Monday July 24, 2000

California Pictures

I wrote a lot this morning & last night. I was falling behind. I have a hell of a lot to write. With my account in here, the letters for Jackie (last one was 6 pages) and the dozens of post cards I send out more, I have a lot to do. But I am determined to record everything, and leave lots of history of this trip. After writing this morning I called home and checked in. Talked to my mom a bit, then I got the address & phone number for Erica/Dan/Lauren/Alyssa. Yesterday was Lauren’s 14th birthday. So I called her this morning. I’ll start sending post cards to them too.

I started driving a little late but it didn’t take me long to get to San Francisco. One great thing I noticed about SF as I was driving in was that unlike a lot of the other cities I have visited San Francisco had no sprawl. Instead of there being mini-malls at thirty miles away there were mountains at 8 miles away. Andy is a big enemy of sprawl and I’m starting to see his point.

After a short drive through the city I got to the Golden Gate Bridge. I stopped right before it in a park/viewing area. I parked THABOAT, got out, and had my first look at the Golden Gate Bridge. I got to see the first 10 feet of it. The whole damn bridge was covered with clouds/fog. I couldn’t see anything. It was really disappointing. But from the look out point I got a good shot of downtown and Alcatraz.

It was really windy so my grill had no chance of lighting. So I just had a handful of PB & J sandwiches. While eating I talked with a bus driver for a group of German tourists. They started in LA and looped around trhough the southwest and were coming back now. He said that the bridge is normally cloudy in the morning and it clears up in the afternoon. Ok good, the bridge may not be a disaster afterall.

I drove downtown and parked my car at a parking meter. Willing to take a risk I didn’t fill the meter. I headed off to see Haight-Ashbury, unfortunately the map I had of SF didn’t cover up to that intersection so I just had to wing it.

I walked down to Haight and then walked along that figuring sooner or later it’d cross Ashbury. I found a map at a bustop and discovered that Ashbury was several blocks away. A lot of it turned out to be uphill as well, but after a bit of walking things started to be all hippyish. First thing that caught my eye was an anarchist bookstore. I walked in there and stayed forever looking at everything they had. I was looking to see what youth rights books they had. They didn’t have too many (not that there are a lot) but they had Grace Llewleyn’s “Teenage Liberation Handbook” and several books my John Gatto. No Males though.

There was some information on ‘zines looking for articles so I picked up osome and intend to send some YR articles I’ve written to them. I got a business card and I hope to refer the store to Oblivion, ASFAR and Brat so they can send their ‘zines to the store. Plus I got the address of another alternative bookstore in New York.

After covering every inch of that store I continued on my way down Haight street. It was all alternative clothing stores and headshops and whatnot. I went in a few and bought some postcards at one. I kept walking past all sorts of small shops and finally I got to Haight-Ashbury. To my disgust I noticed a “Gap” right on the corner there. What the hell?! Truly a slap in the face of what the hippies were all about. I walked further down Haight and at the end of the street there was a McDonalds. Arrgh! It is just so wrong.

I walked back down Haight to my car and watched all the people in the area. Mostly what I expected, lots of aging hippies, neo-hippies, and all sorts of people with alternative dress and style. A lot of toothless junkies too, which sucked. As I was walking down I kept picturing my Aunt, Uncle & Cousins walking through here, and chuckling to myself. Last year (I think) they went on a trip to San Francisco. It was a bit windy/chilly so they thought it a good idea to wear windsuits…..matching windsuits. While everyone else there was wearing beads, spikes, and jeans here comes a family of 4 with brightly colored, nylon jumpsuits on. I am soo ashamed of my family. Hehehe.

Hehe, I bust out laughing when I picture that… hehehe. I walked back to my car and what-do-you-know, a parking ticket. I don’t think the police track people down across state lines so I didn’t care and threw it out. Now that I knew the way I went back and drove through Haight. With all the sounds of THABOAT playing proudly. I think I may have even annoyed the freaks, hippies & gays, hehe. I’m too far out there even for them. I stopped back at the bookstore and dropped off all sorts of ASFAR stuff that Susan gave me. I really wish I had some NYRA stuff to give instead, but we haven’t made any yet.

I drove to the end then headed back to the bridge. Sadly it was still all covered and I couldn’t see most of it. Damn. I went down to the exploritorium and looked around that. The outside was awesome. Really cool architecture, and the inside part was a hands on science museum where people can play with various science experiments that demonstrated various laws of science. I think we have one in Grand Rapids. It was 9 dollars to get in, but with my brilliant ability to sneak past people I got in for free. See, the key is to be confident and look like you belong there. Also, don’t make eye contact with anyone, that’ll get you caught. Most people don’t go out of their way to track you down and yell at you, so if they can’t signal you non-verbally they won’t. It wasn’t too exciting and I didn’t stay very long.

Then I left and went back over the bridge. (not back over, this is my first crossing). Apparently (luckily) the toll is $3 to cross the bridge southbound and free to cross northbound. I was north bound, yea! Then it was back to the Pacific Coast Highway. And the most twisting section I have driven on yet. It was a huge mess of a road.

Last night I had stopped in at a youth hostel, it looked cool with a lot of hippie, young travelers that I could push youth rights upon, but it was $13 bucks to stay and I didn’t want to spend ANY money. So I moved on and slept in my car in Half-Moon Bay. I picked up some information while at the hostel though. Heck, I wasn’t exactly sure what a hostel was at first.

While in San Francisco I stopped at a mall to buy a camera battery, also while there I stopped at several banks to try and cash the paychecks I had sitting around, none would do it though. This annoyed me, but at Haight-Ashbury I found a place whose main function was to cash checks. The woman was unsure about me since the checks were from Michigan but after a while she finally cashed them for me. Yea! Money! I had nearly $500 in cash!

So, having money in my pocket & having a map that listed a hostel nearby I figured I’d go and stay at one, might be worth the cost if I could get new members, plus it would be a good experience. It’s name was “Point Reyes National Seashore” hidden way back in the national park there. It was well hidden and it took me an hour to find the place.

Finally I reached it and went inside. The people were a bit older than I expected but still plenty of youth, and all hippie type people. It was so far away from everything I was worried it would be empty and I would have no one to share the good news of youth rights with. Unfortunately the opposite case was true, it was full. Everyone makes reservations and there weren’t any beds for a walk-in. Damn. No room at the inn. I guess I had to go sleep in the manger (car). I parked outside of the hostel and slept in my car again. While out there I got to see lots of really cool wildlife. I got shots of deer, coyote, and quail. Since I was a master at sneaking in, I went into the house often to use the bathroom, do dishes and to finally take a shower.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2005 at 9:50 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Sunday July 23, 2000

California Pictures

This morning I went looking for a Catholic church, I found one and went to mass. It wasn’t a huge town so I think they knew I was new. They were all very nice though. I made some oatmeal after church and then hit the road.

And wow, what a road it was. After a little while the road turned from “pretty cool” to “breathtaking.” The road followed the coast like this at first, then the road followed the coast like this. Wow. Wow wow wow. If I drive a few feet off the road I’m in the ocean. And I’m pretty high up too. The road is carved right into the mountain so there was little room for more than a two lane road. And the turns were constant. There was never more than a 20 foot stretch of straight road it was always curving. This road was so spectacular I’d like to see it on “Modern Marvels” on the History Channel. It was built right into the mountains. Some places it was like this, other times like this.

Really cool the way they did it. And the views are amazing. They had lots of places where people could stop and look out at the ocean and the cliffs and the mountains, wow. Wow wow wow WOW. Truly a spectacular sight. I really wished I didn’t have to drive and I could just stare out the window the whole time. I took a lot of pictures & video but I don’t think it will capture it accurately. Nothing could reproduce that highway aand the fabulous views seen from it. Absolutely incredible.

Most of the day was spent driving on this road but for one tourist attraction I stopped in San Simeon which was where William Randolph Hearst built his castle. He was the person and this was the place that Citizen Kane was about. Which I thought was a phenomenal movie. So now I was ready to see this decadent palace.

But of course…. silly me. Thinking I could just go up there and lok at something for free? Ha. Ha. Ha. Not in this lifetime. About 20 bucks for a tour of the house. I thought, “well I don’t need a tour, I can just walk up the hill myself and look myself.” Wrong. Closest the non-paying rabble were allowed to get was a viewing deck at the visitor’s center. If you looked closely you could make out a building of some sort on the top of a mountain/hill. If you wanted you could use the pay (of course) binoculars to get a better look. Grrrr.

The visitor’s center was huge. There was a museum & a movie theater & gift shop & ticket booths & restaurants… looked more like a train station. And it was packed with people. There were more people at San Simeon than at Legoland. I was amazed. I tried to sneak up past the guards, but I got caught. Oh well. I had lunch & mailed postcards.

I almost made it to San Francisco today, but stopped in Half Moon Bay for the night, about 20 miles away.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2005 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Sunday July 23, 2000

California Pictures

Didn’t want to spend anymore time here in San Diego so he bought me breakfast and I hit the road. I hauled ass to get back on schedule and after staying an extra day in San DIego I was a day behind again. According to the scehdule I was supposed to spend Friday night in L.A. and Sunday night in San Francisco. Well it isn’t a long drive to LA so I made some time and drove past it.

On the way I stopped to see the mission in Capistrano (the place where the birds go) it looked neat, but like everything else in this damn country it charged and I wasn’t going to pay. So I just walked around the outside. I was suprized that it was still in use, there was a chruch and school and whatnot there. And was still a very spircutal place. I walked around through everything without a gate on it, and found a courtyard with a large wooden cross in it. A young woman was there knelt in front of it praying. I felt really bad taking pictures of everything, seemed kinda disrespectful. I decided to try and find a church tomorrow morning.

I got back on the highway and in a little bit I saw a sign that said, “Legoland” wait….. ya mean?….. LEGOLAND?!?!??! Wow!! Fucking Legoland!!! Hell yea! I love legos! I’ve always wanted to go to Legoland. Wow, this was it! I was so excited I”ve seen pictures of some of the lego constructs I couldn’t wait.

I was so pumped up as I drove down the road to Legoland. I stopped at a booth and a woman told me it was 7 dollars for parking. Damn, always have to charge people, but hell it is Legoland, I’ll pay. I asked if this was the only charge, she didn’t understand at first, then she told me thirty-five dollars to get inside………………… 35? Yep. oh….. whimper…… whimper…… no legoland for me.

