3,000 miles in 3 days - Day 3

If you haven't already, please read Day 1, here, and Day 2, here, before reading Day 3.

By the Saturday, most sense of urgency is gone. Not only have we already shaved the fourth day off the trip, but we're even ahead of schedule on the third. We've covered 2250 miles in 2 days; only 710 miles left to drive today. We check out and hit the road again.

We haven't even found a place to stop for coffee before we're in Arizona. My increasing need for caffeination leads us to stop at a Navajo Trading Post outside Lupton. The coffee is no better or worse than at any gas station or truckstop we've hit prior, but the availability of various native "artifacts" and Route 66 souvenirs defines this red-painted pueblo with the poorly spelled sign as a typical American roadside attraction of the 50's. I grew up on a healthy diet of these types of sights. US-9 from New York to Montréal is dotted with souvenir stands in the shape of teepees, amusement parks of 3 whole rides like North Pole USA, and quasi-historic attractions like Frontier Town. Having reached Route 66 -- or, at least the Interstate that was dropped on top of it in the 50's -- in New Mexico, much of the rest of the trip would be dotted with this manner of Americana.

The status of our fuel tank would dictate the next stop, and fate shined upon us in that instance. The Petrified Forest National Park sits in the now-defunct town of Adamana, between Holbrook and Chambers. We figured we could get gas and maybe lunch; stop in the gift shop. Well, that's not quite how things worked out. The gas about 20 cents above the 2.97 we'd grown accustom to paying, so we passed on that, but having already stopped, we figured we'd hit the gift shop.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our film is about to begin."

We looked at each other... what the heck. We filed into a small darkened theatre room, the kind they use at museums, and proceeded to watch the 20 minute film -- on 60" TV -- explaining the history, and prehistory, of the Petrified Forest, from its formation starting millions of years BC, to its history as a National Park and Route 66 attraction through the 1950's. We were sold. We had no shortage of time, the gate fee was only $7.00, so we decided we'd spend a bit of time in the Petrified Forest.

Following the Petrified Forest Highway -- well, that's what TomTom identified it as -- about a quarter mile North, we were overwhelmed by breathtaking views of the Painted Desert. We had to get out of the car and shoot about a dozen pictures. Every time you turn a mere 10 degrees you're faced with another view, different colors, and a greater sense of wonder. Words unfortunately cannot adequately express the beauty of these views, so what I can say is that out of the 35 exposures I had left between 2 cameras, I nearly ran out of film in the park, limiting myself to only 3 pictures that even contained any petrified wood.

After about an hour or so in the park, we decided to head back to the base camp, and see if we could get lunch at the restaurant attached to the souvenir shop. A Park Ranger's SUV followed us up the winding park road. Flashing lights. We were being pulled over by a Park Ranger.

"Do you know why I pulled you over?" The typical law enforcement question, even in a National Park.

"Actually... no."

"You were doing 42 miles an hour as you came down that rise." We glanced at the speed limit sign to our right... 40. Wow, they're serious about speeding in the Petrified Forest.

Like a skillful veteran, Tim removed his drivers licence from his wallet, making certain the Military ID below it was evident to the Ranger, without being obvious or obnoxious. The entire demeanor of the encounter changed... and the duration likely doubled. Now dealing with fellow members of the law enforcement community -- he found out my affiliation shortly after Tim's -- and having no intent to issue a ticket, it became an opportunity to swap stories and talk shop. It was obvious this was likely the most interesting conversation he'd engaged in in weeks. He even had us get out of the car, so he could check for any stolen petrified wood -- probable cause for search in the Petrified Forest is indicated by mud on one's shoes.

After our friendly Park Ranger finally turned us loose, we headed back to the gift shop, but not before we were checked again for pilfered petrified wood, this time by use of a scale. We joked that there were a grand total of two crimes in the Petrified Forest, Theft of Petrified Wood, and Speeding. We were apparently suspected of both.

The restaurant didn't really impress us, and knowing that we had to stop for gas soon anyway, we decided we'd deal with both issues at the next town. So, after a brief perusal of the gift shop, opting not to pick up the $4000 petrified coffee table, we hit the road.

The next town big enough to merit a gas station was Holbrook. We filled up, and rolled down 66 for a place to eat. A classic Americana style Route 66 Diner popped up on the left, complete with decorative licence plate paneling around the front door. The perfect lunch stop... if it wasn't closed. About a half mile later, another classic 50's trucker restaurant... also closed. We ate McDonalds.

Back on the road, we continued West. The Painted Desert trailed off, and was replaced with sparse brush. The Santa Fe Railroad popped up to replace the Union Pacific as our companion and guide, and we drove on toward Flagstaff.

Between Holbrook and Flagstaff, I-40 runs through the southern part of the Coconino National Forest. Not what any of us in the Northeast would consider calling a forest, far south of the Ponderosa Pines predominant in the northern part of the forest, we drove through a Coconino National Forest that was little more than an arid desert, dotted with small shrubs and sagebrush; barely enough fauna to obscure the railroad tracks to our right.

A small mountain range popped up in the distance. Quickly we came upon it, the only evidence of the city of Flagstaff, and no sooner were we upon it, than it was in our rearview mirror. The map open -- to confirm the identity of the aforementioned mountains -- led us to plan a stop in Kingman. Unwilling to loose to the Mojave, as many have done before us, we elected to gas up, grab drinks, and switch drivers at the last town before the vast part of the desert.

The Mojave Desert, the few hours of it we had been in to this point once we left Flagstaff, had actually already done it's best to take us down. It is a living entity, and it does claim drivers. Stories abound of people runnning out of gas, or overheating -- trips ended by the vast stretch of nothing that straddles the Arizona - California border. For us, it wasn't the car that the Mojave preyed on, it was out minds, and our spirits. Late afternoon, for three hours, we drove -- Tim drove, and I sat -- motionless, silent, mindlessly watching the unchanging landscape of nothing. Three hours passed without conversation, without radio, without movement, and nearly without sanity. The arrival predetermined stop in Kingman snapped us from our comas, and the realization of what had occurred -- perhaps better, what had not -- scared us into a better focus.

A stretch of Business Route 40 / Historic Route 66, speckled with 2 motels, 2 gas stations, and 2 liquor stores, defined the town of Kingman, Arizona. A soda machine on the side of the building -- a far cry from the truckstop shops we'd grown accustomed to -- provided us beverages to keep us going until California. Barely 2 minutes to stretch our legs, we left the desolate little town but moments after we entered it, drove West, into the toughest leg of our trip, and did our best to force conversation for a while.

In time, the tension drifted, and again two friends were on a crazy road trip, with its goal very much in sight. Soon enough after that, the sun was setting over the Sierras, we crossed the Colorado, and we were in California... at an Agricultural Inspection Stop. Puzzled, we answered the officer's quick questions about foreign fruits and vegetables, and were waved on. And on we went, into more nothing; this time, liberal California nothing.

Although tracking almost due West, I-40 winds through the bottom of the Sierra, and by the time we emerged on the other side, it was time again to eat. I-40 meets the 15 -- all roads in California bear the article "the" -- in Barstow, and it seemed as good a place as any to stretch our legs and grab a bite. On East Main Street, just before the on ramp to the 15, we found Bun Boy.

The last little piece of Route 66 Americana, a little burger joint that hasn't changed much since 1955, made the trip feel complete, even if we were still 175 miles from Oxnard. We relaxed in the booths, with the 50's cars design upholstery. We read the pocket books of witticisms written by a local author. We drank our fountain Cokes, enjoyed our 1/3 pound burgers, and silently rejoiced in the near completion of our journey. We covered over 28 hundred miles, through the Appalachians, traversing the snow-covered Midwest, across the Mississippi, down through the plains of Kansas, across the vast Southwest, crossing the Painted Desert, the Continental divide, and the Mojave Desert, bridging the Colorado and winding through the foothills of the Sierras. In just a few short hours we would be in our motel; we had driven for three straight days, from sea to shining sea, and we had made it.

3,000 miles in 3 days - Day 2

If you haven't already, read Day 1, here, before reading Day 2.

10:00 a.m., we got up. It'd only been 5 hours sleep -- well, in addition to the naps we'd gotten in while driving -- but we were refreshed and anxious to hit the road again. A phone call from back home reported to us that the snowstorm we drove through in the Midwest buried Connecticut. That was worth a small laugh.

