An Englishman, an Irishman, a Frenchman, a German and an Australian walk into a bar in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. No joke.
The Englishman wakes up with a hangover, despite taking on a relatively small volume of alcohol the night before, because he hasn't really drunk very much in recent times. He makes his way downstairs to the free breakfast and is confronted by live coverage of the Macy's (TM) Thanksgiving (TM) Day Parade (TM), beamed direct from 34th Street, New York City. Where the miracles happen...
From what I have gathered from witnessing it and speaking to the few locals in the hostel, Americans go ape for Thanksgiving. Many refer to it as their 'favourite' holiday. The televised parade features many many marching bands and cheerleaders and singers on floats and more thirty feet long floating balloon brand icons than I could ever have imagined in one place. And I've seen Tim Burton's Batman more than once. Each balloon is accompanied by a sales figure voiceover: here comes Sonic the Hedgehog celebrating 20 years with Sega, his 24ft long sneakers rocketing him to his next adventure!
It is all a little surreal for 9 O'clock in the morning, with the effects of the night before still proudly held in the forefront of my mind. I just hope I wasn't the only one to see Avril Lavigne riding in on a two-storey high turkey, flanked by Puritans.
The Boston hostel is perhaps the most generous I have encountered. They lay on a free Thanksgiving dinner that evening - well-received by us poor starving travellers, and a great introduction to what Thanksgiving is all about.
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Frenchman buy bargain tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. No joke.
They get to see Symphony #4 by some contemporary local chap, followed by a Ravel and a Mahler in the two-hour performance. Don't you know. (The whispers around and about suggest this Boston Symphony Orchestra is world-renowned. So a ticket for $9 when some in the audience have paid $300 is not to be sniffed at.) Ravel wins for being the most enthusiastic piece of the afternoon.
Not content to merely laud it up with the upper-middle classes at the Symphony Hall, I fit in a visit to the Museum of Fine Art on the same day. 'Fine Art' is starting to expand to include contemporary works of the 20th Century, and photography and film, but the gallery is still dominated by Anglo-American and traditional European paintings of the 18th and 19th Centuries. More chance for me to see the likes of van Gogh, Manet, Renoir, a beautiful John Singer Sargent, plus a special exhibition of the nudes of Degas - an amazingly huge collection; probably the biggest single exhibit of one artists' work that I've ever encountered. Which, considering Degas is probably best-known for his portraits of performers, says a lot about his prolificacy.
The Degas works are quite stunning - updating the traditional 'life' portraits (if you couldn't paint nudes, you couldn't paint) of classical scenes from history or religion into scenes of women (and one or two men) in everyday nude poses. That's everyday as in, 'in the bath', not down Tesco's! There are a couple of pastels, in particular, that I am drawn (sorry) to.
An Englishman, an Irishman, a Frenchman and a German go out to a restaurant. No joke.
Afterwards they attempt to sample a local hostelry, but are denied entry on the grounds of not having sufficient government identification. The Englishman asks the minder whether the gray hairs in his eight-year growth beard is identification enough of the groups' legitimacy, but it seems not. On its' last night together the pan-European cliché/clique/cliqué is forced back to the hostel.
I can see the whiskers on my cheeks just by opening my eyes. Which
means it's probably about time I took a look in a mirror. Although there is something quite alluring about growing my facial hair unabated for the rest of the sabbatical. I am quite aware, however, of the likelihood this is only alluring to me. And fans of Teen Wolf.
I head south from Boston for a day, to Cape Cod and the scene of the first landing of Puritans in 1620. I'm there more for the scenery than to revel in the history of the place. The weather is unseasonably fair - supposedly it is December later this week, and yet I should probably be using sun-block. I amble through familiarly-named towns - Plymouth, Taunton, Weymouth, Pembroke, Truro, Barnstable, Braintree(!) - before bedding down for the night in Shawme-Crowell State Forest. For tomorrow is, I expect, the only time I will see four States in one day. Tomorrow, the Big Apple awaits.
Monday, 28 November 2011
Thursday, 24 November 2011
#030: Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Without the Planes and Trains. So Just Automobiles.
The purpose of this leg, then, is to make it home in time for Thanksgiving, no matter what the weather, our circumstance, or the comedy of John Hughes throws at us.
Despite being unloved and un-revved in the cold of Chicago for four days, the Purple Nimbus starts first time, but I allow him to warm his cockles for a few minutes whilst I plan the route for the day. I'm giving Emily a break for 24hours - she insists on taking the quickest route to any destination but, in this corner of the States, that means toll roads. (I haven't the heart to tell her to avoid them.) The total journey today is only three hours long, so I figure a toll-free day won't do us any harm. Indeed, we are more likely to see something of Indiana by taking the byroads as opposed to the freeway.
Before leaving the city limits we stop and pick up John Candy, who is, of course, dead. He, too, is trying to make it home in time for Thanksgiving. We are going to Boston, he is going to Boston, so it makes sense to have him along. Obviously, at first, I am reticent to let him join us. On first impression he doesn't particularly strike me as the sort of person we'd welcome in the van. For a start he almost made off with the Purple Nimbus while I wasn't looking, so keen was he to get home to his wife, Marie. And he talks a LOT, whereas Emily, the Nimbus and myself tend to let the ipod do the talking. Oh, and he's dead. Still, tis the season of goodwill, or almost tis the season of goodwill, so the corpse of John Candy takes the passenger seat and we set out east on US-20.
Seven days until Thanksgiving...
The state border with Indiana isn't very far from Chicago at all. As we cross we are met by the huge frame of industry: the refineries of über-multinationals line the road, hanging the smell of petrochemicals in the air as they claim to embrace the future.
This marks the first clear signs that I'm in the region of the country referred to as the Rust Belt - named because cities from the Midwest to the Northeast traditionally expanded their manufacturing sector to create jobs and increase profits but, over the last half a century or so, as labour costs were cheaper elsewhere, factory automation expanded and worldwide free trade agreements meant production costs were less overseas, the heavy industry of the area has fallen into decay.
We're having our own intermittent conundrums with automation: a natural problem of the ipod A->Z is its capacity to throw up awful embarrassing songs every now and again. So far I have remained strong and managed to resist skipping. Today we were blessed with 'Fix You' by Coldplay. Certainly no need to skip here of course - what a song. Chris Martin's voice sends shivers straight down my spine. He just seems to get me.
The latter end of the day features a nice juxtaposition to the Rust, as we encounter the first Amish of the trip. Traps trot past at the side of the road, with their blacked-out tints, their flashing lights (custom upgrade, so you can see them in the dark) and, as John Candy points out, their satellite-scrambling technology. He talks about it for quite some time. And I think he might be right. Every time we overtake a trap, Emily gurns like someone being unplugged from the Matrix, her hard-line to the stars temporarily cut. John Candy says something similar happened to Marie once.
There is more to the Amish than meets the eye. Mainly because you can't see them due to the tinted windows.
We spend the night at another State Park - they are proving quite useful with their 'rock up, sort yourself out, and stick ten dollars in an envelope' policy. Now, the interior of the Purple Nimbus isnt particularly big so, with the addition of John Candy to the party, you're probably thinking bedtime has the potential for awkwardness. Fortunately, John Candy is rather smaller than he was at the time of his passing, seventeen years of death having done more for his figure than any amount of public concern at his obesity while he was still alive could ever have done. In fact, the diet he is on right now seems to be working wonders. We've been together less than a day and I swear he's lost a chunk of weight already. Quite remarkable.
Six days until Thanksgiving...
The next morning I find John Candy's right shoe in the passenger footwell, amongst the maps. His right foot is with it. It figures. Today is defined by a heavy tiredness that grips me for the majority of the journey. We are moving into Ohio and more or less following the border with Michigan to the southern shores of Lake Erie, and a town called Geneva.
We make more stops than usual to give me a break from the road. I would let John Candy drive for a while except he insists on looking at you while he is talking (it's an actor thing, you've probably noticed it yourself). Nothing wrong with the eye contact of course, except when you are driving at 65mph and are ten feet behind an eighteen-wheeled lorry. I also don't think his hazard perception and his reaction times are up to much on account of his not being alive anymore.
The best substitute for a substitute driver is coffee. I grab one at one of the many service plazas along the route. Then proceed to spill it, all of it, as soon as I get back in the van. It goes more or less directly onto the passenger seat. For once, John Candy doesn't say anything. He just lolls his head to one side.
The Cribs' eponymous debut makes its way into the ipod A->Z at just the right moment; a hearty sing-song rouses me from my drowsiness in time for the final hour of today's drive. Even John Candy joins in with the chorus of Another Number, although I guess that's none too surprising given the rise of the Jarman brothers since the Spring of 2004. Having said that, having your song sung along to by the decomposing body of someone - a world-renowned Hollywood actor - who died ten years before anyone had even heard of you, must rate pretty high in a career.
As we pull into the campsite we are greeted by a magnificent two-tone sunset - a washed-out orange tuxedo atop a cummerbund of the palest yellow. None of us has seen anything like it before. I turn quietly to John Candy as he stops a single tear from disappearing into the hole in his cheek. He says this is the first time he has genuinely cried since the day he married Marie.
Five days until Thanksgiving...
Following a solid night's sleep, today's leg is relatively relaxed. We skirt around Lake Erie in the direction of Niagara Falls, New York. Everyone is quiet as the water laps against the shore to our left, and a warm content feeling permeates the van as 'Red Tree Song' by Danny and the Champions of the World plays out on the ipod. The feeling is that notion of knowing who you are and where you are, and why you are there at that precise moment in time, and it is great.
Four days until Thanksgiving...
We're on our way to a morning perusal of Niagara Falls. We pass a pair of neighbouring motels: the straight-up Algiers and the overtly suggestive Bit O' Paris. A strange combination. We also tail a bumper sticker of the Coronation Street road sign. I explain to the non-English amongst us its significance (or lack of it). The Niagara car park fronts a great glass structure full of services - food, information, gift shops - and it is blasting out Cher as we arrive. We make a hasty beeline for the rapids and get serenaded by the rather more tasteful 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' on the way.
John Candy insists on mimicking the lad from Superman II, by climbing the railings and alternately letting go with first his left hand, then his right. I tell him he is being silly, and shouldn't encourage the children like that. He is a role model, after all. People still look up to him. Even since his right foot fell off.
In reply, John Candy questions what makes me tick. He tells me all I do is drive somewhere, look at something, then drive somewhere else. He says I am absolutely no fun. Not like Marie at all.
After an hour of looking at lots of water falling down a cliff, I've had enough. In this case, I prefer my Icelandic waterfalls - more rugged, less in-the-middle-of-a-town. We head back to the Nimbus.
An air raid siren went off while we were relaxing in the back of the van last night. I googled "Tonawanda NY air raid siren", but there was nothing specific to worry us as far as I could tell.
Unfortunately it has put the willies up John Candy. He's convinced something bad is going to happen today. I tell him there is nothing to worry about - we're near to a lake not the sea, so no tsunamis, and we're far too far north for tornadoes. It doesn't do the trick though. Instead, John Candy starts smoking. I tell him smoking is a bad habit, which could be a lie (I'm not aware of any research into the effects of smoking on the dead). He says smoking was fine when he was acting with Catherine in Beetlejuice: if that dead smoking guy character was allowed to smoke, then so is he. I tell him, Okay, Catherine O'Hara was awesome in that film, but Otho from Beetlejuice wasn't played by him, it was some other actor called Glenn Shadix. It was in Home Alone that he acted with Catherine. This, weirdly, convinces him to stop smoking, even though it makes no sense whatsoever, and he throws the half-smoked cigarette out the window. Straight in through the open window of a passing rental car. Which instantaneously bursts into flames and burns to the ground in a matter of seconds. All that is left is the car radio.
I am absolutely flabbergasted. The corpse of John Candy plays dead.
Three days until Thanksgiving...
We spent the night lying low in a place named Cortland, at the Cortland Country Music Park. It was totally deserted, which was a stroke of luck - we didn't even see the proprietor so just followed his emailed instructions and left him a thank-you note with some cash.
