truck trip: day four

today was a driving day. i left out on 278 west, then went south on 61, then west on 82 into arkansas. i hit 165 south into louisiana. i stopped in columbia for a late lunch, eating at a place whose name i forget. it was pretty rundown and dirty and local. the food was fair. it started raining while i was there, then stopped, but when i got back on the road it poured. this is when i learned there is a leak from somewhere that drips right around where the radio would be if there were one. i also learned one of the windshield wipers doesn’t really go back to its lowest position like it should when you turn them off. ah well.
when i hit 84 west i decided i could probably make it to the Texas border and still have enough light for some pics. so that’s what i shot for. before i got to winnfield i started recognizing some things from my motorcycle trip. except then it was dark and i was cold and wanting to stop for the night. we had stopped in winnfield, and it was a pleasant memory driving by the best western this time. but this time i was moving on. i hopped to la 6 and it was off to the Texas border. i made it with about an hour or so of light left.
i’ve come into Texas this way three times now, and i love it. you drive over a long bridge that goes over the reservoir. here’s a pic i took while i was driving over it:

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as i hit the bridge, a johnny cash song was playing. when i got to the Texas side, a band was doing a modern alt.country version of a cash song. when you get to the Texas side, there is a big generic “welcome to Texas” reflective sign, but if you go a couple hundred yards further there is an awesome old stone sign in the shape of Texas. the first time i came across it, the Texas was facing you as you drove toward it. the second time it still was, but the land around it was torn up. this time they’d completed the work. there is now a nice pavilion with all of the monuments and such, and the old rock Texas sign faces the road. here’s my truck enjoying its first taste of home:
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i swear when i got out to take the pic i saw a smile on its grill.
originally i was thinking i’d stay at a hotel right there by the reservoir, since it’d be a nice locale to stop and rest and contemplate life, and i had the next day off from work anyway. but i wanted internet access and they didn’t have it, so i decided to go ahead and drive into lufkin. i took 21 to 103 into lufkin. a few miles into Texas they played wayne hancock’s “going back to Texas”…nice.
anyway, there’s a place called bryan’s smokehouse in lufkin on 59 that i’ve eaten at every time i’ve come into Texas this way, so i had to do it this time as well. it was already closed when i got into town, so i checked into a hotel, went and washed my truck, then headed to a place i’d seen on the way into town called ray’s drive-in. it’s an old drive-in with the covered patio parking and the neon everywhere. i figured my truck would feel at home there. food procurement accomplished, i retired for the evening.
total miles today: probably around 350

truck trip: day three

i got back on i-81 and headed into tennessee. coming into bristol i saw a sign for a birthplace of country music museum and decided to check it out. it turns out it is in a mall. bleh. so i didn’t actually go into it. they looked like they had rows and row of cds, but i didn’t look at what they had. i decided i didn’t really need to be buying a bunch of cds on the trip. my dad and brother might be able to spend a lot of money there.
while pulling over to get gas, i realized my engine was clicking some. i’ve heard that before in other vehicles i’ve owned, and it usually meant the oil was low. after getting gas i checked the oil, and sure enough it was low. i put two and a half quarts in it. it leaks some, but i’m guessing it’s also burning some. hopefully that won’t turn out to be anything horribly wrong with the engine itself.
i-81 turned into i-40 and i headed into knoxville. in knoxville i stopped to try and find a circuit city or best buy or somewhere to buy something to listen to music. i ended up going to a sears in a mall, where i found a cd boombox with a line-in. so i bought it and the cheapest sirius unit i could find. the guy who helped me was from alabama and another employee was his friend and was from Texas (midland). turns out they were both going to some bible college there in knoxville. anyway, i called sirius and signed up, and a few minutes later i had sweet, sweet music. excellent!
back on the road, i took a turn off i-40 and headed south on 27 to rockwood. i had seen a sign for an old-fashioned drugstore and soda fountain, and i thought it might be cool. i ended up eating a place called junior’s that was across the street from the drugstore. the food was okay. the best part is the typical small town thing, where most of the people are old and everyone knows everyone who comes in, and they generally know everything that’s happened recently to everyone too. i didn’t have cash and they didn’t take credit cards (of course), so i had to walk down to an atm and get cash to pay junior. (what, you think junior doesn’t run his own restaurant?) one thing i’d forgotten about is getting sweet tea easily in the south. yum. it’s so much easier than having to stir in tons of sugar. and lucky y’all, you get to see a pic of my truck at junior’s:

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after that i headed over to the drugstore and got a mint chocolate chip shake for the road. i jumped back on 27 and headed south to 30 west. zowie. talk about twists and turns and steep grades! this would be an awesome (and tiring) road for a motorcycle ride. lots of turning, going both up and down, and some straighter parts in between to give you a bit of a rest. it was really pretty too. i took 30 to 70s to i-24 and into nashville.
i once again decided i needed to get back to Texas so i didn’t stop anywhere. i kind of decided i can have one extended diversion per day, and 30 ended up being it. it took me a long time to get through that. so i hit i-40 and headed to memphis.
in memphis i sort of got lost, and i was on the edge of the map scott had given me (southeastern states), and it was after dark. i stopped right near graceland and put some more oil in the truck. then i drove around in what are probably some questionable parts of memphis. i stopped and bought a map of the u.s., and eventually i hit 51 and then jumped on i- 55 (even thought i’d originally been trying to get on 61) and headed south into mississippi and to batesville where i checked into a comfort inn and wrote the day one entry. miles today: around 650.

truck trip: day two

the overnight stay with scott and kendra was nice. i hung out and talked with them after i got there, then again in the morning. i had forgotten i’d met them in houston once before, probably a few years ago. they also knew odd bits of trivia about me, like that i don’t salt my food. (i figure i should eat it the way the cook prepared it.) evidently this is something that sticks in sue’s mind. scott is pretty interested in the mennonites, which i don’t know much about, but the desire for simplicity sounds nice.
i left around noon and immediately stopped at a sheetz for an m.t.o. (“made to order”) because they told me jack would be disappointed if i didn’t. i called jack while sitting in the parking lot to let him know where i was. i also talked to my brother and he asked if i was going by gettysburg. i looked on the map and it was only about 20 miles away.
i took 30 over to gettysburg and stopped at the first visitor info place, but it was mostly a driving tour and could take a couple of hours depending on how long you took. since i was by myself and wasn’t sure how long it was going to take me to get back to houston, i decided to just sort of drive through the town and by some places. i’ll have to go back sometime when i feel i have more free time, and hopefully with someone who is interested in civil war history. i mean, it’s interesting to me on some level, but i’m not real into it so it’d be better if i were with someone who could talk about it while we were going to the various locations. shifting a bit, gettysburg appears to be almost completely dedicated to the civil war history of the town. i’d think that’d make it sort of an odd place to grow up and live in.
after my very short trip through gettysburg, i headed down 15 into maryland, then 340 or something through a bit of west virginia around harper’s ferry and down into virginia to shenandoah national park. (sidenote: dr. pepper berries and cream is nasty! how did i forget that?) i headed to the park so i could take skyline drive. because what’s better than rapid twists and turns at decent grades in a 40+ year old truck with no power steering or power brakes that you’ve only been familiar with for about 300 miles? it costs me $15 to get in, but i could come and go for 7 days. it handled everything fine and i managed to take some pics. so without further delay, here is the unveiling of my new truck…

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i had originally thought i might try taking skyline and the blue ridge parkway as far as they go, but after 65+ miles i decided it’d take me 2 weeks to get home at this rate, so i bailed on 33 and hit i-81 to try and make up some miles.
it was getting late and i was getting tired, so i decided to look for a motel 6 to stay at or a waffle house to eat at. (i figure every big road trip should have at least one stop at a waffle house.) the travelling gods of cheap motels and cheaper food were smiling on me, as i found an exit that had both. as always, the waffle house was an interesting collection of people. that goal accomplished, i headed to bed. miles today: around 400.

