It’s On! I’m rooting for Jack. He’s still my favorite evangelist ever.

Jack Vs. Pat

hehe.

The F-bomb gets dropped on Fox News

It’s my birthday!

DATELINE: Los Angeles, CA

I drove on to LA in the early morning hours, surprised by how much traffic there was on the roads at 4:30am. I was near delirious with exhaustion. At one point, I pulled off the road to just walk around and rest.

We go the car into Budget at LAX around 6:30am, a full 3 and a half hours early. So the total time end-to-end wound up being 6 days, 20 hours, 7 minutes.

To quote the end of the cheesy documentary film they show you at the arch in St. Louis:

“And The Thing Was Done.”

Now I’m going to hang out in LA with the Yuppies Of Zion.

DATELINE: Desert Center, CA

One last long day. We started off by helping ourselves to a free breakfast at the nearby Flagstaff Embassy Suites. We then set off for the long drive to the Grand Canyon. We got there in about an hour and change, and pad our $20 entrance fee. Apparently, that gives you access to the park for 7 days, although we were only going to be there for a couple hours. We took a bunch of pictures from the overlook near the visitor’s center, and then proceeded to Kaibab Trail. Although steep, the trail is supposed to be one of the shortest, particularly if you stop at “Ooh Aah Point”. Going down was unadventurous except for the diligent avoidance of mule poop on the trail. We took lots fo great pictures, and the views were awesome. We stopped at “Ooh Aah Point”, said our oohs and ahhs, and took several pictures. On the way back up I became winded about three times. It made me realize that perhaps long flat walks had not adequately prepared me for the task at hand.

We eventually made it to the top, with a round trip of about an hour and a half for the trail. We made our way via shuttle bus back to the visitor’s center, and then headed back to Flagstaff. The first order of business was cash. We stopped at a Bank 1, and I walked up to the Drive-thru ATM. Bea did the same, but when confronted with an SUV, she retreated and used the walk-up ATM. We decided to have some Mexican food across the street, which turned out to be fairly mediocre. Pushing ahead, we got gas and made for Phoenix.

Bea’s friend’s mom lives in Phoenix, and since she had minimal interest in going to the Mets-Diamondbacks game, we decided to part ways for a few hours. Bea dropped me off at the game and then went to see her friend’s mom. I had lots of fun at the game. I walked all around the ballpark, ate a hot dog, and the Mets won. It’s a nifty stadium, but the whole thing is a big box. One thing I thought was unique was the massive air conditioning ducts. The retractable roof was closed, not because it was raining but because it was 100 degrees outside. They air condition the whole stadium.

Bea picked me up after the game and we headed off for LA. we stopped here in Desert Center to play with the fireworks we bought in New Mexico. So as not to start a brush fire, we stuck the bottle rockets in the dry earth (away from any vegetation) and watched them spark when lit. It was the best we could do given our desire to not start a wild fire.

Soon I will take over for the last leg of the journey - into Los Angeles.

DATELINE: Flagstaff, AZ

Today was the first day on this whole trip where I got a late start, but it ended up not mattering much. Last night I noticed we didn’t have an alarm clock in the room. I was thinking about setting my little travel alarm, but then we figured we’d probably wake up early anyway. I woke up at 8am, but then went back to sleep. The next thing I heard a maid pounding on the door. When I answered she said she would come back at noon. As luck would have it, it was only 9:45, but still we had hoped to get a quicker start to the day.

On the way to Four Corners, we stopped to look at Shiprock Mountain. I conjectured from afar that the Indians probably attached some sort of religious significance to it. Sure enough, when we read the informational plaque, we learned that the mountain symbolized the bird that carried their ancestors from the north. We got back on the road and grabbed lunch at Burger King. When I asked the drive-in lady what the difference was between the Chicken Sandwich and Chicken Tendercrisp Sandwich, I was informed that “one is round and the other is oblong”. Afterwards, Bea went into a supermarket to buy some fruit. Apparently while she was in there she overheard several locals speaking to each other in Navajo. I wish i had been there. Anyway, we drove on into the desert. At the Arizona/New Mexico on US-64, we encountered a flock of sheep just grazing by the side of the road. I was so excited! Sheep! I never get to see farm animals just walking around. So I went back and got a picture.

We made it to Four Corners smack in the middle of the day and it was very hot. Still we managed to take assorted novelty photos. I parked the car in Utah, went to the bathroom in New Mexico and washed my hands in Colorado. There were a bunch of Navajo merchants set up around the monument. I perused their wares, and although I didn’t feel like spending $12 on a T-Shirt (of which I have many at home), I did get this neat 10″x10″ sand painting of the four states of Four Corners. I bargained the guy down from $20 to $18, but I’m sure he still made a profit. Part of me felt bad haggling with an Indian. In all likelihood he needs the money more than I do. And I was a guest on the guy’s ancestral homeland. But I saved $2!

