Mighty Long
Note the shots in which he's trying to keep it consistent, but he can't quite hold the smile back.
Think he named the pics as he took them or added the captions later?
(in case the other blogs need a friend)
Filed under
road trips
Hollywood Here We Come
Just letting the world know that Lauren brought her wigs to LA. Just in case.
For a recap of the trip from Jackson (pics included), click here.
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With a Head Full of Snow
Tired after a 6 hour nighttime drive.
Jason and I only listened to one song. One time. At the very end of the trip.
Moonlight Mile is track 10 (the last song) on Sticky Fingers.
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But Then They Began to Sway
Pretty sure my love for Cake started on a road trip. Not sure if that's relevant. Also not sure to what I'm hoping it would be relevant.
But I figured I'd write something to go with the song. Because you never know. Something might connect somehow. Maybe.
Palm of Your Hand is track 10 on Pressure Chief.
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New Old Material
Eight and a half hours in the car with my grandfather tomorrow, and I want new stories.
I've heard millions. Hal and I have been close for longer than I can remember. But I know there are more.
And, tomorrow, I hope, they're mine.
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Early Onset Dementia
As I chip away at this tagging project, I'm discovering blog posts that I don't remember writing.
Most notably, this one, which is about the airport in Marquette, Michigan, an airport that sells no gum except for sugary chicklets in a coin drop glass bubble. That post includes both a reference to road trips and soggy lettuce and the Pain song Easy Out. I made that very same wet lettuce reference less than a week ago in a post about the moment I fell in love with Sublime. And I posted Easy Out again even more recently in a post about baseball and my sometimes embarrassing fanaticism. The fact that I'm retelling stories and reintroducing songs is a little bit worrisome, but I do enjoy comparing the writing and thought processes, and I guess it is important to remember that memory imperfection is the biggest reason we write all this stuff down.Comments [0]
40 Oz. to Little America
I had a little flashback tonight to the moment I first really listened to Sublime's 40 Oz. to Freedom.
Tom and I were on the most intense of our many road trips together.
We drove 41 hours straight between Oakland, CA and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The longest we stopped was for one hour. In Custer, SD. In search of an all you can eat salad bar. We found one, but it was terrible. Wet lettuce. Pickled beans that had been there for months. Black olives that stopped me, spoke to me, and told me it'd be smart not to eat them.
There were a few moments during the trip that we craved water. Not to drink. But showers or swims. And, when one of those momentary cravings struck, we were in Wyoming, and we'd been seeing signs for miles and miles for Little America, which, apparently, is THE place to stay if you're long driving through Wyoming. We hadn't the slightest plans to stay anywhere, but we realized, as we drew closer and closer, that, in the dead of summer, anywhere that's THE place to stay is damn well going to have a pool.
So we took the exit, parked, put on our suits, grabbed towels, wandered through the parking lot and among the sections of the motel (Little America is enormous; I remember it feeling like 25 housing units all strung together into a motel metropolis), found the pool, opened the gate, put our towels down, jumped in, rinsed, felt reborn, walked back to the car, put on 40 Oz. to Freedom, and drove on.
I had heard the album before, but it was over that next hour that I realized that I LOVED Sublime.
And now I'm having a hard time choosing a song. Waiting for My Ruca is the one most tightly connected to my memory from that day. 40 Oz. to Freedom is the one I find myself singing most often. And 54-46 That's My Number / Ball And Chain is the one I've used to push people over the Sublime edge, from What I Got-level fans to Boss DJ-level fans.
Man. Tough call.
How about we mix it up and go with the Grateful Dead cover?
She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes
And I knew without asking she was into the blues
Scarlet Begonias is track 10 on 40 Oz. to Freedom.
Filed under //
grateful dead
little america
music
music introductions
road trips
salad bars
sublime
swimming
tom
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MQT
The second time I went to hang with Tom on Lake Superior, we drove.
We'd been on a couple of road trips together already, so we figured we'd make a few days of it.
We liked our plan. I'd fly from the East Coast to the Bay Area. We'd hang there for a day or two. Then we'd explore some Nevada, some Wyoming, a little South Dakota, and maybe some Minnesota or Wisconsin. And we'd roll into the Upper Peninsula with stories to tell.
I arrived at the Oakland airport at 9pm PST. Tom was waiting on the curb outside the baggage claim. I stepped into the car, closed the door, put on my seatbelt, and Tom told me his bags were packed. Should we leave right away, right then, from the airport? I'd been thinking the same thing.
So we left. We'd do the exploring another time.
41 hours straight.
Our longest stop was one hour, in Custer, SD, for an all you can eat buffet. The lettuce at the salad bar was soggy.
