Dixie

Vic the mechanic finally gave me my car back late in the afternoon on Friday the 25th of September. I was flush with a wave of excitement and liberty. Sure, I was down thousands of dollars that I couldn't really afford. And it's not as if my stay in Tampa and St. Pete had been unpleasant. Quite the opposite in fact. But I was empowered once again to continue my journey, the need for which I cannot understand let alone explain. I sprung away from central Florida promptly, motivated by wheels for wings and a new engine for a beating heart. I migrated to the winding county roads of northeast Florida, where the cypress trees overgrow the roadway like stately roman arches and the Spanish moss reaches down to try to entangle you in the rural charm. But I would not be so restrained, and soon I left Florida behind for the Atlantic coast of Georgia at sunset.

America is a nation of islands bedecking a sea of green and static. The sun had fully set as I bypassed the historic port town of Savannah, Georgia and cruised toward the South Carolina border. Here I experienced a moment that struck me and wills stay with me. I heard the static part against the shores of one of these islands. A Georgia jazz and blues station...I don't know where it was located...was commemorating the birthday of Ray Charles (b. Sep. 23, 1930, Albany, GA) with a weekend of his tunes. I managed to catch the refrains of, notably, "Georgia On My Mind" and "Hit the Road, Jack" through the darkness before the island was behind me and I sailed purposefully on the sea once again.

I reached my destination of Columbia, South Carolina late in the evening, almost midnight. I was here to visit my friend Anthony Nyberg. Anthony is the older brother of Ian, who I visited in Austin about two weeks earlier. These days, Anthony is an associate professor at the business school at the University of South Carolina. He's doing quite well there, if my limited understanding of the mechanisms of academia are to be trusted, and has had a fair amount of his research published lately. I have been friends with the Nyberg boys for 20 years now, since my college days. Anthony knows me as well as anyone, and accordingly had the bourbon ready to pour regardless of the lateness of my arrival. We stayed up chatting until past two.

The next day, after a leisurely weekend brunch, we explored the town of Columbia. The university campus is pretty, as these places usually are. The dominant architecture in the town is neo-classic of the kind that was very popular in America at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th. Lots of colonnaded porches and entablatured roofs. The university itself is made primarily of a kind of yellow-orange brick. They also really like wrought iron fences here, and you can find them all throughout the city.

Columbia is also the state capitol. The capitol building itself isn't as grandiose as the one in Austin. But it is certainly more culturally significant, both historically and currently. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union and therefore start the Civil War, an act which would have been passed into law (or outlaw, depending on your point of view) in this very building. Of course, some of that spirit continues to this day. A live controversy of the last decade plus has been that the state government here chooses to fly the flag of the Confederate States of America. Or maybe it's the Confederate battle standard. I couldn't quite tell since there was no wind blowing. This has brought outrage from other sectors of the nation, notably the NAACP which initiated a boycott that I believe is still in place. There is a kind of compromise. Instead of flying the flag from the capitol dome, now they just fly it from a pole on the front lawn, near a statue dedicated to Confederate war veterans. It's a compromise that neither side seems to be happy with, which seems to be a hallmark of all the great compromises.

The next morning I was traveling again, this time for a short drive to Blacksburg, Virginia. Blacksburg is almost due north from Columbia, just across the short western arm of the state of North Carolina. I went past Charlotte at mid-day with only a brief stop for lunch, arriving in Blacksburg before dinner. Here I completed my climb up the Nyberg clan seniority tree, with a visit to Nyberg pater. Martin is an interesting fellow who has worked in business for many years, but is currently a sometimes teacher of business ethics at Virginia Tech. He and his wife Meribe live in a pleasant house a short way from the campus. We had dinner together, and caught the opening of new Ken Burns documentary that I had been hearing about and was quite eager to see. It was all too short of a stay, but my story is running long and I'm beginning to feel it. Besides, on the next part of the drive I would see something I had left behind weeks ago and longed to visit again: mountains!

The Blue Ridge plateau formed the eastern extent of the original 13 colonies, and was the American frontier when America itself started. My trip would take me through the eastern extent of these worn and ancient mountains. They are small mountains, a bit bigger than the western foothills of the cascades around the Issaquah plateau back home. But they are very scenic and offer frequent pleasant vistas. There is a scenic byway that I ventured onto from time to time. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share with you all. There are hardly any opportunities to pull the car over, take in the scenery, and grab a snapshot. It's an experience that must be had live, and not committed to electrons. I was a bit disappointed at first, but as I drove I became philosophical: whose to say that this isn't how the road should be enjoyed? The memory lives in my head for as long as my head lasts. And it will live in granite and wood and grass long after that, waiting to be experienced by others again. Maybe that's just how it's supposed to be.

This segment of my journey, which would carry me out of the South for the first time in weeks, was one where I would indulge my penchant for history. On one of the little scenic byways off the main interstate running through the Blue Ridge, I visited Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. It was founded as Augusta Academy, was later renamed after the General and first President who gave it a major grant, and then was renamed again to commemorate its later president the former confederate general Robert E. Lee. Lee dedicated his life after the war to education and did a credible job turning the University into a perfectly reasonable private institute of higher learning. He died in 1870, and he and his family (and his horse!) are entombed here in the chapel he had built.

This was the start of my "backward through time" Civil War journey. My trip took me northward through the Shenandoah valley, past the famous sites and of the Stonewall Jackson valley campaign and the infamous Sheridan valley campaign. Why Thomas Jackson's campaign is famous and Phil Sheridan's is infamous is a curious study for another time.

But these were appetizers. I arrived at the main course in the mid afternoon: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This is the site of the bloodiest battle in our quarter of the globe. It was also the turning point of a war that defined the nation. It's Borodino and El Alamein and Midway all rolled into one. I spent a little time exploring the town, but found my way to the visitor's center to get the self-guided audio auto tour. This is the way to experience the place, as the battlefield was much bigger than I had imagined it: over 25 square miles.

I'm not one to indulge in jingoism. I'm certainly not ashamed of my country, but I'm given to agree with Dr. Johnson's quote: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." However, it has now happened to me twice on this trip that I have felt profoundly American. The first time was at Grand Canyon National Park. The second time was here. Actually visiting the site of the battle made famous in many a book and film gave me a perspective - literally and figuratively - that I had never had. The park service has done a very good job laying out the history and contour of the battle. And the land has changed very little. There are even plaques set up so that you can see a photograph taken from the 1860s and see that the vista, sometimes down to the smallest detail, remains the same to this day.

