6/20/08 - Singing in Vancouver

We finally made it to the customs agent, a dead-eyed drone that welcomed us into Canada. I must have been just as run down as the agent, because we locked eyes for a second and he gave me a small nod. He asked why we were coming into Canada. For the past hour I had been reminiscing while staring at the shadow of a large defined cloud. The shadow was in Canada, and we were stuck here in American traffic with shadowless American clouds. I wanted to say I was going to Canada for their clouds, but that would have gone out the window in a hurry.

We got in and walked around Vancouver. All big cities seem the same after a while. The downtown area is too rich, the traffic is bad, and the same shops again and again, the same people, just a different skyscraper and a different team to root for from town to town, something to keep heads from spinning. I liked Vancouver though because there were constant floating planes flying into the harbor near by. We watched for a while as the planes came in against a white and green mountain backdrop.


We met Derek's uncle, a kind bald man with a soft voice. He was in the film business, and said his career peaked when he was 18 years old and sold a script to Saturday Night Live. He asked is pasta was okay for dinner and we all laughed and nodded promptly.

We ate the pasta on the floor, sitting on cushions, with the exception of Lance, who sat on an overstuffed recliner without a care, like a king.

The lights are very orange now, with dark blue light leaking in from the windows. Talk of jazz standards between Derek and the uncle flutters and dies, and picks up again. A large collection of classic and not-so-classic films to my left, almost all on VHS. Braveheart takes up two VHS tapes, which seems appropriate. Laughter erupts from Tyler and the uncle’s daughter, a shiny-cheeked smiley girl our age, a vegetarian in love with Indian culture. The orange light seems warmer. I can't seem to scribble fast enough, and my hand is cramping up, forcing a break to join in the conversation.

Coming back to the page it seems like my hand is falling apart, other parts are following. Juggling multiple roles of big brother, friend, positive example, while trying to explore and stay upbeat, but it's not always true. It feels like a challenge from the road. My back and eyes are sore. My ears are open. Maintain.

Derek and the uncle have guitars out now, and we're singing a lazy rendition of Here Comes the Sun. Derek and his uncle combined knew most of the words, while the rest of us chipped in occasionally. We stop and the conversation turns dull, to gas prices and other safe topics we had heard so many times before. Pulling up my shirt sleeve my upper arm reveals a small galaxy of dead, peeling skin. Thoughts of San Diego rush back, it seems like a long time ago.

Their VHS collection is not alphabetized. There is a small yellow book in the bathroom titled Instant Enlightenment. And strange music from a dusty worn piano. Before long I'm laying on an impermanent mattress, staring up at the stucco ceiling next to my little brother. Looking up at the tangle of frozen drips, like frosting, I see our route planned, and a message I can't make out because my arms aren't long enough to read ceiling Braille.

6/18/08 - Dump on the road, off to Seattle

We woke up early the following morning to avoid paying for our spot. I usually drove the morning shifts; I liked starting the day on the road. Derek was riding shotgun, passed out. When he woke up we shot the shit for a while. We saw some signs for Mt. St. Helen's and decided that we wouldn't be missing anything getting into Seattle at eight in the morning. The detour was about fifty miles, but the ride was smooth and we were the only ones on the road. By quarter to nine we stopped at a visitor's center, but they didn't open for another hour. We pulled ahead maybe 400 feet to a scenic look out. None of us knew what Mt. St. Helen's looked like, but we saw a predominant peak off in the ridgeline and decided that was it. We kicked around a bit, Derek improvised on the guitar and Tyler banged on some pots. I climbed some loose rocks across the street, and jumped off. Lance lay down or sat on a cooler. We made breakfast. I had a different flavor of oatmeal, and sat in the sun. Tyler had to crap, and decided to do it in the middle of the road. When he finished some cars passed, but none of them ran over the shit. Tyler took a few pictures of it, one with the light reflecting off a particularly nice piece reaching toward the sky. We sat around a while longer and left for Seattle.

The crap in the road was probably the most interesting thing that happened in Washington. We saw my cousins and Aunt in their nice pace in Redmond, where all the Microsoft millionaires live, and were treated nicely, to good food, and warm beds. It was nice and safe and overall tame. I did not see much of Seattle, and thought it was hiding it's true self from us. We were there two days and both were sunny and out of the ordinary. When we left my aunt told us we could stay as long as we wanted, that we didn't have to rush off. I didn't know how to tell her I was bored and restless so I didn't, and we left after hugs and pictures.

6/15/08 - Inching into Canada, thinking about Oregon

It's blue outside in Vancouver, and it smells like hundreds of cows. The rest of the group is inside where it's warm and orange, with lots of music and smiles, just behind me. The ground is cool and soft on my feet. Another full stomach, more hospitality, more manners and small talk. I took a shower here, probably the last one until the wedding back in Chicago, that half waypoint. We inched into Canada today, waiting in traffic for over an hour at the border.

I thought back on our eleven-hour drive out of Yosemite to Eugene, Oregon. We met Derek's friend Remy after his tenth drink of the night. He was short with a straw cowboy hat and wild eyes. He smoked cat nip cigarettes and make sudden movements. After a lot of coaxing and repeated questioning directly into Remy's ear we made it to his ex-girlfriends apartment near the university campus. We had been cleared to pitch out tents in the backyard. When we got there a party was in full swing, and I danced through the living room with a beer in hand, and a giant pack on my back. "Oh, you must be the campers!" one shouted over the music. I laughed and made for the kitchen, then out to the backyard, where I had to clear a group of people to set up my tent amidst sidelong glances. We were hungry and went back into the kitchen to use their stove for pasta, and ate a lot of their food while waiting for the water to boil.

We camped the nest night outside of Eugene, near the coast. Remy said he knew the way, but we almost ran out of gas looking for this place, never found it, and by the time we crashed illegally in some state trailer park, I was ready to wring his neck. I was hungry and tired of following this guy. We all ate like wolves that night, without a word to each other, without so much as a glance away from out bowls illuminated by small pools of light, like the only thing that existed was macaroni and sauce.

I slept well that night, it was cold and the wind smelled different than the Midwest. The next morning we said goodbye to Remy, he was off to his pig farm outside of Eugene. We packed up the car and set out eyes on Portland, making it there in a couple hours, driving easily along the coast.

When we reached Portland I got off at the nearest climbing gym and hit the wall for a few hours. I smelled terrible and everyone knew it. I had rivers of sweat that cleaned the dirt off my arm in vein-like patterns. I climbed hard and it felt good to move something besides my right foot. I met up with the guys in the late afternoon. We bummed around Portland a while, cooking on the street near a closed coffee house. Their wireless Internet still worked, and Derek’s laptop picked up a signal. At one point I was sitting with a computer in my lap, and a stove in front of me in the middle of Oregon. I remember laughing about it.

The sun was slow to fall that night, and after dinner we decided to play some music on the streets for a while, try our luck. Lance and I don't play an instrument, but that didn't matter. We sang, and during solos brainstormed on things we could do. There were handstands, one-armed push-ups, climbing random things, and if none of that we could always hum along. We ended up making eight dollars that night, and scored a pretty good sized nugget from a couple of stoners that walked by giggling in low-pitched voices.

An old hippie named Willow came and sat with us, chatting away and teetering in a cross-legged position. She had greasy gray braids hanging down her neck and a few missing teeth, but still managed to blow out a tune on her dirty harmonica. She gave us a book of folk songs entitled,"Our Singing Country: Folk Songs and Ballads," and signed it with a shaky hand in a scattered combination of all capital letters, cursive, print and pictures.

It read:
"To Derik, MAX, Tyler, LANCE,
thanks for the jammin, keep jammin in the
streets and & everywhere else

peace, love, and a smiley face,
Willow

I HOPE our Paths + again in this life or Another"

It was dark now, and the stores were all closing up. We were energized and giddy at our success, and thought to ask some of the closing restaurants if they were throwing out any food. About an hour later we had a bundle of spring rolls, rice, sauce, and a few old scones and pastries for dessert. We sat on a curb laughing and eating, excited and inspired talk, grand plans for all the rest of the bakeries and pizza joints we came across, when a pair of true buskers walked past and stopped to compare loot. They had three-quarters of a good-looking pizza, and offered it up, they looked stoned. We accepted and offered some spring rolls. They were dirtier than we were, or at least their clothing was. There was a taller one with long dreadlocks and a bent neck that made his face lean to the left, and his features followed along with the tilt, like his face was melting. The other one was pale and quiet with an oversized coat and dilated pupils. He didn't say a word, but the melted face made up for it. "You'd have to be an idiot to starve in Portland!" he cackled and elbowed the oversized coat; he sat motionless and didn't speak. We said goodbye to the two and made for the car. There was something eerie about that guy in the oversized coat. We were on our way to Seattle, and drove for maybe an hour before scamming a campsite nearby.

6/12/08 - Half Dome

We hiked to the top of Half Dome today. Roughly 8 miles each way with a steady incline all the way to the top. It was my idea, and I could tell the guys were nervous about it. Hell, they probably did not even want to do it, but I tried to keep the spirits up, and after a short breakfast we packed our bags and started the daylong hike.

There is not much to say about the hike itself. It is absolutely beautiful, but crowded. People in all the wrong places. Near the waterfall, huddling around an animal or an overlook. It cheapened the experience. Too many cameras, too accessible. I tried to think what this place must have looked like to the first pair of human eyes. It was a fantasyland, a paradise. Enormous granite formations jutting out from a carpet of healthy green trees, waterfalls and rivers in every direction. And the damned people.

