Day 4: Chicago, IL

DAY 4: CHICAGO, IL TOTAL BEERS: 1 (Goose Island Pale Ale) TOTAL DISTANCE: 0 Miles

Vince had plans that we should wake up at 9:30 for a 6-mile run. Normally I would applaud such an idea to light a fire under my ass and get me out the door for some exercise, but one of my most tangible fears came to life around 2:30 AM during the night. I woke up with a cold, and a fairly bad one. It was standard as far as my usual symptoms go. The roof of my mouth is scratchy the night before, then I wake up with heavy eyes, a few sniffles and, worst of all, an energy level about 70% of capacity.

So it went that sunny, wintry morning in Chicago. I left the house anyway, figuring that with some airborne and a couple of Kombucha teas I would be able to knock down my cold no matter how much Chicago tourism and beer drinking was on tap. We wound up only doing about four and a half, and I was moderately miserable throughout, but at least I got my legs moving. It was the first time I had run in nearly a week. The hectic days leading up to my New Hampshire departure created an environment where running was the first to go. Isn’t it funny how that happens?

I also needed to get my car’s tire alignment fixed, so I dropped it off before we ran, and walked down the street to pick it up once we got back, showered and changed. Bundled up enough to fight some of the cold, but lightly enough to travel, Vince took me out on a tour of Chicago. The walk to the L train was just under fifteen minutes, then through the turnstiles and up the stairs to the platform.

• Positives of Chicago Public Transportation: The elevated trains provide a unique opportunity to see the city from the crow’s nest as you travel through it.

• Negatives of Chicago Public Transportation: The elevated train platforms are fucking cold.

Nevertheless, after a five minute wait we were seated and Vince took over as Chicago tour guide, pointing out the different neighborhoods and infamous housing projects as we rolled toward the downtown loop at an elevation usually suited to rich people and pigeons.

We wandered around downtown for a while with Vince simultaneously describing the architecture and providing a brief history of the city before beginning our search for an Illinois beer in earnest. Downtown any city is a tough place to find a decent microbrew, but downtown Chicago, with its large financial district and high rent pushing out all but they highest corporate bidders, is arguably the toughest. At least in New York there are bodegas every block, and in Seattle you even have a brewery. I don’t go to California as a rule, but I guess that Boston wouldn’t be an ideal place, either.

Anyway, Vince surmised that if we headed south toward the less, shall we say, gentrified area of town our chances would greatly increase. As if literally demarcated in the zoning books, not one block below the loop we encountered a liquor store. Much to our surprise it was a fairly high end shop specializing in yuppie snacks, wine and European beers, but it served our purposes perfectly with one exception. Illinois state law does not allow for the sale of singles.

So we bought a six-pack of Goose Island Honker’s Ale and headed back toward Millennium Park, the spot that Vinnie had blueprinted for our uniquely Chicago photo. About ten blocks later we reached the Cloud Gate sculpture, a "110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city's famous skyline and the clouds above." Though on this Chicago dusky evening, it just reflected two dudes suspiciously holding up bottles of beer.

After deciding not to take separate photos we hollered at a nearby tourist and asked him to take the picture for us. With a funny accent, he obliged and snapped a couple of pics as we stood in front of the large piece of public art.

Two men, two beers, one Cloud Gate

And a blurry close-up

Mission accomplished on the picture front, we still needed to drink our beers and make it home. Since we didn’t feel like lugging a six pack all the way back to the North Side, we felt it best to give in the spirit of beer drinking. Following a brief consultation we offered the gentleman photographer a beer from our bag. He gave a puzzled look for a second, then answered, "sure, why not?"

I handed him a bottle, which he then immediately tried to twist open.

“"Wait, wait! Excuse me sir, do you mind if I ask where you are from?"

"Greece."

"Ahh, well I hate to say it, but it is illegal to drink in public here in America. But you should definitely take your beer back to your hotel, and thanks again."