I was allowed to get out and check out the outside but not go in. It seems my impression of Legoland was all wrong, I had figured it was the Lego factory with a bunch of items made out of Legos, monuments & whatnot. ANd they just gave tours of the place. Turns out that Legoland is a full theme park with rides & shows & the kinda stuff you’d see at Disney. I just wanted to see the Legos… oh well…

After taping the parking lot and the front gate I was sadly back on the road again. After a bit I made it to the LA area. The only thing I could think of to do in Los Angeles was to see the Hollywood sign, but that didn’t seem worth the effort of finding it, so I just drove through (or tried to) in the middle of the day on a Saturday the highway was tremendously backed up. I spent a lot of time stuck in traffic.

When stuck on the freeway the great weather and some good music combined to put me in a fantastic mood. I started driving around with my left foot out the window. Just blasting my music, playing sounds and having a great time. I found my way to Highway 1 AKA the Pacific Coast Highway which Jill’s dad recommended. It started out just going through cities, but as I got farther out the buildings dropped away a bit and finally I was to the Pacific Ocean. I wanted to get out and go to one of the beaches there, but they all charged seven dollars or more to park so I kept going.

Eventually around Malibu I found a shoulder that I could park THABOAT on and then I could go to the beach for free. I changed into my swim suit in the car and then hit the water. Damn those waves are huge. Some of them I was able to jump but others just knocked my ass over & nearly drowned me. Biggest waves I think I’ve ever seen. I was getting used to the salt a bit, so it didn’t bother me as much as in Texas. But unlike Texas the water was cold, Jackie would be proud. It was so much fun, one moment the water would be to my knees, the next it’d be to my neck. Sometimes it was a real effort to keep my head above water, sometimes I didn’t. I made myself some lunch then hit the road again.

The highway switched around a lot sometimes it would be 2 lanes, sometimes 4 lanes divided, sometimes it was 101 sometimes 1. But overall it was fairly close to the ocean. I could see the water on the left of me and mountains on the right of me. I drove until Lompoc, California. There I found a place to park for the night and write a letter to Jackie.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2005 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Friday, July 21, 2000

I had planned to leave today and head north to L.A., but I was unsure when I should go. First I wanted to check my e-mail, since I had over 300 waiting for me. Mark went off to work and left me in the apartment (kinda trusting I thought) so I was free to use his computer. Most of my mail was garbage from the ASFAR list, but I went through them all.

Last night Mark mentioned having a protest on election day, I thought about it and thought it would be a great thing for all the YR people to get involved in. Make it national. I thought about the idea more and I sent out an e-mail to the ASFAR list I’m hoping those lazy bastards will actually work on this. I sent out a few e-mails to people in NYRA so we can get things moving on our end. Bob Mayberry (Wally) forwarded my letter to people in various other YR groups. Hopefully this will be really big.

I spent all morning working on building this idea and going through other e-mail. I got two letters from Jackie! Yeah! She really loves me. I think we’ll both have a broken heart when we finally break up.

One e-mail I got was from Susan (sorta) which gave me the address and phone number for Richard Farson, an author who wrote a youth rights book called “Birthrights” in the seventies. Aparently he lives 5 minutes away from Mark! Cool! So I figured I’d wait till Mark got out of work and then we could both stop by and meet him. Since I knew nothing about him or his book I called Susan first and asked her a little about him. He certainly sounded like someone I’d like to meet so I called him next. I was a bit worried whether or not he still believed in the subject about which he once wrote, but after talking with him I guess so. He had no idea that the youth rights movement had started up again and was very pleased we were around. Unfortunately he said he was very busy and just couldn’t see us at all. I was really disappointed since it was sheer chance I ended up 5 minutes from him and happened to check my e-mail right at that time. We exchanged contact information so we will be in touch, but I was so close to him and he was just too busy to see me. I could tell he wanted to though.

Since it was already 5 o’clock I figured to just stay another night with Mark and leave Saturday morning. We went out to dinner at an Indian place (on the same street Richard Farson lived) Mark generously paid again. Then we walked down to the ocean.

Wow, the Pacific Ocean, I made it. I was finally here. Not just the western most state but now the western most edge of the western most state. It was spectacular. Much different from beaches I’m used to, this had rocks & cliffs on the water, with just a narrow strip of sand in some places.

I walked down in the water and let it wash over my feet, I ended up getting a crapload of seaweed on my legs from the water. It was full of it. For being so far south I figured the water would be warm like that in Houston, but the water was very cold, and the air temperature was cool too. It was an amazing and welcome transition to go from 105 to 75 degrees in a few hours. Mark said the temperture was nice like that year round. It was lovely when I was there, but I’d no doubt get bored of it all the time.

The water would wash up on the rocks, and where there was depressions in the rocks water would stay there. These are called tide pools and they were abundant with life. Little crabs and anoemes and lots and lots of mussels/oysters/clams. These half-dollar sized shells occupied every bit of free space on some of these rocks. The shells were black and they were everywhere. The rock, the water, the tidepools, they were all so cool. Mark had lived here his whole life so it was all common place for him, but wow, it was awesome.

We walked along the beach for a while and then came to a group of seals. That was cool as hell as well. Several dozen of them live at this beach and amazingly they were left alone by the humans. We just built around them and built a viewing area for curious people like me to watch them. But this really is the seal’s natural habitat. It was great to watch them behave around each other. They were all sleeping on the beach, all just lounging around laying next to each other. Sometimes they’d scratch themselves or yawn or get into arguments. Great to watch.

