"the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes, "awww!" /jack kerouac, on the road--
road trips are good for three specific things: beautiful, constantly changing scenery; daydreaming; and listening to music and/or audiobooks.
i added another 4,500 or so miles to the hondometer. eli and i left 12/6 at 2pm, after which point i did not break for anything but gas and jesus. occupying the speakers for the majority of the trip in both directions was a litany of
wonderfulness. i listened to obama's
the audacity of hope twice while driving through the heartland of america in the bleak winter night with only truckers and a sleeping passenger to accompany me, and kerouac's
on the road while driving through the same sprawling, iowan roads that spawned the setting for his thoughts in that hasty (but not wasty) manuscript.
the fellows of led zeppelin kept me highly alert for a number of hours throughout the drive with their live musings performed on "
how the west was won," which is my favorite zeppelin audio recording ever.
the song remains the same is some seriously mind-blowing shit on no less than nine levels, and also makes you realize that there are maybe only a dozen bands that have ever existed to make music as alive as theirs. the closest comparison that comes to mind when contemplating the band most exemplary of a whole greater than the sum of its parts is radiohead. bonzo and page go off on epic solos live, and no doubt bob plant goes nuts vocally whenever he can. my mom saw led zeppelin in the sixties after they'd broken out of the tiny yardbirds shells but hadn't made it huge yet; they opened for vanilla fudge at the time. i bet radiohead opened for some shitty bands in their early days, too.
ANYWAY, fifteen hours later, at 7am on 12/7, eli and i switched seats because i absolutely, simply, purely and without any whatevers had to sleep now, I mean, man, my eyes were closing, they're redhot, sore, tired, beat. this proved somewhat tricky, because eli doesn't have a license and had never driven before, which i didn't find out until we'd already hit the road.
i gave him a few tips on how to drive and passed out almost immediately upon sitting in the passenger seat, ignoring my paranoia about the man at the helm, and slept for approximately one hour before i woke up to eli sitting like petrified wood and driving behind the same truck he'd been behind when he entered the freeway.
"i'm gonna pull off for a cigarette. i'm
really tense."
we exited and switched seats again, and i drove another five hours before asking eli to drive again. i slept another two hours. after twenty consecutive hours of driving and three nonconsecutive hours of sleep, i finished the rest of the nine hours to california in one straight shot, completing the route from madison, wi to thousand oaks, ca in thirty-two hours.
the following four days and nights, from monday to thursday, were spent bumbling around southern california, compiling
personal reports of various and nefarious sorts. if you will. i bought fresh food each day, and lovely smelling fresh flowers, as well. i laid outside in the sun and read my books. it was in the upper sixties the whole time we were there, and we went to the beach a couple times and hung out. eli had never walked on a beach before. there's a first time for everything.
coming home, we left at 9am on 12/12. i'd slept through the southern corner of arizona through which we passed on the way to california, but drove through it in broad daylight on the way back. we drove along the grand canyon and mere miles from
bryce canyon and
zion national parks. the southwestern rockies are beautiful for sure.
when the sun drags all the way below the horizon on the road, it is unwelcome.
dark nights in the middle of this vast continent are
lit by virtually nothing other than the small cones of light emanating from the front of cars and it makes it a real bitch not only to see in front of you far enough to react to something ahead, but, more dangerously, to stay awake through the near complete lack of sensory stimulation. at this point, driving becomes about keeping schedules and countdowns; "i tingled all over, i counted minutes and subtracted miles," as kerouac said "
on the road." it's about all you can do to keep your mind going, because at a certain point it becomes really difficult to produce original thoughts. your brain just starts to go kablooie at a certain point and acts real funny. but such is the nature of long-distance driving, and i drive like chain smokers inhale.
fortunately, this particular night was illuminated by a full moon. the distant mountains, clouds, and horizon were all visible, though hardly clearly. around 1am, somewhere in utah about fourteen hours into the drive, i hit a deer. i was completely alert, and as soon as the deer (jesus) entered my field of view, i hit the brakes, vocalized, "holy shit," and swerved slightly to the left, avoiding a head-on collision with a full-sized male deer, antlers and all. instead, it hit the front right panel of the car at about fifty miles per hour, busting the casing for the light, casting dozens of plastic shards all over and rendering the turn signal inoperative, even as i signaled right to exit onto the shoulder. at this point, the car was screeching badly.
"there's a dead deer dragging along the undercarriage of this car right now," i explained tachycardially to eli, who had woken abruptly at the sound of my previous exclamation, and still had his hands covering his mouth and his eyes wide open, staring ahead without saying a word.
we were stopped on the shoulder with the hazard lights on when i started to catch my breath. it didn't take too long; while fucked up and frightening, hitting a deer is something thousands of people do a year and multiple people do every day. i got out of the car in well below freezing weather wearing the same flip flops i'd been wearing when we left california and surveyed the damage. i expected to see a scene from 21 grams with blood all over the front and side of the car, but there was none. the deer was nowhere near the car. it was about fifty yards back, lying in the righthand lane. the screeching sound was an indented portion of the body jutting into the wheel well and pressing onto the tire. eli and i had to physically pull the body off the wheel to allow the tire to spin freely.
back in the car, i turned the music off and listened for signs of internal damage, of which i found none. about five miles later, we exited to a gas station to see the damage more clearly and did a makeshift repair by tacking the body back together and removing broken pieces of plastic from the light and internal bracing. i remarked that it might have proved hypothetically worthwhile to eat the deer meet, as i had indeed just killed one of my own volition, more or less. it'd be a waste not to make some use of it, right? not so much. earlier today on the phone with my dad, he told me that it wouldn't have been edible on account of the heavy internal hemorrhaging that was likely to have occurred. eli told me that as he looked down the road at the deer, he could still see it breathing slowly and laboriously.
fifteen hours seem to be my threshold for nonstop driving before requiring a break. around 2am, an hour or so after i hit the deer, we switched seats and eli, having grown more confident behind the wheel after mini driving lessons in socal strip malls, took over for five hours. i slept for about three of them. at that point, we'd hit nebraska and all the sightseeing was done with, save for the sunset. at 7am or so, with the sun rising directly ahead of us to the east, we switched yet again and i started off the last eleven-hour leg of the drive navigating through burning fog and a big, bright, salmon sun, almost as though it were made of superhot hydrogen gas exploding with planet-searing heat at all times.
the busted up honda parked in front of my house just after 6pm. we made the drive back in thirty-one hours.
wisconsin:
iowa:
colorado, utah:
los angeles:
ameci's margherita pizza:
cannacookie:
butternut squash soup:
backyard:
little boxes on the hillside:
nevada:
arizona:
sleeping through gorgeous:
post-collision:
nebraskan fog:
peeing on a chair:
iowa:
illin':
elsewhere. foxy (i had nothing to do with the shirt):
the view from my living room at sunset:
goat cheese omelette with gray shallots and avocado:
the back of a book i found in a thrift store:
madison from above:
