Week Four

With five days to go, and Peter taking my second shift in the Visitor Center, I was optimistic about the final week. What I didn't expect was the cold weather to rush in like icicle-tipped hawk. Monday was without a doubt the worst day of work, and the other interns agreed. The morning consisted of pounding tires

[Pounding Tires = stuffing dirt into car tires and pounding it with sledgehammers until the dirt is hard like cement and the tire is level.]

against violent gusts of wind. Dirt from the tires and piles were blasted into the air by wind and rained on us like screaming bits of glass. For hours we squinted our eyes and slammed sledgehammers into the dirt. To better visualize, think of the following movies.

Hidalgo
Dune
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
The Birds

Even sunglasses didn't help, since the wind just tossed earth into the sides of the shades. Goggles were nowhere to be found and the wind never let up. When it was finally time for lunch, we went to the G2 site, ate and picked dirt out of our eyeballs. We then went outside and helped shovel dirt and buffer up the sheets of insulation. For a bit I went inside a hole cut into the building and received buckets of dirt to fill it. When Doug walked by, I hissed at him like a rat.

Thankfully, dirt wasn't being thrown at our faces, but that's because it started to rain. And it got colder. And the wind picked up where it left off. So I lend my two rain jackets to Ahmed and Alicia and opt not to use my emergency poncho. For about three hours we were outside digging in bitter wind and rain and it never seemed to end. It's cruel that we need to move in order to stay warm, yet it's the last thing you want to do when you're freezing.

We finished up and went back to Hive. I would have loved a hot shower, assuming we'd have hot water, but I had to drive into town to do laundry. I dropped off a guy named Brett, who I referred to as Peter Pan because he seemed to just appear via pixie dust and had a feather in his hat (seriously).

Luckily the weather improved, but the house was still frigid at night. Funny thing about the Hive is it doesn't work very well. We got to see very cool earthships owned by the company or built/inhabited by some of the workers that not only look like villas but function perfectly well. The Hive isn't quite finished. The best way to explain this is to simply say that where there's sun, we have power but little water, and when it rains we have water but no AC power.

We went to the hot spring again, yet it was significantly colder than the last time as we walked down. I think it was 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Taking off my layers at freezing point was pretty invigorating, but it was nothing on that dip into the boiling water. I couldn't go in at first because my testing foot burned from it. I waited a second and then slid in. The water was so hot that steam rolled off the surface like fire. We lit candles and a Jack O' Lantern, drank beers and took swigs of vodka. Both the night air and spring water were about 20 degrees colder and hotter than the last time. It's like nature was two magnets pushing each other farther apart.

I was more quiet this time around, enjoying the how the water felt and how the steam whirled around and blocked people's firelit faces. Ahmed and I talked for a bit and Alicia and I tossed rocks at each other. Luke pulled out banana bread and a sea of hands launched out for it. Through the mayhem, Luke held out the pan to me, screaming desperately, "Clay! Take some! There's not much left!" It tasted great, and the situation intensified when someone discovered a layer of chocolate at the bottom. There was no honor code after that.

After work last Friday, we all had a beer party inside one of the earthships. Phil, a foreman from Maryland who called me Terrapin a lot, genuinely thanked us for our hard work. Alicia and Ahmed taught Nick and I some Spanish phrases, although Nick preferred to reply "que cabron" (what an asshole) to everything. I would usually reply "come mierda" (eat shit).

Ahmed also showed Nick and I a plastic cover of a peanuts can, and used it to describe a search for love and life. Amazingly, it made sense and was described more beautifully than I ever could manage. He said when you go through life one checkpoint at a time, over and over, another accomplishment, another lover, and just run through them, you are circling around the rim, following a thin line. But, if you get off the line, and cross into the center to pursue someone you really love or something you truly care about, you have the whole circle to explore.

