I believe I last left off while we were making a run for St. Louis.  It seems like a year ago.  The west coast was still a distant memory and an even further destination.  Now I sit in Palm Springs, just moments ago relieved from the nightmarish grasp of the heated pool and hot tub.  The cross we must bear.  I find that we fit in very nicely with the Palm Springs crowd.  Retirement comes very naturally.  Funny as it may be because we have about $4.60 in our bank account.  But, we’ve got them all fooled.  The assumption being that one must be of the wealthier throngs to “winter” in Palm Springs.  Imagine if they knew we were just penniless bohemians riddled with cheap drink and impure desires.  We’d be run from the desert with diamond-encrusted pitchforks and torches fueled with black-market whale oil.  Luckily, these people are too looped up on whatever pills their quacks are feeding them and weighed down by the gold lining of their velour jumpsuits to think too far outside their respective bubbles constructed of the finest skins of albino Eskimo children that money can buy.  Despite our current respite in the laps of comparative luxury, if I had written this post a week ago it would have been filled with the worst self-pitying doomsday blabbering since the hale-bopp comet streaked across the northern sky.  We were nearly rim-rocked in the Redwoods of the Northern California coast, surrounded by the filthiest of the dirty hippie breed and an almost tangible air of impending devastation.  The dope-riddled inhabitants of these unfortunate locales poked paranoid eyeballs out of windows draped in black sheets or groveled at the feet of any passing human or canine.  These were towns stricken by a perfect storm of isolation, crystal meth abuse and lack of sunlight.  The outlook was dire; the present was even worse.  But first, let us quickly run through what led us to that grease-sided pit of human degradation.

     Rewind a few weeks. St. Louis was good.  We took shots, etc. directly below the Gateway Arch then moved to the eastern side and sprinted madly though the Arch, bursting into the Wild West with a ballistic manner we thought was fitting.  Satisfied that we had properly introduced ourselves to the West, and being that we could not go to the top of the Arch because Erin had packed Rambo’s weapon cache into her purse, we returned to our RV. 

What originally brought us to St. Louis was the allure of Route 66.  Fed up with a complete lack of individuality found in our travels around this country we wanted to take a nostalgic look at the skeletal remains of a road once utterly bubbling with uniqueness.  We found what we expected: what was once a thriving roadside car-hop was now a weed-infested insurance office; what was once a mysterious world of dinosaurs was now an adult video store.  And these were the places that were actually occupied; the majority was turning to dust, broken windows accenting the peeling layers of a hundred years of paint jobs left to decompose in the wind and rain.  We drove old Route 66 – the REAL Route 66, not the interstates – all the way from St. Louis to L.A., passing on back roads through long forgotten towns that still clung desperately to the memories of the hey-day of the Mother Road and then conversely through thriving cities that seemed to have in turn forgotten the very Road that once built them up.  It was both sad and fascinating.  That great river of macadam that is indelibly etched into the annals of American history could now be classified mostly as a ruin, taking its place alongside the Mayan cities of the Yucatan and the Coliseum of Rome.  The only places that still thrived – and I use that term loosely – were within spitting distance of interstate exits.  And those areas were similar to the point of nausea.  McDonalds, Burger King, Waffle House, IHOP and Applebees.  The signs ubiquitous and boring, burned into our brains like the Macarena.  I challenge anyone to be blindfolded and dropped along any of this country’s interstate exits and then tell me if you stand in Clifton Park or not.  You will not be able to tell.  Individuality is gone, the chains have taken over.  So save yourself some time and money: go out to Wilton, close your eyes turn around three times and when you open your eyes again you will be anywhere in this country.  It is sad……so we went to Applebees to drown our sorrows and then over to Wal-Mart to fill up on groceries.    

Despite my draconian take on the state of the Union and its roadside uniformity, it is not nearly as bad as I make it sound and we had a very good time.  I like few things more than driving along a lonely desert road and we had many opportunities to do just that on the now redesignated byways that once made up the old Route 66.  Alas, we tore through the desert, wound up the Black Mountains on little more than a goat path and descended through a ghost town overtaken by yakking burros into the Golden State. 

It was raining in the desert when we woke up on our first day in California.  The smell was overpowering.  Like a sun-soaked parking lot in a passing rain.  After tagging L.A. – just so we could say we drove Route 66 from St. Louis to L.A. – we tore north to San Francisco to pick up Dragland for a Christmas of debauchery.  Christmas on the Sonoma coast it rained.  We missed our families and were generally depressed.  New Year’s Eve in San Francisco it rained Jack Daniels.  We were decidedly less depressed.  And then on New Year’s Day we sat looking at each other with blank stares.  This was the end of the very little planning we had done.  Which way do we go from here?  More blank stares.  So we chewed on some crystal meth, drank a vile of battery acid and went to the nearest mosque to await a revelation.  It never came.  So after the sun went down we were delivered to our RV and drove out of San Francisco with our bank accounts plundered our refrigerator on the fritz and no place to call a destination.  It was in the morning of the following day that we decided to go see the largest trees in the world and ponder our next move.  It was on the day after that – now 200 miles north, through Mendocino County and into the Redwoods of Humboldt County – that we discovered we were even lower in our bank account than we had previously thought.  And we had previously thought that we were pretty low.  Screwed is what we were; to put it briefly.  The window for pondering was slammed shut; it was time for action.  In just a few days our worldly possessions would consist of the financed apartment attached to the truck we were bumbling around aimlessly in and nothing else.  And that, in a nutshell, is what brought us to be nearly stranded on the Northern California coast.

