Pleasant and eager 28yo male

12 May - Apparently that's what I am according to my physiotherapy permanent file. Despite risking all on a losing game of basketball the previous day my wrist seems to have gained a few extra degrees of movement on either side - still twinges a bit but certainly on the road to recovery and biking doesn't seem to cause any extreme aggravation. Physiotherapy is never as much funas I hope its going to be - I always imagine going in and just getting a massage for the session but it always ends up involving me doing all the work (lift this, bend that - do it 10 more times) - they should be paying me for doing this (well, I suppose they are in a way). Went to the Levi Store gunning myself for a showdown with management - one of the screws in my belt that I purchased a few months ago had fallen out (well, I lost it somewhere in New Mexico - probably taken by the aliens) but was disappointed when they exchanged it with no questions asked. After my errands downtown I found myself over outside the art gallery with all the other couriers again (it's very easy to get distracted when downtown) and headed out for a meal at Nagez and a beer somewhere else with Crystal, who has rejoined the courier world with Progressive (a company that's got as bad a reputation as Novex) then went home and watched more six feet under and more futurama - it grows on you.

House of Burlesque

13 May - Met with Jason and his stepbrother, Pete, to go for a little bit of a ride today. Jason was christening his new Marinoni touring bike, which was very nice, he almost got car doored five minutes in which would not have been very nice but the wisdom I imparted to him during his training has obviously had a good effect and all collisions were avoided. A beautiful sunny but still cool day were perfect riding conditions although did find ourselves in a headwind at several points which can get really tiresome on a longride. We didn’t ride terribly hard because Pete's havingissues with his knee and my wrist is still a little tender but it didn't cause any problems on the day. I was more worried about sore legs, neck and back because of my lack of ridingof late but even that was fine - all in all, about 80k from start to finish and the only physical reaction was an adrenaline buzz.
More six feet under was to be had before meeting up with Crystal in downtown and on to the Marine Club for a burlesque show with one of my extremely positive housemates, Mat. This was the same place where i'd gone the week before to see a rockabilly band that never showed up (which isn’t necessarilya bad thing because i'm not rockabilly's biggest fan) but the show did go on this time. My first burlesque show - apparently it's a growing entertainment biz over in North America (hell, for all I know it's big in oz at the moment) - the best way I could describe it would be halfway between a strip show and a drag show - all the girls were 'SuicideGirl' types they stripped down to the propellors to cheesy 20s inspired muzak - lots of fun but I drank way too much. After that bar closed endingup crawling around town with a couple of others chasingthe closing times of a few other places, played some cards in a seedy main street bar and somehow ended up in a house populattd with stoners all passed out on the couch. A cab was found and I was homeward bound, eagerly awaiting the next day's hangover.

Looking Skills Are Important

11 May - After extricating myself from the house at far too late an hour I went to buy a coffee down at JJ Beans (the sullen waitstaff are getting more tolerable it seems). Sat myself outside and was engaged by a longhaired homeless guy who told me that life was all about the journey but told me he was settling here in Vancouver - he was nice enough but he was a bit of a droner and in the absence of any profound insights into the universe I soon escaped his clutches. Tried to watch a DVD called 'Dark Days', all about the homeless who live in the tunnels of new york (the mole people!) and recommended by the strange dude from Black Dogs video store. Video store clerks are amongst the worst of all those in the selling/service industry - always arrogant as hell, it's a mark of honour to have the most obscure movie tastes imaginable (some even claim to love Luc Besson films) and more bureaucratic than the Canadian government when it comes to late fees. In any event, Dark Days was surprising in that it made a film about mole people uninteresting - something I would have thought was an impossibility - didn't even manage to finish it and trotted down to Chinatown to watch American Dreamz, another smug 'intelligent' riff on politics in the world today. Left the cinema to find it pouring down with hammering rain so tried to sit it out with a chocolate from starbucks (the onlycafe in range that didn't involve getting soaked) and was engaged by a crazy man who claimed to be an adventurer but was probably just an escaped mental patient. In the 15m that we chatted he claimed to have just returned from the north pole (well, 80 miles from the north pole), was about to do a round the world trip in hot air balloon, offered to pay for a train ticket across canada for me, gave his place of birth as Ontario, Ireland and Boston, claimed to have been travelling for both 17 and 28 years and said I had really beautiful eyes (justifying this with ...'and man, that's comingfrom a guy!!!') - maybe the travel mode hasn’t worn off and i'm just still attractingcrazy people. Got home and watched a bit of futurama, well, actually a lot of futurama - about 12 episodes in total - I have to say that i'm not really upset about this show having been cancelled, five seasons is enough for an yshow - and this way when it goes out it'll be remebered as something brilliant and not somethingthat just went on and on and on and on ... In any event, the excesive screen watching has been improving my looking skills - already highly tuned by stararing at lots of mountains, deserts, forests, tall buildings, public objects d'art, cows, absence of bears, and about 15,000 kilometres of road, television watching involves different skills but give it just a few more weeks and I should be as good as any fat ass american. Also went out for a little while and played basketball with robert and a few of his workmates - all of them far too good and with me not in the best shape of my life - all a little bit breathless but lots of fun - probably not the best thing to be doinga few days out of a cast but no damage done.

