It didn’t take more than a couple of hours in Nashville and a short walk to a bar I’d only visited once before to remember why I love this place so much. Put simply, it’s the center of the Universe.

Sitting at the bar and staring at the taps I’m presented with my choice of: Yazoo Pale Ale, Shiner Bock, Fat Tire, and Abita Purple Haze. Toss in a PBR pounder and the occasional pint of Yuengling Lager and a man could die happy.

Here’s something I haven’t done in a while – launched myself on successive weeks halfway across a continent with a job to do and a limited amount of time in which to do it. Five cities, five teams in five days over two weeks. What a trip!

The feeling is a lot different than it used to be. In the old days my motto was “Anywhere but Here.” Get me out of here, get me gone, go somewhere and milk somewhere else for all it is worth. Now I have a family left behind struggling with my absence and wishing I was there. Now I keep the trips short and sweet, do the job, pack in as much fun as possible and get home.

So I get to miss my family but still see a lot of beautiful Kansas City, ride up the St. Louis Arch, visit friends in Chicago, drive through Indiana and spend another night in Nashville.

It ain’t all pain and suffering, my friends. Just mostly.

Two years ago today I woke up with one of the more painful hangovers in my life. Despite the sickness I had to haul myself 90 minutes across the state of Pennsylvania, book a London hotel, secure passage on a ferry to Normandy and wait for my late-night ride to the airport for the start of the grand adventure. By 11 o’clock that evening I had the last piece of kit I needed (a USB phone charger) and was aboard a Virgin jet non-stop to Heathrow Airport, London, UK.

Whee!

What started out years ago as a desire to visit the Norman landing beaches on D-Day turned into a month-long odyssey through England, France and Italy with stops in London, Portsmouth, Caen, Cherbourg, Paris, Rome, Florence, and a number of other small towns along the way. I saw Utah, Omaha, Juno, Sword and Gold Beaches along with Pointe-du-Hoc, the Merville Battery, Pegasus Bridge, Ouistreham, the Arromanches Mulberry and St Mere Eglise. I saw the RAF Memorial, Apsley House, Duxford Airfield, the National Army Museum, the Cabinet War Rooms, the British Museum, and the HMS Victory. I saw Notre Dame, Napoleon’s Tomb, Montmartre, Saint Chappele, the Louvre, Versailles, and Euro Disney. I saw the Pantheon, Coliseum, Circus Maximus, Palatine Hill, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Duomo, and Vatican City.

Hell, I covered so much ground I even got to see two old friends and a cousin!

After all that, I came back to the dear old United States of America and turned a number of good ideas into a five month circumnavigation of the entire country.

That’s a story for another day a month, a week and a day from now when that anniversary occurs.

I’ll leave you with the highlights of the trip.

Europe_2008

This may be my first live post from a bar. That is very peculiar considering the heroic amount of alcohol I consume on a nightly basis.

It has been a day of returns to my former life. My level of annoyance at fhe people I would call my own is deeply frightening.

Here we are. Here we go. As a wise man said, “Buy the ticket. Take the ride.”

There was a moment tonight when I was in the right place ecumenically and alcoholically to go properly ripping and tearing through the literary world. Those moments are few and far between. Sadly, that one is past. So I’ll groove on white people blues and contemplate the near future.

It may hold promise.

The scourges of Disney World (or any place where the public gathers in great numbers and attempts to move around) are, in order:

1. The Handicapped – There’s nothing worse than standing in a long line while everything comes to a screeching halt so some gimpy jackass – who skipped the entire line anyway – gets loaded into a ride. I’ll make you buggers need a wheelchair!

2. Families with small children – Again, it’s damned difficult to move ahead in line when Mom and Dad are facing backwards having a discussion while their holy terrors run headlong towards the ride-crippling machinery with malicious intent.
3. Non-English Speakers – Have you ever spent time amongst any of the other people in the world? They have no concept of personal space, believe that extreme assertiveness is the only way to get ahead and ignore direction which causes an inevitable ride shutdown for safety reasons. Just stay behind the goddamned yellow line and we can all try to have fun! Foreign scum.
4. The Elderly – These poor folks not only move slightly slower than three-toed sloths with mono; they have a disturbing tendency to travel in packs whilst wandering side to side “like a drunken man on a sidewalk” blocking the entire walkway and reducing all and sundry to their leisurely pace.
5. The Grossly Obese – Combine the elderly, inattentive youngsters and the handicapped and you have the grossly obese. Often an entire ride has to be stopped to slather on the Crisco necessary to wedge these poor fools into the average sized seats. The boat rides often list perilously to port or starboard leaving the other passengers to desperately scramble in hopes of balancing the load. Then, not only do they move impossibly slowly when walking they also manage to take up twice the area of a sizable band of sherry swilling Red Hat Ladies careening hopelessly down the sidewalk.

For good measure I could add teenagers – I think if you pulled out their earphones their brains would leak out and I wish they’d occasionally just SHUT THE F**K UP! – and Yankees fans.

I do not think I like long distance air travel. Not because I mind the time spent locked in an aluminum cigar at 30,000 feet with screaming babies and unpleasant flight attendants but rather because I don’t like waking up in one place with a specific environment and climate and waking up the next day thousands of miles away in a completely foreign land.

Which is, oddly, not particularly foreign.

The benefit to this sort of travel is that you’re thrown into the “deep end.” Here you are, make the best of it. It forces you to very quickly go native; to swiftly figure out the road network, where the hotels and restaurants and good bars are. Welcome to Denver, you’re on your friggin’ own.

I prefer the long, gradual acclimation to the environment. You get used to seeing nothing but scrubby brown and green. No trees but pine trees. No grass but prairie grass. It’s a bit of a systemic shock to leave a hot day on the east coast and end up in cold, dry high country.

A bizarre adjustment. Well worth it. It’s been a hell of a day. By 11 AM Mountain Time one old friend was married to a wonderful man while back east at the same time another old friend was being committed to the grave.

What’s there for it but to gaze out on the mountains and think of everyone past, present and future and hope for their happiness – in this life and the next.

Some weeks ago I wandered more or less aimlessly through downtown Philadelphia with the goal of seeing some of the parts of Independence Park I’d never seen. I did manage to spend quality time in the Second National Bank of the United States and to look around Carpenter’s Hall and Franklin Court but I missed the New Hall Military Museum and Old City Hall because of the bizarre hours the Park Service keeps.

For instance, one of the displays in Franklin Court is a rental property of Mr. Franklin’s that has been gutted and turned into an architectural exhibit. It’s one of my favorite things to see but I only got a 5 minute visit because it’s only open from 11 Am – 2 Pm on a Saturday afternoon. Upon entering I was informed in no uncertain terms that I had 5 minutes to look around and I was, in fact, keeping the Ranger from skiving off early.

It may just be me but it seems that the birthplace of our wonderful nation ought to be more accessible. Ought to be a showplace, in fact. I don’t have strong numbers but I would expect places like Independence Park are relatively high on a foreign tourist’s To Do list: Shop in New York, see Independence Hall, go to Gettysburg and then set out for the Natural Wonders of our slice of the North American continent. If I am right, it is an absolute stain on the nation’s honor to see the subterranean Franklin Court Visitor’s Center with its mildewed carpets, broken exhibits and dank spaces. It is incomprehensible that we must surrender our liberty in order to see the Liberty Bell, or submit to absolute dependence on the judgment of security to see Independence Hall. It is unconscionable that many of the Independence Park attractions are only open for 23 minutes, once a fortnight in months that end in “Y.”

Why wouldn’t we make a showplace out of the places we have to share? These sites are important to the World. There men showed for the first time that We the People could take care of ourselves. That we could preserve and depend liberty. That we were responsible enough to live our own lives without the interference and direction of well-ruffed, inbred gits.

But I suppose that’s old thinking. We’re expected now to assume subservient roles to well-groomed, genetically engineered gits.

O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!”

One year ago I had a massive hangover and a plane to catch. Twenty-four hours later I was dashing around London on an empty stomach looking for shoes and planning travel arrangements for a train, ferry and taxi that would land me in Normandy on June 4.

To celebrate this momentous day I got offered a job that I refused, visited some sites from the “Jersey Trilogy,” drove along the beach, saw the Stone Pony in Asbury Park and paid a late afternoon visit to Monmouth Battlefield.

I do not know if I have another free calendar day to devote to commemoration. Amongst days like March 17, June 6, September 17, December 13 and all the rest, June 2d as a personal holiday seems pretty pitiful. I suppose it will all depend on what the future brings. If there’s un-ending adventure and excitement like there has been for the past three hundred sixty-five I’ll be content with what the future present brings. Otherwise, June 2d may have to be a lifelong commemoration.

Hopefully the beer will be colder.

If one considers Memphis as the largest city in Mississippi it makes a hell of a lot more sense that considering it as the largest city in Tennessee. There’s almost nothing of Tennessee in Memphis. Capital of the Delta.

Had a fine trip north. Decided to mix with the locals and take the back roads up and across the River. As usual, the plan evolved:

Got to go from Little Rock to Memphis. I guess I take I-40.

That’s kind of cool. The entire Louisiana Purchase was surveyed from the corner of Lee Co., Monroe, Co. and Phillips, Co. Theoretically every land transaction from the Mississippi to the Rockies even today is measured from that spot. I gotta see that. And it’s on the way.

Waitaminit, I know that town Helena, AR. Why do I know that town? Cleburne lived there. Gotta go there as well.

And on the route is Tunica? Land of casinos amidst swamps? How can I miss that?

And that is how I ended up winning $5 on a $1 bet. And subsequently blowing said $5 on a $5 slot machine. Because I’d never done that kind of bet before. And because my luck was running pretty well in Tunica. And because I was only into the casino for $5 in beer and slot fees.

And because, brother, I was desperate for a reason to sing the blues.

What the hell am I doing in Little Rock, Arkansas?

It is amazing to me that after many months of tramping about the world there are still new places to be experienced.

I sent the essence of that message out yesterday on arrival in Little Rock. My Dad’s reply is something I have committed to memory:

“Hopefully there will always be another place to visit or revisit. Just to keep life interesting. Have a good time in ark. Be safe. Love dad.”

And that pretty much sums up the entire adventure. Keep life interesting. I’ve traveled across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, nearly 23,000 miles around and through the United States and it’s all been basically to keep life interesting. And now I’m in Arkansas. Marvelling at the beauty of the spring amidst the chilly air and attempting to cope with “History according to Bill Clinton” and gaping open-mouthed at the bizarre turns of fate that led me here.

My friends – not to go all hippie on you or anything – what a long, strange trip it’s been.

And Monday I’m going to see Graceland.

It can only get weirder.

When I was trying to figure out how much time I needed to see the sights in Dallas the only attractions I could come up with were the baseball and football facilities and Fair Park (on my brother’s recommendation). The very next day I asked him, “Did we both forget about Dealey Plaza?”

In the interests of being a historian and gatherer of experiences I am very glad I did not forget. In the interest of avoiding a screaming case of the heebie jeebies I wish I had forgotten. Being in Dealey Plaza is like walking jauntily with a camera and a half consumed six pack through the middle of a slaughtered child’s funeral. It’s a profoundly bizarre experience. Starting with parking.

Follow Main Street through Dallas – unwittingly following the route of the President’s motorcade from Love Field – realize suddenly that you’re driving right through Dealey Plaza because you can’t make Kennedy’s right on Houston St due to one-way streets, double-back onto Elm and pull straight ahead into a parking lot which you realize is right on top of the f**king Grassy Knoll. My God. With a picket fence and everything. Replete with the slogan “9/11 was an Inside Job” magic markered in the sniper’s corner. Right. Ok. Pull yourself together, man.

Walk calmly towards the Texas Book Depository Building on the fatal corner of Houston and Elm. Call everyone you can think of who remembers that fateful day with the comment, “I’m standing right under the f**king window.” Dodge crowds of Red Hat Ladies and make your way up to the Sixth Floor, wend your way through large panels explaining Kennedy’s Greatness and Impact on History and hit the big black Zapruder panel behind which is the corner. Cripes. Look out the next available window and decide, “I could make that shot.” What a perfect position for a sniper. Half a block to do a head on shot, then the slow turn and finally an acceleration towards the triple underpass with even more time. At least 30 clean seconds to take a shot with a clear line of sight. Chilling.

Right, fair enough. Time for some fresh air. Until you see the “X” on the pavement marking the approximate spot the killing shot impacted – and you realize you’re standing precisely where Zapruder was standing at that moment in history – “Back and to the Left.”

Bugger off for downtown to get a sandwich and see the strangely sterile and meaningless cenotaph. Beat feet for Arkansas.

There are few places on Earth more closely studied. Therefore there are few places on Earth you can place yourself almost to the inch on spots where people stood decades ago and experienced history.

There’s only one place on Earth that you can stand in the footprints where those shadows of the past watched the United States lose her mind.

And all this amidst the perfectly normal traffic of a Friday afternoon. A deeply unsettling place.

If someone mentions Texas, what town comes to mind? It might be San Antonio but I’m betting that most folks would pick Dallas. J.R. and all that. Which is really funny because despite its notoriety Dallas is the least Texas of all the towns I’ve been to in this wonderful state.

Went to see Fair Park – which was under construction. So I went to see the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington – which is a beautiful structure amidst elegant suburban sprawl. Pity the Cowboys are moving in next door, there goes the neighborhood.

Then to amuse myself I drove to Irving to see the old Texas Stadium – former home of the Cowboys. It amazes me how flat-out old the place looks. I assumed, with all their intolerable arrogance, the Cowboys would at least have a nice looking stadium even if it were on the old side. Instead it’s a run-down dump in the middle of a future Superfund site. Pity they’re moving to Arlington, the old location is perfect for ‘em.

Lots of those weird little experiences that make travel eminently worthwhile. For instance, passing a small two story shopping center on 75 south whose central installation was proclaimed “The Coffin Store” in facade mounted large red neon letters. Directly to the left of which was the sign for “Boxes to Go.”

That’s a mighty disconcerting coincidence.

Also, I stopped at the oldest mall in town – which is now the high roller mall – for supper and ended up right in the middle of the AFI Dallas film fest with totally unknown people on the red carpet and a thick crowd of photographers and reporters swarming the place. Damned entertaining.

Or being the first customer in Neiman Marcus on a weekday. You’ve never been assaulted by so many extremely pleasant and friendly people in your life. It’s a combination of the old department store asthetic – where the salespeople were friendly and knew their customers – and being the only person around to lavish their attentions on. By the time I left I knew the names and family histories of three people in menswear, one woman in housewares, two girls at the cosmetics counter and one member of corporate staff and had been instructed on the entire history of the company and fitted for three Italian suits and a top to toe makeover in the metrosexual style. A first-rate experience, highly recommended.

Except the metrosexual part.

I don’t mean to brag. Ah hell, sure I do. I am writing this while sitting on a roof deck on the 6th floor of a hotel on the southside of Austin overlooking Lady Bird Lake and I-35 in 70-plus degree weather with an agreeable amount of humidity and a very pleasant breeze.

Pretty swanky digs.

So, Watchmen. Very pretty. Very pretty indeed. A good movie that dragged in parts and bore very little relation to the comic it was based on. I have two big gripes.

One, I don’t remember all the stuff with Nixon in the comic. It might just be the length of time since I’ve read it but as I recall all of that pretty much happened behind the scenes. I don’t remember the urgency of it all.

And two, I have no friggin’ idea what the ending was all about. This is my failing as I never understood the ending of the comic. Of course, I am Rorschach, or at least I look at the world in pretty much the same way. A threat of annihilation from another universe or an all-powerful glowing blue man might convince the world to put aside their differences for a little while but very soon human nature would begin to reassert itself. People are basically scum – deeply flawed and potentially evil creatures only held in check by fear and love. Fear of reprisal keeps most of us following society’s laws and love of family and friends makes us work and mow the lawn and all the other crap we do to try to make our lives a little more pleasant.

Permanent peace and love – particularly arising out of a shared threat – is crap. Peace and love always collapse under the weight of human nature.

Yet again I am stressed out, rushing to cover ground and missing neat stuff. I had to, yet again, blow through the Atchafalaya Basin and cajun country although the trip on the raised interstate over the bayous was pretty nifty. I had to pass up the exit to Shiner, TX and Gonzalez because of time. And after a long eight-hour drive all the way across Louisiana and halfway across Texas I am back in Austin. The runner-up contender for my next home town.

On the bright side, I got some really righteous, brother recommended Barbeque in Lockhart – birthplace of Texas BBQ. First time I ever actually enjoyed barbq brisket. Damned fine stuff.

And the tremendously tasty beans are the gift that keeps on giving. They say hello by the way.

I wish I’d stayed another night as planned. What I wouldn’t give to be quaffing an Abita right now in the warm, wet Mississippi breeze.

This morning I decided to leave New Orleans for Baton Rouge. This decision was impacted by several factors. I didn’t want to have to deal with parking at noon when I’d rather be out tramping. I didn’t feel like moving lodgings over to the American side of town and then riding the rails back and forth to the Quarter pissed out of my skull. I didn’t want to shortchange my time because I really want to spend at least a week exploring the town and seeing more of the sights than I’ve seen in my last trips (the Old Mint, Mardi Gras World, the Historic New Orleans Collection, Frenchman Street, Magazine St, a post-Katrina visit to the Irish Channel).

Most of all I left because if I didn’t, I wasn’t sure I ever would.

Off to Baton Rouge. I was pretty stoked to come back here. I remember it being an oasis of sanity after a less-enthusiastically experienced trip to NOLA last summer. I considered BTR a serious contender for a place to live – it’s got LSU, a semi-happening downtown area, the River – but after this trip I realized it’s an almost entirely suburban town. There are spectacularly beautiful neighborhoods – Spanish Town and the Garden District – but no walkable, mixed use, etc. Bummer.

Hey, Red Stick – it’s been real. But unless you’re going to let me be Governor – and I promise to be suitably nuts – I’m easing on down the road.

Or in other words, “You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.”

For a state I still claim I don’t particularly like I seem to spend a hell of a lot of time in Florida. On the last trip I was here from July 31 until August 16. This time – except for a short jaunt back east – I was here from March 3 until tomorrow. That’s a pretty long time for a place you don’t like.

I was headed west from Tallahassee, in the general direction of New Orleans, when I decided that since it was Friday and I was compelled by the Pope to eat fish why not stop in Fort Walton Beach for the night and sup at the Old Bay Steamer? Fine idea. Worked out well. Except for the 45 minute one-way drive to my hotel on account of extremely high spring-break prices at the beach. I think I prefer August’s prices.

I was thinking of stopping in Mobile tomorrow as a possible place to live but decided A) there aren’t any good transit links, jobs or neighborhoods and B) how could I miss another chance at a Saturday night on Bourbon St?

Right! Off to NOLA it is!

Here I go again. Tramping more or less the same ground as seven months ago. Thought I’d do Disney today to take a break and decided A) thirteen hours on your feet negotiating crowds is not exactly a recipe for relaxation and B) I’m on a mission and can’t afford distractions.

Dammit. I really wanted to see the Pirates and the Haunted Mansion. The latter, particularly, to erase the memory of the Nightmare Before Christmas abomination I was forced to suffer in Anaheim.

Back in Tallahassee. This is a nifty town: lots of college-dependent entertainments, surrounded by beautiful country, relatively cheap living, seeming abundance of work, etc. I just can’t get excited about living in Florida – even in the Panhandle – and you are pretty much land-locked here. No decent flights up north, no larger airport within reasonable (less than 2 hrs) distance, long drives to NSB, Orlando or Tampa. Lots of drawbacks. Bummer. I could while away some hours under the spanish moss.

Whew. Welcome to life in fifth gear.

It took about two days of gainful employment up north to formulate a doable plan to get my arse back down south. Step 1 is to spend a week or so bumming on New Smyrna Beach. Step 2 is to go and watch Spring Training over on the west coast. Step 3 is to come back north and do the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day parade with family. Step 4 is to go back to NSB for the Holy Day itself. And Step 5 is the only forward-looking step in the whole affair: visit places and decide where you want to live you worthless bum.

Step 1-a: Haul ass down south. Made the entire trip from Maryland to Florida in one very long day, 15 hours more or less. During the majority of the trip I thought: I’m doing in one day what took me three weeks last July and What a strange thing it is to cover the entirety of the Civil War in one day’s drive.

