Mile 1398: Lake Charles
After thanking Tate and Sarah for their incredible hospitality, I set out for Austin. Along the way, I decided to stop somewhere to do some photos.. something in Louisana, before I headed on out of state.
Approaching Lake Charles. It was around lunch, so I figured I’d look for a place to eat. Maybe I should drive THIS to california…
After taking a exit, I found myself in a empty part of town. Even though it was in the middle of the day under broad daylight, I still found myself looking around out of concern for my safety.
I walked around just taking pictures. Urban decay always has been a favorite subject of mine.
My beloved car taking a breather.
I found it very surprising that even years after the hurricanes, houses here still have tarps and boarded up windows.
I stumbled across this graveyard with markers dating back to just after the Civil War.
It was all in very bad shape, but I found it utterly fascinating and just walked around looking at all those different gravestones and absorbing names and dates. For the picture below, it might be hard to read, but it says “Man’s Best Friend: Mother” - not ‘Dog’ as you’d expect.
Heading out of the graveyard, I ran across a few more condemned buildings.
Found a nice little cafe on Main Street.
Ordered burgers and fries. Sat there, absorbing the atmosphere.
Of course, had to do a self-shot in the bathroom after taking a leak for the road.
And I’m back on the road to Austin.
Mile 1266: On The Way To Austin
After a wild Saturday night that involved me getting wiped out by two hurricanes and a hand grenade, the Tulliers and I elected to make it a lazy Sunday. Tate ran around the place making lots of really wacky photos with my 12mm lens. I just sat on the couch and gave SoHo all the attention that dog needs (and lots more).
SoHo is a fucking rock star dog. And he knows it. He knows he has it good.
For dinner, we headed out to Baton Rouge to eat at the Tullier’s favorite place, Chimes.
Tate doing his “special person” impression.
And you just never know where the conversation between Tate and Sarah is going to go at any moment. Tactile signing included.
Alligator meat appetitizer. It was very very very good.
Imagine being married to a guy who will take pictures of you at any moment of the day, in any place for any reason? I envy them - when they’re all old, been married a million years and all that - they’re gonna have a billion, if not billions of photos to look back and remember their lives by.
Something you never quite see in food stores anywhere else. I remember when I was a kid, I’d go looking for crawfish in the local rivers back up in Minnesota. They were ugly, gross looking brown crab/scorpion/lobster mutants. I dont think I could EVER bring myself to eat them, even if they might be delicious…
I’ll be driving to Austin today to meet with the Egberts. This has been an amazing trip so far!
Mile 1243: A Night in The Big Easy
Mile 1243: Getting the Hell outta Minnesota
Yesterday was clearly going to be the longest (and suckiest) leg of the entire road trip. With a million things to do (and a million things undone), I left a lot later than I wanted.
I drove past Burnsville and it all became very apparent that I’d be soon leaving everything behind for a a life on the road for the next few weeks. Nobody but myself.
I thought for a brief minute about turning back and just forgetting the whole thing. Why not just settle down, find an house, get a dog and make a quiet life of it? It’d be so easy.
I found myself in Iowa at 3am in the morning, way tired beyond words and looking at nothing but a thin-slice of oncoming road in the darkness. I knew I was going to end up in a ditch somewhere if I tried to push on to St. Louis. I called it a night at Cedar Rapids, Iowa and slept in the back of my car curled up in my sleeping bag.
Woke up to a cold, frosty morning. The only good thing about it would be that it’d be the last one I’d see for a good long while, and I couldn’t wait for that.
After a meal at Perkins and some morning sunshine, I was feeling a lot better. The drive through Iowa was miserable and I was glad to leave it behind.
No snow! Yay! Good riddance!
Somewhere in Missouri, I noticed the setting sun and formation of clouds. I knew that there’d be a killer sunset forming up in the next hour. I drove quickly to the next exit and started searching for a good place to grab some shots.
Used the 16mm for this shot.
Now the colors were really starting to kick up!
This one is the real winner.
And there’ll be more to come tomorrow.
Till then!
Mile 1: The First Dinner of the Road Trip
So many things I had to do before leaving. I originally was set to leave last Sunday, and stay in Chicago a few days before making my way to New Orleans. But some stuff came up at work, and I had to delay leaving until today. And because I wanted to be in New Orleans for the weekend to visit Tate and Sarah, I had to drop the Chicago stopover and drive straight to St. Louis tonight. However, there was one stop I had to make before leaving Minneapolis for good. I had to stop and have myself some of Davanni’s famous hot hoagies. So here I am, typing away on my blog while munching on this tasty hoagie. Mmm.Then it’ll be time to get on I-35 and head south to St. Louis. My GPS navigation unit says i’ll get there at 4:30 in the morning. Not quite looking forward to this. I’ll enjoy this hoagie for now.