Free At Last

8 May - Wandered downtown in order to give Canadian Customs a good what for about charging me a tax on the PDA but was run around and spit out by the bureaucratic machine - have to try again tomorrow but I don’t like my chances. Also caught up with a few of the couriers downtown all of whom seemed at least moderately pleased to see me back. Did have to give Jason a bit of a talking to because he's not wearing his helmet again (he stopped wearing it last time I took some time off ... Kids these days, you've got to keep an eye on them or they'll run wild) - Novex has seemed to put itself on a bit of hiring binge again and there's simply not enough work to go around - i'm hoping there are not going to be any issues for when I return. There's a new dispatcher (Lee got fired in my absence) and i'm going to have to prove myself again if i'm going to get the exalted position that Jason has no doubt secured.
After my reunions I headed over the Cambie Bridge to False Creek Surgical and was then sent to X-Ray 505 where the bitch at the reception tried to make me pay upfront for the x-rays I needed but managed to get that sorted out. Got blasted by radiation a few times (no super powers yet) and then headed back to see Dr D who pronounced me healed then proceded to hack my friend Charlie to pieces. The smell wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be but my hand looked pale and there was masses of skin that started to slough off, especiallyafter I washed my hand and as it dried off it was like snow. But, finally, i'm free to shower properly, walk in the rain, ride my bike (i still need a bit of physio as it's really stiff and a little bit numb and painful as well) and switchback. Also, as I carry on through the road of recovery I should be able start to shake hands again - I won't be as cool as i've been for the past few months with my clenched fist knuckle tap but i'll start to become a polite member of society again.

The Road To Recovery

10 May - Rode into downtown again, this time for my first session of physio at St Pauls, one of my least favourite places in Vancouver. A little heavy on the bureaucracy but a very good therapist - lots of prodding and poking and measurements and tests (can you tell the difference between hot and cold, is this dull or sharp) - apparently my range of motion and my pain threshold is a not nearly as bad as it can be for some people who've just come out of a cast - so here's hoping for a speedy recovery. Also, after the session we went down to the artificial brace device thingy room and the guy repaired my wrist brace on the spot (the iron supporting bars had been completely warped from overuse and the pockets needed resewing). Down to the art gallery afterwards where I reunited with a few more members of the subculture - met a couple of the new Novex guys (up to 11 bikers with me now) and was informed that Nova Scotia Stu, Novex's longest serving and possibly strangest biker, hit a car yesterday and was ambulanced to the hospital. Not sure of the full extent of the damage but the signs are that he'll be out for a short while. Hearing about other serious injuries always gives me a little chill - but, you can kill yourself crossingthe road or falling over in the bathroom - just got to be careful I guess.
Had dinner at Stephos on Davey with Marcus and Larnie, pretty decent greek restaurant that always has a queue goingaround the corner whenever i've passed it - about 30m wait for us, 90m wait by the time we left. Very nice - too much bread to start with though. M&L are reachingthe end of their visas and will be off somewhere else pretty soon - apparently sponsorship plans proved too complicated and cumbersome to bother with and overstaying the visa is not a preferable option (Ozzie Andy was pulled over by a traffic cop the other day for not wearinghis helmet (i think) and he was caught out for working on a holiday visa (that had already expired anyway)). Got a couple of DVDs - 5th season of 6 Feet Under, the only tv show i've been pining for on the holiday, watched that, went out to see some Jazz but couldn't find it so watched the awful local standup comedy instead and then came home and watched the pilot of 'Dead Like Me', one of the most mundane and pointless quirky fantasy comedramas i've seen in quite some time (although it was filmed in Vancouver so picking out places I know provided a few brief moments of entertainment).

