Day Ten......

NEXT time I get a brilliant idea like this......

.....please remember to wedge a tube of 80SPF sunscreen in my knapsack when I'm not looking.

Christ.....they are gonna hafta amputate my arms and legs......so much for the shorts and T-Shirt ride across the desert.


No Daylight Savings Time in Aridzona.......got dark here at 7:15pm.


Left the Avi Casino and Resort and did an easy cruise of 300 miles, again, most of it on I-40 (not for safety, but because there ARE NO parallel back roads heading East-West....thus, no other option). Swung through Oatman, Aridzona, stopped at a pub there with dollar bills entirely wallpapering the place, and had a pint and toasted my brother, who had pints with me at this exact same bar in 2004, but, sadly, could not be with us this trip.........

.....as he has no more vacation time offa work.












Downtown Oatman, Aridzona










Wild burros outside of Oatman


In 2004 on the aforementioned trip through Oatman, I had thought the drive in a car on Route 66 was amazing!!!!

......it's nothing compared to doing it on a skooter (or a motorcycle, or, hell, a bicycle for that matter)!!!!












Shit!! Have I actually gone 1800 miles???

.....really didn't think the Helix would make it to L.A., personally.......

-E-

Day Nine......

I had rode a somewhat irritating three hundred and ten miles across the desert to Laughlin. Somewhat irritating because A) - I had left the L.A. basin that morning in a thick, thick hoodie and my Carhartt and, by the time I got to Barstow, CA (1/2-way point), I was roasting in 90+ degree temps.

And also B) - Failing to adequately plan shit out, I had gotten on Interstate 40 (yeah, broke my own rules and my promise to my parents that I'd stay OFF the Interstates - had to though. In Southern Nevada and Eastern California, there is NOBODY and no signs of life off of the interstate!!!! If I had taken the backroads, and something had happened, I'd be in a major dilemma......) at Barstow after stopping for gas, and, after riding for two-hours in desert temps, started to....uhhhh.....get a little bit thirsty.

Guess who didn't pack a bottle of water?

Well, such is life. Hey, lookie, there's a rest area thass about 25 miles before Laughlin. Cool....grabba drink of water there!

Except that when I hit the water button on the fountain......nothing comes out....

.....WTF??....

So I see a lady who appears to be a rest-area attendant (makes sure there is adequate toilet paper, cleans rest rooms, etc.) there, and I mention to her that the water doesn't work!!

"Oh, I know......CalTRANS came by and shut the water off yesterday."

Nice.,...they coulda put a sign up saying so. OR, BETTER YET - MADE CONTINGENCY PLANS (like, bringing in a "Water-Buffalo" water-hauling trailer from the military, or some shit like that)!

Guys.....it's Early May in the Mojave Desert and it's miles from nowhere!! And you shut off the water and make no contingency plans to provide water out there.....????

WTF?????

Christ......

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Got to the Avi casino and resort, owned and operated by the Fort Mojave Tribe of Indians. Have their own private beach on the Colorado River (air temp=90+.....water temp=40 degrees.....very contrasting) and a cinema and free bingo games (where you win cash)......and after 300+ miles in the desert, I was in NO huge hurry to hop on and get running again.....

Jus' totally vegged.....after not getting to sleep until 4AM Thursday Night, and woke up at ten with a Trotsky-like ice pick headache, I had decided to stay an extra day at The Avi and resolve to do nothing that required either excessive thought nor anything that required any sort of physical effort.

So, I sat on the beach and read, played B-I-N-G-O and went to see "Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay."

Not a bad movie....but not really great. I laffed out loud during more than a few scenes, but given that I was hungover to the point of near death, I probably would have giggled at a concentration camp......

Most of the film is juvenile to the extent of bordering on just plain fucking stooopid.......which is EXACTLY what I needed at that point in time. Seriously, depends on what state you are in when you see the flick: If you're deathly hungover, you'll find it humourous......if you are stoned, you won't be able to stop laffing!!


If you are NOT altered by chemicals in any manner whatsoever when you see this movie......

.....you'll probably walk out!!

(I dunno...maybe I hafta see it again, or something.....hell, it takes at least three viewings to really appreciate and love the Mike Judge flick Idiocracy)


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......sorry, no pics of the desert. Check "Google Images" for that. There was literally NOTHING for miles from nowhere to take a picture of. Why put in filler if the pic isn't of anything weird or cool or anything......?