He gave me an appreciative word for the civics lesson then went on his way. I then offered beer up to the next group of pedestrians I saw, but they looked nervous and said no. There was a good chance they were underage. Next up were two women in their late thirties.

"Excuse me, would you like a beer?" I asked.

They didn’t answer, just looked at me with the same expression that a popular girl in tenth grade gives to a nerd who asks her how her weekend was. I knew almost immediately that she couldn’t handle the question so I shot her a wide, knowing grin and turned around. Looks like we were going to have to lug around the five remaining beers.

Ah, yes. We still had to drink our share. Although logically it makes sense that we just carry the grocery bag back to the apartment and have a beer before dinner, we decided to think pimptually. In other words, we had made the decision to drink these beers downtown, and there was no turning back.

But the more pressing issue had to do with my body. I needed to piss. Vince knew of a bathroom in a nearby train station, so we walked around the sculpture, across the street and underground. On the way it occurred to me that the idea cover for boozing would be a bathroom stall.

If people like Larry Craig could solicit sex for the most part unbeknownst to the law, why couldn’t we sip a beer on the public throne? In fact, we could and we did.

The two of us walked into the bathroom with beers tucked into our coat pockets and took seats at adjacent stainless steel stalls. We went through all the motions of the heavily boweled businessmen who might normally frequent such places. Take off the jacket, hang it over the top. Rip off toilet paper for a skin/seat boundary. Make plenty of adjustment noises. The only difference is that the only thing dropping was fluid ounces of beer.

I felt it necessary to complete the activity in the spirit of the news cycle, so I grabbed my keychain opener in my left hand and offered it to Vince from underneath the stall with the key ring full fastened around my left ring finger. Turns out the bottles were twist off, and he slapped my hand away. I took the ale down beer mile style, in three long chugs, pretended to wipe, flushed, put my coat on and went back out in the hallway to inconspicuously wait for my companion.

Success.

We walked back to the L platform, which was even colder this time around, and had to wait until the third train to get a seat because of the 5pm rush, but eventually made it back to the neighborhood for a burger and a nap.

Our plans to go out that night in Wrigleyville, the youthful party area around the stadium, were postponed when I decided that sleeping off the beginnings of my cold was more important than exacerbating it in a fit of stuffy-nosed and half-hearted game toward the girls that Vince had described as blond, big boobs, Big 10 grad, and guaranteed to go home with you as long as they weren’t that cute. Let me tell you right now, saying no to that in the name of health was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.

Even after the nap, I kept it low-key as Vince introduced me to Law & Order: Criminal Intent. We watched back-to-back episodes and called it a night. After all, we had a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.

Day 3: Poughkeepsie, NY to Chicago, IL

***Fully Updated All the Way Through Chicago***

DAY 3: POUGHKEEPSIE, NY to CHICAGO, IL

• STOPS IN MIFFLINVILLE, PA; DUBOIS, PA; BROOKVILLE, PA; NEWTON FALLS, OH; ELKHART, IN


• TOTAL BEERS: 3 (Yuengling Lager, Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold Lager, Three Floyds Alpha King Pale Ale)


• TOTAL DISTANCE: 843 Miles

Another day, another early morning. Actually, it would prove to be the last of my early mornings, but nevertheless I set a 7:30 alarm (extended an hour after my sleep deprivation) in preparation for a long day solo on the road. It was cold and sunny, an omen for the trip. I filled the car and drove out to the Vassar College entrance sign to snap my New York picture, an empty bottle of Brooklyn Lager in one hand as I hunched over in front of the burgundy plaque.