I started my day taking the back-country route to pick up I-95 in Fredericksburg. After leaving my domicile just north of Antietam Battlefield, I drove down I-81 through the Valley Campaign of 1862, turned left into Mosby’s Confederacy, right just south of the battlefields of Manassas and connected with ’95 at Fredericksburg. Chronologically we’re up to December of ’62 or May of ’63 depending how you look at things and except for starting at Antietam things have almost happened in chronological order. Moving forward I passed through Chancellorsville, Spottsylvania and the Wilderness, cruised through Richmond and Petersburg and finally crossed into the Carolinas. I stopped at a rest stop near Bentonville, passed by the exit for Charleston and slipped through the Savannah suburbs.

There you go. The entire Civil War in one very long day. And now I’m here and Christ, do I need a beer.

It’s official.

Baseball is back.

And in celebration of this momentous harbinger of spring I am heading south next week to absorb as much Spring Training action as I possibly can before trekking north for pre-St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

The short list includes seeing the Nationals in Viera, the Phillies in Clearwater, the Red Sox in Fort Myers and maybe something from the Yankees/Tigers/Tampa Bay-type folks in the Tampa/Lakeland/Sarasota area.

Hot damn. I wore short sleeves while snowboarding today and am all about soaking up the warmth. I have a short-term plan and a roadtrip to look forward to.

I friggin’ LOVE spring.

When you fellas gonna come over?
When we get good and ready. What you want?
Want Fredericksburg.
Don’t you wish you may get it? — An exchange between Federal and Confederate soldiers across the Rappahannock River – Shelby Foote “Ken Burns Civil War”

Years ago I came to Fredericksburg every year on December 13 to commemorate the Battle of Fredericksburg. Every fight has its own character, and this one a bit more than most: largest land battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere, only Civil War battle fought in city streets, the lost opportunity on the Federal left, the squandered heroism of the Irish Brigade, amphibious landings under enemy fire. Lots of good stuff here in this wintry conflict.

Thought when I was planning that one day might be enough. Decided to stay until Sunday to give myself some breathing room and now am certain that a week wouldn’t be sufficient. It’s a little-explored place filled with interesting nooks and crannies. And someday I have to take the time to see them all.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever really sift through the experiences of the summer and fall. Sitting here on a rainy Thursday I wish I was back out somewhere in the desert. Or even somewhere with some honest cold and snow. I used the time constructively, however, and finally finished up the map with the last week or so of travelling from Iowa to Maryland. So, that’s that.

Around 915 tonight I pulled back into the same spot I pulled out of back on July 10.

Here’s the breakdown:

• One-Hundred Thirty-Two days
• 17,392 miles
• 30 states – counting ones passed through in the car or on the train. And one foreign country – not counting my European travels.
• Visits to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, Tampa, Mobile, New Orleans, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Tucson, Phoenix, Flagstaff, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Denver, Omaha, Chicago. And that’s just the short list.
• I crossed the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Wabash, the Rio Grande, and countless other streams and tributaries.
• I dipped my toes in both the Atlantic Ocean – off Nags Head – and the Pacific Ocean – off San Clemente.
• I drove through all four American deserts: Chihuhuan, Sonoran, Mojave and the Great Basin
• I crossed the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada, the Appalachians and innumerable other smaller mountain ranges.

In short, it’s been a hell of an adventure. I haven’t even begun to process the magnitude of what I’ve done. Europe feels like it was a lifetime away. Hell, my August travels through Florida feel like a lifetime away.

Guess I’m ready to go again. Maybe I’ll wait until the weather breaks then head out north and west. Lots more to see.

John Wayne was born in a little town called Winterset, Iowa. Which also happens to be the county seat for Madison County, Iowa. Which happens to be the same Madison County from The Bridges of Madison County about which I know nothing but I assume is some sort of girly trash for middle-aged housewives. Why this lovely little town would trade on that girly stuff when they could trade on the Duke is beyond me.

I also passed through Des Moines, Iowa so I could set foot in yet another State Capitol. That was fun. The highlight of the visit, however, was the extremely suggestive Iowa Soldiers and Sailors Civil War monument. I don’t know which I like better, the stripper Columbia, the cheering cavalryman or the hippie infantryman complete with flower. I had to double-take to make sure we were dealing with the 1860s and not the 1960s. Highly recommended.

Council Bluffs, IA

Closing the accounts is like the close of the Rebellion. — Gen’l Grenville M. Dodge, quoted in “Nothing Like it in the World”

Tonight I made what are – theoretically – the last two hotel reservations I’ll need on this transcontinental circumnavigation. By Sunday I should be visiting friends in Chicago, then with family in central Indiana and then back to familiar eastern confines by Wednesday night. Things are winding down. The mad dash is still in full force but my mind is turned to the future again. Harsh reality is closing in. The idea of not living life – pissing it away at work – is particularly revolting, while, at the same time, a little bit of routine would be entertaining for a little while.

After four months of tracking pioneers, I’d like to do a little pioneering of my own. I’d like to walk across the Great Plains. I’d like to ride horses through the Davis Mountains down in Texas. I looked at the Union Pacific website yesterday and saw some job openings in Green River, Wyoming. Maybe I’d like to spend some time fighting the clock and mother nature out in the alkali desert?

Or maybe I ought to just swallow hard and get a job and shut the hell up. Maybe I ought to finally become a teacher and use the extended vacation to do some modified version of my travels every year? Christ, I don’t know. I wish I had a week or two to stand on the bridge over the Missouri River and look for answers in the muddy, swirling waters. I wish I had a month to watch the seasons change back in the American River valley in California. I wish I had a stocking cap to keep gravel out of my scalp so I could stand on the windswept Wyoming plains and seek answers in the broad sky. But I don’t. So, that’s that. Now what?

Council Bluffs, IA

One week ago I awoke in a snowy Salt Lake City, bound for Ogden and from there east through Weber and Echo Canyons to the plains of Wyoming, across the Green River and past Citadel Rock to Rawlins Springs.

Seven days and, let’s say, twelve hours later I am on the other side of the Missouri River from Omaha in Council Bluffs, IA.

For those who don’t know the importance of Council Bluffs, or Omaha or the preposterousness of last week’s mad dash; allow me to enlighten you.

Council Bluffs is where Abraham Lincoln set in his mind the origination point for the Transcontinental Railroad. Omaha is where that railroad actually began. Council Bluffs and Omaha are also where Lewis and Clark began their great expedition up the Missouri and where the Mormons began their great trek to the Salt Lake.

Right. So, in one week I’ve done what took the Mormons four months. I’ve done in one week what took the Union Pacific Railroad the better part of four years.

Eleven-hundred miles in seven days doesn’t seem like much to our modern ears. At a flat-out burn that’s a good solid day and a half of driving. But when considered on the scale of the pioneers it’s a fantastic achievement. Beyond imagination. And oh! the things I’ve seen and experienced along the way. Boggles the mind. Defies description.

The problem is that I’m moving so fast and covering so much ground that when I try to record my daily achievements I can’t even remember what I’ve done for the last ten hours. It all blurs together. I’ve seen pioneer wagon ruts from the 1850s. I’ve seen more locomotives than I thought possible. I’ve seen two trains heading in perpendicular cardinal directions pass one on top of the other. I’ve seen the home of Buffalo Bill and the birthplace of Andrews Jackson Higgins. I’ve seen the Green River, the North and South Platte, the Loup River and the Missouri River. I’ve seen the snow-capped Wasatch, the likewise snowy Rockies, Sherman Pass and the Great Plains.

I hope I’ll have time to sit and think for about a week some time soon. To begin to digest all that I’ve seen and done is well beyond my comprehension right now.

And I can’t wait to do it again.

Sidney, Nebraska

I like Wyoming. I have a soft spot for Wyoming the likes of which I haven’t experienced since I visited Texas. I was never a western kind of guy. I’ve never seen a John Wayne movie. I had my cowboys and indians phase but quickly abandoned it in favor of Star Wars and GI Joe. Nothing about the far west appealed to me. But I like Wyoming.

I think I like Wyoming because it tests you. For three days the temperature never rose above twenty-eight degrees. The wind never gusted less than 20 miles per hour and often rose to 50 or 60 miles per hour. Let me tell you, standing outside trying to take pictures in forty or fifty mile and hour winds and ambient temperatures of twenty-five degrees is no picnic. You get to pick gravel out of your skull when you’re done. But once you’ve done it, you know you’ve beaten mother nature. That she didn’t trip you up that time. And it gives you confidence that all other daily challenges will be minor compared with the challenge to survive.

But the railroad beckons. So after fighting Mother Nature to a stand-off, I wandered downtown Cheyenne to do railroad-y things. And then I headed East. Again. To Nebraska.

Which, so far, has lived up to everything I expected of Nebraska. That puts it in a unique category with only California for company. All the stereotypes – good and bad – are true. And so, like California, I don’t think I’ll be sorry to leave.

Cheyenne, Wyoming

If you’ve got the right tour guides you too can see Denver in four hours or less. And what’s more, you can pack that visit with grand experiences.

So what if the State Capitol is closed on Saturday? Hell, the Veteran’s Day Parade is starting just across the street. So what if you can’t go into Coors Field? The Team Store is open and they’ll happily give you free 2007 NLCS pins. So what if you can’t go into the Convention Center and see the front of the Big Blue Bear? You can stand outside and dream up a surrealist scheme to put a steaming pile of poo at the bear’s backside to greet conventioneers.

And on top of all that I got to see the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. For which there are no words. I eventually gave up even taking pictures with the realization that no photograph could ever capture the majesty of the place.

But taking pictures of the highlighted dinosaur footprints on the side of a cliff down the road was pretty cool.

And that was my Colorado adventure. I’m even told that if I time it right I can ski and see a ballgame in the same weekend in the spring! What a place.

Englewood, CO

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . .
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away. — Ozymandias, Percy Bysse Shelley

Every time I get out onto a dirt road I remind myself that I wasn’t going to go on any more dirt roads. At least this time, one of the dirt roads said “Private Road” although it didn’t say “No Trespassing” and I convinced myself to give up the hunt before I got into trouble.

And so I didn’t get to see the site of the Dale Creek Bridge. The next time I’m out this way I’m getting a four wheel drive vehicle with jerry cans of gas and at least one extra spare tire and going hell for leather out into the wilderness to see these esoteric historical remnants I’ve missed this time around.

I did, however, get to see the Ames Monument along a similar dirt road. Sometime in the 1880s, the Union Pacific Railroad hired H.H. Richardson to build a magnificent monument to the Ames Brothers of Massachusetts – builders of the eastern road. It’s a wonderful, solid, red sandstone stepped pyramid with bas reliefs of both brothers on opposing sides and the inscription “In Memory of Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames” on the side facing the tracks. When the tracks ran nearby.

Now the tracks run some miles south of the monument and it sits abandoned and forgotten – like the men it memorializes – on the side of a dusty road on a blustery day in eastern Wyoming.

Laramie, Wyoming

I actually backtracked through almost fifty miles of barren desert in order to see said barren desert, in daylight, with my own eyes.

I must be crazy.

Things are getting a little tight. I finally sat down to map out the travels through Nebraska and Iowa and came to the conclusion that I have roughly six weeks worth of touring to complete in ten days.

This ought to be fun.

On the bright side, since I missed autumn and winter on the Plains is now upon us almost everything is closed. Seems this whole section of the nation is only open for business from Memorial Day to Halloween. Kind of a drag if I was still in my lazy tourist mode but since I’m in my “pioneer trek across the plains before the snow comes” mode it’s something of a relief. Today, for instance, I dawdled a bit in Rawlins, then headed east. Got almost everything on my list done before sundown, putting me about half a day ahead of schedule.

Going to need a few more days like that to pull this off.

Rawlins, Wyoming

I’m tooling down US 30 East today thinking, “Hell, only 1,700 miles to go. Maybe I just finish things up today.” But then, dammit, the sun went down and I missed seeing 100 miles of rocky desert. Anyone else would probably shrug and think, “Nothing to see anyway. What’s the big deal?” Me, I’m ticked off. I want to see every inch of ground crossed with my own eyes. I’m so irritated I’m considering backtracking 120 miles just to see the barren wasteland in daylight.

But time grows short. So I doubt I’ll be able to. Dammit.

Crazy place out west. This morning I woke up to a blinding snowstorm with 1/2 on the ground and climbing. Looked like it was going to be a miserable, grey, snowy, blowy day. I go ten miles north out of Salt Lake City proper and there are blue skies and not a hint of precipitation. But it was still cold. For 300 miles, through two canyons, across a mountain range and in two states it was never higher than 32 degrees all day. With a stiff wind. Bitter. Flat out bitter.

On the bright side, the sun did come up. Eventually. I didn’t have to breakfast with the bums. I got to see most of John Browning’s prototype guns including the BAR and .30 cal machine gun. I took a picture of Citadel Rock from across the UP tracks on the bank of the Green River that pretty much duplicates a photo in my rail road book. I saw many, many trains cruising across the plains. And I saw snow.

What a weird year. I’ve been chasing summer since summer started in the warmth of a Pennsylvania May. I chased summer across Western Europe and Central Italy. I chased summer all down the East Coast, across the South and up the Pacific Coast. I sort of stumbled onto fall – with summery temperatures – about a week ago in the foothills of the Sierra. I got to experience about three days of fall across the northern Nevada desert. And now it’s winter. Bitter, snowy winter.

Next time I’m planning better. And I’m doing this snowy part of the world in August. Can you imagine how pleasant it would be to be cruising through Phoenix and into West Texas right now with Florida as a destination rather than contemplating two more weeks hauling ass across the Great Plains?

Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City is kind of creepy. The city itself is pretty run down, dirty and tired. The large streets and empty holes on street fronts makes it slightly disconcerting to walk around. I tried to have breakfast this morning in a nearby McDonald’s. It was damned near impossible to get in the door and hold your gorge past the stench of the homeless settled inside. And eating was kind of hard to do when one dude in the corner kept smacking his head against the table and proclaiming “Happy Birthday!” every thirty seconds or so.

And then, Temple Square. Whee! Try to take a tour and have a look around without being prosletyized to? Fuggedaboutit. I did always like the half-hitches in the Mormon soliloquies when I said I was a Roman Catholic. That’s always good for a laugh.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. — H.L. Mencken

It’s been said that the United States always gets the President we deserve. Well folks, we’ve got a doozy this time. On the bright side I’m pretty sure the sun will still come up tomorrow. Aside from that, I haven’t got much to hope for. Hell, after six months or so of our new President and new Congress I won’t even be able to afford the booze to drown my sorrows.

Oh well, 220 years of truth, justice and the American Way was a pretty good run. Guess we’ll find out what lies, thievery and the European Way looks like for a little while.

Salt Lake City, Utah

Normally I would take the opportunity on Election Day to encourage you all to go out and vote.

Normally I would have something more interesting to say since I am in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

But as I spent the day back at Golden Spike doing some more stuff that I didn’t have time for yesterday and since tomorrow I’ll be busy in Mormon-Central I think I’ll take the opportunity to give my typical election time pep-talk today.

Vote. Don’t vote. I don’t really care. It doesn’t make a lick of difference this year who wins. In fact, I wish we didn’t have to vote for either of these characters. In fact, I think we’re pretty much doomed no matter who wins.

Iraq is pretty well won. I think we could still lose, but I don’t think we will. The economy will be fine if people will quit tinkering with it.

If McCain wins it’ll be pretty much business as usual. Creeping socialism will keep creeping led by the creeps in Congress. He’ll be creepy to watch and four years of hearing “Bless your heart” in that nasally VP/canadian accent will be even more creepy than Al Gore’s incredibly irritating voice.

If Obama wins it’ll be pretty much business as usual. Creeping socialism will stop creeping and just be what it is. Maybe we’ll finally stop paying lip-service to the Constitution and just discard it all together. And we’ll have four years of Joe Biden’s idiotic statements and a probable resurgence of the Klan to look forward to.

I figure our saving grace is this: McCain will have to tussle with an incompetent Congress so he won’t be able to screw too much up, Obama – probably incompetent himself – will have to work with an incompetent Congress so he won’t be able to screw too much up.

I will leave you with this. I voted for McCain. You gotta vote for somebody and I already think my taxes are too high. And I’m a little bit scared of Obama. Here comes the Hitler comparison, or Stalin if you prefer: who was the last politician to have his face made into art and plastered all over the streets? Who had his own symbol on banners and posters and flags? It’s more than a little frightening that nobody has paid the slightest attention to the man or what he says, or what he does, or who his friends are. Instead he’s a blank slate upon which all our hopes and aspirations are projected.

What happens if he doesn’t turn out to be who you think he is? What happens if his hopes and aspirations aren’t yours? What happens if that red, white and blue “O” and the Andy Warhol face saying “Obey” really begins to stand for something?

Vote, don’t vote. Whatever. I think I’ll move to Texas. At least when the goon squad in the O armbands comes for me I’ll be armed and my neighbors will be armed and we’ll have a fighting chance.

Layton, Utah

I wanted to follow the northern route around the Great Salt Lake if I could, like the railroads did. That led to a 120 mile high-speed burn through some more desolate wilderness and dying towns. It did afford me the opportunity to take a fifteen minute detour into Idaho. After all, who wouldn’t want to say they’d been to Idaho?

Finally, much later than expected I arrived at the Morton-Thiokol ATK plant where they build and refurbish the Solid Rocket Boosters used on the Space Shuttle as well as all kinds of other nifty rocket engines. Nice display outside.

And, as an extra added bonus, across the street from the rocketry was the access road to Golden Spike National Historic Site. Cool! Rockets and Railroads all in one place. Sadly that one place was the middle of nowhere but you can’t have everything.

So I got to see the reconstructed Jupiter and 119: because the originals were scrapped in the early 20th century. I got to see the reconstructed tracks at Promontory Summit: because the originals were scrapped in 1942. I got to see a replica Golden Spike: because I didn’t think to see the original in Palo Alto, CA. I got to see a replica laurel tie: because the original was whittled to splinters on May 10, 1869. I DID get to see the Big Fill, the steepest grade, an original rail and some other nifty things. I didn’t get to see the reconstructed “10 Miles in One Day” sign: because the park inexplicably closed off the entire west end auto tour two months before their published closing date. Bastards. I hate the damned Park Service.

It’s a wonderful place. It is way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. Nearly thirty miles from the closest settlement. It’s so wonderful because it’s so quiet and so devoid of other human presence. If it weren’t for the two running mounds of earth the railroads built in 1868 and 1869 you’d never know that man had ever passed that way. But he did pass that way, and he left his marks in those ghostly running trails. And it’s magnificent to imagine man building across the vast and trackless plain.

And we did it first. The United States of America was the first nation on earth to span a continent with iron. And it took all of us – Yankees, Secesh, Irish, Chinese, Black, German, whatever – to do it. And that’s wonderfully American.

Wendover, Utah

I no longer fear death. I have been to my hell. So at least I know what to expect.

Imagine a place isolated for one-hundred miles in any direction. On the east side of a mountain range surrounded by alkali desert. Imagine now that there are hotels in this town but no restaurants. The only facilities are in casinos.

Recall where you’re at, the sheer, barren isolation of it. Now attempt to imagine the quality of these casinos, and of the people who frequent them.

It’s the worst place on Earth, my friends. And I am in it.

Hell, maybe I already died somewhere out in the Nevada desert and I am in hell. That’s OK if true. At least I won’t have to live through the next President.

Sparks, Nevada

Man, this ought to have been a bad day. The second thirteenth day out and Halloween – all at the same time.

It turned out alright. I went down to Virginia City, which was somewhat less impressive than I’d hoped. I guess I was primed by my experience in Tombstone. Tombstone, at least, was a relatively neat little town filled with tourist attractions. Virginia City, on the other hand, because it’s in Nevada was a run down dump of a place filled with casinos and bars. Nevada is pretty much all alike.

I did get to ride the recreated Virginia & Truckee Railway from Virginia City to American Flats but they were only running a diesel yard train. No steam. Bummer.

From there it was north and east, ready for the mad dash across the desert.

I am still trying to track this. I don’t know what to do. Although I know I am damned hungry. Maybe I need more whiskey.

Yep. That’s what I needed.

