Western North America

I left Davis last Wednesday with my old school homeboy Nitsan. We are en route to Calgary, because I randomly applied to work at a music festival there.

I'm not even that into folk music, but I will be serving beers to people that are. I will also be receiving a free t-shirt and several free meals. (At which point you respond: AWESOME!)

Our journey has varied from not spectacular to mildly spectacular to spectacular. Let me review some highlights.

On the first night we camped out with some friends at Lake Shasta in northern California. The water was warm, and the white-trashy locals were a plenty. What more could you ask for. We planned on following our friends up the five (I5) towards Eugene, Oregon. We needed to be in Canada 8 days afterwards, and realized we'd be rushing ourselves in places that we wanted to visit, namely Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. So in a semi-imbibed state we mapped a different route to get to Calgary.

The next morning we left Lake Shasta for Weed, CA, where we had planned on ironically smoking pot. (The irony of course lay in the fact that we were smoking pot, not weed. It also might not actually be ironic, which is of course, ironic.) Instead of meeting up in Weed, ate Mexican food in Mount Shasta City. You really feel like you are in Mexico, because both the Mexican and non-Mexican employees greet you with Amigo. And they fill up your chip bowl pretty quickly.

I really felt like I was part of the family at Casa Ramos. Except that when I'm eating lunch with my family, they don't charge me eleven dollars for an enchilada. (Only two dollars.)

We went to Weed afterwards for dessert, but all we could find was a general store that sold such necessities as potpurri, ethnic hair care products, mother's day gifts, and candy bars. (I bought six wave caps)

Then we parted with our friends along the "road less travelled" route 97 into Oregon. The only reason I say its the "road less travelled" is because I saw a sign for a resort that said "take the road less travelled... to our resort."

We got into Oregon and were greeted by signs proclaiming Oregon's Volcanic Legacy. We chose to explore this so-called Volcanic legacy by visiting Crater Lake National Park.

We camped out next to other United Statesians. One girl studied the floral sciences. I could easily make fun of this, but she taught me something very interesting. Wedding boquets are chosenwith the most fragrant flowers, because in the eighteen-hundreds nobody showered, and women didn't want to smell bad on their wedding day, thus aromatic flowers. ahh.

This other dude, who studied fish hatcheries, again not going to make fun of it, said that at Mauna Kea, the volcano on Hawaii's Big Island, you can see so many stars. In fact because you are at such a high altitude, your brain won't even be able to comprehend the amount of stars you are seeing. I forgot if he said you would die from that, or whatever, but it was pretty fascinating.

On Friday morning we left Crater Lake, which by the way did live up to Oregon's volcanic legacy... the water was pristine, and the surroundings were awesome (not in the Bill and Ted sense of the word, but in the Dictionary sense of the word.)

We headed towards Bend, Oregon, which a physicist whom I once did whipits with, told me was a great place to visit. Bend, Oregon is an excellent town with beautiful surroundings and a swell main street. A river goes through the city, and people float down it... it seems like a nice place to live, if you were fifteen or forty-five. But there weren't that many people my age.

We tried to run a gigantic hustle, and by gigantic hustle, I mean we tried to get a library card in Bend. The reason we wanted a library card, was to use the internet... but the librarian just gave us a temporary card. It was such an anti-climactic incident, I now wish I hadn't even written that in this travelblog. But because the backspace key on this keyboard doesn't work, I can't erase anything.

From Bend we drove across the state of Oregon towards Boise (Idaho). We travelled along the 20. We passed through a terrain that I hardly expected to see in Oregon, the high-desert. I always thought Oregon had lush forests, and inactive volcano's (or so the signs on the way into the state suggested.) Despite the difference, Oregon's high-desert is still foxy (can you tell that I am using a thesaurus to look for another word for beautiful?)

On the Oregon/Idaho border we came across a horrible smell, which led us to the most shocking discovery in the history of tater-tots.

