S idewalk Tour: US South '09
Skate Travel Journals
March - April 2009
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Sidewalk Tour 2009
Northwest: June 2009
June 14
Away from Curb: San Carlos CA
June 15
Sore Ride: Mission, SF CA
June 17
Travelin' Feelin: Scrmnto CA
June 18
Portland Exurb: Wst Linn OR
June 19
Assistants: Corvalis OR
June 21 1 PM
Blankenship: Wst Linn OR
June 21 3 PM
Old Village: Wst Linn OR
June 23 1 PM
Vineyard Hill: Wst Linn OR
June 23 2 PM
Vine Row Ext: Wst Linn OR
June 25 9 PM
Street Fair Daring: Ptlnd OR
June 25 1 PM
Oregon Stick: Wst Linn OR
June 26 2 PM
Skate Canvas: Ptlnd OR
June 26
Green Room: Ptlnd OR
June 28
Mtns in Mirror: Ptlnd OR
South: Mar-Apr 2009
March 26
Bus Sta Hill: Akron OH
March 27
Bushwhack II: Nashvll TN
March 28
Tornado Misses: Nashvll TN
March 29
Seeking Music: Nashvll TN
March 30
Bridge to Music: Nashvll TN
March 31
Vibrated Dn Beale: Memphs TN
April 1 11 AM
Sightfeeting: Memphs TN
April 1 2 PM
Vance St Sights: Memphs TN
April 1 9 PM
Vance St Bank: Memphs TN
April 2
Stax Pilgrimage: Mmphs TN
April 4
One More Chance: Nashvll TN
April 5
Weimaraners: Pducah KY
April 6 4 PM
Leaving Kentucky: Pduch KY
April 6 9 PM
Econohound Lodge: Pduch KY
April 7 7 AM
Early Roll: St. L MO
April 7 1 PM
Piano Roll Seance: St. L MO
April 8
Hound Hotel Nt 2: KC MO
April 8 6 PM
Bushwhack Finale: KC MO
April 9
Not Without Regret: KC MO
April 10
Over the Rockies: SLC UT
April 10 6 PM
Layover: Oakland CA
East: March 2009
March 12 5 PM
Plan A: Verrazano Bridge
March 12 8 PM
Plan B: Trenton, NJ
March 14
Uneasy Exurb: Wallghm, PA
March 16
Station Hill: Wallghm, PA
March 16 1 PM
Boardwalk Wind: Atl City, NJ
March 18
Wind Shift: Atl City, NJ
March 20
Wide Streets: Atl City, NJ
March 20
Boardwalk Sleet: Atl City, NJ
March 20
Inky Lake: Atl City, NJ
March 22
Drex Hill: Phila, PA
March 23
Penn Hills: Western PA
March 23 11 PM
Bushwhack: Pittsbg PA
March 24
Warhol Skate: Pittsbg PA
March 25
Dinosaur in Mist: Pittsbg PA
Oct 2008-Mar 2009
Oct 24
Finding the Rt: Queens-LIC, NY
Oct 27
First load bearing trip: LIC, NY
Nov 4
Election Day: LIC, Manh NY
Nov 28
Black Friday: LIC, Manh NY
Dec 2
Memento Crypt: LIC, NY
Dec 6
Tall Loads: LIC, NY
Dec 17
The Rainboard: LIC, NY
Dec 22
The Ice Sheet: LIC, NY
Jan 12
The Vacationer: LIC, NY
Feb 2
Poles & Bric a Brac: LIC, NY
Feb 9
Butcher Block: LIC, Manh NY
Feb 13
Wind Alert: LIC, Manh NY
Feb 18
Sleet Skate Shoot: Manh NY
Feb 19
Sleet Footage Hack: Manh NY
Feb 23
Familiar Load: LIC, Manh, NY
Feb 24
Crowd at Bay: LIC, Manh, NY
March 3
The Ice Sheet Returns: LIC, NY
March 6
One Man Band: LIC, Manh, NY
March 11
Villa Straylight: LIC, NY
March 26 to April 10, 2009: Travel in Southern United States
Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, then west to California
Lit bridge and pedestrian path, Nashville, TN
Thursday, March 26, 2009 - Hill Spotted at Akron Bus Station
3.26 Heading south on the bus. I made a mistake last night that I should tell you about, it might save you. I ate something greasy. An open faced sandwich with strips of meat and a greasy piece of bread trammelled underneath. I guess I wanted to get some authentic Pittsburgh regional food before I left. I've been eating these MacDonalds salads which are very high quality, and when topped with grilled chicken, a balanced meal. Should have had one last night. For many individuals who lack a cast iron, disinfectant coated stomach, when travelling it may be best to find some boring food item that sits well in your stomach and eat that over and over, as opposed to sampling the many gastronomic delights of the region. As pointed out in the book Mexico: The People's Handbook, you often get sick after eating something greasy. The author would avoid greasy cooking, violating the rule if he was invited to dinner at a Mexican family's home, when he would risk getting sick to better the friendship. I wasn't bettering any friendships by risking the Blue Plate Special, and a look at the other diners' plates told me it was greasy. While at the hotel, I passed most of the offensive material out without throwing up. Although, perhaps it would have been wise to induce vomiting. One trip to Paris I was sick after eating at a touristy restaurant. I tried to puke it all up and was glad I did. I felt ok the next day. This time, in Pittsburgh I didn't throw up. I have nothing against vomiting when it suits the occasion. It just slipped my mind that it might be a good idea before a bus ride.
In the morning I ate cream cheese and chocolate bars, which slow the system down, and I didn't have any problems on the bus. It could have been a brutal bus ride with a slightly more powerful parasite.
Hill and runout at Akron bus station
At the Akron bus station there was a nice hill with a moderate top and beautiful recently paved gentle runout. You couldn't ask for a better hill at a bus station. The station design was very elegant, with struts on the roof, clean white panels touched up with understated red paint. There was a smooth sidewalk leading up to the hill. The only thing wrong with this remote hill is buses come down it frequently. I skated it a few times with my pack and guitar. I traversed three times at the top then carved it. I dont think I would have skated it much differently with no load.
Buses entering the station get in the way
Skate tip: When carrying lots of weight, traverse at the top of the hill. Track a squashed S pattern. This means skating straight across the hill, arcing uphill slightly at the middle, then drop fully onto the other rail and bring the board around in a sharp turn which arcs past the downhill angle, and ends with you in another traverse across the hill. For a steeper hill there is a traverse technique where you stop at each side. When I do a hill this way, I'll describe it.
Travel Tip: Avoid strange food before a travel day. Always avoid greasy food when traveling. When food poisoning is suspected, consider inducing vomiting. It may save you days of discomfort.
Nice design aesthetics at Akron bus station
Friday, March 27, 2009 - Bushwhack II - Nashville
Grassy bank by a bridge over the Cumberland, shot 3-28
3.27 When I arrived in Nashville I felt pretty strong and it seemed I'd left the Blue Plate Special bug back in Pittsburgh. I didn't think it would be hard to find a budget hotel. They're usually outside the center of town. A longboard is the perfect means to find them, because you can do some skating to speed up the process and you can scan the horizon to see hotels, as opposed to being walled up and ging too fast in a bus or cab. A hostess lady in the posh Station Hotel gave me a map and put a few marks on it to show the way to a hotel out by the stadium, east of downtown and on the other side of the river. The skate over the bridge wasn't too bad. It had a nice sidewalk bordered by grassy banks, and no gap to lose the board into the brown sleepy Cumberland River. It was pure fun and adventure at first, but then it started raining. I poncho'd up and pushed on.
