Thursday July 27, 2000

Oregon & Washington pictures

Crashed on the couch in Ben’s house last night. Woke up and wrote a bit this morning, then Ben made me breakfast. It was really interesting being there, because there were so many people coming and going all the time. It’d be so cool to live in a house with nine people. I can’t wait for the youth rights house to start. I talked with Daniel McGuire last night and he said he was 100% on board with the YR house idea too, and Havens said he would come to live for a little while. So that’s three permanents and one temporary so far.

Ben left for work and I took my time getting ready this morning. Didn’t get out the door till 11:30 or so. A music museum called the Experience Music Project (EMP) just opened a few weeks ago in Seattle so I wanted to go check that out. It was funded by Paul Allen from Microsoft and is meant to showcase musicians from Seattle like Jimi Hendrix, Heart, and all the grunge bands. Jimi was the star of the museum though.

Ben gave me directions to get there, it was at the base of the Space Needle. The architecture of the building was amazing. The architect’s name was Gehry. Ben said it looked hideous, but I thought it was fascinating. To me anything that isn’t a boring, rectangular office building is a worthy building. The EMP building was anything but boring. Ben described it as looking like the inside of an ear. It was very smooth and brilliantly colored. It was a piece of art itself, and had a gallery devoted to Gehry inside EMP. He did a few other buildings like that one, all very different from standard architecture.

I found a lot next to EMP to leave THABOAT at. It was 6 bucks to park, but I was able to avoid the goons and park for free. The whole trip I had planned to see EMP when I got to Seattle, but not until yesterday did I realize that they’d probably charge me, and they sure did, $20 bucks to get in. Of course I wouldn’t pay that.

I just walked around the free section which was mostly a gift shop, but I could look at the inside of the building. After wandering around there a bit I strolled over to the ropes that divided the pay section from the free section. There was a line of people entering who were showing their tickets to a guard, and another opening was an exit from the pay section. A woman was standing there to make sure no one tried to sneak in. A guy came to relieve her and after a few seconds he went over to talk to a guard at the ticket line. He had his back turned fro just a moment and I calmly and assuredly walked right in.

Woo-hoo! I made it in for free! Eat that Paul Allen! In your face EMP! HA! I am the master! Twenty bucks, HA! They key is to be confident and never act shifty or suspicious cause they will notice you then. Just walk along like everyone else, act like you belong there and the guards will think you do. Don’t make eye contact with anyone don’t draw attention to yourself, just quietly shuffle along and blend in with the crowd. Always be very polite and apologetic, and if you get caught plead ignorance and pretend you’re lost,

“Excuse me sir, you need a ticket to be back here”

“Oh really? I’m sorry, where do I buy the tickets at? Ahh, thank you.”

Works like a charm and never do anything stupid like run, that is just suicide. I’m quite proud of my talent at sneaking into places, I must share my ability with others.

Anyways, I snuck into the museum and even got to videotape a lot of things I wasn’t supposed to. It was a pretty neat museum, thought I wouldn’t’ pay more than I did to get in. Everyone had these tech packs that probably made the museum a lot better. They had headphones, and this little computer screen. I believe you point the handheld computer thingy at a display and it will give you additional information on it and even let you listen to that music. Really high tech, I heard that Microsoft was even trying out osme new technology at this place.

I didn’t get to see everything though, I figured anything that required you to stand in line was too risky. SO I avoided that stuff and just looked at the galleries. In the museum they had a huge two story sculpture made of guitars. That was pretty cool.

Finally I got bored and I took off. I had wasted most of the day and it was about 2 or 3 in the afternoon by this point, so I had to get moving. I had two days to get to Boise. My schedule put me in Boise on Friday and Salt Lake on Sunday. I left Seattle and headed out towards Mount Rainier. That was a giant mountain, holy shit. You could see it from many miles away. Its peak was covered with snow.

I found a smaller road that went through the Mt. Rainier park, that was some spectacular land in there. Lots of heavily wooded mountains. I stopped to look around this river then I couldn’t resist the urge to climb one of those mountains. I t looked like a smaller one and I didn’t think it would take too long. I climbed up this thing for over 2 hours, getting myself quite exhausted. I kept thinking I was right near the top, but there would always turn out to be more mountain. It was getting later and I really, really didn’t want to try and climb down this thing in the dark, I’d kill myself for sure. So I unfortunately had to quit a job unfinished. I know I got near the top though, just by going on where I was in relation to the other mountains. I figure I was about 3/4ths of the way up. If not more.

The climb was a lot of fun, the mountain was covered with plants, truly a rainforest. Big old pine trees, and moss, and everything else. It was interesting to see the many different stages of the trees. Lots had fallen and were rotting. Some nearly dead others were so broken down it was hard to tell a tree was once there. Almost entirely become dirt.

While I was amazed by the amount of plants I was further amazed by the lack of animals. NO squirrels or anything, not even traces of animals. Oops, nevermind that, I saw piles of dung every so often, but I don’t know from what.

I was really disappointed I didn’t make it to the top, but it is a Big mountain. No hill this time. Climbing down went quicker and was less tiring, but it is always more dangerous to go with gravity than against it.

I drove on for a bit after Mt. Rainier then I stopped in Naches, WA there I wrote a letter to Jackie about personal matters.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 30th, 2005 at 8:27 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 26, 2000

Oregon & Washington pictures

Crap, day 21 that is three weeks. I have been living on the road for three whole weeks. That is an amazing amount of time. I feel like I’ve been doing this forever, I’m really getting used to it. The first night I went insane trying to sleep in my car, now I sleep very soundly. I’m around 5,600 miles now, car is still running smoothly. Though I’m going to need another oil change soon. I am amazed by how much I have done and seen on this trip so far. I have half this notebook filled already and its only been three weeks. Farms, forests, deserts, mountains, coasts & cities, I have seen a lot in 3 weeks.

Today I just drove and thought a lot. I made it all the way from Gold Beach, OR to Seattle, Washington. That is a long drive. But I am back on schedule now.

I still have a little over a week to go and I’m already looking back on my trip. Thinking about how this trip will affect my life, thinking about the magnitude of it. Thinking about how this trip fits into my philosophy of life, of enjoying life and not being afraid to take risks in order to reach the marrow. Thinking about how well I’ve taken to the road, most people at this point would be getting homesick or tired, or lonely, but I am just fine and could keep going for another 3 weeks. I am a little tired, but I don’t miss home, and besides missing Jackie from time to time, I don’t miss companionship either. I have always been infinitely adaptable, if I am dropped in a new situation it doesn’t take long for that new situation to become as familiar & common place as the old. That is a good thing, but yet it gives me a lack of perspective, because I forget what the old situation is like and I can’t compare the two accurately and come up with the better of the two. Though I can make what ever situation I’m in a good one.

Like I said, today I did nothing but drive. Oregon is a big place and I covered the whole thing today. I stopped a few times for food & bathroom, but mostly I just drove and drove. I stopped at an Indian reservation in Oregon to go to the Spirit Mountain Casino. That was a sad place. Casinos scare me. Adults scorn young people for “sitting like zombies playing video games” but sitting like a zombie in front of a slot machine is somehow mature and respectable. Rows and rows of white haired old folks just sat hitting buttons at these machines. Not a smile in the building. They all seemed vacant and empty shells of people. This is one of the acceptable forms of entertainment for adults I suppose, how sad. Sex, booze and gambling is what people do for fun when they get older. Granted, sex is pretty fun, but there is much, much more to life than that.

I went in with 5 dollars and it was gone in about 30 seconds after I sat down at a machine. Oh well, don’t care much for gambling anyways. I snuck in to the casino too, I was supposed to be 21. I even talked to a few workers there, they never doubted me for a second.

After that brief diversion I was back on the road. I got to Portland around four or five in the afternoon. I figured I’d briefly get out and look around. I ended up in a strange area, first store I went in was a gay bookstore I think. All sorts of gay sex stuff. There was an antique toy shop, a normal antique shop, a few cafes, and a ‘zine store. That was great, a whole store for ‘zines and underground newspapers. I found a stack of “Brats” there which is a pseudo youth rights publication. They have lots of YR stories, but a lot are not related to YR at all. I’ve seen the webpage for them, they are located down south somewhere, it was great to see them out there on a newsstand. They were rather professionally done too, thick with lots in them. I got information on the store too, so hopefully Oblivion & ASFAR can send stuff. And once NYRA makes something…..

I got back on the highway and went north into Washington. After a bit I stopped at a truck stop, gassed up and called Jackie. She had just gotten my 6 page monster letter, hehe. Her family is leaving next weekend and she is going to see Jill.

Oh, I forgot to mention something from this morning. When I got up this morning I spotted a few elk. It was a mother & two fawns. I got my camera and started walking towards them. I was able to get within 10 feet of them and they never got spooked. It was so great, I was able to sit and watch them for quite a while. I was close enough to observe their every movement. I could even watch them swallow their food. Then three more elk came out of the woods, another doe & 2 fawns. I could see 6 at once.

Ok, back to the timeline. After the truck stop I kept driving and I got to Seattle around 9:30. I was supposed to meet Ben Livingstone today, he is the President of Oblivion. When I got to his house though he wasn’t here. His roommates had no idea where he was either. I got a bit worried because Ben mentioned that there was a chance he’d be on vacation when I got to Seattle. So I went out to my car and called Larissa so she could talk to HEW and hopefully find out where Ben was. Since Hew talks to him a lot. He didn’t know so I went back to wait in Ben’s house. Fortunately he was already back and I worried for nothing.

