Last Updated: 28 September 2001
Copyright 2001 The Hav All rights reserved.

Dark September Day 1

So...after having been stuck in Canada for several days awaiting the reopening of the flight patterns after this week's horrible events, I have finally decided that my chances are better in a car, and have set off on a transcontinental voyage to get my sorry self back to the San Francisco Bay Area.

In order to amuse myself during these long hours, and to spread some light during this time of darkness, I am offering the following topical travelogue, which I hope will be my tiny contribution to helping us all cope with the insanity of the recent events. I will be posting the pictures to a website as soon as I can arrange to do so. If you find this discourse counterproductive, just shoot me an email and tell me to take you off the list. However, I am finding it an interesting time to be traveling, taking the pulse of the US and Canada as I travel west, and I thought all of you might take some solace in knowing some of the great things in this world that have not been left in a heap of rubble south of 14th street.

I started my journey today from Montreal, that elegant, unique nexus of North America and Europe. I was assigned a Buick Century for a one-way trip to Buffalo. I had trouble leaving the rental car parking lot. Where exactly does that car begin and end? All I can think of is the number of old ladies driving that car that need three phone books to sit on and still probably have only a very vague sense of the space occupied by their vehicle. I carefully elected to make a border crossing to the US in an "off-piste" location halfway between Montreal and Toronto, due to rumors of excessive border delays at Detroit and Niagara Falls, even though I would have liked to continue my drive well through Canada for my first significant trip here. At this point I am looking a wee bit sketchy, not having been able to do laundry for more than a week, and wearing dark sunglasses and a black baseball cap to combat the surprisingly bright weather. The border guard asks me where I'm going, doesn't bat an eye when I tell him "San Francisco", and does a thorough peek inside my glove compartment, armrest console, and trunk. He asks what my citizenship is and who owns the car, but, notably, never asks for any identification of any kind. I pass into New York and can't help but feel a strange sense of relief, even though in some ways it could be said that Canada is a safer place to be right now.

Now I am driving through New York with Quebecois license plates, a fact which doesn't seem strange at all at first, but increasingly feels strange the further west and away from Quebec I go. And then I begin to see the signs. "God Bless America." "Pray." "America will Survive and Thrive." "Important! Cast Your Vote NOW! (Postponed)." "America will kick some ass!" A hastily scribbled paper on a tip jar in a convenience store that reads "Donations for NYC recovery effort." I begin to realize how real, how pervasive, and how poignant it is to see this in this time. Flags are flying everywhere like a preparation for a July 4th celebration, but at a macabre half mast. I pass a house with an enormous bedspread-size US flag pinned by its corners to a fence right next to an equally enormous US marine corp flag. Yes, it's all a part of New York State, but I can't help but think that the experience of New York Staters living on the banks of Lake Ontario is so far different from the experience of New York Staters living in Manhattan that a visitor should more likely expect to feel a sense of disconnectedness, a sense that "city folk bring it unto themselves"...and yet from the evidence I see that I couldn't be more wrong.

A kind of awe at this strength and solidarity in the face of evil and terror overcomes me, and I begin to photograph some of the signs and flags I am seeing as I travel west, feeling that it is tough to comprehend the patriotism that can exist in a country as diverse and enormous as the US without seeing it in hard evidence as I am on this trip. At one point I hastily pull over on a narrow road to photograph one particularly arresting tableau, and as I am putting down the camera and glancing at the map to ascertain my location, the local sheriff pulls up and kindly asks me if I'm having trouble. I am immediately aware that I have foreign license plates and might be a target for harassment given the current suspicions that terrorists entered the US via a road crossing from Canada and left a rental car at a Maine airport. But, in a sign of the openness upon which the US and Canada are founded, the sheriff does not threaten me or detain me in any way, but simply makes sure I am on the right road to where I am going and not having any trouble, and I remember that for better or for worse, this is how a free society must function.