Second to last day of work we were bored to tears and made it through. Last day of work we all skipped, as everyone expected us to since most of the workers were leaving or had left and there was little work left to do. We saw Navy Mike's earthship, which reminded me of the stylish hotel in Cappodocia that was literally built into a cave but was beautifully furnished and comfortable. Navy Mike is a character. He is the only man I've met badass enough to wear a pink bandanna on his head. He was, obviously, in the navy, traveled to several countries including Turkey, is in great shape, works hard, can make a story about eating baloney sandwiches in jail hilarious, and he's fifty years old. When he told everyone about the stripper he saw once who was disabled and needed a walker, yet still attempted to put on a show, the others and myself were crying with laughter. The way the woman "mermaided" her way on the stage, and how he tipped her and got out. You had to be there.

Alicia and Ahmed had to catch a flight today, so they packed, said their goodbyes to the others, and I drove them to where a shuttle would pick them up. Alicia was crying. I think she said it was partly because she was glad to go back to Barcelona, but also because she met so many people she cared about and then after a month, would never see them again. I told her that people, including myself, would visit them in Barcelona, but that never helps.

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." You know who said that? Dr. Seuss. He's right. But we never can until later. I don't know why grief arrives before gratitude when saying farewell. We should smile first, but tears mean more than smiles I think. But I hope Alicia and Ahmed are laughing about the internship now.

I parked my car and helped them unload their luggage. Hugs. Alicia said it was fun and started to cry again. I told her not to and she asked "why?" Ahmed told me I was a dreamer and surely a good writer, which I appreciated. I walked them to their stop and I hugged them again. Alicia said she was happy to have met me. I told them to have fun and walked back. Ahmed called out. I went back and he said thanks. I thanked both of them, saying if they were lame the internship would have been impossible, but luckily they're great. I am absolute rubbish with goodbyes, but if I've learned anything from my life it's that great things, great relationships, end anticlimactically.

I wouldn't say I was sad the internship is over. I am thrilled to drive eight days back instead of four, and then see people back home. And while I did have fun at the internship, it was hard work, and the body naturally feels blissful when the shovels and sledgehammers are put away.

However, once I got back in my car, and after I drove past Alicia and Ahmed to wave, a better display of my affection than awkward parting words, and after I merged onto the road through town and completed a complicated U-turn, and after I changed CD's in my car and right after a few seconds of listening to the song "Sense" by the Lightning Seeds, I finally stopped focusing on getting from point A to point B, and was hit with an immense wave of sadness. I couldn't describe it at the time. It was a bit like getting a bucket of water dumped on one's head, except it made me feel distant and warm. I drove most of the way back with the windows down despite the cold breeze. I suppose at that moment I crossed out of the rim of that peanut can lid and into the feverish center, although I did it without trying, because I truly didn't think I would feel that way after a month.

Luke made dinner and we're going to watch Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Everyone else left to go drink, but Luke's not old enough and I wanted to stay in. It's a staying in night tonight. I'll be off tomorrow with Nick to head back home, and I'll probably spend the rest of the night watching a movie, playing guitar, and working online, so I can recharge.

Week Three

I forgot to mention that I had to work at the Visitor Center during the second week, then again, it's not really worth mentioning since all I did that day was act as a receptionist, answer questions I didn't know the answer to, and feel useless.

Working this week at the Eve site, I made a stupid mistake and didn't wash out my rubber gloves. Throughout the day little pebbles and bits of cement worked its way to my fingertips and grinded at them like sandpaper. By 4:30, when we all had a beer and sat around, I examined these fat red welts on the tops and sides of my fingertips. For the rest of the week, I wore band aids, although it didn't help the pain, and neither did Goldbond or Neosporin. When it got cold in the afternoon, my fingers lit up in agony, especially if they were wet. I was literally the opposite of E.T.

The Hive house from the outside appears as a combination of Dr. Seuss drawings and the Flintstones' house, with a bit of acid thrown in. It's painted in green and flesh colored ripples, with a small red glass steeple on the top. Inside are smooth wood floors, soft blue walls, and random pillars. Most interns hang out upstairs in the sun room because of the outlets, couches, sociability, and most importantly, warmth. The house is cold at night, and for the whole month I slept with Icelandic wool socks and a sweatshirt.

Funnily enough, many of the things my mom insisted I bring randomly displayed their usefulness. The medical supplies were excessive until I got all those blisters. The extra sweatshirt was redundant until I needed one for work as well as sleep. The bag clips were retarded until I started eating Kettle chips along with everyone else.