Ben lives in a nice sized house with 9 early twenties people. It is an interesting place, I’m looking for things I could use with the YR house. I’ve never lived on my own in a house with a bunch of people before, so I have no idea what I’m going to need.

Ben and I talked about youth rights some, not as much as Mark & I did. Ben doesn’t seem as committed or as focused. Though he sees the same problems with the movement that I do. The fact we are all too spread out and the various groups don’t know about each other, and groups like ASFAR that are trapped on the Internet and never do any real world action. Also he notices how silly the groups are, the leadership at least, they don’t have anywhere near a realistic view of themselves in teh grand scheme of things. They think they are much more important than they really are and waste too much time on bureaucratic bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything.

We need action, and everything I’ve talked to so far recognizes this. But no one knows what we need to do. I got online tonight and talked with a bunch of ASFARians, they have approved the election day protest idea of mine. So this looks like it might succeed, I have to get my NYRA chums together on this and all the small groups. I hope it works out well.

While online we tried to set up when we are going to see each other on my way back home. I’m going to see Daniel McGuire and take him back with me. So hopefully we will get to meet Eric and Biterman now. And of course swing by to see Hew again. We are supposed to go paintballing on Sunday August 6.

Ben’s girlfriend just got back from a drugged up camping trip, so he spent more time with her, I didn’t talk to him much.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 28th, 2005 at 2:02 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 25, 2000

Today was probably the least eventful day in awhile. I started out at the hostel, got a shower and got back on highway 1. I was really behind schedule, I was a day behind and after looking at the maps & itinerary I didn’t give myself nearly enough time to get from San Francisco to Seattle. So I wanted to haul ass today. Unfortunately Highway 1 isn’t conducive to hauling ass. I was averaging 20 mph going around all those damn curves, so I broke with the Pacific Coast Highway and went east to US 101 which I was was able to do 70-80 mph. That helped a lot. Although not as pretty, it went faster.

After a while US 101 shrunk as well, and it became fairly curvy too. Now we were in Redwood country. And 101 was the “Redwood Highway”. I know I say wow a lot, but WOW!! Those trees! Wow! Huuuuuuge!!! It was like I was going through a great canyon with these huge trees like mountains on either side of the road. Wow. Huge. Wow.

Some points we went through mountains, but the mountains here were so much different from the ones I’ve seen so far. Rather than being rocky and/or grassy with a red/yellow/brown color these mountains were entirely covered with these giant trees. As far as one could see was a deep rich green. While back home I’m used to large forests, this was a welcome sight after driving through deserts. Such a wonderful green.

I saw the “world famous tree house” which was an enormous redwood that the trunk was burned out on the inside and a good sized room was made out of it. I was amazed by the height and width of these trees. They were unbelievably tall. Another strange thing is how little branches & foliage these trees had. While most trees look like figure 1, with lots & lots of leaves & branches the red woods were more like massive poles in the ground with a few short branches & leaves. An interesting contrast.

I had Whoppers for dinner! Yeah! Real food! I’ve eaten solely out of my trunk since Saturday morning. Whoppers were so good. I drove until Gold Beach, Oregon, there I sat and watched the sunset over the Pacific Ocean and wrote a letter to Jackie. Then I slept in my car. I’m getting better at it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 27th, 2005 at 1:51 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.

Friday July 7, 2000

Spent the whole day here in Sheldon with Matthew Havens. It is a cool place, small farming town of 1,200. Everybody knows each other and knows all about each other, I think it is pretty cool. I wouldn’t mind living in a place like this, Jackie says she is sick of small towns and everyone knowing all about you. She wants to live somewhere where she can be entirely anonymous. Personally I’d hate that. With all the shit I do to stand out in Holland it would be crazy in a situation where you don’t know anyone, I’d have to get a neon sign or something, hehehe. I couldn’t stand living in a place that was cold and impersonal. But I want to live in DC……

This morning I went hiking with Matthew. It was a pretty shitty trail and we got eaten alive by bugs. Wasn’t even all that pretty an area, but oh well not like I had plans.

After that we just spent the rest of the day hanging out with Matthew’s friends, they are a cool bunch, they remind me a lot of my friends. We all swapped stories of our various exploits. They were all impressed with my Toilet Paper trick and I think they are going to try it here, hehe. It was so great sitting around talking about goofing off and driving around town. Everything just like home. Small town folk like this are much different than my friends at school.

When I talk about my exploits t these people they identify with it more, it is something they would do but haven’t thought of yet. My friends at school though have never even heard of anything close to who I am and what I do. They think I’m some kinda freak.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 at 1:08 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.