22 hours of driving the day before, over 1300 miles and through 10 states, had put us more than a third of the way through what was planned as a four day trip. Even cutting it to three days still gave us the luxury of a cushion of time; a cushion we decided to dip into to see either Tombstone or Dodge City. The pamphlet I snagged at check-in, along with a brief glimpse at the map, helped us plot a 30 mile detour to bring us into Dodge City around mid-afternoon. We'd later discover that the Tombstone detour would have been closer to 250 miles.

Driving was simply determined on a turns based system, so I got behind the wheel. South to Wichita. Northern Kansas -- ahh, who am I kidding? All of Kansas looks the same. Nonetheless, it really is beautiful country; fields, dotted with silos and windmills, maybe a cross-street every 50 miles. North of Wichita, there are still some rolling hills; something the break up the amazing flat plains. Plains, which along with daylight and clear weather, grant us an amazing 6 Million mile visibility. OK, it was probably 10 miles or something -- heck, I have no frame of reference -- but compared to the crowded and occasionally wooded Northeast, it was amazing.

By lunch time, we'd made it through Wichita, and to a new experience along the trip, the end of the interstate. Something odd happened in the route planning, when, as I'd stated earlier, Mapquest adjusted for the entirety of Interstate 64 being closed. The adjusted route came down diagonally through Kansas, instead of the straight shot to Oklahoma City; 410 miles of nothing but Kansas.

There are only 2 interstate highways in Kansas, I-35 and I-70, and since I-70 would have taken us right through Colorado, the planned route went I-35 South to US 54 West. I have to say I was worried; I expected US 54 to resemble US 1 in the Northeast, but I would soon discover that nothing in the middle of the country is like the Northeast. US 54 meandered west then southwest, 200+ miles across lower Kansas. But, unlike the familiar Post Road, this 2 lane country highway ran almost 50 miles at a time at a 75 MPH speed limit, slowing to 35 as it passed through town, then picking back up and rolling. Straight as an arrow, 10+ miles visibility, we shot across Kansas, at times the only car in sight. At was at this time, we picked up our third traveling companion.

The Union Pacific Railroad run parallel to US 54 -- actually, it might be better to say US 54 was built parallel to the Union Pacific -- for the entire 420 miles from Wichita to New Mexico. And as we traveled the countless flat, straight, identical miles, the Union Pacific became our guide and friend, the unofficial 3rd man. When there was nothing left to see, no more windmills to count, no more tracks left on the Best of Johnny Cash, there would be the Union Pacific, there to remind us we hadn't drifted off the road or fallen asleep. Personified, the Union Pacific became our companion, popping up here and there to add its own bit of conversation along the long, unchanging road.

But smack in the middle of US 54, we took our first real breaks from the road. In Greensburg we stopped for gas, and witnessed a sight that took us a bit to process. It looked like they were tearing the town down -- maybe to move it farther down the road or something. The trees looked weird, too. We just couldn't put our finger on it. It wasn't until we were leaving town, and saw the rows of temporary trailer homes, that we realized what we had witnessed. The entire town of Greensburg, Kansas, had recently been devastated by a tornado. Yet, to our amazement, the town went on. People filled up at a gas station with no cashier's building, simply paying at the pump; a sign outside another gas station convenience store advertised that they were now selling a particular grocery store's products out of their cooler, at the original prices. Buildings were reduced to rubble, but Greensburg marched on.

And we marched -- err, drove -- on. On, to Joy, Kansas, where we ate. I made an executive decision to stop at a Sonic. We'd been avoiding fast food, but this exception seemed warranted. For years I've been seeing ads for "Sonic: America's Drive-in", and wondered if perhaps then I didn't live in America. So when I saw one, I had to stop, and place my order are the individual drive-up stall, and watch the waitress try to hand my food in the window over the front bumper -- I guess I pulled to close on the left.