After the excitement of Four Corners, we set off on the long drive to the Petrified Forest. Along the way, we stopped for gas in Ganado, Arizona. We were still on the Navajo reservation. On my way back to the car from the grocery store, I noticed a sign by the cafe that said “Free Internet”. So we rolled the car over to the cafe and checked our e-mail.

We proceeded on to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert National Park. We drove through at a pretty good pace, while still making time to enjoy the scenery. The weather had cooled down, so it was very pleasant. The painted desert was a lovely orange color. The petrified forest was different than I expected. I imagined a forest full of very stiff trees. As it turns out, the Petrified Forest is a landscape with many chunks of big trees that became petrified and fell apart. There are very few logs more than 4 feet long. Still, it was very interesting and quite lovely. I took several nice pictures.

We got on the road and began our trip to Flagstaff. On the way, we stopped in the middle of nowhere to look at the stars. it was really awesome. I never see more than a couple at home, and here were millions. Also it was cool to see airplanes 30,000 feet up blinking away. There were a whole bunch of them in the sky. I called my girlfriend, because she grew up in a rural area and would probably be entertained by my exuberance over actually seeing stars (and she was).

We proceeded on to Flagstaff and went to get dinner at a Pizza Hut. At one point, the waitress came over and explained that my order was screwed up. She came back 5 minutes later to tell me that they did indeed have my pizza, and she was sorry for the confusion. So sorry, in fact, that she took both of our pizzas off the check, leaving only the breadsticks we had ordered. I left her $5 for a $1.64 check. We then decided that instead of driving all the way up to the Grand Canyon tonight, we would get a place in Flagstaff near the Embassy Suites. This way, we could potentially avail ourselves of the free breakfast tomorrow morning. Tomorrow will be a long day. In fact, if all goes as planned, we will be in LA before we are through. I even saw a sign for Interstate 40 that said “Los Angeles” on it.

DATELINE: Farmington, NM

We managed to get the day started in a relatively prompt fashion, leaving the shitty Amarillo hotel by 11am. While checking out, I noticed a brochure on Amarillo attractions in the lobby as well as some others that I grabbed on my way out the door. I flipped through them as Bea was loading her stuff into the car, and realized there was an attraction of note on our way out of town.

The Cadillac Ranch is in between exits 60 & 62 of I-40. It is a big, plain, shit-smelling field with 10 Cadillacs half-buried in the ground. They are all buried at the exact same angle, which purportedly is the same angle as the pyramid in Cheops. They have all been painted pink, but subsequently spray-painted by visitors with graffiti. As luck would have it, several cans of spray paint were lying around, and the blue one worked. So Bea and I added our graffiti to a couple of the cars. On the undercarriage of one of them I simply wrote “NYC”.

On our way back to the highway, we stopped at a tourist trap souvenir store. Bea bought a dozen postcards, and I bought a little porcelain toothpick holder shaped like a cowboy hat emblazoned with “Don’t Mess With Texas”. The rest of Texas was uneventful, except we could see the landscape getting less and less green. By the time we crossed into New Mexico, the scenery looked completely different from that on the other side of the plains. Right around when we were crossing over, we were encountering the phenomenon of gas stations being 40 miles apart. We passed one station charging $2.69/gallon, and I said “The hell with that, we’ll stop at the next one.” With our fuel at zero, we stopped at the New Mexico welcome center to find out the next gas station was 20 miles away. We made it and filled up, but we learned a lesson.

Our next stop was for lunch in the town of Tucumcari. As luck would have it, the gas station in which Bea decided to grab a Subway sandwich had free Wi-Fi internet. We discovered this parked in front of the Days Inn across the street trying to leech off their internet. We soon figured out that the strong signal we were getting was actually coming from across the street. So we set up our laptops in the little eating area of the Subway and did our internet business. We spent some time on Google maps trying to figure out the best way to approach the attractions we wanted to see in New Mexico and Arizona. Eventually we hatched a plan to see Four Corners, the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, And the Grand Canyon and still make it to Phoenix on time.

We drove on through the long miles of New Mexico. We kept seeing signs along the road that said “Gusty Winds May Exist”. I thought this was a cool sign - it had a certain existential quality to it. I mean, it is true, gusty winds may exist. OR … they may not.