Next we went to this place from which you could look out over the whole city of San Diego. It was incredible. Mark and I sat up there looking out at the city for many hours talking about everything. We talked about our lives, we talked about life, society, youth rights, and everything of importance.

He laid claim to my philosophy of life, though most people do they just don’t follow through as well as I do. People talk about being free and not caring what people think but they often lead the same lfe as everyone else. Living inside the same shell. We talked about how youth wanted their freedom but couldn’t have it and adults had their freedom but didn’t use it.

We were talking about not being afraid to be free so I challenged him to scream. A deep, loud, primal scream. I, without hesitation (of course), let out a yell that echoed through the city. Then it was his turn and he really hesitated but then he did it, cautiously at first and then he got into it.

We talked about the scream, and he said it felt really good to let it out like that. To just go and scream for no reason at all and not give a damn what people think. We sat and chuckled for a bit, it felt damn good. He was ashamed he hesitated though we discussed his fears of “what people would think” but after it was over realized it didn’t matter at all and that people don’t care. I then told him of my various exploits, gave him examples of how I’ve led my life. I think he was impressed. I think I may have changed his life, in those few moments I think I have him the ability to free himself from his own chains. I should open a clinic, hehe.

H egot a little too caught up in the whole screaming thing and yelled “FIRE!” which he quickly realized wasn’t the smartest thing to say, so luckily followed it up with a “Just Kidding!” And now as I sit here it demonstrates a point about freedom. THe scream was an expression of his freedom, but yet just as he achieved the freedom he felt the need to push the boundries and over extend the appropriate limit of his freedom. Which is the downside to freedom, but luckily he has the rational to quickly realize his mistake and cover it with a “just kidding”. The way society is dealing with freedom nowadays is banning people from screaming for fear they may cross the line rather than letting them be totally free and scream and count on their good sense to correct and avoid mistakes. When I think about this incident I chuckle, but now I realize the powerful lesson this simple event can teach. We need to teach people to utilize their freedom while at the same time educating them not to misuse it.

Taking note of this realization about life that was washing over Mark I took this opportunity to really push the idea of the youth rights house. I mentioned it before and his reaction was like the others which was, “yea, that sounds like a great idea, I’ll think about it.” Which means ‘wow I hope it works out, I’m not coming though.’ Now that I have set him up with a passion for freedom and a “life is short, take risks” way of thinking he was much more receptive to the idea. Now his reaction was, “Wow! What an incredible idea, lets leave today!” WHich is more what I wanted. We talked about the house for a while and he got as giddy about the idea as I was. I started rattling off all my ideas about the house and he came up with a host of new ideas regarding it. We were nearly shaking we were so excited about the idea. He especially liked the fact that it would more or less be a commune, he is a big fan of the sixties so that idea sold him. He has now committed himself to go.

It was so wonderful for me personally to have someone get as charged by the idea as I was. Because I am convinced that this is THE biggest chance for the movement to succeed, and a partial purpose of this trip is to sell that idea to everyone I meet. I think about that house every day. So far I’ve been alone and all I’ve gotten is a bunch of, “sounds cool, but…” NOw there is another person committed to youth rights enough to live in it all the time. It was a personal thrill to see someone else be electrified by my idea. Plus having two people locked in to go will help getting others involved.

After several hours of talking about everything we decided to just take off to Tijuana, Mexico just for the hell of it. He had never been to Tijuana at night. And it was now Saturday morning. He was a bit worried, but I told him not to be. We crossed the border no problem and after getting a bit lost found our way to downtown Tijuana. It was an interesting place, seems the city does nothing but cater to Americans who want to cross over to get drunk & laid & party. There were dozens of dance clubs and lots of prostitutes. Although I hate dance clubs I decided to go in one, but they wouldn’t let me in with my knife.

We walked around and Mark got us some authentic Mexican food. It was really a unique, interesting place. Each club had several people outside who would harrass anyone walking past and try to get them to go inside. Taxi drivers & venders were the same way, very pushy. We were both tired so went to bed soon after getting back to the USA.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005 at 9:30 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Thursday July 20, 2000

Southwest Pictures

I slept in a bit this morning and was really lazy getting ready. I made myself some oatmeal and just dinked around a bit watching TV, writing and whatnot. I was a bit mad at myself because I wasted so much time, but I finally got moving and hit the road again.

To the south of Safford was an enormous mountain. It was then I truly realized that what I had been referring to as mountains before were nothing by small hills. It was huge. It was touching the clouds that drifted by. Absolutely enormous. As I sit here now with the benefit of the map I can see that the mountain was Mt. Graham and has an elevation of 10,713 feet. Wow. Now THAT is a mountain.

I drove on and entered an Indian reservation. NOt really any difference between that and the land before it, I didn’t even know for sure that it was a reservation. One sad difference I noticed was the amount of littering… Arizona, like al the other states I’ve visited has an adopt-a-highway program where a group can get their name up on a section of the highway if they clean it up. All the trip all the highways so far have bene very clean and I was impressed with the success of the adtop-a-ahighway program. What saddens me is that here in the reservation the parts adopted by Indian groups weren’t picked up at all, and there was all sorts of garbage on the side of hte road. Rather disgusting that the group of people supposedly most concerned with the environment did a poorer job of taking care of it than anyone else. I just don’t understand that.

Right after the Indian reservation was the Tonto National Forest. This was some amazing land. Before the raod would take me past mountains or around mountains but now the road went right through the mountains. It was very impressive.

While before the land looked like it was from a western now it looked more like Looney Tunes with the roadrunner and Wiley Coyote. It was very cool. The problem with having a highway go right through mountains like that is that it is rather difficult to repair the roads. I came to a patch of construction and they had it down to one land which had to be shared by traffic going both ways. So we had to sit and wait for half an hour while the cars from the other direction drove through then finally it was out turn.

I was so impressed with the mountains in this part I tried taping a lot of them. Due to the construction I couldn’t pull over and get out as I usually do so I had to tape while driving. I was worried about the glare from my side windows so I put my driver side window down for a better shot. Unfortunately the window wouldn’t go back up. Which was a really big problem considering how hot it was outside. This had happened before I left and I was about to take it into the shop when it started working again. I really couldn’t afford to wait a few days for my window to decide to work again, I was roasting.

After I got throguh the construction & the mountains I stopped in the desert to put a garbage bag around my door/window. It flapped around a hell of a lot and was too noisy for me to handle so I took it off.

I drove on for a while enduring the heat until I got to Mesa, AZ, right outside of Phoenix. There I looked around for a place to look at my car and found a Lincoln-Mercury dealership. A repairman came out and hit the door with a mallet a few times and amazingly the motor worked again! Yea a working window! If that hadn’t worked he would have had to replace the motor which would have cost 200 dollars and taken a while.

I had planned to stop in Phoenix to check my e-mail, but since I was a day behind my itinerary due to an extra day at Jackie’s I figured I’d just haul ass, and make it to San Diego tonight which would get me back on track.

After Phoenix I got on interestate 8 (not fun, but fast) and took that west to San Diego. The rest of the trip through Arizona was very uneventful, but spiced up a bit when I got to California. Not far past the border I reached real desert. I had been in the desert for quite a while, but that desert still had shrubs and cactuses and whatnot, now the land looked more like the Sahara desert. Nothing but sand dunes. Looked like a massive beach no where near water. Sand was blowing across the road, it was very interesting.

I kept going through an area where there were just a couple of English stations and everything else on the radio was Spanish. I stopped to get gas and get some more money out of an ATM. Then I realized I was out of money. I forgot how much I put on my Old Kent account, one or two thousand dollars, but there was only $80 left!!! My jaw dropped. I’ve never spent much money so I’ve always had plenty to use. I haven’t kept track of my expenses in years, because I’ve always had enough to cover them. Now I was out of money. Crap. I think I spent waay too much money on Jackie while in Houston. We went out to dinners & movies a lot those days. I think it sapped a lot of money from me. Also I have been buying a lot more food than I have been cooking. Which isn’t smart. Now I’m determined to spend money on nothing but gas. I have another thousand in my Industrial account that I can use and I have a few checks I can cash, but I really have to budget myself now. Certainly no more motels.

After that realization I entered more mountains. The highway split up with each direction’s traffic a distance from each other. It felt more comfortable of a road now. They were really concerned with cars overheating. They had water every few feet for radiators and they warned people to turn off their air conditioning. The mountains were really cool and put a lot of strain on my car but I made it to 4,000 ft and back.

It was dark when I got to San Diego so I couldn’t really appreciate the city. From what I could tell everything seemed to be built on the sides of mountains. I called Mark Stanford on my cell phone to confirm that he was offering me a place to stay. Of the people I was staying with on my trip I had spoken to him the least, he just responded to my call for hosts. I was unsure if he was truly serious about it or not. I called and he was. Good.

I got to his apartment around 9:30 or so (I think) and he was extremely jittery when I first saw him. Talking fast, moving fast, shaking, seemed like he just had a pot or two of coffee. I walked in the door, he immediately grabbed his coat and we went out to a restaurant. I told him I dind’t have any money and he agreed to cover me.

We started talking youth rights almost immediately. We touched on many different aspects of the movement. And thankfully talked just about tactics and strategies rather than ideology. He was impressed with the direa of “street theater” and favored a more radical approach than what he called “ties & clipboards”. Conversely, I favored a “ties & clipboards” approach. We ended up agreeing that both were needed for the movement to succeed.

After dinner we just sat in his apartment and talked youth rights for several hours. I guess the initial jitteryness was just nervousness, because he calmed down after we had talked for a while.

Mark seemed very cool, we hit it off fairly well. He was impressed with all I have done for the movement in the short time I have been involved. He says he is totally committted and has also devoted his life to the cause. Though he hasn’t done a whole lot, so I’m a bit skeptical.

Turns out he is an emancipated minor. He is 17 (thought he was in his 20’s at first) and has his own apartment & a job for a computer software company. Says he has been interested in youth rights since he was 8. We talked till midnight or so then I slept on a futon.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 22nd, 2005 at 8:04 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Wednesday July 19, 2000

Southwest Pictures

It was an amazing change this morning. While it was a wind storm last night once the sun came out it got very still and very hot once again. I woke up roasting in the tent. I was a bit reluctant to put my clothes on this morning as well. I tried to get all packed up this morning in the nude but traffic got heavy and I got worried so I put some clothes on finally.