It becomes easy to imagine the feelings of the soldiers and officers. I stood on Oak Hill, where the rebels poured fire on the exposed elements of the union army. I wandered about Little Round Top, on the exact spot where the 20th Maine stopped the Confederate advance and Col. Chamberlain ordered the battalion to fix bayonets. I experienced where Lee stood to observe Pickett's charge. It didn't seem like it should be impossible.

I don't know why I have such at attraction to history. I have engaged on this trip, in large part, to try to understand what it is that makes me happy. I have come to some insights, but in so many ways I'm inscrutable to myself. I can say, though, that this culmination of my trip through Dixie was the perfect signpost. Maybe someday I'll even understand why.

I had thought I'd spend an hour or so at Gettysburg. I left after five, and only because the sun was setting. I left these great sites of a conflict a century and half old to return to the task at hand. I had an appointment with the great white way.

Around Tampa

My friend Sheldon, my unexpected host for the surprise week of immobility, is a real foodie. Early on in the week, when it appeared that there would be a few guests in town for just a few days, Sheldon had arranged a few dinners at suitably foodie places.

The first evening, Sheldon, Gretchyn, Scott, and I went out to Mise en Place. It's one of the finest meals I've ever had, forget about just this trip. The menu rotates frequently, so I don't think I can recommend something you should get. I can recommend that you go there and be adventurous, though. I had the pate in banana mole, just to give you an idea of what you're in for. The following night, now with Aaron Forsythe, we visited Bern's Steakhouse, evidently the premier such place in Tampa. It certainly earns its reputation. The steak itself was quite good by high-end steakhouse standards, but the really memorable parts of the evening were the tour of the wine cellar, consisting of literally hundreds of thousands of bottles, followed by desert and coffee in the special desert rooms. I kid you not.

But after those first couple nights I was quite glad to drop out of 'being entertained' mode and drop happily and comfortably into 'hanging out' mode. Aaron left on Sunday, followed by Scott on Monday. The three of us remaining enjoyed a relatively quiet time of some nights staying in, some nights going out simply. A great deal of relaxation was had all around, especially with the pool and the spa in the back patio.

I'm telling you, there are things that can be quite nice about Florida.

Early in the week I started to walk around the general area a bit. Tampa isn't the type of town where people live in the city and have a vibrant downtown and what not. It's more of a gated community and shopping center kind of scene. At least in this part of town. The communities are built new here. A good job has been done to incorporate the natural surroundings into the neighborhoods. For example, there are numerous ponds and wetlands amongst the houses. Wildlife is all over, like these herons. Plus cranes and ibises. They have 'missing pet' problems here as well, which are probably attributable to alligators.

It's a state crime to disturb alligators, as the signs around the neighborhood point out. But I think that if they really meant that, they wouldn't have built the elementary school right across the street from this particular pond! I was hoping to get a glimpse of one of the little fellows, as I figure that photography isn't all that disturbing. Unfortunately, I never caught sight of one. I did make a count of the household cats every day. No worries on that front.

A small perk is that there's a brand new LA Fitness just about a mile down the street. I got in my first real workout since I left Seattle. Felt like three weeks had gone by, too.

Through the wonder that is Facebook, I have slowly but surely over the last year or two been renewing acquaintances with friends from many years ago, as have so many other people. I had mostly fallen out of contact with even my closest friends from high school. On this unexpected visit, I got a real, offline benefit from this phenomenon. One of my high school teachers, of whom I was particularly fond, had retired to the environs of St. Petersburg with her husband a few years ago. Diane Skyes taught art as well as a class called 'Senior English' which was a kind of college prep humanities class combining art, history, and literature. That class in particular is one of the more defining moments in my education and probably had the greatest impact on my decision to study anthropology in college.

Diane and David were kind enough to come all the way out to Tampa to pick me up and go with me for lunch in St. Pete, followed by a visit to the Dali museum. That is certainly a visit I recommend. It's a quite manageable sized collection, about 2-3 hours to enjoy nicely. It has some very early examples of his art, including some impressionist and cubist things he did when he was a teenager and learning his craft. Who knew? Plus, of course, a wide selection of his surrealist work and even some of the glasswork he did from the 60s through the 80s.

Florida at it's best...at it's most characteristic...is done up in pastels of pink and turquoise and yellow. Only this state can pull this off, I think. The colors bake and sparkle in the sun, and it all feels right. In any other environment I would find it gaudy. I think seeing my old art teacher put me in a suitable mind to contemplate this.

Throughout the week, I heard back from Vic the mechanic several times. The news hasn't been great, but hasn't been disastrous. The delivery of the new engine got pushed back a day to Friday. Thursday I heard I also needed a new flywheel, but that it wouldn't cause any more time delay. As I type this Thursday night, I remain guardedly hopeful that I'll be on the road again in less than 24 hours.

I've learned something the progress of this trip from the stay. I write better when I have hours of uninterrupted time to just contemplate and consider. Not even actively, mind you. What I would call passive thinking. The kind of thing you do when you're on the road for long stretches, with no television or swimming pool or dinner plans to distract you. I'm eager to get moving again. I imagined this update being done earlier, but I just couldn't muster up the framework to do it. Determination of the quality and entertainment value once I did get around to it is left as an exercise to the reader.

I'm also starting to actually miss my home. I think the little taste of sedentary life here has made me pine for my own walls and my own stuff. It is indeed to time to move on.

Only the Good Die Young

I suppose my troubles actually started in the couple days leading up to the start of this road trip. Although my start date was delayed twice by various unfortunate events, nonetheless I was still pressed for time as departure day approached. One of the errands I meant to run back in Seattle was an oil change. My last one had been in April when I had the routine 20,000 mile maintenance done. Before that it was January. But, it fell by the wayside. No matter, I thought, I'll have the car with me on the road. I'll just get an oil change on one of the slow days. Maybe when I get to Tampa and the half way point.