We are making good progress towards Boston and the weather is yet to put in an appearance. Today is the day Emily chooses to be unpredictable, in a wholly good way. Our destination is virtually due east of Cortland, but the freeways zig-zag cross-country. So Emily decides we are going to cut some corners and leads us down some state and county roads rather than the highways. It makes a welcome change after the last couple of days, as we get to see a little more of the countryside. Unfortunately, we also witness destruction and near-destruction.
The route takes us through a small town called Prattsville, which appears to have borne the brunt of Hurricane Irene. Whole houses are ripped from their foundations and scattered like Kansas farmsteads in Oz, whilst the trees only line the banks of the river because they have been deposited there by the winds, horizontally. [Ed edit: research a couple of days later tells me Irene floods tore through Prattsville, virtually destroying it.] Just a few miles later we have our own near-catastrophic meeting with fate, as a gas guzzler speeds round a blind corner on our side of the road. I have to brake hard and swerve to avoid a head-on but, luckily, the majority of American roads have an ample hard shoulder. It was fully utilised in this case.
We pass close to the city of Schenectady. To the uninitiated, this is the home town of Caden Cotard, the lead character in the film Synecdoche, New York. My apologies if you have heard this before, but it is my opinion that Synecdoche is the greatest film ever made. You liked Being John Malkovic, Eternal Sunshine..., Adaptation? Well, they were all written by Charlie Kaufman. Synecdoche is the first time he took on the directing as well.
Our proximity to Schenectady means it is my turn to do the talking. I tell John Candy everything I can about the film: the perfect cast and their roles; the themes; the subtle clarity in the script; Kaufman; what it has led me to find online; what I have learnt of myself, of life. John Candy listens with an intensity that only a dead person can achieve, and he seems genuinely interested. Marie likes films too, he says. Her favourite is Bend It Like Beckham.
I apologise now if, having passed near to this town, I am compelled to live out my fanboy fantasies and create my own all-encompassing ever-expanding vision of the world. What with current world events, I would be lying if I said the thought hadn't already crossed my mind. A personal utopia...
If that does happen, the only reassurance I can give is that John Candy has offered to play the part of my corpse so, if I fail and my utopia winds up being just another dystopia, at least my eventual just-after-death scene will be credible.
Two days until Thanksgiving...
We are just one day of driving from Boston, so have ourselves a day-long break on the border of New York state and Massachusetts, in the Taconic State Park campground near a village called Copake Falls. In the morning we take the Purple Nimbus for his first 5000-mile check-up (he's actually got over 120,000 on the clock, but has passed 5000 with me at the controls). A Ranger-recommended auto repair shop in nearby Hillsdale does the job for him, and he actually does feel slightly smoother afterwards - something I wasn't expecting.
In the afternoon we take a stroll into the park, to the interestingly-named Bash Bish(!) falls, crossing the state line into Massachusetts as we do. We have the whole park to ourselves, it seems. It's quite something to look about you at the mountains and the forests and the rapids and think of that corner of the state as yours and yours alone. Sorry, yours and John Candy's alone.
John Candy and I talk on the way back to the campground. He says it's quite an undertaking, this trip of mine, and asks if I have any regrets in life. I tell him I think if there is an adult human anywhere who has absolutely no regrets they are an extremely privileged individual. And yes, I do. He asks whether I'm afraid of death. I tell him most of us, myself included, live our lives as if we are not going to die. And I'll only be afraid if death comes to me with the knowledge that I harbour regret at not having loved and been loved. He smiles at this, and asks me what I think love is. I tell him I don't think it is an emotion. I tell him it is far more powerful than that; something chemical, capable of triggering all the emotions. And I tell him I think I know how it works. And I can tell from the look on John Candy's moldy face that he thinks he knows too.
We get back to the campground and have ourselves a wee camp fire and we sing sea shantys to the stars and John Candy re-enacts his favourite scenes from The Great Outdoors and I re-enact the live-action version of The Snowman that my sister and I choreographed when we were young and the Purple Nimbus re-enacts the opening sequence to The A-Team and we laugh and we have fun and it has been a wonderful day together, a wonderful week together, and a part of me will be sad when Thanksgiving is upon us tomorrow night and we have to say goodbye to the corpse of John Candy.
One day until Thanksgiving...
There is little for us to do today other than make it to Boston. It rained all night and continues to drizzle into the morning and throughout the day. We take the toll road to the city and John Candy comes up trumps with a slightly icky quarter at the toll booth. The traffic is the heaviest I have seen outside of central LA, Thanksgiving swelling the roads. I think I read somewhere that 50% of Americans travel for the holiday.
Giving ourselves a whole week for the journey from Chicago appears to have paid off. No danger of last minute delays or adverse weather conditions to thwart us in our aim of getting to Boston. It doesn't even get cold enough today for the drizzle to turn to sleet, despite what was said on the forecasts. It has almost been too easy. The fruits of sound planning, perhaps.
John Candy gives directions to Emily and she leads us through the blocks of Boston to where John Candy wishes to go. Emily says: You have arrived. The time has come for us to say our goodbyes.
We warmly shake hands on the pavement alongside the Purple Nimbus and John Candy gives me a parting gift: a couple of layers of decayed skin off his palms. I'm fairly certain he meant to. He tells us to enjoy our Thanksgiving at the hostel, and to make the most of the rest of the road trip. And to make sure we have fun. I can see him waving (clutching his right foot under his arm) in the wing mirror as I pull out into the traffic.
I leave the Purple Nimbus with a friendly parking attendant and check in at the hostel. The room is small but warm and I store Emily in my locker and make up my bed. Later in the evening I can't help but think about the time since Chicago, the time we have spent with the corpse of John Candy. My memories are fond indeed. A little golden week in the midst of a 52-week vacation. It is a struggle to comprehend how lucky I am. Lucky in the life I am leading.
Lucky in the people that I know.
Just plain old lucky.
But then something occurs to me. John Candy. The stories he told us about his wife, Marie. Something just doesn't quite fit.
The Amish satellite scrambling affected Marie too...but female GPS's are called Emily, not Marie. John Candy said he hadn't cried genuinely since the day of their marriage, but I'm certain Gus Polinski (The Polka King of the Midwest) shed a tear in Home Alone!
And Marie's favourite film...Bend It Like Beckham? Really!? I simply don't believe it. I can't believe it! Surely there is only one film that could possibly be the favourite of the person married to John Candy. One film...
Uncle Buck!
By Jiminy!
I grab the keys and sprint to the parking lot, jump in the Purple Nimbus and race across town to where we said goodbye earlier in the day.
And there I find John Candy, exactly where we left him, kind of slumped half-sitting on the kerb, not really moving, what's left of his bulk awkwardly hanging to one side.
I help him to sit up.
There is no Marie, I say to him. He nods, she's dead too.
Cremated.
Come with us, to the hostel, I say. They are doing all manner of things for Thanksgiving, it'll be great.
So we get in the van and go to the hostel. And as we approach the reception desk, one of the staff looks at us and says, He can't come in here he's dead.
Despite being unloved and un-revved in the cold of Chicago for four days, the Purple Nimbus starts first time, but I allow him to warm his cockles for a few minutes whilst I plan the route for the day. I'm giving Emily a break for 24hours - she insists on taking the quickest route to any destination but, in this corner of the States, that means toll roads. (I haven't the heart to tell her to avoid them.) The total journey today is only three hours long, so I figure a toll-free day won't do us any harm. Indeed, we are more likely to see something of Indiana by taking the byroads as opposed to the freeway.
Before leaving the city limits we stop and pick up John Candy, who is, of course, dead. He, too, is trying to make it home in time for Thanksgiving. We are going to Boston, he is going to Boston, so it makes sense to have him along. Obviously, at first, I am reticent to let him join us. On first impression he doesn't particularly strike me as the sort of person we'd welcome in the van. For a start he almost made off with the Purple Nimbus while I wasn't looking, so keen was he to get home to his wife, Marie. And he talks a LOT, whereas Emily, the Nimbus and myself tend to let the ipod do the talking. Oh, and he's dead. Still, tis the season of goodwill, or almost tis the season of goodwill, so the corpse of John Candy takes the passenger seat and we set out east on US-20.
Seven days until Thanksgiving...
The state border with Indiana isn't very far from Chicago at all. As we cross we are met by the huge frame of industry: the refineries of über-multinationals line the road, hanging the smell of petrochemicals in the air as they claim to embrace the future.
This marks the first clear signs that I'm in the region of the country referred to as the Rust Belt - named because cities from the Midwest to the Northeast traditionally expanded their manufacturing sector to create jobs and increase profits but, over the last half a century or so, as labour costs were cheaper elsewhere, factory automation expanded and worldwide free trade agreements meant production costs were less overseas, the heavy industry of the area has fallen into decay.
We're having our own intermittent conundrums with automation: a natural problem of the ipod A->Z is its capacity to throw up awful embarrassing songs every now and again. So far I have remained strong and managed to resist skipping. Today we were blessed with 'Fix You' by Coldplay. Certainly no need to skip here of course - what a song. Chris Martin's voice sends shivers straight down my spine. He just seems to get me.
The latter end of the day features a nice juxtaposition to the Rust, as we encounter the first Amish of the trip. Traps trot past at the side of the road, with their blacked-out tints, their flashing lights (custom upgrade, so you can see them in the dark) and, as John Candy points out, their satellite-scrambling technology. He talks about it for quite some time. And I think he might be right. Every time we overtake a trap, Emily gurns like someone being unplugged from the Matrix, her hard-line to the stars temporarily cut. John Candy says something similar happened to Marie once.
There is more to the Amish than meets the eye. Mainly because you can't see them due to the tinted windows.
We spend the night at another State Park - they are proving quite useful with their 'rock up, sort yourself out, and stick ten dollars in an envelope' policy. Now, the interior of the Purple Nimbus isnt particularly big so, with the addition of John Candy to the party, you're probably thinking bedtime has the potential for awkwardness. Fortunately, John Candy is rather smaller than he was at the time of his passing, seventeen years of death having done more for his figure than any amount of public concern at his obesity while he was still alive could ever have done. In fact, the diet he is on right now seems to be working wonders. We've been together less than a day and I swear he's lost a chunk of weight already. Quite remarkable.
Six days until Thanksgiving...
The next morning I find John Candy's right shoe in the passenger footwell, amongst the maps. His right foot is with it. It figures. Today is defined by a heavy tiredness that grips me for the majority of the journey. We are moving into Ohio and more or less following the border with Michigan to the southern shores of Lake Erie, and a town called Geneva.
We make more stops than usual to give me a break from the road. I would let John Candy drive for a while except he insists on looking at you while he is talking (it's an actor thing, you've probably noticed it yourself). Nothing wrong with the eye contact of course, except when you are driving at 65mph and are ten feet behind an eighteen-wheeled lorry. I also don't think his hazard perception and his reaction times are up to much on account of his not being alive anymore.
The best substitute for a substitute driver is coffee. I grab one at one of the many service plazas along the route. Then proceed to spill it, all of it, as soon as I get back in the van. It goes more or less directly onto the passenger seat. For once, John Candy doesn't say anything. He just lolls his head to one side.
The Cribs' eponymous debut makes its way into the ipod A->Z at just the right moment; a hearty sing-song rouses me from my drowsiness in time for the final hour of today's drive. Even John Candy joins in with the chorus of Another Number, although I guess that's none too surprising given the rise of the Jarman brothers since the Spring of 2004. Having said that, having your song sung along to by the decomposing body of someone - a world-renowned Hollywood actor - who died ten years before anyone had even heard of you, must rate pretty high in a career.
As we pull into the campsite we are greeted by a magnificent two-tone sunset - a washed-out orange tuxedo atop a cummerbund of the palest yellow. None of us has seen anything like it before. I turn quietly to John Candy as he stops a single tear from disappearing into the hole in his cheek. He says this is the first time he has genuinely cried since the day he married Marie.
Five days until Thanksgiving...
Following a solid night's sleep, today's leg is relatively relaxed. We skirt around Lake Erie in the direction of Niagara Falls, New York. Everyone is quiet as the water laps against the shore to our left, and a warm content feeling permeates the van as 'Red Tree Song' by Danny and the Champions of the World plays out on the ipod. The feeling is that notion of knowing who you are and where you are, and why you are there at that precise moment in time, and it is great.
