The Land of JD

July 13, 2008

Back.

We're back. (Sigh.) The entire batch of photos is here, but here are some highlights. If you know what you're looking for, you'll see friends Tony, Suzanne, and Michael here and there, along with the usual Shirl-Big Guy-The Man shots. We covered pretty much all of the northern tier of Wyoming, along with a dive into South Dakota (for the Black Hills, but more importantly for Sonic in Rapid City and Culver's in Spearfish, which Tony may never recover from). We also hit southern Montana, not only during the drives back and forth to Billings but for the Beartooth Pass trek. It was a fabulous trip, probably one of my most favorite of all the times I've been out there. The fact that it was only about 72 degrees and painfully sunny and clear the last two days made it that much harder to return to the soup that is DC in summer. Sigh.

Here's the territory we covered, mainly on three separate outings, in seven days:

And I didn't even take any photos at the Sheridan Wyo. Rodeo, or the parade!

Here's the official trip photo, I think. The white knuckles on the guardrail are a nice touch. (Taken by The Man, whose own photos will be available soon.) This is not far from the summit of Beartooth Pass, so at this point we're probably a little under 10,000 feet.

Travel | Jul 13, 2008 12:52 PM | Rant About This Rant (2) | Link to This Rant

From Another Angle.

If you travel with me, you'll see that this is pretty much what I look like 99% of the time (photos from The Man's stash):

On the other hand, check out that swing!

Travel | Jul 13, 2008 12:45 PM | Rant About This Rant (0) | Link to This Rant

July 10, 2008

On Top of the World.

Just west of Beartooth Pass, near the Montana/Wyoming border, at nearly 11,000 feet:

I've traveled a lot of miles in this country, and seen much of what there is to see, but I've never experienced scenery like I saw on US-212 between Red Lodge and Cooke City yesterday. After I pried my hands off the steering wheel, that is. If you ever make the trek, I heartily recommend driving from Red Lodge to the pass (like we did), and not vice versa. Going up was nerve-wracking enough; I can only imagine what going down would be like.

Travel | Jul 10, 2008 5:36 PM | Rant About This Rant (2) | Link to This Rant

July 9, 2008

Random Acts of Journalism

Old-pal Jeff of Side Salad and The Stew pressed me into service as a stringer last week to check out the opening of the Good Stuff Eatery on Capitol Hill, run by hat-wearing Spike Mendelsohn of the most recent season of Top Chef. It was outside my wheelhouse to write about food instead of buildings or zoning commission hearings, but Jeff ran it anyway, not only on his blog but also in his weekly Tampa Tribune column. (I knew giving the kid a chance at UF's one-bit-rag Campus Variety 22 years ago would finally pay off.)

In the meantime, I'm roaming around the ancestral back forty this week, taking photos a tiny bit different than my usual construction before-and-afters:

Culture | Jul 9, 2008 8:15 AM | Rant About This Rant (0) | Link to This Rant

June 18, 2008

Returning Soon, Having Returned from Vegas.

The no-longer-real-time look back at my 1989 trip report will return soon--I find it ironic that it seems harder to blog about it in the rear-view mirror than it was to do the trip itself. Then again, I'm noticing that I'm clearly in a blogging burn out phase, both here and in Hood Land. Perhaps blogging is similar to how I've always viewed darts--you only have so many posts/bullseyes alloted to you in life.

We just got back from Vegas--our first time there in 15 months, if you can believe it. And given the economy, fuel prices, and the perilous state of the airline industry--not to mention the fact it was June in the desert--I expected the crowds to be noticeably lighter than in the past, but we could hardly navigate the sidewalk on the Strip at 9:30 on a Sunday night.

That same economic outlook makes it all the more amazing to see massive Strip projects like City Center, Fountainbleau, and Echelon Place going up. And then there's downtown's Streamline Tower, which gives you fabulous views of the defunct Lady Luck and the resurgent El Cortez, not to mention the edgy "Fremont Street East District," all for a mere $648,000 for a two-bedroom.

We spent most of our time at our usual haunts. The Golden Nugget is undergoing a surprisingly nice upgrade--we spent a few nights in one of the new "VIP Floors" in the north tower, where if you like dark brown wood finishes, you're in heaven. They even had the TV-built-into-the-bathroom-mirror. But, a note to all hotels: if you're going to put in plasma TVs, then pass along the damn HD signal, would you? Main Street Station remains as nice as always, but it's time for them to get reliable WiFi to the rooms and not just in the Players Club.

No huge jackpots to report, but we did a good job of splitting our time between video poker, blackjack, and craps. (I hit four aces three times, twice for $800, but attempted without success to parlay those wins into the coveted $4,000 royal flush hit.) And, with using frequent flyer miles to get both airline tickets for free, and having four nights at Main Street Station comped (along with six meals at the various MSS/California eateries), it wasn't exactly an expensive week. (Dinner at Batali's Carnevino at Palazzo was probably half of our total food outlay.)