The last one hundred feet or so takes you up a low angle slab to the peak. The slab has hosted a lot of foot traffic over the years, and has been polished to s sheen. Two steel cables have been dropped down on either side of this polished path for people to cling to. There are also a series of wooden boards set up for footholds. From a distance it looked like a mass exodus, or just a lot of unhappy people waiting in line at the bank.

I got to the peak before the other three, rested a while, and ate a lot of some guys trail mix. He offered it to me when he got back and I said thanks but I was all right. I took his picture for him. I was there maybe an hour when I remember Derek was terrified of heights and he might have opted to stay at the bottom. I quickly rushed down the steel cables, when halfway down I bumped into Lance, and we headed to the top again.


Derek made it up soon after with heavy breaths and a crazed look in his eye. "Did I mention I'm afraid of heights?" were the first words out of his mouth. Lance and I laughed and I gave Derek a hug. I was proud of these guys. I asked where Tyler was, and Derek said he left him down at the beginning of the cables, Tyler was afraid of heights too. It was a bummer, but we took some pictures, talked about the hike, and milled around on the top for another hour. When we decided to head back to see Tyler, he was coming up the cables and the day was complete. He had overcome his fear too.

We laughed and walked around again, taking the tour for the third time, but it felt like the first again. It was great to be traveling with these guys. Lance said this was not his thing, and did not see what I got out of it.

From the top looking north to where we are headed. North to unknown territory for all four of us. To Eugene and Portland, then on to Seattle and Vancouver. The dust is beginning to settle and the Trip is slowly showing itself to us.

6/12/08 - From The Valley Floor

1,400 miles in: The smashed gooey body of an earwig a foot from my head, body parts on this pen. Writing this from Camp 4 in Yosemite National Park. There is no vacancy, but we found a spot next to a group from Colorado that didn't seem to mind. Outside my tent a group is singing and drinking, mostly Sublime and other sing-a-long types. The light from their fire flickers and dances against my tent. They are probably dancing. My body is too sore to dance.

We drove in from San Francisco yesterday, almost directly east, and made it to the valley in the early evening. San Francisco is nice, and we camped illegally on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. We found a secret beach with a lot of rusty scrap metal half buried in the sand. The view from the beach was great, and I climbed a big island rock that looked like a shark fin. I felt at ease. I do not think I could live in San Francisco, but there is no real reason, just an overall feeling. Maybe I am not hip enough or smooth enough. The trip to Yosemite was only supposed to take four hours but we got lost and made it in close to six. The last gas coming into the valley was $5.29 per gallon, the highest we have seen so far.

Our sunburns are falling off slowly, leaving behind milky white patches of skin in their place. I get a little dirtier everyday, and the memories of the gourmet BBQ in Arroyo Grande fade. I can still see that crystal dish planted next to my arm, an ornament on an elaborate dinner display. Complete with the tiniest of spoons to save the embarrassment of squeezing the brand name plastic bottle. How would a plastic bottle of BBQ sauce look against all this finery?

I have been cooking on the street since then, oatmeal in the morning in Monterey, Pasta at night in San Francisco. Sleeping in my own filth with permanent dirt under the fingernails. A week ago I was happily spooning BBQ from that crystal dish. I should have broken it and laughed.

6/8/08 - An Evening in Arroyo Grande

I opened the door to a falling sun and a terrified lizard. The lizard froze for a beat, and then slid across the rustic stone tiling, a flurry of tiny green legs. The sun was uninterested and indifferent. I shot a look directly into that burning ball, it was the reason my back throbbed and looked like a damn tomato. It was also why the lizard was out on the rock, and why my toes felt nice burying themselves in the sand below me. The sun was a lot of things.

My feet are clean, not by choice, but because I realized feet could not get dirty here in Arroyo Grande, it's too nice of a place for dirty feet. The house is guarded by smooth rustic stone tiles that in two steps undo all the work put in to get the dirt on in the first place. A few horses mutter and pace out across the field next to a small guesthouse where a Mexican family lives and prunes trees or something. Derek's aunt told me their house is traditional for this area. One story something or other.

They do have a three-legged dog Annie with bright eyes and an energetic leap. The three-legged dog Annie hopped up to me just now to smell my kneecaps. I know that someone told me how she lost her leg but I forgot. I just figure a bear got to close to this traditional house one night and Annie gave it what's for. "Oh, this? Hell, you should see that bear!" She would say.

The flies are hovering lazily through my hair and the shadows are growing longer as the sun falls and falls. The smell of warm dirt and burning coals tickles my nostrils and plays tricks on my stomach. The man of the house has an enormous outdoor cooking pit that looked more like a black hole with a grate over it.

It is getting too dark to write anymore, but that's fine.