The most visible hotel was the multi story Stadium Inn, but as I drew near it looked pretty run down so I fired up the phone with its little internet screen and started reading reviews online. They all seemed to condemn the Stadium as a flop hotel or even a crack house. Finally a shorter less visible hotel appeared which turned out to be Ramada Inn, which is a reliable mid price brand. I skated up to it across a parking lot and was ready to relax in a nice but somewhat pricey room. I was disappointed when the lady at the desk announced no vacancy. She suggested the Days Inn down the road. "Down the road" means a short drive that may be vastly distant or inaccessible if on foot or board. I headed off in the direction she said and soon found myself walking along a highway. By this time my stomach was feeling upset again, the rain was picking up, and I was thinking I might have to return to the bus station and give up on Nashville. It was another skate tour bushwhack, like Pittsburgh, but it seemed like I might not prevail this time.
I went into a convenience store and got pointed in another "down the road" direction again. I could see the Days Inn and headed toward it over another highway type road and started to bushwhack along the exit ramp skating with difficulty over scattered gravel. I was on elevated ground and could see the clientele at the Stadium Inn who looked pretty depressed and raggedy. Things were looking up as I descended toward the Days Inn sign and regular skateable streets. As I drew near to Days I saw another place, the Knights Inn. I inquired at a convenience store in front of it if Knights was ok and they gave it a good rating while confirming that the Stadium was low class, but very cheap. So thats how I found the Knights Inn, a genuine budget hotel in Nashville. This method of inquiring, wandering, and charging ahead is the way I have found good budget hotels. I had a great advantage over the bushwhack in Pitts because I was searching in daylight, although growing wet and sick.
When I got to the room I spent some time in the bathroom trying to get the Blue Plate bugs out again. That's when I started wishing I'd thrown up as much as I could in Pittsburgh. I guess I was trying to retain some nutrition, a misguided thought.
I napped, but woke up too late to go into town or even to get anything at the convenience store which was closed. I went into the lobby and got some cookies out of a vending machine. Time 3:40 AM. The time zone change from western Pennsylvania threw me off even more.
Travel Tip: Bushwhacking or hotel hunting on foot with an early start can yield bargains. Head away from the town center. Ask in other hotels and stores. Check online customer reviews.
Saturday, March 28, 2009 - Tornado Misses, Bank Gets Hit
3.28 The 27th was shot traveling but by late morning the 28th I was ready to go into downtown Nashville.
I took a different bridge in, the one right near the hotel and farther north from the green banked one nearer the stadium. It passed over a strange riverfront housing complex, almost submerged in the Cumberland current. It couldn't have been luxury riverfront property. The road in was long, straight, and for the first time in memory, warm. I was in the south after all. I savored the skating, back tracking on a hill for a few carves until some traffic pushed me back on course. I arrived in downtown on the highest part of town. It seemed like Nashville had a lot of incarceration. I passed a court, a jail, and on the other side of the river I'd seen juvenile court.
Late afternoon. I intended to focus on music here but good skating abounds. Today on the way to the museum, came across this pefect bank, a wave shape spilling down from a parking lot, downhill a bit, on the backside direction. Pretty good transition with parking blocks along the top. I hesitated a bit because my stomach was pretty upset. I was nowhere near a hundred percent here. I was fighting an intermittent but strong desire to run to the bathroom, and here I was contemplating throwing my body up a wall while bent way forward. I couldn't back down though, it was too good a spot. The transition was pretty smooth and I wouldn't have to hit it hard to ride up it. I planned on giving the bank one or two whacks, meaning sharp climbs, up it in the backside direction, meaning I'd be leaning down the face with my back to it. I ended up giving it three whacks going downhill.
Another feature was on second whack I had to skate between a tight slot between a big planter and a parking block. The last whack was up a smaller bank and ended in front of a pole. There were lots of possibilities.
This concrete wave had a lip of blocks on top. I tried to figure out if other skaters were there. There was evidence of skating on the first block leading to a wall, some wax. But looking closely it looked old, too sticky, ants on top of it. Maybe last skated before the winter. I had it to myself today, no question. On the last run I held the cam in video mode and gave it a run to document it. I suppose I could have set up a self portrait but holding it was good enough. Thought I skated it pretty well, for boots, stomach upset, weak, and holding a cam. I didn't overstay at the bank. At these Nashville spots I tended to spend 15 minutes skating then moved on.
Bank bordering a parking lot in downtown Nashville
At the Country Museum I had to head to the bathroom, which mercifully was very clean.
As part of my music research project for the tour, exploring country music and country guitar playing, I looked at an exhibit on the Williams family. I mostly focused on the Hank Williams Sr. part and learned as much as I could. I also looked at the John Hartford exhibit, which featured his hand written lyrics to Gentle On My Mind. That song meant something to me, because in grade school a girl had played it on the piano and I always remembered the melody. I had, however, never given much interest to the lyrics. I read them now and was impressed, perhaps stunned at their insight and message.
After visiting the Country Music museum I was heading back to the hotel when an alarm went off, like an air raid siren. A few people looked like they were nervous and headed into the visitors center, and a lot of others just kept walking. It was the first time I'd ever heard a tornado warning. I went deep into the visitor's center and sports complex and sat working on my inventories until the all clear was sounded. I kind of regretted not getting a look at the bad Tennessee weather, because it seemed to produce a lot of water. I would have liked to compare it to a New York downpour.
To follow up on the museum I looked in at a country music bar called Robert's and watched a guitar player named Chris Casselo, who could play any style of music, rockabilly, surf, bluegrass, pedal steel, and others. I had a combo with a beer, hotdog, and moonpie and was able to keep it down although I didn't take more than a couple of bites from the moonpie. It was warm, but maybe that's how they serve moonpies in Nashville.
Sunday, March 29, 2009 - Seeking: Music. Finding: Skate Spots
3.29 More good skating, just chancing upon it. On the way to the combo truck stop, convenience store and restaurant, the parking lot is full of nice skateable objects. Painted curbs, angled curbs, curbs that bank up to some grass. I goofed around a little before and after breakfast. Wore skate shoes too. My ollying is terrible, banged my shin trying. I'm working on a no comply which would really help to have, since it's a way to flip the board up with one foot still on the deck, it should make for faster curb and gap hopping.
Parking lot, curbs, and blocks near the truck stop
I found I prefer the grass banked bridge, the first one I came across on. Although it's not as close as the north bridge, from the hotel, board makes it easy to get to, just a ride down a long straight street, some clatter and some smooth, leading to a bank where you can climb up to the bridge. On the road, you can brave the traffic, which isn't thick but comes fast from behind, or you can take the sidewalk, pretty clattery and gappy.
The grass lined bridge is generally a nice skate route. I found a functional way to use the attractive grass decor. Going downhill on the way east out of town I would swerve way over, roll up on the grass to slow down.