Ore-Ida brand products are made on the Oregon and Idaho border. The potatoes are grown in Idaho, and processed in Oregon. I still have yet to figure out why they chose such an odd name though. (derrrh)

Outside of Boise I broke 90,000 miles on my odometer. Pretty much my greatest accomplisment in months. We got into downtown Boise around 9PM, Mountain Time, so it was still light out.

We parked the car and looked for counter-culturals (as opposed to cowboys.) We saw some indie-rockish looking people who we were about to ask where THEY, as in that genre of person, hang out. But before we could say anything they asked me to comment on the giant whole on the corner of Main Street and 8th. What could I do, but respond as though I were a Boise native.

"It's awful, they should replace it with a plaza, with fountains, and live music... etc."

"How long have you lived in Boise."

"We just got in today (yada, yada, yada) Can we stay at your house."

So they didn't let us stay at their house, but they pointed us in the direction of good, cheap, food, and an indie-rockish bar.

We some other indie-rockish kids, and they told us that Idaho has the highest percentage of Bush supporters in the nation (96%) whoa. He even pointed to the liberal part of the state (five blocks up, five blocks over) weird. They also sent us to the Neurolux, a bar for girls with bangs and guys with thick glasses.

We got to the bar, and within minutes we started talking to Boise locals who indulged us in Boise life. They talked about "The Cruise" which is the tradition of driving cars up and down mainstreet to pick up girls. There were different corners for different types of people: cowboys, gangsters, Latino ( I say Latino as opposed to Latinos, because there is only one in Boise). I asked if I could pull girls driving my dirty 1998 Saturn station wagon, that drips coolant.

We also learned, what has become my favorite rhyme:

"Nut in the Butt of a Boise Slut."

alternately:

"Cum in the Bum of a High-School Chum."

these works of majestic poetry make Homer look sophomoric.

As the night came to a close, while people around us were trying to traditionally "seal the deal." We were working in a whole new ball park, we didn't want to sleep with any of the people we were talking to (this is a lie) we just wanted to sleep at the house of the people we had just met. And so, we proposed, with a handle of gin as collateral, that we spend the night at their house.

And so we did, we even got beds... it was awesome.

We left Boise, Saturday for Jackson, by way of Craters of the Moon. After a long drive we got to Craters of the Moon... which had lava flow, that rivalled the volcanic legacy of Oregon. Another few hours later, across a vast and beautiful mounainous terrain, we ended up in Jackson, Wyoming. As we entered the city we sang along to Johnny Cash's "we're going to Jackson." Although I think it is referring to a different city. We get to Jackson, and realize that it is hella touristy... and quite expensive. We look for local counter-culturals, who inform us that we should sleep in the Albertson's parking lot. They also point us towards Eleanor's Cuvee.

A classy, dimly lit, bar, with poorly-mixed music, in the back of a regular, run-of-the-mill, liquor store. 3 dollar pints of good beer though.

We slept in the Albertson's parking lot, not too shabby, we didn't even get raped or murdered.

Then we set off for the Grand Tetons. The Tetons, like much of the landscape we encountered was alarming, astonishing, awe-inspiring, awful, beautiful, breathtaking, daunting, dreadful, exalted, far out, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frantic, frightening, grand, hairy*, horrible, horrifying, imposing, impressive, intimidating, magnificent, majestic, mind-blowing*, moving, nervous, overwhelming, shocking, striking, stunning, stupefying, terrible, terrifying, wonderful, wondrous, zero cool*

But they were better. Huge mountains soar from plains and glacial lakes. Eating on the patio of a restaurant inside the park... reminded me of eating at a shitty bavarian-themed restaurant that has paintings of Alps on the walls. Though the Bison buger was probably better, and the ambience was more epic.

We hiked out to a secluded point and camped there. We some deer, luckily we saw no bears. In the car we left a cache of food, I hoped that bears didn't destroy my windows in pursuit of the food. But if they were going to do it, I prayed that they would destroy the cheapest window to replace.