Alright, I have several things to say:

1. I love Boston. I cried in 2004. Brother, when the Red Sox were unbeatable the Phillies were already thirty years old. That’s kind of depressing
2. Longoria has the most punchable face in baseball. What a jerk.
3. Boy, since we’ve won, I’d sure like National TV to take the Rays’ dick out of their mouths. They might find it a smidge more comfortable.

I leave you with this:

Can we lock up and get drunk now please? — Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Well hell. At 6:58 PM Pacific Time in Reno, Nevada while staring out the window at a psychedelic clown with a pulsating lollipop I saw the Philadelphia Phillies win the World Series.

Seriously. Is there a better moment than this?

One of the happiest moments of my life was late in the night on October 27, 2004 when I heard the celebrations in Boston on the phone. How spectacular was talking to fellow sufferers on October 29, 2008?

It’s been a good decade.

Philly rules! Michael Nutter did fix the Phillies. The Rays were finally supressed.

Now I’m going to go and wrestle senior citizens for food and drink. Like the wise man says, “Can we lock up and get drunk now please?”

That, my friends, was the very definition of a romp.

Up yours Cinderella. While you were talking to that goddamned mouse the ugly stepsister ran off with the prince. Hope you like mucking out the stables and marrying the local outhouse cleaner. Bitch.

At home, with our ace on the mound, with a three to one lead – I like our chances. Stay tuned true believers.

Today was also the 145th anniversary of the first spike driven on the Central Pacific Railroad. I have a weird talent for timing. I’m in Sacramento on the spot for the anniversary but I’m also in Sacramento when the Phillies have fair odds to give us reason for a victory parade down Broad Street. Hellfire and damnation. I might be fifty friggin years old the next time this happens.

Holy Moly. Be happy where you’re at I suppose. Get in touch with your inner Yoda. The hell with it. Tomorrow I head east.

. . . therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. — John Donne

Up yours Tampa Bay! I hope the sound of the Liberty Bell ringing in the Home Runs gives you a complex. I hope you wake up in a cold sweat with that sound ringing in your ears. I hope your headcase pitchers have to write some bit of Dr Phil advice under the bill of their caps to cope with those noises in their braincase.

Got a little too creative for your own good didn’t ye? Good. No manager wearing friggin’ earflaps and Hugo Boss glasses should ever be permitted to win a World Series game. Even if the umpires and broadcasters are on their side.

On another note, how beautiful is it to finally see fireworks at a World Series game? Can’t do that in a dome. Wankers.

In other news, today I stood on the spot where ground was broken for the Transcontinental Railroad. Oddly enough the spot is now inside the California State Railroad Museum in front of the first locomotive to haul a load for the Central Pacific RR – the Governor Stanford. It was all railroads all the time today.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be back in the 19th century. For the past several weeks it’s been the 1920s through the 1940s. Finally I am back in a time period I understand.

One-hundred six days out I have finally come to the beginning of my adventure.

Some years ago I read a Stephen Ambrose book called Nothing Like It in the World – The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. In the book he says:

Nearly a full century later . . . when the surveyors flying in airplanes and helicopters and equipped with modern implements and maps laid out a line for Interstate 80, they followed almost exactly the route laid out by the original surveyors [of the Transcontinental Railroad].

That sounded to me like a call for a road trip. Follow the tracks of the first Transcontinental Railroad from Sacramento to Omaha. The idea got expanded a little over the years. First I thought I’d fly to Vegas – as at that time I’d never been – then do the Fear and Loathing tour across the California desert to Los Angeles, then go up to Sacramento and back east. Then I had Phoenix recommended to me as a starting point. Then I decided, hell, why not take the opportunity to check out the places down south you might like to live? And finally, if I’m doing all of that why not just go the whole way ’round and see the country.

And here we are, one-hundred five days later, with a little over three weeks to make it back to the States, in Sacramento ready to get started on the original trip and make the final turn to the east on the trip as it is. Unreal.

Tomorrow I’ll walk to the spot on K St. in Sacramento where the great road begins and after that (in reverse) it’s

. . . ten spikes to a rail, four hundred rails to a mile, eighteen hundred miles to San Francisco.

I sat in Santa Cruz and watched the Philadelphia Phillies win Game One of the World Series.

That’s something I would not have expected to write in my life. I kind of feel the same way I did when I spent New Year’s watching the Philadelphia fireworks from a train platform on Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd in Camden, NJ.

Not exactly an experience you expect to have in your lifetime.

I’m a little bummed I’m missing California for baseball. But hell, I can come back to California. I could be fifty the next time the Phillies make it to the World Series. Reckon that’s a fair trade. Besides, California would be lovely if it was devoid of people. They tend to ruin everything.

The victory calls for a shot of bourbon.

Right, that’s done.

May I suggest that American refrain from partaking of free tacos from Taco Bell? Do you really want to eat something that was stolen by one of the Tampa Bay Rays? Hell, only last year they were stealing cars – now they’re stealing tacos for the United States?

They must and shall be supressed.

Here I sit in Santa Monica, two miles from the beach, in a motel room eating noodles off a knife for lack of a fork, making meatloaf sandwiches and drinking Sammy while huddled over my laptop eyes glued to ESPN Gamecast and listening to the WRKO internet feed that Major League Baseball makes your pay ten bucks for.

I think I might be missing out on the whole California-thing.

That’s OK by me. I swear the Christ the LA basin is the friggin’ twilight zone. No hotel in 75 miles has TBS on television. I find a Red Sox bar (Sonny Mclean’s from Still, We Believe to watch the game in but TBS takes a national dump and I decide it’s better to drive around at random and listen to XM than pay $5 a beer to watch Steve Harvey reruns. Once I got tired of that I resigned myself to the meatloaf and laptop plan. Hell, I bet I still spent less than I would have going out to supper.

I am so out of here tomorrow. I am going to see the coast. I am going north, hopefully into some country that’s a little less populated, in preparation for the big turn east. 11,500 miles gone, at least 3,500 to go.

At 5:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time, after ninety-three days on the road and eleven-thousand fifty miles overland I glimpsed the Pacific Ocean from Interstate 5 between San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente, California.

I don’t know how the internet feels. For myself I am absolutely at a loss. I simply cannot express what I feel when I look out on that azure expanse. I kind of can’t believe that I’m here. That I finally made it from one coast to the other. And to think of all the really spectacular things I’ve seen along the way. By the time I’m done I will have crossed most of the continent’s major mountain ranges, I’ll have been in all four Great American Deserts, I’ll have seen almost every ecosystem the North American continent has to offer. I’ve been in a foreign country, I’ve been in nineteen of the fifty states with at least nine left to go. Think about that one for a minute: on all my travels this summer I will have seen four foreign countries and more than half of the United States.

I don’t know about you. But that impresses the hell out of me.

Tomorrow, the City of Angels and a date with the Dodgers at Chavez Ravine.

Go Phillies!

OK. No more offroad trips in search of ghosted ghost towns. From now on I am only sticking to government-approved, tourist friendly ghost towns. I drive a Camry for chrissakes. I shouldn’t be taking my poor two-wheel drive, four cylinder practical-mobile out on unmaintained roads straight up a one lane rockpile hacked out of the side of a friggin’ mountain. She just ain’t built for that sort of thing. Stupid non-existent ghost towns. Maybe there should be two types of ghost town: those that have remnants – call ‘em ecto towns – and those that have no remains – they can be ghost towns.

Things were looking up after I got through with ninety minutes of high-stress dodging of sharp rocks and trigger-happy prospectors in the middle of friggin’ nowhere. The Phillies were well ahead and I was up in the Arizona high country. Suddenly the smell of pine filled the air. Grass was growing on the side of the road. The temperature dropped by twenty degrees. Life was looking up.

Sadly, my ultimate destination was Prescott, AZ – home of the Rough Riders. At first I was pissed off. This might have been a really cool town until it was overrun by yuppies, and hipsters, and artists. Rotten swine. But then I read that the famous Bucky O’Neill was a newspaperman. And Prescott was always pretty much filled with rich yuppies and dilettantes. Hellfire and damnation. There just ain’t no safe place on the planet.

Mesa, AZ

There’s something wrong when you’re in a major United States city and manage to put nearly 200 miles under your belt in one day just looking around town. All I did was go downtown to see the State Capitol (not as cool as Texas), drive out to Scottsdale to shop for hats (surprisingly difficult in the cowboy capitol) and cruise up to Fountain Hills (the Stepford Wives ain’t got nothing on Arizona).

Cripes. It’s well past time to get out of this place. I thought surely in the fifth largest US city there’d be something to see. Man, was I wrong. Nothing but nose-bleedingly hot desert wind and plus 100 degree temperatures daily.

On the bright side, they sell whiskey at Wal-Mart. Which, if you say it five times fast, is really funny.

Mesa, AZ

I saw a guy so fat he had to sit sideways in the passenger seat to avoid interfering with the steering.

I was driving at the time. Had to struggle to keep from running off the road. There ain’t much else to do besides driving in Phoenix. This place exists on an astoundingly huge scale. It’s a 90 minute round trip just to go to the corner store. It take so long to drive from work to your neighborhood pub that Happy Hour doesn’t even start until midnight. Hell, this place is so big it has suburbs on the other side of mountain ranges. Christ, the weather changes from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Not exactly my kind of place. I sure am glad I discovered a quiet, lonely place here in the eastern suburbs. And I am downright terrified of spending time in Southern California.

Phoenix, AZ

Baseball is the perfect sport.

It starts in the spring, when the leaves turn green and the entire planet comes out of hibernation. It ends when things go back to sleep.

It is inextricably intertwined with the history of the United States. There’s an old story that a Civil War hero invented the game (not true). It has mirrored our struggles over race. Our difficulty determining where to draw the line on drugs, their use and their dubious legality. Our endless arguments over the limits to capitalism, to a suitable rate of return on investment, and the proper relation of labor to capital.

And if all that weren’t enough the mere fact of saying, “I am going to the ballgame” links you in an unbroken chain going back well over one-hundred years. Whether you go to Fenway Park and tread the same concrete people have been treading since the Titanic sank or go to Chase Field and soak in some AC on a 100 plus degree Phoenix day you are tying yourself to history, to the United States’ past.

And it never fails to make me teary-eyed.

Tucson, AZ

I always thought I’d make a good executioner. By and large I don’t give a crap about the human race. I care even less about someone tried, convicted and sentenced by a jury of their peers.

Back in the good old days of nuclear detente I assumed those same inclinations would make me a good man to “push the button.” Having seen the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita, AZ I am forced to reconsider.

They take you down into the only remaining Titan II missile silo in the United States. They show you the missile, the various passages and tunnels, the multi-layered security to enter the installation, etc. Then, in the control room, the tour guide and one of your fellow tourists go through a launch sequence. It’s assumed the launch codes are entered, the target selected, the butterfly valve unlocked code entered. The launch keys are inserted and the countdown: 3-2-1, turn is completed. The console lights up. Batteries charging. Guidance loading. The lights go green. The klaxon sounds and within 30 minutes some Soviet town is erased off the face of the Earth.

It’s pretty sobering stuff. Not a thing I would want to participate in. It’s especially difficult to imagine that once those keys are turned, that’s it. Human control is removed. The missile is on its way and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

I am glad all that stuff was there when we needed it. I am even more happy we never needed it. And I hope we never do.

Benson, AZ

Today I sat next to a Chiricahua Apache while sipping whiskey in the Crystal Palace Saloon on the main drag in Tombstone, Arizona. I walked through the OK Corral to the back alley where the gunfight took place. I watched a somewhat hammy recreation of the gunfight in the bleachers next to some germans. I went past the Bird Cage theatre, Wyatt Earp’s house and up to Boot Hill.

Some days on this adventure are more interesting than others.

Tombstone reminded me of Gettysburg. If Gettysburg didn’t have any actual residents. Lots of gift shops with cheap, Chinese western wear. Some profoundly badly dressed interpreters along with some really righteously attired and impressively realistic folks. I dug it. I dug the entire experience.

Oddly though, the Wal-Mart here in Benson doesn’t seem to have the movie Tombstone available on its racks. The Wal-Mart in Gettysburg has Gettysburg prominently displayed right inside the door. I think the folks up here are missing a real opportunity to cash in on the suckers.

Lordsburg, NM

8,000 miles in seventy-seven days and I have finally found it. I have found the asshole of the world. This is it, man. This is the epicenter. It’s not hell. I’ve been in places far more hellish – many on this voyage alone (I’m thinking of you, Caen) – but this is definitely the asshole.

If you live in the northeast and have ever been to Breezewood, PA I can give you a mental image of this place. Imagine Breezewood without the charm. Or the restaurants. Or the gas stations. Or nice hotels. Now add eleventy-hundred pounds of dust, the constant threat of tripping over a rattlesnake, scorpions and tarantulas crawling across the driveway and nothing but Mexican food. Now you have a small idea of what it’s like here.

In other news, I spent most of the day cruising. Out to the White Sands Missile Museum. Up to Fort Selden’s adobe ruins to see where Douglas MacArthur lived as a wee lad. Down to Columbus and what’s left of the dusty crossroads that Pancho Villa invaded in 1916. Then miles along the border past Border Patrol checkpoints, lookout towers and more official vehicles than I’ve seen even in Washington, DC. I think all that money they’re throwing at the border is having some effect. But there’s a hell of a lot of miles of nothing down here. And Christ, after spending many days near Mexico and about ten minutes in Mexico, I can’t blame them for wanting to come to the United States. Just so long as they leave their cuisine behind.

Las Cruces, NM

Today the Lord looked out for me for the umpteenth time during this madcap adventure. He’s a hell of a guy, the Lord. This time it was a simple matter of thirty cents that saved my ass. For a man who rarely has any change and never has quarters it was a miracle I found thirty-five cents in my pocket. Just enough to escape Mexico.

I’ve been travelling near the border ever since I got back from the East. In Del Rio I drove over to the bridge to look over towards Mexico. For several miles on the road I could see the line. I held off. When I got to El Paso I’d cross over to Juarez. Hell, you could walk there. There was even a tourist trolley that hit the major sites. Where’s the downside?

That I found out when I looked up information on the trolley in El Paso. A Marine Reservist killed while getting his truck fixed. Two Americans shot and badly wounded while partying in a cantina. An eleven year old boy killed by an AK-47 round when his family tried to run a highwayman/pirate roadblock outside of town. Juarez is, at this moment, something like as safe as Baghdad. Somewhat on the order of four people a day are killed there this year. Loverly.

So what’s an adventurous man like myself to do? The hell with it. I’m going anyway. I just won’t stay long.

So I paid my thirty-five cents and walked into Mexico across the concrete ditch containing the Rio Grande along with all the Mexicans returning home with their morning shopping. Once in, I looked around, realized I didn’t have any pesos to buy a beer or lunch and decided, “Well, I’ve been here. Time to go back.”

But of course, you can’t just get back on the same bridge and go back the way you came. The kind soldados with the automatic weapons tried to point that out to me in spanish as I lamely pointed and asked, “Estados Unidos?” No sirree-bob. Not that way. I gathered there was another bridge about a block over which a kind street vendor explained in good english. Gracias, my good man, gracias. Of course, when you get there it’s another thirty cents to get back out again. Hence the miracle. And when you get back Los Estados Unidos you have to produce a passport which nobody at any point in the adventure had advised you needed. Nor had the Mexican side showed any indication of caring whether or not you were in their country. No customs. No border control. I guess nobody is stupid enough to want to come to Mexico voluntarily.

In the end everything was cool because I’d done my homework. And I can officially mark down that I’ve been in four foreign countries on this journey. And the next time I’ll have money ahead of time so I can get a beer and prove I’ve been there. But for now – Christ, it’s good to be home.

El Paso, TX

I am become Death, The shatterer of Worlds. — J. Robert Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad-Gita, July 15,1945

It’s a hell of a thing to stand in the midst of a silence so oppressive you can’t even hear your own heartbeat and squint against the sun-bright intensity of brilliantly white gypsum fields to your north and try to imagine seeing a mushroom cloud boiling up in the pre-dawn darkness.

What an intensely beautiful and intensely creepy place.

Sadly I am about a week early (or six weeks late depending on perspective) from being able to go to the actual Trinity Site (only open the first weekends in April and October). But I could stand in the midst of the White Sands National Park on the highest and most northerly dune I could reasonably get to and look out to the north and imagine where the Atomic Age began. It’s pretty heady stuff. Somewhere out there, amidst all this desolate beauty and distracting silence mankind first demonstrated the weaponized potential of the most basic elemental forces. Wow.

Maybe that’s why the aliens showed up two years later a little bit to the east. Surely there’s some travel delay in coming from Alpha Centauri.

Roswell, NM

This adventure gets weirder and weirder the further away from the starting point I get.

Today I spent most of a gorgeous sunny day 800 feet below the surface at a constant temperature of fifty-nine degrees and ninety percent relative humidity. I had lunch down below. Wrote postcards down below. And wandered several times around the passages open to me. Honestly, I am less than impressed by Carlsbad Caverns. I suppose the great selling point is the sheer size of the underground spaces. For me, that somewhat defeats the purpose of a cave. Caves should be tight spaces, filled with wonders. Carlsbad is so big the wonders are always distant and even then are mainly grey and dead. There’s a whole essay to be written on human interaction with natural wonders pro and con. Carlsbad comes down mainly on the con side.

This evening I am in Roswell, New Mexico for no other reason than I was told Carlsbad was worth seeing and if I went there I couldn’t see any reason not to swing by Roswell for the sheer silliness of it. Surprisingly, it ain’t that silly here. It is, in fact, the most prosperous town I have seen since San Antonio. It seems a bit strange to come upon such a normal looking town in the middle of this desolate country. Even stranger to find this place after building up such a weird reputation for the place in your mind. So here it is. Not what I expected and not bad for all that.

And now I’m off to look for little green men. Maybe I can hitch a ride on a UFO a complete the collection of travelling by every means of conveyance on the earth, under the earth, over the earth and on the seas.

Hopefully they’ll be friendly.

And share their booze.

Carlsbad, NM

Here I sit in this half a horse town, drinking Shiner Bock and watching the final game at Yankee Stadium shindig thinking wistfully of Texas.

All New Mexico has done so far is slow me down. I am completely in love with Texas. Given the amount of no firearms signs at National Parks, banks, schools and airports you have to figure “they” assume you’re packing. Lone Star Beer has billboards claiming that drinking any other beer makes you a traitor to the Texian nation. I went nearly an entire day on the road never seeing more people that I could count on one hand. The speed limit on two-lane back country roads is 75. On the Interstate it’s 80.

Man, you can cover some ground doing 80 miles an hour.

And there’s a hell of a lot of ground to cover. Miles and miles of trackless desolation amidst which are moments of such beauty it takes your breath away. I think I would like to buy a house in Fort Davis, TX where I could go to sit on the porch, stare at the breathtakingly blue sky, look out at the miraculous colors, taste the arid breeze and go completely zen in the surroundings.

Maybe when I really retire.

Philadelphia, PA

That was a five-hundred dollar rainout. The best part of the entire evening was the realization that even though every being in the five boroughs knew from two o’clock in the afternoon that there would be no baseball tonight, the Mets kept all of us hanging around, spending money, drinking beer and eating overpriced hot dogs for ninety minutes. Then, when they decided they’d made enough dough off the suckers they unceremoniously threw us out on the streets of Queens. I actually had a docent come up to me and say, “We’re closing guys. Get out.”

I can’t say it was a wasted day though. I had a spectacular hotel in midtown with a view of the Empire State Building. I got to walk around Flushing Meadows Park – site of the 1939-1940 and 1964-1965 World’s Fairs – and see some of the remaining monuments and pavilions: including the “Panorama of the City of New York” which alone was worth the five bills. I got to go into Shea Stadium in the last weeks of its existence and see the pathetic imitation of Ebbets Field rising next door.

And then I got up at the ass-crack of dawn and got to spend the entire day with almost everyone in my extended family. And that made it all worthwhile.

New York, NY

Seven years ago today our nation went to war. We’re still at war though sometimes it’s difficult to tell. I think we’re winning though sometimes that’s difficult to tell. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve corrected some and left others to fester. Every day the playing field changes and we are – as usual – slow to respond to changing circumstances. I think we’re doing all right. I don’t think there was any other option open to us. I hope there’s a final victory to celebrate but I doubt it. The world just seems to be getting more screwed up as it grows closer together and I don’t think we’ll ever see even an approximation of peace in our lifetime. What a pity.