Four days until Thanksgiving...
We're on our way to a morning perusal of Niagara Falls. We pass a pair of neighbouring motels: the straight-up Algiers and the overtly suggestive Bit O' Paris. A strange combination. We also tail a bumper sticker of the Coronation Street road sign. I explain to the non-English amongst us its significance (or lack of it). The Niagara car park fronts a great glass structure full of services - food, information, gift shops - and it is blasting out Cher as we arrive. We make a hasty beeline for the rapids and get serenaded by the rather more tasteful 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' on the way.
John Candy insists on mimicking the lad from Superman II, by climbing the railings and alternately letting go with first his left hand, then his right. I tell him he is being silly, and shouldn't encourage the children like that. He is a role model, after all. People still look up to him. Even since his right foot fell off.
In reply, John Candy questions what makes me tick. He tells me all I do is drive somewhere, look at something, then drive somewhere else. He says I am absolutely no fun. Not like Marie at all.
After an hour of looking at lots of water falling down a cliff, I've had enough. In this case, I prefer my Icelandic waterfalls - more rugged, less in-the-middle-of-a-town. We head back to the Nimbus.
An air raid siren went off while we were relaxing in the back of the van last night. I googled "Tonawanda NY air raid siren", but there was nothing specific to worry us as far as I could tell.
Unfortunately it has put the willies up John Candy. He's convinced something bad is going to happen today. I tell him there is nothing to worry about - we're near to a lake not the sea, so no tsunamis, and we're far too far north for tornadoes. It doesn't do the trick though. Instead, John Candy starts smoking. I tell him smoking is a bad habit, which could be a lie (I'm not aware of any research into the effects of smoking on the dead). He says smoking was fine when he was acting with Catherine in Beetlejuice: if that dead smoking guy character was allowed to smoke, then so is he. I tell him, Okay, Catherine O'Hara was awesome in that film, but Otho from Beetlejuice wasn't played by him, it was some other actor called Glenn Shadix. It was in Home Alone that he acted with Catherine. This, weirdly, convinces him to stop smoking, even though it makes no sense whatsoever, and he throws the half-smoked cigarette out the window. Straight in through the open window of a passing rental car. Which instantaneously bursts into flames and burns to the ground in a matter of seconds. All that is left is the car radio.
I am absolutely flabbergasted. The corpse of John Candy plays dead.
Three days until Thanksgiving...
We spent the night lying low in a place named Cortland, at the Cortland Country Music Park. It was totally deserted, which was a stroke of luck - we didn't even see the proprietor so just followed his emailed instructions and left him a thank-you note with some cash.
We are making good progress towards Boston and the weather is yet to put in an appearance. Today is the day Emily chooses to be unpredictable, in a wholly good way. Our destination is virtually due east of Cortland, but the freeways zig-zag cross-country. So Emily decides we are going to cut some corners and leads us down some state and county roads rather than the highways. It makes a welcome change after the last couple of days, as we get to see a little more of the countryside. Unfortunately, we also witness destruction and near-destruction.
The route takes us through a small town called Prattsville, which appears to have borne the brunt of Hurricane Irene. Whole houses are ripped from their foundations and scattered like Kansas farmsteads in Oz, whilst the trees only line the banks of the river because they have been deposited there by the winds, horizontally. [Ed edit: research a couple of days later tells me Irene floods tore through Prattsville, virtually destroying it.] Just a few miles later we have our own near-catastrophic meeting with fate, as a gas guzzler speeds round a blind corner on our side of the road. I have to brake hard and swerve to avoid a head-on but, luckily, the majority of American roads have an ample hard shoulder. It was fully utilised in this case.
We pass close to the city of Schenectady. To the uninitiated, this is the home town of Caden Cotard, the lead character in the film Synecdoche, New York. My apologies if you have heard this before, but it is my opinion that Synecdoche is the greatest film ever made. You liked Being John Malkovic, Eternal Sunshine..., Adaptation? Well, they were all written by Charlie Kaufman. Synecdoche is the first time he took on the directing as well.
Our proximity to Schenectady means it is my turn to do the talking. I tell John Candy everything I can about the film: the perfect cast and their roles; the themes; the subtle clarity in the script; Kaufman; what it has led me to find online; what I have learnt of myself, of life. John Candy listens with an intensity that only a dead person can achieve, and he seems genuinely interested. Marie likes films too, he says. Her favourite is Bend It Like Beckham.
I apologise now if, having passed near to this town, I am compelled to live out my fanboy fantasies and create my own all-encompassing ever-expanding vision of the world. What with current world events, I would be lying if I said the thought hadn't already crossed my mind. A personal utopia...
If that does happen, the only reassurance I can give is that John Candy has offered to play the part of my corpse so, if I fail and my utopia winds up being just another dystopia, at least my eventual just-after-death scene will be credible.
Two days until Thanksgiving...
We are just one day of driving from Boston, so have ourselves a day-long break on the border of New York state and Massachusetts, in the Taconic State Park campground near a village called Copake Falls. In the morning we take the Purple Nimbus for his first 5000-mile check-up (he's actually got over 120,000 on the clock, but has passed 5000 with me at the controls). A Ranger-recommended auto repair shop in nearby Hillsdale does the job for him, and he actually does feel slightly smoother afterwards - something I wasn't expecting.
In the afternoon we take a stroll into the park, to the interestingly-named Bash Bish(!) falls, crossing the state line into Massachusetts as we do. We have the whole park to ourselves, it seems. It's quite something to look about you at the mountains and the forests and the rapids and think of that corner of the state as yours and yours alone. Sorry, yours and John Candy's alone.
John Candy and I talk on the way back to the campground. He says it's quite an undertaking, this trip of mine, and asks if I have any regrets in life. I tell him I think if there is an adult human anywhere who has absolutely no regrets they are an extremely privileged individual. And yes, I do. He asks whether I'm afraid of death. I tell him most of us, myself included, live our lives as if we are not going to die. And I'll only be afraid if death comes to me with the knowledge that I harbour regret at not having loved and been loved. He smiles at this, and asks me what I think love is. I tell him I don't think it is an emotion. I tell him it is far more powerful than that; something chemical, capable of triggering all the emotions. And I tell him I think I know how it works. And I can tell from the look on John Candy's moldy face that he thinks he knows too.
We get back to the campground and have ourselves a wee camp fire and we sing sea shantys to the stars and John Candy re-enacts his favourite scenes from The Great Outdoors and I re-enact the live-action version of The Snowman that my sister and I choreographed when we were young and the Purple Nimbus re-enacts the opening sequence to The A-Team and we laugh and we have fun and it has been a wonderful day together, a wonderful week together, and a part of me will be sad when Thanksgiving is upon us tomorrow night and we have to say goodbye to the corpse of John Candy.
One day until Thanksgiving...
There is little for us to do today other than make it to Boston. It rained all night and continues to drizzle into the morning and throughout the day. We take the toll road to the city and John Candy comes up trumps with a slightly icky quarter at the toll booth. The traffic is the heaviest I have seen outside of central LA, Thanksgiving swelling the roads. I think I read somewhere that 50% of Americans travel for the holiday.
Giving ourselves a whole week for the journey from Chicago appears to have paid off. No danger of last minute delays or adverse weather conditions to thwart us in our aim of getting to Boston. It doesn't even get cold enough today for the drizzle to turn to sleet, despite what was said on the forecasts. It has almost been too easy. The fruits of sound planning, perhaps.
John Candy gives directions to Emily and she leads us through the blocks of Boston to where John Candy wishes to go. Emily says: You have arrived. The time has come for us to say our goodbyes.
We warmly shake hands on the pavement alongside the Purple Nimbus and John Candy gives me a parting gift: a couple of layers of decayed skin off his palms. I'm fairly certain he meant to. He tells us to enjoy our Thanksgiving at the hostel, and to make the most of the rest of the road trip. And to make sure we have fun. I can see him waving (clutching his right foot under his arm) in the wing mirror as I pull out into the traffic.
I leave the Purple Nimbus with a friendly parking attendant and check in at the hostel. The room is small but warm and I store Emily in my locker and make up my bed. Later in the evening I can't help but think about the time since Chicago, the time we have spent with the corpse of John Candy. My memories are fond indeed. A little golden week in the midst of a 52-week vacation. It is a struggle to comprehend how lucky I am. Lucky in the life I am leading.
Lucky in the people that I know.
Just plain old lucky.
But then something occurs to me. John Candy. The stories he told us about his wife, Marie. Something just doesn't quite fit.
The Amish satellite scrambling affected Marie too...but female GPS's are called Emily, not Marie. John Candy said he hadn't cried genuinely since the day of their marriage, but I'm certain Gus Polinski (The Polka King of the Midwest) shed a tear in Home Alone!
And Marie's favourite film...Bend It Like Beckham? Really!? I simply don't believe it. I can't believe it! Surely there is only one film that could possibly be the favourite of the person married to John Candy. One film...
Uncle Buck!
By Jiminy!
I grab the keys and sprint to the parking lot, jump in the Purple Nimbus and race across town to where we said goodbye earlier in the day.
And there I find John Candy, exactly where we left him, kind of slumped half-sitting on the kerb, not really moving, what's left of his bulk awkwardly hanging to one side.
I help him to sit up.
There is no Marie, I say to him. He nods, she's dead too.
Cremated.
Come with us, to the hostel, I say. They are doing all manner of things for Thanksgiving, it'll be great.
So we get in the van and go to the hostel. And as we approach the reception desk, one of the staff looks at us and says, He can't come in here he's dead.
Friday, 18 November 2011
#029: Poor Portent
Before I do anything else, I need to issue an apology...
In a previous post, #013 to be precise, I made a statement. It was a rash and foolhardy statement; a statement which I didn't fully understand. A statement that has resulted in death.
Because in post #013, I said: "the demise of Sir Jimmy."
Jimmy Saville was, to many, an icon. It was my words that foretold his end. To all those affected at this sad time, I give my sympathy and condolences. I am solely to blame for his passing, and await my own fate accordingly.
RIP Jimmy. I'm sorry.
Now then, trip-wise, next stop was Madison, the state capital of Wisconsin, and a couple of nights rest after the long road across the plains.
I guess you could call Madison one big urban suburb. The very centre of the city is a strip not more than a dozen blocks wide, sandwiched between two lakes. Right in the middle is the St. Paul's-esque capitol building, built at a forty-five degree angle to the rest of the city. The sizable University of Wisconsin is housed here, and takes up a swathe of land to the west, but the rest is pretty much American suburbia personified - porched houses from within a few hundred yards of the capitol building outwards.
The whole place is completely obsessed with the sport of the college. There was not a soul who wasn't dressed in the colours of the Beavers the Saturday I was there. They thronged the main streets during the afternoon, in order to watch the football team play away in Minnesota. Then, the same evening, I was confronted by a stampede of hockey supporters making their way to the game - everyone had swapped their red and white football replica shirts for their red and white hockey replica shirts.
After I took a stroll around the capitol area, and looked at the lakes, I found myself an arthouse cinema linked to the Sundance festival, and went to watch a film. When I've been spending time in cities I've tended to leave the van be and walk places whenever I can - it means I get to see a bit more of the place. In this instance I somewhat underestimated how far the cinema was, and took a good hour and a half to get there. Still, after some food as well, I was sat down for three hours at least - plenty of rest for the return leg. I watched 'Take Shelter', and was really impressed. It's got two or three absolutely brilliantly acted scenes, and left me pondering for the ninety minute walk back and more.
Next I make my way to the Windy City. And on the way I face a barrage across the bows from the relentless wind. I swear the driver's door was flexing under the weight of it half the time - it was a real battle to control the van. Despite this, the Purple Nimbus reported heat of 20C outside - balmy, and barmy, temperatures for this time in November in northern Illinois.
On the last stretch into the metropolis, I make more emergency stops than I've ever done in the space of four minutes. And I've driven in France before. I had fun finally making it to the door of the hostel too, due to unforeseen road closures and roadworks, and my still rudimentary grasp of the American road systems. Emily, bless her, did a great job until we plunged into the heart of skyscraper territory, where she started coming over all schizophrenic: take this road, no this road, no the first, no no...