Grassy "braking" bank east of downtown Nashville
On the hills on 7th and 8th starting way above the bus station and all the way down there were several good features. There was a beautiful downhill parking lot with a bank on one side. I didnt get much out of the bank, but skating the lot was fun, big carves, fear of skidding out, no cars.
Downhill parking lot in downtown Nashville
Lower down there was a nice sidewalk with driveways to swerve into and take off speed. There is a lush lawn across from the bus station, maybe the nicest corner opposite a bus station ever. Some funny insects or beetles were doing a mating dance on the sidewalk, which I puzzled over for a while.
After skating around a bit I went to hear some music at a place called Rippy's, a rib place. They had two acts in rotation every four hours, like at Robert's, only this place had duos and not ensembles.
The guys were great singers and players, Tom Stewart and Lyle. Tom was an acoustic finger picker and flat picker, Lyle more of a lead electric guitar player. The highlight for me was when they played Gentle On My Mind, since I had just seen the hand written lyrics by John Hartford at the museum. I listened to the lyrics which I believe are about a man's disdain for legal contracts and binding tradition including marriage. It's kind of a daring lyric if you look at it that way. Maybe Glen Campbell's smooth version of it disguises that negative part of it. I hung around for quite a while and had drinks. I didn't stay for the second act, another duo. instead I loked in at Robert's again and heard Chris Cassello, this time fronting the band with no violin or second guitar. I could hear him better than yesterday, which was good.
Monday, March 30, 2009 - Bridge to Music Options
3.30 Yesterday I tried another route into town. On the recommendation of the clerk at the Knights who kept calling me "brother" I skated the pedestrian bridge at Shelby. Kind of a chore going over into town, all uphill. A bit of downhill at the end, then some scaffolding that had to be walked. The path is a central sidewalk sunk between curbs. There was a funny red sculpture to the north, like a piece of roller coaster.
Pedestrian bridge at Shelby, heading into downtown Nashville
Now coming back, that was nice. Lit up in a silver scaffolding tunnel. Lots of downhill. Fairly wide, but couldn't quite slalom it. Pretty fun to footbrake it though, and the road after the bridge through the park and past the stadium was great. Excellent speed to be had, many pushes into a fast coast, all the way back to the other bridge, past the juvenile hall. Then I hit 1st street which is a bit rougher, the rest of the way back to the hotel.
Pedestrian bridge at night, leaving downtown
Today I went back to Rippy's and saw the guy Darrel O'Donnell play, the second rotation artist who I didn't wait around to see yesterday. He was at least as good a singer and an even better player than the other two guys. He broke out a banjo at one point and took a long time to tune it, plink plonk. Finally he was ready and let loose with a flurry of fingerpicking and did a full speed perfect rendition of Flatt and Scruggs' Foggy Mountain Breakdown. His accompanist guitar kept up with the tempo just fine. It's just another example of how many good musicians there are here, that a corner rib joint has two world class guitar duos in rotation on Sunday and Monday afternoon.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - Vibrated Down Beale St.
3.31 Example of how a notable spot can be experienced through the sense of touch, through the feet, amplified by the resonance of the sounding board that I carry with me on a shoulder strap and ride from time to time.
Beale Street certainly looked like it had some great honky tonk neon signs, some nice bluesy sounds and some colorful locals. But it was on a hill, and barriers blocked traffic, therefore it had to be skated and seen from the perspective of a downhill cruise.
I walked to the top of the hill and put the board down right behind the traffic barrier that bore the famous street's name. I didn't think much of it at the time, but this was to be a very unusual skateboard ride. The painted cobbles on Beale are square like bricks. They are painted a shade of baked bean brown and all the cracks are worn so that the mortar sits down from the brick surface. They are skateable, but clatter in a rattle like an outboard motor.
Descending the hill in my usual squash helix pattern, I was interested to feel the clatter change as I turned. Since they are layed widthwise across the street as if the street were a brick wall, going straight down I'd hit a lot of bricks. The clatter was constant, loud and almost unbearable to the feet and skeleton, and the speed was cut to a minimum. As I turned away from the middle of the street toward the curb, I'd catch the bricks at more of an angle and the clatter would lessen and the speed would pick up, so much so that I felt like the rear wheels were going to let go. That would 've been embarrassing, because a lot of eyes had to be looking, since I was totally alone out in the middle of the road. Each turn went in a pattern of changing frequency from high clatter going down modulating into a lower and less frequent clatter swinging across and coming around the corner into the new arc. Along with the sonic, the visual and tactile experience was weird too. It was like surfing some brown muddy lake standing on a magic fingers vibrating massage board as the cobbles passed below.
It turned out that it was fitting that I'd turned historic Beale Street into my own personal test performance spot. I soon saw that other performers, gymnasts and dancers, use the brick surface to launch their own interpretations of downhill movement.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - Vance St. Sights and Skates
4.1 Skated along Vance St. and side roads and found lots of sights and skateable features and terrain.
Churches of all shapes, colors, and sizes abound in Memphis. This Vance St. church sat near the kind of wall that gives you that wave wall feeling. You can run your hand along the top as you're saying a prayer to Saint Urethane, the patron saint of skate tourists.
Nearby there was a bank driveway, parking lot with parking blocks and a row of stately hearses. The parking blocks were skateable but the pavement was so rough I couldn't skate the bank, it rattled my teeth.
Near the church was a beautiful untrafficked gentle hill, with smooth pavement, by Memphis standards.
An odd purple palace at the end of the Vance hills
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - Sightfeeting in Memphis
4.1 The first thing I noticed about Memphis was the quality of the pavement. It's very rough. It seems to have a high rock and pebble content and it just has a very scratchy quality when I ride it. The sidewalks have wider than standard cracks, unfortunately, so there's no escape from the road up on the curb. I've found that if I can hit the crack at an angle it's not so bad.
So there, my first impression, colored by my main activity as a traveller.
This skate tour project has had as a biproduct a whole new method of receiving impressions of a city-- through my feet; sightfeeting I call it.
Perfect ditch like alley in downtown Memphis. I skated it back and forth like a shallow snake run.
I skated and walked on an esplanade by the Mississippi. There is an island in the middle, Mud Island, that makes the river seem much narrower. Imagine skating this bank, one mistake, and you'd be in the muddy Miss.
A steamship tour boat near the esplanade
Rolling down the esplanade
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - Vance St. Banks
4.1 Evening. On my first encounter with this bank in the daylight, I didn't shoot pics because I didn't think I could skate it. I've been taking the approach that I won't post pics of a bank or spot that I didn't skate. I thought I'd have to tail pop and aggressively throw my weight up the wall to make the transition. I wasn't up for risking taking a piece off my tail, which is disintegrating as it is, risking my knees and wrists, and upsetting my fragile stomach. And certainly not in broad daylight and not with cars parked in front of it.
On the way back, at night, I came to it again and it was a different story. I saw that I could skate the top part now that most of the cars had left. I blocked it out for a practice roll at low speed, and sort of kickturned down it. Then I backed up a ways and pushed and committed. I hit the bank at the top, with some speed, rode along the bank for a while backside, keeping bent way forward so it felt flat, then dropped down and swerved to stay on the narrow sidewalk. Next try I did it and rode off the curb to exit. The pole squeezed the first few feet and the Benz parked added an obstacle, but it wasn't too bad. With hard wheels you'd probably need more speed, and you'd slide down the bank if you didn't have it. But my 66 softs held with not much speed.