I'm a fairly responsible driver. The unfortunate incident in California two weeks ago aside, I rarely if ever get tickets. I haven't been an accident since I was 24, when I smacked into a gigantic Caddy with a little plastic Mitsubishi in Key West. On this trip, I had tires that were less than 8 months old, I had the checkup under my belt, and I was paying attention to the gauges and general performance of the car.

Some time after I arrived in Florida (I actually don't remember whether it was the evening of Wednesday, September 16 or the following morning), I saw the oil warning indicator flicker on for a split second then go off. This drew my attention to the oil pressure gauge, which I noticed for the first time was quite low, about 30-40 psi. It should be around 60, and had been the numerous times I looked at it during the trip. I figured it was a good thing I was as close to Tampa as I was, only about 6 hours, so I could take the car in for service.

This I did the morning after arriving at Sheldon's. As it so happens, Sheldon and his wife Gretchyn also own a couple of Nissans, so they recommended the service department at the dealer only a few miles from their house. It was a pleasant morning and I drove the Z down the quiet roads of their development with the windows down. Away from the noise of the highway and the rain-mandated rolled up windows of the day before, I now heard a distinct and quite loud rattle coming from the front end of the car as I made my way to the dealership. Upon arrival and meeting with Vic the mechanic, I relayed all the observations I had made up to that point. Vic immediately looked concerned.

After five minutes, Vic comes up to me in the lobby and says, "Ummm, sir, there's no oil AT ALL in your engine." You know that feeling you get when you're riding the rollercoaster, and you're toward the back of the train and the front cars have already gone over? Yeah, it felt like that. Vaguely sickened but always ready with the snappy rejoinder, I was able to muster, "So....what are you saying?" He was too polite to say, "Well, it means two things. You're screwed and I just made my bonus."

I don't know exactly what happened. I'm fairly certain it was NOT a total lack of maintenance. As I mentioned, I had taken it in twice for oil changes this year already. Granted, by manufacturer recommendation, it should have been three. But I don't think I'm really alone in not quite adhering to that schedule. It is true that I had just driven about 4000 miles, part of the way through the desert. This is hard on the poor beast. I should have been giving it extra love, not just shy of routine. However, I had been monitoring the oil pressure at various times and it did not show a steady decline over time. Rather it experienced a sudden jump down one day. This leads me to believe something catastrophic occurred. Perhaps I blew out a gasket somewhere on the trip. I never noticed an oil slick at any point under the car (although I could have missed it, I suppose). If this is what happened, it could have occurred while I was actually driving.

But regardless of the origins of the problem, I could not refuse to accept to the situation. I'm over 3000 miles from home, I have inadequate service records (which, truthfully, I don't do a good job of keeping anyway), I have a car that's out of warranty by a scant couple months, and I'm frankly lucky that I didn't throw a rod in the middle of the interstate, 30 miles from civilization bereft of cell phone coverage. Vic fiddled around with the car for most of the day but then gave me the prognosis I knew was coming: I had to replace the engine at a cost of over $8k plus labor.

I considered, for the briefest of moments just driving out with a new car. They had a shiny new 370Z, the trim that replaced my 350 this model year. But this was never really an option. I can't exactly afford a new sports car given my current income situation. The blue book value on my 350 is well over the cost of the replacement motor, so it makes financial sense to do the repair. And, most importantly, the 370 doesn't come in a convertible.

Engine replacement it was to be. The estimate from Vic is that the car should be ready to go on Thursday or Friday, making for an unexpected one week stay in Tampa. On the upside, they're going to replace the clutch with no additional labor cost since, y'know, they're going to have the darn thing up on a rack with the engine completely removed anyway. So why not?

Needless to say, Friday was a long and stressful day. In the evening we were joined by my former co-worker Aaron Forsythe, in town to help out at a Magic tournament. Sheldon, Aaron, Scott Larabee and I went out to dinner with a couple of Sheldon's local friends and I worked very hard to not let my gloomy outlook bring the whole group down. As the evening progressed I grew more philosophical. First off, I frankly got lucky. For all I know, I drove the thing 200 miles with no oil in the engine. It could have just as easily seized up, caught fire, or God knows what else. While I'd like to be annoyed with Nissan for "letting" this happen just after I got out of warranty, I should really thank the engineers who designed such a hardy power plant. For another, it's not like I'm spending a week in a prison in Turkey. The weather in Tampa is a little sticky as summer comes to an end, but it's sunny and warm and all around pleasant. I don't have to buy a motel room and be lonely for a week, since I'm being hosted by Sheldon and Gretchyn.

Oh, and on the purely materialistic side; there is the 400 square foot pool, jacuzzi, patio grill, and well stocked bar. It's time for this road trip to take a truly unexpected turn.

Winding Roads; The Seeds of Our Destruction

At various times people have asked me for an itinerary on my trip. I've been a little reluctant to give one out. This is not because I like being difficult (although that is, in fact, often true). Rather, it's because I only have nebulous plans about how this trip is supposed to go. As a result, there is more of an outline than an itinerary. On the morning of September 16th I seemed to be at the point in the outline where I would visit New Orleans. I have been to the Crescent City numerous times for both business and pleasure, but I have not seen the place since Hurricane Katrina. Thus poised, I found myself thinking about the trip so far. Some of the really memorable moments have come in visiting small towns like San Luis Obispo, Kanab, and Lafayette. Right there, on the spot, I decided to skip New Orleans and spend the next day or two visiting small towns on 2 lane highways.

I started out with a hankering to see the bayous. I consulted my road atlas and found that the southernmost reasonable sized town in Louisiana was called Houma. Off I went down US 90, passing through or by towns with names like Chacahoula and Thibodaux. The bayous aren't quite what I expected. I was imagining scenes like the big chase scene in _The Man With The Golden Gun_. Hundred year old cypress trees, alligators, maybe a dilapidated shack or two. In reality, mostly it looks like a forest with intermittent firm ground and water. The road tended to be built on a causeway for part of it. There is plenty of Spanish moss, to be sure.

















I'm sure you can find the bayous like you see in the movies. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been all those billboards offering boat tours. But today was a day for rambling, not tour packages. So I simply stopped at Griffin's Grill in Houma for the blackened shrimp po'boy, and I was on the road again.

I wound my way across Lake Pontchartrain and into Mississippi, which held little appeal that far south on the Gulf coast. I think the visit to Mississippi needs to start with Tupelo, and so will have to wait for another day. Instead I just spun into Alabama and the fine city of Mobile. Here I stopped for a while, as I had heard numerous times that Mobile is one of the finest "small" cities in America. Some folks I know even say they prefer visiting here for Mardi Gras rather than New Orleans. I don't know about that, but it is a very pleasant city. They do an especially good job with green space in the middle of down town area. There were parks and monuments and what-not one block out of every six or so it seemed. The waterfront is pretty industrial, but that's such a minor quibble.


The architecture is quite similar to New Orleans in certain ways. Notably, the buildings in the old part of downtown have those same great wrought iron balconies.

Mobile is the sight of one of the more famous battles of the Civil War, the naval engagement known as the Battle of Mobile Bay. This was a decisive battle that effectively shut off the Confederacy's last sea port and almost all their contact with the outside world. It also destroyed the remainder of the Confederate navy. At the climactic moment of the battle the Union commander, Admiral David Farragut, was trapped between withering shore fire from four forts on the bay and a naval minefield (mines were called "torpedoes" in those days) that had just sunk one of his armored monitors. His response was the now famous order, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" In this way he was able to move beyond the range of the fort guns and trap and destroy the last confederate ship, CSS Tennessee. I wonder how many people use that quote without knowing the origin. Here's the marker commemorating the battle.


I spent a good hour wandering about in Mobile checking things out. But it was too early to call it a night here, so I decided to push into Florida.

On a tip from my home base support crew, I wanted to take a drive down US 98, which hugs the gulf coast. I hadn't had a good waterfront drive since the Pacific Coast Highway and Malibu. I figured I'd drive down this as far as I had the stomach to, before hooking up with more major roads for the final drive to Tampa. This route took me through Pensacola and toward Panama City. It's a pleasant drive, but as different from the PCH as you can imagine. The area is heavily developed. You don't see the open Gulf of Mexico at any point, since the Florida shore is protected by a line of barrier islands called keys. On these keys are built massive hotels and condominium developments. This is where they put all the people who flee New York and other eastern and midwestern cities for summer vacations.

But it's mid-September, and all the vacationers have gone home. The infrastructure here is significant, with 6 lanes highways, industrial on-ramps, massive housing complexes, and huge parking lots. Almost all of it was abandoned for the end of the season. While the drive itself was quite beautiful with the sun setting in my rear view mirror and the shadows on the dunes growing longer and longer, the overall effect was a kind of sad desolation.

The next morning I awoke to looming gray skies and heavy rain. The cloudy and rainy weather that has been following me here finally manifested itself as heavy rain with some thunder and lightening. The power of a Florida rainstorm is an experience none should miss and all should respect. I had the gist of the scenic gulf drive, and given the inclement weather I decided to cut inland and rejoin the Interstate highway system. This afforded me a different kind of pleasant experience, as it took almost two hours of winding through small north Florida towns to find Interstate 10 again. It's mellow and bucolic here, and it's definitely more akin to the great American southern icons like Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas than it is to glitzy south Florida.

I finally arrived in Tampa in the late afternoon, there to stay with my friend Sheldon Menery, joined as well by my friend Scott Larabee also in town from Seattle for a visit.


Alas, while I didn't know it at the time, a catastrophe had occurred some time during my leisurely drive along the gulf. My plans and my checking account wouldn't be able to withstand what happens next. In a day or two, I'll update everyone on the saga of Chris's poor, lamented, and now mostly departed Nissan Z.

Deep in the Heart of the Past, A Cautionary Tale About Overplanning

Farewell to the middle west for now. Hello to the new south.

I got an early start to the day on the morning of the 13th, as I was eager to make it to Austin and visit one of my closest friends and his wife. Wichita is very close to the border with Oklahoma, and before I knew it I was a visitor there. As you many know, Oklahoma is called the Sooner state. This is drawn from their history. You see, in 1889 the congress of the United States opened up "Indian country" to legal habitation by American settlers. However, some people cheated. They got a head start on their countrymen by hours, days, or months and staked claims before the official start date. These cheaters became known as "sooners" and the state has adopted them as their mascot. I would offer up a snide observation, but I'm from Indiana and I'm not even sure what a "hoosier" is, so I better not throw stones.

The vast American prairie begins to fade as one drives south trough Oklahoma. Slowly the flatlands transform to gently rolling hills; stands of trees become more and more prevalent; and wheatfields give way to oil wells, riverine forests, and larger towns. Chief among these is Oklahoma City, a metropolis of the middle USA. Here's the surprise of the trip so far: the coolest rockabilly show I've heard this side of Shake the Shack on KEXP is right here in OKC. Rock-it radio's rockabilly lunch is a pretty amazing show, only the annoying DJ insists on talking over the songs! Poindexter, I can hear it! Shuddup already and let me enjoy it. I don't need the commentary.

Oklahoma must have a senator or something who was instrumental in getting the Obama stimulus package passed. Interstate 35 southbound was ripped all to hell and gone, in the middle of a total reconstruction in about three places. All the southbound traffic was shunted into a single northbound lane, slowing me down painfully. It's the biggest highway project I've seen on the trip so far. I felt economically stimulated. I admit to getting so frustrated at one point being trapped behind some doofus semi or mobile home that when it did finally open up to two lanes, I found out that my car can indeed go 110 mph. Fortunately, no state troopers were in the vicinity, and my scofflaw ways went unpunished for the time.

But Oklahoma was merely a path to my real objective: the great state of Texas. I came swooping in from the north, through the countryside above the metropolis of Dallas then south toward the state capitol. In truth, I had driven across Texas before. In 1996, when I was first moving to Seattle, I visited a friend in Norman, OK then headed east across Oklahoma and the panhandle of Texas. I took in Lubbock and Amarillo on that drive. Let me tell you, those places are nothing like what I experienced here. In west Texas, the terrain is all sage grass, flat land, and borderline desert. In populous east Texas, by comparison; there's greenery, rolling hills, and urban sprawl. Not quite southern California or New Jersey sprawl, but there is a whole mess of people living between Dallas and San Antonio along I-35W. I arrived in Austin in the early evening.