We hit rush hour in Albuquerque, but it didn’t slow us down too much. We continued on to a tourist attraction called the “Ice Cave”. It is actually a dual attraction. One part is a giant lava crater from a volcano that erupted 10,000 years ago. You follow this trail up the side of the crater and then you can look into this 800 foot deep cone-shaped hole. About a half-mile away is the Ice Cave, which was also formed by the eruption. Since igneous rock is a very good insulator, the cave never gets above 31 degrees Fahrenheit. You walk down the trail, look at some cool-looking rocks and gnarled trees, and then you walk down these steep steps into the cave, which is rather cold. One thing that was remarkable about the whole Ice Cave/Crater experience was the quiet. It was dead silent up there except for the occasional breeze.

We crossed the continental Divide back on I-40 and grabbed Dinner at Denny’s in Gallup, New Mexico. Then we shot up US-491 (until recently known as US-666; I guess they got tired of having the signs stolen). We drove for about 83 miles to get to the town of Shiprock, which is rather close to Four Corners. Although Shiprock has many fast food places and many other sorts of conveniences, it has no hotels. The only hotels are here in Farmington 30 miles to the east or in Cortez, CO 45 miles to the north. So we drove the extra 30 miles and found a good deal on a hotel here in Farmington. Now for some sleep.

DATELINE: Amarillo, TX

Today started out with a simple quest: find a cheap Branson T-shirt that would be just cheesy enough to be clever but not overly cheesy. I tracked down “Ozarkland”, a South Of The Border type tourist trap. It was much smaller than the 25 billboards along the highway would have one believe. Also, the one clever t-shirt i found happened not to be on the sale rack and was thus $12. No sale. The postcards even sucked. I stopped by a couple more touristy places and got myself a t-shirt and a couple postcards.

Just as I was wrapping up my shopping, I got a call from my friend Bea, who I was to pick up in Tulsa. She had landed and was going to hang out with a friend of hers for a little while. I then proceeded to leave town promptly. I stopped a couple random times in Missouri. One for gas and one for Ozarkland’s cousin, Ozark Village. I bought a couple stupid items there, including an Ozarks t-shirt and a little pouch. Then it was on to Oklahoma.

At the first Welcome Center, I bought a post card and a snow globe. I thought this would complete my frivolous purchases for the day, but that was not to be. I happened upon the self-proclaimed World’s Largest McDonalds. Although I am pretty sure the real largest one is in Beijing, this one was rather impressive. It spanned across I-44 and had it’s own gift shop. At first i was just going to get a postcard, but then they had this candleholder thing. It was $10, which was obnoxious, but no more so than the $6 refrigerator magnet or the $7 keychain. The whole place was a rip off, but this tacky knick knack was especially tacky and I had to buy it.

As I continued on to Tulsa, I noticed how the landscape was getting flatter and flatter. I was having issues with my AC power converter, so my computer ran out of power. Left to the radio, I became engrossed in a mix of right wing talk and religious broadcasting. There was this one talk show called “Point Of View” that would make Sean Hannity blush. They had this guest that predicted the US was going to swoop down and charge Ariel Sharon with war crimes if the liberals got their way, and that Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic was a misunderstood guy. Apparently, I learned, the 100,000 muslims massacred in ethnic cleansing were actually only 4,000 in number, and they were all armed terrorists. Then people called in from texas and Oklahoma to proclaim how much they agreed with the guest and how upset they were that these plain truths were being buried by mainstream media. I also got to listen to Joyce Meyer, who is one of my favorite evangelists. She’s actually not over the top crazy, but she’s got a pleasant southern twang to her. She actually went on a tangent about the differences between men and women, and it reminded me of Yakov from last night. Tried and true comedy shtick.

I met up with my friend Bea in Tulsa across the road from Oral Roberts University at the Hilton. I was sitting in the lobby blatantly charging my laptop. Apparently, I’ve managed to short circuit the cigarette lighter/power adapter on the car. As such, my laptop ran down power as I have been using it to listen to music. As I waited, I read up on Oral Roberts University. Apparently, this Oral Roberts guy is a total nut job. The campus has this really weird architecture to it too. I got a picture of myself with the giant praying hands that greet you as you enter campus.

Anyway, Bea and I set off for Oklahoma City. It took some doing to make sure we got on I-44 in the right direction, but we eventually made it and were on our way. We stopped at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and hung out for a bit. I thought it was a really well done memorial, and remarked that I hope the one in NYC turns out as nicely. We stopped in a ritzy hotel to use the bathroom and then began our journey west.