Although I miss a few other distinctive photographic opportunities after that (not wanting to alarm the sheriff by suddenly pulling over), I am later surprised to stumble upon the Gordon Sinclair address being broadcast over the radio as I drive. For those of you have not received this "chain letter", there is an email circulating containing the text of an address apparently made by a Toronto commentor named Gordon Sinclair in 1974, saying that Americans essentially give more than they take and that therefore the rest of the world should cut them some slack. I saw the initial email and couldn't help but wonder how much of it was just an urban myth. But here was this upstate New York radio station, playing a full sound version of it, and I can tell you that as outdated and ultra-cheesy as the text was, it was still something to hear today.

Finally, I ended up on a long, largely desolate drive along the shores of Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls. It was good to see a happy wedding party once I arrived, celebrating their occasion with abandon, in the face of the despair of the last several days. I heard a couple in the elevator commenting that they could see the bride's bra, and stifling a laugh, I was happy to hear that good life could go on in utter spite and defiance of those who would rob us of it.

Tomorrow is another day.

Dark September Day 2

"Does anyone know
Where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes
to hours?"
- Gordon Lightfoot, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

In an eery kind of synchronicity, this was playing on the radio as I departed Buffalo and drove along the shores of Lake Erie this morning. The song is an old, incredibly haunting tune about the loss of a ship on one of the Great Lakes, a loss which the song portrays as seeming to be perhaps preventable ("the mariners all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay, if they'd put fifteen more miles behind them") but also horribly inevitable ("Superior they said, never gives up her dead, when the waves of November come crashin'"). I haven't heard the song in years, but in hearing it again, I couldn't help but think with a chill in my spine of the parallels to recent events, and wondering, truly, does anyone know where the love of God goes, when a crash turns the minutes to hours.

It was not the only interesting thing I heard on the radio today, as today's trip seemed dominated by sounds in a forced march west with little time to stop for anything other than gas. I had to exchange my first car for another at Buffalo airport, a task that consumed several hours but gave me a sad look at the future of business travel. All of the short term parking and rental car parking areas were closed, and no cars except taxis and shuttles were allowed to stop within 300 feet of the entrance. I therefore had to drop off the original car at an offsite parking lot, which, given the modest size of the Buffalo airport, was not far away as these things go (it was not SFO), but which nevertheless took a significant amount of time. I had to take a shuttle from the offsite lot to the rental desk in the airport, process all the paperwork for the next car, and take the shuttle back, lugging all of my stuff back and forth (I can't even imagine what kinds of armed guard interrogation I would have attracted if I'd asked to "leave my bags" somewhere at the rental desk). The whole process took about two hours. The rest of the airport was eerily silent. Planes were parked on the runway, looking as though they might be ready for action, but I did not see a single plane take off or land the whole time I was there. The mood of the staff in general was lightly jovial, but with a distinctive somber undertone.

I heard quite a bit of speculation amongst the shuttle riders and staff about whether contract arrangements between the airport and the rental car companies regarding parking space rental near the terminal would end up unenforceable, and who might stand to lose as a result. There were also more than a few comments about Midway Airlines' recent bankruptcy filing, and whether that might just be a precursor for worse filings yet to come. That seemed to be very much the tone of the day, as reflected in a church sermon posting that I saw later in North East, PA, titled "Fearing the Future." It has felt like a kind of All Quiet on the Western Front, with most of the US in various stages of recovery, but everyone still filled with a dark sense of foreboding and dread. One of the news broadcasts I heard stated that "most Americans just want to get a sense that it's over, that we've reached the end of this thing, but I am sorry to say that I think it's just the beginning, the beginning of a new kind of long war, the war on terrorism." Sensationalist words, but they captured the clammy hand of truth gripping everyone's hearts right now, the "elephant on the table" that no-one wants to discuss - it's not the end, it's the beginning, and we don't know of what. Instead of being filled with righteous ferocity, I was disturbed to hear our leaders promising the "full wrath of the US government" and the Taliban government reassuring its people that "everything is fine, but be prepared for a holy war." Like the Star Wars scene where Luke Skywalker enters the tree to face all of his greatest fears and appallingly discovers his own face staring back at him, I wonder how well we will fare when faced with an enemy that is invisible and fundamental to the way we have crafted our own existence.

