No Man's Land

Today was a lovely, lovely day on the road. It was also longer than my average run, with more tourist-related stops and more swerving-onto-the-shoulder-I-have-to-take-a-picture stops. I am now both exhausted and exhilarated and absolutely in love with the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. Oklahoma's panhandle is rightly called No Man's Land, and it is a dark, desolate, and lonely place (the bottom right picture and top left were taken there). I expected the Texas panhandle to be much of the same, but as I came around a bend between two hills, a canyon opened before me that was so huge and so unexpected and so utterly, utterly stunning that my heart felt like it was ripped from my chest and flung into the rolling, plateaued vastness stretched below me. I hope hope hope that there's more of the same on my way to Roswell, New Mexico, tomorrow morning, although I don't know that my heart could take much more.

I have formal shots of the day, ones related to my actual activities (a tour of Boot Hill, a visit to Dorothy's house and the yellow brick road, Beaver Dunes State Park and Shaman's Portal in Oklahoma, and an early dinner at Ned & Darlene's Cafe--the best roadfood experience I've had yet), but for now I need to lie my head down and sleep...so in their place, I just want to share with you a couple of the aforementioned roadside snapshots. I hope you like them.

And I thought Milwaukee packed a punch.

See that bright red spot on my cheek there? Where it looks like I've been hit across the face? Well, THAT'S BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN. BY THE MOTHER EFFING WIND. The wind that is responsible for the current wind chill of TEN BELOW ZERO. That's a NEGATIVE, people. THAT'S A NEGATIVE TEMPERATURE.

I spent eight hours on a six hour journey today, crawling through the arctic tundra that some call 'Kansas.' The country highways I had to take from Kansas City to Dodge City were so iced over that the only hope of movement without skidding was to keep one's vehicle in the tread marks created by the other crawling vehicles. If, say, a gust of wind at 33 mph--oh yes, the same wind that slapped me across the face--were to buffet your car and push it out of the tread marks, your vehicle would scuttle sideways like a crab across the ice until you could realign it, hands white-gripping the wheel. There were no formal lanes today; the highways were snowed over beyond recognition. There were hours in which I was the only vehicle in sight on either bleak horizon. It was lonely, dangerous, and by far the most entertaining drive I've had yet. I think this was the first day I didn't contemplate closing my eyes for a few minutes and letting cruise control take over while I napped.

There were a load of photos I wanted to take--a black windmill against a white field and a white sky, a graveyard of red stones--but because the entire road was covered was ice, I couldn't brake or pull over. I was immeasurably disappointed by this, but I hope you can at least imagine the gorgeous starkness of such a forbidding landscape.

And--just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I got to my Dodge City lodging. I picked it out based on its name (and price) alone. Look how fantastic it is:

This place is exactly what I dreamed the American road motel to be. Please note that every car in the parking lot with the exception of mine is a pickup. Please also note that my room cost me, with tax, a mere $35. And I've got a fridge and a microwave in my ROOM. And free wifi! And cable television! And coarse tuscan-themed bedcovers! I know. It's like a dream come true. I think I made it happen with the power of my mind.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to actually try and * see * Dodge City. Boot Hill sounds absolutely fantastic--the American Old West preserved, from the apothecary to the general store to the old doctor's office and saloon, complete with all the appropriate antiques on display. In the summer they have gun fights in the street and a troup of candy girls doing a cabaret-style dance, but in the winter they just have an arse-kicking wind.

Speaking of the weather I have to look forward to: tomorrow morning is supposed to be a wopping zero degrees, with a wind chill of -18. So, you know, ideal for a pleasant stroll around town. By the time I start heading south, the day's high will be peaking at 10/-3. Just in time for me to get the heck out of Dodge.

