The Road Trip:
Nothing much of note that I can remember until we took a small detour from the 5 to Modesto where they make Night Train and Thunderbird. We didn’t see the winery but the scenery was a lot like Iowa; red barns, foul stinky air, white farm houses- albeit with the occasional palm tree to rule it out as a location for Field of Dreams II.
We also went to the Hilmar Cheese factory which had a fancy garden where I imagine many local seniors get their picture taken. The bridge behind a waterfall is what I’d recommend to all those Modesto High students reading this.
After dark, we got to Sacramento, which I’ve stopped briefly in before on a previous road trip and which, despite and because of its charming, typically quaint Midtown, always leaves me feeling a bit strange. There seemed to be a late of gay women at the pizza place- some obvious, some less so. And we overheard some frat guys talking drunkenly and patronizingly to each other. “Dude, little bro- you’ve had a couple beers and you’ve got a case of the motormouth,” one said with a smile and a “OK, it was cute but not we’re going to scrap if you don’t stop talking about my girlfriend like that” look.
Drea drove until she was too tired to go on and we stayed at a crappy motel where there were cigarette burns in the carpet and no shampoo.
At breakfast, we paid far more than we expected for eggs and toast type diner food although it was actually impressively good so I didn’t mind so much… and we saw some Canadians and Drea ran out and asked them if we needed passports which seems to be “no, eh.”
The redwoods are always so beautiful and uplifting and filled with green mists, ferns and shafts of light. And also sasquatches which we may or may not’ve seen. We won’t know till we develop the photos and scrutinize the video.
We drove all night- like that Roy Orbison song (“I Drove All Night“) until Drea got too tired and I woke up in a dark blue sunless pre-dawn Washington rest area. They served free coffee which was good.
Seattle wasn’t as bad as I remembered it from the time I showed up downtown to the warming embraces of junkies and cops. The weather is beautiful and depressing and I got paint on one of my favorite sweaters. There are lots of Starbucks here and Drea and I got some free internet time on the Microsoft computers at a internet/coffee bar.
We met up with Erin and bro and they wouldn’t answer the door because my own sister thought I was just some guy looking for apartments to rent. We went to Chinatown and Pike Place Market which was pretty cool and touristy and a girl made the “twice eyes” at me.
Then we got some booze, drank it, ate some pizza, drank more booze, had a rock ‘n’ roll Monday proper.
check out RAWA at rawa.org
this place is a smellery
and I wonder if Evan still has that chair that Erin made for him
Eric Brightwell 