Maybe it's just hormones. I won't pry. She's never been the sort to divulge much about herself anyway.
I spent the first night by the massive windows in the corner of the second storey of the hostel, watching life go by on the street below and on the iconic overhead rail thingy, just a few feet from where I sat. I also got myself a new camera app for the ipad, so played with that (some results below). This is the grandest hostel on the tour so far. It is incredibly spacious. And has the most conversational group of room-mates to date as well. Australia, Brazil, Canada and Wisconsin are all represented and we discuss politics, guns, terrorism, slavery and religion.
I spend virtually a whole day in the Art Institute. It's the second biggest gallery in the States and has a really impressive collection. Some of my favourites...
> A collection by the survey party photographer of reportage-cum-art shots of the route taken by the Pacific Railroad between Colorado and the Californian coast.
> A collection of authentic miniatures of European and American rooms between 1700 and 1930. Attention to detail was breath-taking: genuine oil paintings recreated in minute detail, murals in adjoining rooms completed in totality even though you can only see a fraction of them through a door.
> 20th century American classics, like 'American Gothic' and 'Nighthawks'.
> Best of all, some greats of the European Impressionist masters, including Seurat's 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'. This painting was one of the first forays into Pointillism (millions of tiny dots of paint to build up the colours) and is huge, far bigger than I ever imagined, which makes the fact it is in the Pointillism style even more impressive.
More time is given to wandering around the downtown part of the city, to the Museum campus in the south and along the shores of Lake Michigan. I grab an eyeful of its' buildings and the bridges over the Chicago River (as used in Christopher Nolan's version of Gotham City). The views around and about are mightily impressive. I decide against going up the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower - I think I'll get my go-up-a-big-building-to-look-at-the-view fix in New York. I also end up spending a whole afternoon planning the next two-and-a-half weeks; open campgrounds are few and far between at this time of year, and the more I work out here in the city, the easier it will be on the road.
My sister lived in Nuremberg in Germany for a time a few years ago. I visited her over there and stood on the decaying spot where Hitler once received his rallies; though thankfully he was ultimately doomed, his was a defiant show of strength.
On the day when an Iranian scientist was mysteriously blown up and the Occupy protesters are forcibly removed from Zuccotti park in New York, I came to the scene of another show of strength - Grant Park - and the steps from which Barack Obama gave his speech, having secured the American Presidency in 2008.
On a global scale, these are undoubtedly the most worrying times I have experienced. Financial and international uncertainty, the ecological destruction of the planet, world leaders grasping for solutions. Everything feels like it is coming to a head at the same time. I remember, like many I'm sure, of feeling optimism for the world that November night, just over three years ago. The thing is, there is no reason for that light to have diminished - there is still cause for optimism.
Right now, more than ever that I have been aware of, feels like a time when anyone, everyone, can help to make things right for the world. You just have to be constructive and lend your support to the things and to the people you believe in. And don't be afraid of change. Because change is, quite literally, the only way things can get better.
And I've just gone and paraphrased D:Ream.
B*gger.
In a previous post, #013 to be precise, I made a statement. It was a rash and foolhardy statement; a statement which I didn't fully understand. A statement that has resulted in death.
Because in post #013, I said: "the demise of Sir Jimmy."
Jimmy Saville was, to many, an icon. It was my words that foretold his end. To all those affected at this sad time, I give my sympathy and condolences. I am solely to blame for his passing, and await my own fate accordingly.
RIP Jimmy. I'm sorry.
Now then, trip-wise, next stop was Madison, the state capital of Wisconsin, and a couple of nights rest after the long road across the plains.
I guess you could call Madison one big urban suburb. The very centre of the city is a strip not more than a dozen blocks wide, sandwiched between two lakes. Right in the middle is the St. Paul's-esque capitol building, built at a forty-five degree angle to the rest of the city. The sizable University of Wisconsin is housed here, and takes up a swathe of land to the west, but the rest is pretty much American suburbia personified - porched houses from within a few hundred yards of the capitol building outwards.
The whole place is completely obsessed with the sport of the college. There was not a soul who wasn't dressed in the colours of the Beavers the Saturday I was there. They thronged the main streets during the afternoon, in order to watch the football team play away in Minnesota. Then, the same evening, I was confronted by a stampede of hockey supporters making their way to the game - everyone had swapped their red and white football replica shirts for their red and white hockey replica shirts.
After I took a stroll around the capitol area, and looked at the lakes, I found myself an arthouse cinema linked to the Sundance festival, and went to watch a film. When I've been spending time in cities I've tended to leave the van be and walk places whenever I can - it means I get to see a bit more of the place. In this instance I somewhat underestimated how far the cinema was, and took a good hour and a half to get there. Still, after some food as well, I was sat down for three hours at least - plenty of rest for the return leg. I watched 'Take Shelter', and was really impressed. It's got two or three absolutely brilliantly acted scenes, and left me pondering for the ninety minute walk back and more.
Next I make my way to the Windy City. And on the way I face a barrage across the bows from the relentless wind. I swear the driver's door was flexing under the weight of it half the time - it was a real battle to control the van. Despite this, the Purple Nimbus reported heat of 20C outside - balmy, and barmy, temperatures for this time in November in northern Illinois.
On the last stretch into the metropolis, I make more emergency stops than I've ever done in the space of four minutes. And I've driven in France before. I had fun finally making it to the door of the hostel too, due to unforeseen road closures and roadworks, and my still rudimentary grasp of the American road systems. Emily, bless her, did a great job until we plunged into the heart of skyscraper territory, where she started coming over all schizophrenic: take this road, no this road, no the first, no no...
Maybe it's just hormones. I won't pry. She's never been the sort to divulge much about herself anyway.
I spent the first night by the massive windows in the corner of the second storey of the hostel, watching life go by on the street below and on the iconic overhead rail thingy, just a few feet from where I sat. I also got myself a new camera app for the ipad, so played with that (some results below). This is the grandest hostel on the tour so far. It is incredibly spacious. And has the most conversational group of room-mates to date as well. Australia, Brazil, Canada and Wisconsin are all represented and we discuss politics, guns, terrorism, slavery and religion.
I spend virtually a whole day in the Art Institute. It's the second biggest gallery in the States and has a really impressive collection. Some of my favourites...
> A collection by the survey party photographer of reportage-cum-art shots of the route taken by the Pacific Railroad between Colorado and the Californian coast.
> A collection of authentic miniatures of European and American rooms between 1700 and 1930. Attention to detail was breath-taking: genuine oil paintings recreated in minute detail, murals in adjoining rooms completed in totality even though you can only see a fraction of them through a door.
> 20th century American classics, like 'American Gothic' and 'Nighthawks'.
> Best of all, some greats of the European Impressionist masters, including Seurat's 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'. This painting was one of the first forays into Pointillism (millions of tiny dots of paint to build up the colours) and is huge, far bigger than I ever imagined, which makes the fact it is in the Pointillism style even more impressive.
More time is given to wandering around the downtown part of the city, to the Museum campus in the south and along the shores of Lake Michigan. I grab an eyeful of its' buildings and the bridges over the Chicago River (as used in Christopher Nolan's version of Gotham City). The views around and about are mightily impressive. I decide against going up the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower - I think I'll get my go-up-a-big-building-to-look-at-the-view fix in New York. I also end up spending a whole afternoon planning the next two-and-a-half weeks; open campgrounds are few and far between at this time of year, and the more I work out here in the city, the easier it will be on the road.
My sister lived in Nuremberg in Germany for a time a few years ago. I visited her over there and stood on the decaying spot where Hitler once received his rallies; though thankfully he was ultimately doomed, his was a defiant show of strength.
On the day when an Iranian scientist was mysteriously blown up and the Occupy protesters are forcibly removed from Zuccotti park in New York, I came to the scene of another show of strength - Grant Park - and the steps from which Barack Obama gave his speech, having secured the American Presidency in 2008.
On a global scale, these are undoubtedly the most worrying times I have experienced. Financial and international uncertainty, the ecological destruction of the planet, world leaders grasping for solutions. Everything feels like it is coming to a head at the same time. I remember, like many I'm sure, of feeling optimism for the world that November night, just over three years ago. The thing is, there is no reason for that light to have diminished - there is still cause for optimism.
Right now, more than ever that I have been aware of, feels like a time when anyone, everyone, can help to make things right for the world. You just have to be constructive and lend your support to the things and to the people you believe in. And don't be afraid of change. Because change is, quite literally, the only way things can get better.
And I've just gone and paraphrased D:Ream.
B*gger.
Sunday, 13 November 2011
#028: We Do Cows Dot Com
Back on the road then. Hmm...I might stop saying such things, being as I am on a roadtrip and, unless this is your first visit, you've probably already grasped the notion that I'm driving round the States.
This section of the journey will see me crossing the Great Plains towards the Great Lakes and, eventually, reaching the second city of America: Chicago. I forgot to include the ipod A->Z in my last blog. Well, four days driving round Yellowstone accounted for the artists from Bent to Boa. Here's what happened next...
Gardiner MT to Buffalo WY
ipod: Boa to Brig
I passed an advert for a waterpark for sale - and I passed the waterpark itself actually - if anyone fancies a waterpark. It is well placed - you know what they say, location location location - at the side of the I-90 interstate in The Absolute Middle Of Nowhere. The nearest towns are miles away, and probably only hold a few hundred people, if that. Your client base must, I guess, be comprised entirely of passing motorists.
My route takes me past Little Bighorn, the site most commonly referred to as the scene of 'Custers Last Stand'. Two sides to every story, of course. The Native side, in this case, is called 'The Battle of Greasy Grass'. I sidled past in the van, and procured some gasoline from a distant descendant of an original North American settler.
Crossing the state border into Wyoming it looks like the landscape is pretty much entirely volcanic aftermath. Vast, undulating yet well-adapted lava fields with strong, uniform grass-growth stretch off to the horizon ahead of me. And this is basically the landscape I see throughout the whole of Wyoming, aside from the mountains off to the west.
I spent the night in Buffalo, at an RV park. The majority of such places are shutting down for the winter so, where I can find an open one, they are largely quiet and peaceful, though often in winter mode, which means lacking in amenities. I am therefore getting more proficient at 'holding it in', though am by no means an expert. Yep, you're getting the nuts and bolts and no mistake.
Buffalo WY to Badlands SD
ipod: Brig to Butc
First night back sleeping in the van for a few days and I think it is fair to say it was cold. According to the website I'm using to keep track of the weather, it got as low as 7 degrees in F's last night which, when you consider 32 F's (see the name of this here blog) is the freezing point of water, 7 of them is pretty darn Arctic. As a result, all my liquid supplies solidified overnight - water, juice, teabags. I also had to treat my devices for hypothermia, warming them slowly, bringing their core temperature back up using my hat, gloves and, eventually, introducing them to the snug warmth of my sleeping bag/duvet combo (shared body heat - classic move). I doubt I'll be alone in my bed for the next few nights unless there is a sudden heatwave.
Within minutes of starting out on the freeway again, I was treated to the sight of a bald eagle - the one off the seal of the President of the United States - perched on a fence post at the side of the road. Today's route crosses all manner of creeks, I assume named by Native Americans rather a long time ago: Dead Horse creek, Crazy Horse creek, Crazy Woman creek (not even lying, any crazy female doubters out there).
The roads are all open and clear of obstruction, either by the weather or other drivers. I'm so happy with my decision to come to America straight from Canada. It couldn't have worked out better. I'm getting to see everything - things I want to see aren't shut down for the winter - and I'm actually able to get to places. The road I am travelling on (the I-90) has warning signs every fifty miles or so saying to leave the road if the lights on the signs are flashing. So far none have been. I guess they only flash if the road is covered in snow, which I am sure it would have been if I hadn't gotten to the States until January.