6/8/08 - 800 Miles and Sunburnt

We are 800 miles deep. Staying away from the sun is fucking impossible. Scurry from shadow to shadow, quick. Our movements are slow, riddled with personal curses, yelps, and groans. We tried to eat the whole 12,000 miles at once and overate.

Two days drinking heavily in the hard San Diego sun shriveled us up. I saw one of my best friends from Flushing, who currently blows things up, drives fast boats, and screws beautiful women for the Navy. It feels right for him to be in San Diego, and he loves it. I was very happy those two days, playing in the Pacific, letting the waves crash over me, giving in and letting my body become an insignificant rag doll, slowly eaten away by the sun and the salty spray. The nights were warm, but not hot, and we did not shower, but did not feel dirty. Drinking out on the front porch, breathing in the sea less than a mile down the road. The liquor store is right on the corner, and it stays open late. Everything was perfect, and the laughs resonated into the soft palm-lined night.

But we had to pay somehow. Derek can hardly walk, and Lance is getting blisters on both shoulders. My back is a deep crimson, with the exception of two islands on my shoulder blades, and other distinct outlines where my hands could reach, and my skin remained pasty white, defined against the crimson. Like a clown face.

We are in Arroyo Grande, a high class wine country area in the middle of California, visiting Derek's aunt and nursing our skin. I feel spoiled. Everything and everyone is nice. The cars seem too nice to drive in and the food to nice to eat. I know it will be like that last piece of apple pie before Idaho before the hard work comes down like a sheet of rain, but I am a masochist and want to be hungry and dirty right now. The groups is bonding well but slowly, beginning to feel one another out. A few nights around a campfire, some dirt and a half empty stomach will get us together in a hurry. None of this thin mask of manners and hospitality. By the time we come out on the other end there won't be a mask, our faces will show enough hunger and appreciation themselves.

Tomorrow we leave for Los Padres National Forest, up Highway 1, then off to San Francisco and Yosemite. Our trunk is packed up tightly, precariously, with overflow spilling out into the back seat, falling out the back when the trunk is open. Once we crack into our food store we should eat ourselves some room. In the meantime I will enjoy my pie, let my skin heal, and relax. We'll be on our own soon enough, wishing there was some pie left.

6/4/08 - The Long Night Before

"Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts bestowed by heaven on man; No treasures that the Earth contains or the sea conceals can compare with it; For freedom, as for honor, men can and should risk their lives, and in contrast captivity is the worst evil that can befall them."

-Don Quixote

Freedom is an open road ahead of us. It's Derek's birthday again, twenty-one years old. This time last year we ended a five-country tour of Europe at breakneck speed on his birthday, in Amsterdam, celebrating with a half stale chocolate croissant and a sunset on a dirty dock. Tonight the celebrations were muted. A beer in an airport, bursts of laughter and nervous last minute planning. The talk of people with more on their mind.

Tonight a new question mark hovers over the group. A domestic question mark, a familiar unknown, like the pitch black in your own house. This is my country. This is Lance, Derek and Tyler's country. It's the sum of all the bullshit fractions of heritages make up. I am an American mutt free of attachments. Here under safe covers and soft lights for months at a time, only imagining the missed exits and gas stations, and locals with accents and deep set wrinkles, the wrinkles that a place really works into the skin over the years. A few bags with everything we own, carrying our lives around. The chaos of two oceans, connected by eager stream, dotted with placid lakes and easy people. Mountains and giant steaks. Smiles and a constantly half empty stomach.

We are hungry, with a lot to chew come morning. A big 10,000+ miles bite to gobble up and taste slowly, to nibble and examine subtly. Spit out, swallow,crave, and digest.
Shake it up some, make the tongue bleed! I want a stupid grin and some scars to prove it. Grease in the hair so thick it oozes down with the sweat. A burnt nose that never fully heals.

Images swirling around the true question here under my safe sheets. It's all a self-righteous rant, talking about things like I have something to teach while the honest sliver in me screams out in shitless fear. I'm taking this trip at an unstable time in my life. A time where i can see the foggy outline of things going either way. Staying in school, getting a job that makes everyone proud and in turn makes me a socially acceptable boring old man. There's something else there too, something that all this bravado can not even hide.

A 12,000 Mile Road Odyssey

In assembling the skeleton of this adventure these five words align themselves vertically, building a strong backbone to build on. Sinewy adjetives and tissue-lined descriptions eventually envelop this backbone, putting it on the back burner, out of sight but holding all the weight, keeping form. A 12,000 Mile Road Odyssey. A complete loop around the America.

We began in Las Vegas on June 5th, 2008 as a clean, sane group of four: My long time travel companion Derek, our friend and drummer Tyler, my younger brother Lance, and myself. I finished the loop alone forty-five days later on July 20th, dirty and permanently changed.

The following is a record of this change.