Naturally I thought September 11 would be a wonderful day to travel into New York City. Nobody ever said I had great timing.

Boston, MA

There’s a teapot made to commemorate the repeal of the Stamp Act that I have seen in a plethora of books, TV shows and documentaries on the American Revolution. It’s pretty nifty to walk into a room and see it sitting in a case just inside the door. Gives you a little connection to the past and a feeling that you’ve seen something that’s been noticed.

That was my experience in the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. All kinds of nifty stuff scattered around an enormous museum of seafaring artifacts and Eastern artworks.

As an extra-added bonus I got to wander around Salem a little bit and have a really mind-blowing drink on a ferry ride back to Boston Harbor followed up with fried clam bellies and beers at the Barking Crab. Good stuff. Good day. Good way to end a stay in Boston.

Boston, MA

I am cursed. It’s just as simple as that. There is no other explanation.

Papelbon is as sure a thing as there is in baseball. He goes to the mound and it’s like Rivera in the Yankees salad days: game over, thanks for playing, you lose. There I am, staring at the standings on the Green Monster with Tampa Bay 1/2 game on top of the list and Boston miraculously leading by a run in the top of the ninth with all the Papelbon fanfare and a roaring crowd wondering how long after the game I’d have to stick around to see them put Tampa Bay’s board in second place. Paps immediately gives up a home run to tie the game then gives up the game-winning run as the Boston nine go quietly down in the ninth.

God damn it. I am the problem. If I hadn’t been there, they would have won that game. There’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t have won that game. They should be sitting today at worst tied for first place in the east. But I was friggin’ there.

I have never seen the Sox win at Fenway. The first time I saw them play the Orioles at Camden Yards they lost for the first time in 13 straight meetings. Un-freaking-believable. Hell, I’ve probably seen the Sox a dozen times and if they’ve won four of those times I’d be surprised. That’s a .250 winning percentage in a span of years in which they’re well over .500 overall. Pathetic.

I have come to a decision. I will never go to a game at Fenway Park again. I can’t stand being the goat. I can’t stand watching them lose every goddamned time I go. It’s strange to have officially lost my Sox cherry during their time of sheer supremacy but that’s how it goes. They broke my heart. And I’ll cheer lustily for them but I won’t ever again add my bad luck presence on top of their struggles at home. Pity.

Boston, MA

When I started this adventure I thought six weeks would be more than enough time to see the country. That would have put me back on the east coast by early September rested, refreshed and ready to get a job and start a new phase of life. I never expected that two months later I’d only be halfway through the USA.

Because of that, I decided some time back that I needed to take a mid-trip detour back east for two reasons: because friends are having kids I want to visit and to make some baseball stops before the season ends.

Boston first. Meet the new kiddie and go see the Red Sox in a titanic struggle versus the Rays for First Place in the AL East. That ought to be entertaining. Then New York City to add Shea Stadium to my lifebook of baseball parks before it falls to the wrecking ball in ’09. Philly’s next to visit friends and family before heading back “home” for a little of the old routine and a visit to the new Nationals ballpark in its inaugural season. Finally I’ll be able to do my annual pilgrimage to Antietam on September 17 to commune with the ghosts.

I don’t do things by half measures. Busy as hell, pedal to the metal all the time. When this is all over I’ll need a vacation from my vacation.

San Antonio, TX

Bollocks day. Another one where the plan goes awry and only a few things go right. Culminating with me trying to plan my next set of adventures at 8 PM without any supper in my belly. Damned waste. I was supposed to be able to start that chore at 4.

On the bright side, I did get to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It was pretty silly, well in line with Lucas’ desire to dumb down and kiddify Star Wars to squeeze even more retirement money out of a franchise already beyond lucrative. I guess as he stares mortality in the face he begins to realize that being an artist is a bunch of crap and it’s best to go for the money.

It was fun. The animation style was kind of irritating and some of the dialogue was juvenile and WAYYYYY too close to modern sensibilities. But it was kind of nifty to see some of the big set pieces that could be done better as cartoons than as CGI’d live action.

And what does it say about Hayden Christiansen or Lucas’ direction (or both) that the animated Anakin was an infinitely more believable, likeable and sympathetic figure that the live action one that struggled painfully through three movies? I think I’d like to see all three of the “prequels” put together as animated flicks. I think the story arc of Anakin’s rise and fall would make a hell of a lot more sense.

San Antonio, TX

I reckon I’ve done San Antonio. The whole thing took me about an hour. Maybe two if I’m generous. There just ain’t that much here.

In a weirdly typical twist the Alamo has suffered from the attentions of the very people who saved it. Instead of being interpreted as it was so people can get a sense of what things were like in early March of 1836 the Daughters of the Republic of Texas turned it into a well-landscaped shrine to the dead. The place never looked the way it does now. Not at any point in its existence. Happily I had a friend point out some battle damage on a side wall and the purported signature of David Crockett in a niche to offer some connection to the past.

Oddly the best spot for a bit of Texas history in San Antonio is the Menger Bar. The bar has a scar from Carrie Nation’s hatchet and a collection of Filipino police uniforms. Outside is memorabilia from the foundation of the Rough Riders and multiple photographs of the various historic figures who passed through the Menger over the many years it’s stood.

As for the rest of the place. Meh. I had more fun in Austin. In fact, if you combined Houston (for the city), Austin (for the arts and weirdness) and San Antonio (for the history) you just might have one, good, functional town.

San Antonio, TX

As mentioned previously, I am struggling to figure out LBJ. I have learned enough at his Presidential Library, reconstructed birthplace, schoolhouse, childhood home and ranch to have a thin base on which to begin to construct an opinion.

I think that better than three-quarters of the things LBJ did and the measures he pushed were absolutely execrable. There can be no defense – under our Constitution – for things like the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, the Education Acts, or the wildly lame-brained abominations called the “War on Poverty” and the “Great Society.” Taken as a whole Johnson did more damage to the American State than any President since Franklin Roosevelt.

However, Johnson did some things that were truly noble and long overdue. He was the primary cheerleader for the United States space program from his time in Congress all the way through his Presidency. His dedication in passing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts finally completed the Federal victory in the Civil War which was so abysmally wasted during the Reconstruction era.

Sadly the bad far outweighs the good. And my dislike for Johnson the President remains unbounded. In my learning, though, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t vote for the guy but I think he’d be all-right to sit down and share a beer with.

And I am damned sorry I didn’t go out to the ranch while Lady Bird was still alive to see her sitting on the porch waving at tourists or boarding the bus for a personal tour. She seems like fun.

Austin, TX

Because I like it so much I decided to stay another night in Austin and be mellow. Went up to the State History Museum and then over to the University of Texas to try to figure our what to make of LBJ by way of visiting his Presidential Library.

I was a little rushed, as usual. Managed to see everything briefly. I’m still not sure what to make of him. More on that later.

Managed to see most of the high points of the Republican National Convention. I have to admit, I think picking Palin as VP was a magnificent choice. It rocked the Dems back on their heels and forced them to release the hounds thereby demonstrating that all their promises of “change” and a “new politics” is complete and utter bollocks. Until this past week I was strongly considering writing in Zombie Reagan for President. Since my visit to LBJ’s library I am now the proud owner of campaign buttons for Reagan 1980, Goldwater and Nixon/Agnew. I think I’ll start wearing the Nixon one. It might amuse me. In any case, given the current situation I think I can feel confident in casting my vote for John McCain. I think he’s finally demonstrated that he’s got enough brains to draw a clear distinction between himself and the disloyal opposition and hopefully he’ll have a good, sensible voice muttering in his ear keeping him on the straight and narrow.

Besides, who wouldn’t vote for a hot VP and First Lady?

Austin, TX

Keep Austin Weird

You gotta love a town with that as an unofficial motto.

In beautiful country, Austin is the most beautiful town I’ve seen. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Nashville in an infinitely more walkable way.

Since it’s walkable, I walked today. Feels good to get out of the car and get the pavement under your feet. Besides, I’m getting fat. Too much sitting on my arse in the damned car and drinking beer every night.

So I walked down Congress St and across the bridge. Down 6th Street past all the bars trying to recover from last night’s revelry. Up into the ghetto to pay my respects at the Texas State Cemetery and grin at the huge numbers of dead Confederates buried on the sylvan slopes. Back down into town to wander through the State Capitol and then back to SoCo to my hipster place of rest.

In the evening I wandered back down to the bridge to watch the bats come out. Sadly I am told it was a bad bat night. I’m almost glad it was a bad night, with the quantity of the little buggers I saw flitting in the shadows just beyond my face I’m not sure I’d want to be around on a good night.

Austin, TX

I never have been able to figure out why Texans feel the way they do about Texas. They seem to feel there’s something unique about this place that no place else in the Union has. Every state has a certain amount of pride. Massachusetts can take pride in being the cradle of Liberty. Virginia can take pride in being the birthplace of Presidents. California can take pride in being the place to which all the loose nuts roll. Pennsylvania can take pride in being the most corrupt state in the Union Birthplace of the United States.

Texas has got a lot of things to be proud about. The drive from Houston to Austin passed through some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Wide open spaces under a breathtakingly blue sky with miles of green grass prairies populated by disinterested cattle. Houston is a fun city, huge and energetic with tons of cash and wonderful places to spend it in. Austin seems an odder, smaller version of Houston, denser and with more emphasis on the artistic. But what I never internalized until I came to Texas is the reason folks believe Texas a place apart: it really was its own nation.

Every state in the Union was technically a sovereign and independent nation from July 4, 1776 until they adopted the Articles of Confederation and then the United States Constitution. But in all things they acted as a collective. They acted through Congress to raise an army, conduct war, negotiate with foreign powers and declare peace. Texas acted entirely on its own for nearly ten years. It fought a war of Independence, created an Army and Navy, concluded treaties, dispatched and received ambassadors, defended its borders, and governed itself as an independent nation in the family of nations for a long time before annexing itself to the United States. The fact that the Republic of Texas was a real and established nation for a relatively long time makes it unique among the United States and entitles its people to bear their state in high regard.

So far I like Texas. I like the pride. I like the country. I like most of the people (the hipsters and yuppies of Austin and Houston respectively make me want to puke). I can’t say I’ll ever call any place home again in a soulful attachment sort of way but I could see myself learning some Texas pride.

Houston, TX

I can’t imagine there are many space places left for me to visit. Years ago I went to Kennedy Space Center and returned on January 28, 1986 to witness a horrifying moment in history. Today I went to the Johnson Space Center to see the nerve center of space flight. In between I saw where rocket engines are tested at Stennis.

How many space enthusiasts have seen where the rocket engines are tested? There’s nothing like a clean sweep.

In truth, all of these places are a little disappointing. At JSC, for instance, I would have liked to see the Apollo Mission Control room, take an in-depth tour of the facility and maybe look at some rockets. Instead, you get a Disney-fied version of things with the typically pathetic and out-of-date government museum displays and a little tram ride through the facility. You do get to go up to Mission Control – sadly I was there on the weekend so nothing was going on – nifty even if it’s just communicating with the ISS.

Hell, I’m a sucker for this stuff. Even if it does suck and costs $18 for the privilege. At least I can say I rode the little touron buggy past the building where they make space food.

Houston, TX

Even with my unexpected snag in Beaumont yesterday didn’t turn out to be an entirely wasted day. I had to be in Houston for a 6:05 ballgame and I was carefully considering my schedule trying to determine what I really wanted to see in Houston with what was left of Saturday and all day Sunday in case I had to get outta Dodge on Monday morning.

I was east of town and happily, San Jacinto battlefield happened to be down the road. That very pleasantly used up the afternoon. Although I didn’t get a chance to see yet another Battleship. Hopefully if the hurricane hits someone else I’ll have a chance to go back.

I’ll say one thing for Texas: they don’t do anything small down here. The San Jacinto monument was visible from miles away, clearly standing out amongst oil rigs, refinery towers and shipping cranes. A monstrously big obelisk (bigger than the Washington Monument) with a Texas star on top faceted in such a fashion that the five points are visible from any angle. I bet you can even see a five pointed star from space. “Houston, Tranquility base here. I can see that gol-danged star from all the way up here.”

And I got to see a ballgame complete with excellent fans, good booze and a train that runs along the outfield wall when the home team hits a home run.

And today I got thoroughly irritated at modern art and then took a tour of some old Houston buildings with a very peculiar docent who gave a damned fine tour but may or may not have been stoned to the bejeezus at the time. Made for a good time.

And then, I pretty much took the rest of the day off. I am getting tired. I could use a day off but it’s hard to do that when you’re paying by the day for your bed and meals and everything else. And it’s especially hard to do when a hurricane is threatening to run up your keester and you’re desperately trying to figure out which way to dodge if dodging is even necessary.

Well, I’ve got two gallons of water in the car and a full tank of gas. If dodging is in the cards I can do it with style. Guess we’ll know tomorrow.

Beaumont, TX

This is starting to get ridiculous. Once, in Louisiana is understandable. Twice, in places separated by a hundred miles is getting irritating. This hurricane thing is beginning to piss me off. It’s messing with my schedule and that is unacceptable.

The damned thing isn’t even supposed to approach land until Monday night or Tuesday morning and then it looks like it’s heading for the Louisiana coast a hundred miles or more to the east of here. Nevertheless I have gone out of my way to see two sites out this direction both of which were closed due to the hurricane.

It’s a blue sky kind of day. Hot and somewhat humid. No clouds, no rumor of rain, very little breeze. It’s a holiday weekend. No word of evacuation or even preparations for evacuation in these parts and yet the folks at the Gladys-Spindletop Boomtown Museum in Beaumont have packed up and buggered off leaving me stuck in goddamned Texas with nothing to do.

I wish Gustav, the son of a bitch, would just hit and get it over with so I could figure out what the hell’s left and what to do next and not keep running into snags with no point or purpose behind them. God damn it.

Jennings, LA

Finally, after a week of be-bopping between Louisiana and Mississippi. Turning East, West, North and South in turn and generally chasing my tail and retracing steps I have set my face firmly to the west again and feel like I’m making progress.

I had planned a full day of sight-seeing along the southern edge of Louisiana but I started so far north I whittled things down to a stop on Avery Island to see the birthplace of Tabasco (the soldiers’ friend!) and a stop in Jennings to see the remnants of a General Store that has been preserved in the state it was when it closed in 1949. Avery Island was nifty-cool but Jennings let me down. I assume when a place is closed early and there’s plywood over the windows that folks are probably battening down against an oncoming hurricane.

So, like David Crockett said to the people who messed with his plan: “You may all go to hell. And I will go to Texas.”

Natchez, MS

Another day in Vicksburg. No great insights today. But I’ll share a funny story:

The Old Court House Museum in Vicksburg is a National Treasure. The place is a randomly arranged collection of miscellanea curated with a decidedly southern and anecdotal perspective. They have, for instance, one of the first Teddy Bears created after a story leaked out about Theodore Roosevelt’s compassion during a bear-hunting trip in the Mississippi canebrakes. They have the bullet which impregnated a local woman by embedding itself in her womanly parts after passing through a soldier’s manly parts.

My favorite, and something I didn’t notice if it was even there the last time is the story about the staircase. There are a great many cast-iron furnishings in the courthouse, everything from the judge’s bench to the court railings and the staircase to the second floor is cast-iron and all of those bits came from northern foundries before the War. This particular staircase is labeled “Cincinnati, Ohio” on each step and the little laminated sign on the wall next to the stairs says that on “. . . July 4 1863 Union soldiers flocked into the building, and a group of drunken staff officers climbed the stairway, singing and waving a captured signal flag. When one of them looked down and saw the name and city of the Northern manufacturer, he cursed ‘the impudence of the people who thought they could whip the United States when they couldn’t even make their own staircases.’

Damned skippy.

Vicksburg, MS

The sheer number of monuments and memorials in Vicksburg is staggering. They coat the National Park and spill out onto city streets as if there were too many to be stuffed even into the massive expanse of park. It seems like Vicksburg was chosen by the men of the west to be their memorial park just as Gettysburg was so chosen by the men of the east.

Every brigade commander, North and South, gets a bas relief monument. Every division commander gets a free-standing bust. Almost every state has a significant memorial with the Illinois Memorial rivaling that of Pennsylvania in Gettysburg. I think, if you spent enough time wandering and studying the place, you could probably find some sort of marker for every Corps, Division, Brigade, Regiment, Company, Platoon, Squad and Private Soldier in both armies buried somewhere amidst the cliffs and gullies of the broken landscape.

And if that wasn’t enough to turn you on, the USS Cairo – Eads boat, Federal ironclad and the first ship ever sunk by torpedo/mine – sits under the bluff not far from what were the banks of the Mississippi River reconstructed in all her glory. Heavy guns, boilers, paddlewheel, railroad armor, side plate armor: a magnificent ship and one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen.

This is one of the times I really wish I didn’t have a car and had about a week to spare. You just can’t take this place in when you’re driving. I walked a good eight miles of the field when I visited in 1998 and although I didn’t come away with the comprehension I have now after two lengthy circuits of the field, I felt much more involved with the soldiers’ eye view of what happened here.

Vicksburg is a great monument to the men who did the fighting and to a lost way of life. In its own way, despite still standing, she too is a ghost town.

Jackson, MS

Another long day. I knew there wouldn’t be any place to eat lunch, so I planned to get lunch before I left, didn’t, and ended up about being right that there was no place to eat lunch.

I hate being right.

Not eating makes me immensely tired, very bizarre in the head and generally irritable. So why was it that I had a grin on my face all day despite the hardships?

For one thing, I was out of the city and back in the country with absolutely nobody around. Barely a car on my road, barely a human to interact with. For another I was on semi-familiar terrain in parts. And for a third, I was doing a Civil War trip. All three calculated to make me a happy man.

My intent was to follow General Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign. I followed the Natchez Trace Parkway north out of Natchez. After a short ride through the boondocks to the Windsor Ruins and Bethel Church – both sites passed by Grant’s army in 1863 – I picked up the Trace again and generally followed the route of march: through Port Gibson and Grand Gulf, Rocky Springs and Dillon’s Plantation, Raymond and into Jackson.

Raymond was particularly entertaining. I came into town from the west on MS 467 and as I approached the outskirts of town I suddenly realized I’d been that way before. And just up ahead, past the houses of secessionists with their shutters tightly closed we should round a curve and climb a hill and see the Stars and Stripes raised over the county courthouse as the long, dusty column of blue behind and around me burst into a thunderous cheer. I had marched here before, ten years ago. And there was the tree on the courthouse green under which I’d spent the night after being abandoned on a Mississippi back road by a taxi driver after I ran out of money. And there’s the route down to the event site over which a gentleman gave me a ride in the back of his pickup truck. And goddamn if that Raymond Military Park doesn’t have a road through the woods on which I distinctly remember halting on the march and lying down for a bit to my colonel’s chagrin. Hell, there was even a water spigot back amongst the trees – a remnant from our march ten years ago.

I felt a little like one of the old fellows coming back to a battlefield years after the fact and marvelling at the details you remember of a place you visited and deeds you performed long ago. A very eerie feeling. A very happy feeling.

Natchez, MS

Good-bye New Orleans. Can’t say I won’t be glad to see the back of you.

I rode alongside the Lower 9th Ward today on my way out of town. I had a hard time telling whether the desolation I saw was hurricane damage or typical urban poverty. I suspect most of what I saw was the latter although there were more than a fair share of otherwise respectable buildings (churches, restaurants, banks) with no windows or doors and no smoke stains or graffiti to indicate normal urban destruction.

It all makes me wonder. I think the Lower 9th was a dive even before the hurricane. I think it was a place without purpose in a city that was, even then, trying to find a purpose. Maybe it was destroyed for a reason. Why on earth would we attempt to rebuild a place that wasn’t fit to live in before the hurricane? Why would we try to shoehorn folks back into a place that is obviously unsuited to survive nature’s wrath? What sort of hubris blames man for the failure of man-made levees when nature decides to breach them? Aren’t precisely the same people screaming for heads over the destruction of New Orleans because man failed to arrest nature the folks screaming that man can’t do anything about global warming and that nature is sure to overwhelm any attempt man might make to arrest that?

Profoundly silly. The whole thing. I wish we’d just let places die that shouldn’t live and get on with the business of building up places that should. New Orleans should probably be pared back a good bit. The outlying areas should stay erased and effort should be put into fixing up the places worth fixing.