On the lighter side of things, the only thing I can say is for everyone to buy stock in AT&T. Okay, forget the stock, but definitely go for AT&T bonds. And maybe Amtrak. But definitely AT&T. Between the fact that I am able to make cell phone calls from ANYWHERE with my AT&T wireless service, and the fact that I would bet they have maxed out every inch of their so-called "bandwidth glut" over the last several days just as a result of the incredible call volume associated with this tragedy, I'd say they are one of the few companies to potentially walk out of this with a check mark in the plus column. That, and perhaps pattern recognition companies. But, I have felt like a moving advertisement for AT&T wireless. I have had complete coverage from the northeastern part of Maine all the way to Chicago. Yes, a dropped call here or there, and some staticky connections indicating I was probably on an analog connection, but nothing beats it for coverage, coverage, coverage. And I don't know about all of you, but that's what I want in a mobile service - CD-quality voice reproduction is nice if I'm at home listening to a poetry reading, but when calling for a hotel room I'm happy to S-p-e-a-k s-l-o-w-l-y and c-l-e-a-r-l-y if basic coverage makes the difference between sleeping in sheets and sleeping in a Scotchgard bucket seat.

I'm also starting to enjoy my pimp-daddy mobile - ahhh Good old America. I have Georgia license plates which makes it even more entertaining. One of my friends suggested I might be "kind of like the heir to Charles Kuralt with a huge American car and dark sunglasses." Yeah baby. I now understand why all Americans are fat. It's not the food. It's the cars. My car is so big I actually have to reach out to rest my arm on the window. It makes me want to get fat just to fill up all that space. I'm thinking of using that as an excuse - "Dude, nature abhors a vacuum. I was forced to get fat."

I am now in Chicago, and will tomorrow leave the last body of water for quite some time. I talked to two toll booth operators in Ohio and Indiana who didn't know how far away Cleveland and Chicago were, because they had never been there. I suggested to one with a smile that maybe she should go, and she just looked at me as if I had recited a line of 12th century French poetry. While it was heartwarming in a way to be in a place where the fluctuation in the smell of manure fertilizer is probably as good an indicator as any to mark the passing of the days, it was also disturbing in this time to think about all the votes cast by Americans without passports, putting leaders reflecting the wishes of this constituency into positions that drive the direction of American foreign policy, and through that, some portion of the direction of the world.

But, I digress. And yet you are still reading. I offer today's last song quote in asking, "Straight up, what did you hope to learn about here?"

Dark September Day 3

"I can't stand to fly,
I'm not that naive..."

I heard that song today (anyone help me on the band?) and while last week I might have written a whole essay on how on-the-money that passage is given the recent events, now after three days on the road and today's host of issues, I think I want to change the rest of it: "I can't stand to fly, I'm not that naive, but then I think about the drive..." As maybe we all should, given that from today's news, the airlines are accepting donations.

Not much from the heartwarming department today, as car trouble was the main event. What should have been a reasonable distance to cover turned into a challenge when I noticed a very unpleasant vibration in the car at speeds over 45 mph. Thinking about the terrain ahead, which is about to get beyond rural, and even beyond water, for a very long time, I decided to do the conservative thing and change out the car. A quick phone call to the car rental service (thank you again AT&T wireless) and some interesting "blind leading the blind" discussions (where are you? Illinois. Can you get to XXXX? I don't know, where is XXXX? I don't know. How about YYYY? and so on) finally resulted in my making a pitstop in scenic Moline, Illinois. Actually I'm not joking, bits of it are surprisingly scenic as it passes over a branch of the Mississippi River. (Yes, THAT Mississippi - who knew?) They actually call the area "Quad Cities", a name I found, well, rather strange. Perhaps even more strange was the size and breadth of the Moline airport, which featured the whole shops, baggage claim, rental car, etc. shebang. And I was extremely pleased to note a large TWA plane taking off while I was there. Things are slowly getting back to normal.

The charmingly relaxed attitude of the staff there once again proved to me that my personal hell, should I commit some heinous crime, will not be fire and brimstone, but an eternity spent with very slow-moving people. But, in the end, my mission was accomplished, and I drove off in pimp-daddy mobile #3. But this mutha has an extra helpin' of SOUL, I must tell you. Uh huh. And Plllleathah. So now I'm bouncin' down the freeway with more hosses than I can count leadin' the charge. Yee-ahhh.

But, today's trip seemed also to parallel the US mindset at large, as it felt like a harried flight from some invisible pursuer, and a desperate irrational need to keep moving. As one of my old bosses once said, "Try not to confuse motion with progress." I listened to the tales of woe from Wall Street, and more local tales such as that of Pakistani taxi drivers in the Chicagoland area who are basically fearing for their lives and livelihoods. I also heard that the number of births has spiked dramatically in the last week, which is apparently a fairly normal phenomenon associated with stress. I guess that's what my college biology prof meant when he said that "when the going gets tough, the tough have sex." But in general, most of the rest of the trip, perhaps because I was exclusively trying to make time on interstate land, was pretty much middle-America-business-as-I-assume-is-usual, with a few amusing moments. For example, if only it hadn't been so late: can someone, please, tell me what is an Aircraft Supermarket? I mean, "come on down, 2-for-1 special, it's 747 Singles Shoppin' Tuesday?" Do you think they have an express checkout lane, 9 planes or less?

And then the oversize loads. Okay, I've been driving for a while, and I have not seen this until today. Where are all these oversize loads coming from, and going to? Is there some kind of Mobile Home version of the CBOE hosted in Des Moines? A total mystery. I want to tag these vehicles with radio beacons so that we may study their behavior and migration patterns as we do with bears and whales, and thereby begin to understand their species better. Perhaps mankind is encroaching on their habitat and thereby causing this behavioral disturbance? Hmmm, more to ponder...

But, I leave you with a beautiful final image: A blood orange melon-sized sun, sinking over a horizon of cornfields and low hills, outlining out in relief the first contrails I have seen in days. A beautiful, all-American sight to behold.

From steaks to Mormons, tune in for tomorrow's episode of Route 80.

Dark September Day 4

Well today seemed like anything but a Dark September day. In fact it was tempting to forget the reason I have been forced to do this cross-country jaunt and just get lost in the sight of the sun ever so slowly setting over foothills, buttes, and cows. Driving west is neat that way - the sunset seems to last forever and ever as you race the sun to the horizon. Now I am entering the American West, and while I've had a love affair with the West for several years now, it feels like we've only just met again.

For those of you who have written to instruct me, or those who are wondering: The "I can't stand to fly" passage has been identified as "Superman", from the "America Town" album, and the band is Five for Fighting. The album seems to come highly recommended.

In case none of you were aware, America is big. Now, you laugh, and say, of COURSE it's big. I knew that, we all know that. But you don't. No matter how big you think it is, it's bigger. I grew up here, and it's still big. I drove cross-country six years ago when I moved to California. I took a different a few hours south of the one I'm on now. If I didn't have a map to prove it to me, I would swear I was in a different country. I've crossed this country many, many times in a plane. So I know it's big. But still, it's big. It's just really, really big. Anyway, that's my excuse for not having made it to Salt Lake, and still being stuck in Wyoming. I was seduced by the big, and had to tarry. My eyes were bigger than my gas pedal foot.