This, however, affects my timetable slightly.......so look for me in Denver around the evening of the 12th or the afternoon of the 13th (depending on how much ambition I possess to cover vast distances during any given day).

-E-

Day Eight.....

This is my happening, and it freaks me out"
L.A.
The Fall

Off from L.A. in about 30 minutes. As much as I would love to stay and continue to abuse 'Pitz and Beia's overwhelming generosity and hospitality, I'm getting really antsy. It's been two-plus days snce I rode.....

It figures. A place where there IS SUPPOSED TO BE SUNSHINE (L.A. Basin in May)......there isn't any. I mean, generally, I do despise sunshine, but when I want to sit by the pool and read a book and sip an umbrella drink....well, even though 59 degrees and heavily overcast is MY PERFECT WEATHER.......not this time.

No lounging by the pool for me.....

So walked around a lot.....all over West Hollywood. Went by The Ivy restaurant whwere I was told there usually are tons of papperazzi......but I only say one guy with a video camera and two girls with professional still cameras.....kinda disappointed....

Saw a bunch of people walking two, three dogs at once. And did notice that Vons supermarket (a brand of Safeway the way Fred Meyer is a brand of Kroger) here had, like, right delivery vans to deliver your groceries from www.vons.com!

I figured it out.....

Pretty much, very few people here do anything for themselves......

Don't think I could reside here......

Still, though.....I really enjoyed Los Angeles and California in general. Don't think it's really deserving of the shit that people tend to heap on both, L.A. and California in general. Yeah, they both have their issues......but what place doesn't?? Hell....Portlandia has it's issues......no place is perfect.

Laughlin, Nevada (waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheap hotel rooms - $25 for a Thursday Night........and it's on the route) in six hours.....

-E-

Day Five.....


....in the City of Angels....

EASY cruise (153 miles) into West Hollywood to see my friends, Pitz and Beia. Got some long-awaited luxuries, such as being able to do laundry and direct orders from Pitz and Beia to sit by the pool with a beer (which they kindly provided me with) and do nothing for the next two days!










Ever see the 90's TV show "Melrose Place"??

I swear to god, they filmed it here! Either that, or they used this complex as a blueprint when they built the set for that show. Pool in the middle of the courtyard, totally square building, just too weird.

Christ.....did I really used to watch this show before going out nightclubbing? (I read somewhere that Josie Bissett and Laura Leighton had to do, like, five takes of this scene because the both couldn't stop themselves from laughing).

I'm vegging, sitting by the pool reading, walking around L.A. down Melrose Blvd. and Beverly Blvd. and Sunset, and just basically decompressing for the next two days.......nothing much to write about......more in a couple days when I ride out to my next stop, Laughlin, Nevada...

-E-

Day Four......

Nothing of note, really. Had only 373 miles to my friend's place in Los Angeles, so I decided to break that up in to two easy rides of 220 today and 153 miles tomorrow.

Ended up getting a two-fer this night: Got a legitimate chain hotel room (thus, no paper-thin walls, no scary neighbours, etc. etc.) AND kept BELOW my maximum daily budget for lodging!! Got a Super 8 in Lompac, California for $45 (with coupon clipped out of scary motel booklet).

Getting out of the ancient redwood trees of the Northern California coast rainforests and into a more arid terrain.

Uneventful ride, except that I rode thru San Luis Obispo, California and froze my ass off. There was some weird cloud inversion that caused fog in the area around the city and in the valley and it was, like, 40 degrees!!!

No pics today.....move on.....there's nothing to see here.....

-E-

Day Three....



Do you know the way to San Jose......?


.....I didn't either, but I somehow was able to go around it.


Christ......I do not care HOW comfortable your bike's seat is.....riding 350+ miles in a day WILL, repeat, WILL ram your spine into the top of your cranium!!

Had one of thee most stunning rides in my life through an ancient redwood forest. Sadly, however, after Eureka, most sections of Highway 101 just turned into a four-land divided Interstate. Well, so much for my road trip rules of avoiding interstates and freeways that are more than 30 miles outside an urban area. But I really couldn't take an alternate route......not with the time I hadta chase....

So, git to San Rafael (on the Northern edge of the San Fran - Oakland urban area), then jump East to Oakland and then straight South. Find a Comfort Inn (or Choice, or Quality Inn, or Clarion....or some shit like that) in a gross, ugly, sprawling ex-urb called Morgan Hill about 20 miles South of San Josie.

Walked outta a Safeway here and had an interesting conversation with a signature-gatherer for a petition. No, I was not registered to vote in Morgan Hill....but still.....just outta curiosity....asked him whass up?

