The Long Ride Back

Sunday - August 22, 1999 - TIME TO GO

We had to say our goodbyes and pack the van. Phil moved into my room with Douglas for one last night. We went on to San Francisco to pick up Rebecca's belongings at Emily's apartment. We got on all the right exits and avoided getting on the Bay Bridge! Amazing. We ate together more or less - last meal at Taqueria in Haight -- Louie & I at the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park; Rebecca and Emily at the restaurant 'cause they left part of the order there. We dropped Emily off near her apartment and on the road the three of us went!

In Sacramento we apparently took a wrong turn. We made a gas stop and when we got onto the highway, all the signs said Route 50! We weren't on I-80! We couldn't do anything about it except take it. It turned into a 2 lane road as we climbed through the Sierras.

On the other side we saw Lake Tahoe from a distance. We eventually got into the valley of motels, motels, motels and shops and more motels in the town of South Tahoe and saw the southern end of this big lake. Did I mention there were a lot of motels? And then, we abruptly entered Nevada and the casinos appeared with Cher and Howie Mandel (what a pair!) appearing in this border town called State Line, NV. We took a turn north near Carson City and hooked back up with I-80 near Reno to continue our long journey through Nevada during the night. I did a long stint in Nevada where we saw a huge 4 foot cylinder of beef jerky at a truck stop and I got a Blue Oyster Cult greatest hits cassette. The only real hit was Don't Fear the Reaper -- Live(!). It was pretty long and we got to Charlotte, Louie's friends house at about 6 am and we abruptly crashed.

Monday, Tuesday - August 23-24, 1999 - LONG TRIP TO IOWA AND BEYOND

I got up early briefly when Charlotte had to go out to a printer. I looked at this cat photo book I enjoyed then went back to sleep. We all got up around noon. I picked up two of her cats and we saw her garden in the daytime which was fascinating but Rebecca and I got bit by bugs. We later went out to a local vegetarian restaurant for breakfast/lunch. She was known in this funky "9th & 9th" section of Salt Lake City as friends said hello. The restaurant was OK. She also talked about and showed us her oboe that she played in a symphony orchestra; that she had to make the reeds herself which was difficult and time consuming. She explained that the Tabernacle was the center of the Universe in Salt Lake City that this neighborhood was 9 miles to the east and 9 miles to the south of the Mormon Tabernacle, hence the name.

We then left and as we got onto I-80, a cassette worked its way onto the window ledge and flew out! Utah was beautiful as we saw a ski area in the distance, probably Park City. We finally made it into Wyoming, a state known for fireworks stores the way Nevada is known for gambling.

There were these signs for a truck stop called Little America (also a town) which was underwhelming except they had 37 cent ice cream cones (vanilla only), as well as "objets de art" in the way of plastic sculpted animals and the like selling for hundreds of dollars as well as huge wind chimes. It was a ripoff as we enjoyed more regular type of truckstops.

We stopped in Wamsutter again, one of those places where you gotta get gas. It's strategically located between "here" and "there." There was this motel there...

Louie brought us the rest of the way including taking some local dirt roads out of Des Moines to Ames. We got to Ames at around 1:00 pm CDT. Yayy! I'm doin' a wash. Prior to Iowa I mentioned that we saw satanic things on this trip, a cassette mysteriously flying out the window in Utah, chicken fried steak for breakfast, the biggest beef jerky we ever saw, and hot dogs that were on that spinning cooker for days based on the color of the dogs. Just before turning onto the street where the Bolluyt development and house were, Rebecca said Louie was satan and that I was evil. I've never been called evil before!

Take Me Out in the Morning Dew - Iowa Cornfield. Wed-Thurs. - August 25-26, 1999 - Last 24 hours; Chicago detour, meaning we accidentally got off I-80 on Chicago's south side where the neighborhood ain't so great. I sensed this when we stopped at a gas station that had protective Plexiglas surrounding the cashier. We drove on a local street parallel to, driving faster than the highway which was backed up until we got to a strip where we ate at a Wendy's and returned to the slow highway. We also took a wrong turn heading toward Michigan on I-94 which we corrected. Pretty uneventful usual stuff including terrible rain in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and eventually toward NYC in one of the worst traffic days the City ever had. It took an hour to drive Rebecca uptown from Tribeca and I got stopped by cops in Queens for driving erratically but they let me go due to the plausibility of my story of having driven across the entire country in this Iowa minivan. I finally got to Forest Hills. Whew! Just in time for our gig at The Baggot Inn on Friday, August 27th, and Zack quits the band leaving some space in our music...