On the third run I descended part way then pumped a little higher before coming off. Pretty fair show and no mistakes but I never ventured anything more rad, like busting the angled transition farther downhill. Just a tour skater being a little more street, enough to where I felt it was ok to take a few shots and claim I skated this bank.
Thursday, April 2, 2009 - Campostela in Memphis: Stax Pilgrimage
4.2 My visit to the Stax museum on the site of the original Stax Records on the corner of College and McLemore was a pilgrimage all its own, with a lot in common with the journey in northern Spain to Santiago de Campostela. It was something I'd read about in New York so a visit there was a big goal for me, with the purpose being to understand more about the origins of the guitar style of Jimi Hendrix, my earliest guitar influence. If he played rhythm guitar in such a way that is widely copied, where'd he get it? Was there a way to go back before him and in so doing, get my own style from that evolutionary branch? I knew he'd picked up some chops from working around Ike Turner, and his style had something in common with Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper. The Mayfield lead was going nowhere because he played in a weird tuning and there was no sense in learning it. The Cropper and Turner lead pointed to Memphis, and the soul sound of Stax records, and there was a musuem on the Stax site. It promised to hold some good tapes, videos, and artifacts that would answer my questions and give me new sounds out of the old.
The day I planned to go to the museum wound up being very rainy. I really wanted to go, to knock off this mission, it was getting late, and it was raining pretty hard. Finally I just decided to put on the poncho and skate it. It would mess up the board but the tarp should keep my clothes dry. And there was an advantage to the wet weather. I knew it would be a questionable neighborhood and it's always better to explore questionable areas in poor weather. Trouble was I had no idea how far out of central Memphis this place was.
I headed down Danny Thomas street/hiway for ages, then asked at a convenience store. A policeman in there getting out of the rain said, "oh the 900 block, go all the way down to the light and turn left." The words "all the way" mean far. The good part was it stopped being Thomas Hiway and turned into Wellington, a road. It was much better skating. The bad part was the distance to the light, and after the left, it was far up McLemore. Not much traffic, mostly skated against traffic if the lane was free.
Normal sized large church on Danny Thomas Hiway.
I didn't alow the rain to frustrate me or affect my pace. I tried to enjoy the sights on the uniquely Memphian route. I saw more unusual house color schemes, another purple red building. Funny little grocery stores and general stores, auto repair spots.
Perhaps it's fitting that when you're on a pilgrimage you pass by notable churches. I saw several on this excursion.
A certain type of small church in Memphis fascinated me. Some like this one on Wellington are so tiny you'd never notice them except for the spire over the front entrance. I suppose it started as a house and some self employed preacher working out of his home converted it to a church.
From a distance you'd hardly notice this church
The Stax site was very cool. I suppose the best thing about the place is the neighborhood itself, knowing all these Stax musicians and Aretha too lived right around there. The sounds were there too, and footage of Steve Cropper and others showing the riffs and fills that appear as embellishments in modern soul playing. I could see some parallels between the Stax and Hendrix rhythm guitar parts.
Coming home from Stax after the rain stopped, down Wellington and later one of the side streets, actually was glad for the Memphis pavement. I'd learned I could look for a rough patch of pavement while carving downhill and slow down by intentionally heading right into it, turning across it.
My pattern of skating Wellington was to use rapid speed control turns, then break into bigger turns down hill and look for a rough patch to help slow down. I put up my hands for balance and style. The various residents of these black Memphis neighborhoods seemed surprised to see me and my swerving approach to their drying streets.
Later that evening I was on Beale and was starting a leisurely walk home when it started raining again. Thunder boomed, the sky flickered, and I thought, of course I have to get rained on twice, and the second wave in early evening is always the worst. I put on the poncho again. When I reached the vacant lots on upper Beale St I cursed the 60s urban renewal that knocked down Memphis history, the buildings that would have given me some shelter. I pushed on through the rain and wind back to the hotel, wheeling through an area that should have been better preserved or just left alone in natural decay, like McLemore, for me to enjoy my skateboard sightfeeting in the rain.
Skate tip: Combine use of terrain, including rough patches of pavement, with carves to control downhill speed.
Travel Tip: Dont be stopped from your mission by rain. Bad weather can be overcome by good raingear and determination.
Music Comment: If you're interested in the style of rhythm playing that is played by Hendrix in his originals and covers, dig deeper and listen to Stax musicians, Steve Cropper, early Memphis rock, Ike Turner, and Curtis Mayfield.
Saturday, April 4, 2009 - One More Chance at Nashville
4.3 I'm realizing how much Memphis history was torn down in the 60s. Beale St seems like an area that was rich, and is mostly gone. The buildings that remain dont live up to the images in photos. There's a sad attempt to mark historical spots with plaques, but the buildings are all torn down. You can imagine the resentment of people who've had their history taken away. And ironically, the regret of developers who knocked down the old buildings in the hope of making a profit in building new ones, then realizing that leaving the old ones standing, with no money invested, would have brought in more money in tourism.
4.3 Late. A bit of luck on the way to Paducah. Due to a strange hitch in the route from Memphis to Paducah, I got another chance to see and hear Nashville. Understand that Paducah Kentucky isn't far from Memphis Tennessee, it's 175 miles up the Mississippi. But it's a ten hour bus ride with a three hour layover in Nashville. Three hours, plenty of time to go into town. Hoped to get a chance to sit and listen to some more country music in bars on the two sides of Broadway that form a kind of country music bazarre. It was 2 in the morning, rushed to Broadway, and boy I was happy to see that neon honky tonk strip again. But most places were closing down. Maybe a few last rockers with chicks dancing on the bar.
That was the one thing that made Nashville come up short of New York musicwise. In the Ville they might be better musicians, but in New York they keep playing until at least four in the morning.
Well at least I got to skate the smooth streets of Nashville one more time. I rode around the hotel parking lot across from the bus station and casually surfed the wide, contoured plains of the lot. There were some banked curbs but I was carrying full weight, so I kept away from them.
Some bus rides you have a seat mate who leaves a lasting impression on you. On the Nashville Paducah bus there was a young man who talked about the regret of leaving "my baby" in Bowling Green. The baby was a nine year old daughter. He said he wouldn't be able to see her until next June. I said you mean this upcoming June? He said no the June a year and three months from now. And there was another daughter by another woman in another city, and he didn't see her much either. I said the only consolation I can say is that there are fathers who are given no visits- ever. I thought, my life is pretty scattered right now and I have no direction but bus rides around the south but this guy, his life is a mess. He has really gone and screwed his life up as much as one man could. He couldn't figure out birth control, and he couldn't figure out having a friendly and halfway practical relationship with the women who he had children with.
Sunday, April 5, 2009 - Kentucky Home Where the Weimaraners Roam
4.5 I was the recipient of true southern hospitality, from folks transplanted from Long Island NY to the area of Paducah, Kentucky. After weeks of sleeping on cots, couches, bus seats, train station benches, and hotel beds, I was indulged by being put up in a sizable guest house on farmland.
