18 June 2008: Boulder, Colorado

I woke up, having survived the bear, The Strangers, and Gus the old prospector. Boy was I relieved.

Not as fortunate was the box of leftover pizza, which was swarming with ants. I took the two remaining pieces of pepperoni/mushroom/olive, brushed off the ants and ate them, and threw the rest out, since regular pepperoni pizza isn't really worth eating ants.

I then went back to the main building to look for Chris and Morgan to thank them one last time and to look for the cute girl who worked at the Chuck Wagon so I could talk to her since there wouldn't be Baptists giving me dirty looks at 10:00 in the morning, but I couldn't find any of them.

I decided it was time to leave, and I headed for the long walk back to the highway. At the gate the same Alabama security guard was there, and we talked a little more. I also asked him if he could figure out how to close the switch-blade, since I couldn't and it was digging into my leg through my pocket. Being an old dude from the south, he naturally was able to figure it out in about half a second. I gave him one final "Roll Tide" and he gave me one final "Go Big Blue" (I think he must have looked that one up online, since the "Big" was added from the day before) and I was off.

I hit the road at 10:30 and literally four minutes later Bill Shrecengost-- yes, THE Bill Shrecengost-- picked me up in his black Honda Accord. I told him I was on my way to Boulder and he said "you'll have fun with those wacky kids up there." I liked that. Then he said "now let me listen to Rush." I didn't like that one as much. But half an hour later he said he'd had enough.

Now this dude, Bill Shrecengost, said he's done everything in his life, and I almost believe him. He spent 30 years in the military, 10 years in the New Mexico state legislature, ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress in the '70s, taught at a jail in Springer, NM, for three years, and when he picked me up he was on his way to the Air Force Academy to install the new officers. He's rather, but not absolutely, Republican, although he's very pro-cigarettes and pro-motorcycle helmets. He's 84 years-old and got married 14 months ago. His wife is 18 years younger than him, and when I told him "good for you" he said "no, good for her" and winked at me. He bought me a burrito for lunch in Springer, winks all the time, and drove me over 300 miles from Glorieta to Colorado Springs.

Now, although 300 miles was a HUGE portion of the trip, the ride was over five hours long. And, to be honest, that's a bit too long. I'll talk to anyone for a couple hours if they're driving me somewhere, but once it gets to three, four, five hours there's not much left to say. I'd have rather broken that up into two rides of half the length, but obviously I wasn't going to turn down a lift straight to Colorado Springs. Not to mention that I took a nap for almost an hour, so it wasn't so very unbearable. Not to mention, as well, that when I woke up he was singing along to "Loving You Is Easy 'Cause You're Beautiful" and was doing the "la la la la la" part in falsetto. God, this dude was fucking sweet.

(By the way, taking a nap when someone gives you a lift is TOTALLY against etiquette, but I was exhausted and he was old, so I figured it was OK this time. But, seriously, don't do it. It's not cool.)

After he dropped me off, I got into the most perfect spot for hitching possible-- the on-ramp to Route 25 North leaving a major town with people who might have thought I was in the military and given me a ride. Guess what-- it took an hour and a half to thumb a ride. I couldn't believe it.

The ride was with Shawn and Josh, two dudes coming back from a construction gig in a grey Mazda Navajo. Shawn is a full-time construction dude and Josh is a student who is in Denver for a summer internship and working construction part-time to make some money. Shawn picks up hitchers all the time and Josh never does. Shawn is a dirty dude and Josh is a good Mormon boy
who goes to BYU. These dudes couldn't have been any more different. (Although props to Josh for being a Mormon and working construction-- those don't seem very compatible.) Shawn was going no farther than Castle Rock and he dropped me and Josh off at Josh's car.

Josh then drove me up to Yale, just outside of Denver. I asked him what he thought of Salt Lake City, since I wasn't sure it was exactly worth a visit. And he-- remember, he's Mormon-- said "well, I hear they have fun dances there." Yippie kay yay. He then said that he was going to his friend's party, and I thought for a second about getting myself invited but then decided it'd probably be a Mormon party. Not for me.

I took the Lite-Rail from Yale to Denver, and the bus from Denver to Boulder. When i finally arrived in Boulder it was 9:30 at night, and thus kamakaze time. Which means bypassing the verbal foreplay because time is running out. Although it also means only approaching houses with the people already outside. No knocking on doors.

I tried the Hill area, which is where most students live, and after the first house failed I passed an apartment building with some people playing beer pong outside. I went up to them, talked for a little while, and one of the girls asked me "how do we know you're not a murderer?" I said they didn't. This worried her, which absolutely kills me, because how the fuck else am I supposed to answer that? "Take my word?" Yeah, that's real convincing.

Anyway, I earned points for being a cool dude-- and don't forget it-- and for going to Michigan, although I'm not sure why for that second one. They said I could crash, which was good, and then I asked if I could grab a quick shower. Two dudes named Adam, who both lived in the building, said sure but were dicks about it, and so I told them to bugger off. But this other dude Scott said sure.

So I grabbed a shower and then dropped my pack off in this girl Molly's place. She was very cute, and said I could leave my pack at her place even though Scott had already offered. I thought this was a good sign, and wasn't even too put off that she had a boyfriend, but when I went to her place I could tell it wasn't going anywhere. Still, I hung out with her and one of the asshole Adams for a while.

Then this kid Sam came over, and asked for some advice: His cousin lives in NYC, and he wanted to visit her for the weekend and also his cousin's roommate, whom he has apparently hooked up with before. He wanted to go, but was worried about the price of the ticket and the fact that he had an exam on Monday and wanted to study for it. Everyone told him to just wait a month and go then, but I said that was bullshit and he should just go now. I said that either way he would regret it-- either he would go and regret spending the money and having less time to study or he would not go and he would regret, well, not going. And really, when you see it that way there's no question. But he was being a little bitch and decided not to go.

So now I was mad that he wasn't going and decided to go to the bars. One of the kids pointed me to this bar called The Sink, but when I got there I found a Shakespeare troupe had already taken it over. I tried to stick it out and had a couple drinks, but these kids were weird. And so I left.

And headed to Pearle Street. Now, when I said a while ago that Tempe's Mill Ave was on par with the bar drag in Boulder, I meant Pearle Street. It was great when I was last there, and it hadn't changed. I was with this one chick up until about 2:45-- after closing time, mind you-- and then suddenly she said she had to go. What a bitch. So I found some kids playing guitar and hung out with them-- since, well, I guess that was the next-best option-- and then at 5:00 I walked back to the apartment building.

Except I got brutally lost and it took me about an hour. By the time I got back I was exhausted, so I went up the stairs to Scott's apartment and just lay down outside his door. At 7:00 his roommate came out and I moved in to the couch.

17 June 2008: Glorieta, New Mexico

I woke up early and, despite my previous night's intentions and maybe because of the altitude, had a pretty bad hang-over. Not a great start to the day.

Noah made me eggs, hash browns and a fruit smoothie, and his roommate Dave offered me some post-breakfast marijuana. Really, the height of hospitality. Now hitching while high would probably be rather fun, but something told me I wouldn't be getting ANY rides. So thanks but no thanks.

After breakfast they dropped me off at the on-ramp for Route 25 and I began thumbing a ride to Boulder, which was the midway point between Santa Fe and my next stop, Salt Lake City. Now, having a hang-over is bad enough. Having a hang-over while standing at the side of a highway under the blazing sun? That's absolutely unbearable. I mean, I could barely stand.

The only fun part was this real old and gnarly looking dude who was walking down the highway with a pack on his back, trying to hitch a ride also. This dude was super fucking gnarly. Anyway, he walked right towards me, stopped about ten feet away, put his pack down and walked a couple circles around it. I was a little nervous he might cramp my style, but I asked him where he was going. He said "anywhere" and then picked up his pack and kept walking down the highway. Man, he was great.

So finally, 45 brutally hung-over minutes later, Henry picked me up in a black Dodge Ram. It was a very short ride, and I only had time to ask him about the gnarly dude. Henry said that the dude is homeless and just walks up and down the highway every day, trying to hitch rides back and forth. He said he picks him up once in a while and sometimes gives him his "spare change." Now, you tell me-- would he give him more than spare change if he didn't LOOK like he was homeless? I say yes.

Anyway, Henry took me as far as Glorieta-- about a half hour drive-- and dropped me off at an exit, saying that there was a "conference center" down the road that had a "food court." I was hungry and figured I could probably grab a quick nap there, since it was only about 10:00 and I thought I had time-- and so I headed down the road to the "conference center" with the "food court."

At the gate there was this old security guard who was wearing an Alabama hat. I was wearing my "Michigan kids go blue club" shirt, and we both noted the football alliegances and talked about college football for about half an hour. He was a pretty cool dude, and said "this dates me, but when I was in World War II..." For some reason I thought that was pretty cool-- not so much that he was in WWII but that he cleverly noted that it would date him. Anyway, after a little while I gave him a "Roll Tide" and he gave me a "Go Blue," and I headed towards the "conference center" with the "food court."

Along the way, I met the very cute Cassie from Texas A&M and thought I was off to a good start. That is, until she told me that the "conference center" with the "food court" was actually a Baptist Youth Summer Camp. Not that that made it a bad start-- just a more interesting one.

Anyway, I figured this would be fun, and so I went to the main building. I heard music coming from one of the rooms upstairs and, figuring it was a Christian rock band, went upstairs. What can I say, I have a soft spot for Christian rock bands. Fuck you too.

Anyway, it turned out to be just six kids playing Jesus songs, but they were actually pretty good. And the drummer, to be honest, was rocking the fuck out. So I sat down for a while, and when they finished Antonio the bassist and Tyler the guitarist came over and said hi and, for which I was grateful, invited me to come to lunch with them. So I borrowed Antonio's brother's meal card and feasted on chicken fingers and mac n' cheese in the cafeteria. Totally killer.

(Mind you, though, I was eating lunch with Christians who had just done me a big favor. Damn was it hard not saying "Jesus," "Christ," or "fuck." Let alone a combination of any two of them.)

After lunch, a bunch of the kids I was eating with went to the basketball court to shoot around for a bit. I was still hungover, sadly, so I just hung out with a few others, notably the cute but quiet Amanda. This is important.

(Also important to note is that these kids were members and student leaders of a church youth group from some place in Texas. So although there were probably 1000 people at this camp, only 60 or so were with the church I was hanging out with.)