But that's, I think, the message that Nebraska and Wyoming wanted me to communicate to the world at large today, and particularly to the terrorists that mean this country ill. You may think you've made a strategic blow and have this country on its knees by striking at New York and Washington, but America is bigger and richer than you can possibly comprehend. And by richer, I don't mean greenbacks. Even the weaknesses that are under the constant criticism and scrutiny of our world allies and neighbors make this country stronger. I was thinking today of the story of the group of blind scientists that each tried to describe an elephant just by investigating one part - one claimed an elephant was just its tail, another just its leg, another its trunk, and so on. None were right, and the elephant was much more than that. Don't tune out when I say the following: America is all of us, and we are all reflected in America. No, it's not perfect, but tell me: what other country out there truly has the complete diversity of the world reflected in its populace? Yes, the percentages are NOT fully representative (we'd be basically the crossroads between China and India if that were the case), and yes, we have to constantly strive to be better, to understand those different from us, there are so many things we have to do better...But. For all of its faults, it seems surprisingly, as they describe it in the IT field, "robust and fault tolerant." Assume at your peril that you have the American people perfectly pinned and sussed.

But, okay, now that I've sent the cheese factor alert in the red zone, back to the real story. Neeeeeeeeeeeeebraska. One e for every 100 miles. A question for the cosmologists in the group: Is the time-space continuum warped the deeper one descends into Nebraska? I am starting to believe that space is, in fact, curved. Not being able ever to escape Nebraska is clearly proof.

But don't get me wrong - I actually (whoa! get out your pens!) like Nebraska. Nebraska is like your grandmother. Strangely comforting, it's like falling asleep in your grandma's big bosom. It's got Huge Tracts of Land. If you were to apportion the states in the US to body parts, I'd call Nebraska the thighs. Big, strong, and there when you need them, no surprises, always dependable, pulls all the body weight around. As you start to go west, though, that changes. Like proceeding from the thighs to other neighboring territory, the West has its own brand of attractions and dangers. If you've spent as many weekends as I have battling the Sierra Nevada in winter, you know what I mean by this. The hard-core west, which I have just barely entered today and will proceed through tomorrow and the next day, is like an affair with a Latino lover - you know it's unreliable but you still can never say no. In a fiery love-hate passion, the mountains, basins, salt lakes, can fill you up or just as easily consume you, in a mudslide, avalanche, wildfire, flood, or sandstorm. But Nebraska would never do that you. In fact, terrorists that think of the whole country of the US as being "the great white Satan" should take a drive through Nebraska. There is no possibility of evil. Nothing but fertile fields dotted with hay buns waiting to be rolled out, and truckers industriously carrying out an honest day's work transporting goods on the freeway.

But, I suppose a terrorist might turn a different eye given that the Strategic Air Command Museum is located just west of Omaha. I tried not to stop, but it just seemed so fitting to visit at this very particular time. Several hangars full of bombers and fighters, staffed by senior citizens who appear about as warmongering as koala bears. Still it was interesting to see just now. All of this sentimental remembrance about how, in bygone days, we "used" to have to worry about war, and bomb shelters, and spies, and security. I think the exhibit is probably going to look a little different this time next year. But I did get to ride inside a full-motion combat flight simulator. I had heard that combat pilots got complete hard-ons from flying. Now I no longer think that's just bravado. If that simulator is even vaguely correct, they are, in fact rock stars. I was definitely ready to either hurl or smoke a cigarette after I finished my simulation.

Anyway, I also had an interesting stop in Ogalalla, NE, involving a Native American shopkeeper who was indignant about the treatment of Native Americans but was nevertheless wearing a badge that read "God Bless USA", and who referred me to another young woman who had painted her Nebraska-plate Jeep Cherokee on three sides with flags and messages of hope to the New York and Washington victims, because "there just weren't any flags ANYWHERE and I just felt I had to do something." (Pictures will be webified when I return). Like I said, a weird country but one with a constantly surprisingly depth of community.

I will leave you with the following verbatim comments from a friend who shall remain anonymous: "This is a good opportunity to expand your refrigerator magnet collection, with honestly purchased cheesy state magnets from gas stations. Take advantage of it. Don't fuck this up."

Words to live by.

Dark September Day 5

Today's theme is "oh my heck." Followed by, "Are you still a real man?" Utah wants to know.