Down with the White Man
Assuming that none of the Republican candidates put on any serious opposition to the Democrat candidate for president, it seems almost a given that within a year we will be electing our first black, or female president.
I think thats great. While I dont necessarily think that it really matters what color skin you have, or if you’re capable of giving birth, to be the leader of the free world, the act of electing a white man into office for the entire 200+ year history of the nation is getting a bit long in the tooth.
I’ve been watching the election with hope this year. Our long national nightmare with Bush is thankfully coming to an end and I believe that voter backlash will almost guarantee a Democrat in the White House - so the question (for me at least) comes down to whether Obama or Clinton will become our next president.
Adam wrote a post about voting for the person you want to be president instead of picking the one you like best out of the leading candidates. And in a lot of ways, I agree with Adam that you should vote for the person you truly want to be president. It is your vote, your citizen-right and duty to pick the person you feel is most qualified to lead the nation. But I dont quite agree that voting for the best leading candidate is throwing away your vote. People often have to make compromises in life. People make decisions with their heart that are tempered with considerations to reality.
If I really wanted to vote for the person I felt was most qualified to lead the nation, why would I vote for Obama? Or even Kucinich? I’d be writing in the name of a certain teacher in junior high who I have found to be one of the most dedicated, well-meaning, and selfless persons I have ever known. Having him in office, I would be absolutely certian that he would never lie to the nation, and he would only use his office to perform actions that he felt in his heart would be the best for the nation. Someone who would be a complete counter to the Bush administration.
And how likely would it be that he’d win? So even for those people who say they’re not voting for one of the leading candidates, but instead voting for the candidate they identify closest with, they in fact, STILL are applying some sort of criteria in terms of “winning-ability”. In other words, a well-known public person that has some sort of broad name-appeal with other people all over the nation.
So I see Adam’s argument is really more in the sense of just *how* much of a compromise is one willing to make between the most-qualified person, and the potential electability of that person. Some people are more willing to trade off more than others are.
To me - electing any of the Democrat candidates, be it Clinton, Obama, or Kucinich is far more preferable than electing any of the Republican candidates. So it is with that in mind, that I evaluate the electability of that person, along with that person’s platform, that I consider my vote.
The Road Trip of 2008
I was supposed to leave tonight.
But some last minute (but important) bullshit came up for work, and I decided that it’d probably be better to stick around Minneapolis for a few more days while I got that sorted out instead of risking it while I’m on the road. It might have been doable but lets not start things off on a bad footing, huh?
So - on Thursday, come hell or high water, I’m hitting the road.
I’ve added this blog to DeafRead.com - I didnt have it linked up before because I didn’t consider this blog relevant to the content that DeafRead was aggregating. But people have been asking me to keep them updated on the road trip, and those updates will be exclusively via this blog. And why not bring in some new readers and if the DeafRead.com moderators agree - there can be some diversity on content, other than discussion on the latest feud over some deaf ideology.
The general route will be to drive to New Orleans, Austin, El Paso, Tucson, Zion National Park, Palm Springs, Death Valley, and finally roll to a stop in Bishop, California. It’ll be just over 4000 miles.
Here’s a link to the route in all of its glory.
The Final Hours of 2007
2007 was a pretty big year full of changes and lots of things accomplished - and some things not quite accomplished.
But the good thing is that I’m still alive and kicking to roll unfinished things over into the next year.
Overall, it was a pretty good year. I made some great new friends, ran a marathon, and packed up my stuff and moved away from Washington D.C.
I’m not really one to make lots of new years resolutions. I’ve always figured it was just better to start on any self-improvement, or lifetime goals right now. Why wait until a new year?
But there are things I’d like to do. I’d like to maintain better, closer contact with all my friends who have been great to me all my life. I’d like to make better use of my time and talents to contribute towards the world, making the world a better place than it was yesterday.
So how does one set about to doing that? I don’t know yet - so many unknowns coming up. The most immediate one being a 4,000 mile road trip. The Great Road Trip, I call it.
As good 2007 was, I fully intend to make 2008 a even better year.
So to everyone out there who’s still reading my blog. Thank you all, and keep watching this channel.
Watching Dick Clark narrate the 2008 countdown, I came to the conclusion that he’s been injected with so many artifical preservatives that he’ll live for another thousand years.
Happy New Year to you all!