Towards the end of the drive into South Dakota, I take a small detour to Mount Rushmore to have a look at it - it is kind of iconic, to say the least. Cary Grant did some climbing on it in North by Northwest. Michael 'Marionette' Moore did some terrorism in it in Team America: World Police. I did some looking at it; I don't think I was filmed. There was even a sign on the drive towards the site saying "North by Northwest was filmed in this region." I must have missed the one that said the same about Team America.
Badlands SD to Sioux Falls SD
ipod: Butc to Car
Another freezing night, this time spent in a deserted RV park right next door to the Minuteman nuclear missile test facility in the South Dakota desert. I wasn't visited by Rorschach, thankfully. The choice of site was entirely due to its' proximity to Badlands National Park, a collection of weather-worn canyons, cliffs and boulders in the plains outside of Rapid City. Pretty spectacular stuff; slightly odd to experience on a crisp Autumnal morning, with a wintery chill in the air, in a stunning desert landscape. Signs warn tourists to carry plenty of water because of the sweltering temperatures. I didn't have such worries, although I did pay attention to the warnings of rattlesnakes (no encounters). I took a morning stroll through some of the canyons - one particularly precarious path allowed me to climb onto the formations, a rarity in American parks - before getting back behind the wheel and heading east again.
I pass an authentic 1880's town, repleat with picturesque church house on a hillock. The cross-wind angling down from the north is viscious today, catching me by surprise on one notable occasion as it whistled through any small gaps in the make-up of the van. It maybe shifted the van as much as a foot to the right on the roadway. I am also struck by the large number of disturbing crime scenes littering the freeway as I pass through South Dakota. Either the suicide rate amongst the local deer population is unusually high, or roadkill happens much more here than other states I have visited. The sheer volumes only compound what are truly harrowing sights.
One other thing is apparent on this leg of my odyssey. Billboards again. There are thousands of the things, some advertising establishments that are 150 miles away. That's like driving west out of London and seeing a billboard for a B&B in Cardiff...clearly sense of scale in these huge countries is still something I am getting used to. My favourite billboard has earnt itself a place in the title of this post. So many possibilities for what it involves, but I daren't look at the website for fear of disappointment. We Do Cows Dot Com is nicely juxtaposed with another billboard, this one for Olivia's Adult Supercentre. Then, not two miles further on, there is a billboard for Annabelle's Adult Supercentre. Perhaps Olivia and Annabelle are related - the adidas/Puma of the Adult Supercentre world. Maybe they even have a stake in We Do Cows Dot Com too...
Forty miles out from my destination I see a billboard advertising it: Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park RV Campground. The true purpose of my year-long sabbatical finally within sight.
Jellystone Park SD to Perrot State Park WI
ipod: Car to Chemic
There's not really a lot to say about today, other than I started out with Yogi and Boo-Boo, drove across the entire state of Minnesota, somehow continued to dodge the snow (some has fallen ahead of me, in Wisconsin, the last couple of days...I guess I'll find out what is left of it soon enough), and spent the night deep in the forest of Perrot State Park, near the upper reaches of the majestic Mississippi, alone, in the dark. The setting can't be more like a location out of a teen slasher movie if it tried. The water supply is even contaminated with nitrates. I pull the duvet tight over my head and hope to wake up in the morning...
...it's 6AM. There's a noise, a scratching at the outside of the van. Really not funny, Mr. Bird, or Mrs. Deer, or whoever you are.
Perrot State Park WI to Madison WI
ipod: Chemic to Chemis
A short way out of La Crosse - the biggest town near to Perrot - the fields flanking the freeway start to show signs of the recent snowfall. The roads, however, are totally clear. It seems the authorities round these parts know what they're doing when the flakes begin to fall, in stark contrast to recent times in the UK.
I drive past another waterpark, except this one isn't for sale. Then another next door! And a third! Three massive waterparks right next door to each other. It's a waterparkpark! Perhaps I have underestimated the power of the waterpark in this region. What better way to escape the freezing blanket of water outside than to splash about inside. Wait, there's a billboard...a waterslide that does a loop-the-loop! Oh my.
Relatively, today is a short drive, between two and three hours, so I detour via Dr. Evermore's scrap sculptures which, through their size, have earnt him a mention in the Guinness Book of Records. I pass through the town of Lodi on the way, home of Susi the Duck (I've no idea). Unfortunately Dr. Evermore's scrap sculptures aren't where the book says they are, so I continue on into Madison and a couple of nights recovery in the quaint townhouse hostel there, the Great Plains tamed.
Finally, for those of you that it interests, the ipod A->Z involved a rather narrow section of the alphabet today. That would be the fault of The Chemical Brothers. There have been a few artists within the A's and the B's who have three albums to their name on my ipod, but The Chemical Brothers are the first to take up virtually a whole day on their own. It has been quite some time since I listened to them and, let me tell you, it made quite a party in the Purple Nimbus as we headed down the highway. Even Emily joined in, trying to make herself heard above the racket: "In 800 yards, turn right on West Neddy. I'm 'bout ready to rock steady." It was like the second half of the nineties all over again.
I had forgotten quite how awesome those early albums were - albums in the truest sense, not just collections of hits. Is it really sixteen years since I listened to Exit Planet Dust for the first time, that summer in Aviemore? Sixteen years! Half my life ago! And Dig Your Own Hole, well, that album is heavy. I had it in my head that, as the years have gone by, forms of music have gotten into the mainstream that do the dirty bass thing heavier - dubstep and the equivalent end of drum n bass - but, man, Dig Your Own Hole is downright filthy! 'Elektrobank/Piku', 'It Doesn't Matter', the back end of 'Where Do I Begin'!
Yep, we've had a good day today. And I just have to sign off this installment by name-checking one more old Chemical Brothers tune...Life Is Sweet.
This section of the journey will see me crossing the Great Plains towards the Great Lakes and, eventually, reaching the second city of America: Chicago. I forgot to include the ipod A->Z in my last blog. Well, four days driving round Yellowstone accounted for the artists from Bent to Boa. Here's what happened next...
Gardiner MT to Buffalo WY
ipod: Boa to Brig
I passed an advert for a waterpark for sale - and I passed the waterpark itself actually - if anyone fancies a waterpark. It is well placed - you know what they say, location location location - at the side of the I-90 interstate in The Absolute Middle Of Nowhere. The nearest towns are miles away, and probably only hold a few hundred people, if that. Your client base must, I guess, be comprised entirely of passing motorists.
My route takes me past Little Bighorn, the site most commonly referred to as the scene of 'Custers Last Stand'. Two sides to every story, of course. The Native side, in this case, is called 'The Battle of Greasy Grass'. I sidled past in the van, and procured some gasoline from a distant descendant of an original North American settler.
Crossing the state border into Wyoming it looks like the landscape is pretty much entirely volcanic aftermath. Vast, undulating yet well-adapted lava fields with strong, uniform grass-growth stretch off to the horizon ahead of me. And this is basically the landscape I see throughout the whole of Wyoming, aside from the mountains off to the west.
I spent the night in Buffalo, at an RV park. The majority of such places are shutting down for the winter so, where I can find an open one, they are largely quiet and peaceful, though often in winter mode, which means lacking in amenities. I am therefore getting more proficient at 'holding it in', though am by no means an expert. Yep, you're getting the nuts and bolts and no mistake.
Buffalo WY to Badlands SD
ipod: Brig to Butc
First night back sleeping in the van for a few days and I think it is fair to say it was cold. According to the website I'm using to keep track of the weather, it got as low as 7 degrees in F's last night which, when you consider 32 F's (see the name of this here blog) is the freezing point of water, 7 of them is pretty darn Arctic. As a result, all my liquid supplies solidified overnight - water, juice, teabags. I also had to treat my devices for hypothermia, warming them slowly, bringing their core temperature back up using my hat, gloves and, eventually, introducing them to the snug warmth of my sleeping bag/duvet combo (shared body heat - classic move). I doubt I'll be alone in my bed for the next few nights unless there is a sudden heatwave.
Within minutes of starting out on the freeway again, I was treated to the sight of a bald eagle - the one off the seal of the President of the United States - perched on a fence post at the side of the road. Today's route crosses all manner of creeks, I assume named by Native Americans rather a long time ago: Dead Horse creek, Crazy Horse creek, Crazy Woman creek (not even lying, any crazy female doubters out there).
The roads are all open and clear of obstruction, either by the weather or other drivers. I'm so happy with my decision to come to America straight from Canada. It couldn't have worked out better. I'm getting to see everything - things I want to see aren't shut down for the winter - and I'm actually able to get to places. The road I am travelling on (the I-90) has warning signs every fifty miles or so saying to leave the road if the lights on the signs are flashing. So far none have been. I guess they only flash if the road is covered in snow, which I am sure it would have been if I hadn't gotten to the States until January.
Towards the end of the drive into South Dakota, I take a small detour to Mount Rushmore to have a look at it - it is kind of iconic, to say the least. Cary Grant did some climbing on it in North by Northwest. Michael 'Marionette' Moore did some terrorism in it in Team America: World Police. I did some looking at it; I don't think I was filmed. There was even a sign on the drive towards the site saying "North by Northwest was filmed in this region." I must have missed the one that said the same about Team America.
Badlands SD to Sioux Falls SD
ipod: Butc to Car
Another freezing night, this time spent in a deserted RV park right next door to the Minuteman nuclear missile test facility in the South Dakota desert. I wasn't visited by Rorschach, thankfully. The choice of site was entirely due to its' proximity to Badlands National Park, a collection of weather-worn canyons, cliffs and boulders in the plains outside of Rapid City. Pretty spectacular stuff; slightly odd to experience on a crisp Autumnal morning, with a wintery chill in the air, in a stunning desert landscape. Signs warn tourists to carry plenty of water because of the sweltering temperatures. I didn't have such worries, although I did pay attention to the warnings of rattlesnakes (no encounters). I took a morning stroll through some of the canyons - one particularly precarious path allowed me to climb onto the formations, a rarity in American parks - before getting back behind the wheel and heading east again.
I pass an authentic 1880's town, repleat with picturesque church house on a hillock. The cross-wind angling down from the north is viscious today, catching me by surprise on one notable occasion as it whistled through any small gaps in the make-up of the van. It maybe shifted the van as much as a foot to the right on the roadway. I am also struck by the large number of disturbing crime scenes littering the freeway as I pass through South Dakota. Either the suicide rate amongst the local deer population is unusually high, or roadkill happens much more here than other states I have visited. The sheer volumes only compound what are truly harrowing sights.
One other thing is apparent on this leg of my odyssey. Billboards again. There are thousands of the things, some advertising establishments that are 150 miles away. That's like driving west out of London and seeing a billboard for a B&B in Cardiff...clearly sense of scale in these huge countries is still something I am getting used to. My favourite billboard has earnt itself a place in the title of this post. So many possibilities for what it involves, but I daren't look at the website for fear of disappointment. We Do Cows Dot Com is nicely juxtaposed with another billboard, this one for Olivia's Adult Supercentre. Then, not two miles further on, there is a billboard for Annabelle's Adult Supercentre. Perhaps Olivia and Annabelle are related - the adidas/Puma of the Adult Supercentre world. Maybe they even have a stake in We Do Cows Dot Com too...
Forty miles out from my destination I see a billboard advertising it: Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park RV Campground. The true purpose of my year-long sabbatical finally within sight.
Jellystone Park SD to Perrot State Park WI
ipod: Car to Chemic
There's not really a lot to say about today, other than I started out with Yogi and Boo-Boo, drove across the entire state of Minnesota, somehow continued to dodge the snow (some has fallen ahead of me, in Wisconsin, the last couple of days...I guess I'll find out what is left of it soon enough), and spent the night deep in the forest of Perrot State Park, near the upper reaches of the majestic Mississippi, alone, in the dark. The setting can't be more like a location out of a teen slasher movie if it tried. The water supply is even contaminated with nitrates. I pull the duvet tight over my head and hope to wake up in the morning...
...it's 6AM. There's a noise, a scratching at the outside of the van. Really not funny, Mr. Bird, or Mrs. Deer, or whoever you are.
Perrot State Park WI to Madison WI
ipod: Chemic to Chemis
A short way out of La Crosse - the biggest town near to Perrot - the fields flanking the freeway start to show signs of the recent snowfall. The roads, however, are totally clear. It seems the authorities round these parts know what they're doing when the flakes begin to fall, in stark contrast to recent times in the UK.