truck trip: day one

the trip almost started out with a whimper instead of a bang. i obviously stayed up pretty late, but i managed to get up and start getting ready (i hadn’t packed or anything). jack was giving me a ride to the airport, so i called him…no answer. i kept getting ready and called again…no answer. at this point, i was in that awkward time phase between the time it takes if someone drops you off and the time it takes if you have to park and ride a shuttle. i decided i’d better leave, and i might not make my flight anyway. as i was driving by jack’s, i called to let him know i couldn’t wait on him…and he answered. he said he was ready to go, so i stopped at his house and he took me. i arrived in time to check in, but too late to check luggage. but that didn’t matter, since i packed light. then i got to the terminal and i had to wait probably 30 minutes at least because they were running a bit behind. the flight itself was uneventful.
i arrived in new york city and jeff picked me up without any trouble. we drove down some major highway from la guardia to brooklyn, so i didn’t go through midtown or wall street or anything but i could see it off to my right. we stopped at the truck and jeff walked me through information about the truck, then we signed documents and traded tags and such. jeff took me for a short ride to let me see it in action, then he hopped in his pickup and i drove my new truck. we stopped on smith street so we could get photocopies of some of the documents. while walking around he asked if i wanted to eat, so i decided i wanted a slice of pizza. we ate at sal’s pizza, which he mentioned was the sal’s in do the right thing. which i’m pretty sure it was. then we went back to our pickups and took me to get some gas. i’m not sure i’ve ever done full service before, but i don’t think i had a choice. (i know in new jersey it’s a law — or at least used to be — that you can’t pump your own gas.) i asked jeff if he smoked cigars, which he didn’t, but i gave him a cojimar vanilla sugar tip anyway. i told him it was a “gateway cigar” since it’s sweet and tastes like vanilla. jeff then directed me to the road to get out of town. i took 287 to staten island over a bridge that cost $9 in toll. then i immediately got in a traffic jam. after 20 minutes or so of that, i got on my way. thus ends my short time in new york city. all told, about 2.5 hours.
at this point, my impressions of the truck were that it wasn’t as clean or as in good of shape as i’d expected. not that it is really bad or anything, but while it looks pretty good from 10 feet, when you get up closer to it you can see obvious spots that need to be painted. plus the “dings” and keying mentioned on ebay are more like someone scraped the back half plus of the driver’s side along something that dented scrape marks down the side. the interior is okay, but aspects of it definitely need some work as well. but it seemed to shift pretty well and had power, and it wasn’t doing anything obviously bad as far as power, handling, etc.
anyway, back to the trip. i hit i-95 and went north, then took i-80 west. after driving for some time i stopped at a gas station. i asked if they had maps, but i wasn’t sure what map i needed. i said “i don’t know where i am. i just flew into new york and bought this truck.” and the kid said “you’re in new jersey.” i figured out i was actually really close to the pennsylvania border, so the map for it included where i was. i bought a map and took some road to i-78, then down i-81 until i got to shippensburg. i didn’t really have much trouble getting to scott and kendra’s house, which is where sue and the potts kids were and where i was going to spend the night. all told, i drove around 250 miles between 5pm-ish and 10pm-ish.

technically, it’s already truck day

i left work a bit early today and went by frost bank and got a cashier’s check for the truck. so the two major things i needed to take care of (temp tag and cashier’s check) are accomplished. another thing i thought i might resolve is what i’m going to do about having something to listen to during the drive (remember, it has no radio). unfortunatley, no solution stuck out in my mind as a good one, and in the end i decided it’d be easier to purchase something on the way back than buy it and take it on the plane. my plan of course is to get the truck to subsist on a steady diet of johnny cash, bob wills, zz top, milton brown, drive-by truckers, wayne hancock, hank williams, mulehead, dale watson, etc. until it is brainwashed into being a Texas truck. then i’ll give it the gunrack and the “they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers” and “bob wills is still the King” bumper stickers.
after running my errands i headed over to tropioca, where the geek gathering for the radio show was happening. while there, jeff schulz (the guy i’m buying the truck from) called and we discussed plans some. the plan right now is for him to pick me up at la guardia. after the gathering i drove around a bit and ended up going by the tobacco shop where i picked up some cigars and another punch. then i headed to river oaks to catch the midnight showing of plan 9 from outer space. i was joined by lemaster, kd5, barrett, and amanda. i’d only seen bits and pieces of it before. boy, it’s a bad movie. but it’s so bad that it’s good. which is i guess why so many people call it the worst movie ever made.
i’m now home, and in less than 12 hours i should be in new york city. now all i need to do is pack. but i think i’ll do that in the morning when i get up. i’ve decided this trip is going to pretty much be planned as it happens. all i know right now is i’m getting to new york, picking up the truck, and i’m hoping to make it to shippensburg, pa, before i stop. after that, who knows. i’ll figure it out later.