New Orleans is an interesting place. I’m not sure it didn’t get exactly what was coming to it and I’m not at all sure they learned any damned lessons at all.

Even in the rain New Orleans finds a way to occupy your time. Mass in the oldest cathedral in the United States. A ferry ride across the mighty Mississippi for a Muffaletta and beers on the other side, in Algiers. Aimless tramping through the raindrops around the French Quarter and through the old Market into the Marigny. Pounding through the rain again towards the first organ concert in the old Cathedral since Hurricane Katrina and stopping along the way at the “first skyscraper,” the cornstalk fence, the haunted house and the Lafitte’s blacksmith shop – again for a beer. Finding an old Uneeda Biscuit ad painted on the side of a building still legible after all these years. Wondering where that calliope music was coming from in the lower Quarter and trying to place the tune finally grinning when I figured out they were playing “Singing in the Rain.”

I never did figure out where it was coming from.

I could spend a week between Baton Rouge and New Orleans giving myself much more time to explore the less salacious – and often more beautiful – parts of town. I think so long as I avoid Bourbon Street, I’ll be OK. There’s plenty to see and do and experience but it does take a certain frame of mind to approach it on its own terms.

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans looks pretty much the same to me. I watched, as I came into town, for signs of the ordeal she’d survived and didn’t see much. The biggest indicators along the interstate were those of depopulation: an abandoned Wal-Mart, boarded up public housing, a general lack of population.

Christ, you couldn’t tell anything had happened on Bourbon Street. The last time I was here I never ventured into the Quarter at night. Had better things to do. Like sleeping. This time I’m a block off Bourbon and two blocks off Canal so I took a long walk through the Vieux Carre and down Bourbon to use up the evening.

What a friggin’ mess.

Drunken tourists acting the ass. Half-naked women in see-through bikinis – which might, depending on your point of view, qualify as all-naked – standing in doorways advertising the sins of the flesh to be found within. Loud music, loud people, and general tomfoolery. It’s as if someone took every club, bar and restaurant in New York and mashed it into a narrow street. Then went to South Street in Philly on a Saturday night, grabbed all the Jersey eedjits jumping around, multiplied them by three, tossed them in a container ship, doused them all with PCP and turned them loose along the Mississippi here in New Orleans.

It’s kind of a shame. The Quarter is beautiful: the food is good, the women are cute, there are no open container laws. You can walk down Dauphine or Chartres or wander around Jackson Square and have a pretty good time just walking and grooving on the rhythm of the street. At some point I bet the whole place was like that until some knucklehead saw a chance for profit and turned the worst part of Vegas loose on Bourbon. And now it’s a national landmark and – as in all things – you’ll never be able to get back what it used to be.

Tomorrow I’ll just go to the St. Charles and drink Purple Haze and eat Po Boys until my liver explodes. The sensation will be similar to a stroll down Bourbon Street but I’ll enjoy it a hell of a lot more.

Baton Rouge, Lousiana

Despite my native Pennsylvanian pride Louisiana might be a legitimate contender for the Union’s “Most Corrupt State” award. In my political touristing I saw a statue to the governor who finally managed to outlaw the Louisiana State Lottery in the latter years of the 19th century. He had a hell of a fight on his hands and, in the end, only managed to force the Lottery outside the state’s borders. It continued to function from a Caribbean island until the Federal Government outlawed gaming through the mail. Now that’s a delightfully corrupt place.

Baton Rouge seems to be a monument to Huey P. Long. The monstrously huge new State Capitol is his baby. The Old Governor’s Mansion was the New Governor’s Mansion during his tenure after he planted a single imported termite in the older Governor’s Mansion and had state prisoners immediately tear down the thus condemned building. The stories about Governor/Senator Long – he briefly held both offices at the same time – and his gubernatorial successors are so bizarre I had to ask my tour guide when being a character ceased to be a qualification for becoming Governor of Louisiana.

I kind of like the place. It’s got that previously remarked upon sense of genteel corruption, good weather, a beautiful view of the Mississippi River and some truly magnificent scenery – most thanks to Huey P. Long. And it’s got less tourists, tourist traps and general bullshit than the Crescent City. Which is both a good and a bad thing.

And it’s the Crescent City, the Big Easy, N’Awlins next. God help me.

Baton Rouge, Lousiana

Rocket fuel – real and metaphorical – is the order of the day.

First, I slipped back into Mississippi to see the John Stennis Space Center where all rocket engines since the Saturn V have been tested and where engine testing is ongoing for both the current Space Shuttle and the Ares I and V lift vehicles that are supposed to be the future of the United States Space Program.

I think I’m well on my way to becoming a chronicler of ghost towns. Not necessarily the boom and bust mineral towns of the Old West but the places where things just went sideways and blew a seemingly established community out of existence: St. Joseph, Florida, Frederica and Sunbury, Georgia, [five towns removed by Stennis]. Surely the stories of these towns deserve more than a few pictures on a wall in some seldom visited museum or tourist attraction; surely these stories deserve to be told. Like the one about the old lady who loaded her house on a flatbed and rode in her rocker on the back porch as the truck wheeled down the highway to escape the inevitability of the Space Center. Or the immigrants that ran a tavern and possible cathouse and vanished into history along with the once-thriving town of Frederica.

And after thoughts like that a man needs a drink. Northeast of Lake Pontchartrain is the little town of Abita Springs, the birthplace of the second best beer known to mortal man: Purple Haze. The weekday tour is the way to go. For a good thirty minutes I was the only guest, pointed to the cups and told to pull myself a brew from any one of about fifteen taps because “There ain’t no bartenders here.” Then I got to shoot the shit with one of the seven brewers about trips to Bavaria for home brew and Jimmy Buffet concerts and cornering Jimmy himself to make him say hi to an old lady. Then you get to go see the beer being born. With a beer in hand. And more back in the bar. And it’s free.

I thought the Anheuser-Busch tour was pretty sweet. A pleasant walk through the brewery with two free beers at the end. Even if it was Bud products. This tour was a mosey, mostly a conversation among friends enveloped by the smell of malting barley with as much booze as you could handle out in the middle of the Louisiana bayou country. There ain’t no downside here, folks.

. . . Secesh has got to be swept away by the hand of God . . .

Beauvoir – outside Biloxi, MS

If you haven’t seen the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, it’s worth seeing. Even now, three years after the fact, the scars are still highly visible. On Highway 90 west of Gulfport I passed a high shopping center sign advertising – among other things – the location of an Outback Steakhouse. On either side of the sign all that remained were the cuts in the curb for entry to the non-existent parking lot for a non-existent shopping center.

I’ve seen the devastation of a Hurricane before. I was – in a weird way – a one-man rescue crew sent into Miami in October 2005 to get things back up and running at our plant there. With all the other “rescuers” – power line specialists, tree trimmers, roofers, etc – I scrambled for places to stay, dealt with a total lack of functioning traffic lights, learned to ask “What’s left??” when entering any restaurant and gasped at the incomprehensible power of Mother Nature’s wrath. When considering the bizarre boomerang path of Fay this week I assured everyone, “I’ve seen the aftermath of a hurricane. I want no parts of the thing. If it comes my way I’m booking north just as fast as I can.”

Says the man wandering aimlessly along the Gulf Coast with a storm more erratic than a ping-pong ball seemingly following his every move.

Despite my wonder at the devastation and my hopes and prayers for the people – let’s be honest here – stupid enough to stay and attempt to rebuild I try not to take pleasure – even schadenfreude – out of the death and destruction of a mighty hurricane. But I do derive a sense of grim poetic justice from the fate of Jefferson Davis home and shrine at Beauvoir. It really does seem as if God was trying to wipe away the stain of what has become a shrine to treason and the chief traitor, that Man without a Country, Jefferson Davis.

And now those responsible for perpetuating the memory are putting it all back together again. The house is magnificent. As a historian, I am very glad the house survives to contemplate. I am very glad I got to visit.

I am also beyond tickled that the “Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum” was wrecked beyond repair. I am deeply annoyed that the circa 1981 installation of the tomb of the “Unknown Soldier of the Confederate States of America” was not wiped out. I can learn respect for the genuine veterans of That War but I cannot profess anything but bitter hate for those who in our modern age choose to memorialize that which the authentic veterans did not.

And so, in reference to Beauvoir and its current point and purpose I’ve got to say: Try Again Lord. Try harder this time.

What a weird night.

The folks here in Mobile – and perhaps all Alabamians – have deeply absorbed the NASCAR way of driving: no turn indicators, quick starts, quick stops, weaving in and out of traffic. It takes some getting used to.

So here I am on the straight-away at Talladega – otherwise known as Airport Boulevard – trying to stay out of the way of a pickup with a lot of get up and go when he slams on the brakes, leaving me flying by in the right lane. So I hit the brakes as a fire truck goes swerving across six lanes of traffic and wheels off into the night. No sooner did we get the green flag and take off like bats out of hell before I hear a strange thumping all over the car. I heard and felt the huge raindrops before I registered that it was raining. And it rained like hell. One minute it’s completely dry, no rain for days, and the next there are thumping big raindrops crashing around in a blinding downpour. And a mile later, you’d have never known it rained at all anywhere within fifty miles. A perfect little storm front apparently immobile.

Bizarre. I blame the full moon myself. Has to be something like that. Much as I like Mobile, I am ready to move west. Mississippi here I come.

Crossed into Central Time some time on Sunday. I cannot imagine how a state crosses two time zones and the people who live on each side keep it straight. I guess it would be pretty sweet to live in Eastern time and work in Central time. To be at work at 8 you could get up around 8 and be there in plenty of time. Of course, going home you get screwed out of an hour – you leave work at 5 and get home sometime well after 6. Although I guess you could quickly jump across the line and do happy hour from 5 until 7 in EST, then jump across to CST and do happy hour from 6 until 7. Then go home at 8.

Just thinking about it makes me dizzy. I wonder if they sell watches with double sets of color-coded hands so you wouldn’t have to constantly reset things.

Another interesting aspect of my current location along the Redneck Riviera is that I’m now in the Midwest’s Florida. Along the I-95 corridor, when you see out of state plates they’re from the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia. Out here to the west everyone’s from Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky. I’ve seen as many cars from Davidson, Shelby and Knox counties as I saw when I lived in Davidson County, Tennessee. Of course it all makes sense, I-65 goes from Indianapolis, to Louisville, to Nashville, to Birmingham, to Mobile and Mobile is only a little less than an hour to my West. Vacation land for good southern people. Already feels a little like home.

I can’t put it into words but there hasn’t to be some relationship between one’s affinity for a State and the extent of one’s travels in that state.

As I was wandering around Tallahassee, I realized there are only five States in the Union where I’ve visited their State Capitals, visited their State Museum and attended the State Fair: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Tennessee and Florida. I was born and passed almost all of my life in Pennsylvania, so that makes sense. My Dad is from Indiana and his family is still there, so that makes sense. Likewise New Jersey for my Mom, even though she was actually born and spent most of her life in Pennsylvania. I lived in Tennessee for a short while on a vacation from Pennsylvania. And then there’s Florida.

I’ve spent a great deal of time in Florida. Probably more time than any person should have to in their life. I would wager I’ve seen more of the State than most residents and possibly more than most natives. I’ve been to the Florida State Fair for chrissakes! How many people in the world can say that?

And for all of that, I don’t want to live here. Never did. Still don’t. I’m not even sure I can say I’m fond of the place. I am familiar with the place. I know good places to visit in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Daytona, New Smyrna Beach, Fort Walton Beach, St. Augustine, Tallahassee, Key West, etc. I can usually have a good time wherever I find myself. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time on the Gulf Coast. But I still don’t want to live here.

Oh well, at least that’s one place I can definitively cross off the list.

College towns in the south are a damned sight different from what I’m used to up north.

Up north, a college town pretty much guarantees some decent bars and restaurants within walking distance of the dorms. Some places to party, some places with good drink deals, some places with respectable grub at a respectable price and hot waitresses to boot. Down south, a college town means nothing at all. There might be a town (see Tallahassee) or there might not be a town (see Gainesville). In either case, there will be a college laid out somewhere with none of the local services you’d expect. You could drive a ways toward an interstate or major road and run into the usual suspects (Chili’s, Applebee’s, etc) but you won’t find anything interesting near the college.

It’s a damned shame. Maybe since booze is so readily available down south everybody just orders a pizza and parties in the dorm. So much for the legendary social whirlwind of the south.

Sometimes you just have bad days. Days when absolutely nothing goes right from the time you get up in the morning to the time you lay your head down at night. In my travelling career so far I can think of three bad days. Deeply irritating, but not bad for sixty days on the road.

And to think I actually found a heads up penny in the parking lot this morning. I’ll assume that good luck will kick in tomorrow.

Today I was rained on as I tried to commune with nature in the Devil’s Millhopper Sinkhole. One of the selling points of that place was listening to the water trickle down the rocks as it fell to the bottom of the hole and swirled out of sight into the earth. I got to hear lots of water trickling down over my ears as I walked around the great hole but when I started to descend, to see and listen to the little springs and waterfalls that dot the walls of the great chasm, I instead got to listen to the charming melodies of a leaf blower wielded by an unconscionably happy park ranger.

So I headed north to see Olustee Battlefield. Nifty cool site and someplace I’d always wanted to see. My camera malfunctioned as soon as I arrived. Typical. And in leaving Olustee I neglected to consult the map for my next planned stop and blew right by the Stephen Foster Park on the Suwanee River. Guess I won’t be singing “Way down upon the Suwanee River . . . ” any time soon.

At least I’m settled. In a decent hotel where housekeeping wasn’t finished with the room I was assigned, an office chair that descends to the floor whenever you sit in it and a single, constantly in use washing machine that’s no help with my load of laundry.

On the bright side, I made my turn west along I-10. Apart from a very few detours that’s the road I stay on until I get to Arizona. About time I make the turn west, I’m only about two weeks behind schedule.

One bright spot in a very stupid day. I feel like Grant at Shiloh. Says Sherman, “Well Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day haven’t we?”

“Yes,” says Grant, “lick ‘em tomorrow though.”

Florida is weird.

Their street system consists of numbered avenues and streets broken down by directional indicators. But most of the time it doesn’t make any sense. I was driving through some far-out country today and passed 122d Terrace. What city grid had that particular chicken yard on it? In Miami the streets randomly change direction and number based on what municipality you’re in. So, NW 103d St in Miami will randomly switch to E 49th St when you cross into Hialeah even though there’s no indication of crossing any sort of imaginary line.

Hell, the other day I came across S 102d St N. Chew on that for a while.

Took a drive through the country today. Made a short detour to Yankeetown – because I just couldn’t pass up a chance to visit a place called Yankeetown. And on the way to Yankeetown passed through a place proudly calling itself Crackertown. That’s two good times for the price of one!

Saw an Indian mound complex, climbed a shell midden out in the piney woods, wandered around Cedar Key and wondered why it wasn’t a ghost town with the same story as Sunbury and Frederica. Spent lots of time driving through flatlands, mesmerized by the beauty of a place where everything’s so green. Wondered at one point why there weren’t any flowers and turned a corner to see hundreds of little yellow wildflowers carpeting the shoulder. Found a couple of cactii growing amidst pines and palms and puzzled over that for a while.

I like the shore well enough. But give me a piney woods alongside a marshy creek with a couple of palm trees to shade under and I am a happy man.

In other news, I will be catching up on the backstory. Figured I’d bring things up to date and put up past entries later. And up in the header I put a link to the map of my journeys. In case anyone cares.

St. Augustine. Oldest city in what is now the United States. New Orleans without the French influence. A lovely town. Impossible to pigeon-hole.

Most towns – apart from the foundation places of stereotypes – are very similar. And most can be compared to some other to give people a sense of their layout and attitude. Paris, for instance, is like the bustle of Philadelphia crossed with the street plan of Washington, DC. London is just New York with older buildings, better beer and odd accents. Miami seems like LA must be, or vice versa. Norfolk, VA is like Birmingham, AL. Etc.

There are some places that set the standard as commented above: New York, Washington, DC. And there are others that are utterly unique: New Orleans, Boston, St. Augustine.

If I had to make a comparison I’d say it’s a Spanish New Orleans crossed with a good taste version of the Jersey Shore. It’s got all the tourist traps, but they’re all in good taste, or at least enclosed in historic architecture to take the edge of tastelessness off.

So today I went into the “Oldest House” and walked by the “Oldest School.” Along the way I saw the first-ever honest souvenir shop: “Junk.” I missed Ripley’s original Believe it or Not because I didn’t like the length of the line and the jury’s still out on whether Ponce de Leon’s Original Fountain of Youth is worth the tariff.

There’s still tomorrow.

Being down south I’ve spent the last couple of days pondering colonies founded by people other than the English.

Fort Caroline in Jacksonville, for instance, was founded by the French in 1564 to lay claim to the now American South in opposition to the Spanish who already claimed Florida. In response to the founding of La Caroline the Spanish firmly established a city and defenses in 1565 at St. Augustine in La Florida.

Roanoke wasn’t attempted for twenty years. Jamestown barely managed to hold on forty-two years later. The Pilgrims happened upon Plymouth Rock fifty-five years later.

That’s a very long time for England to come onto the scene and upend everything, as it did.

Being the religious partisan that I am I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time in Roman Catholic territory. Antique houses with a crucifix on each wall. Fortifications with a centrally located chapel and holy water font. Signs, monuments, markers all denoting where the first Mass was held on colonial soil. Catholic cathedrals that existed two hundred years before Protestantism raised its ugly head.

In thinking of how the history of our great nation might have been affected if we’d been French, or Spanish – Catholic – rather than Protestant English I’ve had to admit that we wouldn’t be the nation we are under those circumstances. One has to admit in modern times that there’s very little difference in outlook or activity between followers of the various Christian sects. I do think, however, that there’s something in the Protestant insistence on individual responsibility for one’s relations with God which added the essential ingredient to the mix which became the United States. Without that individual responsibility, that need to achieve, to work for ends, we certainly wouldn’t be who we are.

So, I’ll content myself with wishing for the ultimate triumph of the One True Church and be eternally thankful I was born in a nation which developed from a philosophy that everyone has to choose their own path. It’s a beautiful thing.

I had a great treat to look forward to today. I got to spend something like two hours with my brother. I haven’t seen the man since the day I left for Europe. So that was a great treat.

I find it’s a good thing to space out some visits with familiar faces as you travel, keeps you from getting too terribly lonely. Overseas I had people to visit with every weekend after the first. On this trip, I visited family in the first week, visited my brother today, will visit good friends in the next week or so, and will see my Dad in a couple of weeks.

Can’t complain about loneliness on this trip. I can remember work trips where I’d get really down in the dumps. Hasn’t really happened this time around. I suspect the difference is being constantly on the move, avoiding the routine as much as possible.

I like routine. But only in different places daily.

And now I’m in Jacksonville. With, apparently, nothing to look forward to. My brother asked a taxi driving Jacksonville native what in this town was “not to miss.” The answer?

“The way out.”

Today was a day for Georgia ghost towns.

I started the day at a place advertised as Fort Morris State Park. When you get there you find that Fort Morris – the Revolutionary War fort – is completely gone, the remains of Fort Defiance from the War of 1812 are barely there and the real story is the ghost town of Sunbury which the fort(s) existed to protect.

Sunbury was the second largest town in Georgia with a port one-third as busy as Savannah. A pretty serious town until the British burned it during the American Revolution, the Federals burned part of it during the Civil War and she finally just gave up the ghost and became one.

Today, Sunbury is under development for more yuppie homesteads. So it isn’t all dead. But the only remnants of the original town are the resting places of the dead in a very creepy cemetery amongst pine trees and spanish moss.

The second ghost town was Frederica. Another place advertised as a fort whose real story turns out to be the absent town. When Oglethorpe founded Georgia and laid out Savannah and Frederica he said Frederica was his favorite town. In time, however, it too fell victim to burning and an eventual loss of purpose and now exists only in the outlines of well-planned streets and tabby foundations with a few bits of military fortifications still standing to remind folks of what once was.

Along the way I stopped briefly in Darien, GA to commemorate the burning of that town by the 54th Massachusetts and 2d South Carolina Volunteers during the Civil War. The guidebook, of course, points out that this was a “controversial episode in the war.” Which is complete bollocks. What black troops wouldn’t take the righteous opportunity to burn anything southern they could get their hands on? Or northern for that matter? Different time, different circumstances.

