Driving Without Borders from Ben Zachariah on Vimeo.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
Epilogue
This blog was created in the hope to do some good. I told people I'm doing this roadtrip for charity, but the truth is I was going to take this journey anyway. I approached Engineers Without Borders Australia because I thought I might be able to raise some funds for them and the truly brilliant work that they do. In reality, there's no real reason for anyone to donate money. If you've enjoyed reading about the trip or looking at the photos, or if it's inspired you to dream, then please consider donating $20. It can be your good deed for the week. At the time of writing, we've raised about 25% of the target I plucked out of the air.
I have to say a big thank you to Mum, Dad, Grandee, Eric, and Stephen, who all contributed financially and bailed me out more times than a grown man should need to be bailed out. Throughout my life, Mum has always liked to remind me that money/things does not equal love (generally as she's handing over money/things). I know that money and things don't replace love, but it's hard not to feel loved when you're given money to do things you love to do, with no direct benefit to the people that gave it to you. I hope I got as much mileage and as much fun and as much adventure out of each dollar as you hoped. I think I did.
This trip couldn't have happened without Josh Hanger in Michigan. Besides buying my car on my behalf and organising all the insurance I needed, he's also done so much behind-the-scenes work that included lots of little things and lots of big things. Without him, I would have been catching the fucking Amtrak everywhere. He was my Man-On-The-Ground and I owe him huge.
In no small part, I was able to relax and enjoy myself on this trip because I knew Eric Dewhirst in Ontario had my back. He put me on his CAA coverage (think AAA or RACV) which I used three times in five weeks. Twice to tow the F150, and once to put fuel in an empty Tahoe. He checked up on me and was ready to fly where-ever if I needed him to. He opened his doors and welcomed me into his home and taught me a lot. He's an incredibly generous and selfless person.
There are a bunch of people throughout the trip that helped me in various ways, whether it was showing me around town, taking me out, or giving me a couch to sleep on. I also have to thank everyone who donated -- I truly appreciate your generosity.
Thank you also to you for reading my humble and indulgent blog.
Peace,
Ben Zachariah
I have to say a big thank you to Mum, Dad, Grandee, Eric, and Stephen, who all contributed financially and bailed me out more times than a grown man should need to be bailed out. Throughout my life, Mum has always liked to remind me that money/things does not equal love (generally as she's handing over money/things). I know that money and things don't replace love, but it's hard not to feel loved when you're given money to do things you love to do, with no direct benefit to the people that gave it to you. I hope I got as much mileage and as much fun and as much adventure out of each dollar as you hoped. I think I did.
This trip couldn't have happened without Josh Hanger in Michigan. Besides buying my car on my behalf and organising all the insurance I needed, he's also done so much behind-the-scenes work that included lots of little things and lots of big things. Without him, I would have been catching the fucking Amtrak everywhere. He was my Man-On-The-Ground and I owe him huge.
In no small part, I was able to relax and enjoy myself on this trip because I knew Eric Dewhirst in Ontario had my back. He put me on his CAA coverage (think AAA or RACV) which I used three times in five weeks. Twice to tow the F150, and once to put fuel in an empty Tahoe. He checked up on me and was ready to fly where-ever if I needed him to. He opened his doors and welcomed me into his home and taught me a lot. He's an incredibly generous and selfless person.
There are a bunch of people throughout the trip that helped me in various ways, whether it was showing me around town, taking me out, or giving me a couch to sleep on. I also have to thank everyone who donated -- I truly appreciate your generosity.
Thank you also to you for reading my humble and indulgent blog.
Peace,
Ben Zachariah
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Homeward Bound
The following day I went to the Salt Lake City Police Department. I'd really wanted to do a ride-along while I was here in the 'States. SLC seemed like a pretty safe city to do it in. The idea was that I was staying in SLC for up to a week, which gave me plenty of time to organise it. If they could get me in a squad car that night, then I'd just drive to Las Vegas afterwards (hotels in Vegas are as low as $25 per night, and for pretty nice rooms, too). The security officer behind the desk told me that she didn't have any forms, and didn't have a printer. Also the program was "kind-of on hold" because they didn't have anyone who was specifically assigned to do background checks, so it wasn't really getting done. I made my annoyance of the ridiculousness of the situation known, and left.
I put the Bonneville Salt Flats into my phone and headed due west. I thought the place was ten minutes out of town -- it was two hours. And after my warning the day before, I wasn't keen to speed (too much).
The place itself is a wonderland. A different planet. Vast expanses of white flatness in the powerful desert heat. I paid the $10 entry and followed the cars. Though I think I could have simply driven past her with a wave and gotten through just fine.
The "highway" in is a series of witches hats, some with the 55mph speed limit posted. But no lanes. And about 400 metres of space to play with. Everyone just did what they wanted. Driving on the wrong side; driving slow; driving quick. It worked and was perfectly safe because there was so much space between us all.
I drove into the pits at walking pace, right down to the end at first, just to see what was going on. Then I drove back the way I'd come, stopping to jump out any take photos of some of the cars that caught my eye. At the kind-of checkpoint, I asked which way I go to the start line. Some people said I needed a wrist band, some said I needed a pass on the car. Nobody was checking and nobody cared. You just did what you did. I couldn't help thinking back to the motorkhanas I used to do as a teenager -- the most basic form of motorsport in the country (and probably the world) -- where everything was scrutinised to a tee.
I found the start lines. On land speed vehicles, the start is incredibly boring. The most boring part, probably. These machines are geared purely for top speed, so none of them can even move off from a stand-still under their own power. There's either a guy behind pushing the motorbike, or a car with a tyre strapped to the front to give it a nudge until it starts to gather speed.
Back on the road, I dialled in Pahrump, NV, into my GPS. It told me to head south on this country road. It was the road that followed the Pony Express. Two hours in I found my first town. Then nothing for another couple of hours. The scenery was absolutely spectacular. Rolls of hills, crumpled up like a rug that's been pushed, and a road that cut straight through them.
As the sun was dipping below the horizon and I was driving through a national park, I drove past some people who were trying to get a car out of a ditch. I turned around and pulled up. The couple were clearly as redneck hillbilly as you can get. He had long hair and a biker's moustache, and she was missing a front tooth or two. The front left tyre had popped and spat them off the road, beaching the car. I didn't have a snatch strap in the rental, so I dropped the rear tyre pressures on their ute down to a guestimated 15-20psi, then grabbed the soft case for my guitar. When I ordered it, I'd ordered it with a hard case, but the soft case came with it. I'd used it to carry the spare stickers, despite not having a use for the case or the stickers. But I did now. The rear right tyre was just spitting dirt and stones and digging a hole. I put some rocks underneath, then shoved the case under the tyre, then stood on the rear tailgate as he reversed. We got it out of that stuck, but she couldn't reverse out. He put it in D and it started to bog again, but I was able to give it enough push from behind for him to drive it out and onto the flat.