While in the parking lot of the Blue Lake Casino outside of Eureka on the aforementioned northern California coast we scoured the internet in search of gainful employment.  Casinos and truck-stops have been home to this faction of the Brock family throughout our jaunt across country as they are the only places to camp for free without being bothered.  And to the shock of all reading, we have only gambled about 5 dollars the whole trip despite taking refuge at these fine Indian establishments for many of the nights.  The next day we set out to find work come hell or high water.  We are relatively intelligent people – emphasis on the relatively – so it should not be too difficult.  Well, we spent the whole day and well into night driving and walking around to nearly every establishment in the greater Eureka area and were shooed like rabid kangaroos at each one.  It is one thing to be denied the time of day while looking for employment, it is quite another to be laughed at and scorned by filthy hippies and other moronic forms of non-desirables.  People who have taken up habitation in that god awful place for no other reason than because they are too stupid, deranged or hopped up on banana peels to live anywhere else. It was a day and time in our lives to be remembered and recalled vividly and often.  To be reviewed, to be drank in and force-fed like poison. I say that with complete seriousness.  I never want to forget the feeling of being looked down upon by those god awful people.  I never want to lose the image of doors slamming or filthy dope-fiend owners smirking as they all but chase us from their so-called “businesses” for nothing more than inquiring about employment.  I want to always remember their spiteful faces as they snubbed their noses at my wife and how they glared at us and treated us like common thieves.  Dirty fucking hippies.  We had to run from that land the Lord has forgotten before I turned the business end of a napalm flame-thrower on the whole goddamn city to watch in orgasmic pleasure as their greasy dreadlocks burned from their bug-ridden skulls and their web-toed children pleaded for mercy that would never come as their skin melted away into puddles that I would then frolic in in ecstasy before moving on pets, public records and distant acquaintances to ensure that the world would never remember that this filthy species of animal ever existed.  Even now I feel my blood boil as I recall that day…if you hadn’t noticed. 

So, avoiding having to reduce Eureka and Arcata to ash, we raced south out of that dung-heap with our mortal souls still intact and just enough money for gas to get to Southern California where the job market, people and weather should all be quite a bit warmer.  Hopped up on pure desperation we drove 700 miles in just over a day.  The intensity in the RV was palpable.  My stomach was in my throat and the pure raw emotion of being nearly broke on the road without a home, a lead or a destination was enough to make me choke.  The stinging pierce of adrenaline cut through my veins with nothing to regulate it as we rocketed south with brakes beginning to fail and a heat-seeking rocket of failure closing in on our heels.  It was one of the direst of situations I have ever found myself in and it felt every bit of that.  It was an internal state of desperation that I will maniacally cling to forever as a nuclear power-plant of motivational grimness. If you are the big tree, I am the small ax.  Those were three days that I will never forget.

And to wrap this up – as I see that I am approaching 2000 words and therefore assume that most people have stopped reading – we pulled into Palm Springs, a destination for no other reason than Frank Sinatra lived here, and immediately found out that there was a Film Festival in town.  Curious, we went to the location of its black-tie gala and no sooner did we show up than Mark Wahlberg – one of our favorite actors and producers – stepped out at our feet and walked over to greet us and the few remaining people outside the event.  A nice start to Palm Springs.  I got his autograph on my Jarlo Junction Productions business card and a couple of pictures of him and Erin.  Bam.  The next day we looked for work and the day after that we both found gainful employment; Erin at a fancy restaurant downtown and I at the Bob Hope Classic PGA Golf Tournament and Celebrity ProAm.  Erin started work last night and I volunteered at the film festival last night and will again Friday.  In addition to that, I have been writing like mad and doing a lot of walking and sitting by the pool.  I can’t imagine what today would have been like if we had stayed in that hippie infested town in Northern California.  Uggg, I don’t even want to ponder that thought.  So there you have it, we have been to the edge and are currently returning from it in a pimped-out Cadillac (minus the pimped-out Cadillac).

     In the morning, Tuesday, we woke up well before sunrise with snow covering the ground at our parking lot.  We drove a little ways into Kentucky and stopped in a sleepy little town with a beautiful display of Christmas lights in its park to look at the lights and wait for sunrise.  In a few hours we were at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.  After some deliberation at the park we decided to take a guided tour of part of the cave system.  Neither of us had ever been in a cave and are both just slightly claustrophobic.  The two hour tour of the caves, some as big as a subway station and others narrow enough that we had to squeeze through sideways, was both historically interesting and sensory in a way I’m still wrapping my head around.  It definitely sparked an interest in caves in both of us.

     Mammoth Cave was the end of anything resembling a plan of travel for us.  So, in the RV after the tour we sat with a cup of coffee and decided which direction we should head.  Because it was cold as hell out we figured south was a good bet and due south from us happened to be Nashville, Tennessee, just about 4 or five hours away.

     At the third campground we checked in Nashville we were again greeted with a fortuitous cocktail of luck.  The campground was located just a short 2 mile walk to the historic Opryland Hotel – voted most Christmassy hotel by some big magazine – the Grand Ole Opry, and the world’s biggest Ice sculpture world created in a huge dome/tent in the Opryland parking lot.  In addition to all this, when we pulled into our campground we were welcomed with the surprise that the campground next door had an acre-sized Christmas light show, all blinking and flashing to music through an FM station.  We got to sit all night and watch the lights for free as we saw hundreds of cars pay the fee to drive through.

     After a relaxing night, we paid for another night of camping and did some errands.  That night we got good and drunk on Hillbilly Highballs (Moonshine and Mt Dew packaged in a Mason Jar and ziplock bag) and Jack Daniels.  We set out to walk down to the Opryland, planning on stopping for dinner at a local joint called John A’s.  A mile and a half into the walk our camera battery died.  The whole point of this walk was to go to Opryland to photograph the pretty lights.  So, we turned around, walked the mile and a half back, had a couple more cocktails to keep the cold at bay, it was 20 degrees, and with our battery charged headed back out to walk the two miles to our destination.  We had a great dinner of fried catfish and other various deep-fried local favorites while listening to some live music at John A’s.  After dinner we goofed around, moseying along toward Opryland.  At the famed and gilded hotel we walked right in like we owned the place and had ourselves a nice drunken stroll through its highly polished interior.  Satisfied with our caper we left through the front door towards our campground.  This route just happened to take up toward the back of the massive tent that held the “ICE” show, the world’s largest ice sculpture world.  This is where the parents, etc. should stop maybe reading…

     As we walked along the back of the dome we may or may not have checked a back door, and may or may not have found it to be chained in a way that left just enough room to squeeze through, and may or may not have gotten a free tour of the Ice show and all its sculptures and ice slides.  You decide for yourself, but man, those sculptures were really cool. Pun intended.

     We happily stumbled home to our campground and left Nashville in the morning, our hypothetical caper successfully completed. 

From Nashville, we again had no plan.  The Jack Daniel’s Distillery, just two hours south in Lynchburg, TN (pop. 361) was a no-brainer.  The tour of the famous distillery was awesome, we stood in Mr. Jack’s actual office and at the spring that has been the water source for Jack Daniel’s since he first started distilling at age 16 in the mid 1800’s.  We also saw the un-seasoned whisky and mash before it will be mellowed drip by drip though ten feet of sugar-maple charcoal and the barreled and sent to a barrel house in which we saw barrels stamped with the Jack Daniels logo and stacked straight up to the fourth-floor cieling that then held the concoction for seven years before it ever hits a bottle.

     From the sleepy little dry Tennessee town of whiskey distillers we drove north again having decided to head to St. Louis for some Blues, etc.  And here we are, after sleeping in a truck stop last night we are now barreling toward St. Louis with reservations by the Riverfront…

Started working on getting work last night.  Prospects look good because we can go anywhere.  Work-camping deals are everywhere.  We’ll pick a few areas we may want to go and then try to arrange deals at nice camping resorts in those locations.  Time will tell. 

We were locked out of Shenandoah National Park yesterday because of ice and snow on the road.  We had slept in a parking lot and tried to go into the park for sunrise but it was closed indefinitely.  Instead we drove a very scenic drive down the Shenandoah Valley with George Washington National Forest on our right and Shenandoah National Park on our left.  Our destination was Great Smokey Mountain National Park in Tennessee.  Well, we just called and, you guessed it, the park is closed because of snow and ice. Wimps.  These southerners don’t know how to handle snow. 

We just had a command meeting and decided to forgo this portion of Appalachia and turn West to head for better weather in Kentucky.  We’ll return to the Smokeys and the Shenandoah Valley at a later date.  This is the beauty of the Road.  This is why I feel truly at home right now for the first time in months.  A portal to every corner of this country, continent or hemisphere is waiting at the end of every driveway in America.  This maze of macadam an attentive porter to our hopes of truly living; sometimes moody, it may throw you a breaking ball; but for those that can adjust, a hanging slider is easily deposited into the left field bleachers. So, off we go for Kentucky and beyond.

When the world gives you grey skies, drive to where they are blue…

     We awoke Thursday morning well rested, nearly forgetting until the shades were lifted that we were actually in a parking lot.  After a nice breakfast, we headed south towards Gettysburg, PA.  Twenty miles outside of Gettysburg I pulled us off the highway and we travelled the rest of the way into Gettysburg on Old Highway 15, one of the roads that troops would have marched down to reach the famed battlefield town on the first day of July in 1863.  The town of Gettysburg invokes many emotions.  The old buildings and archetechture immediately bespoke the town’s history.  Gettysburg College sprawls across the western part of town with brick and stone buildings laid out with such an American beauty.  At the Battlefield Park visitor center we bought tickets to the multimedia presentation which, along with a powerful Imax-type video, laid claim to a cyclorama painting of the battlefield.  Finished sometime in the late 1800s, this painting is 365 feet in circumference and 45 feet tall, surrounding the whole room.  You stand in the center and can see a 360 degree view of the battlefield from atop Cemetery Hill.  The painting comes to life as you look north to see the Union Army repelling Pickett’s Charge coming across the field; a failing charge that cost the Confederates 5,000 men in less than an hour, as well as the battle and eventually the War.  We spent the rest of the day driving all around the battlefield that encompasses the whole town and sprawls over rolling hills in every direction.  Each regiment and state that took place in the fight has monuments that line both sides of the road for the whole day-long drive through the battlefield.  The monuments vary greatly in size and quality, the battling regiments still competing in the very spots they once dug in, now in a gentleman’s completion for the grandest memorial to their fighting forefathers.  The sheer size of the Historical Park gives a staggering revelation to the overall mass of this epic collision of forces and what a heroically bloody and savage plot of land this town must have been in the summer of 1863.  At least 163,000 soldiers met in ferocious battle and at the end of the three days of fighting 51,000 of them lay dead, wounded or missing.

     After spending all day at Gettysburg, we travelled south with no real solid destination.  In a few hours, while prowling mountain roads for a place to camp we happened upon Shenandoah River State Park and decided to pull in for the night. We arrived at the RV campground around midnight.  Luck proved to be on our side, as the park is one of the most lovely places we’ve been. In the morning, on Erin’s birthday, we got up and did a nice fortifying hike/jog along the Shenandoah River, which nearly flooded its banks because of the heavy rains the days before.  After the hike and a trip to town, we watched the sun set over the rolling green Shenandoah Valley before making a huge fire right outside the window to our RV.  The RV felt like a cozy little winter cabin with the fire flickering outside the window by our mood-lit dining table.  We had steak cooked over an open fire, served over Fettucine Alfredo with cheese and crackers as an appetizer.  We spent the night eating drinking and being merry, rotating from outside by the fire to inside to get warm and play cards and then up to the roof to watch the stars and look out over the river valley.  It was the best day I’ve had in a long time.

     Today we got up and did another 5 mile hike/jog up along the river and its rolling valley where we watched a Bald Eagle perch in the tree above us for twenty minutes or so.  The Shenandoah Valley has been a much needed piece of paradise to truly start our trip…

     We drove through the rain last night after a couple of tall cups of coffee from my parents.  It was tough leaving.  We had been in their driveway for the better part of a month and pulling out I felt a strong twinge of sadness.  I felt it when we thought of all of our friends and family.  We wouldn’t pass this way again until April, which in the dog-years of the road is like ten years, scientifically speaking that is.  What can you do though, one goodbye isn’t better than another and none really help anything.  As I said last year, that is the beauty of the road; it pulls you away with its siren song but it also makes you appreciate the loved ones you’ve left.   

On the road out of town we marveled at the conspicuously lacking sense of reality.  All the places we thought of were just names on a map, color coordinated for ease of reading.  We couldn’t comprehend that we were plowing headlong through the rain back into the rollercoaster that is the American highway.

     One of the truly mystical aspects of road trips like these is that no two are even remotely alike.  The endless dynamics that form a trip shift and change and swirl like the tidal pools of the Pacific, churning the world around us in a perfect violence of renewal.  Each trip lends experience and confidence to the next.  Experience and confidence that, with too much credence given to either, can just as easily lead to your demise as your glory.  That’s why we love this stuff.  