I was in Austin to visit one of my closest college friends, Ian Nyberg, and his wife Rebekah Jongewaard.
Ian was my roomie as an undergrad for two years, and then for another 2 years or so after graduation. He was the braintrust and prime mover behind Tequila Tuesday, which (along with the SCA and the University of Chicago's Major Activities Board) is where I learned how to produce events. These days he is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Texas, and has just finished defending his dissertation. He should officially have the alphabet soup after his name in a few short months. Congrats, Ian!

After enjoying a quiet evening of home cooked food, Ian and I hit the town of Austin to do a little mellow touring and walking about. Many of you have probably heard very favorable things about Austin: they are all true. To begin with, this town is an American treasure for music. Janis Joplin, Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and my personal favorites the Butthole Surfers all got their start in this relatively small city of 700k people.

The city is built across a string of man-made lakes. These lakes provide ample outdoor adventure opportunities, as well as cool civic parks...like the one that has the bike and running track and this bronze of Stevie Ray Vaughn. See how it all comes together?


There's also the University of Texas main campus. Like many major state universities, this one has it's share of important contributions to academia, including major advancements in the understanding of molecular biology, a significant history in computer science, and the Lyndon B. Johnson library. Also the campus is just cool looking, and it has the largest football stadium I've ever seen.

The tower below is the very one where a deeply troubled marine and UT engineering student named Charles Whitman went certifiably crazy and murdered 13 people by rifle and shotgun fire in 1966 before he himself was killed by Austin police. This was after murdering his wife and mother as they slept the evening before.

The Whitman case was, to the best of my knowledge, the opening of a sorry age of inexplicable random violence in the USA, which (hopefully) reached its pinnacle in the Columbine massacre. If there were to be a 'gruesome tour of America,' it should include this place. The aftermath continues to this day. It is only in the last few years that they have allowed tourists back up into the tower. And still only on weekends. It's a shame, I'm sure the views from there are magnificent.

It was great catching up with Ian and Rebekah. As I have mentioned in this blog before, there are many stops I have made on this tour so far where I felt I could spend days. But not until this stop did I feel sad to be leaving. But Ian had work to do, and I needed to keep moving. It is all too hard to maintain the relationships that have made your life worth living. I am all too fortunate to have found the kind of relationships that endure despite inadequate nurturing.

The next morning, after a farewell breakfast, I headed out on the road again. My next planned destination is Tampa, Florida and there is a lot of highway between here and there. I decided to head south toward Houston to hook up with Interstate 10, which would lead me all the way across of the Gulf of Mexico to Florida. I wanted to slow down the pace of my trip a bit. The first week and half had included some days of very hard driving, and those days had taken their toll. At the risk of sounding cliche, I'm not as young as I used to be. Slowing down a bit would serve the dual purpose of making it a little easier on me mentally and physically, as well as giving me a bit more time to take in the sights along the way.

With this in mind, I figured I'd stay overnight in Lake Charles, Louisiana. I actually made it there even earlier than I expected. I did a quick little tour of the city and it's pretty lake, not done justice by these pictures simply because I have been dogged by overcast skies since leaving Colorado.
















But it was still early and Lake Charles lacked the kind of something-something that made it feel like the right evening destination for me. Given that the vast expanses of the west are now behind me and I'm in substantially more heavily populated country, I decided to push on the short hour or so to the town of Lafayette.

They call this stretch of the nation "Acadiana," though the origins of the term are evidently disputed. It was settled by french speaking people from what are now the Canadian maritime provinces. We tend to know them as "cajuns" for the most part. Lafayette is deep in the heart of Cajun country. The stereotypes usually make me think of bayous, swamp boats, and cypress trees. The reality, however, is that this is a pleasant land of slowly rolling meadows and grassy wetlands. Further to the south I'm sure you can find the stereotypes...but that's not where the real people are, and I love to find the real people.

A recurring theme for me on this trip is trying to find the right balance between planning and spontaneity; between forward progress and local experience; between road trip and leisurely tourism. I don't know if I'm doing it right. I can only say I think about it, and I'm doing it the way that _feels_ right at the moment. Today I got one of the greatest object lessons in this balancing act.

I came into town planning to have a real cajun experience. I've been relying on my Lonely Planet USA guide quite a bit, and it had a several page entry for Lafayette, extolling the virtues of this-or-that nightclub and the properties of the downtown area. I scouted. Nothing Lonely Planet says is wrong per se, but it's just another kind of script. Still intending to follow their recommendations, I set off to find a motel for the night before changing into some steppin-out clothes. Well...one thing led to another and the motel became hard to pin down. Don't even ask. By 7:30 I was tired and cranky, but I had obtained a room at a motor inn on the outer edge of the city. I was not enthused to head back into the downtown. Fortunately for me there was a little place only about a block over called the Blue Dog Cafe. I figured I'd just grab a quick if uninspired dinner there and then maybe try to salvage an evening of listening to some live music.

It turns out the Blue Dog Cafe is founded by or around the artist George Rodrigue, who is from New Iberia just to south of Lafayette. He's a moderately well-known contemporary American artist who makes his name from oil paintings invariably featuring a blue dog looking out at the observer. This is his place. And what a place! The food was probably the best I've had on the trip so far. The clientele was an eclectic mix of grizzled old cajuns, local business folks, oil workers, and college students. And the beer tasted the best of any I've had in recent memory...aided no doubt by the high 80s temperatures with 100% humidity (Acadiana could also be called America's sauna, as far as I'm concerned). I spent my whole evening mostly listening, and chatting with some of the folks. I could not have done better. Jack Kerouac has never been far from my mind on this trip, but I haven't felt like him until this evening. My takeaway: planned spontaneity can never happen. But every once in a while, if you're really lucky, a frustrating evening will be sneakily replaced by one of the times of your lives.

May you all have many such experiences. And may I have yet more as I push across the deep south tomorrow.

Resting Amongst the Wealthy; A Satisfying Appreciation

Having crossed the desert bare, it was time to breathe some mountain air. I made Vail a stopover point to visit my friend Mike Slass. Mike lives in Seattle, where he is a computer programmer/stagehand - an unlikely multi-class if ever there was one. Mike is the only other person I know who has worked in both events and software development. He contends the two disciplines are nothing alike, I contend they are a lot alike. We can't both be right.