Wisconsin, Peoria, and on the road crazy-style

'There are some days I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.' --Salvador Dali

These next few days on the road are going to be a whirlwind: I'll be hitting a city (I use that term loosely) a day until I hit Phoenix in five days. Yesterday was Wisconsin to Peoria, Illinois. Destination: the planetarium. In the summer, Peoria is home to the largest solar system model in the world, with the Lakeview Museum acting as the sun, and planets placed to scale, reaching as far as 60 miles away. While I didn't get to see that, I WAS lucky enough to catch a show on black holes that was so realistic that the room appeared to bend and dip and spin and fly through space; I was frequently dizzy and not a little nauseated. Light speed is FAST, you guys. Don't do it. But DO go to your nearest planetarium as soon as possible and discover how awesome it's gotten since you were a kid. It is SO much more than little white stars on a black canvas. It's an effing ADVENTURE. Oh, and just so you know, I learned the sun is going to flip out in about FIVE BILLION YEARS. So get started on organizing that airing cupboard, because time is TICKING. You are NOT going to like the way it starts behaving when it turns into a red giant or a white dwarf. NOT NICE, SUN. NOT NICE.

Before it gets too late, let me share with you a little Wisconsin-in-Pictures. This first sequence I call 'Trying to Photo a Barn and Making a Friend, Instead.'

The next two collages are a montage of Ixonia, Watertown, and Oconomowoc, sweet little Germanic Wisconsonian villages:

What I think I love best about these towns are their mottos: Oconomowoc: 'A Public Power Community.' I don't know about you, but I find this to be really stirring. I personally feel publicly powerful on a regular basis.  And Watertown's is even better: 'It's Our...Water.' I feel like the ellipses mark really packs the punch here. It's like Watertown is thinking about it: 'It's Our...wait, wait, it's coming to me...come on, Watertown, what have we got?...Oh, hey! Water! It's Our...Water!'

A few things about Wisconsin that make it Special and Unique and so very, very German: its affinity toward bratwurst, beer, and deep-fried cheese curds, its weekly Friday Fish Fry, and the celebration of St. Nick's Day. I don't know why the rest of America isn't celebrating these latter traditions, but I'm personally gonna BRING it.

Now if you'll excuse me, my Kansas City hotel room is calling...along with a bed so fluffy I'm going to drown in the pillows with joy.

Have you found this in a motel room?

I just walked into my motel room to the pervasive smell of smoke in my non-smoking room. Apparently the previous guest thought 'non-smoking' meant 'less than a pack a day.' Either that, or this little 'no smoking' card on my night stand was put in mere moments before my arrival.

But I'm not gonna complain. I'm cool. Plus this room was so cheap I wouldn't be surprised at finding a body or a bullet-hole.

Then I go to unpack my toiletries next to the sink. The surprisingly clean sink, the sink with the well-ordered linen pyramid and the tidy trash can and the soaps folded into a clever washcloth boat. Then I see it.

Is it...?

No way.

Oh yes. Oh yes, it is.

It is a half-finished bottle of wine.

Re-corked, just chillin' here on this sparkling counter like it moved in with the last patron and thought, 'Yeah, yeah, this feels about right. I think I'll stay.'

I was startled. It wasn't like, say, a tissue in the trash, something that is understandably overlooked. This is a bottle of WINE. It's not a QUIET thing, a blending white crumpled thing. It's red, and it's got a long neck, and it's on an empty COUNTER.

I moved it with my elbow so I could see the label. Not that if it were nice I'd OPEN it or anything. Unless it were a Cakebread. Or a Duckhorn. We'd all become depraved humans at that opportunity.

But it was as I suspected: A Motel Red. That is a category of wine I'm now creating. Motel Red is the wine you get when you're staying the night in a smoke-infused motel room on an empty highway with nothing but an old t.v. and crusty remote control to entertain you, where your evening is spent half-heartedly flipping through staticky local programs from atop a coarse bedcover in a tuscan color scheme. Motel Red is a wine you buy when you don't really care--you're only going to have a glass (maybe two) anyway, and nobody's around to question your taste, and anyway, it will help you sleep. And when you pack your bags the next day, you leave it, because it has served its purpose. It's Motel Red. The one-night-stand of the wine family.

But it's still a bit shocking the maid didn't notice Motel Red perched merrily next to the bath linens. Maybe it was hers, something she brought along to take the edge off her shift. Or maybe she had planned to take it home and then forgot. Or maybe she's so used to half-drunk wine bottles in her own bathroom that this one flew by undetected. Either way, it's a strange, strange thing to find next to a bar of tissue-wrapped waxy soap.

Also, she neglected to leave me a glass. How am I supposed to drink my...water? 

What American City is This?

Let's play a little game called 'What American City is This?'!