I'd also like to thank Tiger Woods for curtailing the number of hours I spent gambling, since it became necessary to sit in the room for most of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to watch the US Open. Good thing I made the sacrifice, now that it turns out he won't be playing golf for the rest of the year.

And Bill came in 4th in the SSSOP!

I've been boycotting airplanes since last year, so was not looking forward to the travel portion of the trip, but it wasn't as god-awful as I had feared. Except for that 2 1/2-hour delay taking off from DCA thanks to a nasty line of thunderstorms, which then didn't get us into Vegas until 4 am east coast time. But I figured out the last-minute way to snag exit row seats in each direction, so the flights themselves were relatively comfortable, except for what seems to now be a requirement that all westbound flights show a Matthew McConaghey movie. On the way home, we sat with Bruce Babbitt.

With airlines now having decided that charging to check bags is a good idea, the boarding process is even more harrowing, and the number of just-barely-fitting suitcases in the overhead compartments was unreal. Even the flight attendant was loudly bitching about how stupid it is, that now everyone's trying to stuff their entire world into a rollerbag (or, as some of us might say, gaffer-taping a twine handle onto a Refrigidaire freezer box and calling it "carry-on.") I'd yell at the airlines to charge for the damn carry-ons instead, but they're all pretty much going to be bankrupt by the end of the year anyway.

Another vacation coming up within a few short weeks, to one of our other usual haunts. Not driving there, alas. :-)

PS: Anyone care to diagnose a painful bump on the back of my skull (about ear high, in the little ridge that's back there). I was somewhat worried that there'd be a Scanners-like head explosion on the flight home due to the change in air pressure, but despite having lived through that, the bump isn't gone. Are there lymph nodes there? (I often get similar temporary inflammations in my armpit and the base of my skull based on certain lady-stuff timetables.) And yes, if it's still there tomorrow I'll call a doctor....

JDLand | Jun 18, 2008 2:56 PM | Rant About This Rant (4) | Link to This Rant

June 1, 2008

1989 Road Trip Flashback: Part 4 (Yellowstone, Glacier)

(Okay, now I really have fallen behind.)

On May 28, Memorial Day Sunday, I left my grandparents and Sheridan and headed west across the Bighorns. I made my first visit to Cody, without the tiniest bit of omniscience to foresee that in three years I'd be back pitching a tent there.

Then it was the gorgeous drive along US-14 to the east gate of Yellowstone. It was a lightning tour, at least as lightning as a tour of the park can be on Memorial Day Sunday with every RV from a 400-mile radius descending on the place. It was the summer after the huge fires, so I spent a lot of time driving past charred tree trunks. I did see Old Faithful, but stopped for little else. If I think back to that day, the aura that comes back to me is of an increasingly overcast day where it was clear I wasn't getting down the road anywhere near as fast as I wanted to. So the Yellowstone experience was not exactly a barnburner. (Oops. Sorry.) A few photos (the rest here):

I spent the night in Bozeman, pretty well worn out, and was a leetle surprised and not especially thrilled to wake up on May 29 to find my car looking like this:

You'd think, given the obsessive relationship I had with the Weather Channel that it wouldn't have been a surprise, but there it was. The drive on I-90 norhwest from Bozeman to Butte looked like this:

Even when the snow disappeared, the heavy low clouds went nowhere, and I spent most of the day trying to imagine the stunning scenery that I was sure was being hidden by the gray monotony. I skipped Missoula temporarily and turned north on US-93, and before long made my first acquaintance with Flathead Lake, which thanks to the cloud cover was the most interesting shade of green:

Even though the weather was still cruddy, I was quickly falling in love with this stretch of Montana. I stopped for the night in Kalispell, paying the ridiculous price of $52 for a room at the Best Western. The next day I was seemingly the only person at Glacier National Park, because apparently tourists aren't interested in venturing that far north in Montana when you can't even make it all the way up Going-to-the-Sun Road. But even though the clouds were still low and heavy, I spent a wonderful day on the western side of the park, hanging out on the shores of Lake Macdonald and driving as far up the road as I was able. (I also tore off a good part of my thumbnail during an altercation with my car door.)

And then, as I left the park and headed back south down US-93 past Flathead Lake toward Missoula, the most amazing thing happened. The sun came out. And this is what I saw:

The sun brightened my spirits so much that I didn't even grouse when I got stuck for 30 minutes thanks to road workers using a smidge more dynamite than they were supposed to, causing this:

I pulled in for the night at Missoula, having now driven over 4,200 miles in three weeks, and with northwestern Montana now as high on my list as Birney had been growing up. I'd be back on this very stretch of road a mere two years later on Road Trip II: Electric Boogaloo, and then finally got Bill there in 2006. You can browse all of my 1989 Montana photos here.