I forgot to snap a pic of Mike, because by the time I busted my camera out on getaway day, he had already left for physical therapy. Mike is in Vail...again...for a round of surgery and rehab on his knee, which he messed up skiing a few years back. It turns out one of the best knee surgeons in the world is in Vail. One of the best hip surgeons, too. They're so good that professional sports teams send their athletes to get repaired here. Mike shared PT space with Adam Vinatieri a few weeks ago. Evidently Adam's a very nice guy...and was hitting 65 yard field goals at the local high school after his rehab. Also visiting the clinic this week while Mike was in therapy was a member of the Portland Trailblazers and two currently unidentified NFL linemen.

However, I did get a picture of Stephanie, somewhat to her chagrin. Stephanie is a college friend of Mike's who was also in town to help out after his surgery. She made us both delicious breakfast...yum!

I had been driving hard for the previous two days, so a rest was well in order, I thought. As Mike has rented a spacious condo in Vail village for the duration of his rehab, I decided to hang here for a couple nights. I spent the day in between, while Mike was doing two-a-day workouts, wandering around Vail village. Some of you ski or snowboard, so you'll know what I mean when I say that it's a typical but quite nice manufactured ski village. It's busy in the summer season as well. They keep the gondolas running part time and let hikers and mountain bikers up on the runs.

The whole resort and the village around it was founded by a fellow named Pete Seibert (1922 - 2002). Pete grew up in New England, but enlisted to fight the war. He joined the 10th Mountain Rangers, which trained in southern Colorado. After his service, during which he was severely wounded in fighting in Italy, he became a professional skier. See...and you thought the army couldn't prepare you for anything useful. Pete got together with a rancher he knew to start the ski resort. I'm told many of the ski resorts in America were actually started by veterans of the 10th Mountain Rangers. It's a very interesting claim. Right time, right place I guess.

This is definitely one of the continent's premier resorts. It's at very high elevation, over 8000 feet. It's well known for it's back bowl terrain. There are actually two villages, Vail and Lionsgate, each served by their own battery of lifts.

Vail village is going for a sort of faux-Austrian Alps theme. It's...charming...I suppose. That is to say, it's definitely a fantastic ski village. But something didn't sit quite right with me with the old European stylistic look. There were cowboy shops alongside faux brauhauses. I guess everyone wants to be somebody else for a while.

There were also designer clothing studios, furriers, jewelry shops, and other delights to tempt the mega rich. There seem to be two types of people for whom Vail is specifically designed: the crowd of folks largely in their 50s or so who "have arrived" as the saying goes, and the ultra-fit 20 something ski bums who attend to their every need. At least that's who I saw wandering around the town. That, and more than a few folks on crutches from the clinic.

Construction is booming in Vail. Either they haven't heard of the global recession, or the constructions projects were already too far along to be affected by it. The Four Seasons is building a massive but terribly tasteful resort at one end of the town, a short two blocks or so from the lifts in Vail village. Rarely does one see modern construction with concrete and Tyvek using huge timbers and decorative stonework in quite this combination.


Pete Seibert's dream is not only still alive, it continues to grow after he has left us. It's a worthy monument to his vision and his labors. Don't let a little envious nitpicking fool you, this place is great. Out of idle curiosity, I stopped to lick the windows of the local real estate office. You can get a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom 1300 square foot 3rd floor condo in the village overlooking the lifts for the low price of 2.1 million. That's an ask...you might be able to haggle them down a bit. If that's too rich for your blood, you can always but a couple acres of undeveloped, currently unserviced land a few miles down the road toward the town of Gypsum. That's only 800k. The sell sheet assured astounding views.

We capped off a highly relaxing and enjoyable day with a sushi dinner. I was a little skeptical of ordering sushi in the mountains, but Mike assured me this place was great. He wasn't wrong. I don't know how they do it, but it was a fine meal. The next morning, realizing this was a road trip afterall, I knew I had to hit the road again.

I had climbed up to these lofty heights in the dark two days prior. I proceeded back down the other side under overcast and occasionally rainy skies, but enjoying late morning views. The passes kept climbing for a bit east of Vail. The elevations weren't well marked, but I think we must have got near 9000 feet if not a bit higher. Then the 6% downgrades started, and just didn't let up. At one point there was an 8 mile stretch of on-and-off again 5 and 6 percent downgrades. Semi-trucks were taking the whole thing in low gear and about 40mph. Despite or because of the twists, turns, traffic annoyances, and ear popping; I was filled with awe to make this rapid descent, embraced on all sides by walls of sheerest stone dressed in aspens just taking on brilliant hues of scarlet and gold.

But the embrace of this mountainous lover ended all too quickly. Less than 100 miles from Vail is the town of Golden, a westerly suburb of the great city of Denver. In Golden, the mountains simply end, abruptly and definitively, in a plateau of rolling hills. As one approaches this plateau, the prairie opens up in front of you like a book. I attempted to get a picture, but this doesn't do it justice by a fifth.

That blue-ish smudge you can just make out above the jeep in front of me is the horizon of the plains, probably seen here at a distance of over 50 miles.

I sped quickly past Denver without stopping. The morning was getting old, and I had to mentally steel myself for the long, flat journey ahead. My resolve to enjoy everyplace I go on this trip on its own merits was to be tested. For I wanted more of the thrill of speeding through the mountains, surrounded and safe and encompassed. But as it was very overcast, soon even the image of my affection was obscured in the rearview mirror behind a veil of gray. We aren't made to remember past joys.

Colorado is a state with a great PR drive behind it. While it is known as the home of the Rockies, in fact fully half the state is more akin to neighboring Kansas and Nebraska: high flat prairies of wheat and corn farms, cattle ranches, and the occasional oil well. It was through these prairies in eastern Colorado and Kansas that I spent my day whiling away many hours. There's a beauty here, but it takes a certain mind set to appreciate it. It's not desolate, as the desert west of the mountains is. The signs of human habitation are everywhere. But they are all very dispersed, as if they they all shared a common magnetic charge and were repelling each other to a state of perfect equilibrium. Everything in the western prairie is very far away from everything else.