As we embarked upon the drive west, we began lamenting the lack of AC Power in the car. I called Budget Roadside Assistance, and they told me that I probably shorted a fuse, and that I could go to any Budget location to have it fixed. We decided that being able to charge our computers and phones was important enough to give it a shot, so we took a detour to the Oklahoma City Airport, “Wil Rogers World Airport”. An attendant was nice enough to go under the hood and change the fuse for us. Unfortunately, no sooner than we had left the airport than the new fuse also blew out. Bea was exhausted from her trip - she woke up at 3:30am for her flight out of Baltimore to Tulsa via Newark - but she managed to drive for a while I took a nap. When she was too tired to drive any more, I took over and got us the rest of the way to Amarillo. We found a really terrible motel right next to a strip club for $32. At least we can plug our stuff in. Ah, power.

DATELINE: Branson, MO

Today started off exactly as planned. I woke up pretty early and drove the rest of the way to St. Louis, crossing the Mississippi River on the Martin Luther King bridge. My first order of business was breakfast. Now, I happen to know there is an Embassy Suites near the St. Louis arch. I also happen to know from many personal experiences that all Embassy Suites nationwide serve a free hot breakfast in the morning. Accordingly, I started my day today by cruising into the Embassy Suites St. Louis and helping myself to some free french toast and scrambled eggs. You just have to carry yourself like you belong there and nobody will say anything.

After breakfast, I went for a walk around downtown St. Louis. I walked by the dome where the Rams play, and over to Busch Stadium. A full two hours in advance, Cardinals fans were already lining up to get in. I did a loop around the ballpark, and couldn’t help noticing the “new” Busch Stadium being built next door. At the end of the season they are going to demolish the “old” one that I was now circumnavigating. I took copious pictures and then nixed an idea to walk to Union Station, because it was becoming unreasonably hot out.

I proceeded to the Arch, or rather, the Jefferson Monument to Western Expansion. The only thing above ground is the arch itself. Underground there is the Museum of Western Expansion, as well as a couple movie theaters and a gift shop. I bought a combo ticket for a documentary film and a ride to the top of the arch. The film was a nice break from driving. the ride to the top of the arch was really cool. You climb inside these little capsules that run like a tram up to the top. I took some pictures, called some folks, and then headed back down. I spent some time in the Museum, looking for some acknowledgement of the effect of Western Expansion on the Native Americans. I actually found some, which I thought I was a nice fair touch to the otherwise rah-rah exhibit.

I decided not to go on the Anheuser-Busch brewery tour, because if I wanted to find out how to put something foul in a bottle I’d watch a bum piss in one. The drive to Branson was uneventful until I hit a torrential rainstorm just before Springfield. It was so bad, many cars (including eventually mine) pulled off to the shoulder. I actually saw lightning hit something across the highway. I called my girlfriend and she graciously looked up the current weather for me so I could get an idea of how long it would be before the storm passed thorugh. I waited a bit and then soldiered on down US-65. I stopped at a tourist info center and bought tickets to the Yakov Smirnoff show. Of all the Branson shows, it struck me as the one that would make me want to vomit the least.

On the ride down, I saw numerous billboards set up along the road all Vegas-like promoting shows and attractions. Except it was all redneck stuff, like country or gospel reviews, or a hillbilly showcase of some kind. And Yakov, who has about seven billboards of his own. I cruised through the mountains of the northern ozarks and took in the scenery. When I hit town, I drove down the “Strip”, which unlike the Vegas strip is a winding two lane road. Like the Vegas Strip, however, it is heavily populated with brightly lit signs. All of the venues and attractions are normal sized and scrunched together. There is a large representation of roadside attraction type stuff. Within 500 feet of me as I type this are a “Toy Museum” and some sort of Water Ride. I eventually found a hotel room for $33, which i paid in cash. Then, it was off to the show!

The Yakov Smirnoff Show was actually a fairly intense experience for me. I was overwhelmed at several points by how “red state” the crowd was. And it wasn’t just all the religious references or the homophobic jokes that received thunderous applause. It was the blindingly bright jingoism going on. The show opened with a singing of the Star Spangled Banner. And everyone stood, people took their hats off, and about a third of them sang along - loudly. During the show, Yakov hit on the theme of how proud he was to be an American over and over, talking about how kind and wonderful we all are etc. He had a sidekick guy who did some bits, and a troupe of Russian dancers who did Russian dances in front of a Kremlin backdrop, and then later in the show they put on different outfits and danced in front of an italian backdrop during a Romeo and Juliet sketch. Yakov did some current events jokes at the beginning, and did a whole long schtick about the differences between men and women.