Stomachs full, and sipping the rest of my Cherry Limeade, we began our detour. Within an hour we were in Dodge City, Kansas. Dodge City, it seemed, has grown up a bit from the days of Wyatt Earp, but in some ways never changed. They called it a "cow-town" then, and now it's has a major facility for National Beef Company, and another for Purina's industrial feeds division. The Santa Fe railroad still rolls through the middle of town, and stops at a depot renovated to resemble it's 1880's self. A period steam engine sits outside the visitors' center, just diagonally across the street from the depot, on historic Front Street. Except Front Street has been renamed Wyatt Earp Boulevard, and along the 3 downtown blocks of Wyatt Earp Boulevard, and winding up on Central and into town, is the Dodge City Trail of Fame. 24" medallions dot the sidewalk every 10 feet or so, with the images and names of famous -- or infamous -- residents of Dodge City, and the stars of Western TV and movies who portrayed them. A rustic overhang, with rough-hewn posts, below western murals on the second story, disguises the storefronts of the nail salon, pet shop, insurance agency, and other perfectly 21st century businesses.

On the westernmost block of the Trail of Fame sits the Boot Hill Museum. Along a recreated 19th century block of Front Street, actors in 19th century western garb... well they do something. We didn't actually pay for the Boot Hill Museum experience... but it has an awesome gift shop. And there we bought our fill -- limited by the space in my carry-on bag for the flight back -- of western curios and Wyatt Earp bric-a-brac. So, after being accidentally assaulted with a tube of lip balm, and paying for our souvenirs, we strolled back to the car and -- sorry, have to say it -- got the fuck out of Dodge.

The rest of Kansas seemed to go by in a blink. A little bit of time outside the car and in the fresh air was just what we needed; we were refreshed and quickly approaching Oklahoma. Our old friend the Union Pacific was to our right, TomTom's compass pointed 235 -- due Southwest -- and US 54's unwavering track through the plains got shorter and shorter. And just before we'd reach Oklahoma, just a few minutes before sunset, we reached the last significant town we'd cross on my driving shift, Liberal Kansas.

Now Kansas has had some interesting town names -- we'd already passed through Coffee County, and eaten lunch in Joy -- and we figure in a state as big as Kansas
, it might have been difficult to come up with the best names as they went along, but the irony of Liberal, Kansas, was not lost. So now we're driving down Pancake Boulevard -- no I'm dead serious -- which is the street name of US 54 through Liberal, and driving past the last vestiges of what passes for civilization in Kansas -- 2 gas stations, a gun shop, a Burger Barn, and a Waffle House -- and we can see the Oklahoma border ahead, when, on the left, the last building on Pancake Boulevard, the last building in Liberal, Kansas, is Halliburton. I can't help but question Dick Cheney having a main office and facility in Liberal, Kansas... on Pancake Boulevard no less. I wonder how he feels about that.

Aside from a beautiful sunset over the plains, and a 2 minute glitch where TomTom thought we were driving off-road, we weren't in Oklahoma long enough to have have seen anything. We didn't even so much as cross a town big enough to appear on our map. I can tell you Oklahoma had two silos, as many auto graveyards, and the worst paved roads we'd been on since Indiana. Or so we'd have hoped. But just when paving technology had dipped to a low not seen since the Industrial Revolution, "Welcome to Texas, Home of George W. Bush".

Back home, as you enter Connecticut, we have a similar sign stating "Welcome to Connecticut, Birthplace of George W. Bush". A popular photoshop edit places "We're Sorry" on the line below it. No such apologies from Texas. But more signs. "Don't Mess With Texas". Not only a slogan of pride, but apparently also the state's anti-littering campaign.

The northern part of Texas was very dark. After a day's drive across the plains, the sudden introduction of trees and hill, coupled with a refusal to put any source of light on the highway, created a lack of visibility in stark contract to the last 8 hours of driving. Taillights, headlights, the occasional Don't Mess with Texas sign, and the smell of cow manure; TomTom indicated the Union Pacific 100 yards to our right, but it too was no longer visible. An hour of manure-smelling darkness, and we finally reached a town.

Dalhart, Texas, had both a court and a police station -- or so indicated the sign. One Chevron station -- where we gassed up and stopped to get a drink before switching drivers and rolling on -- one sketchy looking Mexican restaurant, and a burger joint that looked like it'd been closed for the last 20 years, that's all we saw of Dalhart. Before we could even find a place to eat, we were in New Mexico, a brightly painted, well landscaped little piece of civilization at the left edge of Texas. And as I said in day one, there had become one sight that defined civilization, the Flying J.