     After a few hours of circuitous routing due to unfounded overconfidence in in my directional aptitude we saw a sign for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  At three AM we pulled into the parking lot of an apartment building in Cooperstown and slept until five AM.  At five, with my wife still sleeping, I drove our home to a Topps parking lot where we slept until about 9:30 AM with unknowing shoppers parked all around us.  I do love having an apartment on wheels.  In fact, right now I’m writing this at our dinette while Erin drives us deeper into Appalachia on I81.  For the health of my heart I am keeping myself occupied with writing while she drives.  She’s a very good driver.  If you were here you could see my roll my eyes dramatically as I write that.

     The Baseball Hall of Fame was awesome.  I’ve never been.  We saw the batting gloves Derek Jeter wore as he broke Lou Gehrig’s All-Time Yankee Hits Record on a stormy September 11^th night.  I was at that game; pretty cool to see parts of it in the Hall of Fame.  Knowing that countless greats of America’s Past-time wander the same halls as us was worth the admission itself.

     The rest of today and tonight has been rainy and windy, but we are making our way out into America nonetheless.  Now I’m going to upload this while travelling 65 miles an hour down the interstate.  How do ya like me now? Technology amazes me…

Saturday March 6, 2010 – The Long Haul Home

We woke up in the morning, after a great night’s sleep, feeling good.  We could hear Henry in the other room begging his mother to come in and play.  “Are they awake yet…are they awake yet…”  When he heard us talking he came running in, jumping on the air mattress ready to play out all the energy he had store while sleeping.  We were more than happy to oblige as Andrew and Michelle made breakfast sandwiches for breakfast.  Michelle had to work until noon and we had decided to stay until she got out so that we could see her before we left.  After she left for work we hung around playing with Henry and Sammy and watching Scooby-Doo and getting things ready for the drive home.  Around 10 we packed up the boys and Andrew took us into Boulder to do a short hike.  The hike was great, not too long or steep and with a beautiful view of the Rockies and the city of Boulder.  Henry had a blast, throwing rocks and pine cones and exploring everything that caught his eye.  Luckily he was in the stroller when a lady, more than a little off her rocker, started foddering over the two kids and talking about how she was going to go to Haiti and take some kids.  Yup, she really did say that.  This was before she offered to babysit.  She probably shouldn’t expect a call.  Needless to say, Andrew held Sammy a little closer as he listened to this woman go on and on, just about telling her whole life story.  At that point Erin, not one to fain interest in crazy talk, had already taken Henry up the path a ways to let him play without fear of kidnap.  Finally out of the verbal grasp of this babbling lady we finished our hike and then went into Boulder to check that out.  Boulder is beautiful and we walked down Pearl Street listening to the street performers and allowing Henry to play at the play areas.  Soon it was noon and we returned to see Michelle.  We went down to this cool restaurant/brew pub down the street from them and they treated us to a great lunch.  Filled up on some fantastic cheeseburgers we went back to their place and despite not wanting to leave Henry and Sammy and Andrew and Michelle, and not really looking forward to the 31 hours of driving ahead of us we got packed up and said goodbye to start what could be the most epic drive of the whole road trip; a 31 hour race back east to see our kitty cat…

We left at 2:30 in the afternoon, Mountain Time, and settled in for the long drive that would end sometime around midnight eastern tomorrow.  I stopped and got four 5 Hour Energies and downed one right away and was ready to roll.  I took the first leg and instructed Erin to get as much sleep as possible while I was driving.  Soon the Rockies faded from my rearview and the sun started to set as we flew through the plains of eastern Colorado and into the flat cornfields of Nebraska.  I made it till midnight, doing some writing on my BlackBerry while I drove down the long, straight, empty interstate, before handing over the reins to Erin.  I was able to get some good sleep while she drove and woke up around 4am to take over again, pounding another 5 Hour Energy.  At this point we were a few hours from Chicago.  As we approached the windy city the sun started to paint the clouds on the horizon in palettes of red and orange.  We had been nearly 14,000 miles and had been to most of the major cities; it would be silly to pass so close to Chicago without stopping.  I wanted to go to Al Capone’s home and watch the sunrise from there.  With my blackberry we got the address to his house and set it in the Garmin.  I was expecting some grand palace on top of a hill somewhere.  Not the case.  Apparently he felt more at home amongst the working class and his house was a rather run down undescript home in the middle of Chicago’s fearsome South Side, which I didn’t realize until we were smack in the middle of some real-deal projects.  Needless to say, the South Side of Chicago is no place for two white folks in a Volvo with New York plates.  I was a little nervous and was glad that Erin was still half sleeping as we rolled through the crime riddled area.  We got some pictures of the legendary gangster’s home and quickly hightailed it back to the Interstate.  At this point the sun was fully up and we were to the toll roads and congestion of the East.  From here back it was boring.  Erin took over at noon and I got some more sleep until I took over again at 5, somewhere around Buffalo.  We were back in New York for the first time in 63 days and nearly 14,000 miles.  When we were about 2 hours from home we were aproaching the exit for Turning Stone Casino and the car needed a rest really badly.  We had already driven 27 hours with it only getting short breaks to refuel and for us to eat.  In the past 12 hours or so it hadn’t gotten really any rest.  In addition, we had been in the car for nearly 28 hours straight and we too could use some rest and a stretch of the legs.  Quite simply, we all needed some rest and if there happened to be a Casino right there…  Well, this may be one Casino story with a good ending.  We had about 27 dollars left and needed about 7 for tolls.  That left 20 dollars remaining with no set course.  I planned on giving that money a course.  I was hoping for a 5 dollar blackjack table so I could play a few hands but the casino was busy and the cheapest blackjack tables were 15 dollar minimum.  I found a seat and put the 20 on the dot.  One hands worth.  We either went home penniless or we didn’t, the cards would decide from here.  Half and hour later we left the casino with 150 bucks and a rested car.   Two and a half hours later we were back home with our kitty; a reunited family after 63 days, 25 states and 14,000 miles that took us over, under and through the grit and pure beauty our blessed country, the United States of America…THE END.

Thanks for reading!!