As Alicia and I plastered adobe over the dome at the Eve site, we talked about our relationships. Ahmed had been her landlord, and over time they spent more time together and she ended up not renting a room for herself as she was basically living in his. She asked how I met my girlfriend.

"I was drunk at a party," I replied. She laughed.

We spoke a bit about astrology although I don't really believe in it. I still don't know how Aquarius is an air symbol instead of water. I also brought up the seven deadly sins the night before, and how we could characterize the other interns in terms of sin. Nick was gluttony, I was lust, and Alicia was pride, although I insisted she was greed due to her playing of Settlers of Cattan. Ahmed said he used to be lust as well, but is now pride, and that he was a bit of a wild man at a young age. I told him he was probably like me and he laughed.

As we slapped adobe patties on aluminum cans, Alicia and I spoke more about relationships. She told me that when you pick up on a fault of another person, such as greed, it is because you contain a bit of that fault as well. Kind of like "takes one to know one," but better. You don't need to be a complete libertine to detect another, but you probably share some attributes, especially if you tell them about it. You relate to each other. You're on the same level.

Luke, Sarah, Sean, Ashley, and these other interns Sam, Ben, Glen and I went to a hot spring outside. Sean drove the big blue bus there and we hiked the rest of the way carrying towels and beer. I had decided to come at the last second and jumped in the bus with a towel, extra pair of boxers, long sleeve shirt, and a bottle of tequila. The spring was cut into the side of a cliff at the bottom, like a hot bowl next to the icy river. We relaxed and drank and when it was nighttime we trudged back up. I led the way bare chested and gripping the tequila bottle by the neck. When Ashley started the bus, it stalled and started to roll backwards towards the cliff. Someone casually said "uh...we're going backwards," and Ashley got the bus going, although it was having significant trouble getting uphill. Our slight anxiety quickly vanished when the tequila was passed around and drained in a few minutes. Soon we were hollering and lighting bottle rockets out the windows.

Ariel, another intern I met, works full time at the Visitor Center and is an accomplished folk singer. She can't jam very well, but I think it's nerves and not lack of skill. She has a lovely voice and oftentimes sings in the sun room while everyone is on their computers or playing Settlers. She has a dreamlike kind of voice and giggles a lot. I think she'd make a great character in a book, and I'm a little envious of this, because I don't think I'm be much of one.

Some may say calling someone is a character is an insult, but I think it's a compliment. Granted, some characters can be totally one dimensional, but those are the poorly written or unimportant ones, like out of Twilight. A great character is someone that has many sides to them, like a die being rolled, with different strengths and faults and hobbies and hates and fears and humor to be discovered. Think of Hamlet or Tyler Durden. These are people that whole classes could be dedicated to. My life goal is to be a famous writer, but I think a worthy secondary would be to become a great character. If I was both in any place in the world, I'd be set.

Week Two

Basically, the landscape here is amazing, due mostly to its vast difference from Maryland. Here are the following things you can't see in my hometown.

1. Most of the horizon
2. More stars than you can count on your hands
3. Buildings made of tires and beer bottles

By the second week I was well accustomed to these things. A while back I discovered that while I love traveling and am impressed with the many people and places I encounter, I am rarely in total awe of things around me. Once I arrive somewhere, I already feel at home. I feel confident when I walk, even if I am completely lost. Sitting inside the HIVE upstairs, in the sun room where the walls are glass windows overlooking the fern-covered plateau, I felt totally at ease and natural, despite being in an area I had never seen.

It is very cool, the landscape. Across the rock and ferns you can see mountains topped with snow. If you look to the road you see a flat line, with an occasional truck driving down it, like a silhouette.

At work, we've been mixing cement and adobe, the latter of which is a mixture of dirt, sand, water, and straw. It's cheap and extremely useful material, as well as easy to use. We've mostly been using it as mortar slapped on top of old bottles and cans, our bricks. With these materials, the walls and domes have a sort of polka-dot effect. I read years before I knew about earthships about a man who built his own house own of hand-made cement and mud, and used bottles as bricks. The coolest aspect was that he lived by the shore, and when tide winds came, they would blow into the empty bottles and whistle, like an alarm.