Although I covered three states today, Utah still has to be the theme of today's show. The radio ads were possibly more interesting than the natural scenery. I guess if you're supporting that many women, I can see why item #2 should be a concern.

But, I should start at the beginning, as I'm told that's a very good place to start. Although with "Highway to Hell" kicking off the day as the morning radio song coming out of Laramie, WY, I wasn't so sure. Do states actually have theme songs? Well, if I hadn't heard of Yellowstone and the Tetons, I'd be first in line to vote for this theme song. Southern Wyoming bites. It's about as endless and desolate as Joshua tree, and there aren't any Joshua trees. Some scrub, some cows, and some weird fence things that I can only assume, city slicker that I am, have something to do with herding beasts of some nature. The main tourist attraction for the next 300 miles is the Wyoming Frontier Prison. What does that say about a state? So I stopped, and was treated to a functioning demo of a hanging mechanism that allows the state to hang someone without any individual person actually having to accept blame for it - it's basically a "natural disaster" brought on by water in a bucket and a weight and pulley system. Although in the designer's zeal to allow hangmen to avoid responsibility, he also managed to create a system that allowed several convicts to actually experience the dubious honor of being hung twice. As was once said in a great Hong Kong film, "We Kill You, Till You Dead!" The whole thing looks like Alcatraz, and it was only closed in 1981. Yes, that would be the 1981 in which MTV debuted. Now its claim to fame is that it will very shortly be featured in some FOX TV reality show about ghost hunting. Tune in. Isn't America great?

But, back at the ranch (hah!), I did get this morning my first teasing glimpse of the mountains of the west. I turned a corner and saw snow-tipped mountains off in the distance. It sent a weird kind of chill down my spine, like an old boyfriend reaching out to hold your hand. At this point there is very little in the way of flags or signs related to the terrorist situation, mostly because there is really very little at all. The air now has a distinctive snap to it, and it made me impatient to be in another winter, skiing in the quiet majesty of the west. Like a mirage melting away with proximity, I never did get up close to those peaks - they peeled off away to the south while I fled the clock and raced west. I did however pass by a spectacular vista of a windmill farm, rows and rows of them regally lined up in the morning sun, like a legion of sailors in dress whites saluting from the deck of a mighty ship as it turns to depart westward.

I also passed the Continental Divide. Twice. Can someone please explain that to me?

But I am digressing from Today's Theme. You-taw.

Okay, it's pretty simple. There is absolutely no way to comprehend the Mormons until you do the drive that I've just done. Remember the Highway to Hell part? Now picture you're in a covered...or maybe not so well covered...wagon covering the same endless spotty ground that is southern Wyoming. Oh, and you don't have a map. Cause...there aren't any. You are really starting to repent for every single thing you may have ever done in your entire life, starting in the womb. You are really starting to think you are forever cursed and doomed to die in a pile of brown dust, and then a religious leader tells you that if you just believe and stop drinking coffee and alcohol you'll find the promised land. The next morning you wake up, and an unbelievably verdant set of hills has suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Trust me, seeing this under those circumstances would without a doubt be a religious experience. Heck, it's a religious experience anyway. Which brings me to my next point.

Oh my heck. Oh my heck? The first billboard that greets you as you enter declares "If you just said 'oh my heck', you're not ready for it. Provo Girl Beer." I don't think I need to comment further, except to say that "oh my heck" was actually used in two subsequent radio ads as I was passing through, and not in the tongue-in-cheek fashion just described. And just who are these Provo Girls?

And then the testosterone ads. Yes, they are selling testosterone. No, not Viagra, but testosterone. "Supercharge your sex drive Naturally with Testroven (sp?)!" And I'm not kidding about the "Are you still a real man?" part. So, is there some reason for advertisers to think that concerns about one's manhood are a Unique Selling Point for pushing products in Salt Lake City? Okay, moving right along.