(Maybe not so important, but a side thing, is that while I was sitting in the band practice about 10 or so kids trickled in and out. One of whom was a pregnant girl that couldn't have been more than 18 years old. My first thought was "sweet, sluts!" My second thought was "Christian sluts?" My third thought was that this poor girl had clearly missed the message every Sunday for the first 18 years of her life. But what I eventually found out was that she was indeed 18, but had gotten married when she was 16. Typical.)

(A third thing to note is that Stephen, who was the bad-ass drummer in the band, said that I could spend the night in the dorms with them. I thought this was a pretty terrible idea for many reasons, but I decided that I would at least hang out for the day and maybe just camp out for the night, before leaving for Boulder in the morning.)

Anyway, after basketball came games. I mean, this was literally fucking camp for Baptists. I was a bit less hung-over by this point but didn't really feel like running around and dealing with "spirit fingers for Jesus" or whatever they do at Baptist camp, and so I sat out.

Well, let me tell you. There were some serious spirit fingers for Jesus. During the first game the dudes sat on the grass and locked arms and legs and the girls had to pull them apart. I nearly went blind from all the spirit fingers.

The second game had someone on one team kick a ball and then run around his line-formed team before the other team could make a line of their own and pass the ball alternatingly between their legs and over their heads. I nearly went deaf from all the praising Jesus after getting the ball to the last person. Gag me.

But I figured I should at least play a little bit since I was hanging out anyway and, well, why not. But right when I stood up the youth pastor came over and asked me in not-so-friendly tones what I was doing there. Now, I didn't think a Baptist youth pastor would really be too crazy about a hitch-hiker, so I had to seriously mince my words with this dude. "Well, I'm on a trip... I was in Santa Fe and... drove here and... thought I'd go to church." I mean, I was struggling. Anyway, he told me I had to go to the front desk to check in.

(The important thing about the Amanda girl from before, then, is that she was visibly upset that the pastor was even talking to me. I mean, I was killing with these kids-- members and student leaders alike. I'm good.)

So I went to the front desk, told them I was just passing through for a night, and asked if I could just sleep outside for a night before leaving in the morning. They said I couldn't because of the "bear problem." You don't have to tell me twice.

But they called the manager, I explained the hitch, and he thought it was pretty cool and said I could sleep in the camp site a bit of a ways away but on the property. I thought that was pretty cool, and began to head back to the fields, but this dude Jared caught up to me and began preaching. Boy, I knew I was in it for the long haul.

He asked if I was Christian and I explained that I was a born-again atheist. He must have overhead me talking to the manager, because he asked me "if something happened to you on the road today, where do you think you would go?" I said "Boulder?" He didn't think that was funny.

What he DID think, though, was that I would go to hell. I told him I didn't think I had to worry too much about that, and he commented on the dangers of hitch-hiking. I told him that I didn't worry too much about that, either, because I believe that people are pretty much good. He said "there are no good people." And from there he had lost me. Because, really, I can't relate to you if you actually think that.

Anyway, because I had completely turned off and just stared at him, he must have thought I was interested in what he was saying because he kept talking for maybe a half hour. And then, at the end, I said "Don't you think Jesus actually got a pretty good deal? I mean, everyone died pretty young back then, plus he got a religion named after himself. That sounds pretty good to me." He left. I was terribly disappointed.

Now that I had finally gotten rid of Jared, I looked for my new friends but they were nowhere to be found. So I hung out on the grounds for a little bit and then heard the Christian rock music yet again coming from the room upstairs. I went up to catch the very end of the rehearsal, and after it was over Stephen came over and was very happy that I was still around. Good dude.

So I said good-bye and that I would see him at the thing that night, and I went to the Chuck Wagon-- what Henry had thought was a "food court" but was just a place to get food at the camp-- and Stephen had somehow already beaten me there. I sat down at his table and he offered to buy me some dinner. Normally I would have meekly protested and then let him buy me some dinner, but the dude's Christian. It just seemed too easy; I mean, it literally seemed unfair.

So I protested adamantly but he insisted even more, and so finally he bought me some chili cheese fries. Which were good. After we ate I thanked him, and he said "consider it a gift from God." I was like "oh no, you see, that's EXACTLY why I didn't want you to do that!"

So then it was up to the service, which I figured I might as well stick around for. You know, to make up for 17 June 2008 of www.shadierthanyouthink.blogspot.com. But as I was walking into the room the pastor, the same one from before, said to me "you could be a good guy, but don't sit with my youth." What a fucking asshole. Seriously.

So I sat in the very last row, and the number one thing I noticed from the whole sha-bang is that pastors must, as a profession, get better ass than anyone other than rock stars. Seriously, there are more hot Jesus Freaks than you would expect, and every one of them wants to get with a pastor. So the pastor has the pick of the litter. Not a bad gig if you ask me.

Other than that, the music was alright-- and, I repeat, Stephen is a hell of a drummer-- and the service was whatever. And then at the end they did this thing where they tried to cross through the parted sea like Moses and leave something or other behind. I don't know. But everyone was crying at the end. And normally I would make fun of them, but just about everyone I met was pretty nice. So instead, to satisfy you irreverent bitches, I'll tell a story from the other time I "went to church" while on a roadtrip. This one in Lexington, Ky. It's long but good:


"on sunday afternoon i went to the u-k library to check my e-mail and bus times for monday. as i had found a place to crash on friday at the bar and saturday at the party, i had absolutely no idea what i was going to do on sunday night because i had been told by many people that lexington shuts down on sunday and the bars are closed. in the library i was sitting near this one really cute girl. i asked her about lexington sunday nights and she said that no one really does anything
at all. so i then asked her what she was doing that night, and she said "i'm going to church. do you want to come with me?" those were her exact words, but i'm telling you, the way she said it i could have SWORN that "going to church" was a euphemism for "getting drunk and having sex." so i told her "hell yeah, i'll go to church with you." so we went to her car and were driving, and i was trying to sound witty and charming. but i soon realized that i was actually just being
incredibly inappropriate, because no less than three minutes later we pulled up to an actual church and the girl got out. at this point i was terrified out of my mind, trying to think how many times since i had been talking to her that i had said "god," "jesus," "fuck," or anything else that probably was very much not cool with her. it wasn't looking good. but as it turned out, "going to church" was actually a euphemism for "going to church," which is where i found myself for the first time in probably seven years. and i'm telling you, it was one of the most bizarre experiences i've ever had. the first part of the service was one of those jesus rock bands, playing songs like "the light of freedom," "go in his way," and "when i think about jesus my pants get a little wetter." before they started playing, i said to the girl "alright, this better blow my mind," and she replied "god will if you let him." i couldn't believe i was actually standing next to her. then the music started playing, and everything was singing and dancing, and i swear to god this girl was on the verge of tears the entire time. i couldn't believe it. but the thing was, even though she's an
i-cry-for-jesus republican, she was still absurdly cute, so i didn't want to seem visibly what-the-fuck-are-we-doing-here. so for the fast songs i was kinda swaying a little and clapping my hands, and during the slow songs i had this real thoughtful look on my face, like i was
really getting it, you know? and at one point the girl turned to me and said "see, i told you..." and i was like "baby, you have no idea."

so then there was a sermon, and after the service ended the girl had to leave. but there was a church salsa dancing night after the service, and i thought what the hell, the day might as well get even more bizarre. so i stuck around for it. and i'll tell you, if you ever want to draw some blanks stares at church, talk to the people there and tell them "well, i came to lexington for the game, but i figured i've sinned enough this weekend to warrant a trip to church." they love that. and then the salsa dancing started, and it was pretty fun but by this point i was feeling incredibly guilty about the girl who had brought me to church. i had been doing the feel-the-holy-spirit number because i figured she would totally want me, but what hadn't occured to me was
that she was probably the 100% wrong person for that to work with. you know, on account of how much she loves jesus. she was probably just stoked that my soul had been saved. which is why i suddenly felt guilty as hell, because it didn't really count for her. and now she has one
less example to present to god at the pearly gates. i almost felt like i should have called her and told her not to get ahead of herself, but that i would come back again so she could at least get partial credit. i'm not kidding, these are the actual things i was thinking. i felt terrible."


So maybe that gives you some idea about the service. If not, well, these kids at the Baptist camp were alright, so that's all I'm going to say.

Anyway, after the service was done-- or rather, during the crying part because I figured I had seen enough-- I headed downstairs from the room, but along the way was stopped by this dude Chris. He talked to me for a while-- and, let me say, even though they might be preaching the same exact thing, it's a lot easier to be preached to by someone your own age, a la Chris, than someone old, a la Jared-- and after a while he asked if I wanted to join him and some friends for pizza. Hell yeah I did.

So I went with him back down to the Chuck Wagon and met his wife and a couple other couples. We talked for a while before the pizza got there, and I explained that I'm rather non-religious but was just stopping through for the night on a cross-country hitch. I explained to them that my adventure-- both hitching and couch-surfing-- is essentially based on faith in the goodness of humans, and Chris turned to me and literally said "see, you have faith!" You slick son of a bitch.

Anyway, I was killing the entire time, and this was even in the face of Chris' wife questioning evolution in all seriousness by asking "if evolution is real, how come all the monkeys didn't evolve?" I changed the topic but quick.

So I was hanging out, and these kids were really very nice, and when I told them about what the pastor had said about not wanting me to sit with his group, Chris said to "tell the pastor you're with us" in case I saw him again, which was incredibly nice. (And, in fact, the pastor did walk by us, and though no one said anything I did see him give a look of disapproval that I was still around, which was good.)

So the whole thing was nice, and the pizza was delicious, and then some of the youth group leaders-- college-aged kids-- made a big deal and told everyone to listen to this other youth group leader "sing the ABCs in an Elmo voice." It was a very big deal.

And THEN the same youth group leaders-- college-aged kids, again-- made another big deal and told everyone to sing along to the chorus of "Hakuna Matata." This literally made me throw up in my mouth, but it was alright because, like I said, the pizza was delicious.

So finally the whole thing was winding down, and I explained to my Baptist friends that I was camping out that night. They noted that I didn't have a blanket or sleeping bag, and they said they'd be back in a little bit and left. When they came back, they gave me... (this deserves its own paragraph)

oranges, Slim Jims, vitamin drink mix, almonds, teddy grahams, pop tarts, Special K bars, peanut butter crackers, a box of left-over pizza, bottles of water, $45, and a super-warm comforter.

(Read that again.)

Yeah, they were nice. And then, like that wasn't enough, they literally said a fucking prayer for my journey. Boy was I set.