Sunset on the pond
Standing in the corn field on the property
My cousin T lives with his wife E on a good amount of acreage here, which some folks in the area use for breeding horses, some for grazing cattle, and a few for growing corn and other crops. My cousins had an atypical use for the farm, raising the noble Weimaraner.
The large amount of open space here is perfect for training dogs, especially those breeds that excel in retrieving and hunting maneuvers. One of the top breeds in these specialties is the Weimaraner. T and E have for many years successfully trained and occasionally bred these silver coated speedy animals, and I was treated to a display of the skills of their current pair, Hunter and his mother Holly. Hunter was born with three legs, a defect which unbelievably, didn't cost him a bit of speed. He's just as fast as Holly. They are high energy, bounding dogs. They have eyes that are similar to the color of their fur, which adds to the ghost dog quality about them.
Hunter, a Weimaraner born with three legs, is still lightning fast
Transporting quail for bird dogging maneuvers
Using a plot of high dried corn stalks we set loose some trapped quail and T and E led the two dogs in a simulated hunt, where the dogs would indicate the bird's exact location through tail wagging and nose pointing. Some inaccuracy was to be expected, and at one point we lost Holly's bird in the brush. Don't worry, no quail were blasted or bitten in these games. When it was Hunter's turn, he pointed out the bird that had eluded Holly, which I'd seen gamboling along like a quail olympics sprinter heading toward the house.
Holly loses the scent in the high corn
Monday, April 6, 2009 - 4 PM Leaving the Kentucky Countryside
I passed on skating this gravel driveway hill
4.6 Leaving Paducah. I didn't get to skate much here. Maybe I should have pushed myself to go skate down the road from my cousin's property. All the driveways on the land were gravel.
Back in January a giant ice storm passed through the region and left its mark on trees that were broken by the heavy coating of ice. On the way from the country to Paducah I shot a couple of pics to try to capture the destruction evident in trees by the roads.
Tree damage from recent ice storm
I tried to get in a bit of skating in town where we went to run errands and go to dinner, grabbing a couple of rides outside the Fed Ex and in the parking lot of the bus station. I snapped a couple of pics to document these impromptu skate spots. I also shot a pic of a drain outside the Olive Garden where we ate, which would have been a spot I would have liked to give a couple of whacks to. It looked just like a mini half pipe. I just would have had to get up from dinner and brazen it out in front of my hosts. I thought better of it and just loaded up on Olive Garden's carbs and left their skate spot as a fantasy.
A quick run down a Paducah sidewalk
Half pipe drain at the Olive Garden
Monday, April 6, 2009 - 9 PM Rested Enough for the Econohound Lodge
Greyhound profile not so different from a Weimaraner
4.6 Evening. In the process of mulling over my choices of what to do next, I started thinking about what an advantage I'd been given by being able to rest here on the land. That reserve of energy meant that I could easily withstand a night on the bus and maybe two, and push myself to visit two cities in two days, while saving my hotel budget money as much as possible.
The strategy of night travel is something well known to Eurail Pass train travelers in Europe. They ride trains at night, catching some sleep, then they tour cities during the day. On occasion they will stay in a hotel or youth hostel for better rest and hygiene. I used this strategy in Europe on the bus as well, and found that it works ok but not great. The reason it doesn't work as well as the train is because on buses you cant get up and walk around and it's much harder to get your own seat. However you get seated, it's hard to get in a comfortable position to sleep. On the bus it's much more likely that you'll get distracted or annoyed by something and won't get any sleep. For this reason, the surplus of rest and food I was getting in Paducah, and three days of no skateboarding and no physical abuse of carrying weight while pushing would help me in my plan to use the bus as a sleep compartment for a couple of days of travel.
I started thinking about the irony of staying in the country with open spaces where hard working Weimaraners run. After this I was heading for a lodging symbolized by a similar lean, fast, grey breed of dog. I was leaving Weimaraner Estate and making a reservation for a stay at the Greyhound Budget Hostel. The Econohound Inn. The Hound Hotel. I had done several night rides on this trip, all I was doing was planning on two in a row, and it seemed like I was fit for it.
I decided with the help of E and her computer that my next destination would be St. Louis, Missouri, and that my music goal would be to visit the home of ragtime composer Scott Joplin. After that my most likely option would be to push on west to Kansas City, MO.
Travel Tip: Use the bus as a budget hotel by catching late night buses. Dont expect to get much sleep, so only use this strategy if you are well rested and have eaten a good meal.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - Early Roll in St. Louis
Early arrival in St. Louis
4.7 St. Louis 7 AM. I didn't get much of a chance to skate in Paducah, but maybe it's just as well. I got plenty of rest and my knees and thighs stopped aching. I'm fairing pretty well with my decision to make St. Louis a day trip and use the Greyhound Hotel. I suppose it's going to be a two day stay Grey special at the Hound Hotel, because I did a late night ride from Paducah to St. L, and I'm plannning on a late night bus ride to Kansas City, MO. I did a similar two nights on a bus or train routine a couple of times in Europe so I kind of know the ropes. It's best if you do this in a place you don't have a great interest in. Because you will never really get the feel of the place; you're not there long enough and your travel perception is fogged by the lack of good sleep. In the case of St. Louis it fit the bill because there was really only one thing I wanted to see and that was the Scott Joplin Museum and historical house on Delmar Blvd. This visit would complement my visit to Stax in Memphis.
Wide corner at the courthouse
At the train station the information clerks told me that the Joplin House was in a pretty rough area and it would be safest to take the 97 bus. Another similarity with the Stax site. I rebelliously figured I could skate there and set out on foot in the early morning.
The downtown area around the bus station and City Hall was impressive for its wide streets and large park like traffic islands. As the sun was coming up I got a nice shot of the famous arch at the end of the street.
Since there were no lockers and no place to leave my bags at the station I was carrying everything. My first effort to walk with my pack and guitar drummed in how expansive the city is. Wide, wide streets and long, long blocks. I had gotten bus directions to the Joplin house but not foot directions. I asked some cab drivers and got vaguely pointed "a few blocks up." I walked up Tucker to MLK, then Cole Aves and saw no Delmar. It didn't seem easy to get anywhere on foot or on board, and Delmar seemed like it was going to be another "you cant get there from here" street. I noticed a MacDonalds off in the distance and was heading for it, when I decided the distances were too much and started heading back. I got directions from a guy loading a truck by the newspaper building. He was of the opinion that there was no way to walk up to 2658 Delmar safely, and suggested I go back to the bus stop.
After all this advice about bad neighborhoods I was convinced it was right to give up walking and found the 97 bus at the transit center. After a brief wait the bus took off. There were only a couple of middle aged ladies on the bus with me, which was good because then my board and bags didn't disturb anyone. The driver joked and gossiped in a jovial manner with the ladies, and he forgot to announce my stop on Jefferson and Washington streets. I saw the sign myself. I dismounted the bus and immediately jumped on my skateboard and headed up Jefferson. I was a bit rattled when a voice from a window somewhere above said tauntingly "hey, do a trick on that skate-bo-ard." I said "this is a trick, riding with all this weight." To which the faceless voice aggressively repeated his request to see a trick. I just pushed quickly on up the hill and hit Delmar. After all the warnings the reality was that it really wasn't far from the bus station, although it was all uphill. I knew I could skate back out of the neighborhood even with the load I was carrying around. The area seemed a bit run down and desolate, and featured huge vacant lots and some crumbling facades and faint signs of reconstruction.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - Piano Roll Seance in St. Louis
1 PM. The visit to the Joplin site was one of the great finds of this trip, as far as my music research goals. The house had an impressive collection of early twentieth century furniture and appliances, and the space itself had the atmosphere of a spacious and rustic family abode, rather than an artist's garret.
