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July 20 My Friend's interesting experience..Ahoy everyone!
I think of everyone on this list knows what I am doing, but just in case...I was working for Sun Life in Philly and wasn't receiving too much satisfaction from either the job or the city, so I decided to quit both and do something exciting, challenging, memorable and just plane sane after the soul-gnawing year of Sun Life. I decided to go cross country and spend about 2 months in California. This is my first email, and the intent is to update as crazy experiences emerge. Two side notes, I may use peoples names that some will know while others won't - just go with it, and sine I have over a week of travels to retell, this will be a LONG EMAIL! I am writing today from a cafe on Lake Tahoe in Tahoe City, California side. I packed in as much east coast as I could before leaving Phila - Sunday July 2nd it was the Jersey Shore, 3st was Baltimore, 4th was NYC, then on the 8th I moved my things to Columbus and on Tuesday, the 11th, of last week I got going to Chicago. I stayed downtown Chicago with Alex Zagrodsky and we went to a BBQ party overlooking the Lake where I saw the strongest fog of my life - we were on the one side of the river and could not see the lights of the buildings across on the other side. There were all the typical pretentious items on hand - wine, an Englishman talking about the World Cup and a photographer working on a city sponsored multi-year project. On Wednesday I drive through Illinois, and half of Iowa, camping next to a lake. Camping was just fine and much more comfortable than I assumed it to be - neatly cut grass and bathrooms in a distance. The one downside was some teen-ranger Rick woke me up at 10:30 telling me I need to pay $11 to camp. I believe he needed some of the Russian-tude, but given that I was going to sleep in a thin, knife prone tent, I refrained and paid. On Thursday I drive the rest of Iowa and all of Nebraska. Now if anyone in the past has struggled to grasp the scope of the US economy as I have, then this opens up eyes. Iowa is ENTIRELY corn. If all you see is corn from the highway, then what is the rest of the state? - Corn! Now Nebraska is Iowa except that it is all cattle or fields...for hay...for cattle. Omaha steaks has deeper meaning since all the beef from Nebraska was and still is pushed to Omaha and was sent down the Missouri to the rest of the country. Same day I continued to Colorado and this was a unique state line crossing, unlike ones I have seen - the cattle INSTANTLY disappear and are replaced by rolling hills that make you think of 'Dances with Wolves'. I made it to Denver and needed to roll down the window to take a few pics of the city and realized that even though the car read 100 F the 'dry heat' was very mild. I made a right and into the mountains I went. The temperature dropped by 20F with a snap of the fingers - you could actually watch the thermometer ticking away as I climbed up in altitude. I stayed in the mountains at about 11,000 ft where the day temperature was 80F and night temperature dropped to 55F. My host was Betsy Salzler who is loving life in nature and working for Vail Resorts, Keystone mountain - just on the other side of the mountain from Breckenridge. The area was beautiful, and there was a damned up lake 8 miles away that had smooth skating sail boats on it - just serene. I had a chance to take a downhill hike for about 2 hours, a bike race that included hail and have some Flat Tire - apparently the mountain favorite beer. Betsy's mom came in on Friday night and took us out for some breakfast the next day - she's just as fun and funky as always! I drove from there to the West part of Colorado and found a lake about 30 miles from I-80. I camped for an exorbitant fee of $17 and on Sunday morning I woke up and tried to fish the lake. The worms weren't biting and I tried different parts of the lake, but no success. I pack up and walk over to give the rest of the worms to an older gentleman. His name is Randy Smith (what an appropriate name), a retired truck driver from Colorado who is out on permanent disability (and yes, he knew his contract inside and out!) who told me that the fish are spoiled by 'PowerBait' some florescent play-doh looking junk that is molded onto the hook. I mean if you're in the middle of nowhere at a lake 8,000ft of sea level and 30 miles away from civilization, and the 'natural' fish don't take worms, then what the hell is happening??? Randy also recommended to buy some peaches down the road from a town named Palisades - AMAZING peaches that require a paper towel just to bite into. They are picked off the tree and placed on trays and sold right there in almost one motion. So this same Sunday I crossed into Utah and decided to take some back roads. One was with about a 60 mile speed limit that was just ASKING to be taken at 85 (wait, don't I take almost all roads at that speed?). There was a railroad track on one side and sand and mountains on both sides. I figure many a trains were robbed on that stretch of land back in the day - very authentic West experience. I went the opposite direction into one of the largest Indian reservations of the country - The Uintah Indian Reservation (the tribe name kind of explains the name of the state). This was a disappointment - in a slightly stereotypical way I was expecting to see a specific form of poverty and a unique layout to housing, but all I saw was a typical town, some farms and pseudo-ranches. I actually saw an very modern RV with English 'GB' plates!!! What was he doing there?, then again, what was a Saab doing there? Once again the way vegetation and temperature changes from mountain to mountain and elevation is just startling. I made it to Provo Orem, a two town blend that