Terrestrial Cosmo Knots

Not having a computer took its toll. So, I've been battling with writing all of the lost time that I hadn't recorded. After a few weeks of thinking about it, I've decided to catch up on the adventure.

Taylor and I peeled on out of there, and Mount Rushmore was left sucking up the civic's treaded up dust. I90 going east was decorated with large billboards, telling all wanderers to stop in the town of Wall. To be more concise, the billboards were advertising "Wall Drug," America's favorite vacation site. They have everything. An apothecary shop sits near stuffed wildlife. You can stop into an "old-west" knife shop right before panning through a $7 bag of dirt for gold... just in case you missed the gold rush. http://www.walldrug.com/ Just look at the website, although it might be down from the huge influx of red-necks that are checking out the attraction.

Turns out Wall Drug wasn't our cup of tea, so after buying another thing of peanut butter, it was off to the Badlands.

South Dakota is country through and through. Some stretches of land go on and on and on. Small mountain ranges and hillocks slope here and there across the land, but mostly, it stays green and grassy. The size and the openness of the country side gives an eerie feeling of isolation that is second only to the scrub land of Nevada.

The most interesting anomaly in South Dakota (that I saw) is the Badlands. They creep up like some island in a vast ocean. Wind whipped mountains sit in jagged spire-formations. It's hellish looking, the craggy peaks dotting the landscape like enormous red knives, but on closer inspection, the rock formations are little more than heavenly ruins. They crumble and croak when you touch them, emphasizing that mountains are not immortals reaching into the sky, just packed dirt that coincidently ended up placed above ground level.

Taylor and I scooted around the National Park, stopping for a bit of time to have lunch. The fry bread was great, and if you ever visit the National Park Center there, get the Indian Taco. One of them will feed two people. I survived off of fry bread for two days.

The idea was to camp for the night in the park, but payment is required for the camping spots. So it was back country time. We loaded ourselves with the bare essentials. The tent, our sleeping bags, lights, jacket, water, a bit of food, and a six pack. Out we went. The hike was easy. Badlands is filled with grass covered mesas. In an instant mountains seem like a distant landmark. The grassy fields sway and dip for miles and miles. Taylor and I hiked along one of the major trails before cutting into the country. Eventually we found a nice spot between some mountain peaks. We were near by some of the really rough land that looked like dried up coral formations, and a little past that was a cliff side that overlooked miles and miles of South Dakotan land. A small flock of big horned sheep were a few hundred yards off. The ram remained vigilant for much of the late afternoon, making sure that neither of us made a move on one of his ladies.

As the sun set, we sat ourselves down and talked about deep and meaningful things. It was all really intelligent conversation that was really interesting. A real shame you couldn't be there. We sat around drinking beer and watching the sun set. It was beautiful. As Steinbeck said "once stopped I was caught, trapped in color and dazzled by the clarity of the light." The colors changed minute by minute. Bblues became purples and oranges and reds. Mountains adjusted themselves from a Martian panoramic to silhouettes of some ancient Monolith. Our neighboring big horn sheep relaxed and began to graze nearby before setting off up one of the nearby mountains. We relaxed, just two stranded astronauts and an extraterrestrial landscape.

A starry night, cool breeze, and soft dirt. We slept well, and woke early to get back to the car and finish the first part of the journey. We made it back quickly and followed the sun east.

Biker Sculpture

The night spent out on the Wyoming/South Dakota border was a wild one. We pulled over into a large "proto-rest area." It was like a luxury shoulder on the highway. Not large enough to be a full out rest stop, but big enough to be safely off of the highway. The roar of passing automobiles seemed like an oncoming hit each and everytime. Luckily for me, Taylor was in the driver's seat, so the threat of being clipped, however unlikely, weighed much heavier on that sucka-chump.

We woke up around 6am after a restless night of sort-of-sleep. Out we headed into the bowels of South Dakota. The first town we came across was the rough and rowdy biker hang out of Sturgis.

I was enthralled by the romantic ideas I'm sure all of us have about Sturgis. Simply stepping foot in that town would riddle one with a bout of syphallis. Biker wenches parade through the streets in droves, performing premiscuous acts and all sorts of disgusting activities. My mind was set to toss aside any preconceptions of morality and dive head-long into the pit of depravity that is Sturgis, South Dakota. A festering cesspit settled into the American Heartland. All the gloves were coming off. Sturgis was to turn Taylor and I into men.