Which is exactly what I did, right into "rush hour traffic" at Exit 99. Thusly named as it is 99 miles away from the Nevada border, and 100 miles away from the next gas station...which meant that I was obligated to get off. Does anyone else find the concept of running into heavy traffic in the middle of NOWHERE as strange as I do? I thought they said the road to Hell was wide.

But, Utah is not actually Hell. It's stunning, in a Salvador Dali kind of way. It does make me wonder about that whole Sodom and Gomorra thing though. There's an awful lot of salt around. In fact, there's a structure at the south edge of the lake that from a distance really does look an enormous pillar of salt. I was thinking maybe that's where all those good intentions went. But then I got closer and realized it was just a smokestack.

Then it was a hundred miles of salt flats, and the beginning of Nevada. Pacific Time Zone welcomed me back with a spectacular sunset that literally went on for hours. I've never seen anything like it. That was a nice gift from Nevada, kind of like the drummer boy unexpectedly blowing away all the frankencense and myrrh. I hope there used to be a lot of silver in the Silver State. Cause there ain't much else. I don't know what you could have called it otherwise - "Short end of the geographic stick", USA, just doesn't quite inspire. The Eastern Nevada border on I-80 looks almost identical to the Western Nevada border, even though they are separated by about 600 miles and who knows how many basins and ranges. Which makes me wonder, did someone just draw a line in the sand and declare "all the eyesore useless mountains with spotty sagebrush and no snow and vegetation shall be the property of Nevada?" (Which is funny, since Nevada means Snowy in Spanish). Where was the negotiator on the Nevada team that day? It makes the existence of Las Vegas all the more amazing, though. Although I won't be passing through there on this trip, all I can say is that that place is a true testament to the power of vision. Oh, and proof that having a pact with Satan can accomplish anything.

But I kind of dig Nevada's no-pretense character, brushing up against the righteousness of Utah and the self-absorbedness of California. The meek shall inherit the earth. If Jesus had been born today He would have been born in the back of a parking lot of a Motel 6 in Elko, NV. For one thing, He wouldn't have missed the only town for 1000 miles with a kickin' alternative rock radio station.

I can't finish today's treatise without some political commentary, of course. But yesterday's comments about the Bigness of America are starting to feel dumb today. Today's terrain was actually too big, and made me feel that America is a small and meaningless concept. The mountains just don't care. The salt desert will just be waking up from a geological nap when all of humanity has either ceased to exist or mutated itself into some completely distinctive lifeform. And maybe even by then that Train song currently being played on every single radio station in the world will have finally gone off the air. But I will say that there was one amusing moment amid the endless replay of nothing stories talking about the deployment of 100 planes and a couple of warships. The Pakistani minister was speaking in Urdu (I think) with a translator speaking over him, and discussing Pakistan's need to be strong and step up to the plate in this difficult time. All I heard was "Urdu Urdu Urdu Urdu, Urdu, Urdu Urdu Do Or Die Mission Urdu." I thought it was amusing that he would have to turn to English to express this concept. Sort of like the story a friend told me about the French Canadian mechanic who asks "Comment est-ce q'on dit les Spark Plugs en Anglais?" (How does one say Spark Plugs in English?) Ah, cultural imperialism at its best.

Today's closing message is: Seat goes up, seat goes down. I now understand what all the gadgetry is about. When there is simply absolutely nothing else to do and 600 more miles to go...seat goes up, seat goes down.

FADE to closing credits soundtrack.

"Big ole jet airliner, don't carry me too far away...You know I'm going with some hesitation, you know that I can surely see, cause I don't want to get caught up in any of that, funky kicks going down in the city..."

"And I think it's gonna be a long, long time, till touchdown brings me round again to fly..."

"And I keep working my way back to you, babe, with a burnin' love inside, I keep working my back to you babe..."

California here I come.

Dark September Day 6

So I am at the end of my journey, and shouldn't really have much to say anymore. The last half of my trip was from Lake Tahoe to SF, a drive I've done at least 50 times before. But I'm feeling a little like Forrest Gump, that I will keep on writing and writing until someone holds up a sign reading "Stop, Carol, Stop!"