Back On The Bike

9 May - Nothing clever about today's headline - first time back on the bike since the operation. My hand is still really stiff and a bit sore from being locked in the cast for the past six weeks but riding wasn’t too much of a problem. My physiotherapy starts tomorrow and i'm hoping that this will give me a full range of motion by the time I go back to work which could be as early as the end of next week. I didn’t expect there to be any issues going back to Novex but they've gone on another one of their hiring binges again and the work is just trickling in - it's not so bad considering they've implemented a fairly decent minimum day and the rates have gone up but even Jason has been very sluggish for the past few weeks. I've also been informed that there's a new dispatcher after Lee was fired for being crap so I need to let him know that I'm the one who's supposed to get all the good trips ... That's the way we do things around here. A rather expensive day as I treated myself to a hair trim and a new helmet (probably not the most appropriate thing to buy after a haircut) and a new bag and I celebrated with a little celebration with Leighton (corporate courier) at Café Amsterdam. Unfortunately there has had to be another addition to the numerous commercial operators in Vancouver who are on my boycott list - in the morning I realised that I needed cleats for the new bike shoes I got the other day so I rode down to Bikes On The Drive to grab some - it was 945 and the shop didn't open until 19 but there were plenty of people inside so I waited and looked longingly inside the shop. The owner came out and asked me what I wanted - can I just grab a set of cleats - sure you can, in 20 minutes! - Boycott!!!
Got a couple DVDs out in remembrance of tight-arse Tuesday - Breakfast On Pluto, which was a bit too Irish for my liking and Hostel, which reminded me of my own wanderings in Slovakia.

Joke du Jour

Two retired English officers were sitting in their armchairs in a London club reading their respective papers. "By Jove," said one, looking over the top of The Times, "do you remember old Simmonds during the War? I thought he'd died, but it turns out they've found him after 40 years living up in a tree with a gorilla!" "I say! Male or female gorilla?" "Female of course. Nothing queer about old Simmonds." **

Lifting of Sanctions

7 May - Decided to temporarily lift the boycott on Fets in order to meet with Jason and Coleen for brunch and was also joined by Crystal. The waitresses seem to be much nicer when i've got company. A pancake bonanza was had by all and Jason shocked the waitress and the chef by eating four of the rather gigantic cakes. The chef even came out to congratulate him for his efforts. I could have eaten four but ... I just didn’t want to. Competitive eating is not something i've ever been that interested in but a pancake challenge may be in order sometime in the next few months - i'm not sure how i'd fare against Jason though, he was telling me that he was bored the other day and gave himself the gallon challenge (drink 1 gallon of milk in less than one hour) and did it but failed to keep it down for the required 1 hour. Later in the afternoon I met Crystal down at Stanley Park for a little bit of a run - the first really good run i've done in ages - I tried to do one in Austin but my bum was just too pinched to stretch out but managed to push through by running down to the park and then me and Crystal went right around. Crystal doesn’t run that much and she's very little with pretty short legs but she managed to keep up with me for the entire way. Just a few short walking breaks were all that we took - Crystal has been a courier for three years and any kind of endurance fitness is going to transfer to other disciplines if required. Hoping to have found a running partner because i've been lacking in that field for quite some time. Faffed around for a while before heading out to see united 93, a pretty harrowing account of 11 September, done as well as it could have been I think - well worth seeing in any regard.

Jellystone

3 May - Managed to get to Yellowstone at a pretty early hour, which put me in a good mood. It's an absolutely increidble park - once I went through the gates and got past the steep inclined road that leads into the Wyoming part of the parkits like being in a different world. There is so much geothermal activity in the area that it's really quite terrifying - especiallyafter reading Bill Bryson's overrated history of the world, it's hard to imagine that entering Yellowstone is entering the mouth of a gigantic volcano - there were thermal springs all over the place and also several hills that were continuously outgassing steam and it looks like the mountain is on the verge of exploding. There was loads of wildlife all throughout the park - bison (including some herds with calves and a lone gigantic bull who blocked the road for about 5m), elk, deer and wolves. Apparently Yellowstone is also home to a great mythical sometimes seen in films and mockumentaries called the 'grizzly bear'. Everyone i've spoken to is convinced that it exists but I won't have a bar of it - i've been looking out for them every time I go into the mountains in BC and over here but am yet to catch a glimpse. I don't know, maybe they're all out stealing pickernick baskes. Still, there's something about seeing animals out in he wild that just puts a big stupid smile on my face that I can't get rid of of. The Not-So-Grand-Canyon of Yellowstone was also very impressive as was the faithful old geezer which is the main attraction of the park (had to wait 45m for him to blow his top but it was certainly worth it). There was no way in hell that I was going to spend a third night in the car so drove as far as I could and made it as far as missoula on the montana/idaho border. Got pulled over for speeding again on the way (never try to overtake a state highway policeman in montana) but he was very cheerful about it (once again, only going at traffic speed but wasn't going to argue especially with such a jovial chap).