you were always on my mind

wednesday after work i dropped by the poison girl for awhile before heading to the radio show. folk that do the houstonist site were meeting up there, so a few of us that do the radio show dropped by. the poison girl still seems to be a pretty cool place.
today i was planning on taking off work and getting my temp tag for the new pickup and getting the cashier’s check or money order. unfortunately, i decided to ride my motorcycle to work and then the weather decided it should rain on and off in the afternoon. so i left later than i’d planned and by the time i finished at the tax office the banks were closed. i opted to park in the museum district and ride the light rail downtown, since i wasn’t sure about parking, the weather, or road conditions. getting the temp tag turned out to be extremely easy…probably more than it should have. the lady didn’t even look at or ask for either my driver’s license *or* the title/registration. all she used was the insurance card. but whatever the steps, the outcome is that i’ve got a 30-day temporary tag to put on the truck once i take possession of it. i’ll have to get the money tomorrow.
after that (and having to do some troubleshooting from home for a half hour or so for work), i headed to a place called monkey bizness to go to a surprise birthday party kelli planned for brad. monkey bizness is a play place for kids, with a rock wall and a bunch of big inflated jump rooms and slides and stuff (that are usually outside, but these are indoors). after that, we headed to buca de pepo (or however you spell it) for supper. good times.
my original plan for getting the pickup was to fly out tomorrow and be back on tuesday. jeff (the guy in brooklyn i’m buying the truck from) said saturday would be best for him, so i changed my plans to start on saturday. hopefully i’ll be back by tuesday night, or maybe wednesday. but i’m not trying to rush the roadtrip, and i’m hoping it’ll be enjoyable and fun. it’d be cool to have someone to go with me, but it should be a good time even without being able to share the experience. at this point i’m planning on trying to take my laptop and camera, so hopefully i can give status updates along the way. i’m trying to decide if i want to buy an ipod (or some mp3 player) and some speakers so i can have some music to listen to during the ride back (the truck has no radio). what i know i won’t have is a/c, seatbelts, power windows, power locks, airbags, or a bunch of extra computerized crap in the engine compartment…that’ll be occupied by a gas-guzzling 352 v8 with dual exhaust.
i’m also trying to think of a name for it, at this point going with country music related ideas: earl, hank, 16hp, old 97, etc. although seeing it and driving it will have to happen before i settle on something. got any good ideas?

book vs. truck

i finished reading catch-22 by joseph heller. it’s one of the books i felt like i should read because it’s considered a classic of modern american literature. there were things i liked about it, and some of the way the story unfolded was very effective. sometimes the non-stop contradictory sentences got a bit difficult to slog through and it felt like death by snarky cleverness. but when the ratio of story to “turning every sentence into a contradiction of the last one” was good, the book was a joy to read and kept my interest. still, overall it’s not going to go into the list of books i was amazed by and felt gave me a new perspective of reality and the world around me. it is still worth investing the time to read though, in my opinion.
the bigger news for me is that i decided to purchase a truck on ebay. i’d been looking on ebay at 1965-1967 chevy and ford pickups for a couple of months, and one caught my eye a few weeks ago. i bid on it, but no one else did and i didn’t meet the reserve. the truck was relisted and i bid it up in the last minute beyond the point where i was the high bidder, but i still didn’t hit the reserve. the truck was relisted again and the same thing happened. well, yesterday the seller sent me a second chance offer on the truck and today i made the decision to do it.
the vehicle in question is a 1965 ford f-100. the rub is that it is in brooklyn, new york. so part of my decision in buying it was my decision to fly up there and drive it back to Texas. in addition to the obvious hope that it is mechanically sound enough to make the drive back, i’m also going to have to deal with going to new york, buying a vehicle i’ve never seen in person from a person i’ve never met, it having no seatbelts, and driving it back to Texas with temporary tags. (in new york they keep the plates when they sell a vehicle.) hopefully i’ll be able to do everything i need to in order to get the temporary Texas tags.
anyway, all of this will be quite an adventure for me. i just purchased my plane ticket this evening. hopefully it’ll all work out and i’ll have a great time going up there and driving it back. and hopefully i’ll be happy with the truck too. i’m still processing plans for exactly how all of this will happen and what i’ll be taking with me, etc. if i decide to take my laptop, i’ll try to chronicle my adventures. if anyone wants to buy a ticket and take a few days and ride back with me, let me know. : )