I drive past another waterpark, except this one isn't for sale. Then another next door! And a third! Three massive waterparks right next door to each other. It's a waterparkpark! Perhaps I have underestimated the power of the waterpark in this region. What better way to escape the freezing blanket of water outside than to splash about inside. Wait, there's a billboard...a waterslide that does a loop-the-loop! Oh my.
Relatively, today is a short drive, between two and three hours, so I detour via Dr. Evermore's scrap sculptures which, through their size, have earnt him a mention in the Guinness Book of Records. I pass through the town of Lodi on the way, home of Susi the Duck (I've no idea). Unfortunately Dr. Evermore's scrap sculptures aren't where the book says they are, so I continue on into Madison and a couple of nights recovery in the quaint townhouse hostel there, the Great Plains tamed.
Finally, for those of you that it interests, the ipod A->Z involved a rather narrow section of the alphabet today. That would be the fault of The Chemical Brothers. There have been a few artists within the A's and the B's who have three albums to their name on my ipod, but The Chemical Brothers are the first to take up virtually a whole day on their own. It has been quite some time since I listened to them and, let me tell you, it made quite a party in the Purple Nimbus as we headed down the highway. Even Emily joined in, trying to make herself heard above the racket: "In 800 yards, turn right on West Neddy. I'm 'bout ready to rock steady." It was like the second half of the nineties all over again.
I had forgotten quite how awesome those early albums were - albums in the truest sense, not just collections of hits. Is it really sixteen years since I listened to Exit Planet Dust for the first time, that summer in Aviemore? Sixteen years! Half my life ago! And Dig Your Own Hole, well, that album is heavy. I had it in my head that, as the years have gone by, forms of music have gotten into the mainstream that do the dirty bass thing heavier - dubstep and the equivalent end of drum n bass - but, man, Dig Your Own Hole is downright filthy! 'Elektrobank/Piku', 'It Doesn't Matter', the back end of 'Where Do I Begin'!
Yep, we've had a good day today. And I just have to sign off this installment by name-checking one more old Chemical Brothers tune...Life Is Sweet.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
#027: Mmm, Sulphur
Five nights by Yellowstone. I've been looking forward to this bit.
Yellowstone's internal roads are scheduled to be closed from the 7th, earlier if it snows heavy. I arrive in Gardiner on the evening of the 2nd.
I'm sure some of you saw the BBC documentary 'Yellowstone' in the last couple of years. For those that didn't, Yellowstone National Park sits atop an age-old volcano in the middle of the Rockies. It lies predominately within the state of Wyoming, but straddles state borders into Montana in the north and Idaho to the west. At its' centre is a huge plateau, 8000ft above sea level, surrounded on three sides by mountains. Here roam herds of bison and elk alongside packs of wolves, reintroduced to the area in the nineties. Here, also, is the greatest concentration of geysirs and hot springs in the world.
Day One
The forecast says I've got a day-and-a-half until the snow comes. That's the real snow, I assume, because a lot of the park is already pretty much covered - about three inches. The roads, however, are clear, aside from a small amount of snow where they sit fully in the shade of the forests. The park is eminently driveable. I choose today to get as far south, as far into the park as I can. On the way I see bison. And I see a lone wolf off to the side of the road. It is right about now I feel a pang of regret for not finding room in my down-sized pack for my camera and lenses.
You have probably heard of 'Old Faithful', a regularly spouting geysir and the parks' centrepiece. It sits on the southwest corner of the central plateau, about ninety minutes drive away, and the amount of natural attractions on the route fills a whole day easily.
Old Faithful is set up to cope with huge numbers of tourists - there is bench seating enough for perhaps a thousand people. It spouts roughly every two hours, though cannot be precisely timed, so I am quite pleased to see it do its' thing a few minutes after I arrive. It isn't freezing out, but I expect two hours of waiting would have made it much colder.
On the drive back to Gardiner I stop off at the many geothermal features that line the route. Even though the region is so far above sea level - I struggle to get my head round this - the Earth's magma is close enough to the surface, and the water in the ground so plentiful (a lot of snow in winter) that there are hot springs, geysirs and mud pots around every corner.
Alongside the multitude of holes spouting boiling water, I'm also lucky enough to see a pair of wolves, a couple, tracking across a snowy white plain in the far distance. I win. Except they are far too far away for me to photograph. I lose.
Day Two
A predicted half-day before the snow is due, so I plan to swiftly drive down the opposite side of the central plateau, through Hayden Valley - home of numerous Bison herds - to Yellowstone Lake.
Unfortunately my chosen route takes me over Dunraven Pass, where the winter weather has already taken hold, so the road is closed. Fortunately there is a road, across the central plateau, that will take me into the Hayden Valley. Unfortunately this road too has had a dusting of snow. Fortunately, it is not enough to stop the Purple Nimbus from safely making its' way across.
So I drive to Yellowstone Lake, which is vast and eerie and backed by snow-capped peaks. And I drive through Hayden Valley and I see three or four separate herds of bison. And I see one lone bison at the bottom of the Yellowstone river valley below. And I visit Mud Volcano, a small gurgling cauldron of, well, mud. And whilst there I see Dragon's Mouth Spring - apparently named because the water that surges from the cave there resembles a dragon's tongue. Personally I would puport it was named such because the steam rising from the cave/mouth is not unlike a dragon's breath. Because we all know that dragons breathe fire, right.
Further north I stop at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and risk the stepped descent into the ravine to see the falls there. It is only on the reciprocal ascent that I realise climbing 398 steps at 8000ft isn't the easiest of tasks, especially given my sole exercise for the last month has been moving my right foot from accelerator to brake. I keep one eye to the sky for the impending snow storm. Clouds are gathering above the mountains to the west. I turn that way, towards the plateau road, and am met by another wolf twenty yards off to the right - close enough to get a picture that actually resembles a wolf. Or maybe a coyote. Dang.
As I drive back over the plateau I am surprised by a lone bison stumbling from the undergrowth onto the verge. He is almost the size of the van, huge. It is on the last stretch back to Gardiner that the flakes begin to fall.
Day Three
I'm expecting more roads to be closed with further snow forecast for the day. Today's destination is the Lamar Valley, along the only park road that stays open year round, and home to the greatest number of wolves in the park. The road is clear initially, then turns snowy, similar to the plateau road yesterday, before climbing up through trees above a cliff above the Yellowstone river valley. The snow starts falling.
Last year, Dave, Manuel, Jamie and I went to Iceland and road-tripped into the wilderness. Even now I am convinced we were a matter of minutes from getting trapped in the blizzard that caught us in the mountains there, never to be seen again. That experience has taught me to err on the side of caution in these situations so, when the layer of snow became consistent across the road, and I felt the van might not make it up/down the hills safely, I chose to turn around. As exhilarating as it might be to skate a van sideways into a 200ft raveen, I suspect that exhilaration might only be short term. And, given how much slipping and sliding the van did as I exacted my three-point turn, I figure I made the right decision.
So as not to waste the day I headed to a spot where I had seen bison on the first day and did a spot of winter safari. No wolves, sadly, but I did spot a little stripy, scurrying rodent escaping the minus 5 celcius temperatures down his wee hole. [Three different 'spots'.] I'll bet he is well toasty in there - a little den on top of hot springs. A park ranger closes a road for the day as the snowfall becomes slightly more consistent. Time to get down the mountain methinks.
Day Four
As my days in Yellowstone have gone by, so too the snow settles at lesser and lesser altitudes until, on the morning of day four, the Purple Nimbus awakes with a covering all of his own. Today is set aside as contingency, but I made sure to leave the attractions nearest to Gardiner unwitnessed to make one final venture into the park wholly worthwhile. Alas, the road to Lamar Valley remains snowbound - more so than yesterday even - so I shall have to content myself with the three wolf sightings amassed to date. Saying that, you know, I'm feeling fairly sure this won't be my last visit to Yellowstone. There is time yet in this life for further commune with the wild canines.
I spend a couple of hours wandering round Mammoth Hot Springs, a place with many, many outlets producing a raft of multi-coloured stepped mineral deposits on the side of the hill. It is bitterly cold, the wind chill taking the temperatures down to minus 15 celcius. Brr.
So, that was Yellowstone. My seemingly annual hankering for landscapes embattled by geothermal activity is satiated and I have had my fill of sulphurous gases. You know, I reckon I got the timing very nearly spot on. A bit gutted I didn't make it to Lamar Valley to see the wolves, so maybe an arrival a few days earlier may have been more satisfying, but to see Yellowstone crisp and sprinkled with snow, the bison beginning to shovel their way to their meals, the roads unburdened...if and when I return I might well aim for the back end of October again.
Next up, about a week trekking across the Great Plains - Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota - into Wisconsin to the Great Lakes and America's second city: Chicago.
Here's the best of the pictures I managed this week. Apologies for the lack of right-way-up-ness in some of them. Photobucket is lame. I'll stick 'em on fbook too...
Yellowstone's internal roads are scheduled to be closed from the 7th, earlier if it snows heavy. I arrive in Gardiner on the evening of the 2nd.
I'm sure some of you saw the BBC documentary 'Yellowstone' in the last couple of years. For those that didn't, Yellowstone National Park sits atop an age-old volcano in the middle of the Rockies. It lies predominately within the state of Wyoming, but straddles state borders into Montana in the north and Idaho to the west. At its' centre is a huge plateau, 8000ft above sea level, surrounded on three sides by mountains. Here roam herds of bison and elk alongside packs of wolves, reintroduced to the area in the nineties. Here, also, is the greatest concentration of geysirs and hot springs in the world.
Day One
The forecast says I've got a day-and-a-half until the snow comes. That's the real snow, I assume, because a lot of the park is already pretty much covered - about three inches. The roads, however, are clear, aside from a small amount of snow where they sit fully in the shade of the forests. The park is eminently driveable. I choose today to get as far south, as far into the park as I can. On the way I see bison. And I see a lone wolf off to the side of the road. It is right about now I feel a pang of regret for not finding room in my down-sized pack for my camera and lenses.
You have probably heard of 'Old Faithful', a regularly spouting geysir and the parks' centrepiece. It sits on the southwest corner of the central plateau, about ninety minutes drive away, and the amount of natural attractions on the route fills a whole day easily.
Old Faithful is set up to cope with huge numbers of tourists - there is bench seating enough for perhaps a thousand people. It spouts roughly every two hours, though cannot be precisely timed, so I am quite pleased to see it do its' thing a few minutes after I arrive. It isn't freezing out, but I expect two hours of waiting would have made it much colder.
On the drive back to Gardiner I stop off at the many geothermal features that line the route. Even though the region is so far above sea level - I struggle to get my head round this - the Earth's magma is close enough to the surface, and the water in the ground so plentiful (a lot of snow in winter) that there are hot springs, geysirs and mud pots around every corner.
Alongside the multitude of holes spouting boiling water, I'm also lucky enough to see a pair of wolves, a couple, tracking across a snowy white plain in the far distance. I win. Except they are far too far away for me to photograph. I lose.
Day Two
A predicted half-day before the snow is due, so I plan to swiftly drive down the opposite side of the central plateau, through Hayden Valley - home of numerous Bison herds - to Yellowstone Lake.
Unfortunately my chosen route takes me over Dunraven Pass, where the winter weather has already taken hold, so the road is closed. Fortunately there is a road, across the central plateau, that will take me into the Hayden Valley. Unfortunately this road too has had a dusting of snow. Fortunately, it is not enough to stop the Purple Nimbus from safely making its' way across.
So I drive to Yellowstone Lake, which is vast and eerie and backed by snow-capped peaks. And I drive through Hayden Valley and I see three or four separate herds of bison. And I see one lone bison at the bottom of the Yellowstone river valley below. And I visit Mud Volcano, a small gurgling cauldron of, well, mud. And whilst there I see Dragon's Mouth Spring - apparently named because the water that surges from the cave there resembles a dragon's tongue. Personally I would puport it was named such because the steam rising from the cave/mouth is not unlike a dragon's breath. Because we all know that dragons breathe fire, right.