After about 6 hours of this drive, with about two more in front of me, I experienced a moment that created that right mindset for me. I was running low on gas, and was feeling a bit hypnotized by the road. In this state, I missed an easy roadside gas station, and didn't know if I could hold out the 40 miles to the next major town. I resolved to pull off at one of the little village exits and find the nearest gas to the highway that I could. As it turns out, the name of the village is Dorrance, Kansas. Dorrance is about 45 minutes west of the larger town of Salina, which you've also never heard of but should at least appear on your road atlas. The station, which I'm certain was a one-man operation, was closed for the evening as it was almost 6pm. However, the pumps had a card reader of a particularly antique sort, so I could get fuel. Allow me to paint you a picture: this is a village of perhaps 10-20 houses...some quite nice...some nothing more than prettily maintained trailer homes. The rail line that parallels the interstate stops in Dorrance at the massive grain elevator, a fine representative of the structures that I had seen scores of on my cross country drive. Suddenly Kansas wasn't off in the distance, it was all around me. It smelled like mown grass, it sounded like crickets and contentment, and it looked like peace. I don't know if I could spend my life here happily, but I can appreciate the people who can.














A few hours after Dorrance I had gone as far east and south as the day would take me. I'm submitting this entry from Wichita, Kansas. Tomorrow will come the drive into an icon of America: the drive to take Texas, and the fine city of Austin.

The desert west and the loneliest higway

First off, those pictures from Kanab I promised in my last entry















Kanab is a nice little town, don't you think? It's easy to see why Hollywood chose it so often as a backdrop for westerns.

The last two days represent the first time I have had to make unplanned route choices more or less on the flip of a coin. I knew I wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and I knew I wanted to visit friends in Vail and Austin. But I didn't know whether to go through Las Vegas or Phoenix upon leaving California. Like Robert Frost, I'll never know what might have happened on the road not taken, but there is nothing to regret with the route I took.

You may not realize it if you look at a standard map, but Arizona has something in common with Michigan and Maryland. All three have segments of the state that are partially or totally cut off from the more populous stretch. With the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the outer shore of Maryland, it's Lake Michigan and the Chesapeake Bay respectively. With Arizona, it's the Grand Canyon. The northwest corner of the state is essentially isolated from the rest by the Grand Canyon and the national park. They call it "the strip," and to visit it, you have to approach from Utah. Because of this isolation, the north rim of the canyon only gets about 1/10th the visitors annually as the more popular and easily accessible south rim. This was actually my main reason to pick this route.

I feel suitably rewarded. I left Kanab just as the sun came up for the 74 mile drive south. Everywhere one turns around in this part of the country there's a national park of some sort. You actually travel through 2 national preserves: the Vermillion Cliffs and the Kaibab National Forest, in order to get to the Grand Canyon north rim park entrance. Here's a picture of the cliffs in the distance, with the post-dawn sun reflected off them, seen over the tops of the lower reaches of the forest. The forest itself is on a plateau. The highest elevation point on the highway leading to it is 8840 feet. The forest is made primarily of ponderosa pines. Unlike evergreen forests back home the Pac NW, there is very little ground vegetation amidst the trees. They were in the middle of a preventive controlled fire just before my visit, and you could see some charring in numerous places.

As pleasant as both of those sights were, the Grand Canyon itself is everything you've ever heard or imagined it is. It staggers the ability to comprehend. I wore my battery out taking pictures of the place. I wish I were ten times the photographer I am. Then I might hope to actually be able to convey in images what this place is like.

From the north rim you can't see the Colorado River, whose actions over the last 5-6 million years carved the canyon, at all. What you can see is Bright Angel Canyon, a rift that describes a fault line running north-south across the short axis of the great girth of the grand canyon itself. You can see it as the deep, narrow defile in the center of one of these pictures. There's a trail that runs across the canyon along its length. It's 3000 feet down, 16 miles south, then almost 3000 feet back up again on the south rim. Maybe someday. For now, I contented myself with a little 1.5 mile in-and-out well maintained trail along the canyon rim.

They say the national cathedral is a building in Washington DC. While I'm no Joe Wilson, I'm here to tell you they lie. This is the national cathedral. As impressed as I was by the panorama in front of me, I was also struck by the reactions of my fellow tourists this fine but misty morning. Here you find blue hair retirees, Southern California hipsters in board shorts and pork pie hats, and leather clad bikers (lots of those, actually). All stand side-by-side in almost perfect silence. Nobody talks, not a word. Even the extraneous sounds of movement are muffled as people just take the place in.

Theodore Roosevelt; 26th president of the United States, war hero, peacemaker, hunter, and conservationist; said, "In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it is now. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel, or anything else to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it." Three years after his presidency ended, they disregarded his wish and built the Grand Canyon lodge. While Teddy may have disapproved, I think they did a pretty nice job of matching the sublimity of the facility with the surroundings. Someday I could come back here for a stay. However, today, delayed by a few hours that could have been many more, it was time to hit the road.

The next target of my journey was Vail, Colorado. But the strip of Arizona is isolated from everything. One is very far from an interstate highway here. So I had to backtrack for over an hour just to get a piece of 2 lane highway that would take me northward and eventually hook me up with interstate 70. This is scenic highway 89, cutting through the mountains, mesas, and canyons of southern Utah.

Not visited, as I was kind of canyoned out, was beautiful Bryce Canyon. I took these pictures of the area around it from route 89. The actual canyon amphitheater is almost 20 miles off the highway. As was my experience with the Pacific Coast Highway and southern California, I felt that I could spend days and days here. But I'm pretty sure I could spend days and days in lots of places on this trip; that's just not the point.

Driving through this country put me in mind of the frontier spirit again, as the California missions had done. Bryce Canyon, for instance, is named after a guy named Ebenezer Bryce, who was sent out to this stretch by Brigham Young himself to colonize it with cattle ranches, farms, and Mormons. He evidently said of the canyon, "it was a great place to lose a cow." Ebenezer wasn't quite the orator Roosevelt was. But he accomplished something that even rugged, outdoorsy Teddy didn't do: he carved a decent living out of borderline desert. I didn't expect southern Utah to be as green in stretches as it actually is. There's agriculture here, and cattle ranching. Everything depends on irrigation. It's easy to see how water rights are the defining issue of the American west. The last hundred years of development from the Rocky mountains west is dependent upon it. What kind of vision does it take to make a desert bloom? What kind of determination? On the one hand, I imagine it must take one man in a million to carry off such a transformation successfully. On the other hand, it seems to have been done again and again if the evidence of my eyes is to be believed. Is success really a matter of determination, hard work, and perseverance? Or is it just that the memory and bones of the unsuccessful are quickly swallowed up by time and the desert they failed to tame?