The Last of My Greater New England Photos Taken, Fittingly, at a College, Vassar, Home of the Brewers

Back in the car I drove through Poughkeepsie City, crossed the Hudson River, wide as anything in the East and drove south along Route 9A toward 84 and, ultimately, Pennsylvania. Perhaps worse than my predicament in Massachusetts with the expired emissions sticker, I have a potentially outstanding warrant for my arrest in New York State owing to a grumpy cop, a mistake of millimetric proportions, a bureaucratic delay and a lost letter. Point being, I stuck to the speed limit, obeyed all posted signs, refrained from drinking any alcoholic beverages and was relieved to cross state lines before 9AM.

Sadly, my reward was Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is long and monotonously mountainous, and not very fun to drive alone with daylight fading with every new mile West and three more states to go before breaking Lake Michigan's shores.

I stopped for lunch at the first Arby’s I saw, at a truck stop just shy of the Susquehannah River in the East-Central part of the state. Truck stops these days are really something. Not only will you find a healthy collection of weary travelers, but showers, multiple scents of bathroom cologne, and a wide variety of straight-to-dvd horror films. You’d be surprised what they make horror movies about these days. Soccer teams, computer classes, adult films. At the truck stop, a killer lurks everywhere.

After ordering a small roast beef sandwich I came back into the convenience store to make a pot of coffee in my French press with the hot water from their coffee machine, buy some donuts for my coffee, pretzels for later in the afternoon, and a banana for good measure. When I stepped up to the counter the cashier was on the phone with a look of timid disappointment on her face.

So you’re not coming down today, after all? Pause. Well what about the pictures?” Pause.
I just thought you might want to see your child.

That last line was virtually in a scream, and accompanied by the phone slamming down into the receiver.

The woman, no older than me and probably younger, took great pains to try to compose herself as she spun around to help me. Her nametag said that she had worked there since 2006. I wonder if she took the job when her boyfriend left, or if this job had paid better or was closer to her home than her last job. I doubted it paid more than minimum wage, and that can’t be too easy when you got a kid and an absent father.

As if on cue, I gave her some money and hit the road, West as far as I could go.

The road went on uninterrupted for another hour or so before it was time to start to think about finding a beer to keep the dream alive. Out in Western PA the towns are few and far between for East Coast standards, and certainly do not strive to exist alongside the interstate. I finally settled on Dubois, drove south a couple miles to town, found a liquor store and then a gas station and filled my needs at both of them.

This reminds me of another obstacle in this journey. No two states have the same liquor laws pertaining to when, where and how they allow booze to be sold. Some forbid Sunday sales, others cut it off at 8 or 9 PM. Certain states allow it in gas stations, others are more strict. Going into Pennsylvania I wasn’t aware of their exact laws, but my vague set of anecdotal evidence led me to believe that six packs were only sold in bars. This put me off a bit, especially as Dubois rolled itself out with more and more small, dingy strip malls and fast food restaurants and little else.

Finally, I found a place billing itself as a liquor store, and it had opened up in the nick of time, not twenty minutes before I arrived. Fortuitously for me they also sold singles and I was able to get out of there having spend less than two bucks. I picked up a Yuengling Lager and got back on I-80.

It was a longer detour than usual to get the Pennsylvania picture. I pulled off in Brookville and played the fool yet again to the reality of congested roads near the interstate, no shoulders, and great spaces between distinctive signs. I was at least five miles down the Colonel Drake Highway before I finally came across a place to pull over near a sign reminding drivers to Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. With a quick smile and a toast of my Yuengling bottle, I tried my best to do just that.

BTB: Singlehandedly Keeping Pennsylvania Beautiful, for a Few Hours, at Least

And still, just under a hundred miles, and a few snow flurries, to go in the Keystone State.
By the time I hit the Ohio I knew that I had lost at least an hour and a half from my original itinerary between my late wake-up and two adventures in state highway babysitting. My ass was already numb from Pennsylvania and I wanted to get to Chicago as quickly as possible. Not just to reduce time spent driving, but to maximize time spent on the town with Vince, and to catch as much as the Monday Night Football game (Bears at Vikings) as possible.