There were other stops. In a reservoir in Utah for a rinse. At a Little America motel pool in Wyoming for another. Gas stations. 24 hour stores to buy and microwave frozen burritos. Caffeine outlets. But we pretty much drove it straight through.
Ten hours of sleep. Total. Between the two of us. During a 41 hour stretch. Neither of us wanted the other to fall asleep at the wheel, so we kept each other company. Books on tape were not helpful. Ween, Sublime, Talking Heads, and Pain were.
We rolled up to the lakeshore at dinnertime. We'd left word with some friends to bring enough food to their cookout for us. Baked potatoes, baked beans, hamburger patties, and salad in a bag awaited.
We stayed up until 4am that night, sitting around a campfire and catching up with friends we hadn't seen in a year. We woke up at 8am the next day, jumped in Superior, met everyone for breakfast, planned a day of adventuring, hiked all day, partied until 4am again, and repeated. For a full week. No days off. No nights off. No more rest than was absolutely necessary. Not a moment to spare.
When I arrived at the airport to fly back east at the end of that trip, I gave Tom a hug, checked my bag, walked through security, sat down at the gate, and fell asleep in my chair. They had to wake me up to get me on the plane. The flight attendant closed the door behind me, and the plane started moving before I sat down. Good thing Marquette is tiny. Pretty sure they would have let me sleep in JFK or LAX.
I spent some time in that airport today.
This year's trip was significantly more tranquilo than that other one. We're a little older. A little smarter maybe. Less reckless. Less courageous. But I was still tired this morning. And I still craved a nap.
But I battled through. Tom flew two hours before I did, and he had half a cup of decaf left when they called him to board. That gave me a little boost. A subconscious taste placebo. I didn't fall asleep until I was safely on the plane.
Gotta love the vacations from which you need to recover.
Hopefully listening to a little Pain tonight will help.
We'd been on a couple of road trips together already, so we figured we'd make a few days of it.
We liked our plan. I'd fly from the East Coast to the Bay Area. We'd hang there for a day or two. Then we'd explore some Nevada, some Wyoming, a little South Dakota, and maybe some Minnesota or Wisconsin. And we'd roll into the Upper Peninsula with stories to tell.
I arrived at the Oakland airport at 9pm PST. Tom was waiting on the curb outside the baggage claim. I stepped into the car, closed the door, put on my seatbelt, and Tom told me his bags were packed. Should we leave right away, right then, from the airport? I'd been thinking the same thing.
So we left. We'd do the exploring another time.
41 hours straight.
Our longest stop was one hour, in Custer, SD, for an all you can eat buffet. The lettuce at the salad bar was soggy.
There were other stops. In a reservoir in Utah for a rinse. At a Little America motel pool in Wyoming for another. Gas stations. 24 hour stores to buy and microwave frozen burritos. Caffeine outlets. But we pretty much drove it straight through.
Ten hours of sleep. Total. Between the two of us. During a 41 hour stretch. Neither of us wanted the other to fall asleep at the wheel, so we kept each other company. Books on tape were not helpful. Ween, Sublime, Talking Heads, and Pain were.
We rolled up to the lakeshore at dinnertime. We'd left word with some friends to bring enough food to their cookout for us. Baked potatoes, baked beans, hamburger patties, and salad in a bag awaited.
We stayed up until 4am that night, sitting around a campfire and catching up with friends we hadn't seen in a year. We woke up at 8am the next day, jumped in Superior, met everyone for breakfast, planned a day of adventuring, hiked all day, partied until 4am again, and repeated. For a full week. No days off. No nights off. No more rest than was absolutely necessary. Not a moment to spare.
When I arrived at the airport to fly back east at the end of that trip, I gave Tom a hug, checked my bag, walked through security, sat down at the gate, and fell asleep in my chair. They had to wake me up to get me on the plane. The flight attendant closed the door behind me, and the plane started moving before I sat down. Good thing Marquette is tiny. Pretty sure they would have let me sleep in JFK or LAX.
I spent some time in that airport today.
This year's trip was significantly more tranquilo than that other one. We're a little older. A little smarter maybe. Less reckless. Less courageous. But I was still tired this morning. And I still craved a nap.
But I battled through. Tom flew two hours before I did, and he had half a cup of decaf left when they called him to board. That gave me a little boost. A subconscious taste placebo. I didn't fall asleep until I was safely on the plane.
Gotta love the vacations from which you need to recover.
Hopefully listening to a little Pain tonight will help.
Filed under //
decaf
exhaustion
huron mountain
lake superior
marquette
music
pain
road trips
tom
vacations
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