We woke up a couple hours after swimming in San Fracisco Bay.  Because of our long walk the night before I wasn’t very hungover but my legs were a little sore and I felt pretty dirty from the muddy saltwater we had been swimming in.  We got up and Erin said goodbye to Dragland and I brought him to work and said farewell.  I went back to the apartment and in a couple of hours we were showered and dressed and the car was packed up and ready to go.  We left Draglands neighborhood in North Beach and took the Bay Bridge over the bay and were out of San Francisco until who knows when.  We were pretty sad to be leaving.  Our week in San Fran was just one good time after another, great rock and rolls shows, great bars, great casinos, great wine, great cabins in wine country, great parties and great urban hikes with the most important of them all, great friends.  This also marked our departure from our western course which meant that this great adventure was coming to an end.  But, we had one more epic relay of long drives to complete.  We crossed the Bay Bridge on I80 and soon the Pacific Ocean disappeared in our rearview to wait patiently for our return to it.  We continued on I80 and pretty soon were ascending the foothills of the western slope of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains.  It didn’t take long for us to rise in elevation enough that snow became visible on the ground and then before we knew it there were towering snow banks lining the road and we could see the low cloud of snow that gripped the mountains we were about to cross.  When we reached this cloud the road turned to shit.  Traffic slowed to stop-and-go and flashing signs everywhere warned us that I80 was snowed over and maximum chain regulations were in effect.  This meant that one must either have chains for their tires or a 4 wheel drive vehicle with snow tires on all 4 wheels.  We didn’t have either.  We had snow tires on all four wheels but we didn’t have 4 wheel drive and we didn’t have chains.  We continued up the highway because the only other option was to backtrack to Sacramento and drive south and around the peaks of the Sierra-Nevada’s.  This would have taken us about 15 hours out of the way and would only be a last resort.  We pulled up to the checkpoint where they make sure you have chains or 4 wheel drive with snow tires and were instructed that we couldn’t continue past this point until they lifted the chain regulation which had already been in effect for more than 24 hours and the forcast suggested it would stay in effect for a lot longer.  We were directed off the highway and pulled into a gas station by the exit.  This gas station was the only thing for miles, we were stuck.  We sat at the gas station and discussed our options.  I checked the radar and saw that at the present time the snow was as light as it would get considering that another huge storm was coming up the mountain behind us.  We were in between the two storms right now, although it was still snowing pretty hard, and we knew that it would only get worse from here.  We overheard people talking about how they had been stranded at this gas station for 24 hours already and we didn’t like the sounds of that.  Erin, ever the criminal, thought that we should just make a run for it and try to get through, pleading ignorance if we got caught.  Pleading ignorance at this point may be tough considering that we had just past 50 miles of flashing signs and radio broadcasts and a checkpoint that turned us back, but me, ever the obiediant husband, did what my wife instructed and we pulled out of the gas station to make a run for it.  As I approached the ramp for the interstate I notice the conspicuous coloring of a police cruiser parked right next to the ramp.  If he noticed us he would be bird-doggin us for sure so I strategically waited for an 18 wheeler to cross between us and I made my move, trying to speed up the ramp without being seen but more importantly without going off the road.  We got on and I didn’t see any fuzz in the rearview, I think we got past him.  The interstate was pretty bad as it wound up the mountains and through Donner Pass where the Donner party in the mid 1800s had been stranded by an early winter storm and forced to resort to cannibalism to try to survive the winter.  We hoped to fare better because Erin doesn’t have much meat on her if it came to that.  The traffic was slow and with the good snow tires we made our way pretty well.  Finally we reached the other side of the mountain and eventually we were down and out of the chain regulation area.  We had snuck through and the only casualties were perhaps some extra gray hairs from a three hour white-knuckle drive through the chain regulation area where we had to not only watch the ice covered winding mountain road but also constantly be looking for cops that might be bird-doggin’ us.  On the other side we made our decent and eventually reached Reno, Nevada where we stopped at Denny’s for some breakfast dinner.  From Reno we continued west on route 50, which was a two lane lonely road that traversed the snow-capped peaks and desert valleys of the Great Basin.  About 4 hours after Reno we had been on the road for about 12 hours and we had about 15 more to go to reach my buddy Zach’s parent’s house in Ridgway, Colorado.  We planned to camp tonight and reach Ridgway tomorrow so we started looking for a camping spot.  We came to a rec area in the desert that had camping.  It was all just sand and despite a slight drizzling snow it was dry.  I was pretty tired and wanted to bed down for the night but Erin, a little spooked by the dark desert, wanted to continue on to try to find something better.  Again, being the obedient husband, I pulled back out onto the highway.  Turned out that wasn’t a great choice.  In a few miles we started to climb and what was a slight drizzle back in the desert was now a full-fledged blizzard.  Soon there was a foot of snow on the road and we were still climbing.  Luckily, at this point our side of the road had been plowed at some point earlier in the night and there was only a few inches that we were driving through but when we reached the top of the mountain the plow had stopped and now there was a full 12 to 18 inches on the whole road going down the other side.  A truck had passed through before us and I just tried to stay in his tracks as best I could but the snow was so deep that we were pretty much sliding down the mountain on our undercarriage with the wheels catching ground every now and then.  I couldn’t slow down because we would have gotten stuck up at the top of this mountain but I also didn’t want to go too fast because I had very little control over the vehicle.  When we passed a sign proclaiming this road “Route 50, The Loneliest Road in the World” I knew that this wasn’t where we wanted to get stuck at 2 oclock in the morning.  We slid down the winding mountain road for an hour or so until the road got a little better and we found a rec. area access road and decided to make that our camp for the night.  The snow was coming in sideways in the fierce wind and any attempt to put up the tent would have been futile so we just stopped the car in the middle of the road facing back toward the main road so that we may be able to it through the snow in the morning.  We tried not to think about the dry camp we had passed up a couple of hours ago and got ourselves situated to sleep in the car for the night…

Thursday March 4, 2010 – Somewhere in Nevada to Ridgway, CO

We woke up in the snow covered car around 8 am and soon were back on the road.  It was still snowing hard but the plows had at least been out at some point.  We stopped into a cool little old west town full of Mormons and got a great breakfast sandwich for breakfast before continuing on.  After a snowy pass through some more mountains we got out in front of the storm and continued through the Great Basin from one desert valley to the next, separated by snow capped passes through the mountains on each side.  We stopped at Great Basin National Park and took some pictures of the little that was open due to snow.  From there we continued east with a raging storm on our heels and miles and miles of lonely road in front of us.  We were in a wide basin with storm clouds dumping heavy snow on the mountains in every direction but blues sky above us.  We turned the music up loud and sped through the desert sun stopping in the middle of road where ever we wanted to take pictures of the beautiful mountains and fierce storm clouds all around.  This was a truly empty desert road and I was in my element.  This continued through mountain passes and along the floor of wide basins and through mountain passes and so on until we reached I70 in Utah.  We cruised along I70 through narrow arroyos and around giant mesas and soon it got dark and we continued on to Colorado, reaching the border around 8 pm.  From there we had a couple hour drive south to get to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Parker, who, were pretty much my second set of parents for the first 16 years of my life.  We reached their place well after their bedtime and I felt terrible for keeping them up, but despite the late hour we sat up talking and catching up on the last 12 years until we couldn’t put off sleep any longer…