I felt that pulling over quickly for my Ohio beer stop would be conducive to that mission so I looked at the map and found what appeared to be a near-in town to the interstate and only thirty-some miles into the state. Newton Falls, OH also just happened to be the hometown of a good friend of mine from New Hampshire, the excellent and well-connected AP writer for the state, Phil Elliott. It was a no-brainer. I would stop there.

As a quick aside, there is a marked difference in driving conditions as soon as you get out of New England that does not right itself until you approach the Rockies. That special condition I refer to is the location of towns relative to the interstate. In New England and the West, towns sit next to the highway so that the driver may get easily on and off during a long drive, and not have to worry about driving three miles to a gas station or a non-fast food restaurant. But in the middle of the country it is one big crapshoot.

Newton Falls, a typical Midwestern former factory town on the Mahoning River, was no different and it took me a full five plus minutes of semi-confused driving to hit the town center. Once there I stopped at a Circle K for my beers, but it didn’t have a bathroom for customers so I got back in the car and tried the next gas station. Mission half accomplished, but their beer selection stopped at the usual domestic mass brews, so it was back to Circle K where, luckily, micro brews were afoot. The selection wasn’t great, but I found myself a six-pack of Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold (Cleveland, OH), ran across the street to snap a picture in front of the road sign, and made my way the five minutes back to the interstate.

Great Lakes and Ohio. Good Beer. Bad State.

All told it was a twenty minute detour, exactly what I had hoped to avoid, made acceptable only by the delicious tasting beer purchased from it. Great Lakes, it should be said, makes the best beer available in that same stretch I just described between New England and the Rockies. Hands down. I conspicuously sipped a couple of them while listening to Bob Golic wax reminiscent on sports radio about the Browns teams of the 1980s with Webster Slaughter and Bernie Kosar relative to this season’s improbably good Cleveland squad led by DA, the Moose from Scapoose, and Braylon “B-Easy” Edwards, who has his own website with a flash intro modeled after Tecmo Super Bowl highlight reels. Did I mention that I love it when professional athletes have personal wesbites? I do.

Unfortunately, I was outside of the Cleveland sports radio market before I knew it, coinciding with the setting of the sun. What a horrible night to have a curse. Not only was I out of a decent radio zone, but it was nothing but the plains of Western Ohio and all of Indiana in the bland darkness until I reached my destination. White knuckle driving, truck wolfpacks and the silhouette of an occasional grove of trees off to the left. I called my friend Andy when I passed Toledo to give a shout out to the town where he worked on the Kerry/Edwards ticket, hit the Hoosier State and started thinking about my next beer stop.

Contrary to my failed Ohio strategy I wanted to wait a while and get a decent chunk of Indiana through me before I put a stop to my wheels. Highway signs pointed to Elkhart just over an hour in, and so it was written. It was Friday night around 7:30, and the most common noise on my radio was high school basketball. At least three FM stations were calling the play-by-play for schools like Logansport, Kokomo, Marion, and Bluffton. One of the schools was called the Hilltoppers and none of the games were particularly close. I had heard the stories and seen the movies, but now I knew it by my own ears. In Indiana high school basketball is king.

When I pulled off in Elkhart I couldn’t find any local beers at the gas stations, but I noticed a bar whose neon sign advertised microbrews and martinis. It would have to do.

The Chubby Trout. No Sexual Innuendo Intended

Of course, they sold six packs at the bar which, having never lived in such a state, still boggles my mind. Yet as the barkeep was sorting out my bottles I happened to see a large photo on the wall of the 1954 Elkhart High School basketball team on my way to the bathroom. I immediately spun around and told the guy to kill the purchase. I would be having a bottle of Three Floyd’s Alpha King Pale Ale (Munster, IN) at the bar instead. I ran out to my car to grab my camera, told them about my beer trip, and they happily agreed to act as photographer for the Indiana picture in front of mural.