food and video games

friday a vietnamese coworker came up to my desk and offered me something he’d gotten from a vietnamese shop. he does this from time to time, and i try to have a good attitude about trying things that sometimes seem a bit odd, and are about as likely to turn out poorly for my tastebuds as not. well, these things were excellent. the best way i can describe them is sort of like cajun hushpuppies. they’re made of corn meal and look like wedge fries. they are deep-fried, evidently involving curry and some kind of pepper. they’re also somewhat sweet. another co-worker tried them as well and commented how well they would go with beer. he was right on the money. i thought i’d get some friday after work, but the directions/instructions weren’t accurate so i couldn’t find the place.
today after lunch, my coworker showed up with a bag of them just for me! and he told me he’d given me incorrect info. i called up brad and kelli (i saw her credit card last night and realized i’d been spelling her name wrong all this time) and asked them if they wanted to meet me at the west alabama ice house for some beer and these wonderful things. they did. we met there and had a couple of hours of deep conversation about G-d, free will vs. predestination, spiritual matters, etc. over a couple of beers. afterward we headed to taco cabana for supper. another nice evening.
i was able to see kelli’s card last night because i hung out with her and brad last night as well. they called me and said they were in the area, so they dropped by my house. we then drove down westheimer and stopped at late nite pie. brad and i played a number of rounds of two-player joust on a stand up arcade there. man, i used to love playing joust back in the day. that and frogger.
but my absolute favorite arcade game was wizard of wor. hardly anyone seems to know that game, but it was great. especially two player. i used to get on my bike and meet up with a neighborhood friend at leo’s. they had a game room with 10 or so video games and a couple of pool tables. we’d spend saturday afternoons there, playing video games and pool, listening to joan jett and ac/dc and other stuff of that era on the jukebox, eating grilled cheese sandwiches and drinking burt braton (sp?) specials (which was some kind of concoction of sprite and cream or something, named after the guy who i guess had ordered it for years). that was probably sixth and seventh grade or so. ah, the joys of growing up in small town Texas when life was simpler and you were more isolated than the networked, connected, high-speed world of today.

…but i still love technology, always and forever.

i watched linklater’s waking life a couple of days ago. the rotoscoping was interesting. some of the conversations were really clever and/or interesting, and the idea for the film was cool. some of the use of animation over live action was also unique and added a new layer to the experience. overall though, the film just didn’t “do it” for me. perhaps with another viewing or two it’d click more. i’m curious after seeing previews for a scanner darkly how much the rotoscoping process has matured.
friday i got a package i ordered from cafepress.com. it had 4 “bob wills is still the King” bumper stickers, a diablos tejanos shirt, and a bible rtfm shirt.
friday after work i headed over to the west alabama ice house. brad and kelly met me there later, then we headed over to barrett’s for a dj show pre-party. i’m not much of a partying socialite, but i got to have a good extended conversation with a guy there. i prefer having a meaningful conversation about interesting things to a bunch of social chit-chat with lots of people. later the party headed over to the m-bar to see mark farina. however, there was some confusion in line with tickets and discounts and i wasn’t sure what was going on so i decided to stay outside. i ended up heading over to frank’s pizza, then walked back over and sat outside on main street. i talked to a few people, and then a homeless guy set his sights on me and i talked to him for 15 or 20 minutes. it’s intriguing for me to sit there and watch all of these people walking by, wondering what they’re doing and where they’re going and what’s happening in their lives. around 2am i headed off to my bike and went home. would i have enjoyed farinza’s set? i may never know.
saturday afternoon i went to the alamo draft house and saw clerks ii. i kind of have this love/have thing with kevin smith. i feel like there are a lot of ways i identify with him, but in his films he is willing to be way more vulgar and offensive than i can personally enjoy. some aspects of what he does comes across as brilliant and insightful, other aspects just come across as base and pointless. it’s the later i have a hard time sitting through sometimes. does the good outweigh it? i don’t know. i guess it depends on who you are and what your sensibilities are.
saturday evening i met brad at poison girl, then we headed to river oaks and saw the midnight showing of napoleon dynamite. at the poison girl i ran into groovehouse and jennifer “the intern”. after the movie, brad and i headed over to the house of pies and had an extended conversation about G-d and science and all sorts of theological and social matters. nice stuff. maybe i’ll convert some of it into a post or two. i’ve got to find something to post about — the more interesting tidbits of my boring life don’t exactly make for engrossing reading.
that said, yesterday i updated my powermac to 10.4.7 and now i don’t have any sound output through my griffin imic. i’m assuming it was something in the 10.4.7 update. i searched the net and found people describing what appeared to be similar goings on, but i didn’t find a solution. how that’s for exciting reading? 😉