"We're trying to provide more housing choices for middle-income residents of Morgan Hill"

Right then and there......the red flag went up.....

“There is no housing now for the middle-class to afford. It's all either subsidized housing or housing for the very wealthy. We feel that by reducing the subsidies that must be paid for subsidized housing, that we can create more reasonably-priced housing for the middle-class of Morgan Hill”!!

”Errrmmm........so, won't that have a detrimental effect on affordable housing”??

“Uhhh....well.....the fact that we're subsidizing all this housing.......it's eliminating the middle-class choices for housing here in Morgan Hill.”

“Right, but shouldn't market demand determine whether a developer gets greater profit MARGIN in building huge McMansions for the rich with a large return on a few properties, or whether it gets greater profit by a smaller profit margin building several middle-class housing units with a smaller return on multiple properties? And, thus, if the developer DOES get far greater net profit out of building McMansions, and decides to build very few $300,000 - $650,000 houses........won't the middle-class just vote with their feet and leave Morgan Hill until the developers figure out what's going on? Hell....the city government realised that was thee problem in Aspen, Colorado several years ago when the city's police force hadta reside 40 miles away!!!”


“..................”



I wanted to bring up the terms such as "oxymoron" and “non-sequitor” to this gentleman......but I didn't think he'd grasp it in this context.....

But he DID tell me ""God Bless you and have a good night" as I walked away....

Turns out, he was talking about Morgan Hill's MEASURE C. He never once mentioned Measure C during our conversation. Measure C allows developers to get half-arsed Mega McMansion subdivisions through city planners if they provide X percentage of below-market-rate (B.M.R.) housing for middle and lower income home buyers.

Developers here don't like this, and they're trying to get the measure changed to force them to build fewer B.M.R. in their new subdivisions in order to get them approved.....and that's what this petition was all about.

Soooo.....ironically, what this guy is trying to get signatures for will result in EVEN LESS middle-income earner housing, as there ain't a whole lot of profit in that (not nearly the profit margin that McMansions carry with them).

Funny how some people fall for that stuff.....although I really shouldn't say that: Oregon fell for Measure 37!

Still stinks.....but the fact that Morgan Hill actually HAS this measure and a LOT of Oregon cities do not should say something......

If you're into Planning and Affordable Housing topics, or just bored shitless, click here to see how pathetic this challenge really is and exactly WHO the people are who are behind it.


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Just for future reference.......

.....a VERY rough, ballpark guess as to what the future holds -

Los Angeles - Monday May 5th thru Wednesday May 7th


Denver - Sunday May 11th thru Thursday May 14th


Albuquerque - Saturday May 18th thru Friday May 23rd (sorry, Will and Cindy....you guys is stuck wiff me forra week)


Houston - Friday May 30 to Sunday June 2nd (Julie....I'm waaaaaay sorry!! Due to SEVERE time constraints and bad geography, I can't make it to Dallas. ANY chance you can swing down to Houston that weekend??)


Tallahassee - Friday June 6th thru Sunday June 8th


Tampa/St. Pete - Monday June 9th thru Wednesday June 11th


Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale - Thursday June 12th thru Saturday June 14th


Atlanta - Tuesday June 17th thru Thursday June 19th


Virginia Beach - Saturday June 21st thru Monday June 23rd


D.C. - Monday June 23rd thru Wednesday June 25th


Montreal - Saturday June 28 thru Monday June 30


Wilson - Tuesday July 1st to Wednesday July 2nd


Bruce Beach - Thursday July 3rd thru Sunday July 6th (or whenever Bink wants me there!)

After this, I'm in Buffalo for two weeks......

The way home (Ohio, Rapid City, Seattle, et. al.) with approximate dates of arrival will be E-Mailed shortly (like, in a month or so).

REMEMBER....ALL dates given herewith are STILL veeerrrry approximate and seriously subject to change.....given weather conditions, whether the skooter dies on the road....etc. etc.


More tomorrow....

-E-

Day Two.....


The rain don't fall in this shit town
The windows on the shops need cleaning
Blue heelers, they are everywhere
The buildings are all leaning
And there's a diro on the median strip
But he don't move a muscle
The dust, the dust is everywhere
It's in my eyes and in my hair

Weddings, Parties, Anything
"By Tomorrow"


So, due to blowing past Lincoln City yesterday, I actually got ahead of my schedule. Which, as it turns out, is a good thing because a friend of mine in L.A. (the first scheduled non-hotel checkpoint on the trip) is taking off Tuesday the 6th......so I may have a chance to make up a little more ground tomorrow.