Here are the rules:

1. You look at the photos.

2. You guess what city it is! Everybody who guesses right is a winner and everybody who guesses wrong is a loser. But only figuratively speaking, because I don't have any ribbons or anything to pass out. Although I guess if you're a loser, I can pass out some judgement. But I probably won't do that either, because I'm pretty awful at geography myself, and I only judge people for crimes that I consider myself above committing.

Here we go! An American city in pictures:

How I spent Thanksgiving

‘If I could grow one of those mutt chop mustaches, I would just tutt all the time. Tutt tutt tutt!’ –Joe Hunter

In my constant effort to do blog posts on cities now long gone, I feel a word is due about how I spent Thanksgiving.

I was worried about Thanksgiving in the planning of this trip. Restaurants and shops shut down here on Thanksgiving Day. Everybody goes to the warm embrace of their family, and they cook for hours on end, and it's oh so warm and fuzzy. And I initially thought I'd be on the road when this happened, or even worse, I'd be an awkward participant at someone's family affair.

But instead I was in Chicago, staying with a novelist and an artist, where they invited me to celebrate the day with their friends at a giant, wonderful potluck. It was a community of artists and story-tellers and comedians, and it was such a warm and open group that I didn't feel out of place for a second. 

A brief cast of the day's characters, if I may:

There was Joseph Terrance Thomas Hunter. He and his wife—the Lovely Reasonable Tara from Texas—had a beautiful baby girl named Lucy Monster. He told stories about his eccentric mensa uncle--complete with imitations--that made the table roar with laughter. This is a man who could tutt tutt tutt.

There was Madeline of Twinkletheuncanny fame—who looks alarmingly like Keira Knightley and aspires to obesity—and who makes fantastic videos on youtube. You wouldn't believe her age if I told you. (But ask me and I'll tell you.) Then there was a doubly-artistic married couple with a propensity for food who gave me a list a mile long of places to eat eat eat while I was in town, places I totally tried and loved beyond reasonable measure. And if that wasn't enough, later in the evening the husband embraced a departing guest with, 'Brothers don't shake hands! Brothers gotta HUG!'--only one of the greatest lines in cinematic history and one I use all the time but that is usually received with a blank stare. Because that's how I roll.

There was also our charming hostess Beth with her marimekko table setting and china too gorgeous to touch, with daughter Elena, who taught me about the greatest item ever that was invented while I was away in London--you have to watch the video it's hilarious--and last but not least we had Kim and Fatima, who looked like characters from The Babysitters Club and who I would like to model for my Colors of America campaign. Though they insist that we find a person in a wheelchair to complete the set.

Actual conversation from the evening:

Me: Lucy Monster sounds like Snuffleupagus!
Joe Terrance Thomas: I was just thinking about Snuffy!
Luke: It’s those long eyelashes, isn’t it? Who can resist eyelashes like that?

So yeah...it was fantastic. Truly a day to be thankful for.

I didn't know personal growth could taste so good.

Well, folks, the moment we've all been waiting for has arrived:

I have officially outgrown my jeans.

I know what you're thinking: 'Really? In only a month on the road?' To which I reply, 'YES. Because I am THAT AWESOME.'

It turns out the road food of America is pretty kick-*ss. (That asterisk is for you, Grampa.) And I like to eat it. ALL of it. And then I like to get in my car after eating it, and drive for hours, and maybe at the other side, I like to sit on  my friends' couches and discuss what's for dinner. Because this is my life now. Just me, and the road, and our food. And this triumvirate of power is warming this cold winter in much the same way as my extra stores of fat. I feel like a survivor in the wilderness, stocking for winter. I feel like a grizzly bear. I feel like I can roar powerful roars into the world as soon as I lift my face from this bloody carcass demanding my attention.

Despite an increase in my body fat and a decrease in my cardiovascular fitness, I feel strong. Almost as strong as the elastic holding up my leggings, which are the only things I can fit into right now. I love you, leggings. You don't judge me. You accept me and envelope me and don't pinch my stomach in half when I sit down. I can't thank you enough for this. I think I want to marry you and bear your children.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go back to my journey...my journey of soul and self. And today this spiritual path is leading me right down to the cheese aisle of the Wisconsin grocery store. Dairy State, let us two be one.