Back To Grind

6 May - Returned to the car to downtown Vancouver - my last traffic jam for a while I hope. Despite knowing the streets of the core like the back of me 'and it's very different doing it in a car compard to the bicycle - I know where all of the one way streets are but there are heaps of 'No Right Turns' and 'No Left Turns' which i've never really noticed until today. Eventually managed to get Rocicante back home and bid him a fond adieau. Afew other errands in downtown such as picking up a copy of my CT scan from the hospital and purchasing a new pair of bike shoes from Simons. I was quite touched when Simon seemed genuinely pleased to see me and he was very keen to hear about my adventures around America (maybe he was just happy that I was buying something from his hop but who knows). Also picked up my replacement PDA from one of the mail depots - had to pay $30 to Canadian customs to get it off their hands, which will have to be rectified because there's no way i'm paying tax on something i've owned for 5 years
Also reunited with now ex-housemate Mark and headed downtown to see Mission Impossible 3 - the most irrelevant and forgettable action movie ever - an absolute waste of time and money in every possible way - it was cliched, overly complex, full of plot holes and just not very exciting. If anyone ever decies to see this film ensure you keep the receipt and present it to St Peter at the pearly gates when you die so you can get 2 hours of your life refunded. Did see the extended preview for Superman Returns though which would have to be the most exciting preview i've seen for a long time - unfortunately the quality of a movie is usually inversely proportional to how good the preview is but lets hope. After that went to dinner and a rockabilly concert with Crystal, one of the ex-Novex messengers who might be coming back, and some of her companions but the band never showed up so drank American beer instead.

The Weblog of Saxifrage Fogg

Well, it may not have been around the world in 80 days and I may have missed my target date of 30 days but circumnavigating most of the country in 3* dys was a bit of a feat. I didn’t break any speed records and I didn’t discover any new lands but a great adventure was had nonetheless. This country beat a pair of trainers, an aged pair of hiking boots and one rental car but it didn’t beat me. One thing i've learned from this trip is that i'll never have the same opinion of this country and its people ever again. The generalisations i've always had are that the population is insular and uncaring about the outside world but its simply not true. That description may apply to some of them (including a fair few i've met on this trip) but it also applies to a great deal of the English, canadians and Australians i've met - but a helluva lot of the natives i've met over here are intelligent, educattd, aware of the outside world and as unhappy with the direction their country is going as I am. A total of 14,380 kilometres was driven and I will be quite happy not to sit behind the wheel of an automobile for a long long time to come.

All Good Things

Cinqo de Mayo - Tried to sleep in in order to stave off slight hangover but was awake and out of bed and eatingfairly impressive provided breakfast at hostel. Made some tentative plans with A fairly camp but pretty Japanese San Franciscan who I met at breakfast to go see some glass blowing in downtown. They kind of fell through which is not terrible because it may have been a rather excruciatingly dull thing to go and see (or hell, it could have been the most exciting thing on te trip but i'll never know now). Wandered the town for a while before headingto the Seattle Centre where I looked up at the Space Needle (i am so tired of visiting the 'tallest building in the city' buildings in random parts of the world) and was thinking about visiting the Music Experience museum but was distracted by its sister - the Science Fiction Museum - a fairly well rounded dedicaton to the greatest literary genre ever conceived by modern man. The museum was actully only okay though - far too much devotion to movies and not the great ones at that (Star Trek, star Wars and Matrix get top representation - which is to be expected as these appeal to the lowest common denominator) - there are homages and smaller dedications to a few of the reallygreat science fiction movies and authors but shocking absences of any detail on Robert Heinlein's contributions and not a single reference to Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy are enough to make one blackball the place until ty get their act together. There were other tourist things I could have done but I was feelingtired and I was getting over it so I headed back to the hostel, grabbed my bad and the car and flat footed it back to the border. Passed my beloved IHOP on the way and had what will be my last pancakes from them for a ongtime and put my last US penny in the gastank so I could exploit the cheap American gas prices (although to listen to them you'd think were selling their organs on ebay to cover the rising costs) and then I skipped over into Canadia. A little bit of an interrogation at the border and I was home free. Took a while to get bac home and when I arrived i'd found that there was one less housematt (i kenew he was going),three new ones, and nobody had cleaned a dish since I left vancouver 31 days ago. Met all the housemates briefly- - went to dinner with the german kid who seems pretty cool but he's said he'll be moving at the end of the month because he can't stand the noise. Still got a lot of crap to sort out now that i'm back at home but all that can wait - i'm going to watch wolf creek first.