Sturgis was gorgeously manicured. Something of a small town american city. We stopped at a local cafe for coffee. The gas station coffee had begun to rot our guts, and we needed something with a bit more of a tender touch. The couple in the cafe were a bit strange, huddling around our table to keep awkward conversation at a maximum, but they were nice folks. We were told to mark our home on their travel map of the world before we enjoyed a light breakfast. Taylor had fried potatoes, eggs, and pancakes. I enjoyed a breakfast sandwhich on ciabatta. It was delightful.

And, that's how we left Sturgis. Without being knifed by a dirty biker. Without having anonymous and/or ambiguous sex. Without drinking copious amounts of hard liquor. Without doing anything really, except for eating that light breakfast.

The remaining portion of the morning was spent driving through the Black Hills. The Black Hills themselves are gorgeous. If you've never been, then its well worth it. Nice driving in a very middle of nowhere state. That aside, I'll talk about the giant crappy statues they've carved out of these mountains.

We started at Crazy Horse. A few years back (if you want a history lesson don't read this blog) some South Dakotans decided that their state had nothing going for it. Everyone was tired to see the four men of Mount Rushmore, and most people didn't even know what those dead old farts had ever done. So in an attempt to be super liberal and progressive (as South Dakota is known to be) it blew up a mountain into some sort of likeness of the long-dead Indian, Crazy Horse. I guess they learned from the tragedy of Rushmore, that one should not have their mountain statue facing the road because it detracts from business. People might not pay to look at the poorly constructed mammoth sculpture, and opt to simply drive by slowly.

The horse-mounted parking lot attendants (wearing little stars to make themselves appear to be wild-west "sherriffs") directed the car into a spot of grass and told us to walk for three miles to see the big man in the mountain. We treked closer before becoming disenchanted with the entire idea. Looking up at the cliff side that peers over the sculpture, we could see people lined up looking down at Crazy Horse as if they were sets of dominoes. It was the tourist trap of all tourist traps, and they told me I would have to hike three miles to get into that clump of travelers. It all became way too overwhelming. We booked it out of there.

On the way out, one of the attendants mentioned our short visit. I made up an exaggerated excuse to not seem like such a lazy bastard. I told her we needed to make it across the state and had no idea how long the hike was. This is when mother nature sucka-chumped us. The attendant's horse threw its head back and laughed loudly at us. If you've never seen a horse laugh, then you might not understand. A horse can open its mouth in a most offensive sort of way. Its lower jaw line waggles to and fro, and the noise that comes from its face is horrible. A neigh proceeds to burst out of the creature. Like some piercing chortle, the horse laugh works in the most condescending fashion of any creatures' actions. This horse straight up laughed at us... Straight up. We were betrayed by a horse and its instincts, and all we could do was drive away in shame. I would never blame any man that might find himself in a fight with a horse. We must all hold on to our honor.

The next logical step was to drive past Mount Rushmore and hope it faced the highway. It does. Taylor and I became those non-paying tourists. We ended up going through the gates, but since they cost $10 we asked if we could just exit. They let us drive through (with the one exception of not stopping at any time). Taylor drove slowly as I snapped pictures of the old men in the mountain. The last laugh was ours. Teddy, Lincoln, Washington, and TJ got sucka-chumped.

We peeled on out and headed to Badlands National Park.

Eighteen Holes of Little Bighorn

The first night was spent in the car on the banks of a fast moving river. It was a nice way to wake up, and if you ask either Taylor or myself, we would probably tell you that we sucka-chumped the nearby RV/camp site.

We would probably tell you that we sucka-chumped a lot of things. We sucka-chumped people, objects, animals, even entire states. More than our fair share of sucka-chumps were thrown out, but no one counts the number of sucka-chump's thrown around, so we'll just keep saying, "there's plenty more where that came from."

On this particular day, if you talked to either Taylor or me, we would probably tell you that Montana sucka-chumped us, and it sucka-chumped us bad. Mostly because of the roads.