Indiana, Where High School Basketball is Alpha King

Picture in hand, I sat back down at the bar, chugged my beer in three sips (which was a shame, it was pretty tasty) and headed back for the car. Step two of this stop included food, so I made the always regrettable decision to pick up some chicken mcnuggets for ease of time and purchase, stomach, health and conscience be damned!

However I don’t totally regret it because, while in line for the drive thru, the car in front of me had specialty license plates. In most states specialty license plates, that tend to cost an extra 50 to 100 dollars per year, advocate for things like colleges and children and nature. In Washington you see a lot of Husky and Cougar plates, in Connecticut they urge you to protect the Long Island Sound, and in Mass the Cape and Islands. But in Indiana, somebody paid money to have their license plate say “In God We Trust”. Glad to hear it. I snapped a flash picture to document this fact, only to have the driver stick his head out the window and glare at me.

You Know You're in the Heartland When...(Plates Blurred to Protect the Innocent)

Then, after he got his food, he pulled over to the side parking lot. I smelled a confrontation. So, food in hand, I drove up next to him in order to politely explain my actions and offer to delete the photo in order to protect his privacy. But when I pulled up, he was simply talking on the phone, and it took an awkward Grey Poupon moment to get him to talk to me, and he ultimately didn’t care, just said he was a little surprised by the flash.

Fair enough. For me it was back to the highway for the final two hours to North Chicago, past the final prairies of Northern Indiana and into the creepy night time industrial wastelands of the Chicago Southeastern lakefront suburbs, where lights and smokestacks seem to go on forever into the dark, dead night. It is Steel Country through and through, dating back to the olden days of the Midwestern Boom, and presented with a wide viewpoint from the immense Chicago Skyway.

Ah, but then things change as you hit the city, go past the loop and into the near North End and in toward Lincoln Park. At last, I made it. Vince greeted me with some Wild Turkey at the door. It was half time and the game wasn’t going well for Da Bears. We stayed at his place until we finished, then walked down to a local bar to catch the end. The game was one-sided, the bar was empty and depressed on account of the game, but it was good to be somewhere, and know I wouldn’t be driving for a full 36 hours.

We headed back to the apartment after the game, told stories and watched tv until late, and I finally called it a night five states and one time zone later.

Day 2: Brooklyn, NY to Poughkeepsie, NY

DAY 2: BROOKLYN, NY to POUGHKEEPSIE, NY

• TOTAL BEERS: 1 (Brooklyn Lager)
• TOTAL DISTANCE: 0 MILES (TRAIN TRAVEL)

Day 2 was spent mostly drinking beer and watching football with my sister, and reading the New Yorker on the train up to Poughkeepsie. By the time I got up to the 'Keeps, it was nearly 9:30. I met up with old Western Mass cronie and baller extraordinaire Jamie "Big Sleepy" with the full intention of roughing up the town, with the potential fall back plan of having a few drinks at his apartment and reminiscing. It was the case of Plan B trumping Plan A in the cosmic scheme of things, and the Gods smiling on us by causing the initial failure. Both bar in walking distance of Vassar College were closed for the night by the time we got there, so we ordered up a feast from the Asian-Mexican joint in town, walked back to the spot and told stories over Brooklyn Lager (Brooklyn, NY) and a bottle of Yellow Tail shiraz until we fell asleep. It was just like old times in Northampton, minus the drinking games, dancing and hollerin’ at bitches. No regrets, though.

That night I slept on a couch in Jamie’s bedroom, but the call of the road stuck a fork in my REM patterns. I woke up hot and restless around 3:30, and after re-arranging all of my bags for the next morning and cleaning up the kitchen a bit, I still couldn’t sleep. I headed out to the front room and scanned the bookshelf, which was mostly barren. But one title did catch my eye. It was a book on basketball instruction by Adolph Rupp, the legendary Kentucky basketball coach and alleged racist. One thing is for sure, the dude was old school.