Four Lefts Make A Circle

4 May - Didn’t waste too much time heading out and out there towards Seattle. Pushed hard through the remains of Montana before I finally took a st stop near th edge of Washington State. This time I called up the hostel beforehand and ensured all my eggs were in the right baskets before I subjected myself to driivng in that city again, As soon as I arrived in town I went straight to the Hilton to exchange Rocicante II for what was supposed be Rocicante III, who had to be Canadian in order for me to return a car to Canada. There weren't any Canadian licensed cars there so I was told to press on with my trusty silver steed, which I was perfectly happy to do.
While I was at the hilton my phone rang and it was Jeanine, my case worker asking me what was going on - I was - I told her I was hoping to get the cast off next week but didn't elaborate on my recent adventures (i was hoping she couldn't tell I was in America because of the background noise - American accents can be so distinctive). Checked into the Green Tortoise agin to find that it hadn't changed - a pretty good crowd of fellow travellers - met a nice young black guy from Ohio who was very well versed in agreeing with everything I had to say about the world (which was rather falttering), a new england girl who was moving over here, a japanese man just starting on the same route as I did although by bus, two drunken englishman, one of whom had just been casted up due to a fractured right scaphoid, and a 21 year old lifetime traveller with more bands around his wrists than there were hairs on his chest.was two Englishman, one of which After doing a fair patrol of the downtown area which included being force fed a dozen different savoury jams and ordering a coffee from starbucks (in pike market, a place that bars all franchises of any kind - the reason why this one is allowed is that it was starbucks no 1 and was there for 20 years before they embarked on their plans of global domination). Headed out for some music and drinks with the australian and the two drunken english. Both of them were pretty course but one was insanely drunk - danced like an alcoholic clown and did his best to make offensive jokes to the locals - one young gay kid took massive offence and completely overreacted in response - me and B (the other aus) were blamed because we were Australian and the englishman was waringa wallabies hersey. Another reason not to like rugby.

Lost in Joisey ...

28 April - Would have loved to spend more time in New York but my schedule prevented it so after an awful breakfast I somehow managed to find my way to Newark and paid the exhorbitant parking fee before trying to fnd my way to thInterstate 80. Followed all of the myriad directions I was given but ended up on the parkway southbound instead of north and by the time I realised I'd lost a few hours before eventuallygetting on the right track. Whilst on the way I found myself in a couple of traffic jams and while consulting my map in one of the numerous stop times my foot slipped and I ended up tapping the car ahead of me. No real damage at all (a slight dent to my front licence plate) but as me and the woman were examing the damage a state traffic cop pulled up beside us and told us to pull over. What could have been a very bad situation was resolved when the woman explained that she was in too much of a rush to do anythingso we were sent on our way. From New Jersey I followed the road through to Pennsylvania and was very disappointed when I found myself passing Punxsatawney around half 8. Would have liked to havedropped in to see Phil but he's probably sleeping after seeing his shadow a couple of months ago (in stark contrast to his Canadian counterpart, Wiarton Willie who claimed that there was to be no extension of the winter season). Most of the day's entertainment came from the national public radio with Science friday. What could have an absolutely fascinating story on a Nobel Laureate's new methonal fuel cell that could solve the world's energy crisis as well as help with global warming by sucking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere turned out to be an incredibly dull rambling as the scientist talked about the history of energy despite the host's best efforts to keep him on message. Ended up crashing at a rest stop somewhere near the edge of ohio - unfortunattely now that I’m back north again in car temperatures have fallen again. I don’t know what 37 degrees fahrenheit is, I don’t want to know what 37 degrees fahrenheit is.

Top of the world ... again ...