The day started out great. We made it to Gallatin Canyon early. We tried a few of the Lone Peak Brewery's beers before going on a long hike. Crystal clear water trickling down in streams, moose, and me constantly on the watch for a grizzly to wrastle. It was a nice day.

After quite a bit of time hiking, we decided to drive further eastward since it kept raining in Gallatin. The roads stayed wet for the entire portion of highway through western Montana. It finally cleared up as we passed the point of Custer's demise. The plains near Little Bighorn were sprawling. They made me feel like I was really out in the old west drinking home-brewed grain alcohol and fightin' injuns... manifest destiny and such.

After sun-set, the roads went to hell, and Taylor and I found ourselves driving recklessly eastward on another Northwestern highway death trap. (Note: The word "recklessly" has been thrown around loosely in this entry. For any person who might have a passing interest in Taylor, or me, or the civic being safe and steady, you can rest assured that we were.) Eventually we had to stop for gas, and the town of Lame Deer seemed to be the last point that might be a good stop. So Lame Deer it was.

The name suits that poor town. The Cheyenne Indians inhabit Lame Deer, and they keep it a bit on the shy end of cozy. It was easy to see that 1:00 AM is the "cool" time to hang out. You know? The citizens of the town go out early in the morning to stand menacingly at street corners, attempt to open peoples' cars that are not their own, or cackle loudly at a neighboring gas pump. It was a "fun" town.

The most exhillerating of the towns folks were the adolescents. behind the car stood a gaggle of young boys. They seemed to be on their way for some late night golf because about half of them were brandishing golf clubs. Maybe it was "cool" to walk around your town with golf clubs late into the night. Maybe Stacy, the head cheerleader, and Glen, the star of the football team, would walk around waving nine irons and telling clever jokes in some backwoods dump in the middle of nowhere. But, maybe not... Maybe people shouldn't carry around golf clubs late at night and stand in lines staring passer-bys down. Maybe people should try... reading a book? Playing a video game? Self-satisfying? Anything really, as long as it doesn't involve me wanting to speed off because you've carried your golf club a little to close. Children of America! Put down your golf clubs and go do something proactive! ...or at least a bit more tame.

So it was Taylor's time to pump the gas, which I was eternally thankful for. I stayed safely in the driver's seat with the key in the ignition. At the drop of a hat I was ready to turn that key and floor it, leaving Taylor far behind to deal with flashes of golf clubs and angry native people. Taylor attempt to look cool and confident in a Patrick Swayze-ish sort of way. Leaning against the car in a jaded apathetic manner. It was way too much for me, as I am more of a thumb twiddler. The jig was up once the gas finished pumping. Taylor fumbled messily for the pump and hung it back up way uncooly. He race-walked to the passenger seat as I turned the car on quickly. By the time his door was closing, I was peeling out onto the gravel streets of Lame Deer.

Taylor vs Ryan in the town of Lame Deer, Montana

The rest of the night was a stressful night drive through more poorly paved Montananite roads. We Stopped on the South Dakota/Wyoming border for a rest before heading further east.

Shovel-Face, Thin-Mullet, and Mr. Reaper

If you've never driven out east of Portland through the Columbia River Gorge, then don't. Its ugly and lame. A festering wasteland in western Oregon, smelling like toxic sewage and dump. Stay away from there, never look at the place, and never think about it again.

The farther east we went the more the terrain changed from flowing waterfalls, epic foilage, and ancient mountains, to the bushy plains of eastern Oregon and Washington. By the time we hit Idaho, the sun was nearly set, and I was set to be freaked out about that section of I-90. You see, Idaho decided to make their section of 90 "scenic." They succeeded in a Rumplestilkenish way (I just saw the new Shrek). That section of road is definitely one of my favorite pieces of interstate in the country (at least in terms of the view). The winds and twists and panaramic landscapes make it a breathtaking drive on a good day of sunshine.

The cost of having the scenery came in a winding death trap. It was night time and I was driving a car that wasn't mine. The road is riddled with deer up there. Alive and dead. I've never seen roadkill so scattered on a piece of road. One creature should not be in so many places, nor should it change the color of a road to so many shades of brown and red. Later into the night, a deer ran straight at the tail of the car. They all seemed to be in cahoots with the grim reaper. I could almost hear his voice saying, "hey... hey, little deer. Why don't you go jump out in front of a car?" I believe that the entire deer population of Idaho might be a doomed one. They should take a lesson from the Montanan deer, who stay safely on the edge of the road and stare at passing cars. Perhaps not as comforting for drivers, but definitely a bit more put together.