Player piano and stacks of rolls. Foot pedals power it
The roll, mechanism, and hammers in the piano
The spectacular feature was the player piano in the music room, piled with a large collection of piano rolls. Many of the rolls were Joplin compositions, although there were rags by Charles Lamb and other popular tunes such as Hello My Baby. Of interest to me were a few rolls played by Joplin himself. I can vouch that these are authentic, since Joplin used very idiosyncratic variations in the left hand part, which could easily be distinguished from the standard written score. The piano was useful to this study, as it was not motorized, but operated by pedals. The pedal power made it possible to hear the pieces played slowly, in fact, it took enormous effort to play them fast. Perhaps this was a mechanical setting imposed by Joplin himself, who always insisted in notes on his scores that ragtime "was never to be played too fast."
Those of us in the listening room took turns pumping the pedals and playing the rolls which were loaded by the tour guide. I ran through Maple Leaf Rag, which I had never heard played slowly in any recording. I also played Joplin's Something Doing, and his Old Miss Rag and saw the characteristic left hand. We also played Solace, which was not a recording of Joplin but is a piece I'm working on in my own piano playing. Not only could I hear the parts, but see them as well, since the keys were depressed as the music played, affording a view of passages if you had a sharp eye. The ghostliness of the recordings in roll format, which would be noted on any player piano, was particularly strong on the pedal piano. Since you are seated at the piano and providing the foot power, it is a kind of seance in which you conjure up the spirit of Joplin and you serve as his corporeal medium, pumping with your legs and keeping your hands near the keyboard for balance.
After the seance I exited and took shots of the building and my skate route back downtown out of the neighborhood. As before in my excursions to poor black neighborhoods in search of music history, I was not bothered. This was because either the residents appreciated my interest in the local heritage, or because I was riding a skateboard, they figured I was too athletic (or nutty) to bother, except to perhaps ask for a skateboard trick.
This hill sums up what Sidewalk Tour is all about
The kind of eroded street and sidewalk near unusual American architecture I found in this neighborhood was just the type of skate terrain I look for on my tours. The goal of visiting the Joplin House meant I had to explore on skateboard, and unusual sidewalk sights presented themselves as a biproduct of that goal. The texture and unusual concrete material of the sidewalk, cracks in the sidewalk, width of the sidewalk, and driveways off to the side made for interesting riding and excellent speed control. This street, perhaps owing to that the neighborhood was a bit run down, didn't have much traffic which made it relaxing to skate. These features were like the patina on a piece of wooden furniture that the antique buff looks for.
Flat diagonal cobbled sidewalk outside the Joplin site
Corner heading back from Joplin site, off Delmar
Later in the day I headed toward a nice gentle hill on Market I'd seen that morning, when I photographed the arch. The street, like others in St. Louis, was so wide that I had an entire lane skating down. There was a nice green island in the middle, some smooth pavement to glide on, and rough patches to use for braking.
Wide street inclines toward the arch
One other incident was worthy of note. I went back to the station and prepared to wait for my midnight bus ride and hopefully a little sleep. To get dinner first, I wanted a MacDonalds salad, that reliable meal I'd had often on this tour. I got directions to Union Station where the Mcky D's was. After a walk down to the Mississippi to the big silver Arch I headed for the golden arches, and remembered that I'd seen it that morning. I turned up Tucker and walked all the way up to Martin Luther King. The girl had described the place as a mall and food court, and it looked like a train track and parking lot. It seemed like I'd skated into another rough area. I thought of Chris Rock's advice that wherever you find a MLK Blvd, even though Doctor King stood for nonviolence, "there's always some violence going down" on that street. I walked in and asked the counter man, "Is this Union Station?" and he replied, "no it's North Tucker and Cole." It was a rougher area than Union Station, I was sure, but it was pretty much what I was getting used to in my recent travels. I enjoyed my salad and skated off down Tucker for the second time that day.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - Hound Hotel Night 2: Kansas City, MO
Leaving the bus station on the way to 18th and Vine
4.8 Bus to Kansas City. You have to look at the Hound Hotel as basically the same hotel, but each night you get a different room. Sometimes you get a good room, comfortable, quiet, good air, and sometimes you get one that seems more like a crowded stuffy bus.
Night 2 of the Missouri Hotel Hound started out very well. I was satisfied with my exploration and music research in St. Louis. I thought I'd done some fine skate tour feats, keeping the pace slow so I could go skating on two long outings in one day. I was glad I'd found the standard salad fare at MacDonalds and hadn't punished my stomach. I waited in the St Louis station, which was quite clean and had a good cafe for fuel. I topped off the salad with a muffin and a chocolate chip cookie and sipped coffee, but tried not to get too wired which would blow my chance of sleeping. In summary, I was very careful.
There was a cute talkative girl who was stuck there. It's pretty easy to meet girls by the cel charging stations, I've found. The Hotel Hound night 2 kept looking pretty good until we started to load. It was a crowded line for the bus and there were some loud and gurgly kids. I thought "how are these kids up at midnight like this, and are they going to sleep?" When we got on it seemed the kids did quiet down into the hum of the background road noise. What took their place as spoilers was I ended up sitting next to a lady who was coughing from down deep, pretty unsettling. It was impossible to get comfortable and again I couldn't sleep.
We got into Kansas City at a good hour, about 6 in the morning. All I had to do was wait until it got light and then set out to look for a cafe and the museum I wanted to see.
From the standpoint of both musician and skateboarder, 18th Street in Kansas was appealing. There were nice trees in blossom for a spring sidewalk tunnel to get tubed in. At the far end was a steep hill. The road was wide enough to let cars go by without much panic. And there were historic buildings and a great museum of jazz to explore on wheel or foot.
Brick facades and blossoming trees form a Kansas City tube
I arrived at the Kansas City bus station just before sunrise, which is a good time to arrive if you are night bus riding. After my westward bound bus boarded and reboarded and continued on without me, the station was pretty quiet. I bided my time before setting foot outside. It was relaxing enough to watch some TV and eat some snacks from the vending machines. I checked a few maps and websites on my phone's browser, got directions at a ticket window, and left the station at about 8 AM.
The weather in Kansas was great, and I found a cafe on upper 18th in the hilly artsy area.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - Kansas City: Bushwhack Finale
Town-Topic burger and rocket building down a ways
4.8 Late afternoon. Kansas City, MO. The afternoon unfolded in a sequence of events that put an early end to my south tour. The fatiguing run of cities with sleepover bus rides that didn't produce much sleep was setting the stage for the end, but this afternoon was the bushwhack finale.