He had a spare, but no jack or crowbar. We spent a few minutes going through the Tahoe, but eventually we found the jack and everything. Only, his lug nuts were a different size. So I gave him the can of coke I hadn't drunk yet and his wife and I drove down the road, looking for a town. They live in Idaho, but some friends of theirs who had moved to Las Vegas had called them from Ash Springs, saying they needed help (gas or a tyre or something). Ash Springs was only ten minutes down the road. She literally had no idea what she was going to do. Her ability to assess and make a plan in a situation was lacking. I told her to go to the gas station and see if she could buy a cross bar or borrow one, then hitchhike back up to the car. By this stage I was covered in a fine dust.
I left her at that gas station and kept on my way in the dark. Eventually I found Las Vegas again, and marvelled at her enticing, shimmering lights. Pahrump is about 20 miles west of LV. I'd specifically wanted to visit Pahrump, because it was featured in two episodes of one of my favourite TV shows, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The episodes revolve around the police station/courthouse, and a diner across the road. Predictably, the town is nothing like how it's depicted. It's more like Torquay in size. The police station is the local government building, as is common in these parts.
Driving south for Los Angeles, I soon realised that San Diego was only 40 minutes more. I could be there by 4am! I don't think I drove through Death Valley (that was north-west from where I was driving), but I was in some desert with some giant boulders, though the moon set early and it was very dark.
Half of the freeway to San Diego was closed, so that complicated things for me and the tiredness I was carrying. I tried to stop in at a Target car park. It was very big and very dark. Security quickly drove over and shone a spotlight on me and told me to move on. I thought about explaining that I was extremely fatigued and only needed a nap, but I didn't. I saw a sign for Oceanview, which I remember my friend Hayley telling me she lived. I looked up on Facebook the exact suburb and headed there, though there was no real logic behind my thought process. I eventually found a carpark that wasn't too private and wasn't too out in the open. That was 4am.
At 6am I woke to the light, very groggy. I got some breakfast from the 24 hours McDonalds up the road and headed for San Diego. Hobart wouldn't be a completely inaccurate comparison. I found three aircraft carriers in the harbour, one of which was a museum, and wandered around. My attire helped me fit in with the rest of the homeless that were checking the bins.
Hayley got in contact with me and I headed back to where I'd been, to her office. I was fighting fatigue every mile of the drive, unable to find a comfortable temperature or volume from the stereo. It was great seeing my friend. I've only seen her once since she and her boyfriend (now husband) had moved over about four years ago for work. Today Hayley announced that she was pregnant, and it made my day. She also gave me very cool new wallet from Armourdilla, as my old one was literally falling to pieces.
Back on the road, this time heading north to Los Angeles, I was really struggling to fight sleep. I was getting eye wobbles and my body kept spasming, and I decided that I needed to get off the freeway. I wasn't far from the airport, but I thought I should dip my feet in the ocean, symbolically marking the end of my roadtrip from east to west. Typical Baywatch/OC-style scene, with one exception: the massive power plant just up the beach.
I filled the car up, took most of the rubbish out of it, packed my bags, and dropped it off at the rental car agency. Most of my afternoon has been spent quietly stressing over whether I'd get a flight tonight or tomorrow or the next day, and how I'd go about sleeping in the terminal, all as I played on my computer on the marble floor against the window of the checking-in hall.
The Qantas lady was very helpful and was able to put me on the later flight to Sydney, leaving at midnight. The TSA crew were all in a jolly mood. A few of the Dodgers were fast-tracked (baseball, I think?). As I waited for them to go through my bag to find the cologne I'd forgotten to take out, I found myself standing next to Terry Crews, who is an actor of the silver screen variety. I told him that it should be him screening everyone else. He laughed politely.
Through security I was finally able to change into some fresh clothes and freshen up in the basin. I'm fed and now I'm sitting at my gate for my plane to arrive and take me home soon.
I put the Bonneville Salt Flats into my phone and headed due west. I thought the place was ten minutes out of town -- it was two hours. And after my warning the day before, I wasn't keen to speed (too much).
The place itself is a wonderland. A different planet. Vast expanses of white flatness in the powerful desert heat. I paid the $10 entry and followed the cars. Though I think I could have simply driven past her with a wave and gotten through just fine.
The "highway" in is a series of witches hats, some with the 55mph speed limit posted. But no lanes. And about 400 metres of space to play with. Everyone just did what they wanted. Driving on the wrong side; driving slow; driving quick. It worked and was perfectly safe because there was so much space between us all.
I drove into the pits at walking pace, right down to the end at first, just to see what was going on. Then I drove back the way I'd come, stopping to jump out any take photos of some of the cars that caught my eye. At the kind-of checkpoint, I asked which way I go to the start line. Some people said I needed a wrist band, some said I needed a pass on the car. Nobody was checking and nobody cared. You just did what you did. I couldn't help thinking back to the motorkhanas I used to do as a teenager -- the most basic form of motorsport in the country (and probably the world) -- where everything was scrutinised to a tee.
I found the start lines. On land speed vehicles, the start is incredibly boring. The most boring part, probably. These machines are geared purely for top speed, so none of them can even move off from a stand-still under their own power. There's either a guy behind pushing the motorbike, or a car with a tyre strapped to the front to give it a nudge until it starts to gather speed.
Back on the road, I dialled in Pahrump, NV, into my GPS. It told me to head south on this country road. It was the road that followed the Pony Express. Two hours in I found my first town. Then nothing for another couple of hours. The scenery was absolutely spectacular. Rolls of hills, crumpled up like a rug that's been pushed, and a road that cut straight through them.
As the sun was dipping below the horizon and I was driving through a national park, I drove past some people who were trying to get a car out of a ditch. I turned around and pulled up. The couple were clearly as redneck hillbilly as you can get. He had long hair and a biker's moustache, and she was missing a front tooth or two. The front left tyre had popped and spat them off the road, beaching the car. I didn't have a snatch strap in the rental, so I dropped the rear tyre pressures on their ute down to a guestimated 15-20psi, then grabbed the soft case for my guitar. When I ordered it, I'd ordered it with a hard case, but the soft case came with it. I'd used it to carry the spare stickers, despite not having a use for the case or the stickers. But I did now. The rear right tyre was just spitting dirt and stones and digging a hole. I put some rocks underneath, then shoved the case under the tyre, then stood on the rear tailgate as he reversed. We got it out of that stuck, but she couldn't reverse out. He put it in D and it started to bog again, but I was able to give it enough push from behind for him to drive it out and onto the flat.