I'm mostly happy that we use an electric mixer for cement and adobe. In Guatemala we plopped the materials into a blob on the ground and mixed it with shovels.

The older men at the sites, the workers and foremen, are all rugged and hilarious, as expected. They came up with a nickname system using people's initials. So for example there was Damien, or Dick Hungry Leprechaun, and Brian, or Boys McCuddle. A administrative woman who stopped by occasionally was dubbed Anal Before Sunrise.

So it's quite a thing to work and hear in the background "Hey Ball Munching Cunt! You get the fucking beer yet?"

Nick, Luke and I tried eagerly to come up with ones for each other. Nick got Nightly Teabag Service, and Luke got  Licking Dick Nightly. The best they could come up for me from Cunty Hoochie Cock. I explained this to Damien a few days later, who instantly looked at me and said, "Oh, like Cock Hungry Cracker?"

Luke and I bonded early with an interest in fast, violent, underground-like movies such as Pulp Fiction and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Alicia and Ahmed introduced everyone to Settlers of Cattan, a board game like Risk except with resources instead of armies, and more betrayal. It was a common sight for the rest of the month to see four to six interns grouped on the wood floor, shouting and laughing about sheep being stolen from them.

Alicia pulled off the most insane move ever. There is no trust in this game, but this stunned all of us. Basically, everyone owns settlements adjacent to certain resources, When dice is rolled, if the number is on a resource you control, you get that resource, which you use to buy roads and etc... But there's a piece in the game called the Robber. When you roll a seven, you move it to someone's resource and can steal a resource card from their hand. It also blocks that resource, rendering it useless to the person you just stole from.

Now, there is also a card called the Knight, which allows you, on your turn, to move the Robber and steal from someone. Like rolling a seven.

So Alicia pleads with Luke to trade her a resource she needs for one he doesn't, on the condition that she'll move the Robber off his resource, since she just rolled a seven. He agrees. So they trade cards and she moves the Robber off, thereby freeing the resource to him. Then without any evil grin, maniacal cackle or emotion at all, she plays a Knight card, dropping the Robber right back on Luke's property, and steals back the card she just traded him. There was a moment of silence after this, and then we all went nuts. From this point I often referred to Alicia as Ladrona (thief) and I learned never trust Spanish women.

Ahmed, in his own quiet, mischievous way, appeared to be losing the whole game until he basically assembled an empire on his last two turns and won. Luke tried to stay professional and ended up getting worked over, although close to winning. I made jokes and talked shit most of the time, and as a result got absolutely obliterated.

It sounds lame, but I'm telling you, if you got a group of fun people, get the game. I'll probably buy it back home, and my mom will be able to take revenge on my dad for massacring his wife and children in Risk.

Week One

Ok, so I originally planned this blog to only cover the road trip to New Mexico. Actually, I had originally planned not to write a blog at all, since most blogs I've seen consist of people bitching about their days without spell check. Yet through the power of motherly nagging, sisterly scolding, and my lifelong life motto of "meh," I decided to write a blog. And now I'm updating it. Not sure how I sank this low.

Once Nick and I arrived at the visitor center, we briefly met the other interns and then Kirsten, who basically is in charge of things here, gave us the orientation. To clarify..

Kirsten - head of operations here in Taos, New Mexico. Organized the interns, etc...

Heidi - similar job, but lives in the same house as the other interns, but in a distant room and we rarely see her.

Mike Reynolds - first conceived the idea of building structures out of tires and recycled materials that would sustain itself.

About five minutes into the orientation, during which Kirsten took us to different earthships, Nick and I gained a sharp dislike for her. Despite the fact we were paying for rent, food, commuting, laundry, and weren't being compensated a dime, she still told us not to shop at Walmart because, although cheaper, it was a big corporation. Later on, she extolled the wonders we would experience in our month here by explaining how dangerous the nearby town was, and how there's a serial murderer/rapist still loose. So welcome!

She noted that the language from workers and foremen on the job was "disgusting." Luckily enough, Nick and I got to work the first two days with the originators of this blasphemous behavior: Damien and Brian. We spent most of the time laughing while we worked.