Then, there was the September 11th bit, where he talked about the kindness and bravery of americans and kept hitting on his slogan about our spirit and heart. At the end, he sang a love song to the statue of liberty. I mean all it�s nice stuff, but there was so much. The schmaltz factor had been turned up to 11. It just shook me somehow. The polly-anna view of America thing was creepy in a weird way. Particularly since I felt Sept. 11th being co-opted by these Ozarks people when it happened in my city. As I was driving out of the parking lot, my mix CD happened to hit “Ohio” by Neil Young. I rolled down my window and turned up the volume. I don’t know why, It just felt like the thing to do.

Anyway, I am now standing behind a Hampton Inn trying to leech off their wireless broadband with mixed results. I will soon go to IHOP for a late dinner, and then head to sleep.

DATELINE: O’Fallon, IL

Another long, long day. Got out of bed promptly and got on the road in a timely fashion. The first stop was Cambridge, OH, home to a lovely little Paperweight Museum. Another gem culled from RoadsideAmerica.com, I was fortunate enough to find a really cool souvenir in the gift shop. The museum itself mainly featured glass paperweights, as Guernsey County has a long history of glass blowing.

On to Columbus, Ohio. Although a charming city and the state capital, I was there for another attraction. The very first Wendy’s restaurant. Opened in 1969, it went on to become a chain of thousands of fast food joints. But it all started in Columbus on Broad & 5th, and that’s where I ate lunch. They had quite the assortment of Wendy’s memorabilia, with special attention given to the “Where’s The Beef?” campaign of the 1980s.

I then turned south onto I-71 towards Cincinnati. Along the way I took note of the relatively even landscape and the abundance of farms. I stopped for gas just north of Cincinnati and once again bemoaned gas prices which are really no fun at all right now. As I drove through Cincy and on to Kentucky, I noticed the new baseball and football stadiums that have been built there. Like the new ones in Pittsburgh, they also look really good. Makes me wish I could stick around for a game. But alas, I cannot.

I got to Louisville around 4pm, with just enough time to take in the Louisville Slugger Museum. It was awesome. They give you a factory tour and show you how they make the bats. You can even swing some of the bats, including ones specifically set aside from Major Leaguers who hand picked the wood themselves. I took a couple cuts with a Jeff Bagwell, and later a David Ortiz. The exhibits were also informative. I walked down to the riverfront and made some phone calls. Then I hopped back in the car and made a snap decision to go check out something across the Ohio River in Indiana.

As luck would have it, I was only 20 minutes from Caesar�s Palace: Indiana. It was a very odd experience. You exit off the highway and then drive for 7 miles down this rural road past farms and cornfields. Then, suddenly, there’s a little version of Caesar�s Palace sitting there against a mountain by the river. When you walk inside, you find a shopping promenade with the ceiling painted sky blue, a theater, a buffet, and it even smells like Las Vegas. There were many differences though. For one, the clientele was extremely homogeneous. I have never seen more obese white people in one place. Except for three black people, everyone in the building was white. There were several fun stereotypes too, like a handful of mullets and a couple guys with ZZ-Top beards. The gambling part of the complex is entirely located inside a riverboat permanently docked at the complex. No cheap tables, and no slot machines that accept actual coins. I played a dollar and lost on a 25 cent slot machine. Last but not least, I took note of the headlining entertainment this month: renowned prop comic Carrot Top!

On the way back, as I passed through New Albany, IN, I saw a sign that said this: “Give Jesus a try! If you don’t like him, the devil will take you back!” I was operating a motor vehicle and was therefore unable to photograph this sign.

Driving across southern Indiana was quite scenic, particularly since the sun was going down. Lots of farms, like Ohio, but this time set against rolling hills and more interesting landscapes. I listened to some religious programming on the AM radio and heard this weird, very un-PC sermon. The preacher used a NASCAR analogy, and then promised the ladies in the audience that he would think up a shopping analogy for the following week. Then they played this Randy Travis song about a preacher who gives a bible to a hooker and then dies, but then the hooker becomes good and her son becomes a famous preacher.

I crossed into southern Illinois and began noticing a steadily increasing number of insects meeting their demise on my windshield. It really became a bit of a problem. Where were they all coming from? I felt like I was driving through a swarm of some sort. Or a locust attack. I stopped at this rest area that had dolls in the vending machine along with candy. As I continued on towards the St. Louis area, I couldn’t help noticing how desolate the southeast corner of Illinois was. Even compared to those long stretches of Indiana and Kentucky today.

After trying 3 or 4 attempts to find a hotel, I settled upon the Howard Johnson here in O’Fallon. I grabbed some food at Steak N’ Shake and now find myself within good striking distance of St. Louis tomorrow morning.