By the late afternoon I was on Interstate 70, which rises in Baltimore in the east, travels through the Ohio valley, crosses the Mississippi in St. Louis - the Gateway to the West, traverses the great plains and the rocky mountains, and terminates....in the middle of the freakin' desert. I'm not joking. I-70 just sort of ends when it bumps into 15. There are hardly any humans for hundreds of mile around. This is the loneliest stretch of interstate I've ever seen, and I've seen plenty. I would like to tell you I stopped to soak up some of the local culture. Only there isn't any. There is mile upon mile of desert and butte with signs that read "Gas this exit, 108 miles to next service" or words to that effect.

This doesn't mean that the scenery isn't worth taking in. One particular part, called Spotted Wolf Canyon, caught my eye with it's scenic overlook. This is a natural pass through a massive rock formation called the San Rafael reef. This wall of granite and sandstone was so prodigious that the railroads detoured hundreds of miles around as they drove west, rather than try to climb it or penetrate it. But by the time we started building the interstates in the 1950s, either technology or American hubris had expanded to the task. The commemorative plaque said that when construction work began on this stretch of highway in 1957, a worker standing at the bottom of the canyon could touch both walls simultaneously with outstretched arms. Now, four lanes dive through it and plunge to the Green River below and the Colorado border beyond.

I arrived in Colorado as the sun was setting in the west, behind the mesas and tableland I was leaving in my wake. The eastern extent of the Rocky Mountain state is much like Utah; dry and dotted with mesas rather than mountains. But shortly, the amount of flowing water and green picks up. The heights around start to be dotted with pines at lower and lower elevations, and to have rounded tops and granite coloration. But the sun was fully down by the time I entered the Rocky mountain passes that wind up to Aspen and Steamboat Springs, and I made out only the black silhouettes of massive sentinels against a sky of deepest indigo. In the morning I'll see the mountain west with fresh eyes.

Durch die Wuste

Along the western coast of the central portion of the North American continent there is a great ditch. It runs between 50-100 miles wide. Into this ditch, drawn as if by the invisible hand of gravity, are nearly 50 million human souls. So it has rolled for the last century and a half. The western edge of is the Pacific ocean itself. The eastern edge is desert and high sierra. This ditch is behind me.

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." So begins a twisted classic of late 20th century American literature. Ever since reading _Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas_ I have wanted to drive the 15 from LA to Vegas. Somehow it seems now like an American classic. On my trip I neither had an attorney nor a trunk full of controlled substances. Also, I wasn't stoned. Oh well...the spirit was there.

My friend Scott Larabee, who grew up in SoCal, has often asked me why I would want to do this drive. I can't quite explain it or justify it. It just seems like the sort of thing one should do at least once. Having done it once, I don't really feel the need to do it again. There isn't much to really recommend it. There are a few nice vistas, and the Mojave desert is fetching after a fashion. But for the most part it's a painful stretch punctuated by a few small towns and borderline roadside attractions.

If, like me, you feel the need to do this once in your life, you might consider one of these road side attractions. I happened to be in the bustling metropolis of Baker, about 90 miles from Vegas, for lunch time. On a tip from my home base support crew, I pulled off for lunch at The Mad Greek Cafe. The Mad Greek is festooned with creative statuary and decorated with pictures of the acropolis, all baking in the Mojave desert sun. The gyros sandwich is good, but given my lack of exercise on this trip, I probably should have gone for the greek salad.


Interstate 15, as most of you probably know, runs right next to the strip in Vegas. I like Vegas. I've done several business trips and a few vacations here. All the more reason to skip it this time around. I'm after new things, not the same old. Still, it was hard to blow in and out of town. Really hard - I 15 is down to 2 lanes through the city because of significant road work. It's the worst highway traffic I've seen on the trip yet.
































East of Vegas is pretty much like west of Vegas, only with even longer and straighter stretches of highway. This gives way, once Nevada ends and you find yourself skirting the Arizona/Utah border, to some pretty spectacular scenery. Geology isn't my strong suit, but I believe this area is the western extent of the Colorado plateau. There is a stretch of I-15 in Arizona, just across the Nevada border, where the highway literally dives into a huge defile between two mesas. It was the most I ever felt like I was flying on four wheels.

This is where I first turned onto some fairly serious side roads. I turned off 15 in the town of St. George, Utah bound for the small town of Kanab. Along the route (US 59 and 389, if you are curious) I passed through the towns of Colorado City and Fredonia. Tomorrow, continuing on the road, I will go through Lee's Ferry. If you find the names of these towns vaguely familiar, you probably read _Under The Banner of Heaven_. This is Mormon fundamentalist country. I didn't stop much.

Despite any irrational anxieties, I can promise you that the town of Kanab is a fine little place. It's situated more or less equidistant from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the south, Bryce Canyon to the north, and Zion national park to the west. This is all monument valley territory, and the visuals are quite striking. Tomorrow, when there's good daylight, I'll take some pics.

The visuals are striking enough that many westerns were filmed in the immediate vicinity. In fact the town has built little public plackards along the main streets to commemorate the TV and movie stars who filmed here. My first reaction, to be truthful, was to think, 'that's so cheesy.' At first it seemed like self-conscious monuments to a seriously bygone era. But after walking around a bit at sundown on my way to dinner, my initial cynicism was overcome. Look: this small town is doing quite well for itself as a home-base for outdoor adventure types. They have built pleasant little public improvements by commemorating a page from their own history, even from the history of the whole United States. They are pointing out, with justifiable pride, 'little Kanab did all this.' The smallness of the town, maybe even the smallness of the feat when all is said and done, should not be allowed to diminish the accomplishment. In part because of this beautiful terrain and this fine little town, millions of people were entertained and something enduring was built. That is something to be proud of.

Tomorrow I'll hit the Grand Canyon itself. I promised a friend some pictures, and I'll share them with everyone.
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