He had a spare, but no jack or crowbar. We spent a few minutes going through the Tahoe, but eventually we found the jack and everything. Only, his lug nuts were a different size. So I gave him the can of coke I hadn't drunk yet and his wife and I drove down the road, looking for a town. They live in Idaho, but some friends of theirs who had moved to Las Vegas had called them from Ash Springs, saying they needed help (gas or a tyre or something). Ash Springs was only ten minutes down the road. She literally had no idea what she was going to do. Her ability to assess and make a plan in a situation was lacking. I told her to go to the gas station and see if she could buy a cross bar or borrow one, then hitchhike back up to the car. By this stage I was covered in a fine dust.
I left her at that gas station and kept on my way in the dark. Eventually I found Las Vegas again, and marvelled at her enticing, shimmering lights. Pahrump is about 20 miles west of LV. I'd specifically wanted to visit Pahrump, because it was featured in two episodes of one of my favourite TV shows, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The episodes revolve around the police station/courthouse, and a diner across the road. Predictably, the town is nothing like how it's depicted. It's more like Torquay in size. The police station is the local government building, as is common in these parts.
Driving south for Los Angeles, I soon realised that San Diego was only 40 minutes more. I could be there by 4am! I don't think I drove through Death Valley (that was north-west from where I was driving), but I was in some desert with some giant boulders, though the moon set early and it was very dark.
Half of the freeway to San Diego was closed, so that complicated things for me and the tiredness I was carrying. I tried to stop in at a Target car park. It was very big and very dark. Security quickly drove over and shone a spotlight on me and told me to move on. I thought about explaining that I was extremely fatigued and only needed a nap, but I didn't. I saw a sign for Oceanview, which I remember my friend Hayley telling me she lived. I looked up on Facebook the exact suburb and headed there, though there was no real logic behind my thought process. I eventually found a carpark that wasn't too private and wasn't too out in the open. That was 4am.
At 6am I woke to the light, very groggy. I got some breakfast from the 24 hours McDonalds up the road and headed for San Diego. Hobart wouldn't be a completely inaccurate comparison. I found three aircraft carriers in the harbour, one of which was a museum, and wandered around. My attire helped me fit in with the rest of the homeless that were checking the bins.
Hayley got in contact with me and I headed back to where I'd been, to her office. I was fighting fatigue every mile of the drive, unable to find a comfortable temperature or volume from the stereo. It was great seeing my friend. I've only seen her once since she and her boyfriend (now husband) had moved over about four years ago for work. Today Hayley announced that she was pregnant, and it made my day. She also gave me very cool new wallet from Armourdilla, as my old one was literally falling to pieces.
Back on the road, this time heading north to Los Angeles, I was really struggling to fight sleep. I was getting eye wobbles and my body kept spasming, and I decided that I needed to get off the freeway. I wasn't far from the airport, but I thought I should dip my feet in the ocean, symbolically marking the end of my roadtrip from east to west. Typical Baywatch/OC-style scene, with one exception: the massive power plant just up the beach.
I filled the car up, took most of the rubbish out of it, packed my bags, and dropped it off at the rental car agency. Most of my afternoon has been spent quietly stressing over whether I'd get a flight tonight or tomorrow or the next day, and how I'd go about sleeping in the terminal, all as I played on my computer on the marble floor against the window of the checking-in hall.
The Qantas lady was very helpful and was able to put me on the later flight to Sydney, leaving at midnight. The TSA crew were all in a jolly mood. A few of the Dodgers were fast-tracked (baseball, I think?). As I waited for them to go through my bag to find the cologne I'd forgotten to take out, I found myself standing next to Terry Crews, who is an actor of the silver screen variety. I told him that it should be him screening everyone else. He laughed politely.
Through security I was finally able to change into some fresh clothes and freshen up in the basin. I'm fed and now I'm sitting at my gate for my plane to arrive and take me home soon.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Travelling Light
The mechanics at the workshop left me with no choice. They tried to tell me that the chassis number showed the truck was a Lightning version, which it clearly wasn't. They told me to fix the front-end would mean a few days and many hundreds of dollars, neither of which I have much of to spare.
The workshop offered me $150 for the Ford. Instead, I went back to the waiting room and put an ad for the car on Craigslist for $500. Within an hour I'd started getting messages from people, and within two hours I had three sets of people turn up to look at it. Twenty seconds after arriving, the second person said "I'll take it." The guy handed over $500 cash, and two minutes later I'd jumped in a cab on the way to Flagstaff airport. The cabbie was a bluegrass guitarist.
Behind the desk of the car rental was an old guy with some class from another time and thick-rimmed glasses to go with it. I secured the keys to a beautiful champagne-coloured 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe V8. And I was on the road again.
It felt really good to pass that 180 mile marker by the side of the road. I was in a very strange mood. Buzzing with happiness because the whole Broken Car Saga was behind me, I had a wallet full of cash, and I was in a pretty sweet ride. I was also over tired and driving in a golden sunlight. The Chev has a typical GM V8: nothing down low and all the power in the top end of the rev range. Basically, the exact opposite of my Ford V8.
I arrived at the Grand Canyon just as the sun was on the horizon. That golden light cast shadows across that amazing place, but I couldn't appreciate it or soak it in completely. The area was cast in a haze and it looked like it was a giant postcard. I just couldn't comprehend it.
The drive to Las Vegas was spectacular. The light at dusk was some of the prettiest I've seen and kept going for hours as I chased the horizon.
Late into the night and without much left in me, the car drove over the peak and revealed a carpet of lights in the valley of Las Vegas. I checked into my room and slept for twelve hours.
The following afternoon I went to the Top of the World restaurant, 107 floors above Las Vegas. I had a steak sandwich for 80 minutes as the restaurant made a full revolution. I drove up The Strip, revelling in the history and film and culture that had occurred there.
Valet is the greatest thing on this planet. You drive up, they give you a ticket, and you walk away. At most hotels you don't pay anything (besides a tip). That night I parked at the Bellagio and walked up and down The Strip. After a few hours of this, I went to the Cosmopolitan hotel for a drink. At the bar I got talking to two redheads, both of which were dancers. One has a show in Las Vegas, the other on Broadway. Nichole Richie was at the bar too.
I decided I couldn't leave Vegas without doing some gambling. I've never been a fan of the pokies, but they still had a few of the old school slot machines with the three rolling wheels and the giant handle. I made $20 off my $5. Being $20 up from the house in Vegas is a good place to be, so I left and had a Graveyard Special at the diner at 4am. A ham steak, two eggs over easy (or easy over, I can never remember), toast, and the shredded potato hash brown-esque mess.
With four hours sleep I checked out and hit the road. In northern Nevada my fuel light came on, but I'd decided to wait until I'd crossed into Utah before filling up as petrol is cheaper there. Well, there are mountains and canyons at the border. I was about a mile from the first off-ramp with a petrol station when my car ran out of gas. Luckily the AAA guy was quick and sympathetic.