In spite of the laborious 1950s-style writing, I was unable to put the book down and read at least forty pages, learning all sorts of things about conditioning you can’t work the boys too hard or they’ll be tired for the game, medicine it is imperative that the boys put on their full sweat suit when they come off the floor so they don’t catch pneumonia. I demand that the gym be at least 58 degrees, and technique I recommend that my players use the two-handed shot from long range because of the added power it allows. Ultimately, it was enough to put me to sleep. Thank you, Adolph Rupp, Baron of the Bluegrass

Day 1: Concord, NH to Brooklyn, NY

***UPDATED***
DAY 1: CONCORD, NH to BROOKLYN, NY (Visit link for gmaps route)

• STOPS IN: STODDARD, NH; BRATTLEBORO, VT; NORTHAMPTON, MA; LEE, MA; EGREMONT, MA; POUGHKEEPSIE, NY
  


• TOTAL BEERS: 3 (Smuttynose IPA, Wolaver’s Organic IPA, Paper City India’n Pale Ale)
  


• TOTAL DISTANCE: 241 MILES

I meant to leave the house by 8 on Saturday, but packing always takes longer than you think and I didn’t want to embark on a long journey of miles driven and beers drunk with less than six hours of sleep. So instead I decided that waking up by 8 would be good enough, and an 8:40 ETD would have to work. There were, after all, hourly trains departing from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central, which was my final destination for the first day.

The heater in the barn had been on the blink for the last two nights, but luckily I was able to crash with a girl on Wednesday, and spent Thursday huddled up next to the remnant sputters of heat coming from the kerosene flame with every blanket I could get my hands on to keep me unconscious as the temperature outside dropped into the teens and the inside approached freezing. As a result, I spent my last night at Snow Pond sleeping in Angus’ childhood bed, with Tom and his bad back out on the couch, and a sick and possibly wounded mallard sitting in a hay-strewn Tupperware container between us. No matter the case, there was a fire burning nearby all night, which made it well worth the change in accommodations in spite of the duck’s awful smell.

So Long, Snow Pond. Ye'll be in Me Heart

My car was half-packed as of 10PM Friday, but I still needed to stick in a few more bags of books and clothes before I finally set off, which I did a few minutes after my revised goal, and by 9:20 I was west of Hillsborough and had cracked the first beer of the road trip, a Smuttynose IPA (Portsmouth, NH).

Beer before noon is like beer at no other time. The slightly foul taste of an otherwise unchanged amount of liquid is our body’s way of telling us that the only times we need be drinking between the hours of 6AM and noon are on the tail end of a well-earned bender, tailgating a sporting event, taking part in college hijinks, and once in a while on a state-by-state, beer-by-beer cross country road trip. Those, however, should be done no more than four times in a calendar year.

Ten miles west of Hillsborough, three miles south of Stoddard, and eight miles east of Marlow, where I bore witness to Bill Richardson breaking the streak of the last town in the state not to have a Presidential candidate visit back in the earliest days of my Granite State journey.

“I hopped in the car, pushed into 1st and headed down 123 to 10 to 9 while the Ashuelot flowed down toward the Connecticut amid the boulders, the great herons, the deer and the turtles that crowded the road in Western New Hampshire. I had some blogging to do, and some thinking, and of course I was excited to get back to my beloved Keene. Railroad, anyone? It is Thursday, after all.”

Oh, the halcyon days of blogging youth. This morning the Ashuelot was frozen I saw neither deer nor turtle, just the roadside which was caked with thigh-high rails of plowed snow. Thigh-high, I discovered, as I stepped aside to snap a self-portrait in front of the inimitable Old Man of the Mountain highway sign, only to discover that the snow pack was not very hard after all, and I sunk in fully boot to pavement. It took me nearly 45 seconds to maneuver out, and another minute to shake all the snow out of my boots before I got back into the car. A half hour later I was saluting to my beloved Keene and all the fond memories of Menadnock hikes and Granny D sightings and nights spent in admiration of the beautiful college girls.