I kept driving on 90 and it kept getting more mountainous. Although these were only hills compared to what I would see later I thought they were cool as hell. I really had an urge to climb one, but since it was fenced in and there was a house at the bottom of it I figured I should wait for a different one. Unfortuantely soon aftr that the land leveled out again and was just flat desert scrub again.

I stopped in Marfa since I was starving I got breakfast at a small cafe there. While I was eating I also wrote another letter to Jackie, my third so far.

Just past Valentine, TX I gave my mother a call from my cell phone. I hadn’t said anything to my family until I got to Jackie’s house. More than a week had past and my parents were a bit worried, so I called again today.

Eventually in the city of Van Horn, highway 90 ran into interstat 10. I took that west to El Paso. I could have taken 10 all the way from San Antonio, but big 4 lane divided highways like that just suck the life out of road trips. They are good if you want to get someplace fast, but if you want to enjoy the trip the interestates are to be avoided.

Unfortunately I didn’t have too many options for going through New Mexico and from El Paso to Lordsburg I was stuck on interestate 10. Accordingly there wasn’t much to see and the trip was fairly boring at this point. I was just about to write off the state of New Mexico as a bording, lousy state when I got on highway 70 in Lordsburg. Then I got back to the two lane highway like 90 in Texas that I was used to. This took me past some great mountains and I gave New Mexico the respect it deserved, I just realized how drab the interestate was.

I wasn’t on that road for too long before I entered Arizona. This too was some great looking land. I stopped in a town a bit across the border, Duncan I believe, and I called Jackie from a pay phone. I wanted to call her earlier but had to wait till she got out of work. I called while she was eating dinner though.

It was great to talk to her, we both miss each other terribly. Though now that I have gotten used to it it is a bit easier to be apart.

While I was talking to her it started to get really windy and dust was blowing around. Lots of menacing clouds as well. I got off the phone so I could get moving before it got worse.

With dark clouds everywhere there was suitable airial beauty to compliment the earthly beauty. I was just in awe by the huge sky filled with clouds and lightening that passed over the amazing collection of mountains on the ground.

Soon I came to a hill that I just couldn’t resist, I had regretted passing up the last one and now I had another chance. It wasn’t massive compared to everything else around, but if I wanted to climb something that wouldn’t take me a week and I wouldn’t need equipment for then this was perfect. I parked my car on the side of the road, snuck through the barbed wire and started to walk up this thing. It couldn’t have taken me more than 5-10 minutes to get to the top, but it was a cool view. I took pictures from up there and one of THABOAT of course.

Whatever wind there was before was even worse when I was at the top and it was blowing pretty good. It started to rain for a few minutes and I began to walk back down. Luckily it didn’t rain too long or hard and I didn’t get soaked.

As I was getting closer to the bottom I noticed a very interesting rock. This whole place had shrubs and rocks scattered everywhere, but this rock was very peculiar. It looked like all the others except it had a chunk taken out of it with crystals growing out of it. It was cool as hell, I know nothing about crystals so I didn’t really know what this was or why it was here but it was very unique. I looked around but couldn’t find anything else like it. I took the rock with me. Knowing nothing about crystals my only thought as to what this is is that this rock was struck by lightening and that caused it to crystalize. In any event I’m going to take tit back with me and have it looked at.

Since I didn’t get the most sleep the last two nights I decided to find a motel to sleep at tonight. I stopped in Safford and looked around. I was curiously surprized to find that every single cheap motel in the city was opperated by people from India. What was strange was when I was looking for a motel in San Antonio it was the same situation. All Indians. I really wanted to pay no more than 20 dollars but I caved in and went to a place that charged 27.

I got all settled in and unpacked. Then I cooked myself some dinner and watched TV. The room had air conditioning and cable and it was a nice break from the road. I think there were some prostitutes a few rooms down, but they didn’t bother me.

I slept very well and was very rested up. I needed the break, though 27 is a lot for a room.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2005 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Tuesday July 18, 2000

Texas Pictures

In addition to a 20 dollar motel I was also looking for an oil change place yesterday. My poor car no doubt needed one before I left but I forgot. Plus I have driven 3,000 miles already. I made dinner last night right next to a Jiffy Lube so in the morning I was there when they opened.

After the oil change and some breakfast my next stop was the Alamo. I drove downtown & parked at a meter. I walked to the Alamo from there. Not that I thought it would be all that great before, but it was rather disappointing. Not a whole lot too it, not very interesting. Take note for once I was bored with history.

I got some more post cards and then wrote all the Alamo and Space Center postcards. San Antonio is a nice city, I didn’t care for Dallas or Houston but San Antonio was nice.

After mailing the postcards I hit the road. I wanted to make good time today since Houston to San Antonio isn’t a very far drive. Rather than take 120 across Texas to El Paso, I took a smaller highway, 90 I think which went farther south than 10 and eventually came up to El Paso as well.