The drive itself was spectacular. America is a truly beautiful place, and the engineering that goes into carving these roads through kilometres of solid rock is awe inspiring.
For most of the day the speed limit was 80mph, which meant my cruise control was set on 88mph. You can get away with up to 10mph over the limit without a cop doing anything about it. I learned that early on. Unfortunately the speed drops to 75 at times, and I was too lazy to drop my speed by five. The cop zapped me coming over the ridge of a large hill near the towns of Salem and Benjamin. I'd jumped on the anchors immediately but it was too late.
The rental car didn't have any registration papers in it. Normally a problem, but he let it go after a radio check on the plates. He gave me a written warning, telling me if I get three of these in two weeks then I'll probably get a fine, and we got chatting. I told him about the trip so far and where I was going next, and my family history in the area. He was a really nice guy, and I was thankful for it.
Salt Lake City is much like Geelong, with a sprawling suburbia and a small city centre. I immediately walked around the plaza and gardens of the Latter Day Saints and then visited the Family Search building. Everyone was creepily nice and says hello as they walk past. An Elder showed me how to use their website to find information about my Uncle George. He came over with the Henry Miller Company, which was the original group of settlers, and that impressed the Elder greatly. George has been entered about 300 times into their database by different descendants, but there's not a lot of meaty info about him. The family story is that he was good friends with Joseph Smith and is a big deal, but I couldn't find anything to support that.
I'm actually a big fan of Salt Lake City. I suppose, just like with Las Vegas, I was expecting to not be impressed and the exact opposite happened. It's a cool little city. It also seems to be the Cafe Racer capital of the world.
The workshop offered me $150 for the Ford. Instead, I went back to the waiting room and put an ad for the car on Craigslist for $500. Within an hour I'd started getting messages from people, and within two hours I had three sets of people turn up to look at it. Twenty seconds after arriving, the second person said "I'll take it." The guy handed over $500 cash, and two minutes later I'd jumped in a cab on the way to Flagstaff airport. The cabbie was a bluegrass guitarist.
Behind the desk of the car rental was an old guy with some class from another time and thick-rimmed glasses to go with it. I secured the keys to a beautiful champagne-coloured 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe V8. And I was on the road again.
It felt really good to pass that 180 mile marker by the side of the road. I was in a very strange mood. Buzzing with happiness because the whole Broken Car Saga was behind me, I had a wallet full of cash, and I was in a pretty sweet ride. I was also over tired and driving in a golden sunlight. The Chev has a typical GM V8: nothing down low and all the power in the top end of the rev range. Basically, the exact opposite of my Ford V8.
I arrived at the Grand Canyon just as the sun was on the horizon. That golden light cast shadows across that amazing place, but I couldn't appreciate it or soak it in completely. The area was cast in a haze and it looked like it was a giant postcard. I just couldn't comprehend it.
The drive to Las Vegas was spectacular. The light at dusk was some of the prettiest I've seen and kept going for hours as I chased the horizon.
Late into the night and without much left in me, the car drove over the peak and revealed a carpet of lights in the valley of Las Vegas. I checked into my room and slept for twelve hours.
The following afternoon I went to the Top of the World restaurant, 107 floors above Las Vegas. I had a steak sandwich for 80 minutes as the restaurant made a full revolution. I drove up The Strip, revelling in the history and film and culture that had occurred there.
Valet is the greatest thing on this planet. You drive up, they give you a ticket, and you walk away. At most hotels you don't pay anything (besides a tip). That night I parked at the Bellagio and walked up and down The Strip. After a few hours of this, I went to the Cosmopolitan hotel for a drink. At the bar I got talking to two redheads, both of which were dancers. One has a show in Las Vegas, the other on Broadway. Nichole Richie was at the bar too.
I decided I couldn't leave Vegas without doing some gambling. I've never been a fan of the pokies, but they still had a few of the old school slot machines with the three rolling wheels and the giant handle. I made $20 off my $5. Being $20 up from the house in Vegas is a good place to be, so I left and had a Graveyard Special at the diner at 4am. A ham steak, two eggs over easy (or easy over, I can never remember), toast, and the shredded potato hash brown-esque mess.
With four hours sleep I checked out and hit the road. In northern Nevada my fuel light came on, but I'd decided to wait until I'd crossed into Utah before filling up as petrol is cheaper there. Well, there are mountains and canyons at the border. I was about a mile from the first off-ramp with a petrol station when my car ran out of gas. Luckily the AAA guy was quick and sympathetic.
The drive itself was spectacular. America is a truly beautiful place, and the engineering that goes into carving these roads through kilometres of solid rock is awe inspiring.
For most of the day the speed limit was 80mph, which meant my cruise control was set on 88mph. You can get away with up to 10mph over the limit without a cop doing anything about it. I learned that early on. Unfortunately the speed drops to 75 at times, and I was too lazy to drop my speed by five. The cop zapped me coming over the ridge of a large hill near the towns of Salem and Benjamin. I'd jumped on the anchors immediately but it was too late.
The rental car didn't have any registration papers in it. Normally a problem, but he let it go after a radio check on the plates. He gave me a written warning, telling me if I get three of these in two weeks then I'll probably get a fine, and we got chatting. I told him about the trip so far and where I was going next, and my family history in the area. He was a really nice guy, and I was thankful for it.
Salt Lake City is much like Geelong, with a sprawling suburbia and a small city centre. I immediately walked around the plaza and gardens of the Latter Day Saints and then visited the Family Search building. Everyone was creepily nice and says hello as they walk past. An Elder showed me how to use their website to find information about my Uncle George. He came over with the Henry Miller Company, which was the original group of settlers, and that impressed the Elder greatly. George has been entered about 300 times into their database by different descendants, but there's not a lot of meaty info about him. The family story is that he was good friends with Joseph Smith and is a big deal, but I couldn't find anything to support that.
I'm actually a big fan of Salt Lake City. I suppose, just like with Las Vegas, I was expecting to not be impressed and the exact opposite happened. It's a cool little city. It also seems to be the Cafe Racer capital of the world.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Braking Bad
I finished my time in Texas with a bang. In Austin I visited a local gun range to have a play with a 1911 45ACP handgun and an AK-47. Both were very big, loud, and fun. Though I don't think I'll be joining the SAS anytime soon. After shootin' some guns, my friend Sam and I visited a Texas steakhouse just to continue the masculine theme.
My final days in Austin I spent poolside, escaping the heat. I also happened to get a spare wheel and tyre for the truck, something I've been meaning to do for about half a continent. On my last night in the city, Sam took me to Blues on the Green, which was just a bunch of people laying about on grass drinking. It's the simple things in life that are best.
