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.

here come the miles

T minus 12 hours till I hit the road good and hard. Phone charger, toothbrush, towel. I'm sure I've forgotten something, but it doesn't matter.

I went out to the Smokies Friday morning as a little warm-up and so I could get my annual National Parks pass. I waited just past Newfound Gap for the sun to crest the mountains and peek through the heavy clouds, but it never quite made it.

Halfway up to Clingman's Dome I saw a couple other photographers on a narrow pull-off, overlooking the sea of clouds that I had just emerged from. They were a couple of older guys from Seymour, bantering about  f-stops and previous sunrises. One of them told me that this year set the record high for Clingman's Dome at a blistering 73 degrees.

The women in the giftshop of the Sugarlands visitor center had no shortage of advice when they learned what I was buying the annual pass for. "I go to Rocky Mountain National Park every year," said one. "Don't bother with Wall Drug in South Dakota," said the other, "Overrated!"

Duly noted.

2338 pages, 76.75 hours

Roadtrip reading/listening list (with a margin for selection):

Books:
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
The Problem of Pain, A Grief Observed, Mere Christianity, and Miracles - C.S. Lewis
Travels with Charley in Search of America - John Steinbeck
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Twelve by Twelve - William Powers
Love in the Time of Cholera, One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Audio Books:
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Tortilla Flat, The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

what's instagram?

So I've had a roll of 120 film sitting in my camera since last summer's roadtrip, and I finally went and got it developed at Thompson Photo the other day. 

My old Soviet-era twin-lens reflex seems to be taking on some Holga-esque lens characteristics. I'm kinda OK with that. Enjoy.

spontaneous + itinerary = spontinerary!

I think I've always been a planner. Probably has to do with playing with Legos as a child or something like that.

In my defense, I was just trying to build a space-pirate fortress, while my
sisters were trying to re-organize all the legos into their proper sets...

Having a plan allows me to develop expectations and foresee potential outcomes, mitigating the possibility of negative surprises. Pretty boring stuff.

So, in an effort to aggravate these proclivities, I'm taking a roadtrip in a few weeks and trying to plan nothing but a very rough route and a couple of hard dates. With barely any strings attached at this point in my life, I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't go galavanting around our fine nation for an irresponsibly vague amount of time.

A friend recently gave me the advice that freedom, not finances, should dictate whether you go on an adventure. Maybe I shouldn't run off and spend my savings on gas and national park entrance fees, but I can because I don't have a job to get fired from, I don't have a family to endanger, and my school loans are manageable.

So here's the basic route, highlighting some stops:

- From Knoxville, down to see an old friend in Pensacola, FL.

- From FL to Longview, TX (more old friends), maybe some stops in Mississippi & Louisiana (I usually try to rush through the dirty, dirty South).

Longview, TX, Summer 2010.

- A short hop over to the DFW area to hang out with friends and catch a Fang Island show on the 16th.

- Nothing planned between DFW and friends in Flagstaff, AZ, but I'll keep my eyes open for cool diversions. Grand Canyon maybe? Saw it much too briefly in college, and want to hike to the bottom sometime, but that might be for another trip.

Spring Break '07

- Then on to see more friends in LA, with stops at Joshua Tree, and maybe the Salton Sea, on the way. I really have no desire whatsoever to see LA itself, though.

- From LA, up through Sequoyah/Kings Canyon/Yosemite Parks, and you're darn tootin I'm excited for this leg of the trip! Wish I could spend the whole month there.

- Over to the coast! Through Sonoma County and more old friends.

- Heading north, I'll spend some time getting acquainted with the Pacific. More redwoods and beaches and whatnot.

- Sibling reunion in Redding, CA, with forays to Lassen Volcanic, Lava Beds, Redwood NP.

- North again, all the way to Eugeue, OR and Rogue Brewery? or just to Crater Lake NP?

- East! To friends in Boise and whatever else Idaho has to offer.

- Sadly skipping Yellowstone/Tetons for whatever else is between Boise and Denver. Mormonville?

- I hear Colorado is pretty boring, so I'll probably get outta there quick in favor of magical and thrilling Kansas. Jokes.

Kansas, Summer 2011.

- Uh.

- Sorry, I just zoned out thinking about driving across Kansas the long way. Probably to Missouri. Who knows.

- Things are getting pretty hazy at this point, the closer I get to familiar territory and the wasteland of southern IL/western KY.


- Eventually back to Knoxville, and responsibility. 

Not that I work in an office anymore, but you get the idea.
And I promise I have other shirts, even though this one is in every picture.

I know that sounds like a whole lot of plans and not really impulsive at all, but hey, baby steps guys.

one month and a couple of dreams later

I know it's been awhile.

It was a busy time, what with finishing up at the Farm, and transitioning into whatever was next. Potentially moving to a new house, applying for long-shot jobs, postponing a roadtrip.

By the last couple of weeks of my AmeriCorps term at Beardsley I'd begun to help out my friend, Levon, with some house-painting, when I had the time, with the comforting incentive of employment insurance should none of my post-AmeriCorps plans pan out.

After my last day (June 29th), I took a little time to buff up my resume and look for exotic job opportunities. I got excited about a couple of positions, then got un-excited about them. So I've been painting.

Levon's a good boss, and I'm glad to have learned the basics of the trade from him, but it still feels like work, and not a job. I know that life isn't always about the follow-your-heart, supremely fulfilling kind of jobs, but I still want to do something I love.

Summer squall rolling over downtown Knoxville.

Here's the dream that's been hopping from back burner to front burner, on and off, for the past couple of months:

Custom garden & sustainability consultation, design, installation, and maintenance for those who want to garden/live more sustainably, but may not have the time, diy skills, or know where to start.

Seeing it written out like that my mind immediately jumps to the words "market over-saturation", but I feel like I've gleaned, out of the past year at the Farm, that what I love about gardening is the design and construction of gardening/sustainability systems, and I want to do what I love.

Surely someone out there wants to pay me to build some raised beds for them to grow vegetables in. Right? I sure hope so. And before long we'll (we? I have employees now?) be able to offer chicken coop building, and beekeeping, and rooftop vegetable gardens for urban restaurants, and other neat stuff.

But for now, I just need to find a couple folks who need a simple wooden box built to plant some beans in, and maybe some advice on heirloom vegetables or composting. Don't be shy.

Sorry the pictures are so foreboding. All I had.

more garden photos, or, someone teach this pony a new trick

Mystery squash appears to be a butternut. Fingers crossed for a hybrid
mutation that makes it grow twice as big and delicious.

Collards are tasty. Even in the heat.

The tiniest eggplant.

Cuban Black Bush Beans

Hawaiian currant tomatoes. Great for tiny salsa.

Pepper deformity. Disturbing.

Big ole Bells.

Well I've been calling this a serrano all along, but I'm now pretty sure that
it's something else. But what...

More of the mystery pepper. It's about as hot as a jalapeno (maybe it is a jalapeno?),
biggest fruits are ~4 inches, and they eventually turn red.

Flowering dill. Pickling here we come.

The mystery squash is mounting a full-on siege on the raised bed.