One highlight about this road was that it went very close to the US - Mexican border in several places so when I got to Del Rio, TX I crossed over to Mexico briefly. I just wanted to say that I have been in Mexico because I never have before. I just drove around the streets of Ciudad Acuna for a bit then I parked THABOAT and walked around a bit. I was deeply saddened when I realized how fully I had forgotten any Spanish I one day had known. I was absolutely helpless. I drew a blank on every single word. I couldn’t recall enough Spanish to buy a fucking scoop of ice cream. I was horrified at how incompetent I was. I walked in and out of shops; I had wanted to buy something so I could get some pesos in change. I felt amazingly stupid though and many stores I just walked through and left, not daring to say or attempt to say a thing. Finally I went to an ice cream store and got thoroughly ripped off as I tried to buy a scoop of ice cream with hand motions. I felt like a total fool and was ashamed at my inability to communicate. One thing I noted though is that in Texas everyone speaks Spanish, certainly in the border areas I was going through. But in Ciudad Acuna no one spoke English.

I got into Mexico no problem, but I had to go through all sorts of shit trying to return to my native Country. When I told the guy all I was bringing back from Mexico was an empty ice cream cup I guess he didn’t believe me because he flagged me fro a search.

It took 3 guys & a dog over half an hour to turn THABOAT inside out looking for drugs or something. They went through absolutely everything in the car and even had the dog crawl through my car and in my trunk. Damn dog attacked a bag of hamburgers in my front seat. I was the only one being searched while dozens of cars just drove through. Damn border pigs!!!

Finally the bastards were satisfied I wasn’t a drug trafficker and I was free to go I just had to put everything back in my car first, grrrr.

IU drove on for a while through some cool land and then came to one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. It was called Seminole Canyon and it was incredible. Wow, wow, wow. Wowowow! Absolutely amazing. There was a bridge that crossed this massive canyon. I walked to the center of it and looked out over this canyon. Wow wow. Wow. I was so high up it was a spectacular thing to look down on that canyon. Hell I could even look down on birds flying through the canyon, I was so high up. Scary thing about it was that I had a big urge to throw myself off o the bridge. I had the same feeling when I went to Niagara Falls, and many other tall places. I have been to. It is a strange feeling, it isn’t just at thought that crossed my mind it is a deep feeling, a longing. I get up there and I imagine myself jumping over the side and plunging to my death. As I Stand there I can actually experience the fall as it plays in my head. This creates a great urge in me to make it really happen. This scares the crap out of me, who knows if I’ll be strong enough to resist it one day.

Despite nearly killing myself the canyon was awesome. There were a bunch of goats down at the bottom resting in the shade from the bridge. The whole thing was undeniably one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately I couldn’t stay there forever, I had to move on. The further west I drove the more spectacular the land became. It was something right out of a western, I expected to see a bunch of cowboys and Indians to ride past me at any moment. I would have loved to have a horse right then so I could go and ride through this stuff.

Amazing land. Most beautiful of the trip so far. Also I was starting to see some elevation. Lots of mountains/hills I took a lot of tape of this stuff but I fear it won’t look as good on the tape as it does in real life. Because if all was magnificent in real life.

The sun was setting so I pitched my tent near a picnic area where 90 and 67 intersect outside of Alpine, TX. That was a fantastic night. Soon after the sun went down it got very dark and the stars just lit up the sky. Southeast of me were the clearest stars I had ever seen. I was amazed by how much light was given off by those tiny stars.

Also once the sun went down it got much cooler and very, very windy. I was starting to freak out a bit at this point, it was very dark and I was out in the middle of nowhere. Just camping out in the desert between a bunch of mountains. Truly an experience. But that wind just seemed unnatural, one minute it was perfectly calm, the next my tent was in danger of being blow away. There wasn’t a single cloud either which make it even weirder. I was actually a bit worried aliens would come, or a serial killer. Hehe.

A bonus about being miles from the next city or house is that I had some nice privacy so I got to be naked for a bit. I didn’t wear any more clothing than a pair of sandals all night. I twas wonderful as I stood there outside looking up at the stars looking around at the mountains enjoying the vastness of this country. I stood there completely naked completely natural and I felt free. Totally free from everything. It was a wonderful sensation. Especially with the high speed winds whipping my naked body.

Since I couldn’t sleep well in the tent due to the wind knocking it around so much I decided to take my sleeping bag outside and sleep under the stars, except there were less stars out now because the moon had risen and it was a full moon. Lots of light. Fortunately there were no bugs so I could enjoy the experience. It was great sleeping outside like that, I only stayed there for a few hours, but what a novel experience. Especially with that wind. It was awesome.

Even though I woke up every few hours it was an amazing experience sleeping out in the desert like that. This is truly a beautiful country. I can’t imagine what things I’m going to see next.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 20th, 2005 at 12:09 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Monday July 17, 2000

Texas Pictures

Jackie woke me up this morning so I could walk her to work. What sucks about seeing someone briefly in the middle of the summer is that you have to say good bye one more time. Although hard it was much easier this time than in May. Partly because it would be for a shorter time, and partly because I now have had experience being apart from her. Instead of the overwhelming grief and profuse crying like last time, I never shed a tear today. Don’t misunderstand, it was still hard and I still miss her a lot, but it was easier.

I got packed up and we said our final goodbyes during her lunch break. Then I was back on the road again. Overall not a lot of driving was accomplished today. I went back up to Houston and then got on highway/interstate/route 10 and took tha twest towards San Antonio. While on the road I noticed signs for a “Natural Bridge Caverns” or something like that. Ther were about 2 dozen billboards for this thing so I figured why not. It turned out to be a bit out of my wand it took me a while to get there. Finally after going an hour or more out of my way I see a sign “Natural Bridge Caverns - 8 more miles… Closes at 6″ Damn! It was 6:02! Why the hell couldn’t they have said that an hour ago! I was getting pissed and I decided to go anyways. I was only going to be 10 minutes or so, so maybe if I bitch a little they would let me in.