I pointed the car west and headed off the next morning. After sitting on cruise control for a while, I noticed my air con wasn't pumping out any cold air. Playing with things, I discovered that when the car is powering along, the a/c doesn't work. So to get it turn on, I have to lift-off the throttle for a few seconds. So for about eight hours of driving I had to accelerate, lift off, accelerate, lift off, and so on and so forth, just to stay cool. With the stereo no longer working, I pulled out my laptop and my noise-cancelling headphones and rocked out to some playlists for a few hours.
Turning north somewhere in west Texas, I filled up. The area is filled with small oil wells, juxtaposed with fields of windmills at some points. That part of the country is predominantly oil mining operations. Everything on that small highway is a pick-up with safety lights or semis transporting machinery.
A while into my drive up that road, my F150 started chugging and surging, backfiring a little bit and probably pinging. The truck has dual fuel tanks, so I flicked over to the other one and the problem stopped. Bad fuel, I thought.
I arrived at the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico just before sunset. It's a magnificent national park, though not very big. In the flat plains of New Mexico there is a long mountain range, much like Mt Dandenong, but driving inside it is akin to pictures I've seen of Ireland, but with cacti and shrubbery. I spotted a herd of antelope before making my way to the top. They've built an amphitheatre around the top of the cave entrance to watch the bats stream out at dusk. I got there too early and had to put up with annoying children for almost two hours, and without phone reception. The ranger was super cute. The bats weren't like out fruit bats at home. They're tiny. Apparently we'd had a really good night in terms of volume, but it reminded me of a swarm of bees around their nest, only on a grander scale.
I drove into Roswell. Every reflection and light was a UFO in my head. The town itself is filled with little green men and things, but my favourite was a car-sized UFO in the car park of a hotel. After I left my hotel, I topped-up the rear tank with high octane petrol to try to increase the quality of the fuel and stop the surging issue. I then noticed there was a pool of coolant dripping from the front of the car. I found there was a small split in the radiator tank so I drove to a radiator specialist. The rad guy quoted me $120 for a new side tank, or $220 for a new radiator. I explained that those options were $120/$220 out of my budget respectively and I'd just keep topping it up. Once he realised he wasn't going to make any money out of me, he told me to go across the road to the auto parts store and pick up a special epoxy resin to weld the plastic. He said that should easily get me where I was going.
After doing the messy job, I headed north to Albuquerque. The terrain reminded me a lot of Australia -- lots of shrubbery with patchy grass and rock. The rear tank, which had been working perfectly after I'd put in the high octane petrol, started doing its stuttering issue when it hit the 3/4 mark again. I rolled into Albuquerque and headed downtown. The first thing I noticed was that everyone runs red lights. A bad place to be a motorcyclist. The residential part of town had these fantastic Mexican concrete huts.
I dropped in on a family friend, and immediately the truck lost all electricity. I spent a few hours going through the wiring and decided it was more than likely the rusted battery terminals. A quick trip to Walmart confirmed this.
Before I left Albuquerque, with it's oil-painting mountain looming over the city and ancient volcanoes in the distance, I had to drive past Walter White's house. If you don't know the TV show Breaking Bad, then I'm sure you've heard of it. The owners have painted the house a different colour.
The new battery terminals fixed both my air conditioning issue and the rear fuel tank problem. They simply weren't getting enough power when the engine was under load. So I wound the windows up, cranked the a/c, set the cruise control to 80mph and donned my headphones.
I grabbed lunch in Flagstaff and when I jumped back in the car, my brake warning light and ABS lights were on. The brakes seemed to be working fine, so I assumed it was either a sensor issue or the ABS unit was on the fritz.
Five minutes out of town the steering started to get loose. The brakes got spongy. Then a clang, rattle, and hum, of the worst kind. I pulled into a roadhouse and jumped under the car. I could smell a bad smell, but I couldn't see anything. No suspension that was broken. Nothing obvious. And the brakes/steering combination wasn't something that I understood well enough to diagnose. I decided to baby it for as far as possible. I drove in the emergency lane with my hazards on at 35mph for about three miles before it became obvious that this was going to end in tears. I drove to the top of a hill and called AAA.
I got towed back into Flagstaff, chatting with the tow truck driver and his daughter about life in Australia. When he was pulling the car off the bed, he pointed out that my right front brake caliper was in a bad state, but it was an easy and cheap fix.
I reversed the car into a spot between some parts cars and jacked the car up. One of the brake pads fell on the ground when I pulled the wheel off. The pads themselves were still in good condition, so I tried to return the caliper piston but it wasn't budging. The bleeder valve was completely rusted shut. After playing around with it, I hit the rotor and it wobbled. The brake rotor wobbled. The brake rotor shouldn't wobble.
I pulled the disc off and discovered that the two wheel bearings were completely lunched. There was almost nothing left of them, and the wheel would have been hanging on by a thread, literally. By this stage it was about 7:30pm and I was losing light. I was only about a mile away from the local auto parts store so I called them and discovered they had everything I needed in stock, and were open until 11pm. It must have been close to 10 before I started reassembling everything. I've never done anything like this before so there was a lot of seeing how things fit together, looking up YouTube videos, and trying again. Eventually I had the bearings seated. I got a new caliper on there, despite one completely rusted bolt. I even bled the brakes on my own by jamming a log onto the brake pedal.
As I was finishing up, a cop turned up and put his spotlight on me. I put my hands out to show I wasn't holding anything and approached the car with a smile. The fact that I hadn't run and that I had a pen torch duct-taped to my cap had probably convinced him I wasn't a threat. He was nice and wished me luck.
A few minutes later, at what must have been around 2am and with everything bolted in and packed away, I drove gingerly out of the driveway and down the street. The brakes were a bit spongy, but stopped the car. The steering was much more direct than it ever had been.
I jubilantly treated myself to dinner at the only place that was open (Macca's) and headed for the freeway. Literally as I was driving onto the on-ramp, at no more than 25mph, something went clang, rattle, and hum. I pulled over immediately and took a look. The caliper had fallen out of its cradle. I called AAA again and was towed, yet again, back to that bloody car park at the mechanics. As the car was being pulled onto the flatbed, the wheel came off. Not enough that the car fell, but enough to kill my adventurous spirit temporarily. I slept on my bench seat from 4am to 8am in that car park.
So here I am, writing this from a Starbucks a couple of miles from the workshop, with the shakes from fatigue and caffeine. My everything is dirty and greasy and I can only imagine the smell.
I know my tone is defeated and deflated, but really, this is exactly what I was expecting. This is what these adventures are about. The Top Gear slogan keeps bouncing around my head this morning: Ambitious, but shite.
My final days in Austin I spent poolside, escaping the heat. I also happened to get a spare wheel and tyre for the truck, something I've been meaning to do for about half a continent. On my last night in the city, Sam took me to Blues on the Green, which was just a bunch of people laying about on grass drinking. It's the simple things in life that are best.