So I thanked them again, and they walked away. And as I stuffed my pack with my new treats I heard one of them call out "group hug!" And when I looked over, they were literally all locked in one big group hug while walking away. I can't possibly say anything mocking about this scene right now because, seriously, read that list again. But I think you can come up with something on your own.

Anyway, the night was over and I made my way over to the camping area. So let me set this up:

1) There are no lights on the road to the camping site.
2) There wasn't a soul around.
3) They have a "bear problem."
4) I recently saw "The Strangers."

Not only that, but when I got to the turn-off for the camping site the very first thing you come to is "Western Town," which at quarter to midnight in nothing but the moonlight isn't so much Western Town as Anyone-Who-Wants-To-Kill-Me-Is-In-This Town.

So now I was dealing with bears, The Strangers, AND the ghost of some crotchety old prospector whose been rolling in his grave ever since they built that damn Western Town and bastardized his former occupation and now he wants to fuck with someone. I found the first spot in the camping site that had an actual lamp, took out my new switch-blade, and went to sleep.

16 June 2008: Santa Fe, New Mexico

Not much going on today because, I'll say it again, there were 18 people on campus. When I woke up I did a little laundry. Normally I prefer doing laundry at a laundromat because it's actually kinda fun-- not to mention the couch I scored with Francis at the laundromat in New Orleans-- but the laundry machine was free, conveniently in the courtyard of the apartment building, and I was desperately out of clean clothes. So sue me.

I had some trail mix for lunch, courtesy of the Chritians. Whoop de do.

Then I tried to find the library to check e-mail, and I was glad to see that the buildings were open. I was unglad to see, though, that the library only had four computers, and that not one of them was available for public use. Bitches. So I walked to the Santa Fe public library, which was nearly as underwhelming as the CSF one, but which at least let me use their computers. So that was nice.

After the library I decided to do something with my life, and so I headed downtown-- courtesy of the all-day bus pass a nice woman gave me at the bus stop. Now, when it comes to the actual town of Santa Fe, let me say that it is absolutely incredible. There's an ordinance about the buildings downtown that they all have to be shorter than a designated height and made out of adobe-- so it's literally like it could have been a scene from 300 years ago if only you didn't look at the store signs.

Anyway, everything is cool and ancient-- Santa Fe was founded in 1610! That's only three years after Jamestown was founded!-- and there's just an awesome vibe of everyone taking it easy and enjoying the sun. It's almost impossible to believe that it's the capital city of New Mexico. As far as capital cities/college towns go, Austin is of course the gold standard, but Santa Fe is probably second-- tied with Columbia, SC, believe it or not-- for sweetness. I highly recommend it to anyone.

After digging downtown Santa Fe for a while I took the bus back to CSF and stopped in at Burrito Spot, which is the place that Mike and the gang treated me when they dropped me off. Although I did pay a hefty $4 for a hefty steak/potatos burrito, the lady behind the counter did give me a huge cup of Horchata for free. Horchata is, I guess, rice milk, and is kinda like drinking rice pudding only if it were delicious. Which Horchata is. Grab yourself a can and thank me later.

So I went back to B-8, but found that Matt and Tim-- my two favorites-- were gone, leaving only Max. Now, Max was alright the previous night, but when I came back he was just a grumpy-ass dude. I don't know why, but man that kid was not happy. I grabbed a couple beers from the barely-dented Tecate, watched "South Park," grabbed a shower, and headed over to Noah's. But not before taking three beers for the road.

Noah said he wasn't going out that night, so I gave him one of the beers to repay him for the previous afternoon, chugged the other two, let my pack there, and set out since the bars were about half an hour away on foot and I was already getting a late start according to Santa Fe bar-time.

Now, I had met this girl Liz at the beer-pong apartment the previous night, and she said that she works at this bar called Willie's and that I should check it out. I assumed that meant she would be working, but it turned out she only works on weekends. It also turned out that 80% of the bar's patrons were huddled around a break-dance circle on the dance floor. No thank you.

Then I checked out this bar called The Cowgirl, which I had heard was "teeming with cougars." It also was karaoke night, which I figured older women probably enjoyed. It ALSO was $2 beer night, which was by far the best price I had seen so far. Unfortunately, and this should have been evident to me considering the name of the bar, it looked like we were dealing with a lesbian bar. Heavy on the lesbians and light on the... well, straight women.

Things didn't really seem like they would be working out, and more importantly I didn't want to be hung-over on a hitch, so I went back to Noah's and crashed. Again, the same sentiments from the previous night apply.

15 June 2008: Santa Fe, New Mexico

Today I called the first audible of my trip: bypassing Albuquerque for a swing through Santa Fe. The reason behind this was:

1) As much as I dig the "big state school" theme, I do feel like I should throw in a small liberal arts school here and there as well.
2) Since I didn't make it to Albuquerque on Saturday, I didn't feel like missing out on Sunday/Monday combination would be too devastating.
3) Santa Fe was supposed to be a much nicer town in any case, and I felt it would certainly have more charm than Albuquerque on the days I would be visiting.
4) I would be checking out the College of Santa Fe, so even though it's not a state school it still has the name of the place in the school's name.

So with that in mind, and my Cracker Barrel coffee in hand, I hit the road at just past 7:00. 27 minutes later a truck pulled up and Meni-Meni, the Indian truck driver, told me to hop in.

Before this ride I had only thumbed one ride in a truck, which took me from Nashville to Memphis a couple years ago. So to counter the "you-got-a-ride-with-a-trucker?!?!" here is what I wrote about this ride with Warren the trucker:

"so finally this one trucker says that if i help him unload his truck for a couple hours he'll give me a lift to memphis. sweet as hell. so i break my back for a few hours (it was a moving van, so bringing stuff out, wrapping it, bringing it back in, rinse and repeat) and he takes me to memphis. but this wasn't just any trucker. this was the good will hunting of truckers. i mean, this guy was the most brilliant person i've ever talked to. i've never heard someone make more obscure references to literature, historical events, and politics in my life. it was really quite amazing. people are so interesting, but who would ever think to have a legitimate conversation about the state of the country and what needs to be done to improve it with a trucker? the only problem when i was trying to take a nap was his penchant for playing at full volume what he called "old-school punk" but what i would call "psychotic death metal." either way, we got to memphis, went to a smokey blues bar and had a few drinks."

I'd bet that 95% of truckers just want someone to talk to, because those dudes are driving for days at a time by themselves. And, let me tell you, Meni-Meni seriously just wanted someone to talk to.

That's because I'm convinced that he picked me up solely so he could practice his English with me. He drove me from Gallup to Albuquerque, which was about a two-hour drive, and was incredibly friendlyl. For the first hour or so he would say basic one-sentence phrases that were typical vocab-sentences. If you can dig that.

For instance, he asked me if I had any brothers and sisters, and I said that I had two sisters. Then he turned to me and pointed and said "and you are one brother." Classic. Then he asked me "When do you start sex... you don't make any babies?"

After this he started getting political. He said he wanted Obama to be the Democratic nominee because "Hillary is too busy with nail polish." Haha! He asked why same-sex marriages are becoming more common, and I said that people just want to be happy. So then he said, and this is a direct quote, "but man to man marry, put it in the poo-poo." I didn't really think it'd be a good idea to argue with him on this one. Praise be to Allah.

And finally, towards the end of the ride, he started getting cocky. Gone were the basic one-sentence phrases, and he started stringing together these rambling tangents, and I literally had no idea what he was saying. None. I just kept nodding, which only encouraged him more. The one thing I did catch, though, was he made a joke about yawns being contagious. I know this because I yawned and then he yawned. So he pointed at me, then pointed at himself, said something completely incoherent, and then laughed. It must have been real funny.

So finally we got to Albuquerque, and he dropped me off on the side of the highway. I climbed over the railing to get to the on-ramp and waited an hour and 20 minutes before Mike, Mike's siter Katie, and Mike's girlfriend Zoe picked me up in a black Subaru Outback.

These, let me tell you, were some cool kids. Mike and Katie are from New Hampshire, Mike and Zoe go to UNM, and Katie was visiting for the weekend. All three of them were on their way to Los Alamos to visit Mike and Katie's grandma. Of all my rides so far, this one was definitely the friendliest. And, more importantly, it's the only one so far that I would willingly drive cross-country with-- and that's the tell-tale sign of a good ride.

The other tell-tale sign of cool kids giving you rides is when they're interested in the actual process of hitching. And they were by far the most interested of the drivers so far. This is cool, not because I like telling people my stories-- which, however, I do-- but because I like passing on the tricks of the trade to other people. Mike makes a habit of picking up hitchers, which is a good start and an incredible service to vagabonds the world over, but I really think all three of them-- and Mike in particular-- could be future hitchers. That's sweet.

Not to mention, when we got to Santa Fe they bought be a burrito for lunch. Old people giving me food money is one thing, but for a student who is probably equally as hungry as I am to do so is even cooler. An all-star ride all the way around.

Now, the one factor of CSF that I had to counter for that worked against the four I listed above is that, as a small liberal arts school, it's student body is rather smaller than UNM's. And by that I mean 800 compared to 18,027. But, figuring who wouldn't want to be in Santa Fe during the summer and that 80% of the student body was from out-of-state, there'd still be a sizable number of kids around.

Well, I was wrong. There was NO ONE-- not an exageration-- on campus, and every single one of the buildings were locked. I chalked this up to being Sunday and hoped things might pick up.

But I had to use a bathroom and, like I said, all the buildings were locked. Eventually I tried this one building marked "campus security" and, of course, it too was locked. But a security guard came out. He asked if I was a student at CSF and I said no. He asked if I was there for a summer program and I said no. He asked if I was just passing through and I said yes. He let me use the bathroom, but considering I was at this point the only living soul on campus besides the security guard, I figured he'd be on the look-out. Not good.

So at this point I decided to take a nap, and for all the positive qualities about Santa Fe I must say that they have the worst grass in America. At least on the campus. I managed to get about an hour of rest in, but when I woke up the security guard was literally standing ten feet from me and giving me a glare. I hopped up like I had just laid down five minutes before and beat the hell out.

I went over to the on-campus apartments and hoped that someone would be around. Of the thirty or so apartments-- the only summer housing available to students-- there were three kids on one porch and that was it. So I went up to them-- Matt, Max and Tim-- and after talking for a while I decided that we should have a "Welcome to Santa Fe" party in honor of me. Naturally. They didn't seem too optimistic that it would amount to anything, but I figured it was worth a shot.

I left my pack at their apartment and headed downtown to the Santa Fe Whole Foods Market. When I got there, I helped myselt to 3 tiny pizza slices, 2 grapes, and a sample of red rice. Totally underwhelming.

Then I went to other Whole Foods Market, because apparently Santa Fe likes its organic food. I went to town on the cheese tray and had a sample of macaroni salad. Now, you know that when I go to town on a cheese tray I GO TO TOWN on the cheese tray, but-- let's be honest here-- 3 tiny pizza slices, 2 grapes, a sample of red rice, cheese, and a sample of macaroni salad is a pretty weak showing for one Whole Foods Market, let alone two. TOTALLY underwhelming.

What the second Whole Foods Market did have, though, was the absolutely most perfect orange and tomato to ever exist on earth. I'm not kidding. And since I haven't exactly been stocking up on vitamins during this trip, I figured I might as well splurge for some. So I did. And while the orange was a tidy 87 cents, the tomato was $3.47. THREE DOLLARS AND FORTY-SEVEN CENTS!!! If I had bigger caps I would use them. I couldn't believe it. I mean, they were $3.99 a pound, but I didn't know tomatos existed that were more than one-quarter of a pound. This one was more than three-quarters. It was quite a shock at the register, but I thought taking it back would be a bit tacky. So I bit the bullet and purchased my most expensive meal of the trip so far-- a fucking tomato.

This made me mad, and so I headed back to CSF. I asked this dude Noah for directions, he was walking the same way, and when we got to his house he asked if I wanted to have a beer and a peanut butter sandwich. I told him I'd pass on the PBnoJ but could certainly use a beer. So I shot the shit with this kid-- who is from Texas and is just taking it easy in Santa Fe for a while-- and then I went back to campus. But not before he swore to me that he saw a UFO flying over Santa Fe the previous week, and then admitted that it probably wasn't real but that it was ABSOLUTELY real, too. What a dude.

When I got back I talked it over with the dudes and we decided to stock up on Tecate-- a Mexican beer big in the southwest-- for the Welcome to Santa Fe party. I picked up 60 beers for $50 and had my first moral dilemma of the trip. Road Etiquette states that you must buy the first round for your host. While that's pretty simple at a bar, when you're buying cases of beer it's a bit more tricky. Especially when the tab runs up to a Ulysses Grant. I felt bad asking for money, but since it was a party I figured all the hosts were responsible-- me included, of course. So we divvied it up into fourths, which was good because the Tomato Fiasco was still weighing heavily on my mind.

So the Welcome to Santa Fe party was underway. And let me tell you, NOTHING was happening. I mean, I went so far as to knocking on doors that had lights on, and there was still nothing. No one was doing anything. Not to mention, of the 18 people on campus-- no, not hyperbole-- only 4 were girls. It was a disaster.

So I decided to go to this other place, where there was still nothing substantial going on but at least there was a little beer pong. I hung out there for a while, got bored, and decided to see what was going on back at B-8.

As it turned out, everyone was moving to the quad to hang out, which was pretty chill. A couple kids took me around for a bit to see the campus at night, which was nice, and after I while I just went back to the apartment and crashed on the couch. Hey, it's not like anything big was going on in Albuquerque, either.

14 June 2008: Gallup, New Mexico

I woke up very early and was having a pretty terrible asthma attack. We're talking, aaaaalmost not breathing. I looked down and, wouldn't you know, the fucking cat was sleeping on the floor. Of course.

I went to the bathroom to get my inhaler and took a puff. Now, normally when I'm having a bad attack and I have to use my inhaler I sit down, because I get pretty light-headed and woozy when I breathe in. Well, I forgot to this time. So I took a puff, momentarily blacked out, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground.

Kendra, who had been banished to the living room for the night, woke up and asked me if I was OK. I told her "yeah, yeah, I think I just blacked out." Needless to say, I think it was a pretty loud crash because Bethany had woken up from inside the room and came out to see what happened. Needless to say as well, I think it was a pretty powerful crash because, I kid you not, my elbow had literally put a hole through the bathroom door. Good lord.


Anyway, after a breathless and restless rest of the night, I got up and decided it was time to move on. Bethany wanted me to stay for another day, and I would have liked to, but I was antsy to get back on the road.

So I took a shower, and when I went back into Bethany's room she was curled up on her bed with her cat and petting it, and said to me "HE loves me, HE wouldn't leave me." I swear to you, if I wrote a book about my time in Tempe, it would be called "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Bizarro Universe." I had to get out of there.

So Bethany saw past her disappointment and made me a bag lunch of bananas, some other snacks, and a Red Bull, and then dropped me off at the exit for Route 101.

After 13 minutes, Larry came along in a silver Toyota Sienna and took me north on Route 87 up to Payson. He was driving to help his son, who had gotten two flat tires on his car, and so now he was saving two birds with one stone. He was also listening to NPR, so I knew he was legit. But the most valuable thing about Larry was one piece of advice he gave me. I had mapquested the route from Tempe to Albuquerque, but the directions it gave me involved about 4 different highways, the first of which took me from Tempe to Payson and the second of which took me from Payson east. But Larry advised me that it would be simpler if I just kept north on 87 all the way to Route 40, from where it would be a straight shot east.

And so I did. I thumbed along Route 87-- the stretch that went right through town-- and after 8 minutes I got picked up by a blue Ford Taurus. The driver was wearing a dirty trucker hat, was rocking out to Guns and Roses, hadn't shaved in maybe a week, was just a dirty dude... and was named Pierre. Beat's the shit out of me. Anyway, Pierre had already picked up a woman named Jen, who he was taking to the Flagstaff bus station, and so I crammed into the backseat, next to all of Jen's things-- and she had many things-- and with my pack on my lap and absolutely no room to move. I couldn't hear much during the ride because the music was too loud, but I did see him roll himself a cigarette-- while he was driving. It was, in a sense, the raddest thing I've ever witnessed. Then he dropped me off near the town of Strawberry, where he turned and headed east to get to Flagstaff.

So now I was literally in the middle of nowhere, because the turn-off to Flagstaff was off 87 in the middle of farm lands, and I was a bit concerned about finding another ride out of there. Well, 11 minutes later Jean and Pat-- a married couple from Pennsylvania-- picked me up in a rented black Dodge Avenger. Jean was originally from Muskegon and Pat was originally from New Jersey, so they were basically my two worlds combined, and they were on vacation in Phoenix. They had driven past me at first but then thought better of it and turned around to pick me up. Both of them were incredibly nice and talkative and they were on the way to see Meteor Crater. The road to Meteor Crater was off 87 before 40, and so they said that they could drop me off at the turnoff and try to catch another ride to 40 or I could come along to Meteor Crater and they would take me to 40 afterwards. I figured what the hell. Let's do it. Unfortunately, they missed the turnoff and got all the way to Route 40 before realizing it. So at this point, I had to decide if I wanted to stay in Winslow, where 87 meets 40, or backtrack about an hour and go to Meteor Crater. Well, I think you can already guess that I went to Meteor Crater.

Meteor Crater itself was pretty cool. It was the first meteor impact site ever recorded, or something, and is definitely a pretty impressive sight. Things like this don't really do it for me that much, but it was worth the trip. Not to mention that the intersection of Routes 87 and 40 in Winslow is about half a mile from the Arizona State Penitentiary. Something told me that even if I had stayed an hour east, I wouldn't have gotten where I was going any sooner. Nor would I have gotten a ride.

Furthermore, Jean paid for my ticket to see Meteor Crater, which was $15-- outrageous-- and which I could have never in a million years afforded to see on my own. And then he gave me $10 for food. People are sweet.

After leaving Meteor Crater I said good-bye to Jean and Pat and worked on my next ride. After 35 minutes-- by far the longest wait-- a dusty black Honda Accord pulled up. It was the first ride I thumbed alongside the actual highway, and the dialogue with the driver through the passenger window went something like this: "Where are you going? Where? Huh? Is that east?" Needless to say, I had no idea where they were going, just that it was towards the east. It was also the quietest car I've ever ridden in. Besides the quiet country music playing in the background, Henry-- who had first said his name was "Steve"-- said maybe 10 things the entire ride, half of which were inaudible. Beth in the passenger seat-- who had been introduced as "Jen"-- failed to say a single word the entire time, as did "Tanya" sitting next to me-- whose real name I probably don't know. And so all I knew about the destination was that it was east but, as the exits were each about 10 miles apart, every time we passed I breathed a sigh of relief because it meant I would get at least another 10 miles closer to Albuquerque. Finally, as he dropped me off in a town called Holbrook, Henry said there were a bunch of nice restaurants. I said I didn't have enough money for a nice restaurant, and he literally told me "then get a sling shot." Weird dude.

Unfortunately, I didn't even have money for Dairy Queen, which doesn't have any items under $3. So I asked for a cup of water, and the dude next to me noticed my pack and asked if I was traveling. I said I was, and he showed me to his car and gave me three bottles of water, two protein bars, and an apple, because he used to hitch and knows what it's like. No kidding.

So I went back to the highway, and after 7 minutes was picked up by a couple dudes in a black Ford Econo Line who were on their way to the Navajo Reservation. The driver was this kid A.J., who is paralyzed from the waist down. And who, I'll say it again, was driving. He operates the gas and the brakes with buttons on the steering wheel, which is good because the man just about lives in his car. He's been driving around the country a lot lately, including trips back and forth from California to the Indy 500 the past two years, and so he's got everything in the back of his car-- including his wheelchair, which I was sitting on. He then asked Monty, who was in the passenger seat and is Navajo, to pour him a vodka and lemonade. Any concern about him drinking and driving, though, was immediately replaced by my absolute amazement that this dude was drinking and driving... without any use of his legs. As he put it, "I've got one hand holding the wheel and my other hand holding my drink. If something sudden happened, I'd have to drop my drink. We don't want that to happen." True, indeed.

The other dude, Monty, didn't say much but was rocking out pretty hard to the music the entire time. One of the things he did say, though, was he asked me "Do you feel imprisoned?" I told him no, which I explained for two reasons: 1) I've graduated. Any imprisonment I felt in school-- and, being an English major, there wasn't much-- is now over. 2) More importantly, though, I don't feel imprisoned because I spend so much time on the road. Or, maybe, I spend so much time on the road so that I don't feel imprisoned. And the thing is, that really might be the most fulfilling and exhilirating part of what it is that I do. I mean, I love meeting people from all parts of the country-- people I'd never otherwise have met and people that the people I already know will never meet for themselves. And I love the adventures that come along with it-- and there have been more adventures than I can even begin to tell.

But the best part is the escape from the imprisonment of being in one place. It's being able to move every two or three days and place the people from the previous two or three days into a distant-- or, a different-- place in my mind. It's getting disillusioned by one town and then deciding that night that it's time to move on to another. It might even be calling home every couple days and realizing my parents have no idea where I am and only do because I tell them. It's just the freedom to go wherever the wind moves me and do whatever inspires me. It's escaping imprisonment.

Anyway, that was a fun ride. But then they dropped me off at a gas station right across from the Navajo reservation, and by this point it was getting dark quickly. I asked a family who was at the gas station if I could get a ride towards Albuquerque, and they said they would-- if their white GMC Yukon wasn't broken down. But they recognized me from when I was hitching at Meteor Canyon and, because I assumed they felt bad about passing me the first time, they gave me a bag of trail mix, peanut butter, and water bottles.

So I tried a while longer to get a ride from someone at the station, but was having absolutely no luck. Everyone there was Navajo, which wouldn't have been a problem if one dude hadn't told another "Don't help him, he's white." It also wouldn't have been a problem if another dude hadn't told me "Want to come to a squaw party on the reservation? They'll LOVE you, white boy." Needless to say, I was terrified.

Now, I decided I'd try my luck on the highway, but before I left the grandma sitting in the broken car asked me when the last time I had been to church was. I told her about five years ago, and she said simply "You found us to find Jesus." Oh boy.

So I went to the highway, but by this point it was very dark and I knew there was no way I'd get a ride. I went back to the gas station and the family was still there, waiting for a tow truck to arrive. When it finally did, the mom called me over, told me to put my pack in the back of the car, and pretend to be their son.

And just like that, I was saved from spending the night at the Navajo Reservation gas station. I thanked the mom and grandma profusely, and they replied-- typically-- with "don't thank us, thank God." They traded more sound bites back-and-forth, with mama's best being "Like Grandma said, Jesus sent you to find us," and Grandma's being "God works wonders if you let him." It was almost too much. Almost. I just had to work the smiling/nodding/mmhmming angle, since after all they were giving me a ride.

So mom, dad, daughter Virginia, and son Alex crammed into the back of the tow truck and grandma rode shotgun. The dad leaned forward the entire time to talk to the driver, and I was chatting it up with mama for just about the entire ride-- and hitting it off quite well. She was pretty cute for a mom-- I hesitate to call her a MILF because I don't think God would like that-- and I had to remind myself that not only was she married, she loved Jesus like few others. Things weren't looking good.

But, of course, things were good, since I made it to Gallup. I was seriously killing during the car ride, and everyone loved me, and when we arrived the mom asked if I wanted to get dinner with them. I said yes, and I swear to you the kids literally cheered because I wasn't leaving. Good lord, was it funny.

So they bought me a chicken salad-- with some much needed vitamins-- and while we waited for the food Alex got one of those peg games, where there are 15 holes and 14 pegs and you have to jump pegs and try to only have one left. I took one of the games too and got really into it, and then Virginia did the same. And then the mom got up to get a couple more, and she and grandma started doing it-- and, I mean, they literally said "ready set go" so that we all did it together. I was a fucking superstar to these people.

(Incidentally, the dad was grumpy pretty much the entire time and was the only one who didn't play the peg game. While I understand that he was the most frustrated because of the situation, he also said to me that he was an "anti-social hitch-hiker" and always camped out. That probably explains why he didn't take to me as well as the rest.)

After dinner the family went to their hotel and I went to the bars. Or, I should say, THE bar. The only one in Gallup. Not only that, I was literally the only white dude in the entire place-- I checked. I stayed for about an hour and tried to make something happen, but it was looking futile. So then, at 1:30, I went to the classic late-night haunt of the sleep-deprived-- the local neighborhood Denny's.

I went in, sat down, and no more than 5 minutes later a girl at the table opposite mine pointed to my pack and said "Traveling?" Not REALLY in a mood to talk, but figuring I might as well, I moved over to her table. She was the only one there, but there were three plates, and after a while she said "I'd take you home with me but my boyfriend's outside."

So I asked who the third plate belonged to and she said her friend, who was outside also. I asked her if the friend might take me back, and she said, simply, "Well, she kinda looks like a man." Not that that means her house is any less warm than any other.

So I said it didn't matter, and Kim said that we would know the next morning if her friend was a lesbian. Which sounded like a fun experiment. But then the friend came in. And oh my, she wasn't lying. She was a nice girl-- at least, I think-- and we hung out for a while and talked. But yeah, I wasn't going home with her. No way, no how.

At around 3:00 the friend left, I finished my coffee, and then I headed to that other less classic late-night haunt of the sleep-deprived-- the local neighborhood Wal-Mart.

Now, if you've never been to Wal-Mark after midnight, it's pretty intersesting. When you're there at 3:00, it's just you and a few other owls, and the employees are either rearranging things or standing around looking for something to do. So from 3:00 until almost 6:00, I made about 10 laps, spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the movies, and hung out with some of the employees. For this reason, if you've never been to Wal-Mart after midnight, I highly recommend it. The employees are so bored, there's nothing they'd rather do than talk to you. It's actually really fun.

I was talking to one particular employee for quite some time, and after a while I walked with her to the Matchbox car aisle and asked her to pick one of the mystery cars. It's always important when you're on a road-trip to have a good-luck Matchbox car. Just trust me on this one.

And so finally, at a quarter to 6, I walked out of Wal-Mart with a good-luck car for me, a good-luck car for the family, and a pocket atlas. Let me tell you, getting that pocket atlas was the hardest thing I've done on the trip so far. On the third day of my first ever college town jaunt, I bought a pocket atlas-- that would make it the 2006 edition. That atlas has been with me on every trip since, and is a book full of maps and memories. Unconscionably, I forgot to bring it with me. I need an atlas for this trip, so I can know where I'm going on the road, but boy did I feel dirty buying a new one.

I also, it should be noted, almost bought a "Jesus Rocks" shirt to bring back to the family. But in the end I thought a good-luck car was a better idea: One, because the kids had gotten good-luck rocks at Meteor Crater. Two, because it was $14 less. Three, because it was a shirt that said "Jesus Rocks." Thanks but no thanks.

So I went to the hotel, found the family's car, and put the Matchbox contained on the windshield with a note that said "A good-luck car to go with the good-luck turtle and elephant. From the King of the Road himself." That's just how good of a dude I am.

And then, at 6:02, I stepped into Jack-in-the-box. If you've never been to Wal-Mart after midnight you've also probably never been to a fast food place when it first opens. And that, my friends, is a shame. There's no one in the world happier to talk to you than the early-morning employees at a fast food place. It's kinda like the Wal-Mart employees, except for that they can at least walk around. The fast food employees are stuck behind the counter and literally, I mean literally, are dying to talk to anyone.

So I went in, talked to the girl at the counter for a little bit, and then I took out the Matchbox package. It was a mystery package, so I didn't know which one I would get, and I asked the girl if she would open it for me. Now, imagine the joy that the Wal-Mart employee got from my asking her to pick my good-luck car, and multiply by 10. That's the joy the fast food girl got from opening the good-luck car.

Which, incidentally, is a green 1958 Corvette convertible. A solid good-luck car, except that it has the engine on the hood, which is kinda annoying.

Anyway, the girl opened the car, and then asked if I wanted anything. I said a breakfast burrito would be nice, and-- as I expected-- she presented it to me free of charge. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. You open my good-luck car, and then I get a breakfast burrito. The rule of the road.

Finally I got a coffee at Cracker Barrel and hit the road at 7:00, effectively beginning the new day.

13 June 2008: Tempe, Arizona

As I had fallen asleep on the grass outside a random building, I was woken up probably a few hours later by a couple cops. They asked me the regular questions, what I was doing, where I was going, who I was staying with, where they lived, and I didn't have a single answer for them. I'm telling you, I had NO IDEA where I was or where I had been trying to go the previous night. I had absolutely no concept of time or place. None at all.

I also had no idea where my pack was, and I asked the cops if they had taken it. They said they hadn't seen a pack when they got there, and this made me very worried. But they said I either had to go somewhere else or go to jail. One night in jail in Oxford, Ms., was enough for me, thank you very much, so I started walking. Although I didn't know where I was going.

And so I kept walking, trying to remember what on earth I was doing and where on earth I was going, and suddenly it hit me-- 7th and Roosevelt. So I ran back to the cops and blabbered "7th and Roosevelt! 7th and Roosevelt!" And the cops, those assholes, simply said "good luck finding it."

Well, I needed more than just luck, because I still had no idea where it was. But I kept walking, and eventually I saw a woman waiting for a bus. I asked her where 7th and Roosevelt was, and she told me that if I got on the bus she would show me.

Now, I was half-asleep during the ride and had no idea where the bus was going or how long I had been on it, but finally the woman told I had arrived, and that I just needed to walk a few more blocks down the street. I did, and I found 7th and Roosevelt, but the apartment building wasn't there. I knew that Tempe had two 7th and Roosevelts, one being an Ave and one a St, and I figured I'd find it in the morning. So I went to sleep. Outside a random building. Again.

And was woken up by a cop. Again. This time, though, I knew exactly who and where I was, and I told him I needed to find the other 7th and Roosevelt. So he pointed me in the right direction, but when I got there I still didn't see the apartment building. Now I was a little confused, because I knew there wasn't a third 7th and Roosevelt. I called Bethany to make sure I had the right address, which I did, and I told her I was outside a Shell gas station. She told me that, not only was there no Shell gas station at the corner of 7th and Roosevelt, but she was physically standing outside looking for me.

So I went inside to ask the attendant where the campus was, since that was a pretty easy landmark, and he asked which one. I said the ASU campus, and I swear to you, he said "buddy, you're in Phoenix."

Now, I'm pretty sure that Phoenix is just one city over from Tempe. But, you have to understand, it's nearly an hour away and there is literally no way to get there without going on the highways. I have no idea how any of the following things happened:

1) I actually got to Phoenix
2) I didn't realize the bus was driving on highways
3) I didn't realize it had taken almost an hour
4) the woman thought I meant 7th and Roosevelt in Phoenix when I couldn't have walked more than a mile from Mill Ave.

Anyway, the whole thing was actually pretty funny. So I called Bethany, told her I was in Phoenix, and said I would meet her at her work-place.

Bethany works as something like a camp counsellor, except it's at a school and there's only 9 kids and all they do is watch movies and go to a pool. Now doesn't that sound lovely?

She asked me the previous night if I wanted to go with her, and I thought it was a pretty funny idea. Not to mention, again, that I'd be at a pool. So I met her at the school and was basically a counsellor for a day. Oh, and we told them I was "Bethany's cousin," since "the random guy Bethany picked up the night before" probably wouldn't have worked.

And let me tell you, it was quite a day. When I got to the school they put in a movie-- I think it was "Gremlins," although that does seem maybe a bit inappropriate for 2nd-to-6th graders. I lay down on a bean-bag chair, and within 5 minutes I was sound asleep. When I woke up I went to Jack in the Box and used my new gift card, and then at 11:30 we went to the pool.

And this, my friends, couldn't have been any better. We were at the pool from noon to almost 4:00, and I spent the whole day swimming and relaxing and playing with the kids. Well, except for when some kid pooped in the pool and everyone had to get out for half an hour so they could put more chemicals in. Fucking great. Camp counsellor indeed.

It was just what I needed. On the bus ride over, Bethany had told one of the girls that she would give try to teach her to swim. I said the girl was lucky, and Bethany looked at me and said "oh I'll give you a swimming lesson." You know, real sexy. Needless to say, though, Bethany reminded me about a dozen times throughout the day that I was supposed to be her cousin. Not that incest is unequivocally bad, but you know. Her employer might have thought it was weird.

So that was the day, and after the pool it got even better, as Bethany made pasta salad and hamburgers and we opened a bottle of champagne. I mean, it was incredible.

After dinner we were both exhausted, and we took a nap. We woke up around 10:00 and Bethany said she didn't really feel like going out, and wanted to stay in. Let me tell you, I wasn't complaining.

So that was about it. It was, in a sense, the best day of my journey so far, although definitely the least exciting. And I will say about Bethany, although she is an incredibly cute girl, she's borderline dumb as rocks. Or, if not dumb as rocks, then just totally confused and having no idea how things work. Cases in point:

1) When I told her I didn't want the cat sitting right next to me, she said "but it's just sitting there and not moving, so you don't have to worry about allergies."
2) When I told her I didn't want the cat sleeping in the same room as us, she said "but you'll be sleeping, so you don't have to worry about allergies."
3) When I told her I didn't want the cat around me in general, she said "you're afraid of cars?" I explained I just didn't want to stop breathing, and she said "no, I can tell, you're afraid." I told her it wasn't like she had a fucking saber-tooth cat as a pet.
4) She always-- I repeat, always-- called the cat over when we were sitting down and she would pick it up and put in my face. I swear, she just didn't get it. So I gave up trying.
5) She didn't get what she called my "poor but not poor thing." Meaning she didn't understand how someone with a degree from college could be traveling and not settled down. Meaning she also had no idea what I meant by I would get a job after traveling, nor how anyone in college could "only" work at Ben and Jerry's.
6) I told her that not wearing my glasses is my one tic, the one thing that gets me. And so every time I got in bed and had taken off my glasses she was astounded by why I had taken my glasses off. "I thought you said you didn't not wearing your glasses." "Well, yeah, but we're going to bed." "So? I thought you didn't like it?"

I'm telling you, if she wasn't cute there'd be no hope.

12 June 2008: Tempe, Arizona

I woke up on the couch in Mike's house and was completely alone. This happens more than you would probably expect, but is one of the many examples of absolute, and blind, trust that you'll find when you hit the road. When most people talk about the "dangers" of hitch-hiking and couch-surfing, it's usually about the hitcher or the surfer. But the person providing the ride or the couch has to have an incredible amount of faith as well. It works both ways.

Anyway, the Tempe Whole Foods Market was about 3.6 miles away from Mike's house, and I figured it would hit it early and often. So I set off. Now, I don't mind walking 3.6 miles. I don't mind walking it in the blistering Tempe heat. And I don't even mind walking it in the heat while carrying my pack. What I DO mind, though, is shitty-ass samples.

There was chips and guacamole, mango, and melon right inside the door. Boy, I was ecstatic at the sight of all that. But throughout the rest of the entire store there was only little pieces bread. That's it. And there wasn't even any fucking olive oil. The audacity.

I was pretty pissed, but a dude offered to give me a ride back to campus so I wouldn't have to add insult to injury and collapse from heat exhaustion. Which, I suppose, would add injury to insult. So we're talking, and I ask this kid Josh if he knows if the Phoenix Whole Foods Market is any better. He asks why, and I said because I wanted to get some samples so I could eat. And without me saying another word, he reaches into his glove compartment and hands me two gift-cards: one to In and Out ($3.59) and one to Jack in the Box ($5.09). Jesus, people are nice.

Armed with my new assets, I walked from campus to the nearest In and Out, which was three miles away round-trip. So, adding it up, that would make over 6 miles of walking just to get free food. Which, to be honest, isn't that much.

Anyway, as I was approaching In and Out this dude, apparently doing some promotion, hands me a $5 coupon to Moe's Mexican Food. As much as I love In and Out, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so I had myself a delicious burrito. On the way out, I asked the dude if the promotion was going to be going on the next day, and he handed me another $5 coupon, just like that. I swear, sometimes this is too easy.

So then I decided to check out downtown Tempe during the day. Mill Ave is pretty cool during the day, and the rest of downtown is really nice and looks fun. But the problem is it's just so damn hot. I mean, oppressively hot. I don't see how anyone can get anything done outside in Tempe in the summer. The heat might be the only negative thing about Tempe, but it's a big one.

Now, I had completely forgotten about finding a couch until the evening, when Mike called at about 9:00. He offered to let me crash at his place again, but I've got a no-same-couch-for-two-days-in-a-row rule, and I wasn't ready to break it without trying. So it was crunch time.

I started talking to people, but everyone was there for different summer programs or things and didn't have any way for to stay with them. But then I met this one girl who, when I said hi, said she had just taken an exam and was feeling pretty stressed. I offered to buy her a beer to help her relax, and we headed to a bar.

In the car, Bethany asked me if I was traveling through Tempe, and I said that I was and told her what I've been doing. Without me asking her anything, she said "I have beer at home and you can sleep on my couch, if you were going to ask." Well, not to put too fine a point on it...

So I went back to her place and hung out with her and her roommate for a while, but I left after a bit because they have two cats and didn't seem to have any idea that having allergies to cats-- which I do-- means that it's bad to have cats sitting right next to you-- which Bethany insisted on.

As I headed back to Mill Ave it occured to me I hadn't called Kesiah, the girl from the previous night who I told I'd buy a steak dinner. I figured this was probably a good thing, since buying a steak dinner for anyone would have set me back about a week and a half in food money. I thought about calling her anyway, but she had said she was working that night and I figured I'd just give her a call the next night.

Now, the thing about this night is that I had taken Benedril at Bethany's place. So, not surprisingly, it didn't take much alcohol to get me drunk in a pretty bad way. I left the bar and tried to get back to Bethany's, which I knew was at the corner of 7th and Roosevelt. After I walked a few blocks from Mill, though, I realized I had no idea where either 7th OR Roosevelt was, so I just lay down outside a random building and fell asleep. As I do.

11 June 2008: Tempe, Arizona

Well, I woke up probably no more than an hour after I fell asleep, colder than I can ever recall being in my life. By this point, all the hobos were gone, which was a pretty impressive mass movement. The good news, though, is that my pack WASN'T gone. Which is very good news indeed.

So after I woke up I moved to the train station, where I lay down on the bench outside and was minimally warmer. Finally, it was time for the bus and I headed to the Greyhound station.

Now, although I always like to try a little hitch-hiking when I'm on the road, this didn't seem like the best place to start. Los Angeles was about the half-way point between Santa Barbara and Phoenix, and I didn't want to risk getting dropped off in LA. I also didn't want to risk getting stuck in LA traffic with whomever was driving, because I didn't think I'd have the energy for that much conversation. So the bus it was.


Now, the first leg of the trip-- to Los Angeles-- was pretty uneventful. However, when I got to the station they said the bus was going to be an hour and a half late. Not really a surprise, to be completely honest. Luckily, the bus only ended up being 45 minutes late, which is one of the few examples of the Greyhound ever producing a pleasant surprise.

It's good it was 45 minutes less than expected for many reasons, not the least of which was that the Greyhound this time around was staying true to form-- that is, there wasn't a cute girl to be found anywhere. Not that it really would have mattered. I was rather exhausted from only getting two hours of sleep and being freezing, so I wouldn't have had much will power to talk to anyone.

And that is the main problem with the all-day rides. It's nice to not have to waste a night on the bus, but the early departure coupled with the late arrival does not make for happy traveling. You're naturally going to be exhausted when you're riding, and so you're not going to want to talk, and you're going to want to be rested when you get wherever you're going, so you're going to want to sleep the entire way.

The other bad thing about day rides-- and all Greyhound rides in general, but especially all-day ones because you usually cover two meals-- is that you're subject to whatever fast food is available at the all-too-frequent-but-never-in-a-convenient-place stops. This time I held off on eating until about 4:30, when I could wait no more and got two burritos, a taco, and a drink at Del Taco for $3.25. Not terrible.

(A note about fast food: I think there needs to be a rule in place that puts a limit on the weight difference between two people getting fast food. I saw a really skinny girl, who probably weighted about 85 or so, and who was eating fast food with her friend, who was a bonafide fat chick. We're talking maybe 100 pounds difference. That either makes the skinny girl a terrible friend or a bitch. Or, maybe, both. But don't you think at some point this skinny girl needs to consider how much she REALLY wants that cheeseburger and tell her friend "look, maybe this isn't the best idea...")

So finally we arrive in Phoenix, at which point we were 20 minutes late. My first thought was that the driver had done a terrible job. I mean, he could only make up 25 minutes during the course of 8 hours on the road? If he had taken three minutes off every stop that's already that much time, and then he couldn't just drive a TINY bit faster? Terrible.

Then he told us "this bus isn't going any farther, it's been malfunctioning for the past few hours and I could've pulled over and you wouldn't have gotten here until tomorrow. But I didn't want to do that." So I thought what a nice guy he is-- but then I thought AND WHAT IF IT HAD BROKEN DOWN?!?! So, as far as I'm concerned, he's still a terrible driver.