After coffee and breakfast at the cafe I skated back down the hill and found my museum destination without much ado. At the jazz museum one odd thing happened where the security guard, named A, asked me endless questions about what I was doing, where I was from, and other nosy questions that I imagine southern police asking long haired guys with backpacks and skateboards. But it was pretty offhand questioning and the guy seemed more aggressively friendly rather than ominous. He was interested in my music research touring. He offered to harbor my bags and board in his office with that aspect of southern hospitality that tends to make me question southern motives. In the office he showed off his nephew's country singing on Youtube. It was good, country rock with a blend of polish and passion. I told A that I'd write to his nephew, and I intend to follow up on that.
The museum was very cool but I felt I had covered a lot of the material in my earlier studies in New York and Santa Cruz. Lately I've been playing ragtime, blues, country, and pop and not much jazz. Still, there were lots of good exhibits. I listened closely to Ella Fitzgerald singing a Jobim song and trading fours in scat lyrics. I read some of the Charlie Parker material, since he was a KC native. I saw ads for jazz camps at very reasonable prices which piqued my interest. Kansas City, like Nashville, is a place where I'd like to return for a good length of time to take classes.
I spent some time in the baseball wing of the museum, looking at the relics of the negro leagues, including the uniforms from all the great forgotten teams. I went to get my bag and board and not surprisingly A had left them locked in his office while he disappeared. I guess he either forgot about me completely or remembered me too much and wanted to be sure he could say goodbye. Either reason was a bit unsettling. In the meantime I got some advice from another museum guy wth no ulterior motives, a curator type guy who helped me search for a hotel that was in the budget range. He printed out several sheets of bus schedules and directions and stapled them neatly.
It was of course when I went to find this hotel that my luck turned. I thought of following those bus directions as I had in St. Louis, but it didn't seem too far to skate, basically up 18th St a ways then east on Broadway, no curve balls to be seen. I had been on upper 18th that morning at the cafe, and thought about looking in at some galleries in that part of the neighborhood. I had no map other than the bus maps he'd given me, but I had a good feel for the layout and the route to the hotel. Or so I thought. By this time I should have known that on this tour, the route to hotels and historical sites follows the path of trial, error, luck, and perserverence.
I skated up 18th and rolled down 20th looking for the galleries. I saw some but didn't do more than look in. Returning to 18th I found some curiosities worth photographing, a rocket atop a building that said TWA, and a little Town Topic burger joint, with a skateable bank in front. The concept of a burger being a town topic intrigued me, but it was crowded and I didn't go in.
At the top of the hill was the corner of 18th and Broadway, with skate routes in two directions demanding pics.
The Broadway hill I was about to skate following the bushwhack route
The hill on 18th I walked up to get to the top
Another battered sidewalk in a dilapidated area that to the longboard traveler is a thing of great beauty. A hill that I might have felt uneasy walking around in I felt at home skating it for the first time. That feeling of ease and knowing what I was doing was about to fade.
I headed down Broadway, assuming that twenty blocks of travel would present me with the Econolodge Hotel. Where things went wrong was crossing a bridge. This type of object or line of demarcation had often in my skate tour marked the different zones, mental as much as physical, of being on the right track and getting lost. I had specifically asked the museum guy if this was out of town or over a bridge, and he didn't think so. When Broadway turned into a creepy bridge over trainyards, with a walled in pedestrian walkway I felt a strong feeling that a bushwhack to the outer city was underway. What was this, bushwhack number three? If I didn't have the energy to plow through, it was going to be bushwhack finale. I felt Kansas City start to slip away.
At Broadway and 25th I got a sense of hope and stopped and rearranged my clothing and brushed my hair, thinking I was close and about to walk into a hotel. Then a few more blocks and the street turned into what else; a highway on ramp. It was another "you can't get there from here" street, like Boulevard of the Allies in Pittsburgh. It also revealed itself to be a road with an alias- it keeps changing names. After I started walking up the hill for what I thought would be the last leg I saw it wasn't Broadway any more it was West Penn. It'd probably become Broadway again if the pattern held up but there was no way to tell for sure. No one around to ask directions. Legs growing achy, pack feeling heavier still. I backtracked and couldn't find Broadway. I headed back across the funky footpath on the bridge.
View of hilly artsy 18th St neighborhood
The feeling of the city slipping away grew into something bigger, a questioning of the state of the whole tour. It was like entering my storage room, crawling into the corridor terminus, the Villa Straylight, sensing the closeness of the destination but knowing I could crawl endlessly and never reach it, getting squeezed into tighter suffocating quarters.
A good map might have revealed the route. It might have this to say; you can't take the street the hotel is on to reach that street, you need to take a parallel street then at the right time cut over and get back to where it becomes a street again and stops being a highway.
I started wishing I'd brought that big edition of Let's Go, because then at least you're warned about the budget hotel situation at each city. It would have been worth the extra weight.
The city slipping away feeling began to reshape itself into a deeper sense of loss, a resignation. I was a wanderer now, lost and footloose, and I had been happy. Perhaps now it was time to get found, get a destination bigger than another budget hotel. I could resign and become a prodigal son, homeward bound. I figured, if I was going to spend a hundred dollars on a hotel, maybe I should just put that down on a bus ticket to California. I realized this was going to be the third night on the bus, making it a triple Hound special, or perhaps a week stay rate. This was going to take some endurance and resolve. There was no place to take a nap or a shower, but I could eat. My stomach had recovered from Pittsburgh. I climbed one more giant hill, which seemed so fitting for an end for a skateboard tour. I went into a Denny's restaurant at the top and got a lot to eat. Then I headed back to the bus station to continue my Hotel Hound stay.
I liked Kansas City and would have liked to spend more time in that Vine St. area. But I couldn't shake the notion that I had peaked and gone over the top and was suffering from severe fatigue, physical and mental. And I wasn't going to top my discoveries of the piano rolls in St. Louis and the Stax and Soul museums in Memphis and the Hank Wiliams and John Hartford discoveries in Nashville. I was sizing up the sculpture of the music tour and it was shaping up that I'd exceeded my expectations in the other cities, and further travel was starting to seem like pushing my luck.
It always came back to the same thing, that my bag was too heavy. And I was too inefficient at locating budget hotels. Map viewing on my phone was unreliable. So that came back to the pattern of not having a powerful enough computer. Or a good paper guidebook. The tour went pretty well, but it was just too prone to disintegrate into the entropy of bushwhacking. It had a certain loose style that kind of worked, but the fatigue it caused was discouraging, and dangerous.
I looked through the Kansas City papers I'd collected. As it turned out there was a good map right in the KC guide pamphlet the museum clerk had given me. The print was a little small, but it pointed out that a route down Main St. might have worked better than Broadway. Main seemed straight and was probably the parallel route you use to bypass the alias road and the "you can't get there from here street."
Three times in three cities I had trouble finding a hotel, with a pattern of following streets that change into hiways and streets that cant be followed without a map. Also the necessity of always having to go far out of town was a reoccurring problem.
I concluded I need to take a break and go through another planning stage. I have some really good gear that has held up and worked in all weather, but it could be carried in a smaller and lighter package. My skate shoe options could be better. So could my computer setup. I need a training period, part 2.