I pointed the car west and headed off the next morning. After sitting on cruise control for a while, I noticed my air con wasn't pumping out any cold air. Playing with things, I discovered that when the car is powering along, the a/c doesn't work. So to get it turn on, I have to lift-off the throttle for a few seconds. So for about eight hours of driving I had to accelerate, lift off, accelerate, lift off, and so on and so forth, just to stay cool. With the stereo no longer working, I pulled out my laptop and my noise-cancelling headphones and rocked out to some playlists for a few hours.
Turning north somewhere in west Texas, I filled up. The area is filled with small oil wells, juxtaposed with fields of windmills at some points. That part of the country is predominantly oil mining operations. Everything on that small highway is a pick-up with safety lights or semis transporting machinery.
A while into my drive up that road, my F150 started chugging and surging, backfiring a little bit and probably pinging. The truck has dual fuel tanks, so I flicked over to the other one and the problem stopped. Bad fuel, I thought.
I arrived at the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico just before sunset. It's a magnificent national park, though not very big. In the flat plains of New Mexico there is a long mountain range, much like Mt Dandenong, but driving inside it is akin to pictures I've seen of Ireland, but with cacti and shrubbery. I spotted a herd of antelope before making my way to the top. They've built an amphitheatre around the top of the cave entrance to watch the bats stream out at dusk. I got there too early and had to put up with annoying children for almost two hours, and without phone reception. The ranger was super cute. The bats weren't like out fruit bats at home. They're tiny. Apparently we'd had a really good night in terms of volume, but it reminded me of a swarm of bees around their nest, only on a grander scale.
I drove into Roswell. Every reflection and light was a UFO in my head. The town itself is filled with little green men and things, but my favourite was a car-sized UFO in the car park of a hotel. After I left my hotel, I topped-up the rear tank with high octane petrol to try to increase the quality of the fuel and stop the surging issue. I then noticed there was a pool of coolant dripping from the front of the car. I found there was a small split in the radiator tank so I drove to a radiator specialist. The rad guy quoted me $120 for a new side tank, or $220 for a new radiator. I explained that those options were $120/$220 out of my budget respectively and I'd just keep topping it up. Once he realised he wasn't going to make any money out of me, he told me to go across the road to the auto parts store and pick up a special epoxy resin to weld the plastic. He said that should easily get me where I was going.
After doing the messy job, I headed north to Albuquerque. The terrain reminded me a lot of Australia -- lots of shrubbery with patchy grass and rock. The rear tank, which had been working perfectly after I'd put in the high octane petrol, started doing its stuttering issue when it hit the 3/4 mark again. I rolled into Albuquerque and headed downtown. The first thing I noticed was that everyone runs red lights. A bad place to be a motorcyclist. The residential part of town had these fantastic Mexican concrete huts.
I dropped in on a family friend, and immediately the truck lost all electricity. I spent a few hours going through the wiring and decided it was more than likely the rusted battery terminals. A quick trip to Walmart confirmed this.
Before I left Albuquerque, with it's oil-painting mountain looming over the city and ancient volcanoes in the distance, I had to drive past Walter White's house. If you don't know the TV show Breaking Bad, then I'm sure you've heard of it. The owners have painted the house a different colour.
The new battery terminals fixed both my air conditioning issue and the rear fuel tank problem. They simply weren't getting enough power when the engine was under load. So I wound the windows up, cranked the a/c, set the cruise control to 80mph and donned my headphones.
I grabbed lunch in Flagstaff and when I jumped back in the car, my brake warning light and ABS lights were on. The brakes seemed to be working fine, so I assumed it was either a sensor issue or the ABS unit was on the fritz.
Five minutes out of town the steering started to get loose. The brakes got spongy. Then a clang, rattle, and hum, of the worst kind. I pulled into a roadhouse and jumped under the car. I could smell a bad smell, but I couldn't see anything. No suspension that was broken. Nothing obvious. And the brakes/steering combination wasn't something that I understood well enough to diagnose. I decided to baby it for as far as possible. I drove in the emergency lane with my hazards on at 35mph for about three miles before it became obvious that this was going to end in tears. I drove to the top of a hill and called AAA.
I got towed back into Flagstaff, chatting with the tow truck driver and his daughter about life in Australia. When he was pulling the car off the bed, he pointed out that my right front brake caliper was in a bad state, but it was an easy and cheap fix.
I reversed the car into a spot between some parts cars and jacked the car up. One of the brake pads fell on the ground when I pulled the wheel off. The pads themselves were still in good condition, so I tried to return the caliper piston but it wasn't budging. The bleeder valve was completely rusted shut. After playing around with it, I hit the rotor and it wobbled. The brake rotor wobbled. The brake rotor shouldn't wobble.
I pulled the disc off and discovered that the two wheel bearings were completely lunched. There was almost nothing left of them, and the wheel would have been hanging on by a thread, literally. By this stage it was about 7:30pm and I was losing light. I was only about a mile away from the local auto parts store so I called them and discovered they had everything I needed in stock, and were open until 11pm. It must have been close to 10 before I started reassembling everything. I've never done anything like this before so there was a lot of seeing how things fit together, looking up YouTube videos, and trying again. Eventually I had the bearings seated. I got a new caliper on there, despite one completely rusted bolt. I even bled the brakes on my own by jamming a log onto the brake pedal.
As I was finishing up, a cop turned up and put his spotlight on me. I put my hands out to show I wasn't holding anything and approached the car with a smile. The fact that I hadn't run and that I had a pen torch duct-taped to my cap had probably convinced him I wasn't a threat. He was nice and wished me luck.
A few minutes later, at what must have been around 2am and with everything bolted in and packed away, I drove gingerly out of the driveway and down the street. The brakes were a bit spongy, but stopped the car. The steering was much more direct than it ever had been.
I jubilantly treated myself to dinner at the only place that was open (Macca's) and headed for the freeway. Literally as I was driving onto the on-ramp, at no more than 25mph, something went clang, rattle, and hum. I pulled over immediately and took a look. The caliper had fallen out of its cradle. I called AAA again and was towed, yet again, back to that bloody car park at the mechanics. As the car was being pulled onto the flatbed, the wheel came off. Not enough that the car fell, but enough to kill my adventurous spirit temporarily. I slept on my bench seat from 4am to 8am in that car park.
So here I am, writing this from a Starbucks a couple of miles from the workshop, with the shakes from fatigue and caffeine. My everything is dirty and greasy and I can only imagine the smell.
I know my tone is defeated and deflated, but really, this is exactly what I was expecting. This is what these adventures are about. The Top Gear slogan keeps bouncing around my head this morning: Ambitious, but shite.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Deep In The Heart Of Texas
One thing about America is that the there's a distinct difference in terrain as you cross between states. Louisiana was subtropical, with thick, sticky air and heaps of bugs, all in swampland. Crossing into Texas the land and sky open up.