 Friday March 5, 2010 – Ridgway, CO to Boulder, CO

Coffee goes on at 6:30 in the Parker household and we were up for it.  We chatted with Mr. and Mrs. Parker as we had our coffee and then had some of Rudy’s (Mr. Parker) World Famous scrambled eggs with bagels and fruit and all the fixin’s.  Their house is in the high desert of the Western Slope and they have picturesque views of the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains all around them.  After breakfast we said goodbye to Mrs. Parker who had an appointment and Mr. Parker took us up the mountain behind them to get a view of the 14,000 foot peaks beyond.  Unfortunately the cloud cover blanketed the mountain and we couldn’t see much but it was nice to listen to some of Mr. Parker’s stories and we saw Ralph Laurens ranch which is just 5 minutes from Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s house.  We got back and said goodbye and set course for Boulder via Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  The park was nice but it was all but shut down due to snow.  We got some pictures and free coffee before heading back out on the road.  We still had about 6 hours to Boulder and laying in front of us now was the whited-out form of Grand Mesa that we had to travers to reach I70.  We crawled up over Grand Mesa and back down again on snowy roads framed by 10 foot tall snow banks.  Back on I70 we started through one of the most beautiful sections of interstate in the country.  We passed Aspen and Vail and Brekenridge, drooling over the beautiful ski resorts and quaint mountain ski towns, wishing that we had money to stop at one of them and spend a couple days on the slopes.  Having to be satisfied with just the fantasy for now we passed through them and eventually were approaching Denver and our turn to Boulder.  We reached Boulder and my cousins house at about 6:30.  My cousin Andrew and his wife Michelle have literally THE most adorable two little boys ever to walk the earth.  Henry was born on my 25 birthday and is now three and Sammy is approaching 1.  Getting to see these kids, and Andrew and Michelle, of couse J, was one of the things we really looked forward to on this trip.  I wish I could describe Henry and do it justice but I know I can’t.  I’ll just say he is the cutest, funniest, most talkative, curious and playful kids in the world.  It doesn’t surprise me that he is because, as you know, they say that very special people are born on December 21^st.  I don’t know, I’m just telling you what people say.  I’m sure that his grandmother, my Aunt MaryAnn – whose 30^th birthday I was born on and whose 55^th birthday Henry was born on – would agree whole heartedly.  Andrew and Michelle made some pizza and we had a few beers and hung out, chatting and playing with Henry until we were all exhausted and bedded down for a sleep over…

Tuesday March 2, 2010 – San Francisco

Our last day in San Francisco.  I woke up and took Dragland to work at 8:30.  Being that it was our last day in San Fran and the last day before we headed back east we wanted to make the most of it.  After showers we went out and dropped the car off for an oil change.  From the garage we went for a walk to find somewhere to eat.  We walked over to Fisherman’s Wharf and strolled around there for a while.  We made our way down to Pier 39, which has a nice view of Alcatraz and the bay, and had lunch at one of the outdoor restaurants on the pier.  We walked further down the piers and pretty soon it was time to pick up the car and then Dragland to get ready for our final night blowout.  The plan had been to go see a band that Dragland and Carney knew play at some bar but during the day we decided to have some people over to Draglands and have a proper Jarlo sendoff with strong drinks and fat cigars.  After picking up Dragland we went back to his place and when Carney got there we went down to Safeway to get the makings for dinner.  Carney cooked an awesome meal when we got back and we got right to the partying.  One of Draglands friends, Jacob, and our friend Alison and her girlfriend came over and we mixed up some more strong drinks.  We hung out up on Dragland’s roof for a while and then stopped down at the bar under Draglands apartment and got some great imported Belgian beers.  After the bar we hung out and joked around at Dragland’s for a while listening to loud music and telling crazy stories before we got antsy and Dragland, Carney, Jacob and I all went out for a walk.  We set out at a fast march and turned uphill every chance we could until there was no more uphill to reach.  After a couple of hills Jacob grabbed a cab home.  He was a great guy but I don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into when he agreed to come for the “walk” with the three of us.  See, when Dragland, Carney and I have a few drinks and go for a walk it’s a little more than most people would consider a “walk”.  For most people a midnight walk would be a nice stroll around the neighborhood that took a half hour or so, just to stretch the legs.  Not quite so for we three Jarlos.  For us, a “walk” after some good drinks is a crazed night long speed march filled with lots of climbing and jumping and running and wild-eyed wrestling with crazy ideas being shouted and discussed and played out with arms and legs flailing as we try, maniacally, to traverse every piece of ground we see and tell every crazy story and discuss every dream for the future.  After Jacob got in the cab, Dragland, Carney and I took off to finish the week and the road trip in grand Jarlo fashion.  We walked and talked for hours, horsing around and wrestling and making fun of each other and running wildly up and down the hills of San Fran.  We stopped at a park and drunkenly planned our world takeover and other more menial takeovers.  We were all having a blast but at the same time, in the back of all of our heads, we were pretty bummed that Erin and I were heading back east in the morning and none of us wanted the night to end.  We walked and looked at the lights of Alcatraz as we discussed the screenplay and our plans for the next year.  Down by the water at this time – about 3 am – I realized that Erin and I were going home in the morning and I hadn’t been in the Pacific Ocean yet on this trip.  I had a choice at this point, either go home without swimming in the Pacific, or jump in the freezing waters of the San Francisco Bay at 3 in the morning.  Guess what I picked.  Yup, we stripped down to our boxers and jumped into the bay, diving and splashing in the cold salt water in front of the old buildings of Fort Mason as we screamed to the stars in animalistic furor.  After our swim and with our clothes back on we all looked like we pissed our pants as we started slowly walking home.  We were all a little sad because with the sun now starting to light the rim of the horizon we all knew that this was the end of my week in San Fran and that in just a couple of hours they would be going to work and Erin and I would be starting our long drive back to New York…