Luckily I could save my bitching and my tempter since there was a safari next door that was open till 6:30. I went there instead. That was pretty cool. They had big animals from all over the world. I thought the coolest ones were the ostriches, one of them came right up to the car. Their mouths are open all the time it makes them look really weird, and even a bit scary.

To my dismay most of the animals were horse or deer species. NOthing incredibly exoctic, but still it was really cool since the animals were all right up near the road. I got a lot of tape on that safari so you can refer to that.

After the safari I wanted to go see the Alamo, but that too closed at 6, and it was 7:30 now. I decided to stay the night at the 20 dollar motel I saw a billboard for on the highway. Then I would have a few hours to write some letters and write in here. I remembered “20 dollars” but besides that I had no idea what the place was. After a long search I found my way to one of the billboards then after trying to follow the directions on the billboard I gave up.

I found a hotel lobby where I could sit for an hour and a half and write before they kicked me out. Then after one more effort to find a cheap motel I gave up and parked my car in a church parking lot. Maybe I’m getting used to it but I didn’t sleep too bad. Of course there weren’t any bugs around so I could have the windows open. The cops woke me up at 5:30 which was one problem that night with sleeping.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2005 at 7:18 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Sunday July 16, 2000

Texas Pictures

Since I was really tired, we went to sleep early Saturday night.

The plan for today was to go to Galveston and go to the beach there. We wernt and I was finally able to get her in a bathing suit, yea! She wore shorts over her suit though as I suspected she would, but oh well. It was interesting trying to change into our suits since there weren’t any changing areas. So we had to change in the car in the parking lot. We didn’t get seen.

The beach wasn’t bad, the water was great though. Nice and warm. Only problem was all that damn salt in it. I hate salt water. Jackie was used to the salt but complained about the temperature, said it was too warm.

She had to be careful though, if the water got in her eye with her contacts it would hurt really bad. I discovered that getting water in my eyes was no picnic either.

We just hugged & kissed & jumped waves (although they were kinda small). We spent several hours in the water and it was fun. We went in for a bit & Laid out on towels, but Jackie wasn’t a fan of that so we went back out in the water. I just wanted to be “cool” laying out, getting a tan, with my girlfriend, hehe.

After several hours at the beach we went back to the car to change again. Then we found a restaurant out on the beach to get some lunch at. I cruised around a bit and then we headed back.

We put on sunscreen but it didn’t work well enough apparently because we both got sunburned. Jackie has never had a burn before, she doesn’t burn easily. I of course burn very well and I was as red as an apple. Luckily it doesn’t hurt all that bad, it just looks bad.

I forgot to mention it but we also saw “Scary Movie” on Saturday as well. She hated it, so tonight we watched her favorite movie, “School Ties.” It is about a Jewish guy who goes off to school and then gets harrassed when they find out he is Jewish. I guess I should have known it would have to be about Jews for Jackie to consider it a good movie.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 18th, 2005 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Looking through all these pictures from my road trip has made me nostolgic for my time on the open road, its now been 5 years since the trip. While on the road trip I took a lot of pictures, and a lot of video, and I wrote in my journal every single day. The trip lasted 33 days total and I covered 9,000 miles, mostly on my own. It was a fantastic experience.

So for the first time ever, I am making my personal journal entries public here on my blog. There may be a few private entries I’ll not publish, but the rest I’m gonna put up here. I’ll pace it out a bit too, maybe just one or two entries a day. I’ll try to keep posting regular stuff too, like news stories and youth rights commentary. But everyone can enjoy my epic trek across the country in the summer of 2000. Here is day one:

Not sure if the fact that I am going to be on the road for the next month has fully sunk in yet. Today was just excellent, if they are all like this then I have nothing to be afraid of.

The day started later than I thought it would. Turned out that I had a dentist’s appointment at 11 am today. So I had that and a lot of last minute errands to do. Plus Havens said he didn’t get out of work till 9 pm, and I didn’t want to show up early. So I ended up leaving at 4:45 pm today. It was a very easy drive, 5 hours with a few stops.

Never got tired or sore or anything, very smooth trip. Stopped in Loginsville, Indiana (or something like that) and had a bite to eat. I brought my video camera with me so I am taping everything. This may be the only chance I get to do something like this, I want to record it all. Though I hope I’ll do it again in future years.

Right now I’m sitting here in Sheldon, IL. I’ve spent the last few hours hanging out with Hew and his friends. I was a bit standoffish at first but now I seem to be meshing fairly well. I talked about Metal with Hew’s friend Zach for awhile, then after he left I talked with Hew about YR. If we stuck to YR I don’t think we’ll ever run out of things to say.

Outside of that Matthew is fairly quiet. Just sits back, doesn’t say a whole lot. Much more laid back than he is online. His brother is the opposite and is quite a talker, fun guy too. Matthew and I really think alike on a lot of things. We were talking about YR and we have all the same ideas about things. It’ll be fun going.

Pictures from this leg of the journey.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 9th, 2005 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.