Was only slated to be in Brookings, Oregon tonight. Instead, I went on to a place called Eureka, California. Not bad.....270 miles....a little bit above my target average of 200 miles a day, which is good.

THEN I got to Eureka......

Wow....what a quaint city centre!! Bail bondsman shop, followed by dollar store, followed by liquor store, followed by pawn shop, followed by bail bondsman store, followed by dollar store followed by...........

So, I git to the motel advertised in the booklet. Now, one really should know better, in that how one should base one's expectations about a place of lodging from the source by which one learned of said lodgings.

English?

You really hafta beware of these things -










So I get to the place around 7:30pm, and I walk into the office which is literally saturated by the smell of curry (not a bad scent, mind you), and the guy gives me the key to the room and I drop my maximum budget per night of fiddy buxx for it.

OK.....go to one of the multitude of liquor stores and grab a corkscrew (which I THOUGHT I had forgotten to bring.....turns out it was just buried in the bottom of my knapsack) and get back to open a bottle of Zinfandel and get to work on the blog post for the day.

Well, first off.....uhhhh......the corkscrew I bought didn't quite work out as expected -









THAT should have been an omen on how my motel stay at The Royal Inn Motel in Eureka was gonna go....

And then, through some clever usage of some auto-repair tools that I had brought with me (EXCEPT a Phillips screwdriver......this would come into play later in this post), I did manage to remove the cork.

Right.......so, surf the 'Net forra while, have a couple glasses of Zin, and THEN I set back down to proceed on the blog post.

But then I hear (and wiith paper-machete walls and doors, it literally sounded like they were running around right next to me) young children running around, screaming, having the time of their lives, enjoying childhood.

Which was great.....

.....except that it was, like, 11:30pm!

I was slllooooowwwwly getting the idea that the Royal Inn Motel may be, like, a sort of actual residence for some folks (which I am all for)......but the lack of general common courtesy of said tenants was beginning to grate upon my nerves.

They finally go away around 12:15am.....niiiiccce.

So, I go back to the EEE pc, start trying to think of something witty and clever to write, when the aforementioned paper-machete walls become the paper-machete ceiling (as I am on the first floor), and I'm treated to the soothing sounds of a couple in the room directly above mine engaged in the throes of passion.

At about 2:45am, all was actually QUIET!!! And I go and die and then, I'm rudely interrupted by a fone call at, like, 9:45am -

"You check out time is 11AM.....11AM.....11AM!!!!"

"No shit, Sherlock!!!" I retorted and hung up.

Then, 10:45am, after I git outta the shower AND already have all my shit packed up, when the fone rings again -

"You go now!! It almost eleven AM! TIme check out now!!"

"I still have fifteen minutes, you dick!!!!!!!!" and hung up again on his ass.

Stormed to the office, tossed the key at the guy and explained that that is some pretty rude shit to phone me twice and harangue me to git the hell outta the room considering that I couldn't actually fall asleep until 2:30, given the paper-machete walls, sound-amplifying vents, and lovely boarders in his goddamm rat-bag place! And I walked out of the office.

I mean, it was thee exact opposite from my stay in Florence, Oregon at The Villa West, where everything was damm near perfect!!


So I walk outta the office in the morning, and hop on the Helix and start it up, and throttle it a bit.....

...*putt* *putt*....*ploop*.....*hack*....*gasp*.....*wheeze*.

Aw fuck....I DID NOT need this right now!!

Right, so.....I undo the cargo web and unfasten the knapsack that is strapped to the back seat (a lot easier said than done) and remove the seat to have access to the engine.

It was one of those moments -

WAS my adventure going to end HERE?? In this dump of a town at thee nastiest motel I've been to in a long time? Where IS the nearest Honda motorcycle shop?? Christ......time to call Triple A......

Then I look carefully.....









Ahhhh.......riiiiggghhht.......the tube that rams air into the carburetor was disconnected! Probably from all the vibration of pushing a tiny-ass skooter engine at an average of 60-plus M.P.H. for extended distances.....ahhhhh.......gotcha.....I see now.....

(Strange because on several older cars that I have seen belonging to friends who are motorheads, the plastic tube that rams air into the carb is often intentionally removed out of the engine compartment, with zero ill effects!! Apparently, on a skooter, it's critical.)

One teeensy little problem.....

I did NOT bring a Phillips head screwdriver wiff me.