After getting to the Phoenix Greyhound I had to take a bus to get to Tempe. So I was waiting at the bus stop and was talking to this dude Dave about how I needed to get to Tempe and find a place to crash. He said to me "this is a dangerous place, there are a lot of murderers and rapists-- just kidding! No seriously, if you want you can stay at my place just up the road." Yeah. No thanks, Dave.

So yeah, there wasn't a chance in hell I was going to stay at Dave's place, and that was even before he said the following things. And yes, these are direct quotes.

Dave to me: "I got out of jail a few days ago, I was locked up for about 6 years."

Dave to woman: "Hey girlfriend, why is this bus so late? We could have raped you and strung you up by now."

Dave to woman: "No, I'm going to see my girlfriend. I'm gonna get laid, so I don't need to rape nobody tonight."

I swear, he actually said that. And take a look at that second quote again. WE could have raped her? Sure. So anyway, he made me take his number in case I found that I "needed a place to sleep." Wanna guess what number in my phone book is never going to be called?

So I got on the bus-- and Dave didn't, which was a relief but also even sketchier, like that were even possible-- and I asked the woman behind where I wanted to get off for ASU student housing. She didn't know, but a dude nearby told me the stop it was at.

So we got off and were talking, and he told me that I could stay at his place for the night. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Plus, it was 9:00 and already dark, and the student housing was really spread out and not any guarantee. So I took his offer.

And it's good that I did, because he did turn out to be a really nice dude. We went out to dinner and he paid for my meal. He went to WMU, coincidentally enough, and then moved to Australia, then California, then a retirement home, then Tempe, and now works in a children's museum. He's just a good dude and a bit of a wanderer.

While we were eating he said "well, when you're traveling you tend to attract people who are like you." So true. And not just because of the co-opers and Mike. You really just do tend to meet people who are like yourself when you're on the road. Obviously the people who put you up are going to be the traveling type, but even just the people you talk to and associate with. It really is just trusting human nature, I think, because everyone's trying to help each other out.

So after we finished eating we went back to his place and met his roommate. Both Mike and his roommate, Matthew, are gay-- although not dating each other. Matthew, when I said I was going to go out, asked me "are you looking for boys? Girls? Adventures?" Not wanting to offend him, I thought "well, anything" was a pretty good compromise. He gave me a bit of a wink and said "oh, we'll find you something." M-I-S-C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-I-O-N.

So then I went to Mill Ave., which is the main downtown drag of bars. It's a pretty sweet area, just a touch below Austin's 6th Street and pretty much on par with Boulder's whatever-is-the-street-with-the-bars. That's pretty good company.

So I did my own out-of-towner bar crawl and ended up at this one place that had karaoke and the best beer prices in town. I started talking to this one sahmokin' chick, and when I asked her if she went to ASU she said "no, I work in a topless bar." So I, thinking she'd like a compliment, said "yeah, you've got some nice tits." She said "no, I'm a waitress," and I said "no, I mean you've got great tits." I actually said this.

She wasn't thrilled. Go figure. So she went off, but after a while came back and sat down next to me. But she wasn't saying anything, so I figured I needed to come up with something good. So I reached into the vault, and pulled out this kid Nick's go-to line, whom I met in Lexington, Ky.

"Let me buy you a steak dinner."

That's it. Nick said that line never failed, and it didn't. Dinner date at 4:00 the next day.

10 June 2008: Santa Barbara, California

When I woke up today I went inside and treated myself to a dumpster-dove banana. I should mention again how good the stew from the previous night was, because it was... But that being said, the banana was kinda gross. Against dumpster-diving is hit or miss.

Anyway, I was getting ready to leave when I saw this one co-op girl that I hadn't met the night before and whose name was Alice. This girl, shall we say, was gorgeous. And so, as I sat there eating my banana, I had to quickly weigh the merits of staying in Isla Vista yet another night. I was already planning on going to downtown Santa Barbara for the day, though, so that was the first thing to do.

Actually, the first thing to do was get two bagels for $1.80. What a deal.

So I took the bus to Santa Barbara, and let me tell you, going to school in Isla Vista is like going to school in Candy Land. You already knew that. But going to school in Santa Barbara must literally be like going to school in Paradise. They've got an absolutely beautiful beach, a beautiful pier, a sweet main street. I mean, it might be the most glorious place in America.

(Isla Vista, incidentally, has a cool beach, no piers, and a weak main street. It's still Candy Land because nothing matters and I can't imagine a single UCSB student has a single worry, but it doesn't compare to downtown Santa Barbara.)

(The other thing about going to school in Santa Barbara, or Isla Vista, is that I feel as though I would like myself a lot better. I mean, would spend 75% of my waking hours either surfing or biking, rather than sitting on my ass as I do in Ann Arbor. I don't think anyone has ever spent a single day unhappy while attending UCSB or SBCC.)

(The final thing, then, is that I've always thought I'd like to go to grad school at UCSB. Not undergrad, because four years in Candy Land would honestly be too much, but the more I think about it the more I think SBCC might be the grad school for me. One, I would infinitely rather live in Santa Barbara than Isla Vista, and two, it probably wouldn't cost me a cent. I would also likely be the first person to ever go from undergrad at the University of Michigan to grad school at a community college. This is something I should look into.)

Anyway, I was loving Santa Barbara when it occured to me that one of my buddies from high school actually goes to UCSB. This wouldn't have made a difference on Sunday or Monday, because staying with him would be cheating, but I did call him to ask if he thought going back to Isla Vista for the night would be worth it. Because, although Alice was a lovely thought, I didn't particularly want to stick around for one more night of finals.

So I called my buddy, and he said that it wouldn't be much different from Sunday or Monday. Which sealed it. I was staying in Santa Barbara for the night.

So the first thing I had to do was look for a place to crash. I walked over to the SBCC campus-- if you can say a community college has a campus-- and asked about student housing. A lot of people come from outside of Santa Barbara county to go to SBCC-- for the obvious reasons I listed above-- and I figured that, since they were done with school, it'd be a breeze.

As it turns out, though, most of the SBCC students actually do live in Isla Vista. That doesn't make much sense to me, but that's the way it is. So anyway, I went to the main apartment complex for SBCC students and went up to the first person I saw.

It wasn't until he turned around that I realized he was wearing an OSU hat.

Now, I might have my prejudices like any other Wolverine, but vagabonds can't be choosers. So I talked to him for a while-- avoiding the topic of just where I was coming from-- and he offered me a slice of floor for the night.

It was still pretty early in the evening, so I told him I'd come back and walked back to the pier. There was a dude there with a really sweet hippie-van that was covered in toys-- for lack of better description skills-- and the dude told me about a good Mexican place where I should get something to eat.

Now, if I've learned one thing on the road it's that you should always trust hippies with beards that like peace. A similar dude gave me a ride outside of Reno once and gave me some Bob Marley CD's as I got out of the car because "everyone likes peace." He also, for the record, was a big fan of chipmunks, which is something you know I can sympathize with. So anyway, I figured I'd take this guy's advice and try the Mexican place.

And what a place it was. For $3.50 I got a massive plate of rice and beans and some chips. The thing about rice and beans is that if you put enough cheese and salse on it, man does it taste just as good as any burrito you might otherwise get. It was the deal of the trip so far, without a doubt.

After dinner I went back to Jeff's place and was sitting on a bench outside. A girl came over and sat down next to me and asked if I lived in the apartment complex. I told her no and asked if she did, and she said yes. I thought this might have been my big break, so I told her my story, but she was on her way to her night-shift job. The same thing happened about five minutes later with another girl, but she was a UCSB and had finals-- but at least she had the sense to live in Santa Barbara.

So it seemed like Jeff's place was the deal, but what hadn't occured to me was that if I was leaving Santa Barbara the next day-- as I planned to do-- there might be an early enough bus that I would just stay up all night. Or, if not up, then at least out all night. So I called Greyhound and found that there was a 7:30am bus from Santa Barbara to Phoenix, which worked out just fine.

So I went up to Jeff's and grabbed a shower, and when I was out I figured it would be a safe time to mention the OSU hat. I asked him about it, and he said that his step-dad was an OSU alum. I told him I went to Michigan and expected him to flip out-- you know, as OSU people do-- and instead he was pretty pumped to hear about it. Apparently his biological dad-- who he just met a few years ago-- is a big Michigan fan, and he likes his biological dad more than his step-dad.

So I guess the Michigan thing really worked in my favor, especially, because before I left he gave me two beers to go. Let me tell you, there isn't much that's worse than warm Keystone Light. To be quite honest, it actually physically hurts to drink it. But still, it was a gift of free beer. And who am I to turn that down?

So as I was walking away this girl Morgan asked if she could use my phone. I let her, she called her boyfriend, and I walked away. After I turned the corner, he called back and I walked back so Morgan could speak to him. She had gotten into her car and was pulling out of the driveway, and she opened her window and told me to get in. She said something about being mad at her boyfriend for whatever reason, and then said "screw him, let's go out." Oh really. So then we're driving away, and who should be on the side of the road but her fucking boyfriend. I couldn't believe it. So he got in, I got out, and that was it. What a fucking turn of events.

So this heartbreak out of the way, I walked back to main street and stopped off at the hostel where ?Urne? had planned on going to. When she called me the first night she said that they hadn't been able to get into the hostel but were still hoping to get some beds by Monday or Tuesday. I hadn't been able to get a hold of her all day, so I thought I'd check the hostel and see if they had ever even made it.

I asked the guy at the desk if a girl named "something like Urne?" had checked in, and nothing even remotely close came up. Neither did anything for a group of four girls. I figured they were still staying somewhere outside of town and that this was the end of the dream.

So I went to the bars, and the first place's cheapest drink was $3 for a can of PBR. Wh-wh-what?! I tried the next place and there was nothing better, and the same with the next. So, like the classy dude that I am, I remedied the problem with a 6-pack of Coors Light for a lovely $5.95.

Because I'm sweet, and because the hostel has a no-alcohol policy and I didn't know anyone else in Santa Barbara, I pulled a move straight out of high school and had the first beer in a parking lot, and then the next one in a drive-way. Then I had the third and fourth ones on the beach, gave the fifth one to a homeless man, and had the sixth in the Santa Barbara skate-park, which might be the most high schooly move I've ever done-- including when I was in high school.

(First: There's nothing better than drinking a cold beer on a warm night on a beach. Absolutely nothing. If you haven't done it, I highly recommend it.)