Further north I stop at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and risk the stepped descent into the ravine to see the falls there. It is only on the reciprocal ascent that I realise climbing 398 steps at 8000ft isn't the easiest of tasks, especially given my sole exercise for the last month has been moving my right foot from accelerator to brake. I keep one eye to the sky for the impending snow storm. Clouds are gathering above the mountains to the west. I turn that way, towards the plateau road, and am met by another wolf twenty yards off to the right - close enough to get a picture that actually resembles a wolf. Or maybe a coyote. Dang.
As I drive back over the plateau I am surprised by a lone bison stumbling from the undergrowth onto the verge. He is almost the size of the van, huge. It is on the last stretch back to Gardiner that the flakes begin to fall.
Day Three
I'm expecting more roads to be closed with further snow forecast for the day. Today's destination is the Lamar Valley, along the only park road that stays open year round, and home to the greatest number of wolves in the park. The road is clear initially, then turns snowy, similar to the plateau road yesterday, before climbing up through trees above a cliff above the Yellowstone river valley. The snow starts falling.
Last year, Dave, Manuel, Jamie and I went to Iceland and road-tripped into the wilderness. Even now I am convinced we were a matter of minutes from getting trapped in the blizzard that caught us in the mountains there, never to be seen again. That experience has taught me to err on the side of caution in these situations so, when the layer of snow became consistent across the road, and I felt the van might not make it up/down the hills safely, I chose to turn around. As exhilarating as it might be to skate a van sideways into a 200ft raveen, I suspect that exhilaration might only be short term. And, given how much slipping and sliding the van did as I exacted my three-point turn, I figure I made the right decision.
So as not to waste the day I headed to a spot where I had seen bison on the first day and did a spot of winter safari. No wolves, sadly, but I did spot a little stripy, scurrying rodent escaping the minus 5 celcius temperatures down his wee hole. [Three different 'spots'.] I'll bet he is well toasty in there - a little den on top of hot springs. A park ranger closes a road for the day as the snowfall becomes slightly more consistent. Time to get down the mountain methinks.
Day Four
As my days in Yellowstone have gone by, so too the snow settles at lesser and lesser altitudes until, on the morning of day four, the Purple Nimbus awakes with a covering all of his own. Today is set aside as contingency, but I made sure to leave the attractions nearest to Gardiner unwitnessed to make one final venture into the park wholly worthwhile. Alas, the road to Lamar Valley remains snowbound - more so than yesterday even - so I shall have to content myself with the three wolf sightings amassed to date. Saying that, you know, I'm feeling fairly sure this won't be my last visit to Yellowstone. There is time yet in this life for further commune with the wild canines.
I spend a couple of hours wandering round Mammoth Hot Springs, a place with many, many outlets producing a raft of multi-coloured stepped mineral deposits on the side of the hill. It is bitterly cold, the wind chill taking the temperatures down to minus 15 celcius. Brr.
So, that was Yellowstone. My seemingly annual hankering for landscapes embattled by geothermal activity is satiated and I have had my fill of sulphurous gases. You know, I reckon I got the timing very nearly spot on. A bit gutted I didn't make it to Lamar Valley to see the wolves, so maybe an arrival a few days earlier may have been more satisfying, but to see Yellowstone crisp and sprinkled with snow, the bison beginning to shovel their way to their meals, the roads unburdened...if and when I return I might well aim for the back end of October again.
Next up, about a week trekking across the Great Plains - Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota - into Wisconsin to the Great Lakes and America's second city: Chicago.
Here's the best of the pictures I managed this week. Apologies for the lack of right-way-up-ness in some of them. Photobucket is lame. I'll stick 'em on fbook too...
Monday, 7 November 2011
#026: Right Turn, Clyde
After a few nights in the Portland trailer park I headed north again, to Seattle. No sooner had I left the island and crossed the Columbia river bridge into Washington state, than it started bucketing down with rain. Stephanie Meyer wasn't lying about the Washington weather.
Seattle is only a few hours drive from Portland. An hours detour en route is enough to get to Mount St. Helens, an active volcano in southern Washington. In 1980, Mt St. Helens was the talk of the world, its' eruption projecting laterally and flattening forests for as much as seventeen miles around. Then, between 2004 and 2008, the volcano experienced one continuous eruption, with a gradual extrusion of lava creating a new lava dome in the crater left after 1980. A number of steam and ash plume releases occurred over the course of this eruption, occasionally dusting the surrounding area with ash.
On my approach, the clouds funnelled down from the sky like the forming of a tornado, swallowing and shrouding the mountain. Retribution for its' repeated outpourings. The drive took me along the Toutle valley, the road lined with freshly-planted forests, and the valley floor showing clear evidence of the eruption thirty years before. The new forests were Midwich in their uniformity, each fir seemingly identical to the next.
My destination was the Johnston Ridge Observatory, on the last day of its' 2011 season. It is named after David Johnston, a volcanologist who convinced authorities in 1980 to the keep the area around the volcano closed to the public, despite great pressure to re-open. He predicted a lateral blast as the north side of the volcano developed a large bulge in the month leading to the eruption. He was positioned on the ridge - 5 miles to the north - monitoring the volcano, when it eventually decided to release its' contents. His final words - to the research station in Vancouver, Washington: "Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it". Johnston's body was never recovered, but remnants of his truck were unearthed, in 1993, fully thirteen years later. Thanks to his influence, only 50 people lost their lives that day.
Driving away from Mt St. Helens, a thick fog came down and covered the road, such that I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of the van. Stephanie Meyer plainly thoroughly researched them books of hers. Ain't no-one gonna sparkle in that.
So to Seattle (ipod: Audi to Ball). It has struck me there's an American 'thing' for jogging topless. At first it didn't register, alongside the beaches of greater LA. But witness it in Seattle, when it's on the very cusp of November - All Hallows' Eve, to be precise - you sit up and take notice. Men only so far, of course. I live in hope.
I visited the EMP (Experience Music Project) museum, a collection of music, sci-fi and pop culture items. I saw an exhibit about the greats of horror films, a chunk of the guitar that Jimi Hendrix famously torched at Monterey and, predictably, a collection of Nirvana memorabilia, this featuring items donated by Krist Novoselic including some intimate polaroids from back in the day.
I succumbed to a Subway one afternoon (never been averse to a foot-long and can polish one off in under ten minutes). The Subway lady took quite a shine to my eight-week growth beard. I say 'took a shine'...she was mainly interested in how far my hirsutism extended, her eyes never left me as she prepared my sandwich, and there was something in her gentle caress, as she gave me my change, that screamed 'rape'. Still, the sub was satisfying, and I don't remember it tasting of rohypnol.
A couple of nights in Seattle and it was time to turn right. For the next few weeks the sun will be setting in my rear-view mirror as I head east. A couple of days on the road, then. The first (ipod: Ball to Bear), the mountains and prairies of Washington state. Driving across plains at 5000ft, higher than Ben Nevis. Great wind farms alongside the freeway. I crossed the Columbia river again. It is vast, and those nice American authorities have seen fit to put a viewpoint right above the crossing - a great place for a spot of lunch!
That night I stayed in an RV park in northern Idaho, where I met Mike, the friendly RV park guy. We spoke about Yellowstone (which he doesn't like), Yosemite (which he does) and guns (which he does). He was formerly a member of the LAPD, riding in the helicopters, and was keen to tell me a thing or two about concealed weapons (he has three). He said the way I can legally join the concealed weapon club is to buy a Jiffy lemon. I'm not even lying. Easily hidden in the palm of your hand such that, when squirted into the eyes of your assailant, you render them impotent for long enough to exact your escape. Can't wait to be held up at gunpoint so I can pull out my Jiffy lemon.
The next day was a purely driving day (ipod: Bear to Bent). Seven hours from Idaho to Gardiner, Montana, on the border with Wyoming. And the northern gateway to Yellowstone...
Seattle is only a few hours drive from Portland. An hours detour en route is enough to get to Mount St. Helens, an active volcano in southern Washington. In 1980, Mt St. Helens was the talk of the world, its' eruption projecting laterally and flattening forests for as much as seventeen miles around. Then, between 2004 and 2008, the volcano experienced one continuous eruption, with a gradual extrusion of lava creating a new lava dome in the crater left after 1980. A number of steam and ash plume releases occurred over the course of this eruption, occasionally dusting the surrounding area with ash.
On my approach, the clouds funnelled down from the sky like the forming of a tornado, swallowing and shrouding the mountain. Retribution for its' repeated outpourings. The drive took me along the Toutle valley, the road lined with freshly-planted forests, and the valley floor showing clear evidence of the eruption thirty years before. The new forests were Midwich in their uniformity, each fir seemingly identical to the next.
My destination was the Johnston Ridge Observatory, on the last day of its' 2011 season. It is named after David Johnston, a volcanologist who convinced authorities in 1980 to the keep the area around the volcano closed to the public, despite great pressure to re-open. He predicted a lateral blast as the north side of the volcano developed a large bulge in the month leading to the eruption. He was positioned on the ridge - 5 miles to the north - monitoring the volcano, when it eventually decided to release its' contents. His final words - to the research station in Vancouver, Washington: "Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it". Johnston's body was never recovered, but remnants of his truck were unearthed, in 1993, fully thirteen years later. Thanks to his influence, only 50 people lost their lives that day.
Driving away from Mt St. Helens, a thick fog came down and covered the road, such that I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of the van. Stephanie Meyer plainly thoroughly researched them books of hers. Ain't no-one gonna sparkle in that.
So to Seattle (ipod: Audi to Ball). It has struck me there's an American 'thing' for jogging topless. At first it didn't register, alongside the beaches of greater LA. But witness it in Seattle, when it's on the very cusp of November - All Hallows' Eve, to be precise - you sit up and take notice. Men only so far, of course. I live in hope.
I visited the EMP (Experience Music Project) museum, a collection of music, sci-fi and pop culture items. I saw an exhibit about the greats of horror films, a chunk of the guitar that Jimi Hendrix famously torched at Monterey and, predictably, a collection of Nirvana memorabilia, this featuring items donated by Krist Novoselic including some intimate polaroids from back in the day.
I succumbed to a Subway one afternoon (never been averse to a foot-long and can polish one off in under ten minutes). The Subway lady took quite a shine to my eight-week growth beard. I say 'took a shine'...she was mainly interested in how far my hirsutism extended, her eyes never left me as she prepared my sandwich, and there was something in her gentle caress, as she gave me my change, that screamed 'rape'. Still, the sub was satisfying, and I don't remember it tasting of rohypnol.
A couple of nights in Seattle and it was time to turn right. For the next few weeks the sun will be setting in my rear-view mirror as I head east. A couple of days on the road, then. The first (ipod: Ball to Bear), the mountains and prairies of Washington state. Driving across plains at 5000ft, higher than Ben Nevis. Great wind farms alongside the freeway. I crossed the Columbia river again. It is vast, and those nice American authorities have seen fit to put a viewpoint right above the crossing - a great place for a spot of lunch!
That night I stayed in an RV park in northern Idaho, where I met Mike, the friendly RV park guy. We spoke about Yellowstone (which he doesn't like), Yosemite (which he does) and guns (which he does). He was formerly a member of the LAPD, riding in the helicopters, and was keen to tell me a thing or two about concealed weapons (he has three). He said the way I can legally join the concealed weapon club is to buy a Jiffy lemon. I'm not even lying. Easily hidden in the palm of your hand such that, when squirted into the eyes of your assailant, you render them impotent for long enough to exact your escape. Can't wait to be held up at gunpoint so I can pull out my Jiffy lemon.
The next day was a purely driving day (ipod: Bear to Bent). Seven hours from Idaho to Gardiner, Montana, on the border with Wyoming. And the northern gateway to Yellowstone...
Friday, 4 November 2011
#025: Portland, Oregon - The Video Game
Level One: The Trailer Park
The game begins as your character awakes in the back of what appears to be a short wheel-base transit van. You must get your character washed, fed and dressed. Earn XP (Experience Points) as you go. Search for the key code to the toilet block before the time runs out (and you soil yourself). Exit the Trailer Park without getting mocked by kids for an XP bonus.