Heart sinks.....

It was at THIS point that I figured that an abundance of dollar stores may not be such a bad thing after all, and was gonna go walk to one to grab the required tool for this repair.

THEN, I spot the maintenance guy. Nice enuff looking fellow, I surmise. See him walking to and fro, performing maintenance! BUT.....I gotta snag him when he's nowhere near the front office, especially when I had told the owner/manager/whatever gentleman at the front desk that I thought that he was just a touch out of line earlier......

Success!! Guy kindly bums me his Phillips screwdriver....

Now, this is thee part where you say to yourself - "God, I HOPE that this is it! Otherwise, I'm fucked!"

Pop it onto the neck of the carburetor......

......screw down on the clamp on the plastic air tube.......

.....start the Helix up......

.....crank the throttle......

.......bye bye!!!!!!!!

Ain't looking back......




More tomorrow....

-E-


Christ, I despise this dirty town
I hate your dirty streets
I despise your rank hotels
And everyone I meet
(ibid.)

Day One.....

Christ......why do I keep second-guessing the decision to actually DO this? Why am I really scared?? Better yet, WHY AM I doing this??

Did I actually THINK STUFF OUT???? Like.....errrmmmm......maybe if the skooter totally dies and the cost of repair exceeds the actual purchase price?? It's indeed a mega-skooter.....but it is similar to a motorcycle in that are car drivers always going to be able to see me?? What if i git into an accident?? Fortunately, I had placed a tiny stick-on plastic envelope on the back of my helmet with all my vitals on the enclosed paper. Thanx for giving me that, J.O.


So, after sleeping for 16 hours the day (Tuesday April 29th) I got back from Asia and not sleeping at all the next night (Jet Lag from HELL!), I left The Ranch in Cedar Mill on May Day and took off West.

I had simply intended to make the first stop point Lincoln City, Oregon (about maybe 100 miles from Portlandia - getting no sleep the night before and STILL being jet lagged, I wanted to make this leg short)) and then, on the second day, do the 230 miles to a town on the Oregon - California border called Brookings, Oregon (as shamelessly ripped off from www.randmcnally.com below). Based on limited funds, during stop-over points where I know nobody, I will get to know rat-bag motels reeeaallly well.......

Driving Distance: 106 miles Driving Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes Arrival Date: 05/01/08

This is a really stupid route........ya cut through McMinnville (like I did)......Rand McNally really should ace their geographers.....

Driving Distance: 227 miles Driving Time: 4 hours, 55 minutes Arrival Date: 05/02/08

Took off late on MayDay (like, 2PM), packed up all my stuff, stopped shaking, and hopped on the Helix and took off.

The thrill and adrenaline pretty much took over and I blew past Lincoln City and nothing of any significance had occurred, good or bad, and I finally decided to stop for the night in Florence, Oregon.

This is definitely "Skooter-on-101" as I plan on taking this road all the way to Los Angeles, the point where I'll have my first night crashing at a friend's place.

Here's a pic......










More tomorrow.....gonna try to make Crescent City, California.....

-E-

Road Trip From Hell, Part Deux......

Prologue -

Ever since my (de)formative years in the Amherst Central School District, nothing but failure was expected from me. By members of my own family, school district administrators, people who have claimed to be friends of mine, etc. Judging from reactions from various individuals, failure has been expected from my skooter, a Honda Helix CN250. Called "a dweeb machine" by one friend of mine, referred to as a "moped" by a former co-worker, and, as stated by one drunk guy outside a Cedar Mill bar - "nice ride, until you get caught on it" (which almost had gotten him an ass-kicking had his girlfriend not hauled him away) ……the CN250 was expected to fail…..and thus, it was deserving of ridicule, thought many……


Isn't it funny, though.....when you look back at the first things that you buy? Your very first car that you bought? Your very first motorcycle that you bought?? Your very first girlfriend or boyfriend that you bought.......never mind.....


Well...they all sucked big time, right?? Unless you were born wiff a sliver spoon, you likely couldn't afford a new Lexus SUV for yourself as your first car!!


Well, I had already went through my debacle with my first motorcycle (an ex-girlfriend, who knew shitloads more than I did about motorcycles at the time, refused to fly up to Portlandia on my dime to go look at used bikes wiff me) so I walked into the world of motorcycles buying QUITE blindly. Ended up getting a 1979 Honda CB650 for $500 that was beefy as all fuck (seemed a lot faster than said Ex's 2003 Harley Sportster 883), but possessed some rather irritating mechanical issues. Oooooh, things like the fact that upper, middle and bottom gaskets throughout the engine block hadta be replaced (causing the thing to smoke like a muvvafukka when sitting at a red light), and that the entire front end of the bike (fork, wheel, et. al.), I would later be told, was ripped straight offa some sort of Kawasaki!!! Grrrreeeaaaat.....