Later into the night, Taylor dozed off. I continued watching the road, which worked out well because I was driving. Eventually, I pulled into a very pleasant stop in Superior, Montana for some coffee.

I have never stopped in Superior, Montana before this trip. As far as I know, God came and blessed it as the most heavenly point on the globe, but at this time, it was pitch black and all I could see was a gas station pressed up to a shifty looking bar/casino.

What I do know about Superior, Montana's interaction with God is that at some point he picked up his "ugly stick" and plowed it into every person in that ill-fated town. The few people I met in that tiny town were some of the most unfortunately unattractive folks I've ever run across. I'll discuss two of them.

Thin-Mullet: I went to get the big-gulp of coffee. Taylor stumbled sleepily to the bathroom. Upon purchase, the clerk turned her great girth towards me and asked in a sweet voice, "how you doin?" This woman, Thin-Mullet, had crafted her less than luscious hair into a masterpiece of a mullet. Except for dirty Europeans and Australians, I haven't known a mullet to be cool since the late 80s, but Thin-Mullet was jamming it proudly. To make matters worse, the mullet wasn't full and beautiful as one might expect a mullet to be.

Let me go over the expectations of a mullet. The top and front should be full, big, and teased up a little. In my eyes, Don Johnson of Miami Vice has overwhelming potential for this "concept mullet." The back should be exceptionally trashy. The close cut hair on the sides of the head really allow the back to thin out while remaining long and greasy. (I have sported a mullet for a number of days, late in 2009, so I'm not too hypocritical about my mullet knowledge).

Don Johnson ^

Thin-Mullet lacked the full close cut on the top of the head. Instead she had grey, thinning hair looking like she might have had a bad bout with the mange. It was unfortunate how it all came together... in a flacid sort of way. My interaction with her was stunted by my preoccupation with her looks, but I hoped that the late night meeting masked that all as me just being tired.

Shovel-Face: After tearing myself away from Thin-Mullet, I wandered through the station in a stuper until Taylor came from the restroom. This took me out of the daze that Thin-Mullet had left on me, and I followed Taylor out of the gas station.

Outside, was a fine Montanian gent smoking a ciggarette after, I'm guessing, a long night playing keno and some slots. This man was Shovel-Face. He politely turned towards us and said, "hi!" as we passed. Taylor shrivelled away and quickly walked away from him. I was a bit further away, so it was a bit easier to hide the quick dialation of the eyes, the oncoming fight or flight response, and the increased heart rate that occured from seeing this man's face. I responded with my own, "Hey!" and walked to the car to drive. Taylor and I exchanged words about the man. It was mind blowing. Just mind blowing.

I'll go over what made Shovel-Face such a sight. Its really pretty simple. The jaw. That man had a jaw that looked like it could slice a knee cap through like a stick of butter. It just jutted out and over the bottom of itself in a most horrific way. Taylor and I were both struck with the same idea: "That man probably eats people."

Now, I don't go around calling just any person I see with messed up teeth, "man-eater!" or "cannibal!" I mean, how would that make me look? It just doesn't fit into society to use cannibal as a term for bad dental condition, and on top of that, my teeth aren't exactly "A" grade.

So with that said, you can probably understand that this was bad. Those teeth looked ready to chomp right through a femur.

We high tailed it out of Superior, Montana. Thin-Mullet and Shovel-Face would have to wait for another pair of travellers if they expected good conversation... Not these guys... Not these guys.

Western Freshness

I was hoping to write on one of those "smart phones" while on the road. Seasalt has one of them, but I wasn't able to get it to write on this website... So I'll just put my posts that I had saved on messages.

The trip started off with a bang. Taylor's mom, Karen, came in a hair past six in the morning to have a talk. Now, this woman has a voice that really carries, and as she opened the door to Taylor's childhood bedroom, she began to talk. My dreams were quickly interupted by her announcements of "Taylor! Taylor" followed quickly by "why is Ryan asleep on the floor!? Why aren't y'all using the guest bedroom!?"