After getting up and going in the morning Erin wanted to go to Haight-Ashbury to try to find a ring or piece of jewelry to buy.  We drove up to the Haight and were lucky to find a parking spot right on the corner of Haight and Ashbury.  We parked and paid the meter for a half and hour of time.  We walked to a store right on the corner and Erin found a nice ring but the store didn’t take American Express so we left to find another store.  We walked down a block and then back by the car and up a block that way before crossing over the street and heading back towards our car on the other side of the street.  We looked in a couple of windows for a second and then were going to go back to the original store and pay cash but as we got to the corner to cross the street where our car was I saw a tow truck.  The first thing I thought was what a poor bastard, getting their car towed.  Then I noticed that it was a silver Volvo and that Volvo was OURS.  I ran across the street and before I even got there the guy ran and jumped into the truck and started to pull away.  I chased him down and at least found out where they were taking it.  Apparently we had parked in a commercial loading zone which in San Francisco they mark with yellow paint on the curb and a two inch sticker on the parking meter.  No signs or anything and the paint on the curb was faded to a point where even if we knew that that was what it meant we still wouldn’t have seen it.  But this was no consolation.  They had stolen our car like common thieves and now we had to walk 4 miles and pay 400 dollars plus the 75 dollar parking ticket to get it back, plus we had the parking ticket from earlier in the week.  We hadn’t gone more than a block from the car and had only been there for 27 minutes before it got towed.  As you might imagine, we were pretty pissed.  But, there wasn’t anything we could do so we tried to put it out of our minds and we actually had a nice walk through the city to get to the impound, which was at least quick and easy once we got there.  The impound was a well oil machine with a nice lobby and numbered tickets to help you wait your turn.  Quite a racket they’ve got going.  Steal your car and then make you pay them to get it back, sounds like a criminal operation doesn’t it, but in fact this is just government at work.  California’s got to pay for all their stupid budget mistakes and lazy workforce somehow.  Might as well extort it out of the citizens, right?  And even better if you can steal an out of state car.  If only their elected officials and common citizens were as diligent and hard working as the tow truck operators they wouldn’t have a steaming pile of a state budget and wouldn’t have to steal peoples cars to generate funds to fix it.  But, that’s California, a beautiful and fun place that comes with lazy citizens and stupid officials that are always looking for some way to screw the next guy out of his money to prevent the horrible task of actually working for their own money and then being wise with it afterwards.  Or maybe we just parked in a loading zone and got towed.  Anyway, we got the car and forgot about it so as to not ruin the rest of the trip.  I picked up Dragland from work and we went back to his place and had dinner and watched some TV and movies, having a relaxing night which Dragland and I capped off with a nice long night walk through San Fran to discuss the screenplay and life in general…