The next day, I continued northwest on I-90, on a fabulous stretch of highway that I took almost no photos of (and have yet to return to). I spent about 90 minutes in Idaho, even having to bail into the town of Wallace because I-90 wasn't actually finished yet. The drive down out of the mountains into Coeur d'Alene was a real nailbiter, so there are no photos of that, either. Here's my entire chronicle of Idaho:

I then crossed into Washington State, which at first was flat and agricultural and surprised the tar out of me. (I skipped Spokane.) But crossing the Columbia River Gorge was a pretty cool moment, even if the photos don't do it justice:

I spent the night in Ellensburg, where I ordered Domino's to the room and watched the cable news networks shouting about Tom Foley resigning as Speaker of the House.

Kind of an eventful three days, huh? I'm still a day behind, but this is enough for now. Sorry for rushing through some pretty amazing territory, but I think you still get the idea,

Travel | Jun 1, 2008 11:04 PM | Rant About This Rant (1) | Link to This Rant

May 29, 2008

1989 Road Trip Flashback, Part 3.5 (Sheridan and Side Trips)

I haven't stopped my Memory Lane Road Trip posts--it's just that I've "been at my grandparents" for the past two weeks. (I swore I left there on May 31 for Yellowstone and points west, but I'm now seeing I left May 28, so I'm "behind" in this recap. Oops. I'll catch up soon.)

I spent these two weeks wandering around Wyoming, catching up with relatives, including my cousin Jacque in Casper, who repaid me for a bad fuzzy navel experience at DC's old Tiber Creek Pub (which left her on my friend Brian's porch with a bucket next to her chair) by introducing me to Long Island Iced Teas, which left me in her parents' basement with a bucket next to my bed. On the other hand, the McDonald's cheeseburger, fries, and Diet Coke I had the next day as I headed back north to Sheridan are still right up there with the greatest meals I've ever had. Something about the grease and sodium calmed my tummy and hangover into blissful submission. (I also see from the trip log below that we paid $3 to see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which I have zero recollection of.)

I did a little traveling up into Montana as well, taking my grandfather to see friends of his outside of Hardin, where two of my favorite trip photos were taken:

I also went to Lodge Grass to spend the night with my great uncle Floyd and great aunt Carrie. This was right before sitting down to the fabulous fried chicken dinner Floyd made:

Shoving him into the back of the Probe (with Carrie up front) for a joy ride to Hardin was an adventure, but he sure liked that pretty red sportscar.

I left Floyd's early the next day and first went up to Custer Battlefield, on a gorgeous quiet summer Saturday morning:

The day after that, I took my first solo trip into the Bighorns, on US-14 through Ranchester and Dayton, up to Bear Lodge, down through Shell Canyon, and back. It was on the way up that I heard the CBS Radio special report that Gilda Radner had died. These are just a few of what has now become a landslide of Bighorns photos I've taken over the years:

By the end of the two weeks, I was rarin' to go.

Travel | May 29, 2008 3:39 PM | Rant About This Rant (1) | Link to This Rant

May 27, 2008

We'll Sell to You for Noooooooothing Down!

(I waited for three days to see if The Man was going to blog about this himself, but he hasn't, so now I'm stealing it.) The other night as we were heading toward sleep, and with new housing developments much on our minds thanks to the impending move of Jim and Shirl, Bill came up with one of those classic bedtime riffs, where you start getting goofier you lay there in the dark adding on to the joke.

He proposed a new housing development, with four different models to choose from, starting with the Carter on the low end, up through the Newkirk, the LeBeau, and finally the Hogan.

I said the complex could be called Hamelburg, and of course there would be tunnels between all of the homes.

And the sales people would bake streudel in the models to make sure they smell delicious.

Then Bill added that, in the Hogan model, the master bedroom would be equipped with high-tech video gear.

(Feel free to chime in.)

Culture | May 27, 2008 9:08 PM | Rant About This Rant (0) | Link to This Rant

May 21, 2008

Movin' On Up, To the East Side

The moving truck has come and gone, and the homestead of 31 years is now empty. But a new *new* house awaits at the end of the summer, one that is much further along than the one that was originally the next destination.

Here's the official final family photo on the deck (site of so many "Ordinary People" family photo ops over the years). Clearly I didn't get the navy blue shirt/sweatshirt memo:

Here are some other shots (see the entire batch here):

As for the new place-to-be, there's a few shots of it in its unfinished state here and here.