When we got back to the car the next morning, the car was still in tact. No bears. Good.

On Monday we drove through Yellowstone. We visited the requisite Old Faithful, which was faithful to it's seventeen time a day run, and spurted out water thirty feet high. Realizing that this was all part of an elaborate tourist trap to sell refreshments... I ran to the Ice Cream line before the crowd reached it. Four dollars later, I was devouring a choco-vanilla, choco dipped ice cream. mmm.

On Monday night we got into Bozeman. A town that I read about in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintence. From the book I ascertained that the town had: a University, an Opera House, and a Hamburger stand. Apparently all of this was true. We walked around looking for people our age, and counter-cultural revolutionaries who did not dabble in methamphetamines (as many posters in Bozeman led us to believe). We found some they told us that the bowling alley was the crackingest spot on a Monday night.

On the way back to the car (also in search of unsuspecting Bozemanites, who might let us stay on their couch) we found a youth hostel. A place for our third shower in five states, and where we could just get drunk, without worries of finding a place to stay... perfect.

It was the first hostel I stayed at in the United States. At hostels abroad, you always meet tons of awesome people... I don't know if this is true of hostels in the US.

As we were cooking dinner a weird guy, who we initially thought was a meth head, started talking to us.

"I was just at a family reunion in Idaho, but I've come here to visit an acquaintence."
"Where in Idaho?"
"mmm. I can't remember... where are you from?"
"California."
"Oh I did my mission in Oakland. Hey did you guys see the new John Smith movie? I only saw it once, but I got to see it for free at my temple."
"No we missed it."
"I got a citation for drunk driving, I told her I wasn't drinking because I am LDS."
"LD-S... oh (it means Latter Day Saints)... I guess its hard to get drunk if you don't drink."

I am uncertain if this dialogue can even begin to explain the weirdnoness of this dude... but I would just like to see his encounters with tough Black people in Oakland, trying to convert them to Mormonism.

Also, the term LDS sounds like a disease.

"Doctor, what is it?"
"I am afraid your daughter is suffering from LDS."
"OH GOD, SHE'S A MORMON?!?!"
"Oh, no I'm sorry I meant to say, she is suffering from AIDS."

yikes.

An old woman staying at the hostel asked where our next destination was... Glacier National Park. She told us to hold on as she went to recover a poem she had written about it. She handed it to me to read aloud... I asked if she wanted to read it instead, but she said "I don't mind if you read it."

Anyway it was weird... Everyone at the hostel was weird, excluding a Swiss guy, the Aussie owner, and a girl from UCSB. (This includes Nitsan.)

We went to the bowling alley for one dollar Rolling Rocks... perhaps the best deal in the nation... and watched local drunks, start fights, and be all middle-american and shit. There was also a scantily-clad girl with a very short skirt bowling... mmm.

Today we woke up, ate a better than mediocre sandwich, and came to the campus to poach internet... in a few minutes we will leave, and head northwest, either to Missoula or Glacier National Park. We'll be in Calgary on Thursday.

Holla, Joshua Heller.

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3 Comments - Add Public Comment or Send Private Message

July 25th 2006 - benstein: heller's travels continue to amaze and inspire

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July 25th 2006 - Rachelson-san!: Bearded irony.

I'm sure those country folk only open up to you out of reverence to such a healthy and quality beard. Remember, if you get caught with pot in canada, proclaim your trips purpose as one for "waffles and gravy". gadiel "never been to canada" rach

July 26th 2006 - Vinitsky: Still subscribed to your shit

Heller, what a nice surprise to get an email that you've made yet another posting. your postings are probably more amusing than you are in person. sorry, I'm a little hung over... tell me how middle america goes for you, I'm thinking I want to take a trip like this as well, is it expensive? I wanna know more about Canada. holler

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