On to St. Mary’s, Kings Bay Sub Base and the Florida line.

Forts.

Sometimes I begin to think this trip has been all about the Forts. I’ll miss them when I get down to Florida, or to the far west. Today I hammered out visits to the Forts of Savannah: Fort Jackson on the way to Tybee Island and Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island.

Sadly there weren’t any alligators at Fort Pulaski. This whole trip I’ve been looking to run across an alligator on one of my nature walks and haven’t yet – one freaking snake at a distance, a couple of deer glimpsed crashing through the woods and innumerable blasted flies, mosquitoes and no-see-ums – but no alligators. I’m pretty disappointed. The last time I came to Fort Pulaski there was an alligator guarding the sally port and a thunderous rainstorm on the way back that drove all traffic to the high ground.

Oh well. They can’t all be memorable trips.

Although, I did get to see the pathetically uniformed and equipped fort garrison fire a 32-pounder gun on a field carriage. That was pretty cool. Might even have been worth the trip.

Spent the evening in Pooler, GA thinking I might do the Mighty 8th Air Force museum tomorrow. But doubt it.

Ah Savannah. Man, I really like this town.

The whole of the historic district is only a mile by a mile. So it’s little effort to walk the entire place twice in the course of a day all the while noticing nifty things you didn’t notice on your first walk through. I took a break about mid-afternoon to get out of the heat and realized I needed to retrace some steps because of really neat things I hadn’t noticed: like Joseph E. Johnston’s house, the homes of Conrad Aiken, the site of Forrest Gump’s park bench.

One thing I did notice on every walk by was that the former Georgia Historical Marker denoting Sherman’s Headquarters was missing. And the sign denoting US Army occupation headquarters under OO Howard was hidden by a large palm frond. I was pretty irritated about Sherman’s sign gone missing – when I visited years ago I was so surprised I kissed the porch of the house in gratitude. I decided that, all things considered, and it being Georgia I should be more surprised there ever was a sign at all – not that it had gone missing.

All kinds of nifty stuff in Savannah: Revolutionary War Battlefields where fell Pulaski and Sgt. Jasper, the final resting place of General Nathanael Green, the remains of old Fort Wayne marking the Irish neighborhood, River Street, Factor’s Walk, a very big gay bar. Lovely place.

And I got to spend the entire day without getting in a car! That’s a rare treat, and one to be most definitely savored.

I need some help. My usual mastery of the English language has deserted me and I need to come up with a term of definition.

There seem to be certain towns that are cursed. But not generally cursed – they can be prosperous and full of happy residents – they’re just cursed for me. That’s the word I need, a one word description of a town that’s only cursed for me.

I’ve already described Caen in France. Nothing but bad luck every time I set foot in that town. Now I have to add Beaufort, SC to that list. My experiences in Beaufort weren’t half so trying as those in Caen, but never being able to find your way anywhere, finding a restaurant without air conditioning for a very late supper, not being able to find parking and so missing lunch, these are very irritating things and when they happen in the same town over the course of two days I have to believe it’s the town rather than just a bad day, full moon, what have you.

Had good luck on Parris Island visiting the Museum. Can’t say I had bad luck in Port Royal with my lodgings. Had fine luck travelling out to the site of the Penn School on the Sea Islands. But man, anywhere within Beaufort’s aura was very bad mojo.

I blame the yuppies myself. Too many damned Yankee yuppies who have descended and turned what was a beautiful Southern port town into a nest of art galleries, useless boutiques, martini and wine bars. They even have a tapas place for Christ’s sake! What happened to southern tapas being pigs knuckles and fried pickles?

Shake the dust from your feet o man, and hie thyself further south to Savannah.

Another wonderful opportunity to prove the travel guide is full of crap. I don’t have the good ole AAA book in front of me but I suspect the entry for Patriot’s Point would suggest allowing approximately three hours to tour the ships. I took something like eight. Unbelievable.

In my defense it was some cool stuff. A WWII destroyer, a surprisingly interesting Coast Guard Cutter with pot leaves on the side, a late-WW2 diesel boat that clearly showed the transition to nuclear submarines and the second USS Yorktown aircraft carrier. Too much stuff to absorb in a single day. Even I got burned out on reading signs and exploring the steel depths of warships. And that from a man who spent six hours just on a battleship.

Enough already. Heading south. Pretty cool drive out of Charleston. Finally visited the site of Fort Johnson from which the first shot of the Civil War was fired at 4:30 AM April 12, 1861. There’s only a small building left of the fort and the site of the first shot is about 25 yards out in Charleston Harbor. Pity. Very cool to stand there, though, and know that only the truly mental would bother to seek out this spot and gaze contemplatively out at a surprisingly close Fort Sumter and laugh at how profoundly ignorant the rednecks that pulled that first lanyard were.

Silly Rebels.

Also got to swing by Secessionville – which I know nothing about but which always fascinated me. And even better, drove by a historical marker pointing out the grave of William Washington: a big lad, cousin of famous George, and one of the reasons for our resounding victory at Cowpens.

A partial day of obscure sites that make me happy. I like Charleston.

Here I am, again, near Charleston. Spent another easy day, left Georgetown and made my first stop at Hopswee Plantation a place belonging to Thomas Lynch, Sr. and birthplace of Thomas Lynch, Jr. signer of the Declaration of Independence. It’s long been a family tale that we are in some way related to the famous Lynchs. Knowing my family it’s doubtful but with Irish family trees being what they are we might have been the branch that was pruned for the health of the tree.

Anyway. Moved on down to see the Charles Pinckney NHS because you can’t start the day with the Declaration without ending on a Constitutional note. Sadly the Pinckney site seems like a do-gooder’s scam on the American people. Some folks got together and saved the site from development and then handed it over to the NPS without really having any idea how to interpret or use the site. Hell, there’s not anything left of Pinckney’s residence – his house is gone, his outbuildings are just brick outlines in the grass, the interpretive plaques don’t say much of anything. I suppose it could be a nifty site, if nothing else it’s the only rice plantation owned by the feds, but it needs a strong superintendent to point it in a given direction and give purpose to its existence.

And with all the free time I had left over this evening, I caught up on web work so now the intar-net-webs know where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing and I finally drew up the Google Map that shows my route. It ain’t pretty. And it ain’t annotated with pictures and all that other happy horsecrap, but it’s there.

And I promise I’ll keep it up to date with the same care and attention I lavish on these semi-daily posts. Heh.

I don’t get the Myrtle Beach “thing”. It’s kind of got a South Florida vibe with the bleached sidewalks, palm trees and motel hell. Mix that up with a little bit of the deserted, run down part of the Vegas Strip and sprinkle liberally with the tackiness of the Jersey Shore Boardwalks and you’ve got Myrtle Beach. I’d stay a thousand years on the Outer Banks before spending another day in Myrtle Beach.

Since there was pretty much bugger all to interest me I decided to sort of take the day off. I slept all the way until eight o’clock, wandered a little bit around the one block of stuff there is to do downtown and then thought I might swing by the movie theatre and see if there was a chance of catching Hellboy.

I must have been destined to see that flick today. I walked through the doors to the Mall at 1:45 to see what the schedule looked like and there was a show starting at 1:50. I shit you not. Destiny.

So that was my day. Aimless wandering on the beach coupled with terrible disappointment helped immeasurably by an immensely enjoyable film of destiny. And two hours in good air conditioning. Did I mention it’s warm in the south?

Tomorrow the plantation of Thomas Lynch who may or may not be distantly related – even if he isn’t having your ancestral name on the Declaration of Independence ain’t nothing to be sneezed at – and on to Charleston.

I have seen more forts, beaches and battleships than any one person probably should in one lifetime. And I’m not done yet.

Today was the USS North Carolina. The first ship to be given by the Federal Government to a municipality and preserved as a monument. Beautiful ship. Even had her “dazzle” pattern painted on. It took me the entire day to get through her. When the tour book says allow one hour minimum and the website says an enthusiast might need three hours to do her justice, naturally I’d be wandering around for four and a half hours. I only sped myself up because I was hungry.

I seem to spend a lot of time being hungry on this trip and not nearly enough time drinking heavily. This is the opposite of the desired situation.

But after lunch I managed to visit what was left of Fort Fisher and Battery Buchanan before deciding that taking the ferry to Southport was a superior way to travel vs. driving the hour or more back around and up and over and west to get to the same place via the roads. Good choice. Plus I got to see the remains of Battery Buchanan from the sea, which gives one a slight clue why it took the Federal Army the entire war to shut down the Port of Wilmington. Having seen only a very small piece of Fort Fisher and being intimidated as hell by that ten-percent slice I wouldn’t have wanted to attack any of those fortifications – even if they were manned by starving old men and boys. Scary stuff.

On to Myrtle Beach!

I decided when I was in Europe that vacationing and travelling are two very different things.

I was always under the impression that a vacation meant you slept until you woke up, then you wandered aimlessly around for a while, did nothing or something if you so desired and generally attempted to relax and recharge your batteries. In my family, vacationing meant waking up at the ass-crack of dawn, foraging for breakfast in a twenty foot by ten foot tin cubicle with the other three members of your family, breaking down camp, hooking up the car and lawn chairs and other detritus and hurling yourself across several hundred miles of desolate landscape to get to this, that or the other brightly colored desert rock. Rinse, repeat.

So what do I do when I’m on my own? Baby, I travel – I don’t vacation. I hurl myself across oceans, continents, countries and cities. It’s almost like work. I use an alarm clock to wake up at 7:30, I pack, eat and try to be on the road by nine. I cram as many sights and sounds as possible into the day (no orientation films, audio or guided tours please, they are laden with useless information and take too much damned time) and hope I can find my next place of lodging and get some grub between 6:30 and 7:30 so I can get enough sleep to do it all over again the next day.

Man, am I tired.

Because of my mad dash yesterday, I drove right by a couple of places I thought might be interesting. So today I drove a hundred miles into the heartland to see the pitiful remains of a Confederate ironclad and the very nifty site of the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge. I have two thoughts on these subjects: whoever is responsible for destroying the wreck of the CSS Neuse and then maintaining what remained in such a pitiful state ought to be hung and how come I’ve never read about Moore’s Creek in all the literature? Both stops were immensely enjoyable and much worth the trip. In fact, Kinston, NC goes on the list for a re-visit in about five years when the Neuse is properly preserved and her artifacts are back on display.

And finally, we leave North Carolina. Ever southward!

Before I left Yankeeland I figured I’d be down in Florida in about ten days. When I was still north of Wilmington, NC and only had about five days left according to plan with at least five days of things to see and two days of driving I gave up on plans entirely. But not before I attempted to make up some time by running a crash course of the Pamlico Sound area.

First I backtracked to Bath. First town in NC and a beautiful, quiet little backwater of a place. Took a nifty walking tour and saw some of the most beautiful scenery I had seen so far on the trip. But that’s about all there is to do so it’s on to the next stop.

Ran over to New Bern. Big Civil War town and the birthplace of Pepsi. I didn’t have time for anything more than having a Pepsi in the pharmacy in which it was invented and a short walk of about two blocks through town. Worth returning to, however.

Stopped by the Havelock, NC tourist center which has a pretty nifty display of Marine Aviation courtesy of Cherry Point MCAS, then headed out to the islands again.

Drove over to Fort Macon – another third system fort – for a quick tour and then thought I’d drive through Beaufort, NC before making the long haul to Wilmington. Traffic, however, disagreed with a monstrous backup onto and almost over the bridge between Beaufort and Morehead City. So much for that idea. I’d have liked to see Beaufort but not enough to sit in traffic for God knows how long when I’m on a tight schedule.

So it’s on south. With a quick stop at the Beirut Memorial outside Camp Lejeune I finally made it to Wilmington by seven PM after a very long day.

The beach was making me soft. One more day and I’d have been out buying flip flops, a beach towel and an easy chair so I could settle in for the duration. Time to get back on the road. Ever south.

First stop was the Wright Bros. Memorial south of Kitty Hawk. I think this spot is probably one of the top five most important sites of the Twentieth Century. While I was pondering that I tried to think of the other four but all I could come up with was Hiroshima, Japan. Maybe the Berlin Wall is another. I could make an argument for Dealey Plaza in Dallas as well.

Anyway. After the Wright Bros I passed through Roanoke Island on my way back to the mainland. I remember coming here many years ago on a family trip to Nags Head and being totally creeped out by the legend of the Maltese Cross – or lack there of – and the mysterious carved message: Croatoan. Spooky as hell. And a good spot for feeling spooky.

After that it was a damned long drive through amazingly lifeless tidewater flats. Nothing but rust and hound-dogs as far as the eye could see. Sad place. But got to move on and get to Washington, NC so I can start my planned mad dash for day eight.

This is probably the only traditional vacation I’ll enjoy on this adventure. Possibly the only traditional vacation I’ve ever enjoyed in my life. Wake up when you’re ready, mosey down to the beach, alternate between swimming, sitting, playing and drinking until you’re tired, go back to the air conditioning, grow taproots into the sofa, go to bed when you’re tired, do it all over again the next day. Interesting. Although I could do without wearing shorts. When in Rome.

Because of the really goofy banker’s hours that US Army museums keep I couldn’t squeeze Fort Monroe in on either of my two days in the area thus far. And I damned certainly wasn’t leaving without seeing the place. Monday morning it is, then.

And well worth the effort it was, too. Not only do you get to drive onto the Fort Monroe installation – still an active military base after all these years – but you get to drive over the moat and through the sally-port of the old stone fort from the third system of coastal fortifications. When you roll up to the Casemate Museum you’re greeted with a sign indicating that Robert E. Lee lived in the house on the left when he was in the US Army and that Jefferson Davis was imprisoned in the casemate ahead after he was ignominiously captured after the Civil War. Glee!

Well, that was fun. Now for a pleasant two hour drive through blinding rainstorms to meet the assembled Hagartys on the North Carolina beaches.

Long ago I had earmarked Norfolk as a long-weekend destination because of a mention of the Nauticus museum in some publication. Must have sounded pretty cool for me to plan a five-hour drive down just to see it: a World War II battleship, a nautical museum and the US Navy Hampton Roads History Museum. What’s not to like?

Bah. It’s a joke. A scam for the tourists. I saw no point in paying for the science/nautical part of the museum and the Hampton Roads History Museum, while nifty, is pretty small. And on the Battleship Wisconsin you’re restricted to the upper decks only because it’s technically still part of the Navy’s Reserve Fleet and could be recalled to active service – even though it’s not going to be.

So that adventure only burned about three hours. Happily I had discovered that the MacArthur Memorial was only a couple of blocks away and I was able to wander up there and kill the rest of the afternoon.

Norfolk is an interesting place. It’s very obviously the “city” compared to the “suburbs” of Hampton and Newport News where I’d been staying. It’s very pretty and very much a place on the move but it’s also one of those towns that empties out at 5 PM on a Friday and stays more or less dead until 8 AM Monday. Better for me, but it makes it a little creepy even in such a beautiful place.

One more stop in the Hampton Roads area tomorrow and on to the beach.

Damn me and my leisurely museum pace. I had hoped to hit the Mariners Museum in Newport News and Fortress Monroe before I went across the harbor tomorrow to Norfolk. Naturally, I spent the entire goddamned day in the Mariners Museum and didn’t do Fortress Monroe. And I will be goddamned if I don’t stop by there while I’m in the area. So, I suppose I’ll be later than expected rolling into Nags Head Monday.

The Mariners Museum is home to the relics of the Monitor. They’ve got a hellaciously spiffy wing dedicated to the story of the Monitor and Merrimack – or Merrimac, or Virginia as the docent pointed out to me – all in all very cool. When the docent was explaining to me the layout and exhibits of the museum and mentioned a gallery on Admiral Nelson, I pointed out that it wasn’t much more than two weeks ago when I was aboard the Victory. I think the old fellow had to do a double-take before commenting, “I guess you’ve been travelling a bit, then.” Christ, man. I can’t even comprehend the scope of where I’ve been. I won’t hold it against you to be kerfluffled.

I was somewhat disappointed in the presentation of the Monitor‘s conservation tanks. I saw the Mary Rose in its palace of stygian gloom, I saw the Hunley in its custom-built swimming pool: both inspired a sense of awe and wonder at the remarkable artifact now visible after decades or centuries buried in the depths. The turret of the Monitor was only a shadowy brownish ring on the surface of a murky pool. The viewing gallery was just a catwalk along some windows. No sense of wonder or of awe. Just a minor annoyance that there was bugger all to see as you dodged ignorant tourists debating the merits of taking a dip in the hotel pool tonight now that the lab tanks had brought still bodies of water to mind. Damned irritating. Note to the Mariners Museum, put a goddamned plexiglass plate in the side or something. Throw those of us who take this seriously a bone. Don’t let the Royal Navy put you to shame.

What did you do today?

I piddled on an original English redoubt at Yorktown. No disrespect was intended, it just seemed an opportune locale for relief. It wasn’t until later that I realized the symbolic nature of the act. And then I wished I’d pissed harder.

En route to my historical micturation, I passed through Williamsburg and stomped the swampy grounds of Jamestown. Like the slogan says, the British Empire in American began and ended within fifteen miles. Funny how history has a way of working out like that.

Now I am in Hampton. A few miles from Fortress Monroe, Hampton Roads and Norfolk. Although I can’t say I’ve travelled to any of the places thus far on my own I figure this is the start of the real adventure since I haven’t seen any of the sites down here in my living memory.

So tomorrow, the USS Monitor and the museums and sites of Hampton Roads. Sunday, Norfolk and the modern Navy. And then it’s off to Nags Head to see if I really am lacking the relaxation chromosone.

A quart of bourbon, quart of gin, six pack of PBR and six pack of Guinness. That’s either a decent recipie for a quiet evening at home or a load out for an unprecedented road trip.

Took me about 30 minutes back in the old stomping grounds to realize that I had no ties to those places anymore. Hell, I haven’t considered myself of Gettysburg since I left in the fall of 2005 – never mind that two year misbegotten stint back at the old pad. And I no more had to turn onto the Hanover road that I traveled almost daily for eight years to realize I didn’t want any part of the people, personalities, or memories that trip entailed. That’s it, we’re outta here.

On the Grand Tour, I have to find a place I like with jobs and likely places to live. No small order. In fact, knowing me, I’ll forget all about the mission and concentrate entirely on having fun.

Drink more beer.

I’ve been in the USA one day over one week. Christ, I can’t wait to get back out on the road again. I wish I was a decent journalist – or at least had some people skills – I could live life on the road documenting what I see. That’d be pretty sweet. So, barring that:

Here we go again. Phase two of the Grand Adventure. By this time tomorrow I’ll be on the road south of Richmond heading for Williamsburg/Yorktown/Jamestown. Then a day or two in Norfolk with an immediate destination of Nags Head early next week.

Then I’ll ease myself down south destined for booze and broads in sunny New Smyrna Beach, FL. Then Tampa. And then, I start the journey into parts unknown. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. Eleventy-Hundred hours hauling ass across Texas. The high desert of Arizona and Nevada. Maybe a hop over the border to visit our Mexican cousins. Then Los Angeles, Sacramento and the long burn back across the Great Plains in the path of the original Transcontinental Railroad. Maybe Chicago, a stop to see family in Indiana and an eventual arrival back east in time for fall colors with – hopefully – a good idea on a final destination for a new home and job (what a positively disgusting word!).

Yikes and away kiddies! Stay tuned.

Twenty-one days ago I was tramping through Covent Garden in the rain looking for a pair of Dr Martens shoes. Today I’m sitting half a block from Euston Station packing things up for a move to Portsmouth tomorrow.

A lot can happen in twenty-one days. A good bit more, in fact, than I would have thought possible.

In twenty-one days I’ve walked upon the sacred sand of Omaha Beach and been in St Mere Eglise in the morning hours of June 6. I’ve trod upon the ancient paths of the Roman Fora and seen the city as the Emperors did from atop the Palatine Hill. I’ve seen St Peter’s crypt beneath the staggering majesty of his basilica and rubbed a bronze foot almost worn away by centuries of pilgrims’ touch. I’ve seen the last resting place of Napoleon, Marshall Foch, John Paul II, Galileo, Dante, Michelangelo and too many other shining lights of Western Civilization to even count.

I’ve walked along the Seine in the early evening, stood in Hitler’s footsteps upon the Trocadero, visited King Louis’ bedroom at Versailles, watched Calcio Storica in Florence, and gazed at the Rosetta Stone in London. I’ve seen the Mona Lisa, the Venus di Milo, the Sistine Chapel, the Elgin Marbles and found that I’m really amazing fond of Lippi’s work.

I’ve traveled by nearly every form of conveyance known to modern man. I’ve flown, driven, walked, bussed, taxied, ferried, trained and subwayed. I’ve sailed from Portsmouth to Sword Beach following the path of the Allies. I’ve taken the subway from the Circus Maximus to Mussolini’s Termini Station. I’ve walked from the Louvre to the Ile de Citi. I’ve driven from the British beaches to the port of Cherbourg a damned sight faster than the entire Allied Army.

And to think, there are still seven days to go.

Arrivaderci Roma!

Rome is an odd town. It’s absolutely filthy. Every inch – even in what I suppose are the nicer sections – is covered in graffiti. I suspect tagging is the Italians’ national sport. There are no traffic laws. People stop when they feel like it, go when they can, scooters and motorbikes assume a stoplight is the signal for them to go winging between traffic to get a better position for when the light turns green. Crossing the street: even with a pedestrian signal is like playing Russian Roulette with at least three shells in the six-shooter.

You go jaunting down the street, rolling your eyes at the graffiti when you’re not on the constant lookout for gypsies, pickpockets and Paki street vendors, you turn a dirty corner on a dirty street and there’s Trajan’s column outlined by 19th century apartment buildings. You wander down through a maze of churches, doubling back on the same staircases and dead ends over and over and there, from in front of the Mamertine Prison, looking through Septimus Severus column is the Coliseum.

Or you’re walking west towards the Tiber, more or less lost and annoyed at how much time you’re burning on foot when you’d planned to take the Metro from Piazza Republica but turned left too late and missed the Piazza altogether. You figure you’re going more or less north, so turn to head due west and Castel Gondolfo emerges flanked by the Caesars on the Ponte San Angelo. Beyond that St. Peter’s looms over the square. And to get to the museum, you have to walk a long way outside the Vatican City walls.

It’s kind of like that everywhere. Cross through Piazza Novona, hold on to your valuables, weave like a drunken man through a few dead end streets and pop out in front of the Parthenon. Follow the crowds to the east down a pig’s misery and there’s the friggin’ Trevi fountain. It’s been pretty much like that for three days.

And none of that is even considering wandering through Firenze with my cousin and seeing Lippis, Giottos, Donatellos, and Michaelangelos by the score. IN our last stop before heading back to Cortona we slipped past the statue of Dante crowning the stairs and went inside. You couldn’t go far because of Sunday Mass but there, flanking the entrance to the chuch, was Michaelangelo buried next to Dante with Galileo – presumably minus his finger – keeping watch on the other side of the nave. You could be forgiven for thinking that no other city in the world did very much for Western Civilisation.

And that’s good-bye to Italy. I am definitely coming back. Probably to visit Tuscany. In fact, my next trip might just be to visit Normandy for a week or two and head directly for Tuscany to sit on my fat ass and drink wine for a month. Sounds like a plan.

Who the hell travels across unfamiliar countries on Friday the 13th?

If I stopped to think about, I’m not sure I could cope. How does one wake up in Paris before the city does, ride the bus to a tiny regional airport in the French countryside, jump on a plane to Rome, land next to Air Force One, take a bus into Rome itself, then jump on a train for the Tuscan countryside?

I get confused when I go to Florida for a week. One night you sleep in your very own bed, the next you’re a thousand miles away crashed in some mouldy hotel room in south Florida.

Now, on top of the normal disorientation of travel add a different language, different customs, different cuisine. I had almost gotten used to speaking a little French. The important words anyway: Good morning (bonjour), Good evening (bonsoir), please (s’il vous plait), thanks very much (merci boucoup). I had actually started to think a little in French – which I understand is the key to mastering any language – when I saw Air Force One on the tarmac at Ciampino the first thing I thought was “Monseuir Le President!”

And then, of course, in English “What is he doing here? Is that really Air Force One?”

Naturally the first time an Italian asked me a yes or no question I immediately responded “Oui.” And I damned near said “merci” half a dozen times when I should have been saying “graize.” “Buon giorno” I remember just fine. I still don’t know how to say please. Italians seem a very bustle-y people, maybe they don’t have a word for please, they just take what they want.

A weekend in the Tuscan countryside. Didn’t someone write a book about that? Or make a movie? I’m just looking forward to having the responsibility taken off my shoulders for a little while. Do you know I sat down today for a meal in the train station and it was the first time since I left the United States eleven days ago that I didn’t feel like I was on a schedule. That I didn’t feel like I had something else I ought to be doing or a better way to spend my time. Just think, for a couple of days I won’t have to figure out meals or transport or hopefully much else. And I might be away from crowds. I’ll even have someone who can tell me how to say please and fill me in on some of the customs so I don’t look like a total git.

It’s the little things, you know.

Well kids, I made it to Paris.

What would most people do on their first night in Paris – city of legend, City of Eternal Light, city of romance?

Hell, I don’t know. I did the laundry, then took a pizza back to my room and went to bed. That’s what I do on my first night in Paris.

Paris seems to me a little like New York with tonier architecture and a street plan bizarre enough to rival Washington D.C.’s.

But what do I know? I’ve only just got here. Just in getting to my hotel from St. Lazare station I passed the Grand Opera House. Across from my door is a monument to Moliere behind the Commedie and the Louvre is at the end of the street. Interesting town.

Anyway, I haven’t even been gone one week and already I’ve tramped all over London. I went through Hyde Park to Knightsbridge, wandered around Harrrod’s and Harvey Nick’s and finally ended up in Covent Garden looking for a pair of Dr Martens. Then I got lost in Notting Hill trying to get back to the hotel.

I took a train down to Portsmouth where I walked around the port and through town finally managing to find the ferry terminal.

I took a ferry to Ouistreham which is a good bit further from Caen than you might expect when booking a ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. Took a taxi to Caen, got locked out of my reserved hotel, God found me another, took a tram to the bus station to get a car. Whew. Then spent three and a half days tear-assing around Normandy putting 500 miles of beach under my belt while hunting for sand, monuments and “rusty bits of metal.” I tell you, you’ve seen one German bunker, you’ve seen ‘em all.

Saw the Bayeux tapestry this morning, stood on a packed train all the way to Paris (bad luck to the City of Caen. Rotten place!) and tramped down from St Lazare to my hotel on the Rue de Richlieu.

And now you’re all caught up.

So I can go to bed.

I feel that the City of Baltimore and myself are very close to reaching an accord. It is important that we reach that accord as I am very fond of the place but have never been able to feel at home there in the way I do in Philadelphia or Boston.

This past weekend, on a music marathon, I spent a day and a half in the city. Unhappily I didn’t get to pound the streets as much as I usually like to in an unfamiliar city. Partly because there wasn’t enough time, partly because the streets of the Inner Harbor area just aren’t that exciting to pound. It’s fairly creepy when a place is so thoroughly deserted at 3 PM on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Nevertheless, I managed to walk to and from Baltimore and Fayette streets to Power Plant Live late on a Saturday night without incident and covered the ground around Camden Yards and what used to be called Pigtown pretty thoroughly on Sunday. I also made the trek to Howard and 25th St near Johns Hopkins for a Sunday night show at the Ottobar and survived.

Among other highlights of the weekend I saw a hell of a bunch of incredible bands: The Mighty Stef, Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band and Flogging Molly on Saturday night and some bizarre psychobilly/hardcore band, Steve E. Nix and the Cute Lepers, The Pink Spiders and the Horrorpops on Sunday night. I saw Babe Ruth’s Birthplace, sat in the Press Box and dugout of Camden Yards, drank beer at the Wharf Rat and Mick O’Sheas, went to the most bizzare supermarket I’ve ever been in and toured some pretty spectacular museums housed in the original Camden Station of the B & O Railroad. Not bad for about twenty-nine hours in the city.

And I have pictures!

Neat place, Baltimore. Even if it seems that the action is really in the neighborhoods to the west and around Federal Hill. There’s a lot of promise there. Try the crabcakes at the Wharf Rat and beg the Ottobar to keep the PBR flowing.

I took a vacation. Imagine that.

And it wasn’t one of those sissified, namby-pamby, lie about on the beach all day and read trashy novels sort of vacations either. This was a knock-down, drag-out, roadtrip of strange and wondrous experiences. Sadly, I only have photos of one of the strange and wondrous experiences which I will bore you all with after the break.

In three days I was in Baltimore, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York and Camden. Now that’s a quality time. I saw Social Distortion, Bad Religion, Tiger Army, some infantile looking brats who grew up watching too many Poison videos while listening to the Ramones, and a whole bunch of other random bands.

I saw King Tut’s stuff for the third time on this latest trip to America, played video games at Dave and Busters, dealt with rush hour traffic in Chadd’s Ford, visited Brandywine Battlefield and helped rip apart a 1942 Willys Jeep.

And, I went to the Bronx.
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Say you find yourself down South. Here, in fact:

What is a brother to do in such a strange and wondrous land?
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Happy Flag Day from Birmingham, Alabama.

If I could go more than half a day without getting hopelessly lost, I think I might get to like this town. Even with my self-inflicted troubles I am damned happy to be back down south. I’ve missed it.

Off to Nashville in the morning. Back home again so to speak. And this time I am definitely drinking a beer at Tootsie’s.

It’s a slow month when the biggest thing that’s happened to you in many weeks is some joyriding dingbat swiping your hubcap while parked in the asphalt lakes of Citizens Bank Park.

On the bright side, it was a damned fine game. So what if the Phillies break things when I’m around? I’ve also not seen them lose at home in a very long time.

Finally! The scene of my greatest defeat has become the site of my greatest triumph!

Or at least victory.

I’ll settle for success. Finishing something I should have finished in February.

Better late than never.

In other travels I’ve seen the Blue Angels, the Cubs, Aaron Rowand spectacularly breaking his ankle during a reborn Phillies romp, new Comiskey Park from the El, Frank Nitti’s office, two very interesting houses, the Billy Goat Tavern, the Devil Rays, Texas Rangers BP, Tampa Bay, Daytona Beach, the Boot Hill Saloon and the birthplace of NASCAR. I have pictures. Of the legal stuff, anyway.

And that’s only the beginning kids! Coming up: Fenway Park, Boston Harbor, the Bell in Hand, the Baseball Tavern (hopefully), Denver, the Rocky Mountains, men in skirts.

It’s a storied existence. Not for the faint-hearted.

Bloody time slips. I mean, really! It was only a bit of a mind flip.

The most recent memories dredged up on the weekend travels through the upper part of central Pennsylvania are from ten years ago. Travelling to Williamsport for a last visit, passing the Little League complex on Rt. 15 and then driving back at 4 AM on a Monday morning to make it to work on time.

Before that, there was a Friday night spent driving a friend to Bucknell for his own visit. Sitting in traffic between the hills and the river on Rt. 15 and cursing my generous good nature. And an odder memory of writing a friend doing short time in the Lewisburg pen. No visits involved there.

And lastly, a stroll down College Ave. in State College, PA. That goes way back. As far back as any of my memories of independent life. Being dropped off on a hot June day along College Ave. to start the university career I had been avoiding for twelve months. Trying to negotiate the warren of tunnels and dead ends that is South Halls wearing – you won’t believe it – a red Hawaiian shirt, yellow shorts and Birkenstocks.

A lot of things changed in the year I spent wandering the streets of State College

What a fun town. If you’re over 21.

I tried to update Johnny Cash’s lyrics with my own travels but never could get the rhyming and syncopation right. Regardless, I have been everywhere, man. In the last week I’ve flown 1,000 miles, driven nearly 1,000 miles, been to Tampa, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Mercersburg and Hanover, seen two ballgames, the President of the United States, a few museums and the ghetto.

And all the fun bits of my travels involve baseball. If it weren’t for ever-fluid plans this past weekend I might have seen half as many games before the season even started as I saw all last season. As it is, I’ve seen one-third as many.

I can understand people not being a baseball fan. Different folks like different things for different reasons. I cannot fathom my own interest and why it’s grown so much in recent years. I’m half afraid it’s one of my period attacks of whatever Rain Man had and that the love and enjoyment will fade as suddenly as it appeared. Maybe I’m just getting old and can enjoy sitting on my arse watching games on TV for three hours at a clip. Perhaps I need some stability amidst the weary whirlwind of life and baseball provides it. I don’t know. But, as much as I can understand folks not being baseball fans I cannot imagine why anyone would turn down a chance to go to a game. How can you not like spending the day outside, drinking beer and delighting in shared experience?

And so, I’ve been to Clearwater, in the rain, two weeks before the pre-season season even started. That’s dedication.

And Tampa.

And Cincinnati.

I don’t know what happens when I’m on the road. Either I don’t have the time to spew forth the considerable bile I stockpile or I don’t stockpile the bile in the first place. I have pages of things written down, some quite drunkenly, but nothing I can be bothered to rewrite and share with the world. So, I’ll toss at you a few things I’ve encountered, survived, or inflicted on this latest trip to the real sunny south.

• If you lose the ability to form the written word, fall in the ocean, take meaningless photographs of your footsteps in the sand on a pitch black night and realize your brand new iPod headphones are hanging outside the car door being dragged along the highway at 30 mph only after five miles travel – you’ve probably had a very good night.
• When a King Tut exhibit – sans King – reminds you of the re-release of Star Wars you’re either entirely too much a Star Wars fan or too much a historian. Or, probably the only person in your age group that saw both when they made their first round in the late 70s. I’m special.

• Drinking Guinness just off the beach in a very well appointed, converted garage with the doors open on a breezy Saturday afternoon with the sun shining is enough to make even me reconsider my “I’ll never live in Florida” pledge.

• I still can’t get over rising up in the morning, stretching in the warm sun and picking an orange from the tree for a pre-breakfast snack. It blows my mind. I hope I never get used to it.

• It’s very, very hard for me to drive past Disney World without turning left at the Mickey Mouse high-voltage tower. I love that place.

• Anybody else ever had a greasy cheeseburger and an imported beer in a place called Yee Haw Junction? Didn’t think so.

• How about boiled peanuts in a fish camp on Lake Okeechobee?

• Ropa Vieja and Sangria may be God’s perfect meal.

• I think I’m ready to go home.

• ADDENDUM! I can’t believe I forgot this! I don’t witness many miracles but I saw one down there. Cruising up I-95 at 65 mph when a shovel came flying off a truck in front of me. I swear to God the handle looked to be about twelve feet in diameter as it headed directly for my head, then bounced one way, then another, bounding end for end down the highway always in my path. Somehow, I don’t really know how, I dodged the shovel and managed to basically stay in my own lane – not hitting any of the other rush hour commuters.

  I don’t care what you say, that’s a goddamned miracle.

I take back almost everything I ever said about Florida. After a flight delay of one hour plus an hour lost changing time zones; finding a 7-11 down the street which not only sold Cheeseburger Big Bites but also Yuengling Lager was . . . well, it made me a good deal happier than it ought to have.

And the Yankees lost. To the Angels. Who were so soundly whipped last year. Delicious.

After two weeks in the Old South, it is pure delight to hear flat accents again. To be able to understand the people and the flow of life. It is pure pleasure to drink the hooch of an ancestral home and chew the nosh of the old neighborhood.

If you could ignore the chattering spanish everywhere, get past the constant thumping beat of jungle music and forget the fact that the heat and humidity are so oppressive as to cover every building in the area with thickening layers of mold you could nearly convince yourself you were back to civilisation.

• There are few things sadder than watching a ballgame by yourself.
  

• One of those things is not watching at all.
• Another is finding out you have a pal in the stands but not finding out until later.
• Who ever heard of a system wide power outage on a subway with no noticable power outage anywhere else?
• Baltimore traffic on game night is worse than Boston at rush hour. I have never seen so many one way streets suddenly switch direction or disappear completely in all my life.
• Camden Yards is the worst place to watch a ballgame I have seen since the Vet went the way of the dodo. I am not a sitter. Particularly not in ridiculously small seats with no cup holders. In Camden Yards the only places to stand and actually see the game are behind bars. It’s like watching a pick up game in the prison yard. And, since it’s Baltimore, you get to sit with real inmates.
  

• I am severely spoiled by the Phillies ballpark.
• In hindsight, I find it hilarious that on Friday an Orioles fan – wearing a Dodgers ballcap – kept needling me – in my Red Sox ballcap – about the rumored Manny mega-trade while we stood under a big sign advertising Raffy’s 3,000th hit. Now it’s Tuesday: Raffy’s been exposed as a fraud and ain’t playing while Manny continues to contritely swat clutch hits for the BoSox. What a world.
  

• It’s also funny that the only dude who didn’t give me shite about my Boston cap was a Yankees fan. I guess strangers in a strange land have to stick together. Just put us together in Fenway, though.
• I have been to entirely too many American League games. My God it’s painful to say this. It actually seems weird to see pitchers bat. Damn you Designated Hitter rule!
• National League game this Sunday! Will it suffice to wash the bad taste out of my mouth?

I have an intense love/hate relationship with photography and photographs. On the one hand, I enjoy taking them, I often enjoy looking at them and they can’t be beat as a nostalgic resource.

On the other hand, I hate ruining the spontaneity of a moment by photographing it, I hate lugging the camera about and stopping to frame shots, I hate having no outlet for them after the fact.

Oh! Delightful website. How I’ve missed ruining your bandwidth with silly photos.

I’ve been many places and done many things since the last time I offered up pics instead of pithy commentary. But they’re good pics and so I’ll start from the most recent and work backwards. Hence, my recent weekend at the Reading Airshow.

I only spent a day and a half lounging beneath this beautiful aeroplane. Other lads spent three days. Neither wind, nor rain, nor heat or dark of night shall deter 601 Squadron from their appointed lounging hours.
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Remember when Camden Yards was built and the trend for “nostalgic” ballparks began? Now, ten years or so later, a nostalgic ballpark is like the concrete bowl, recently hacked-into-baseball-shape RFK Stadium in Washington, DC.

I went down to see the Phillies, oddly, beat the Nationals. Despite Philly’s best effort to slack in the later innings – just when the Nationals statistically pick up steam – the bullpen managed to eke out a 5-4 win. They should win, RFK reminds me of nothing so much as the Vet.

I love the game, but I think I love the parks and the atmosphere more. As usual, I didn’t spend more than two or three innings in my assigned seat. I got up and wandered. Rumors of food shortages and surly help were greatly exaggerated. I won’t say the food was great but it was reasonably priced. I mean, where else are you going to get a dog or a slice of pizza for $4? Granted, Fenway pizza at $8 is infinitely superior but the slice didn’t give me the indigestion I expected.

Beers were only $5, with Guinness on tap (!) going for $6.25. Hell, you’d be hard pressed to get those prices in a DC bar.

And the park, very cool. Very nostalgic. I found a good spot above the infield seats across from third base to stand and watch and an even better, more active, spot above the infield seats around first. It’s not the Bank with a railing for your beer and grub but at least you could get a decent view without having to crane your neck around in the seats. On the seats’ behalf, I will confess they were spectacularly roomy with plenty of space for the old kickers. I miss that.

It ain’t a hitters’ ballpark though. The only way you could crank a home run is to hit it into the nosebleeds in the outfield. The best you can hope for on a straight-away bloop is a ground-rule double as the ball bounces off the back wall and onto the field. Lots of long singles and a couple of doubles and triples on account of the field’s size and lack of wind resistance.

A damned fine evening in an oddly enjoyable park.

And imagine, I haven’t even exhausted my supply of nifty warbirds. You’d think I dug this sort of thing or something.

So here goes: Nazis and Allies.

The bird’s eye and cockpit view of the The Arado Ar-234 “Blitz” jet bomber. Look at all that nifty gadgetry!

Consider that at the same time the Reich was building twin-engined jet bombers and jet fighters they were pulling their artillery with horses. Nazi Germany was like the non-comic book version of Bizarro World. If only the Allies had gotten a fellow into Berlin to get the Fuhrer to say RELTIH!, he might have up and vanished and the war would have been over.
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Man, I wonder if anyone at the Smithsonian stopped to consider that the name of the newish center near Dulles seems vaguely rude. Like something out of a disgustingly clinical high school sex ed book.