We planned to pick up Carney at his place at 8 in the morning.  We all secretly knew that that really meant we might get there by 9:30 or so.  One must plan for putzing.  10:30 came and went and then we finally left Dragland’s to go to pick up Carney who lived across the city.  The normally twenty minute drive took us forever due to an essential bypass being shutdown for construction.  When we finally reached Carney’s, three hours after the planned time of arrival, he of course, still wasn’t ready.  The life of a Jarlo.  Once we had him and had run some errands we finally crossed the Golden Gate at noon and were on our way to the lush landscapes, friendly casinos and tasty wines of California wine country.  I’ve always heard that Sonoma County was a must visit while in the bay area but I had no idea it was as beautiful as it is.  The rolling hills and gentle mountains are a bright lush green sprinkled with the pale pinks of the spring cherry blossoms and the bright yellows and purples of thousands of wildflowers springing up from the meadows.  Where there isn’t a picturesque meadow the perfectly straight lines of endless rows of grapevines disappear over the rolling hills and climb up the surrounding mountains of lush grass.  Each vineyard is accented with a large but quaint estate home, often with a long driveway lined with cherry trees in blossom.  The large oak trees with whispy white tuffs of old man’s beard hanging from their branches dot the estates and hang low over the road to add to the effect.  All these parts come together into a perfect harmony of sight.  Our first stop in Sonoma was at the River Rock Casino, just 10 minutes from the cabin we had reserved.  Dragland and Carney have a blackjack strategy.  I know, I laughed too.  Their strategy is to pool money with three or four people, everybody plays blackjack for the same amount except for the person who is getting the hands who plays double.  Not as crazy as some of the other strategies we’ve come up with over the years.  Dragland put four hundred bucks up for us all to play with and we got down to business.  We played this strategy with me, Dragland and Carney for about an hour and won a cool 200 bucks.  Overjoyed with the good start to our gambling we collected our winnings and left the casino to check into our cabin.  We reached the cabin a few minutes later after a breathtaking drive though the vineyards.  When we checked in we were informed that this was cabin camping, emphasis on camping, and no sheets or pillows were allowed.  This was particularly bad news for me because the other three had suggested we bring the sleeping bags and I had taken them out of the car to save room, telling the other three that I was sure that bedding was provided.  I was saved from being mauled by the angry trio by the front desk lady who arranged for blankets and sheet to be brought down to us.  Relieved we went to check out the cabin and it was frigging awesome.  It was a small, cozy log cabin with two rooms, one with two sets of bunk beds and the main room with a queen sized bed and table and chairs.  It was all wood, inside and out, and had a front porch with a swing.  Off the front porch there was a fire pit and picinic table and it looked down onto a valley and rolling hills covered with vinyards.  The sun was shinning, it was warm and the landscape was lush.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.  We got settled in and put something in the air while Dragland played guitar.  Like I said yesterday, when we had been looking for a place to stay for the weekend we had a few things we were looking for.  First was a cabin in wine country, second was something near a casino, and third was somewhere that had a Frisbee golf course near it.  We found the KOA and picked because it had everything, including a 6 hole disc golf course right on sight; which we went to play after hanging out at the cabin for a bit.  The course was on a big, beautiful, overgrown meadow on top of a hill.  The view from the hill down to the vineyard covered valley below was breathtaking.  We played disc golf for a couple of hours taking in the view of the valley and its vineyards until we all were pretty hungry and decided to head to the Hamburger Ranch down the road for some burgers.  We had an awesome dinner and a pitcher good local beer; all paid for with blackjack winnings.  From the Hamburger Ranch we were ready to play some more gambling and we made our way back to the River Rock Casino.   I’ve had enough experience with casinos to know that it’s usually on the return trip, after you’ve already won and left the table, that they really wipe you out.  Not wanting to dampen the positive thinking of the rest of the group and being that we were playing with Dragland’s money, I didn’t voice my opinion about that and was just happy to be able to play some blackjack and not have to worry about losing our gas money home.  We got to the casino and it was pretty busy.  All the blackjack tables were full.  I always wonder where the people in a casino come from.  It seems like any casino you go to, no matter how deep in the middle of nowhere it is, always has people gambling no matter what day or what time of day you go.  Goddamn degenerates.  Not like me, I’m not a degenerate.  I just like to play blackjack with money I don’t have.  So anyways, we looked around for a place to play some gambling.  All the blackjack tables were full and none were less than 10 dollar minimum bet.  After a few laps around the two pits it seemed hopeless that we could all be at the same table; and if we couldn’t be at the same table it would throw off the whole ingenious strategy.  There were three blackjack tables at the end of one of the pits that weren’t being used at the time.  I figured that if all four of us sat down at the table and waited they would open it up pretty soon.  Casino’s are in the business of gambling, four people sitting at a table not gambling doesn’t work with their business model.  Sure enough, we sat down, each put our hundreds out on the table, got the pit boss over to chat for a minute and let him know we were primed and ready to play some gambling and in about fifteen minutes they shut down an empty pai-gow table and sent the dealer over to sling cards to us.  The 15 minutes was good to have.  It allowed us to have a drink, introduce ourselves to the table and let it get acclimated with us so that it felt a stronger bond to us than it did to the dealer.  We also all signed up for the players club and got ten bucks in free play that I’ll get into later.  Anyways, our fifteen minutes of becoming one with the table must have worked because the cards came out hot.  We all were hitting big numbers and the dealer was busting.  Dragland was the hammer – the person that bets double – and it worked out nicely because he was hitting them hard.  In a shoe and a half we had taken a bundle of chips and the casino called in the cooler.  A greasy looking dealer with shifty eyes washed himself in and we knew enough to get out.  We pulled our chips, colored them up and cashed them in.  Another 240 dollar profit made 400 on the day, double our money.  Not bad for an hour of blackjack.  Psyched with our win we were at the cashier and almost out of the casino when we found out that the vouchers I spoke of earlier were only good for match play and couldn’t be cashed in like the dealer had told us.  This was dangerous; we had to go back to the tables and put up more money that the casino would then match on any of our bets.  This is a classic casino tactic to keep you at the tables.  Dragland – and I won’t say he has a gambling problem – was already running wild-eyed back to the tables and the rest of us had a very bad feeling.  I gave my tickets to Dragland to play if he wanted and Carney ripped his up which nearly caused a deathmatch in the middle of the casino between him and Dragland.  Luckily, Dragland only lost a few bucks and we were finally out and free of the casino, Dragland and Carney bickering the whole way about whether ripping up the tickets was a childish act or a wise decision.  We’ll never know.  Perhaps it was both.  After a steel cage match was discussed and voted down we all turned our attention to the 400 bucks in winnings weighing down our pockets and the valley full of good wine waiting to be consumed and the sweet cabin waiting to be partied in.  From the casino we stopped the first wine store we saw and got four bottles of local wine and some firewood and munchies.  We already had a couple of half bottles of whiskey back and the cabin so we were ready to go.  The whole weekend and then some was graciously paid for by the generosity of our blackjack table and now we had ourselves stocked up for an epic night.  We couldn’t be happier.  We got back to the cabin and right down to business.  We put something big in the air and opened the first bottle of wine, a fancy red, the fruit of the valley just below us.  We had a raging fire going in no time and proceeded to celebrate.  The moon shone bright, bathing the valley in cool light and we commenced.  Dragland and Carney played music and we all talked wildly for hours; the bottles of wine dwindling to nothing before we broke out the whiskey.  We talked and drank and joked and read the screenplay and stoked the fire and then did it all many times over again before we staggered, slapping backs and making jokes, into the cabin to shoot some dice and swig some whiskey from the bunk beds.  After a lot of joking and horseplay and little actual dice rolling we all settled in and laid down to sleep on our respective bunk beds.  There were two bunk beds in the back room and we had decided to not use the queen sized bed in the front room, instead deciding to all sleep in the bunks like a happy little family…

Sunday February 28, 2010 – Sonoma County to San Francisco

I woke up in our cabin in wine country at sunrise.  I walked up to the john on the top of the hill taking in the scenery along the way.  Sunrise over Sonoma wine country is something that everyone should see.  The shadows drew back across the valley as if they were being sucked into the sun itself which sat with its arms resting on the eastern mountains.  As the valley was exposed the western hills exploded in bright green, the neat rows of grapevines reaching up the slope and covering the valley as the dew sparkled and birds made their morning wake-up calls to the valley.  It was beautiful.  After watching the sunrise I went back to the cabin to go back to sleep.  About an hour later we all woke up to Carney’s cell-phone alarm going off.  He had left it on by accident and then left it in the other room.  Needless to say we were all pretty wide awake by the time he got to it to turn it off.  We tried to get back to sleep only to have Draglands alarm then go off about 15 minutes later.  So, we got up, and surprisingly we all felt pretty good.  We all had a good amount of water the night before and were ready to go.  We chilled for a little while and then packed up the car and left the cabin.  For the whole trip up until now Erin and I had been wishing we could stay in cozy little cabin.  We had seen cool little cabins all over the country but hadn’t had the money to rent one.  It’s thanks to Dragland that we had this one and we had a blast with great friends, good wine, beautiful scenery and one very generous casino.  It was an absolutely perfect final weekend of the trip.  We were all pretty hungry so when we got back the town we stopped into a pub and got some dynamite breakfast sandwiches to-go.  We ate in the car and started back to San Fran to watch the US v. Canada gold medal hockey match.  We got back to Carney’s at the end of the first period.  We watched the game and then ordered some Domino’s and devoured it before putting Discovery Channels Planet Earth on and promptly all falling asleep.  We needed it.  After everyone was up we went back to Draglands to really go to bed after an exhausting weekend of fun and partying…