.....I mean, if you've ever read Jim Anchower's column in The Onion......that CB650 was the kinda bike Jim would ride.


Rode it around forra while, but didn't really feel like dropping major repair buxx into it (like, $600 + for engine gasket overhaul, new rear tyre, speedo and brakes)........and too lazy to deal with it myself (plus, again....a car?? COOL....LEMME AT IT!! But I know dead-zero about motorcycles), soooo.....

......dumped it off on eBay for three bills. But I was dead honest: I told 'em each and every issue with that bike that I knew about. So, I could look at myself in the mirror in the morning.

Well, I really liked riding....so I needed something!! Hell.....I'd never even wanted a skooter. I wanted a motorcycle.....just one that was in far better condition than the first one that I bought, and I was ready to drop more than $500 for the thing this time.

Was sitting around my friend Gord's apartment drinking pints (back when he lived in Portlandia) one day in September 2006 when, whilst surfing the Internet, Gord said "E!! Found your ride, dude......"

"Whaaaaa?"

"Found you your ride. It's a skooter....really neat...."

"Uuuuh......no. Dude, thass sweet of ya, but I AIN'T putting around town on some girlie-ass skooter. NO!"

"No, it's neat.....come on. We gotta go look at it"

"Oh, for fuck sakes......just to shut you up.....FINE!!!!!! Waste my fuggin' time.....*bitch* *moan* *grumble*....."


We git there to look at this skooter. Christ, I COULD NOT believe, just to shut Gord up, that I was wasting my time to go out and look at some Goddamm SKOOTER!!!!!!!!!

So we git there and I see it......


"Whoa......"

"Told ya. Wankshaft!!"

"Errmmm.....dude? This is not a skooter, it's a Goddamm LAND SLED"


Reached a deal with the guy three days later, and away I rode on my 1986 Honda Helix


I have gauges for everything. When to give shit up….how well things SHOULD work vs. what you put into them, when to determine the law of diminishing return at my job, etc. etc.

Many, many moons ago, when I was a piss poor young Gen X'er in the Post-Industrial wasteland of Buffalo (now, I've advanced to a regular poor Government worker in the Pacific NorthWest), I had a gauge just how long a car should last.

You see, in Western New York in the late 1980's and early 1990's (and STILL true even today), if you were NOT politically connected (for a public-sector job) or socially connected with a friend who wielded actual hiring power (for a private-sector job) you either A) – were on the dole or B) – were making $3.25 cents an hour! Basically, best case scenario: You were "employed" and you were making that three-twenty-five an hour. Thus, you had a vehicle budget of, roughly, $500.

Now, after finding your ideal chariot, you gauged your purchase on a scale. The scale being that, for five-hundred bucks, after a full-fledged tune-up and oil change, this vehicle SHOULD last you ("last you" meaning, like, not totally dying outright [e.g. – tranny drop, thrown rod, block seize, jock itch, etc.] but something where if it breaks down, it STILL is realistically repairable) roughly five thousand miles. Dropped a grand on it??? Then, you SHOULD be looking at 10,000 miles and/or at least a full year before your vehicle gives up the ghost.

And anything beyond that was gravy!

Some vehicles I purchased in Buffalo between 1986 and 2004 made it well beyond the 5,000 miles/six months PER $500 cost of purchase (like my 1980 Ford Fiesta – STILL have $300+ in unpaid parking tickets from the City of Montreal from SEVERAL Buffalo-Montreal road trips [850 miles round-trip] taken in the Fiesta)…..and other cars I've purchased? Weeellll…….let’s leave those lapses of judgment unspoken (like my 1982 Plymouth Champ, which I literally don’t think made it one hundred miles).

Hell….in 2005, on one of my recent cross-country trips, I drove a 1983 Caprice Classic with an under-powered V-6 in it that I bought in Vancouver, Washington for $450…..and maybe dropped a grand total of $200 into it (in terms of tune-up parts, oil changes and four new tyres) and, knowing that it had either a cracked cylinder head or a blown head gasket, drove it around Oregon, Washington State, Nevada and British Columbia for two years and THEN, AFTER THAT, drove it from Portlandia to Buffalo…..and STILL sold the fucker at the end of the trip in Buffalo for $250 (fully explaining to the purchaser the cylinder head/head gasket situation)!!!