I'm going to be hitting the Logan's Run age fairly soon, and in all that time I've never really thought it was worth writing about anything. Now I'm feeling like it's worth writing about everything. So, this morning, I was brushing my teeth after I went to the toilet, and it was so interesting, because the toothpaste was just so pasty, and the water was cold in my mouth, and...okay I'll stop now.

But all things, even bad ones, mercifully, must come to an end. And I think the final moment for me was to come home this evening and find my front door window broken. No big deal, of course, but it seemed weirdly symbolic. My roommates told me the paperboy evidently got a little anxious while I was gone. Perhaps he wanted to be absolutely sure that we read the paper that day. But it seemed vaguely fitting, that something significant should be broken in my own house as a sign of how pervasive the change in our lives has been and will become. So I accepted that as the demarcation line between the then and the now.

Regarding the drive itself, I have much less to say today as I found it a time for some personal introspection that I will not share with you. Nevada isn't pretty in the classical sense, but there is something there that moves me. It is like a prayer to God when all else is gone. All of the marginal, ancillary stuff is vaporized, and there is nothing but life clinging to rocks and dirt. It moves me because if that reduced skeleton can be as starkly beautiful as I found it to be, then all the life that flows from it is ever more beautiful.

I stopped in Boomtown and managed to flush $10 down a slot machine faster than you could say "suckahhhhhh". Couldn't even make it up with free drinks as I was driving. I stopped and photographed the Welcome to California sign. Somehow it seemed important to do so. I also took a few pictures of vistas I have seen a gajillion times on this road before. But it has usually been at night in the winter. I cast a few flirtatious glances at the 89 South exit for Lake Tahoe, but pressed on. The signs and flags started to re-emerge out of the wilderness, and I started to comtemplate my own re-entry.

I tuned into the radio and knew I was home when I heard a commentator using the words "venture capital" and "IPO" rather than "Jesus saves" and "Praise the Lord." Although, maybe these are synonyms? Also, the Chinese and Spanish channels don't seem to be quite as big of hit in Nevada and Wyoming. Coming down out of the Sierras was like vaulting into a sauna, as it seemed like all the pent-up energy of thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean and the spirits of millions of the Western denizens of the contintental United States were all impotently thrusting their energy eastward across the impenetrable peaks and deserts towards New York and Washington. Or maybe it was just plain hot.

The US still had a few patriotic surprises left for me to uncover. In Sacramento, I saw an old man dressed in US flag suit (who knew?), perched on an I-80 overpass with a huge US flag, who was saluting EVERY car that went by. He was on the eastbound stretch, and with the amount of traffic backed up in that direction, he had a lot of saluting to do. I then had a strangely synchronicitous moment of hearing George W. start his speech in the nation's capital just as I was passing the center of the state's capital and watching the sunset over the coastal range.

I wonder if he was at all or will ever be aware of this visual. The speech celebrated the strength of the American people and called for resolve in facing the future, but the subtext spelled a sunset, the end of life, innocence, and the golden age as we have known it. "We condemn the Taliban regime." Thud. "It will not end until every group is found, and defeated." When will that be? There were many brave and strong words, but no tangible solutions or milestones, and the truth that I heard is that we are about to go to war for a very long time with an enemy that is, well, us. And our shadows. Buckle up, kids, we're going for a ride.

But, Rome was neither built nor destroyed in a day, and so I turned back to contemplate my ride back to San Francisco. I noted the thirty-odd omnipresent US flags that are always fully extended in the brisk prevailing westerly breeze, now all at half-mast and illuminated in the fog; as usual there was a homeless guy begging for change at the foot of the freeway exit; and as usual Kearny street was under construction. Everything was the same, only a little different. And then I got to my house and saw the broken window.

I parked
the pimp daddy mobile
because parallel parkin' that suckah
is about keepin' it real

And as my roommate insisted I say,

Come mr. Taliban, Taliban banana.

Thanks for sharing the road with me.