is almost a suburb of Salt Lake City and is home to BYU - the Mormon university for the country. Now, a typical campus is also home to a plethora of bars and smoke shops and your occasional kink shop. Here, for as many bars that you would expect, there were actually that many MILKSHAKE AND ICE CREAM joints! It was Sunday, so 80% of everything was closed, but I did see plenty of white shirts with ties, and guess what they were doing....eating ice cream! A little bit of a demographics comment: there is a very strong Latin population in Colorado and Utah - tons of Mexican food places, but not much of a Black population, so I did a Black person count in both states. In Colorado, over 2.5 days I saw 7; and in Utah over 2.5 days it was 2 (not including the three black players on the BUY basketball poster)! Having spent most of my time in cities with a high black population percentage, to me this was just odd. Now, to take this even further, the first black person I saw in Utah, guess what.....was getting pulled over. Back to the Mormons. I stayed with John Stoddard during my time there and had a chance to talk a lot about the religion and missions and culture. I won't bore you with everything I learned, but highlights: -almost everyone can fluently speak a second language because they spend from 1.5 to 2 years abroad on a mission. -many feel that Utah is an artificial bubble and that living outside of it is better for them and their kids. Living together is not the focus. -just like the rest of the population does not date as much but rather 'hangs out' or 'hooks up', same is here. The elders are concerned that dating is not how it once was and are worried about the youth not learning enough about commitment. There is some sort of pressure for both sexes regarding dates. -don't worry plenty are still marrying early and starting families. I saw a girl 29 years old who had 3 kids and still had a figure of a slender 20 year old. - (my own observation) the Church is VERY wealthy - just to see the set up in Salt Lake - a Gothic looking cathedral that took 40 years to build, an "office building" about 40 stories high, a convention center that resembles the UN! If the head of the church is the Profet and the President at the same time, it should tell you somthing. I drove through the Great Salt Lake Desert with a high of 106F and crossed in to Nevada. Nevada was boring, and gas price was HIGH. A $0.40 difference from Utah and all because there is no income tax for the state and revenue comes from other taxes, most of it from the casinos. About 90 miles from Reno I saw a hitchhiker and decide to pick him up. He was a 24 year old Mexican-blood, San Antonio raised, self-proclaimed hippie who left an abusive home at age 17 and has been nomadic the entire time except for a short 1 year stay in Austin. He was coming back from 'The Gathering' in Colorado, an annual hippie party for about a month where they pray for world peace, live in a sharing environment and...lets see...what else...oh yeah...was it...smoke a lot of pot? Yes it was. He was on some converted school bus that was made into an RV with 15 others and was accused of stealing something by the other Weed Wonders and kicked off. Well lets just say, one can smoke him or herself retarded - favorite word: bro; second favorite word: herb; highlight: spitting out the window and getting half of it back on his face and the other half on the car; cherry on top: being slightly confused over what had happened. Dropped my Toking Trooper in Reno, which by the way is a horrible 'big little city' , and started looking for a great food deal. The winner was two tacos and a draft beer for $1.50, which I decided to decline and chose to get the hell out of Nevada. Drove to the Cali side of Lake Tahoe and camped for the night. Now Tahoe is an incredibly amazing place that I can't fully describe. The lake is in the middle of mountains, about 6,300 ft, surrounded by HUGE evergreens...and expensive homes. The water itself is cold and gets only warm near the shore, but is so calm even with boats and sails on it, and so clean and clear. I had thought that Colorado would be my favorite place of the mountains, but this trumped everything. The resort towns blend into one another and have the standard charm of "English Cottage meets log cabin" but have something more. At a certain point yesterday I was looking over the lake and had a wonderful combination of pleasure, peace, thrill and expectation. I understand why this place if so sought after by people all over. I actually saw a Delaware plate on a Suburban here - beats my Ohio numbers. I spent my time yesterday on the beach reading Atlas Shrugged (which might be better than The Fountainhead) and swimming. It is a kick to be in the mountains, including these, be in hot temperatures, swimming and yet see snow on the peaks. Last nights sleep wasn't too great, it dropped down to 50F. If anyone forgot the season today is: Summer. I'm off to San Fransisco today to stay with Rey Lukito and then stay a few days with Calvin Huang. I am out about a grand that I had expected from Sun Life, took a lot of phone calls to fully resolve that, so the need to get that wine country employment is big!!! I swam in the Atlantic Ocean on June, and it seems that I am a day away from swimming in the Pacific. That's something like 18 days apart (not super impressive) but 2 oceans in 2 consecutive months sounds jet-setter-ish. By jet-setter-ish I mean a grounded, 4-wheel, non-flying, "born from Jets", $50 gas tank X 6 experience. Once I settle a little, start raising havoc and talking to more random people I will compile something new - and I promise it will be SHORTER and packed with more of the "Ohh, Yuri"[shaking head] " quality. Cheers! Y
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