Kirsten also got on my nerves not only because she was, as Nick delicately put it, "a toolbox," but also because she sprung a secondary job duty on the interns a month before the internship started. We were to work 2 days in the visitor center greeting passerbys. I was pissed, for I came to work with my hands, not with my smile-and-nod muscles.

It was also baffling how difficult it was to reach her before this internship began. It took weeks for me to reserve a room for Nick and I, as well to find out the project's address and the days of the week we'd be working. In the end, Heidi took care of everything, circumventing Kirsten's uselessness, but she wasn't exactly easy to reach either.

We got into our house, known as the HIVE, and found our room. I grabbed the lower bunk, and for the following 3 weeks Nick had to execute a pole vault-like maneuver to get onto the top bunk.

THE HIVE INTERNS

Luke - looks a bit like Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter movies mixed with Charlie from Willy Wonka. Nick and I teased him about his strong English accent, but he's a pretty rad dude. Can do a wicked handstand too.

Sarah - also English, takes the majority of photographs, and despite her innocent disposition, can often be seen with a cigarette in one hand and a PBR can in the other.

Ahmed - the oldest of the group, who reminded me of Ozzy Osbourne. I told him this and no one believed me. There is a similarity there, but to picture him better think of a Cuban Jesus. He lives in Spain and helped Nick learn some pick up lines in Spanish, which he desperately needs.

Alicia - Ahmed's wife. She has dealt with my constant "como se dice ____?" with supernatural kindness, and it's fun to chat with her at work about Spain, Argentina (which apparently should be renamed Lustland), and how we met our respective significant others. More on that funny bit later.

Sean - Australian, drove here with his girlfriend Ashley in a small blue school bus. Pretty chill dude. Their bus is a piece of work too, complete with tables, beds, beers, random trinkets, and an axe by the driver's seat which I assume is used for some highway trash talking or cleaving mailboxes/slow bikers.

Ashley - also known as Smashley. Canadian, and yes, they really do say "eh? often.

Peter - also Canadian and has a strong passion for Coors, but not Coors Light. For about a week he wore a matching sky blue outfit to work that looked like something out of Speed Racer or The Jetsons. It was hilarious.

Doug - may be the same age as Ahmed, not really sure. Friendly, plays some guitar, and reminds me of those calming doctors from movies.

- K that's about it for now. As for events this week, it's just been working from 9-430, hanging out, and then dinner. We decided on a brilliant system wherein everyone splits in pairs and one day a week that pair buys groceries for that night's dinner, and cooks it. Thereby we get a load of different meals, and all of them have been good. Maybe it just works well here because everyone can cook. Well, I can't. But week three I did, and it's true, a lot of cooking is mental. We feel when the food's ready. If you can't cook, find some directions, and just do it.

Day Four: Colorado to New Mexico

Though I desperately wanted to stop driving on the third night, beyond exhausted and with bags under my eyes the size of wiffleballs, I knew it would be wise to wake up in the morning in Denver. So waking up, we were excited to have practically a whole day ahead of us.

We drove through Denver and looked for anything that struck our fancy. It's incredible how easy it can be to travel sometimes, at least in the states. Just drive in a main city and sniff out something cool. Passing under giant letters proclaiming DENVER on an overpass, I kept scanning and got a glimpse of blooming establishments on a cobbled road. I glanced at Nick, who instantly said "Let's go there."

1. The first bar was a sports bar. Broncos were playing the Rams inside. We had met Rams fans the day before, and now heard Broncos fans clamoring at the screen. I don't really have a team, but I wanted the Broncos to win in order retain the current vibe, which was working for me. We sat outside and watched people. Flies buzzed toward our food. They really are the statutory rapists of the animal realm. No matter how many times you shoo them away or slap at them, they keep coming back. No means no.

Anyways, I order something called a Cactus Juice, which was vodka, gin, tequila, and some green syrup that was served in a guppy bowl, basically a small fishbowl. It was big for a cocktail, but I love when restaurants challenge me, drink-wise. You should try Texas style margaritas at Austin Grill.

We saw a guy with a huge Afro wearing a chrome spacesuit and speaking to passerbys.