27 April - Managed to extircate myself from the hostel at a farly decent hour and after a very crappy diner breakfast (i've been spoiled by the southern cooking where they make the best breakfasts that although the butter content does completely twist up my stomach the minute I stand up after finishing) I go on the subway and headed down to the south tip of Manhattan and had a little look at the Statue of Liberty but didn’t go out there because the wait was too long. Had a bit of a wander through the Financial District and saw the site of the WTC which is still just a big hole in the ground although the new building is supposed to be up and running in a few years. It certainly seems destined to become one of the holiest sites in the city - all of the New Yorkers i've spoken to about it seem to still be very affected by it - it seems that all of them feel that they were personallyattacked when the buildings went down and in a sense they were. Did a bt more wanderingthrough town including visiting a bike shop that one of my messenger friends from Vancouver used to frequent and tried t oswap out my Novex jersey to no avail. FOund myself a phone card an dcalled home for the first time in a while which was very nice although did receive some terrible news about the condition of my good friend Algren who it seemed could just not bear for me to be away from him. Knowing I had to do at least one serioutourist attraction whilst I was here I decided on heading up to the observatory deck of the empire stat tbuilding where I got a brilliant view of the city - i've been to the top of a lot of tall buildings in my life and generally they don’t impress me too much but this city certaily does have the best skyline of all of them so it was definitely worth the overpriced admission. Just as I was heading into the down elevator two cops sprang out of the elevator and sprinted up to the deck and when I reached the exit I found that the building hahad been shut down and the entire street was closed off. Within minutes there were dozens of police cars, fire engines ad amulances and thousands of gawkers (including me). Not completely sure what was going on but the general consensus was that a someone had decided to jump off the edge - a couple of people upon hearing this shouted out 'Jump' at the top of their lungs - man, this city is cold. I did fel a little bit guilty about the situation though - as I went up into the empire state, I felt myself secretly wishing that something exciting would happen - I kind of wish that every time i 'm in a major landmark or tall building - in any event, it was a little bit exciting but all's well that ends well so I shouldn’t feel too guilty. Made some tentative plans to hook up with a friend of one of my austin friends - but somehow also managed to get extricatetd into a plan to head out with a bunch of australians and the swedish girls from th eprevious night and they would not get heir asses into gear and it wasn’t until past midnight when we actually arrived at where we were supposed to arrive so my other meeting never happened. I was not very happy with the way the night panned out because chad sounded like somebody who would be really worth meeting and those swedish girls are the human equivalent of capsicin (in other words, a powerful irritant).

Rushin' Through Rushmore

2 May - Woke up in very strange circumstances - the obvious crick in the neck and knees from sleeping on Rocicante's expansive bacj seat but not helped by the a strange dream that i'd decided to return to Australia early - I was kicking myself that I still wanted to see other things in Asia before I returned home - the fact that soccerball sized hailstones were crashing into the front yard should have made me suspect that I wasn't living in a real reality. After I got going I dropped in to see the Corn Palace in one of the SD towns - a cornucopia museum devoted to all things corn - it turned out to be closed (i was too early) which was probably just as well as NPR's verbal assault on the USA's primary crop has left me with a less than great opinion of the man made cereal. One thing i've learned about South Dakota is that it's very, very big. It took me most of a day to get from one side to the other - despite havinga landscape that’s as dull as anything you might see in the middle of a country (nothing but crops - all of them recently reaped) the Interstate is absolutely packed with billboards advertising the varying stores, amusement parks and sights that are spread thinly across the southern side of the statt. However, there aren't actually that many sights to see - just loads and loads of billboards. Some of them started advertising about 200 miles from the actual place - with mt rushmore and Crazy horse that's understandable - but for a drugstore? Admittedly, the thousands of posters for 'Wall Drugs' must have worked on me because I stopped in for the advertised 5c coffee (it was worth every penny). The sidewind whilst driving was particularly horrendous - really had to work hard to keep the car from beingblown off the road - especially when passing trucks, not too much fun at all. Felt obliged to drop in to see crazy Horse and mt Rushmore, not as inspiring as I hoped they might be. The Crazy horse monument certainly will be spectacular when it's finished but it's been almost 50 years and they've only just carved out the head - methinks the original artist's family who are supposedly carrying on his work should get off their fat american asses and get to it. After seeing the faces that launched a 1000 RVs I continued west into wyoming, hoping to get to yellowstone by dark - I was warned that when the rocky mountains come up it happens very suddenly - for miles and miles and miles there's nothing but flatness and all of sudden these gigantic mountains ar just looming ahead - it's pretty stunning scenery on the drive, but when I arrived in cody, 50m out from the east entrance to yellowstone I found out that the entrance was closed for the winter (it is opening this friday) and I had to make a 4 hour detour to get to the north entrance from montana. It was already pretty lat tby this stage so I tried to make it to the next town in order to make a shorter drive the next day - night time driving is never pleasant, especially when on the highways rather than the interstate, and when I arrived at the next town I found that the one motel was full. Started to make the 1 hr drive to the next town but saw a rest stop so had another pleasant night with Rocicante and charley for company (one night is never pleasant, but two in a row is torture).

Mayday! Mayday! The immigrants are boycotting!