(Second: The skate park had a sign that said "use of the skatepark is prohibited if under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or a combination of both." Now, besides the irony of my drinking a beer while reading that sign, how funny is that? Influence of alcohol, drugs, or a combination of both? Dude, I never realized how bad-ass skaters were that they had to have a separate category of being drunk AND high while skating.)

After all this was done, I figured I'd called ?Urne? one more time. And, lo and behold, it worked! She picked up and told me they were staying at a motel about 30 blocks away down main street, so I told them to meet me at the bars.

Unfortunately, one of them had lost their IDs and had been banking on the bouncer remembering them from the previous night, but it wasn't the same dude. So I kept going in and out of the bar with ?Urne? who didn't want to leave her other friends for too long. After a while they said they were going back to the motel, and like a complete idiot I said I was going to stay at the bar. I have absolutely no idea what was going through my head when I said that, but I did. And they left. Kill me, please.

So I went back into the bar and was making out with a drunk girl-- as these things happen, of course-- but I couldn't stop thinking about how I had literally just not gone back to the motel with ?Urne?. So I called it a night.

Which was maybe a good thing, because when I stepped outside there was nearly a fight at the bar next door. There was a white dude and a black dude starting shit with another dude, but the guy got back inside before anything happened. But then the first white dude screamed at the second white dude and called him a "redneck nigger." This was pretty funny in and of itself-- though it might have been funnier if he had called him a "white-trash nigger"-- but what made it better was the black dude who said "hey man, don't say that word in vain, you ain't never been in prison before." Great stuff.

So that was the night. ?Urne? called me a little while later and said she and her friends were going to go to New York the next day, so maybe I'll still be able to see her out east. Whatever.

It should be noted, though, how much of a travesty this whole situation was. I literally had locked it up half-way with ?Urne? by the time we left the Los Angeles Greyhound station-- more than half way, to be honest. I'll never understand how this one didn't work out, but what a fucking ripped. But hey, I still don't even know what her name was.

Anyway, I went and got my pack-- which I had left outside the hostel-- and went to the beach, where I hung out with the homeless people for a little while before going to sleep.

9 June 2008: Isla Vista, California

I woke up in the back of Peter's van at around 10:30. I gave thought to knocking on his apartment door and seeing if the unbelievably attractive girl who had been wearing a next-to-nothing black dress the night before was around, but I was hungry and instead went and got breakfast-- two bagels for $1.80.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon wandering through the non-residential part of Isla Vista. The beautiful thing about the second day in any given town is that from the moment you wake up until around, say, 7:00 at night you aren't in any rush to find a couch.

As I found out, though, there isn't a whole lot to see in Isla Vista. Or a whole lot to do that doesn't involve the beach. Most of the town is student housing, and the rest is a two-block stretch of "downtown." Not to mention the fact that I had probably walked just about everywhere the night before in my quest for, well, anything.

So instead I went to the beach. Mind you, it was cold and misty yesterday, and from what I could tell everyone was elsewhere-- likely either taking an exam, studying for an exam, or just staying warm inside. But, really, it's the principal of the matter-- the kids who go to school here live NEXT TO A FREAKING BEACH!!! It could have been snowing and I still would have gone in the water.

So that was most of my day-- a little swimming, a bit of reading, and a lot of walking. Incidentally, I do recommend "Amsterdam" by Ian McEwan. It wasn't as good as "Atonement" but was miles better than "Saturday." If it hadn't been for the ending-- or even for just the last few pages-- I would have liked it a lot more. But it was still very good.

Another thing to note, although my favorite part about Isla Vista is that everyone rides their bike with no hands, my favorite thing about the UCSB campus is that EVERYONE rides a bike, period, or a skateboard. I mean, everyone. They have bike-roads with traffic lines down the middle, which isn't so funny, but they also have bike-traffic circles, which I think is hilarious. There's nothing funnier than watching a biker get to a bike-traffic circle and have to stop and yield the right of way to a biker who got there first and then bike all the way around the circle just to make a left. Great stuff.

For dinner I went and had two pork tacos for $3. This was a mistake for three reasons: 1) They weren't very good. 2) Although $3 was the cheapest I could find for any actual meal-- rather than, say, a burrito from a supermarket fridge or a bagel from a bakery-- it was still a bit of money for just two tacos. 3) See below.

So after dinner I began looking for a couch. Since I hadn't had much luck the night before on the streets closer to the ocean, I tried farther away. This is also, I had been told, where SBCC students were more likely to live.

SBCC is the Santa Barbara City College, which the second institution of higher learning in Santa Barbara. Although SBCC is in downtown Santa Barbara, I was told that many students who go there live in Isla Vista. I think SBCC is pretty hilarious, because it's a community college but they call it a CITY college. I guess "city college" makes it a bit more Beverly Hills, while "community college" is a bit too Beverly Hillbilly?

Either way, it works. Most of the UCSB students refer to it as "city college"-- as opposed to "community college" or, even better, "SBC-squared"-- and seem to respect the SBCC kids. The two SBCC kids I met during the day, however, were not quite as gentle. "Stuck-up" and "nerds" were the two prominent words they used to describe UCSB students, though to be honest it seems like both schools do little work and do a lot of partying and live in Candy-Land. I'm not sure how they're any different.

So anyway, I tried the streets away from the beach, and the first person I met told me to try to try a place called Biko. I asked him why, and he said, and I quote, "they're a commune, they'll let you stay there." A commune. That kid killed me.

So I went to this Biko place and went inside. It looked like a co-op and sounded like a co-op, but I thought maybe that kid knew something I didn't know and so I said "I heard you guys are a commune." Needless to say, it was a co-op. That dumb-ass kid.

So anyway, I told them I was in Isla Vista for the night and needed a place to crash, and they immediately told me I could stay there. And about three seconds after that, this girl Patty asked me if I wanted something to eat, and I helped myself to beef stew, bread, and salad. Thus, reason #3 up above.

Following dinner, because it was a co-op, I sat around and talked with some people about co-opy things. It was me, a dude, this kid Nick, and this old dude Michael who I would describe as a "super-hippie" and who had lived in Isla Vista for about 30 years. They were talking about the history of Santa Barbara and about the "master plan" for Isla Vista-- look it up-- and about empowerment and the like.

Now, when I got to UCSB I didn't know exactly what to expect but I was pretty sure I was about to be in way over my head with the party scene. As it turned out, and this is through no fault of the campus, because it was finals week the party scene was way under my head. And, practically, non-existant. But I was definitely in way over my head with this conversation and had basically nothing to add. But it was interesting to listen to them.

After a while I went upstairs and found Patty, Chance, Billy, and Lincoln. And these, my friends, were some cool kids. Patty was the girl who first offered my dinner and is from Austin, which is my favorite town in America; Chance has been on the road on-and-off for about five years and has been living at Biko for I think a month; Billy is an exchange student from Germany who offered me a place to crash if I ever go there; and Lincoln, well, is a total dude.

Anyway, these kids were definitely sweet. They were just sitting around and drinking some beer and hanging out. Billy was planning out a motorcycle trip all the way to Brazil-- fucking sweet-- and the rest were talking about dumpster diving exploits and looking at pictures. Some of which were naked pictures of the housemates hanging out-- did I tell you these were my kids or what?

Anyway, I found out that everything in the stew had been found in dumpsters across Isla Vista-- sweet, I guess-- and that Chance is working on a cross-country hitch-- sweet, no doubt; and I won't even hold his use of couchsurfing.com against him, although you know that ain't how I roll.

At around 11:30 everyone was going to bed and I decided to go for a walk, since I didn't think there'd be anything going on. But after a while I walked by an apartment complex that was clearly hosting a party. Unfortunately, I was wearing a ratty everything, and there was someone actually at the gate letting people in-- yes, it was a gated apartment complex.

I figured I had to go back to Biko and change before going in, but at this point I hadn't the slightest idea where I was. I mean, not a fucking clue. I started walking in one direction, and a few blocks away asked someone where "the corner of Madrid and Embarcadillo" was, which is where I thought Biko was located. He had no idea. So I kept walking and asked the next person the same question. She told me it was actually "Embarcadero," and that it was generally in THAT direction.

So I kept walking and asked four different people how to get to Madrid and Embarcadero, and literally every single one pointed me in a different direction. By this point I had probably been walking for over an hour and it had probably been over half an hour since I first asked for directions. And Isla Vista isn't THAT big.

Finally, I asked some other girl where Madrid and Embarcadero was, and she said she didn't know but asked what I was looking for. I said Biko co-op, and she said "oh, that's on Sueno and Pescador." I could have killed myself.

So she pointed me in the right direction and eventually I found it. At this point I decided to skip the party and just go to sleep in Motown, which is where I was staying for the night. Motown is this kid Mo's van, except whereas Peter's van was just a van, Motown had a mattress and a lamp and a reading chair and a stereo and outlets and was literally a fucking palace-on-wheels. Again, these are my kind of kids-- clearly they've been on the road.

And so that was the night. It's been kinda a weird start to my trip. Like I said before, the first night to an adventure is usually underwhelming, and the second night isn't necessarily any wilder-- except for Betsy the beautiful blonde in Tuscaloosa, Al., and the Chucky Funnels fiasco in Knoxville, Tn.-- but this is UCSB, after all. My hopes had been pretty high for this place and, though I met some awesome kids last night, Sunday was by all accounts the deadest night of the year in Isla Vista. Still, though, this is only night #2 of many many many.

Not to mention, and this is absolutely worth noting, the two most important things to be wary of conserving on a road-trip are money and energy-- with time a close third. Life on the road is pretty cheap, with free hospitality and cheap transportation and food. I found myself in Reno, Ne., two years ago with literally not a penny to my name and was in no way concerned about getting back to Ann Arbor-- which, of course, I did. This is why I note how much I spend on food, because it's another easy way to save. I don't have much money to begin with, and since I want to spend next year in Europe I need to do everything I can to spend as little as possible until I get there.

Also, during every adventure I hit a wall at about a week in. When I get to that point, frequency of naps sky-rockets and overall energy for adventures dwindles. On a two-week trip, that's ok; on a potentially two-month trip, that's not going to work.

So, in the past two nights, I've spent $8 at the bar and gotten pretty good sleep. It might not be ideal for that to be happening in Isla Vista, of all places, but I think that in the long run it will help weeks 3 through however many.

Furthermore, in all my time on the road I had only stayed in a co-op in Austin, Tx.; although I had a blast while I was there, it hadn't occured to me to try the co-ops again. But Biko reaffirmed my faith in the goodness of co-ops and I might try to hit up some more down the line.