Level Two: Escape the Island
Do you use the railway bridge or the interstate? There are a multitude of pedestrian crossing power-ups to be found between you and your destination. The puzzle is which ones to use to get to the pedestrian bridge. But where is it? Behind the drive-thru McDonald's? No. Through the grotty underpass? Wrong again. Keep looking!
Level Three: Cross the Columbia River*
You made it to the pedestrian crossing [SPOILER ALERT] on the interstate road bridge. [END SPOILER] You must make it to the other side. Think 80's classic 'Frogger', but obstacles are comprised entirely of pollution:
>Grit thrown into your eyes from under the tyres of the passing traffic (you left your sunglasses power-up in California, so your only eye protection is instinct).
>Noise pollution peaking at permanent-damage-levels of decibels (you do have the ipod/headphone items - using them protects you from the noise pollution, but also makes you vulnerable to cyclist knock-downs).
>Petrol fumes (your only defence is to not breathe). (For the duration of the seven-minute crossing.)
Bonus Level.
Your character, having exited level three with streaming eyes, nausea and an asthmatic relapse, has to negotiate crossing an interstate slip road on foot. On a blind corner. With no pedestrian crossing power-ups.
Level 4: Board the Metro Train
Another puzzler, this level involves using the ticket machine to choose each type of ticket in turn, until you are sure which one you actually want to spend your hard-earned XP on. By doing so, the metro will tantalizingly open its doors for you, then shut them just as you are about to board. The game forces you to take a fifteen minute break at this point, to avoid eye strain.
Following the break, the level changes to a role-playing adventure. You meet The Driver, who tells you which of the two trains waiting at the station leaves next. You know there is someone sat on the wrong train. Do you:
>Leave them, they'll work it out themselves eventually; or
>Tell them, its good for the soul, and your XP.
XP banked (or otherwise), you make your way to the next platform and wait patiently by the metro doors. Which don't open. Then the train leaves.
Take another fifteen minute break.
Sexy cutscene.
Sit back and watch as the metro rolls through the beautiful panorama of the city, to your destination.
Level Five: Meth-fuelled Hobogeddon**
Defend the vegan café from seemingly endless waves of attack by crystal-meth crazed hobos. Use whatever means possible to keep the tips jar from getting snatched. Chick Pea ammunition is readily available.
Level Six: Storm the Castle, Rescue the Princess
You've made it to the centre of the city. Find the Visitor Information Office and use your XP to buy a map. Navigate to the castle and liberate the beautiful princess from the evil clutches of the Nasty Villain.
As it happens, the castle is a shopping centre, the princess is a shiny new ipad, and the Nasty Villain is the quite-nice-guy that served you. And was actually quite happy to let you have the ipad, once you had given him quite a lot of money. Although quite a lot less money than you would have had to give to one of his contemporaries in the UK. Because Oregon doesn't have Sales Tax.
Yeah I bought an ipad.
Game Over.
*Level design influenced by real-life events in the city of Portland - click here for reference.
**Level design influenced by real-life events in the city of Portland - click here for reference.
The game begins as your character awakes in the back of what appears to be a short wheel-base transit van. You must get your character washed, fed and dressed. Earn XP (Experience Points) as you go. Search for the key code to the toilet block before the time runs out (and you soil yourself). Exit the Trailer Park without getting mocked by kids for an XP bonus.
Level Two: Escape the Island
Do you use the railway bridge or the interstate? There are a multitude of pedestrian crossing power-ups to be found between you and your destination. The puzzle is which ones to use to get to the pedestrian bridge. But where is it? Behind the drive-thru McDonald's? No. Through the grotty underpass? Wrong again. Keep looking!
Level Three: Cross the Columbia River*
You made it to the pedestrian crossing [SPOILER ALERT] on the interstate road bridge. [END SPOILER] You must make it to the other side. Think 80's classic 'Frogger', but obstacles are comprised entirely of pollution:
>Grit thrown into your eyes from under the tyres of the passing traffic (you left your sunglasses power-up in California, so your only eye protection is instinct).
>Noise pollution peaking at permanent-damage-levels of decibels (you do have the ipod/headphone items - using them protects you from the noise pollution, but also makes you vulnerable to cyclist knock-downs).
>Petrol fumes (your only defence is to not breathe). (For the duration of the seven-minute crossing.)
Bonus Level.
Your character, having exited level three with streaming eyes, nausea and an asthmatic relapse, has to negotiate crossing an interstate slip road on foot. On a blind corner. With no pedestrian crossing power-ups.
Level 4: Board the Metro Train
Another puzzler, this level involves using the ticket machine to choose each type of ticket in turn, until you are sure which one you actually want to spend your hard-earned XP on. By doing so, the metro will tantalizingly open its doors for you, then shut them just as you are about to board. The game forces you to take a fifteen minute break at this point, to avoid eye strain.
Following the break, the level changes to a role-playing adventure. You meet The Driver, who tells you which of the two trains waiting at the station leaves next. You know there is someone sat on the wrong train. Do you:
>Leave them, they'll work it out themselves eventually; or
>Tell them, its good for the soul, and your XP.
XP banked (or otherwise), you make your way to the next platform and wait patiently by the metro doors. Which don't open. Then the train leaves.
Take another fifteen minute break.
Sexy cutscene.
Sit back and watch as the metro rolls through the beautiful panorama of the city, to your destination.
Level Five: Meth-fuelled Hobogeddon**
Defend the vegan café from seemingly endless waves of attack by crystal-meth crazed hobos. Use whatever means possible to keep the tips jar from getting snatched. Chick Pea ammunition is readily available.
Level Six: Storm the Castle, Rescue the Princess
You've made it to the centre of the city. Find the Visitor Information Office and use your XP to buy a map. Navigate to the castle and liberate the beautiful princess from the evil clutches of the Nasty Villain.
As it happens, the castle is a shopping centre, the princess is a shiny new ipad, and the Nasty Villain is the quite-nice-guy that served you. And was actually quite happy to let you have the ipad, once you had given him quite a lot of money. Although quite a lot less money than you would have had to give to one of his contemporaries in the UK. Because Oregon doesn't have Sales Tax.
Yeah I bought an ipad.
Game Over.
*Level design influenced by real-life events in the city of Portland - click here for reference.
**Level design influenced by real-life events in the city of Portland - click here for reference.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
#024: The Super Driver of the Golden West
On the road. Heading north. Plans are sketchy. Not going to bypass Portland and Seattle. No campgrounds booked. Try and wing it from here to Yellowstone.
Out of San Francisco. Combination of highways 1 and 101. Going to listen to entire ipod. A to Z. Twelve days worth. Or thereabouts.
Through wine country. Massive estates offer tasting. Deer warnings become elk warnings. Then redwoods dominate.
Nine hours on the road.
Clam beach. First night out of San Francisco.
Today was A to Amii. (Highlight: Adam Gnade "Hymn California". Apt.)
Tired. Two previous nights broken by super snorer. Even used earplugs. No avail. Unsure of hostel etiquette. Mention or not?
Wake earlier than hoped. Cold. Windscreen wet outside. First time. Three hundred miles further north. Different climate.
Meet Kenny. Archetypal Californian beach dude. Purple Nimbus got him. That subtle attraction. We touch fists. Raphael was right.
Day two. Get honked at. In praise of textbook driving. No doubt. Tree trunks as big as van. It's that big. Van as big as tree trunks. They're that big.
So many signs. Can't read them all. Roadside attractions. Drive through this tree. Buy this log. See Bigfoot. Confusion Hill - balls roll up! Tree motel. Tree cafe. Tree house. Dinosaurs.
Slip silently out of California. Oregon. Oregon coast. Wow. Just wow. Rocks. Cliffs. Waves. Barren, desolate beauty. Powerful.
Forests so thick you can only see three feet in from the road.
More signs. Look at this view. Look at this view. State Park. Viewpoint. Beach. Viewpoint. Forest. Viewpoint. Viewpoint. Viewpoint. Viewpoint. Viewpoint.
Seven hours on the road.
Bastendorff Beach. Second night out of San Francisco.
Today was An to Anta. (Highlight: Animal Collective. Memories of melodies as experienced by perplexed Spaniards.)
Tired. Early night. Update map first. And journal. Write this word. And this. Early rise. Cold. New State. Need to acclimatise. Eat and leave. On road before nine.
Day Three. Towns borne of estuaries. Towns borne of bays. Bridges and boats.
A postbox held forth by a dolphin. Establishments proclaim with rainbow flags: "We Are Open". Every one.
Lick of mist on a coastal road. Hanging above a lake. Windswept trees arc over the road. Branches one-sided. Seemingly climbing up cliffs.
Refill petrol. Rain. Not rain. Drizzle. First American Drizzle.
Middle of nowhere. Billboards rival Hammersmith flyover. Pictures of business owners (with dogs).
Seven hours on the road.
Portland. Jantzen Beach. An island in the Columbia. A Trailer park.
Today was Anto to Audi. (Highlights: Arab Strap "Elephant Shoe" / Art Brut "Bang Bang Rock and Roll". Old friends.)
Tired. Stupified. Headache.
Drive, eat, sleep. Drive, eat, sleep. Drive, eat, sleep.
Three nights here. Recuperate.
Hopefully.
More to come. More of the same.
Much more.
Out of San Francisco. Combination of highways 1 and 101. Going to listen to entire ipod. A to Z. Twelve days worth. Or thereabouts.
Through wine country. Massive estates offer tasting. Deer warnings become elk warnings. Then redwoods dominate.
Nine hours on the road.
Clam beach. First night out of San Francisco.
Today was A to Amii. (Highlight: Adam Gnade "Hymn California". Apt.)
Tired. Two previous nights broken by super snorer. Even used earplugs. No avail. Unsure of hostel etiquette. Mention or not?
Wake earlier than hoped. Cold. Windscreen wet outside. First time. Three hundred miles further north. Different climate.
Meet Kenny. Archetypal Californian beach dude. Purple Nimbus got him. That subtle attraction. We touch fists. Raphael was right.
Day two. Get honked at. In praise of textbook driving. No doubt. Tree trunks as big as van. It's that big. Van as big as tree trunks. They're that big.
So many signs. Can't read them all. Roadside attractions. Drive through this tree. Buy this log. See Bigfoot. Confusion Hill - balls roll up! Tree motel. Tree cafe. Tree house. Dinosaurs.
Slip silently out of California. Oregon. Oregon coast. Wow. Just wow. Rocks. Cliffs. Waves. Barren, desolate beauty. Powerful.
Forests so thick you can only see three feet in from the road.
More signs. Look at this view. Look at this view. State Park. Viewpoint. Beach. Viewpoint. Forest. Viewpoint. Viewpoint. Viewpoint. Viewpoint. Viewpoint.
Seven hours on the road.
Bastendorff Beach. Second night out of San Francisco.
Today was An to Anta. (Highlight: Animal Collective. Memories of melodies as experienced by perplexed Spaniards.)
Tired. Early night. Update map first. And journal. Write this word. And this. Early rise. Cold. New State. Need to acclimatise. Eat and leave. On road before nine.
Day Three. Towns borne of estuaries. Towns borne of bays. Bridges and boats.
A postbox held forth by a dolphin. Establishments proclaim with rainbow flags: "We Are Open". Every one.
Lick of mist on a coastal road. Hanging above a lake. Windswept trees arc over the road. Branches one-sided. Seemingly climbing up cliffs.
Refill petrol. Rain. Not rain. Drizzle. First American Drizzle.
Middle of nowhere. Billboards rival Hammersmith flyover. Pictures of business owners (with dogs).
Seven hours on the road.
Portland. Jantzen Beach. An island in the Columbia. A Trailer park.
Today was Anto to Audi. (Highlights: Arab Strap "Elephant Shoe" / Art Brut "Bang Bang Rock and Roll". Old friends.)
Tired. Stupified. Headache.
Drive, eat, sleep. Drive, eat, sleep. Drive, eat, sleep.
Three nights here. Recuperate.
Hopefully.
More to come. More of the same.
Much more.
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