1 May - Today is the day that we're going to see how much the USA depends on migrant labour. - luckily i'm passing through such insular lands such as Wisconsin, Minneapolis and South Dakota (if I make it there by nightfall) so i'll only have to endure the incessant radio coverage of the event. Whilst I do agree that there is definitely a problem with having so many people in the country illegally everyone from the illegal workers to the politicians to the right wing 'just get them out of my goddamn country' can't seem to vocalise a proper way to work the situation out. I picked up, Santos, a naturalised Mexican immigrant near the edge of Minnesota -his rear tyre had blown out near the rest stop, and I asked him his opinion - he reallydidnt seem to car one way or the other, 'eets just politics' - enough said. One thing you can say about the great plains is that they go on forever - lots of cornfields and not much else. Rain made the driving a little hard going at times but it did mean that ear the end of the day as the sun began to set the light shone through the clouds and it felt like I was driving into the hands of God (i've not had any spiritual conversion from my time in the evangelical states - I recall from somewhere that the phenomenon of light shining through clouds is called fingers of god - it reallyis very pretty). Crashed at a rest stop in south dakota - now that i'm back up north the night time temperature drops pretty low but luckily I wasn’t up too high so it wasn’t too bad.

The Windy City

30 April - Had a reasonably fitful sleep, probably helped by the fact that I was the only person sleeping in my 18 bunk dorm. Based on suggestions from the guys from the previous night's card school I made my way downtown and checked out the reasonably impressive Lincoln park zoo - a free public zoo with an excellent menagerie of great cats (none of whom wanted to brave the Vancouver like weather but who were visible in the glassed over indoor enclosures), primates (gorillas, evil chimpanzees and a smattering of monkey breeds), birds and polar bears (the only animals who didn’t seem bothered with the weather). The rest of the African animals were nowt to be found but I always like zoos so it was fun. Also went to the ultra modern Millenium Park and the Champs Elysee inspired Magnificent Mile and the very tacky Navy Pier. For some reason could not find the Sears Tower anywhere but did ascend the John Hancock Tower - a sneaky suggestion by the Irishman was to just visit the bar on the 96th floor rather than pay for the observatory tourist trip. An excellent view of the city was afforded from the windows but the awful weather meant that it was as good as it normally could be. Took the L out to Wicker Park but despite following directions to the letter I found myself in a rather dodgy neighbourhood (it tyurns out there are three stations with the same name on the same coloured line - usually trains are pretty easy to work out in a foreign city) soheaded back downtown and popped out of the subway to find myself right in front of Sears. It may just be a very big building but it would be more accurate to describe it as a f**kingbig building - seeing it made me think of how impressive the WTC would have been had I visited NYC over 5 years ago. The weather was very irritating after the pretty excellent conditioins i've had through most of this trip - I know the city is known as 'the windy city' but I was hoping it may have referred to the politicians rather than the actual weather - wind is something I can never get used to - it mucks up my hair, screws with my contact lenses and just puts me in a bad mood. Also, the intermittent rain revealed that the soles of the skate shoes I purchased in london at sk8ter boi Bob's insistence had finally given up the fight - did manage to find a very good value pair of skechers to replace them though - it was very satisfying to buy them, put them on and dump the old pair in the bin all in the space of 5m.
Well, you can’t go to Chicago and not see a bunch of old black guys playin' the blues - tried to initiate some interest from some of the other hostel guests to head out but they weren't too keen - gave up waiting and killed some time in my room and was shortly joined by my roommate, a Californian guy named Joe, also not too keen on heading out but after about an hour of discussing the last legs of my American odyssey he decided that some blues would definitely be in order. Headed out to Kingston Mines where we propped ourselves up and watched Linsey Alexander and the LABB crank out some pretty amazing tunes. He was a real virtuoso and a complete showoff too - thanks to the wonders radio microphones he came right into the audience and wandered from table to table sleazing on every woman in the joint - I find it quite interesting to note that for someone playingthe blues he sure seemed to be having a great time. He also dragged up a guy named Eddie Clearwater onto stage who played a very nice set - I’m not sure if Mr Clearwater is a renowned blues musician because I don’t really know much about the blues but he was very good (not that I can tell the difference between really good and great) and everyone seemed to be very happy to see him on stage. Was thwarted by the L when we tried to head out to see another band - got stranded ten stations uptown so gave up and headed back home.