Getting Started with Rte 1-2-3 and the Granite State's Distinctive Old Man of the Mountain Signs (RIP, Old Man)

Now I was on a new path, westward to Brattleboro and beyond, one beer finished, and two more states to go before boarding a train to New York City.

I hit the Vermont border and Brattleboro in search of a pound of Mocha Joe’s coffee for once I was home and a cup from the store to enjoy with a slice of coffeecake for breakfast, and sadly was too early for a pint of Duck’s Breath Bitter from McNeill’s. Instead I had pre-packed a Wolaver’s Organic IPA (Middlebury, VT) out of fear that my meager twenty minutes in Vermont would all come before selling time. Secondary to that fear, but valid nonetheless, was the knowledge that I would be due for a second beer some forty minutes after the first, and potentially to be drunk at a mind-boggling chug pace, especially for pre-noon.

In broad daylight, and looking to buy myself an extra five minutes or so, I drove down Cotton Mill Hill to the lumber-clad shores of the Connecticut River for a picture next to Vermont Rte. 142. The sky was a perfect winter blue, and slightly camouflaged by cirrus clouds, as I bid adieu to Brattleboro and its great guardian, Wantastiquet Mountain, for Massachusetts via Rte. 5 and Guilford calling my old Bratt friends with triumphant tales of Flat Street. The Wolaver’s still in my lap, soon to be finished amid the forests and bogs of Southern Vermont.The Green Mountain State, with the Mighty Upper Connecticut River Rolling down toward the Pioneer Valley

My journey through Massachusetts was ostensibly three-fold. I needed to purchase a beer, drink a beer, and get my emissions checked. I had been living in New Hampshire for four months, but retained my Mass plates. Unfortunately Mass emissions checks are fickle. Two years ago the state authorized a number of gas stations and auto repair shops to officially act as bureaucrats with the power to grant or deny these annual car stickers.

Yet, in spite of the great convenience of obtaining gas at any hour of the day, on Saturdays you can only get your emissions checked in the morning, and the exact time of closing varied widely from shop to shop. My first stop, Greenfield at 11:15, turned up three shops that had all closed by 10:30. Next, in Northampton at 11:30, I found two that had stopped by 11.

Screw you, Taxachussets, I’m buying some beer. I figured it was the logical step to follow an emissions-check jilting, and perfectly enough the Liquors 44 on King Street sold singles of an old favorite, Paper City India’n Pale Ale (Holyoke, MA). Beer in hand, emissions in limbo, siren song of the road loud in my ears, I decided that a stop in Northampton for another cup of coffee and a chance at flirting with some stressed out Smith girls would have to wait until the spring.

I hit the MassPike around noon and headed west toward New York state, planning to stop in Lee for a back road to drink my beer and a town sign to take my photo. Massachusetts state highway signs are drab, simply white squares with black outlines and a number, yet the signs which announce the beginning and ending of each town are full of information citing the name of the town, the state, and even the year it was incorporated. Far better proof, I thought, for the record.

Problem is, when I got to Lee, I was met by a local cop who followed me for nearly a mile as I drove around aimlessly in search of a town sign. I finally shook him, only to find that every town sign was either nowhere near a safe shoulder or else right in the middle of a populated village.

But I carried on, skipping a couple of prime spots around Great Barrington for fear of daylight, and realized I was dangerously close to the New York border. Luckily, next to a ski resort in a town called Egremont there was a pullover right next to the border with a sign for MassHighways Project Clean. Teeth disheveled and eyes showing my stress, I parked my car and snapped a photo.

Massachusetts: The Spirit of America

Now it was just a quick split down the Taconic Parkway, stopping only briefly to piss into a bottle on a country dirt road next the highway, along some farm roads into Poughkeepsie and into the parking garage at the train station. Two hours later I was in New York City and eating dinner with my sister at a restaurant in Williamsburg then capping the night off over at Barcade and a few joints helmed by her friends.