Our responses were, of course, a bit slower and more incomprehensible, what with being in a deep sleep, but after a short time we got the picture that Karen wanted us to work a little bit before our flight at noon. Now, sleep is like I finally told her "We would work, but now we are going to sleep," and she quieted down and left us.

After some work for Taylor's mom, we found ourselves at Hobby airport ready for our flight to Portland, Oregon, City of Dreams, Land of a Thousand Lakes, Home of American Legends, etc. (Note: these knicknames are not legitimate as far as I know). A brief detour to Atlanta and a delayed flight had us promplty in Portland by 10:45 PM. The entire day consisted of no black coffee or granola or vegan items... Everything went wrong!

Two of Rachel's bff's, Kelly and Simone, were waiting for us at the airport. It was nice to see some familiar faces after a day of cramped airline travel. We had a nice night, and Taylor and I stayed up with Kelly pretty late into the night discussing life's greatest questions and deep philisophical thoughts. It really was a good time. We were lucky to have a place to stay before we hit the road, especially since I sprung my request to stay with Kelly for the night as we were driving into Portland.

On the third, the day consisted of us being tourists in Portland. We woke fairly early, bid Kelly fairwell, and explored til three or so. I will settle to be apathetic towards the hippy city of that west, since I can never decide if I love or loath the place.

Toodles to Texas

This is my first attempt at a blog. So, as I now am writing about my exceedingly interesting life, I will fill my fans in with all of the details.

Tomorrow will be June 2nd. I will probably wake up around 9 AM although my initial plan will call for a 7.30 alarm. After silencing the alarm twice I will take the time to wake up and consciously turn off the alarm. At this point I will have coffee. I take it black because I used to hate coffee, but now I really like it. That's how these things tend to happen for people, or at least, for me. Breakfast will be a must have, but I probably won't eat any. Either way, its going to be a decision that must be made tomorrow. The day might get rough, but I'm willing to call the shots when the shots need calling.

Anyway... I really am leaving Houston tomorrow. My buddy, Taylor, and I are going to be flying to Portland, Oregon. That's why I'm not eating breakfast. I want to save up for home-made organic granola and vegan soy yogurt. Maybe I'll rent out a bicycle to fit in... I really don't know.

Before that is a conveniently placed lay over in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm looking forward to any wild shenanigans that the peach state might through at us.

The past couple of weeks have been wild. I've been working two stimulating jobs in an attempt to not be an impoverished bum throughout the trip. One has been a brief stint at the ever-fashionable retail store J Crew. Over the two months in the fashion biz I've learned that it might not be a career option, but who knows what the future holds for this ole tumbleweed.

This entire planning process has been mostly alcohol induced brainstorming and uncollected banter between Taylor and I. (I'll throw a shout out to our bottom bitch, Ciara "Lumberjack" Ayala, too). After a brief attempt to sell off both of my motorbikes and purchase an old vegetable-run diesel mercedes, we settled on the current plan on the porch of the Dark Horse Tavern. I'm not going to go into too much detail about what we're thinking of doing, but if all goes well, then we should end up doing a Portland to Portland trip. The second being the city located in Maine.


I am leaving Belle the dog in the hands of two seemingly capable dog owners. I'm sure she's in a nice home, but the woman of the house is something of a redneck, so I'm nervous to see if I'll find my basset freshly drowned in a burlap sack in the bayou. I'm only joking, PETA. Don't come around breaking my balls.

Not to leave all you readers wondering about what happened to my attempt to sell off the motorbikes, I'll give you a play by play. Raphaela, the motorbike that took me around much of the western US last year, was indisposed. After watching a youtube video or two, I decided it would be a good idea to fix the oil leak coming out of the engine block. I got the engine apart, but ran into some problems that by in large are unfix able by me. Turns out, taking an engine apart requires a little more know how. Turns out, it's shitty to do. Turns out, I'm not a mechanic. Fuck semi-colons.

Raphaela is now sufficiently saran wrapped in a parking lot. I'm not as worried as I was when I left the old bike. Mostly because of this magnum sized Christmas Ale I've been partaking in. It probably has a name, but the hell if I know it. There's a picture of a Christmas tree or something. I don't know.

Anyway, keep it real. I'll be going now.