swiss alp dance hall

it was supposed to rain on friday and it didn’t. it was supposed to be nice on saturday and it rained like crazy. so i didn’t get to make my trip on my motorcycle, but went in my car instead. to make up for it, i drove most of the way with my windows down (except when there was too much rain) and took more rural roads than just shooting down i-10. the drive was nice and i was looking forward to the evening. i stopped in la grange and ate at the dairy queen. then i headed north on 77.
yeah, north. i had forgotten to take any directions and for some reason — even though everything i’d read said swiss alp was south of la grange — i thought the online map had shown it being north of la grange so that’s the way i headed. after driving awhile i realized i had no clue where it was and it might be off on a county road or side road or something. being a resourceful and modern type, i broke out the cell phone. called my brother — no answer. again — no answer. called sue — no answer. called my parents — no answer. sue again — no answer. parents again — no answer. so i tried using the web/media access on my phone, but it couldn’t display the swissalptexas.com website. huh.
at this point it was getting to be around 9pm and it started at 8:30pm and i was frustrated. and i was in giddings. i stopped at a convenience store and asked the lady there if she knew where swiss alp was. she didn’t. she said she could call her daughter…or tom…”yeah, tom delivers oil rig parts to all these small towns no one has heard of”. then, as i followed her, she walked back to the drink coolers to the beer section and opened the door. i’m thinking “okay, she’s grabbing herself…or me…a beer?” then she addressed the cooler: “hey, can i make a call?” okay, maybe she’s just crazy. then the cooler answered with some number. ah…someone was in the back. she went back and called — you guessed it, no answer. so then she said i should head over to the police department (“unless you’ve been drinking”) and ask at the desk. i drove over there (it’s a small town…it’s only a couple of blocks)…and it’s 9pm, of course the front desk isn’t opened. duh. all the lights are off. so i headed off again. at some point, i realized i left my phone in the car when i went into the convenience store, so i picked it up to try another call, thinking “wouldn’t it be ironic if linc called?” he had called. and left a voicemail. “hey terry, we’re here. wondering where you are.” you see, he’d told me a week or so before that his phone was messed up so he didn’t know when someone was calling, so as far as i knew me calling him would do no good…he’d need to call me. great. so i figured i’d try calling him, what could i lose at this point? evidently his phone was working better, because he answered! and told me it was, in fact, south of la grange. so i had to drive about 30 minutes from where i was to get there. now that all that is out of the way…
the swiss alp dance hall is pretty cool. it’s basically a corrugated sheet metal wood-frame barn on the side of the road, with a big open wooden dance floor. the sides open up and prop open for circulation of air. they have seating around the outside of the dance floor near the opened sides. since a big rain had come through, it was a bit humid but a decent temperature. and coming from houston, the humidity wasn’t a problem. the wild river band was sans herb remington, which made me somewhat sad because he’s a western swing legend and probably played the place back in the day when it was running full tilt. plus the band played a way more traditional Texas dance hall set than a western swing set. but it was still an enjoyable evening. also, all the beer was served in cans and came in at $1.50 (except shiner bock and michelob ultra (?) at $2.00). cover was $5. later they served breakfast tacos at $1.00 each.
i recommend taking a road trip to the place some weekend sometime. and it’s south of la grange on 77. just a few miles north of schulenburg, actually.