It was a long cap, my friends, in the city that never sleeps. With no fear of last call, five am comes awfully soon, and I was on the couch trying to catch an hour or two before sunrise. An eventful start, for sure.

....
To be continued

Life on the Road

Tacoma, WA -

Just wanted to give a brief update to all you 3QHeads, I will being my Road Trip Series the day after the NH Primary. It would be an insult to all the hard work we have done on this blog since the summer to usurp it's "primary" focus any time before January 8th. Expect incremental updates as I write them, at least one per day, concluding with a full-fledged photo blog (THAT, my friends, will be the clincher). Until then, Party On!

Life on the Road, Kage, Life on the road.

The Ocean

Lincoln City, OR -

My second Lincoln of the trip. I parted ways with Brother Vince a few hours ago, and now I'm finally on the last leg of the trip up the Oregon Coast, over to I-5 and into Tacoma. The skies are a rare coastal blue, the seas a ruggedly cloud-like white. I can feel the mild, wet air filling my insides. Its a beautiful thing. I left the camera in the car when I came into the coffee shop here to scope out travel routes, but look forward to some coastal beer photos, and, in a few more days, an entire chronicle of the trip. While I'm at it, look forward to a review of Neil Young's Mirrorball album.

Life on the Road,
BTB

------------

**Update**

Tacoma, WA -

Here are some fly pics from the O-Coast, circa Newport.

First Stop: The Rogue Brewery on Yaquina Bay

Next Up: Enjoying a brew on the beach.

What a beautiful day. What a beautiful place.

The Open Road

Twin Falls, ID -

The Open Road sometimes also means the Closed Road. By that logic, it wound up that we got stuck yet again in Wyoming after about a hundred miles west out of Laramie this morning. We pulled off at Rawlins for gas, and they never let us back on to I-80 because of blowing snow and gusting winds. Out around Utah, Colorado and Wyoming the snow tends to be incredibly light and powdery. Douchebag skiers call it "champagne snow" but Vince and I figured it was more like Middle East sand. This also means that it has a nasty tendency to blow across the high plains in blinding fits with the 60mph gusts. Once it calmed down a bit, about fifty miles past Rawlins once they re-opened the freeway, Vince shot a few pics from the passenger side. Here is a toned down version of the conditions that required us to stay in Southeastern Wyoming for twenty-six hours.

Interstate 80, just West of Rawlins, WY

Luckily, weather is cyclical, and a few hours later we saw a pretty kick-ass sunset in Western Wyoming. Note the train in the center of the photo. That guy was shadowing us for a long time, and later disappeared into an amazing crevasse in the mountains.

A Cowboy Sunset

And finally, we hit Ogden, UT for some local beer.

BTB with a growler from Ogden's Roosters Brewpub. Yes, I am drunk with joy for how awesome Ogden was. (Note to readers, I was sober as the morning sun in this photo. I have no idea how I managed to make that face.)

Laramie?

Laramie, WY -

Fuck me! Vince and I decided that we were best off staying here in the great city of Laramie, Wyoming instead of taking our chances waiting for I-80 to re-open and taking our chances with some crap town a couple hundred miles east.

That leaves us here at the TravelInn on 3rd Ave. with wifi and cable tv. Today's Hardball is a tour de force, and the last ten minutes of Matthews v. Madden had me alternately in stitches and in cringes.

I should also mention that it was a good omen that when I stepped into the hotel room and jacked open the mini-fridge I found five cans of Budweiser. Couple that with our growler of Altitude Amber, the ear-burning cold, and the surplus of cowboy bars here in town and I think we are in for a good night.

Wyoming is Cowboy Country*.

*I should mention that Vince and I have made a deal. When he hit the bars tonight, I don't wear my cowboy hat and he doesn't wear his scarf. This is, after all, the regrettable site of the Matthew Shepard hate crime.