And, a year later, whilst driving around Western New York, I SAW that very same Caprice driving fine (couldn’t miss it: Two-tone brown and copper)! And they STILL had the “I bet you’d drive better with that cell phone stuck up your ass!” sticker on the rear window that I stuck on there!


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I don’t have a lot of heroes in my life. There are some people I really admire, and a couple of them are the basis for this folly. One is Bill Lee, former pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, whose sheer ability to tell a story based on his own personal observations is amazing, as can be found in two of his tomes “The Wrong Stuff” and “Have Glove, Will Travel”. If I find myself within, say, 200 miles of his pad in Craftsbury, Vermont.......maybe I'll knock on the door and ask if he wants to share a blunt......

Another person I admire is Ed Otto….a guy who, in 1995, actually rode a Honda CN250 (much like mine…only at the time, his was brand new and in much better shape than mine is in) in something called “The Iron-Butt Rally”

No, I’m not doing anything THAT insane, but still…..you’ve got to read this. Seriously. It might explain the confidence I have in my steed:


http://www.ironbutt.com/IBR/1995.cfm?DocID=3


From my residence in The Hills of Cedar, having done two 400 mile trips (200 miles each way) to Seattle on I-5 with the CN250 (whoops! Promised my father that I’d not take the Helix on any Interstates!) in four-and-a-half hours each way (that includes a long-ass lunch at Dairy Queen) and one 380 mile trip (190 miles each way) straight through to Florence, Oregon for a job interview which never quite panned out - good thing, too, 'cause it paid rubbish…….and having the folks at Action Motor Sports in Gresham, OR see the CN250 off properly fit for this adventure (I CANNOT sing enough praise about these people at Action Motor Sports – lookie):

http://www.powersportsaccessories.com/testimonials_display2.asp


……I have no worries!


Soooo....factoring with the above gauging standards for whether you got your money's worth on a car purchase, and that I have not put a huge amount of repair buxx into the Helix......just on those three trips alone (NOT counting NUMEROUS 160-mile round-trip runs to The Oregon Coast, nor counting all the time I spend riding it around Portlandia [and I DO ride it A LOT.....12 months out of the year]) made the Helix easily pass the bang-for-the-buck test.

And NOW??

I'm gonna ask it to do something that really NO skooter should EVER be put through......it's gonna hafta carry me and minimal gear around the circumference of the United States (and a little bit of Canada).....anywhere from a grand total of 8500 miles to 12,000 miles.....depending.....

But still, I’m not gonna do the Ed Otto/Iron-Butt psycho ride……Naw, this is gonna be done over a three-month period. I'll be doing more like a mellow average of 200 or so miles per day. Sometimes 100….125…150 miles……sometimes 250….300…350 miles…..depends on what I see, and what the weather puts in front of me that day in whatever particular place I find myself in…..

Welcome to Road Trip From Hell......Part Deux!!! Thought you had problems communicating with the Cantonese?? Jes' fucking wait 'till you meet The Texans!!


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So how'd I come up with this brilliant idea?

Well, it came up when I had two friends that really wanted to see me and they lived in different cities. Well, I only had three total days of vacation and only one plane ticket in my hand.

Thought about how beautifully my job had been progressing (especially in comparison to how it had been progressing for my co-workers), and I had just figured: "Well....the spring will be as good time as any!!"

"OK....OK.....job sucked and you weren't going anywhere in it.....and the weather's getting warmer. OK....OK...makes sense. Now....now, HOW did you do the route?"

That was easy. I sent a mass E-Mail to about 30 friends who lived in places OTHER than Buffalo, New York and Portland, Oregon. The E-Mail said: "Hey.....me is riding my skooter around the country. Got any floor space I can crash on forra night? Love, -E-"

Got about 16 people who responded "Yes, E, I'd/we'd love for you to come see me/us/etc."

So I simply put push-pins into a map of the USA representing where friends of mine have invited me to stay wiff them and I ran a string of yarn between all 16 of said pushpins and VOILA!!! There's my route!!

Plus.....another thing I'm kinda interested in: I need to do some sort of research in the heartland. I want to find out WHY the lower-income levels in the middle of this nation, berift of any help economically from the Executive branch and the Federal legislature, keeps voting Republican....ESPECIALLY since it is truly to their own detriment economically!

