hang out for the college students, but I was not impressed by the pizza. They did have Sam Adams however, so it was not a complete loss.
Tuesday, August 19th
Niagara Falls, Ontario
The next day it was a fairly short drive from Syracuse to Niagara Falls, and we arrived in the early afternoon. After checking into the Marriott, we wandered down to the falls to marvel at the spectacle and take some pictures.
If you like rainbows, you'll like Niagara Falls.
The U.S. side of the falls, seen here, is the lesser of the two falls that make up Niagara Falls.
Where we were staying, on the Canadian side of the falls, known as Horseshoe Falls, it's much more spectacular than the U.S. side. The falls kick up so much spray that there is literally a cloud that hangs over the top of the falls, and it's in this cloud that the rainbows appear.
Depending on where you stand you can often see the full arc of one rainbow inside the partial arc of another rainbow,
...but without a wide-angle lens you're not going to fit the whole thing into the frame.
The bridge we had crossed coming into Canada was called Rainbow Bridge. I had always thought that Rainbow Bridge had been some charity concert but it turns out that there's more to it than just that.
You can take a tour boat out to the falls...
...and ride right up to the base of Horseshoe Falls.
YOU can -- I'm not going to.
Daisy even took a couple pictues of me.
I was particularly amused by the sign warning us not to climb over the railing. I had to wonder how many lives that had actually saved, and more specifically, how many of those lives were actually worth saving.
Wednesday, August 20th
Toronto, Ontario
Once again it was a fairly short drive of about ninety minutes from Niagara Falls, around the corner of Lake Ontario to Toronto. When we had visited Chicago we had stayed at a hotel that was less than a quarter of a mile from Lake Michigan, but in all our excitement to see Chicago we completely forgot to wander over to have a look at one of the great lakes. Therefore, this was the first time (in Daisy's life and for the first time in 35 years for me) that we actually saw one of the great lakes. Frankly, I couldn't see what was so great about it but then I've seen the ocean from Carmel to Waimea, to The Sea Of Japan, to the Caribbean, to the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. I have since seen the north coast of Lake Huron and I have been duly impressed, but at this point I was not impressed by a body of water that stretched to the horizon but couldn't be bothered to generate a proper wave.
Toronto was hazy as we pulled into town. I've heard about how beautiful Canada is but apparently it wasn't Toronto that I had heard about. It's not ugly, it's just a big city on one of the Great Lakes. Once we got checked into our hotel and went back out I quickly decided that I like the town. For one thing, they have lots of Chinese and Japanese restaurants. In addition, there are a lot of places that are open 24 hours, including markets and internet cafes. It's an ideal place for people who don't let the earth's rotation dictate their sleep patterns. That, in conjunction with the lower cost of living, makes it an ideal place for an artist -- provided that they saved up some money before they left San Francisco.
Anyway, we went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch. That is to say, it was a restaurant that serves Japanese food, although the operators are Chinese. The sushi bar was empty and business was slow when we wandered in around 2, so I decided not to try the sushi. Be that as it may, the teriyaki was good, the tempura was good, and the beer was no worse than it is at any other Japanese restaurant.
In spite of the fact that we were pretty far north, and on the coast of Lake Ontario, it was still hot outside, so after lunch we retired to our air-conditioned hotel room until sunset (and until we woke from our nap).
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