If you haven’t been, and you’re in the neighborhood, it’s worth the trip. Free, like all the Smithsonian joints, they don’t seem to consider it odd to soak you twelve bucks for parking. Hidden taxes and fees be damned!

This is only one-third of the place:

Bloody gi-normous.
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What does one with a lovely spring weekend and no discernable plans?

Why, road trip to deep southern Virginia to rub the Confederates’ collective nose in the memory of their ignoble surrender for the 140th time. Of course.

Road trips rarely work out as planned which is why, after a detour into downtown D.C. the dude we were going to pick up explained he had just badly sprained his ankle. Since we’re pals we offered to stick around and thoroughly medicate him, make sure he was good in the AM and then head south.

The total trip should have taken a hair under six hours. Counting the overnight stop it took us a hair under seventeen. Finally on the scene we find out it’s a total git-fest. The top secret Mess of the Damned manual declares that on such occasions one should raise their arms to the sky, holler “What the f**K?!” in shame and disbelief and then proceed to reenact righteously.

Or at least to look righteous while not reenacting.

Exhibit A: Dicky Mo

Only the truly civilised bring a cocktail shaker to a dirty, cold, muddy gig in the middle of a redneck infested parking lot in southern Virginia.

This sort of gig is “. . . only for those with true grit. And we are chock full of that, man.”

Another week, another look at the standings. It it’s not as pleasant a picture as last week but I’ll take second place while Burrell is on a monster hitting streak.

Hah, hah. Stupid Petey. Mets suck!

Things ain’t so pretty for my dear, beloved Red Sox:
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Allow me a moment in the sun. Allow me one bright shining moment of entirely unreasonable hope. Rivera’s blown four saves in a row against the Red Sox, Boston actually managed to win one against Steinbrenner’s cursed pinstripers and then there’s this:

But I digress.

I imagine most men would be delighted by the prospect of spending a weekend with three beautiful women. I also imagine those men have never enjoyed that singular experience. Lucky for me, I am a generally patient man and fond of my late companions.

The weekend started with a dash through a monsoon to my favorite city – Washington, D.C. – to meet up with the afore-mentioned lassies so we could all prepare ourselves for the ordeal to come.

The ordeal was a ten-mile race that they, not I, were running. I have more goddamned sense than that. Here’s my crowd before:
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Oh bandwidth, how I loved thee, how I loved thee!

There are only a very few must-not-go-to-work days in the calendar. St. Patrick’s Day is solidly at number one on that list. For the past several years, as my resources and madness have increased I’ve taken to doing rather interesting things on the Holy Day. I’ve been to New Orleans, marched in the New York City parade, drank beers with cops in Jim Thorpe and this year travelled to Boston to see the Dropkick Murphys in their hometown on the Day of Days.

Along the way I saw some sights and stayed for the parade. Enjoy you wankers.

But to save my carefully metered bandwidth, you’ll have to click to see the rest. Hah!
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I tell you, this thrice-damned state is determined to keep me here. The saga started on Tuesday when my hotel reservation couldn’t be found. Nearly every other hotel in the vicinity was sold out. After nigh two hours of looking I managed to settle in. It continued with my getting screwed out of a world-famous steak last evening on account of unending blue-haired hordes. It (hopefully) ends tonight but the flight’s been delayed one hour, then three, now two and I am eating a meagre supper of conch chowder and jalapeno chips while suffering without booze in oppressive heat and blogging wirelessly.

The wireless blogging from an Airport is the above-mentioned first. The misery is accustomed and continual.

Ah, Fort Lauderdale. In my solo travelling memory I’ve only experienced a flight delay twice: both were from Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore on a Friday night. Two different airlines though.

Sod it. The booze line seems to be lessening and a wee dram would be most appreciated just now.

I am so incredibly bored I actually set about doing something I intended to do a month ago; edit and post some anecdotes and photos of the Mad (European) Birthday Dash of 2004.

Unfortunately, I haven’t got many anecdotes. I think a peculiar combination of time, space, and weather have served to dull my memory. I had fun, that I know, but it was a dreary grey kind of fun. On then to pictures:

This is Dublin Castle, headquarters for the former British military administration. We stayed across the street. I did read an anecdote: the statue over the gate is justice – hence the scales – notice how she faces in on the Castle yard, with her back to the city, a typical British posture towards the Irish.

I call this: “Paradise.”

And of course: “Himself in Paradise” or, “Silly American, don’t you know it’s eighteen Euro for a pint in there and only three or four down the pub?”

This vista, however, is worth every ounce of that silly-ly colored money. The view, coincidentally, looks out toward our lodgings.

General Headquarters for the first government of the Irish Republic – the General Post Office on Sackville (now O’Connell) Street. I’ve now been to Dublin twice and have yet to actually go inside the building although I did finally see the famous Cuchulainn statue in the front window. The Irish Republic of 1916, incidentally, lasted five days. A good deal longer than the previous Republic and on par with your average French republic.

Our day down to the east-ish end of central Dublin – the Customs House. Crowned by, what else . . .

A crown. Victoria’s crown, I assume. Fecking British. Can’t even take their damned trinkets home with them when they’re tossed out on their ear.

It was a strange sight to turn the corner and run into an old friend. There are things from time to time which remind you of what an incredibly small world this is. Drinking a beer in Baltimore and another in Dublin in something less than twelve hours is one. This fine ship, another.

And finally, I spent a good while wandering the Financial District armed with my Easter Rebellion book looking for this site. All that remains of Liberty Hall, the Headquarters of the Irish Transport Workers’ Union and James Connolly’s stomping grounds. Another casualty of the British. Both Connolly and the building.

I am terrible with a camera. I take the bloody thing with me everywhere I go and rarely take it out. Four days in that country and I’ve got maybe twenty-odd pictures to show for it. No pubs, no people, nothing of real human interest. I’ll try to do better next time.

Whee! That was a whirlwind. The next time I get an idea like flying across the Atlantic for my birthday someone remind me to schedule the flight so I’m not woefully jetlagged on my birthday.

Despite seeing weary vapor trails I did manage to function reasonably well Friday. As soon as the pubs opened I had my now traditional arrival drop of Jameson’s and pint of Guinness. As a matter of fact, that’s pretty much all I did for the entire trip minus the Jameson’s and with the occasional substitution of cider for the Guinness.

And I think I could become a serious football (read: soccer) fan if I could regularly see the Premier League over here. Damned fine sport.

Next time over I’m getting off the plane in the west and striking out cross-country. I think I’ve worn Dublin about out. It’s time to see the country and find interesting out-of-the-way pubs to drink in. Delightful.

Saturday, being stuck in Miami with nothing specific on the agenda, I ventured to Key West. That’s the context for what follows.

Key West is a town filled with weirdness and tourists – like San Francisco without the militant homeless and with better weather. In the 1930s it became something of a bohemian place: Hemingway moved in and Tennessee Williams wrote plays down the road. There are two bars claiming a Hemingway connection and I scribbled this little rant out at the noiser, more touristy one.

These notes are not, unfortunately, scrawled on the back of a bar napkin – nothing quite that romantic – but they are written on a brown paper bag I had with me when the urge struck to record my thoughts:

Which is the real Sloppy Joe’s? The place on Greene claiming to have been Sloppy Joe’s from 1933 – 1937 or the place on Greene and Duval called Sloppy Joe’s and claiming to have been founded the day Prohibition ended?

Knowing the very little that I do of Hemingway – but being a serious student of alcohol like him – I’d put my money on Captain Tony’s – the original Sloppy Joe’s – on Greene Street. Dark, dank, oddly smelling with no frills behind the bar or anywhere else.

A self-respecting drunk would never patronize the current Sloppy Joe’s. Too many yuppies, college kids, tourists and general fun seekers. A real drunk wants a quiet place to fade into oblivion. Serious drinking requires a few ounces of melancholy with a dash of meaningless conversation shaken amidst the rocky chill of loneliness.

Interestingly, that’s the recipe for a perfect martini.

This is not a coinicidence.

Day 4: I have the glimmerings of a tradition of road-tripping west once a year. I was thinking about this last evening. In 1994, 1995, 1997, and 1998 I headed out to Kentucky or Tennessee at least once every year. My planned trip for 1999 was cancelled on account of a drinking accident. I didn’t again pick up the road trip tradition until a 2002 trip to Kentucky. Now I add to the total with my 2003 and 2004 Labor Day adventures to south-west Virginia and Tennessee. Part of the new tradition has been an annual stop in Charlottesville, VA for supper at a nifty little place off The Corner called the Biltmore. I spent many a happy evening there while my brother was studying at the University and a friend was working in the hospital and it’s always a pleasure to go back and make sure the place is still standing.

The goal for today was the Biltmore. But first, Greenville, TN.

When Casper Rader died early in the 19th century his children divvied up the inheritance and moved across the border into Greene County, Tennessee. All of that second generation and most of the third generation settled permanently in Greene County. One enterprising fellow of that third generation, also named Casper, packed up his things and went to Indiana thus dividing my branch of the family from the rest of the southern Raders. Still, lots of folks stayed behind so imagine my delight when just down the road from Greeneville was a tiny little strip of hovels along a railroad track which showed up on Mapquest as Rader, Tennessee.

I don’t know who lives there and I failed to photograph the telephone book as I had planned but it’s awfully hard to say the little whistlestop down the road from where I took that picture wasn’t founded by, and may yet contain some, distant cousins.

After that little sidetrack I toured Andrew Johnson’s home, tailor shop and gravesite in Greeneville. He was a common man, no doubt. Probably the only President who could make his own suits and, if you believe the National Park’s interpretation, the saviour of the nation and Constitution. I happen to think that’s bollocks. I think Johnson was poor white trash who happened into the Presidency because he was the only southern Democrat who didn’t betray his country and when he got the reins of power did his best to raise his people – white trash – up at the expense of both the southern aristocracy and blacks. While I’m all for punishing southern aristocracy I cannot conscience doing so at the expense of freedmen. But the jury is still out.

The best part of Greenville was my sudden realization that I was in Eastern Tennessee – good Unionist country.

You can’t see it from the picture but that’s the soldiers’ monument in the courthouse square. Anywhere else in the south there’d be a monument to the local Confederate regiment and maybe – in border states – a grudging acknowledgement that some local fellows went off and fought for the Yankees. Here in Greeneville there are two monuments to the Civil War: one celebrates the local fellows who fought for the Union and the other celebrates the killing of the Confederate radier John Hunt Morgan nearby. My kind of town.

On that happy note the trip wound to a close: a couple of hours up to Roanoake, a couple of hours across Virginia to Lynchburg and a couple of hours north to Charlottesville. A quick stop for supper and a beer and it was on home through ground well-travelled and well-known and a bit of a cheer for what next year will bring.

You may notice that, scattered amongst the other raving detritus, are varying posts (with pictures!) describing my adventures in the south. It may be random but the alternative was to play the time-shifting game and that’s just plain dishonest.

If you want to see them all in some sort of reverse chronological order you can hit the On the Road Again category on the left.

Day 4 is yet to come.

Day 3: Every trip ought to have at least one defining moment. A moment so transcendent that it will be passed down in story and legend through the ages. This is somewhat akin to asserting that an adventure has not occurred unless blood is drawn. Every trip has to have that moment to be remembered and this trip is no different.

I toasted Federal victory by drinking a beer on top of Lookout Mountain.

Sure, it isn’t exactly the stuff of legends but I am still impressed by it.

When I awoke in the morning I could see why the fight was called “The Battle Above the Clouds.” Down in the valley, even where I was on the opposite side of Missionary Ridge, the fog was so think you couldn’t see the car from the motel door. Not exactly an auspicious beginning to an expected day of viewing panoramic vistas from mountaintops. Have no fear, I thought to myself, it is Sunday. On Sundays down south we start the day with the Shoney’s breakfast buffet, by the time I’m done the fog will be burned off and the vistas will be vistarific.

As usual, I was right.

I started the day by travelling back to Chickamauga to find a monument I missed the day before. Off the road in the pine woods stands the monument to the 77th Pennsylvania. The regiment was surrounded in the darkness at the end of the first day of fighting and surrendered en masse. Lucky for them the Confederates were just as confused and most of the regiment managed to escape in the dark. I wanted a photo because some of those lads came from my tiny home town.

Finally it was off to scout the locations of the Battles for Chattanooga. First, Lookout Mountain.

At the small National Park Service reservation on the east slope of Lookout I again ran into some old friends from Gettysburg:

This reservation and these monuments roughly mark the spot where the Federals made first contact with the Confederate defenders as they charged up and around the sheer slopes of the mountain.

From there I humped a mile and a half up and around the point of Lookout to Point Park, the other tiny National Park reservation on top of the mountain. This more or less corresponds to the location where the Federals raised the flag that was seen in Lookout Valley and gave hope to the rest of the army that the siege was about to be broken.

After a long walk up and down the slopes of Lookout Mountain – and a refreshing beer break at the top – I detoured to the National Cemetery – mostly to see the graves of the Big Shanty train raiders – and then to Orchard Knob. The Knob just a small hill in the middle of a rough neighborhood but it’s the first spot taken on the advance to Missionary Ridge and the spot from which Grant and Thomas watched the seemingly broken down Army of the Cumberland scramble their way up Missionary Ridge and finally, irretrievably break the siege of Chattanooga.

Missionary Ridge is the hoity-toity neighborhood of Chattanooga. Lots of half a million dollar houses perched on the spine of a ridge which falls off to each side as vertical as a wall. You can’t really do much exploring. Half the time there’s no sidewalk and the road is barely big enough for two cars to pass never mind pull over and snap some pics. Still, there are some fine vistas and it’s an interesting thing to see battle monuments sticking out of the side of a sheer cliff and brigade markers built into rich folks’ stone border walls.

Again, as I was throughout the trip, I was thunderstruck by the accomplishments of these fellows. In the east the war was fought along more traditional lines: two armies lined up in open fields and along gentle rolling slopes and slugged it out. Here in east Tennessee the two armies fought through impenetrable woods in September and then in November the besieged Federals, having nearly been starved out of existence, launched multiple assaults up sheer cliff faces and won! It’s incomprehensible. I have been known from time to time to wear the wool and attempt to recreate these men. I highly doubt I would have been able to scrabble up Missionary Ridge on a clear day with my kit on. If there were fellows on top shooting at me I am quite sure it would be impossible.

The very long day finally ended three hours to the north in Greeneville, Tennessee, where the second generation of Raders settled, where the lost State of Franklin was founded and where Andrew Johnson set up shop before and after his Presidency.

Day 2 – Afternoon: If you’re me the goal of any trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee is to see the battlefields of Chattanooga as well as the field of Chickamauga nine miles away in northwest Georgia. I say that now like it’s no big thing but you have no idea how positively gob-smacked I was when, while rolling through the down of Rossville, I saw the sign welcoming me to Georgia. Wow, thought I, this is really a long trip.

I knew very little about the Battle of Chickamauga, interestingly there really isn’t that much to know. It was not a battle of grand strategy or brilliant tactical maneuvering. Rosecrans scared the Confederate Army of Tennessee out of Chattanooga, they fell back into northwest Georgia, gathered strength and prepared to fight. The Federal Army of the Cumberland went after them in pursuit of its next objective – presumably Atlanta – and when they found each other they fought like hell. It’s a strange battlefield and a strange battle. Fought through piney woods and occasional open fields it strikes me as the first of the 1864 battles: both sides just stood and slugged it out. No great flanking maneuvers, no grand charges, no tactical effort whatsoever, just a down and dirty slug fest in the Georgia pine barrens.

Such slug fests can be wearying and this one apparently wore Rosecrans down to the point where he pulled a whole division out of line at the precise moment Longstreet happened to send five divisions toward the new hole. End of Story.

For me, coming from Gettysburg – which battle was only two and a half months ago to the fellows at Chickamauga – it was very cool to see many of the outfits I recognized engaged in this fight and the one at Chattanooga. Longstreet’s First Corps moved down to Georgia in time for Chickamauga and delivered the coup de grace. Poor John Bell Hood took his second terrible wound in three months yet rose up to command the Army within a year. Later, at Chattanooga, I came across men from the Army of the Potomac who came all the way to Tennessee to fight the same outfits they had fought over the previous two years in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

You begin to conceive the scope of the war as you travel through Tennessee and Georgia. Men transferred from other theatres to fight, little engagements on nearly every inch of territory in the states, bushwhacking, barn-burning and all the horrors of Civil War. It reminds me of the grounds of Carolinas campaign in the Revolution which I had just tramped two weekends before.

My general experience in this vacation as in all vacations is early mornings and late nights. I never managed to get settled into the hotel before 7 and rarely finished supper before 10. Hence, no blogging from the road and my poor attempts now to reconstruct everything I did over a very long three days.

This evening I spent my late hours riding through a tunnel under Missionary Ridge between my hotel and downtown Chattanooga and cruising the club district a bit. I ate some unexciting barbequeue, drank some Guinness and finally went to bed. Thank God.

It is mind boggling to me to think that in the past three weeks I have spent quality time in: Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. I think I’ve done more when I was a kid but that’s not a bad record.

Day 1: Meh, this doesn’t really count. A six hour, exhausted, hungry, flat out burn through the Shenandoah Valley interrupted only by a Waffle House grease-and-sweet-tea break and a late-night exchange with Haji the night manager through a tiny window three feet off the ground. Tons of fun. If I ever go to Christiansburg, Virginia again it will be too soon.

Day 2 – Morning: In general I am willing to spend five dollars an hour on lodging. I figure you’re in a hotel room for 10-12 hours so $50-$60 is about right for a night’s rent. I got ripped off Friday night. Out the door and on the road by 7, destination: Wytheville.

After the American Revolution the first Rader of my family moved from the Carlisle area to the town of Wytheville in southwestern Virginia. Near interstate 81 on the south side of town his grave still stands. Last year I made a pilgrimage to see the site. This year, armed with my trusty camera and tripod I figured I’d get a picture of myself with the old man.

It’s always pleasant to commune with your ancestors in the early morning but Chattanooga awaits.

An interesting weekend, all in all. No secretive dance clubs or Greenwich Villiage piano bars (too weary) but tons of walking (got blisters on the balls of both my feet to prove it) and some interesting experiences.

Left Philly early Saturday and rolled into Penn Station, NYC a bit before noon. We decided to walk to the hotel rather than deal immediately with the Subway and so ended up taking a nice stroll down 5th Avenue. But, I’d seen it before. Dropped by the NY Public Library, stood where Uncle Ben got shot but couldn’t get into the stacks to recreate the Ghostbusters scene. Oh well, maybe next time. Rolled into a smashingly nice hotel – the Intercontinental at 48th and 5th more or less – but couldn’t get into our room so we dropped our gear and proceeded uptown. Decided that, being in NYC on my bro’s birthday, a Broadway show was in order and so proceeded to Studio 54 of all places to book tickets for Cabaret. Kept on cruising after a good lunch in a pub replete with well-formed Irish waitresses and wandered through the Cooper-Hewitt – the Smithsonian’s museum of design in Carnegie’s old mansion uptown. Nifty cool place, they even had Invader Zim playing as an exhibit. Gotta love that.

Back down to the hotel for a quick rest and then off to see the show. Not only do you get to see a pretty ripper, if racy show, but you get to see Debbie Gibson parading around all night in lacy undergarments. Doogie Howser, MD was supposed to play the sort of bi-sexual Emcee but had the night off, pity. We did get to see Tom Bosley of Happy Days fame play the token Jew so it wasn’t entirely a wasted effort. Nifty cool: Nazis, dance numbers and a silhouette orgy. You can’t ask for more than that.

Sunday was breakfast at the diner from Spider-man followed by a trip around Battery Park with a swing by the WTC site and the new Irish Hunger Memorial. Pretty sobering all in all.

So, now I’m completely exhausted, can barely walk and am speaking in tongues. I gotta say, I dig NY but I think it’s just too big. I’m telling you, after spending two days in that town, arriving back in Philadelphia was an amazing change. After NY, the pace of things in Philly is positively glacial and the scale is nigh-microscopic in comparison. I didn’t feel any less comfortable with the Philly traffic and activity than I did when I got home to Gettysburg. Amazing really.

Probably something everyone should do once but only now and again. The economies of scale are something to behold.