Family and Friends | May 21, 2008 6:40 PM | Rant About This Rant (5) | Link to This Rant

May 18, 2008

Stuff. Stuff Everywhere.

I'm finding out the hard way that I never completely moved all my stuff out of my parents' house, even though I last lived there in 1993.

Over the past few months, as Mom has been cleaning out her stuff, bag after bag of my stuff has been discovered and passed to me.

For a combination pack rat/historian/overly emotional doofus too attached to items of the past, it's all priceless, though some of it moreso than the rest.

One of the first finds was a gym bag buried in the attic that contained just about every letter I received between 1977 (when we arrived in Maryland from Michigan) and 1989. Elementary school friends left behind in Grosse Pointe Park, grandparents and great-aunts and -uncles, high school friends off at camp for the summer and then far away at other colleges, Gainesville friends keeping in touch when we were home for summer vacation, etc.

Then there was the trunk that had been hiding all of my college folders and notebooks, and even some from my senior year in high school. (Piled on top of each other, they measure a foot-and-a-half high.) Also unearthed were the scrapbooks of newspaper clippings I made when John Lennon was murdered in 1980.

And my first bass, a cherry red and white model I purchased from the Sears catalog when I was a sophomore in college, and which was my axe of choice until I replaced it with a sleek beige and white Fender five years later. (Here's the red one in action in 1987.)

And the large cardboard folder holding about 30 old posters, mostly of musicians (some of which can be seen in various Gainesville apartments here and here and here). Not to mention more than 100 LPs. And store-bought *Betamax* versions of "Under a Blood Red Sky," "Police Around the World," and other music compilations.

And of course assorted books, textbooks, and workbooks.

I'm thrilled to see a lot of this stuff again--it's just that our little Capitol Hill victorian rowhouse was *already* filled to capacity before this started.

For years, it's pretty much been a zero-sum game--if we buy something, it's pretty likely that something else is going to have to go to make room for it. And obviously I have a pathologically hard time parting with anything--I can't even bring myself to get rid of my old photo albums, which take up a ton of space, even though all of the pictures have long since been scanned and uploaded to Flickr. (Ditto with irreplaceable diaries and journals, which I scanned back in the post-9/11 haze when I feared being chased from my home on foot carrying one bag, never to return to the nuclear-attacked landscape.)

It would be hard enough clearing current stuff to make room for my new piles of papers and other crap that probably isn't worth keeping but that I can't get rid of just yet. (There's also the "this is too fragile/precious to trust to the movers/storage" stuff that has arrived on my doorstep, but I can deal with the temporary overflow from those.) But there's been an added wrinkle during Mom's Great Purge--mementoes from 31 years in that house, where she asks, "Do you want this? If not, I'll give it away/throw it out."

Like the box full of the old family Super 8 movies, some of which are in fabulous old-school tin containers. We had these transferred to video eons ago, but how can I toss that box? (I did manage to tell Mom to take the projector itself to Goodwill.)

Or the board games that Jamie and I wore out growing up, including the classic "Lie, Cheat, and Steal--A Game of Political Power." (She cleaned out most of my Barbie stuff years ago, otherwise that would be shoe-horned into my house now too.)

At the Last Blast party last summer, she put a bunch of the tchotckes on a shelf and insisted that every party guest take at least one item home. (That's when I snagged Chicken Head.) So at least some things have gone where I can visit them. (Like the wrought-iron bar from the back patio where so many windjammers and margaritas were made, which is now at a friend's house.)

It's not like they're moving to a one-bedroom apartment, so a lot of stuff is being kept. But watching the decisions get made, knowing that some day I'll be having to make a new pile of decisions about all the stuff they still have that's truly treasured, and looking around my house at all the stuff here, and knowing that there's a house in Wyoming chock full of touchstones, too, it makes me basically never want to buy anything again ever. Because it's easier to never have it than to have to eventually get rid of it (or make someone else deal with getting rid of it), and to have to get rid of something I already own in order to have space for it.

And, as I believe it's been said, you can't take it with you.

At least I have good timing on this not-buying-anymore-stuff mindset with the economy tanking. And the Prophet of Doom thinks that in not too many years we're all going to look at all of this crap that our society has accumulated because of all the space to fill in our McMansions and wonder what the hell we were thinking. At least the papers from my 11th grade Algebra II class will make good fuel for the fires that we'll need to set to keep warm when oil is $300/barrel.

UPDATE: This NYT piece about the "voluntary simplicity" movement is going a little farther than I'm willing to venture, but is still timely: "Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys. Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May." (Then again, I'd note that most of my possessions that I'm trying so hard to keep aren't really worth much except as sentimental Proust-like madeleines.)

And Cathy, from a few days ago:

Me | May 18, 2008 10:24 AM | Rant About This Rant (3) | Link to This Rant

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