Battle Of The Wedge

29 April - Another night in the car, another crick in the nec. Was upo pretty early in the morning - mainly because I couldn’t handle another minute cramped up in Rocicante's confined sleeping quarters so I was on my way out of Pennsylvania and on to another f**kng Turnpike, this time it was Ohio's - ate pretty awful junkfood while I meandered west through the betraying swing statt and on to Indiana - nothing to see but corn and wheat fields as far as the eye could see - NPR had an interesting interview with a hard core cornographer who explained how the entire western diet comes from corn and explained why it was not really a good thing. Unfortunately, driving through multiple states and multiple timezones means that it's very difficult to actually listen through an entire radio segment without getting blankouts, repeats and skipping of shows but very entertaining nonetheless. Eventually made it to Chicago and had another extraordinarly stressful and tearful entrance in to the city - couldn’t find a welcome centre and not even a phone that was working. Found myself downtown and eventually got a phone and it turned out that I was only 5m away from the hostel where I planned to stay. After 30m of driving around a maze of one way streets that were lined with cars I managed to check in and miraculously even managed to find a park on the street - on the very edge of the tow zone so i'm hoping everything will be cool by the time I leave. After completing a few necessary functions at the hostel I went out for a little bit of a wander - for once, the changing time zones are on my side - being in central time means getting an extra hour to enjoy the city in daylight. Wandered downtown - I don’t understand why all these americans believe anything past a few blocks can’t be walking distance - well, actually I can understand very easily, because they're the most obese nation on Earth (that's one generalisation about this country that certainly has proved to be true). Not really knowing how to start the chicago tour I thought a deep pan pizza would be a good way to immerse myself in the city's culture. Upon arriving at giordano's I was told it would be a 45m wait (which included pre-ordering) and by the time I got seated wait times were up to 2 hours. Anything that reqires that much of a wait has got to be good, I surmised. I am a big fan of pizza and while it certainly lived up to the expectation i'm of the opinion that it still doesn't stack up to Arthur's of Paddington (although according to a reliable source Arthur's has changed its recipes and has suffered the consequences). All in all, the food in this country has been pretty amazing when its good and pretty awful when its bad - grits, pancakes and barbecue have surpassed anything i've eaten in the homeland but the two staples to any carb junkies diet, pizza and sammiches are unequalled by that which is only available in God's country.
More sketchy plans did not come to fruition - a couple of Hawaiians from the hostel asked me to come to an comedy improv show that they were doing but I couldn’t remember where it was playing so ended up playing cards with a few guys from the hostel - a Japanese guy who spoke the most baffling English i've ever heard, an Irishman, Mancunian and a young Hawaiian guy who suggested I read a non fiction book all about the American green berets (i'm always very wary of people who like reading books about the special forces, I put them in the same boat as guys who like to read gun catalogues and people whosfavourite Warner Bros cartoon character is Taz-mania ). first game was 3 and 4 and the Mancunian who was teaching us how to play kept on changing the rules on us (i kept on expecting him to claim victory with a royal sampler) so I taught them the finer points of playing S**thead. Fortunattly there were no broken bones or criminal acts resulting to the losing players.

Lost in Joisey ...

28 April - Would have loved to spend more time in New York but my schedule prevented it so after an awful breakfast I somehow managed to find my way to Newark and paid the exhorbitant parking fee before trying to fnd my way to thInterstate 80. Followed all of the myriad directions I was given but ended up on the parkway southbound instead of north and by the time I realised I'd lost a few hours before eventuallygetting on the right track. Whilst on the way I found myself in a couple of traffic jams and while consulting my map in one of the numerous stop times my foot slipped and I ended up tapping the car ahead of me. No real damage at all (a slight dent to my front licence plate) but as me and the woman were examing the damage a state traffic cop pulled up beside us and told us to pull over. What could have been a very bad situation was resolved when the woman explained that she was in too much of a rush to do anythingso we were sent on our way. From New Jersey I followed the road through to Pennsylvania and was very disappointed when I found myself passing Punxsatawney around half 8. Would have liked to havedropped in to see Phil but he's probably sleeping after seeing his shadow a couple of months ago (in stark contrast to his Canadian counterpart, Wiarton Willie who claimed that there was to be no extension of the winter season). Most of the day's entertainment came from the national public radio with Science friday. What could have an absolutely fascinating story on a Nobel Laureate's new methonal fuel cell that could solve the world's energy crisis as well as help with global warming by sucking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere turned out to be an incredibly dull rambling as the scientist talked about the history of energy despite the host's best efforts to keep him on message. Ended up crashing at a rest stop somewhere near the edge of ohio - unfortunattely now that I’m back north again in car temperatures have fallen again. I don’t know what 37 degrees fahrenheit is, I don’t want to know what 37 degrees fahrenheit is.