Arriving at the Johnson Space Center (sic) in Houston that afternoon, I walked around every exhibit and watched every film on offer. I took the tramcar tour around the NASA facilities, seeing the astronaut training facility and the massive warehouse that houses the Saturn V rocket. A humbling experience.
From there I legged it through Houston at dusk, driving in the hot Texan night air to Austin. It's very dry here. There's a lot of white concrete and my lasting memory of Texas will be the glare.
The truck's air con takes off the edge, but it's developed a problem where the power steering stops working when the air con is on, so I can only really have it on at freeway speeds, and on the freeway it's just as good to enjoy the 2x130 a/c (two windows at 130kph). I suspect the issue lies with the drive belt. I've picked up a spare belt just in case this one goes on me, but I'll try to increase the tension and see if that fixes it or breaks it.
I arrived into Austin late on Wednesday. On Thursday night, my friend Samantha and her housemate Sadia invited me to dine with a couple of their friends at a Turkish restaurant. We were seated in a beautiful courtyard with lots of pretty little lights as the sky turned lavender. After dinner the owner of the place, and older woman with no curves (save a boob job) came out and started doing a belly dance without exposing her belly. It was a bit fun, a bit hilarious, and a bit creepy, all at the same time.
The following day, Sam and I went to South Congress. A year or two back I read a book called The Common Lawyer. It describes Austin in great detail and really made me want to come and visit the place. SoCo is where most of the book is set, and so we went to Guero's Taco Bar, where the main character spends a lot of his time drinking Coronas on the patio with his friends. Guero's was also featured in Tarantino's Death Proof. We enjoyed more Tex-Mex and some Coronas on the patio before walking up SoCo and going into the rad vintage brick-a-brack shops and some cowboy boot stores.
The past few days have been a whirlwind of cheap drinks and mountains of Tex-Mex, and variations thereof.
After enjoying some theatre in the park last night, my tourguide Sam and I drove to Rainey Street, downtown. It was a street of weatherboard houses, just like you'd find in and suburb of Australia, but the insides of the houses had been completely gutted and turned into bars. But we started at the food trucks. An empty piece of land halfway down the street with food trucks at the perimeter and seating in the middle. With more Tex-Mex, Texas BBQ, and some souvlaki, we went with Thai for a change. From there we went to Lucille's bar. Standing in the backyard, drink in hand, it felt like an awesome house party -- except with a full bar and a few bouncers. It probably helped that I befriended a large group of Aussies, too.
I'm in Austin for a few more days so I'll be doing some more exploring and probably some more eating, I'd imagine.
Arriving at the Johnson Space Center (sic) in Houston that afternoon, I walked around every exhibit and watched every film on offer. I took the tramcar tour around the NASA facilities, seeing the astronaut training facility and the massive warehouse that houses the Saturn V rocket. A humbling experience.
From there I legged it through Houston at dusk, driving in the hot Texan night air to Austin. It's very dry here. There's a lot of white concrete and my lasting memory of Texas will be the glare.
The truck's air con takes off the edge, but it's developed a problem where the power steering stops working when the air con is on, so I can only really have it on at freeway speeds, and on the freeway it's just as good to enjoy the 2x130 a/c (two windows at 130kph). I suspect the issue lies with the drive belt. I've picked up a spare belt just in case this one goes on me, but I'll try to increase the tension and see if that fixes it or breaks it.
I arrived into Austin late on Wednesday. On Thursday night, my friend Samantha and her housemate Sadia invited me to dine with a couple of their friends at a Turkish restaurant. We were seated in a beautiful courtyard with lots of pretty little lights as the sky turned lavender. After dinner the owner of the place, and older woman with no curves (save a boob job) came out and started doing a belly dance without exposing her belly. It was a bit fun, a bit hilarious, and a bit creepy, all at the same time.
The following day, Sam and I went to South Congress. A year or two back I read a book called The Common Lawyer. It describes Austin in great detail and really made me want to come and visit the place. SoCo is where most of the book is set, and so we went to Guero's Taco Bar, where the main character spends a lot of his time drinking Coronas on the patio with his friends. Guero's was also featured in Tarantino's Death Proof. We enjoyed more Tex-Mex and some Coronas on the patio before walking up SoCo and going into the rad vintage brick-a-brack shops and some cowboy boot stores.
The past few days have been a whirlwind of cheap drinks and mountains of Tex-Mex, and variations thereof.
After enjoying some theatre in the park last night, my tourguide Sam and I drove to Rainey Street, downtown. It was a street of weatherboard houses, just like you'd find in and suburb of Australia, but the insides of the houses had been completely gutted and turned into bars. But we started at the food trucks. An empty piece of land halfway down the street with food trucks at the perimeter and seating in the middle. With more Tex-Mex, Texas BBQ, and some souvlaki, we went with Thai for a change. From there we went to Lucille's bar. Standing in the backyard, drink in hand, it felt like an awesome house party -- except with a full bar and a few bouncers. It probably helped that I befriended a large group of Aussies, too.
I'm in Austin for a few more days so I'll be doing some more exploring and probably some more eating, I'd imagine.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Bourbon Street
On Sunday I drove from Chicago to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- one of THE race tracks in the world. I wasn't seeing the Indy 500, but I was there to witness the 20th anniversary of the Brickyard 400, a significant race on the calendar anyway. The track's nickname is the Brickyard as the Speedway was paved with brick originally. There's an exposed portion of brick near the start/finish line, and it's now tradition for the winner to kiss the bricks after the race. I was going for the Aussie Marcus Ambrose in the #9 Ford (which ensured his terrible placing).I left and heard the finish live on the radio about 20 minutes later, and enjoyed perfect traffic leaving the city as the police had closed all the surrounding roads in anticipation of the spectators that were about to leave after me.
Arriving into Nashville just as the sun was setting, I met up my host for the night, Mike. I met Mike via the Couch Surfing website a while ago. He'd never actually hosted a traveller before, but being a bit of a jet-setter himself as well as having friends crash at his on a weekly basis, he decided to sign up to meet new people. Having already visited Australia, Mike stupidly invited me to stay with him in his cool-as-fuck apartment in one of the tallest buildings in the city.
That night we hit the town. And then some. Tootsies was the best -- every wall in the place was covered in hanging photos of musicians who had visited and played there. Most of the main wall had fading sepia photos signed in calligraphy. The girl was singing as she walked atop the bar. The guitarist was name-checking cities where everyone was from, and Mike shouted Melbourne, Australia! and pointed at me. I waved my baseball cap and got some cheers. One young guy pulled me aside and told me he was heading to Australia in two weeks. He told me to give him one place in Australia that he absolutely had to visit that wasn't a normal tourist spot. After thinking for a minute, I wrote down in his phone 'the water fall to the east of Byron Bay.'
