Roadtrip: Days 4-5

8-15-12 RISTAURANTE

I rolled out of my latest couch/home this morning in Longview, TX, home of LeTourneaux University, where my buddy Ben is a flight instructor. LeTourneaux is a big school for missions aviation, although more and more of their graduates are taking up with commercial airlines.

After breakfast in an empty house, I met up with Ben at the school's aviation center and got an insider tour of their brand new facilities. The pristine offices and classrooms had the smell of a big, “seeker-friendly” church, but the labs were full of greasy engines and retired fuselages, like big mechanical morgues; creepy without the activity of tinkering students. We ran down the road to a local BBQ place that I'd been wanting to revisit since my first taste, two years ago. I won't get into the regional BBQ battle because it's all delicious to me.

I said my goodbyes with Ben and headed back towards I-20 and Dallas, but changed my mind just before the on-ramp and pulled over to find a slightly more out-of-the-way route, since I didn't have to be there till evening. I settled on US 80, which turned out to be a very small step down from the interstate, with 70 MPH limits on most of it, and a smattering of stop lights every 10 miles or so. Regardless, the scenery was better, and should I have wanted to, I could've pulled off on any of the myriad side roads. About an hour in, I began to notice that at least 1 in 3 homes featured a deliberately (maybe) decrepit and shockingly generic produce stand, craft barn, or “old country store”. Not dissimilar to Tennessee's requisite rusted-out 1940's Ford, or burned down double-wide.

Jesus welcomes you, guys!

Guys, Jesus.

Soon enough, I ran out of small towns, and metro D/FW, with its web of ringroads, spurs, and bypasses came looming up. I managed to find my way to a mall bookstore and take refuge in their AC, while I read more of Blue Highways and waited to hear back from the friend I was supposed to be meeting up with. A couple pages later, my phone buzzed, and Jordan wanted me to come hang out at his restaurant until he got off, so I punched the address into my phone and braced myself for another run on the big city asphalt network.

Ferré Ristaurante, in the heart of downtown Fort Worth, is pretty easy to find, but I managed to circle the parking garage four times before I figured out how to get in. 1000 miles of two-lane straight-and-narrow had spoiled me for a supposedly logical grid of one-way numbers and dead presidents. I walked into the quiet restaurant and found Jordan in the kitchen, sampling some sort of asparagus and egg creation with the chef's young daughter, who dismissed the dish as “gross”. After some introductions and a brief tour, he hid me in a corner booth and I passed a couple hours with more Blue Highways, some pilfered bread, and a free beer from the manager.

Heat Moon ends his first chapter 1000 miles into a cross-country trip (and only a stone's throw from the beginning of mine), and the stories he managed to squeeze out of those miles made me self-consciously look back over my last four days. Certainly, times have changed, and I shouldn't compare myself to the middle-aged Native American English teacher divorcee, but that doesn't stop me from hoping my travels begin to resemble his.

About 9:30, Jordan got off, and we ran by the house of some of his home-brewing buddies. I tried a couple of his creations as his friends discussed the pros and cons of a Playboy subscription and rated the US women's soccer team in order of desirability. From there, we headed to a pho place in Arlington, me following him at breakneck speeds through a strange city, although reassured by the pavement-warmed night air and the steady oom-pah-pah of a Hispanic radio station.

Pho 95 (now open till midnight!) was packed when we got there, around 10:30. The authenticity of the place was reinforced by a strong Vietnamese patronage, as well as a real melting pot of other customers. Who doesn't like a big bowl of noodly broth? From Pho 95 it was on to Caves Lounge, an accurately named bar on the somewhat seedy streets of Arlington. The crowd was the same you'd find in any town with a college, that isn't a college town. Can we all agree that the salt of “hipster” has lost its saltiness and move on to some new codifying system? Rapidly losing steam, we called it a night as the bartender said, “last call”, and I groggily set up camp on a new couch in a new town.

Miles: 213 (Total: 1239)

MPG: 34 (that 40mpg must've been beginner's luck)

TOTD: Poliça - Wandering Star

“Besides, being alone on the road makes you ready to meet someone when you stop. You get sociable traveling alone.” - Heat Moon, Blue Highways

8-16-12 NO MAN IS AN ISLAND

Woke up late in a dingy house (sorry Jordan) with a text from Jordan's sister, Cara, telling us to meet her for lunch at Oddfellows, a hip cafe/eatery in one of Dallas's innumerable suburbs. The Bishop Arts District appears to be responding well to a gentrification effort, with a plethora of antiques shops and brunch offerings. 

M'antiques.

Get it? MANtiques. Actually had some pretty neato stuff.

Post-lunch, Jordan and I had six hours to kill until a Fang Island show in Deep Ellum, so he gave me an extensive tour of the rest of Dallas's sprawl, including the theater where Oswald got shot, and a bar where he almost convinced Britney Spears's bodyguards to let her sing karaoke. The hours crawled by, but eventually the doors at Club Dada opened, and we got our faces shredded and then melted back together by Fang Island, and their killer opener, Adebisi Shank. Ears buzzing and endorphins pumping, we headed back to Arlington so Jordan could pack for his early-morning flight to a friend's wedding back in Chattanooga. Day two on the same couch, in the same town.

Miles: 0
TOTD double feature!: 
Fang Island go to kindergarten

Adebisi Shank - Masa

Roadtrip: Days 1-3

[a note: Wouldn't it seem that anytime one of us hits the road, without much concern as to itinerary or destination, we take on the honorary stole of 'Wandering Philosopher'? Poet, soothsayer, minstrel; drunk on asphalt and solitude. Steinbeck, Kerouac, Heat Moon, Miller have all preached the gospel of the road, the absolute truth of white letter on green field. I suppose they set the precedent for this modern meta-character, the Vagabond Sage. All this to say: please excuse me if I attempt to wax eloquent or lend undue gravity to the mundane. I am not immune to the intoxication of the road.]

8-12-12 DAY ONE STUFF
I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to say that no one would call the drive from Knoxville to Pensacola, FL glamorous. Not when you stay predominantly on interstates, at any rate, and I didn't really have the time to explore backroads on my way down. I left town around 11am after coffee with friends and a great send-off. Nine hours later I pulled into my friend Joey's driveway, and there honestly isn't much else to say about it. Hopefully I'm not overly romanticizing the western portions of this trip.
Miles: 480
MPG: 40
Track of the Day: Ludovico Einaudi - Dietro Casa

8-13-12 THE DOLLHOUSE
It's hard not to slip back into old relationships as if we were still in high school. Joey and I went down to P'cola Beach for a few hours, then got dinner at a locally famous Irish pub, McGuire's, where he bought me their signature drink, the Irish Wake. I guess it was about 6 shots of whiskey with orange juice and green food coloring, all mixed together in a big mason jar. Didn't really hit very hard, considering. The house Joey lives in with a handful of other Navy officers looks like a giant dollhouse. Got a little sunburned, all is right in the world.
Miles: 0
TOTD: The Goat Rodeo Sessions - Here and Heaven

Disclaimer: I do not play the guitar.

8-14-12 THE STARS AT NIGHT
If it's raining at the beach,
it'll be worse on the plains.
You'll catch every red light out of
Alabama when all you want is Texas.
Do ten hours of stop-and-go
make up for two years of off-and-on?

Have you ever felt soreness in your eyes? By the time I got to Longview, TX tonight I could barely focus on anything. Dusk driving is the worst. Crossed the Mississippi today, I guess that should probably be a landmark of some sort, but I've hopped over it too many times to give it much pomp anymore. More importantly, I broke 1000 miles today. Just the tip of the iceberg, but still momentous.

Miles: 546 (Total: 1026)
MPG: 33 (red lights + AC)
TOTD: one hour of silence (hey, your ears need a break now and then)

Is that...

Levon!?

Starting to hallucinate

There is a decimal point there.