Thursday, April 9, 2009 - Leaving Kansas City, Not Without Regret
4.9 Before I left Kansas City I sat down on a patch of grass near the bus station and had a phone conversation with my female friend and sounding board RL. In telling why I'd decided to speed up my travels, going from St. Louis to Kansas City and onward with no break, I expressed my regrets about leaving Kansas City. I told her that I had made the decision without much thought, that it had been kind of impulsive. Maybe the two nights with poor sleep wilted my decison making, more likely it shortened my patience. Maybe I should have taken a more expensive room in Kansas City, or maybe jumped into a cab to get help finding that budget hotel. I had the regrets because that jazz museum deserved a couple more hours of study, and the neighborhood would have turned up a good performance or two and perhaps a jam session.
There were some legitimate reasons for quitting my fruitful tour of the music heartland. On my mind was the coming Easter weekend, that maybe I should get on the bus before the height of the weekend traffic. Also I was thinking about getting to California before my friend RK's big party on the 15th, where I'd have the best chance in a long time to see some of my old friends. The tour budget would be better spent in Calif, in a new planning and training phase, or held in reserve for another tour leg. I felt like I'd accomplished my basic goals for the south, for now, and if there were to be visits to western states it would be better to launch a new branch of the tour from California instead of adding to this one, seeing as there were problems with luggage and gear.
4.9 Late afternoon, after a night on the bus. The Econohound Hotel is turning into Hound residency. I've been on buses now for three nights in a row. Pushing very hard to get home. I bought a ticket at Kansas City all the way to San Jose, CA, via transfers at Denver and Salt Lake City, with many stops in between. It was 215 dollars non refundable, a little more than twice the hotel rate, had I found it. The bus departed at 12:30 AM which meant that the mountain states would be reached during the day, a scenic plus.
The Kansas to Denver night bus was bad. Two little mexican guys in front of me took up as much space as three big guys. They epitomized the philosophy of "Viva Yo." They reclined the seats all the way, stretched out, kept talking and leaning over the aisle, and worst, the one next to me kept coughing in juicy and deep fits. Needless to say I couldn't sleep on that ride. Three days now with just scattered sleep.
There was a black guy next to me who talked as if he knew the route pretty well. He had a sharp eye as well and pointed out several sights including a woman getting dressed in a truck parked near the bus at a rest stop area. His commentary was "are they gonna pop out? Yes!" He kept complaining that his cel phone was "roaming." I became worried because my phone kept switching networks from TMobile to ATT to strange numbers. Ominous messages about roaming started to pop up, but only in the email section. I hoped the wandering signal was covered by my unlimited internet plan.
Friday, April 10, 2009 - Over the Rockies and Sierras
At SLC I ran from my traveling companion AM toward the bathroom. I was suffering from a relapse of the intestinal disruption that started in Pittsburgh, since St. Louis had quieted down, and after Denver had started to mount another campaign. AM got out her camera and got off a couple of snaps before I ran off. It must have seemed to AM that I was leaving her in a rush, but it was more that I was making a bee line for the bathroom. AM was being met by some super wrestling and fighting enthusiast so it didn't seem like a bad time to leave.
By the way, Greyhound bus station bathrooms range from decently clean to surprisingly clean. They were rarely a mess. The bathroom at St. Louis was squeaky clean and was cleaned every two hours or so. It was as comfortable in that stall as in any budget hotel bathroom. Along with bus station bathrooms I had also made use of many museum bathrooms and found them clean and uncrowded. In general, it's best to head for the handicapped access stall as they are the biggest and often cleanest.
Travel Tip: People will go to absurd lengths to avoid placing their buttocks on toilet seats. They will spend minutes putting paper all over the seat as a buffer. That is not the most sanitary approach. You're safer to touch the seat as little as possible, because getting germs on your hands is a greater danger than getting them on your butt. Look for a clean seat and try to not touch it, giving it no more than a quick wipe with a wad of toilet paper shielding your fingers.
As the bus got going in Denver I met a young fellow one seat back by jamming guitars. He was kind of spiritual and we talked about if you can be friends with a woman with her new boyfriend or husband in the picture. This was kind of based on the Gentle on Mind lyric, which is about not being bound by contracts or traditions, most likely meaning in romantic relationships but perhaps spanning other business or musical relationships, as I interpreted it. The guy P was heading to a survival skill class in Calif., after which he was going to Alaska. We were also talking about American indian mysticism, which I mean to look into again. My exposure to it is through Carlos Casteneda, which means I just scratched the surface. I've been into eastern style meditation, but there are techniques and rites worth adding from the spiritual practices from my own country.
Bus window frames whiteout on mountain pass
After P and I stopped jamming and talking I finally slept a lot between SLC and Reno, maybe seven or more hours. My stomach settling down had something to do with it. It helped that the bus was uncrowded and I could get comfortable in the seat. It seems that if I can rest my head against something like the seat and it doesn't vibrate like crazy I can usually sleep. Kept waking up and worrying that I was going to have to get off, repack, and reboard, but it was just fitful dreaming. We got off and reboarded once, in Reno.
After Reno I woke up and paid more attention to the ride since we were going through the mountains. Now that the sun was up and there was good light I could see what was going on inside and outside the bus. There were some young latin women next to me who'd been riding along since Denver. I finally figured out that they were young men, just very effeminate. I concluded they were Mexican boy-girls, dont remember the spanish term, but it's not perjorative. There was a town in Mexico where it's accepted and boys live as girls. I guess that culture could fit in perfectly in the bay area, which was where they were heading.
Slick road in the Sierras
There was some heavy snow, almost a whiteout in the trees along the highway. I'm sure my mountain dwelling friend AM would have considered it all a flurry at best.
Friday, April 10, 2009 - Layover in Oakland
4.10 Afternoon. California, and the stay on the Hotel Hound is up. No more nights on the bus. Waiting for the connecting bus to San Jose. I missed my transfer this morning, but maybe it's just as well. A nice warm day in Oakland, an opportune time to explore one more city before calling it quits on this sidewalk US tour.
Skateboarding in California. The oldest sports activity I can remember, and the ingrained memories seem to pop up in all my senses. The repetitive zunda zunda sound in the rhythm I remember from childhood in Berkeley, not far from here, where I first rode over a sidewalk on a board. Familiar sidewalk configurartion, smaller squares than Memphis or the other sidewalks of the south, clatter more often, less jarringly.
Looking for a place to spend part of the layover. Walked around the blocks near the bus station in search and found the perfect spot. Went into the ice skating rink cause it was kind of familiar surroundings. Another memory of an old sports activity, taken up much more recently than skateboarding. Some figure skaters, mostly girls of different ages practicing. A little chilly, but with one of my jackets on, a comfortable place to hang out for a couple of hours, drink coffee, and write diary entries, catching up on the days of the Hound residency.
When I came out of the rink it had really warmed up and I was overdressed. I passed a school playground and realized I'd found a skate spot, a classic example of a California school with banks. It seemed to be a tennis court above a lower level paved playing field. The banks looked pretty freshly paved, and no anti skateboarding hardware had been put in--yet. Two guys skating it, ollying down the bank and documenting the moves with a video camera. They told me how to get in the gate. I rolled and pumped up the bank a few times but gave it no real whacks. It seemed to be a better use of the time to shoot a couple of pics while the one skater ollied off the upper playground level down the bank. Maybe the first skateboarder I've seen wearing a T shirt, light warm weather clothing. I didn't really get a great shot of the guy in the air because of the delay in my camera. It was good enough to represent the quality of the bank.
A strange sight: skateboarding in short sleeves