2. We then went to a bar populated by male customers and waitresses wearing tiny tartan skirts, unbuttoned white collared shirts, high socks and heels. Maybe they were heels, I don't know, I don't think most guys ever look below a woman's ankle. It's a brilliant system based on a strange folly of man: that we'll give higher tips to a hot waitress. All they have to do is stay in shape, bring out the drinks, flash a smile, casually strike a pose, and rake in the dough.

Our waitress was nice and seemed a little bored. She said she had ample time and we probably could've invited her to drink with us, at least to see what's she's like outside the bend-over-and-here's-your-beer-boys facade. We never got around to it though. I asked for a rum drink since I inherited my father's affinity for it, and the waitress recommended a tall bullet of a beverage which had Sailor Jerry and another kind of rum with coke. That translates to "you will regret this in approximately 10 hours."

3. Seeing how sometimes drinks to me are like Lays chips, we went to a third bar where I chowed on buffalo wings and savored a greenish, almost eerie, frothy cocktail. It also had a set of pink maraschino cherries, skewered on the straw like testicles. Sometimes I wonder what is the biggest catalyst for the hangover: the alcohol, or the sugar pounded into the drink the hide the alcohol. So sugar hides alcohol's bitterness and alcohol hides our eyes' bitterness towards uglier girls. Who is in control of this whole process?

I walked back with a small swagger and we drove, with some reluctance, out of Denver. My only regret thus far was not buying a shirt that said FUBP and had BP's logo leaking oil. I thought at first it was leaking blood, which also would have been tragically appropriate. Then again, I'm a sucker for shirt stores, like moms for infomercials. I should save some money.

Driving took longer than I thought and soon we were back under cruise control with blackness ahead of us. I called and got a reservation at a hostel The Abominable Snowmansion which was close to the Earthship community. So we plugged the address into the GPS, which we had been barely using, and followed it faithfully to our destination.

Then it got darker. Then the road turned into dirt. Then the dirt became slender, a one way passage. Then it got rocky, and my car began buckling over the divots and mounds of hardened earth. Then we didn't see anything for a while. And then we arrived exactly where GPS told us to and faced a wall of dirt. With difficulty, my car still bounding like it was being pushed side to side by frat boys, Nick still swearing like an Irish construction worker, I managed a U-turn. We went up a different road and passed barbed wire fences with PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING signs so I turned around again.

Dogs ran up to the edge of the fence and barked viciously at us. We passed a house with it porch light on, and a couple of men sat in chairs, watching our car. I pictured shotguns laid across their thighs. "Keep driving," said Nick nervously.

We eventually found the Abominable Snowmansion on the way back, its name painted on the wall at an angle only people who had already passed it could see. We rung the doorbell to wake up the clerk, since the door was locked, and we checked it. The place was cozy and covered in quilts. There was a doormat being used as a towel in the bathroom, or maybe it was just drying. I curled up in my bed, thinking along the lines of "fuck GPS," "hooray!" and "my universe for a kingdom for a bed, thank god I'm not full of bullets, dog bites, or in Buffalo Bill's basement right now." Orientation was in about 7 hours and we were close by. Success.

Day Three: Illinois to Colorado

Our hangovers came at different times. Nick was oozing around like an abused animal of some kind, but became alert and clearheaded as he drove. I was uppity and eager when I woke up, but felt my stomach churn on the road.

We had squandered time. This was evident. We both wanted a full day in Colorado and we had serious distance to go. I had never been more west than West Virginia before this trip, and although I was fascinated by much of the scenery, and later, lack thereof, but I was especially anxious for Colorado.

We finished up Illinois, went through Missouri, and Kansas, and reached Denver late at night. Nick drove the day and I the night and I can sum up the day's trip in one image.


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That's it. The rest is just superfluous details, like cruise control, eyelids collapsing, Coldplay, and how Kansas City is tugged by two different states. The main focus here is the unwavering straight line that we followed, and followed, and followed, until we, or at least I, was sure it would be over soon, and then realizing there were 100 miles left. Just one road, like a beam. We could have rigged the steering wheel into a fixed position and probably would have been ok, except that we got pulled over for going 88 in a 70 anyways.