A pulled-pork sandwich and another couple of bars later, he insisted that I have a Bush Whack, which is basically a thickshake made with Bacardi 151. A message to a friend and we were in a taxi across to the other side of town to a songwriters' night. The girl who was singing up on stage came down and a mutual friend introduced us and we were chatting for a time. Her name is Audra Mae, and she's worth wiki'ing. Keep an ear out for her on two tracks of Avicii's upcoming album.
After we got back to his apartment, Mike pulled out his Desert Eagle. The .50 calibre handgun is basically a cannon, with the bullets as big as big-game rifle rounds. All of the handling of guns I've had have been around very responsible people who taught me proper gun safety, so the first thing I did was check that the chamber was cleared and the magazine was empty, and then double-checked the safety. Then we went out onto the balcony and took a bunch of photos of me holding it like a gangster.
Mike left early for work the next morning, and I nursed my hangover. I packed and headed for Third Man Records, as instructed by my recently acquired sister-in-law. The building is in a blue-collar industrial-cum-residential area, and is pretty big. The shop itself is basically two small rooms in the corner of the complex. The street was completely dead when I arrived on Monday morning, but inside there were quite a few people. Most with interesting haircuts and tattoos, standing around and looking awkward because there's not a lot to do there but nobody wants to leave. Mike told me to meet him for lunch at Arnold's, which is a Nashville institution and is just around the corner.
There was a line outside of Arnold's at 11am. We lined up half an hour later and got our "meat 'n' three" as well as some pecan pie, which was extraordinarily good. The meal was perfect for a hangover. We said our goodbyes and I headed towards Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of the Jack Daniel's Distillery. Our tour guide was a big guy in worn denim overalls and a weathered JD hat, named Ron. Ron spoke like John Goodman and his performance was just as entertaining. Interestingly, Lynchburg is a dry county, with no alcohol allowed to be sold. The distillery has an exemption for short run, special edition batches, but I left empty handed, still a bit dusty from the night before.
I pointed the car towards New Orleans and made haste. I'd spent all day driving with my window down, and the air was getting very thick and very sticky. My jeans had the consistency of when you take them off the line and put them on just a few hours before they're completely dry, purely because of the humidity. The F150 has dual fuel tanks and no dash lights, and about six hours later I was almost running on empty with 20 miles to go, but I arrived at my hotel in one piece.
Today I drove around N'Awleans and the French Quarter for a time before finding a park. Bourbon St is a lot smaller than I was expecting. The architecture in the French Quarter is so so so beautiful. Rustic and quaint and historic and beautiful. The place seems to have turned a bit touristy and fake, and I've already heard Oh When The Saints more times than anyone should on a Tuesday afternoon. I'd had images in my head of walking down Bourbon St at night, drinking Southern Comfort and listening to jazz the way Kerouac described it. For various reasons that didn't end up happening, so tonight I write this from my hotel room before another big drive tomorrow.
Arriving into Nashville just as the sun was setting, I met up my host for the night, Mike. I met Mike via the Couch Surfing website a while ago. He'd never actually hosted a traveller before, but being a bit of a jet-setter himself as well as having friends crash at his on a weekly basis, he decided to sign up to meet new people. Having already visited Australia, Mike stupidly invited me to stay with him in his cool-as-fuck apartment in one of the tallest buildings in the city.
That night we hit the town. And then some. Tootsies was the best -- every wall in the place was covered in hanging photos of musicians who had visited and played there. Most of the main wall had fading sepia photos signed in calligraphy. The girl was singing as she walked atop the bar. The guitarist was name-checking cities where everyone was from, and Mike shouted Melbourne, Australia! and pointed at me. I waved my baseball cap and got some cheers. One young guy pulled me aside and told me he was heading to Australia in two weeks. He told me to give him one place in Australia that he absolutely had to visit that wasn't a normal tourist spot. After thinking for a minute, I wrote down in his phone 'the water fall to the east of Byron Bay.'
A pulled-pork sandwich and another couple of bars later, he insisted that I have a Bush Whack, which is basically a thickshake made with Bacardi 151. A message to a friend and we were in a taxi across to the other side of town to a songwriters' night. The girl who was singing up on stage came down and a mutual friend introduced us and we were chatting for a time. Her name is Audra Mae, and she's worth wiki'ing. Keep an ear out for her on two tracks of Avicii's upcoming album.
After we got back to his apartment, Mike pulled out his Desert Eagle. The .50 calibre handgun is basically a cannon, with the bullets as big as big-game rifle rounds. All of the handling of guns I've had have been around very responsible people who taught me proper gun safety, so the first thing I did was check that the chamber was cleared and the magazine was empty, and then double-checked the safety. Then we went out onto the balcony and took a bunch of photos of me holding it like a gangster.
Mike left early for work the next morning, and I nursed my hangover. I packed and headed for Third Man Records, as instructed by my recently acquired sister-in-law. The building is in a blue-collar industrial-cum-residential area, and is pretty big. The shop itself is basically two small rooms in the corner of the complex. The street was completely dead when I arrived on Monday morning, but inside there were quite a few people. Most with interesting haircuts and tattoos, standing around and looking awkward because there's not a lot to do there but nobody wants to leave. Mike told me to meet him for lunch at Arnold's, which is a Nashville institution and is just around the corner.
There was a line outside of Arnold's at 11am. We lined up half an hour later and got our "meat 'n' three" as well as some pecan pie, which was extraordinarily good. The meal was perfect for a hangover. We said our goodbyes and I headed towards Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of the Jack Daniel's Distillery. Our tour guide was a big guy in worn denim overalls and a weathered JD hat, named Ron. Ron spoke like John Goodman and his performance was just as entertaining. Interestingly, Lynchburg is a dry county, with no alcohol allowed to be sold. The distillery has an exemption for short run, special edition batches, but I left empty handed, still a bit dusty from the night before.
I pointed the car towards New Orleans and made haste. I'd spent all day driving with my window down, and the air was getting very thick and very sticky. My jeans had the consistency of when you take them off the line and put them on just a few hours before they're completely dry, purely because of the humidity. The F150 has dual fuel tanks and no dash lights, and about six hours later I was almost running on empty with 20 miles to go, but I arrived at my hotel in one piece.
Today I drove around N'Awleans and the French Quarter for a time before finding a park. Bourbon St is a lot smaller than I was expecting. The architecture in the French Quarter is so so so beautiful. Rustic and quaint and historic and beautiful. The place seems to have turned a bit touristy and fake, and I've already heard Oh When The Saints more times than anyone should on a Tuesday afternoon. I'd had images in my head of walking down Bourbon St at night, drinking Southern Comfort and listening to jazz the way Kerouac described it. For various reasons that didn't end up happening, so tonight I write this from my hotel room before another big drive tomorrow.
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