Did Barack Obama actually have a factual point that less-educated lower-income people in certain parts of the nation are being scared into "God and Guns" by the Right-Wingers rhetoric?

Or is it just all one BIG-ASS stereotype about certain socio-economic groups of people in the U.S.A.?


How?? Why??


I mean, DOES the much-rumoured anti-intellectual void between Pennsylvania and Nevada actually EXIST, as speculated by numerous social scientists (OK, NO Sociologist or Economist "speculated" that.......I made that shit up about the Geographic Intellectual wasteland between Pennsylvania and Nevada all by myself!)??

But seriously, IS the sociological and political science theory correct that in order to maintain power in any sort of authoritarian government, that you MUST keep the masses uneducated (LOOK at the cost of kollege today - you think reductions in Federal higher education aid and spending are by ACCIDENT during the last eight years)??

I mean, it is literally just like this Onion article.......'cept that it's really happening!!



Soooo.......whilst I'm talkin' with these folks at bars over beers and at diners over breakfast, I wanna hear what they have to say about the state of our country and compare it with this book that I bought to read on this ride called What's the matter with Kansas?


I really gotta go die now and hit the road fairly early after brekker tomorrow.

Tomorrow?? "DAY ONE - OREGON COAST"


Pray for me....I is gonna need it......


-E-

Epitaph


Well.....the EEE pc came through with flying colours. Nailed ALL Wi-Fi signals and did splendidly on all RJ-47 LAN connections with no difficulty. Didn't have to endure any GRUELING tests, though, like, say, seeing if it could survive a 371 metre drop from the Jetsons tower (I think its real name is the Oriental Pearl TV and Radio tower.....or something like that) or seeing if it could survive having drunken Uyghers pour beer all over it or anything.......but still, it didn't let me down, soooo........

...hell, as I was typing this in the darkness whilst crossing the International Date line, a flight attendant saw me typing on the EEE pc and went apeshit!!! “OMG!!! Whaaaa??? Where??? WOW!!! How.....?” I gave him all the details on how much ($350 - $450 depending...), where I suggest buying it (www.newegg.com) , the operating system (LINUX), etc. etc. etc.

Vietnamese chicks really dug the EEE pc.......

STILL, though.....its toughest ordeal lies ahead. I mean, Part II of Road Trip From Hell is not gonna be a series of seven ultra-smooth flight segments and a mellow (albeit slow) overnight train ride throughout a three-week time frame.

I mean, this thing is in for a rough ride the next three months as on Wednesday, it'll be “Helix, meet EEE pc. EEE pc, I'd like to introduce you to your new best friend, Helix”

Naw......it'll be interesting to see which one dies first.......

I swear.....literally.....I almost forgot how to use WinBlows XP.



Just sucks that I had to end a really enjoyable adventure in SouthEast Asia by spending a week in Shanghai......

You cannot judge a nation by one place....otherwise, after Guangzhou, I woulda thought that China was neat.......but then I went to Shanghai and found out that -

• The Shanghainese really don't like each other at all (for all this Chinese philosophy of how Chinese society functions when the one becomes part of the whole and all that bullshit). Naw......they can't fucking stand one another!!

• NOBODY who I've talked to (several people) and asked who lives there really likes Shanghai at all!!!

I really can't stand this place......I'm homesick, people are not friendly here at all, I'm Asia-ed out and I really want to go home. Yeah, I had amazing times in Bangkok and especially Hanoi (I mean, “Plan Y” has me coming back to one of those two cities!), but it just sucks that I had to end this adventure on a low note by spending a week in Shanghai.

I mean, my sister who is a serious, SERIOUS Asiaophile (cinema, culture, anything at all Asian) and who LOVES MegaCities (making an annual pilgrimage to New York City).....and you'd put the two together.....and you'd figure that Shanghai would be like being in EIGHTH Heaven (not Seventh Heaven, 'cause 8 is a good number in China) for her....................

.....errrmmmm....no. Even my sister didn't care for Shanghai. No, she didn't despise it as much as I do, but still....if she didn't care for it, then THAT is saying something about this place.

For me, Shanghai is probably tied as thee shittiest place I have ever visited (tied with Miami.....except that the air is cleaner in Miami, the ground in Miami has more trash and litter, and the people in Miami are more belligerent).

Much like what Pennington (of the British) said in Kentucky Fried Movie's A Fistful of Yen.....yes, it's worse than Detroit!

Prologue for Part II of Road Trip From Hell coming up in a tomorrow!

Hope ya enjoyed this!!

-E-