Nick had to hide the half empty beer in the back, and I got slammed with a $186.50 ticket. I had a nasty feeling that the cop just came up with a random number, possibly through some sort of game or pieces of paper in a hat.

We made it to a Comfort Inn, spending much less money than the Econolodge, and I annoyed Nick while he chatted with his girlfriend, who encouraged me to make Nick pay for half my ticket. The hotel was nice, although we couldn't help but laugh how the note-from-management sign by the bathroom mirror was glued to the wall upside down.

One thing I forgot to add. My friend Mary mentioned once how amazing the stars were in Colorado. "The stars!" she wrote years back. As I drove, it was extremely difficult not to look through my open sunroof, into which Nick was gazing, and just watch them. They were so many and so near it didn't look real. It was as if the sky had been lassoed and yanked closer to the ground. They covered the sky, and if I wasn't driving I probably would have reached my hand out and grabbed them by the cluster. It was better than any concert lightshow or Media Player visualization. It was terrific.

Day Two: Ohio to Illinois

As we drove out of Ohio, Nick and I talked about countries and how when you travel you see what you love and what should be changed about America. In Uncle Sam's residence, you can usually count on punctuality. Trains, planes, buses show up on time, and when they don't, so many people complain that they get their shit together pretty quick. In America, or at least in major cities and especially in Maryland, if you're in a jam, if you are just shit out of luck, if you're half naked and plastered and standing lost on a dark highway somewhere, you can always find your way home. In Turkey, my family and I ended up traveling to Cappodocia several hours late because the staff didn't know how to use their computer. In Spain, my train was delayed 2 hours because someone jumped in front of it, and I had to hop on to other trains with seven others like a refugee. I'm not saying it wasn't fun, I'm just saying it's not likely to happen in the U.S. We're stricter about being somewhere on time. We're nuts about it, actually.

I mentioned to Nick that Americans, unlike many Europeans, have serious personal space, like a bubble, yet we also constantly involve ourselves in other people's business. Kinda odd. Our drinking age is absurd and worthless, but I could discuss that for pages so I won't.

We drove through Indianapolis and decided to stop and walk around. We drank at two bars, the second one being modeled after the movie Escape From Alcatraz. There, I had two drinks, each a brilliant blue, and our waiter was a guy named Deon who is exactly the fun yet chill kind of fellow you want at a party.

Everyone, meaning 50% of anyone we passed or saw, was wearing a Colts jersey. Everyone, closer to 75% this time, was white, and fat, and unfortunate looking.

We went on a wild goose chase trying to find a Walmart where I bought underwear (out of anything I could have forgot to bring, I forgot that. Nick forgot toothpaste but brought his brush) and a Colts jersey.

Showing up at St. Louis, we found the sketchiest place called the EconoLodge. Rows of rooms, dim lightning, flaking paint and the closeness of a nearby, dark highway, we approached and got a price. It was over a hundred bucks but it was so close to a strip that contained bars open till 3 AM we couldn't resist. He told us that there were three smoking rooms available and we took one. As we were paying, two black guys, stumbling and slurring a bit, came into the room. The hotel clerk instantly calls out to them and tells them that we took the last room. Looking back it was pretty funny, just at how blatantly shameless people can be, but at the time I couldn't look anyone there in the eye.

We checked into the room, reeling at the smell. I went into the bathroom, which had an equally terrible stench. "I wish this smelled like poop," I thought honestly.

We found the strip of bars and clubs and were delighted to find that they were indeed open till 3 AM, unlike Maryland and DC. I know for a fact we were at one bar and one club, but the details of what else happened are hazy with the rum and cokes, $1 Coors Lights, and jagerbombs I ingested. I do recall a blue-shirted girl come up to me and asking if I knew Rhianna. I had no idea how to answer that question, so I said no. Her name was Britney and told me not to call her Britney Spears, so I told her not to call me Clay Aiken. I don't know if we talked about anything else. But why do conversations like this only happen when people drink? Try going up to someone in a grocery store and ask them if they know a famous singer and see if they'll respond or just throw up their hands and walk away, maybe leaving their cart behind as an obstacle.

Nick and I came back separately, neither of us trusting the bedsheets of the Econolodge, and slept on top of our sheets. I used my leather jacket as a blanket.