So after a down-home-style dinner of truckstop Shepard's Pie, we headed back to the road; this time Interstate 40. New Mexico was a blur. I was asleep for most of it, actually. Bit between sleep, and the dark of night, what I did see of New Mexico I liked. There's an odd sense of completion, like New Mexico was designed laid out, built, and finished; every once and a while somebody comes by with some Endust and gives it a nice polish. Every town has some large decorative item visible from the Interstate -- in Albuquerque it was a giant neon cactus -- every off-ramp has a "Welcome to" sign in a well landscaped traffic island, and just everything looks to be in its place. It's a hard thing to describe, but it's a stark contrast to the ever-present construction of the Northeast.

By the time I woke up we were gassing up at yet another Flying J, two thirds of the way through the state, and if it weren't for the Continental Divide, I'm sure Tim would have driven straight through into Arizona. Alas, nature would have different plans for us. Crossing the bottom of the Rockies, the elevation climbed sharply, until were at 7,000 feet, and with it came snow. Blinding snow slowed our pace to 35 miles per hour. Safe passage was reduced to the one lane the trucks ahead had cleared. Eventually, well past midnight, traffic thinned out, and even the tracks of the trucks ahead began to disappear. Before long the road disappeared. In a complete white out, crawling along at 20 miles an hour, each of us squinting to see the road edge on our own side of the car, trying to navigate by GPS alone like snowbound submariners, we clocked 40 more miles before we finally came upon lodging in Gallup, New Mexico. We were but 21 miles from Arizona, but the weather did us in. And so we checked into the Budget Inn -- across the street from the Econolodge -- a fabulous accommodation featuring a shower with a whole in the wall, a cafeteria lunch tray screwed down to the side of the sink, mustard yellow wallpaper, and two paintings that may have been salvaged from a Denny's that burned to the ground. We laid down on the 2 slabs that passed for beds, and no sooner did our heads hit the lumpy excuses for pillows, we slept.

3,000 miles in 3 days - Day 1

I've been back in Connecticut since 9 p.m. Monday night, and a week later, I'm still having difficulty knowing where to start this blog. Information overload, I guess. When in doubt, I guess it's best to start at the beginning.

The story really starts Tuesday, February 19, when I picked up SN Suraci at JFK airport. For a few months now, Tim's been in the United States Coast Guard, and stationed in Oxnard, CA. In an attempt to acquire housing off the station, it became obvious he needed his car. So really, this is the story of shipping a car.

Flying home and driving back, even when you account for the cost of food, gas, and lodging along the way, turns out to be cheaper, and of course much faster, than having his car shipped. So, with leave granted by his commanding officer, thus begins this epic adventure.

3:00 p.m., EST, I pick him up at JFK -- he needed a ride, and I generally don't pass up an opportunity to see Timmy since he moved to the West Coast. That's supposed to be the end of the plan. I drove out to JFK, drove him home, he came over for good New Haven style Pizza for dinner, and that should of been the end of the visit. So I thought.

Over dinner we were discussing his trip back. Still no word from the friend of his who was supposed to drive to California with him. He finally did get him on the phone, only to find out -- as we'd expected by this point -- that he wouldn't be able to make the trip.

"Too bad I didn't know sooner; I could have gone with you."

That's what I thought, at least. But, after a bit of encouragement from my beautiful and loving fiancée, I walked into work on Wednesday, asked for the rest of the week off, came home, packed a small bag, found a flight home for Monday morning, and that was that.

So it was 8:15 a.m., Thursday. Quick stop for gas, smokes, water, and a road atlas, and we were on our way. By 9:00, we were in New York. 9:30... New Jersey. 10:50 a.m. and we were in Pennsylvania. That was the end of the short states, and the last time I crossed a state I'd been to before. The road ahead was new, the country was spread out before us, and the adventure was beginning.

By about 1:30 we were in Harrisburg, PA, our first stop -- gas and food. A couple steak sandwiches at the Flying J truckstop -- a landmark that would define civilization over the rest of our journey -- and we were off into uncharted territory. This would be the farthest west I'd ever driven, the last stop in a semi-familiar place, and the beginning of a foreign part of the country, a land dotted with crumbling barns and rebel flags. I wonder how they forgot about Gettysburg. Wasn't this still Union Army lands?

Pennsylvania bled off into Ohio, passing briefly through West Virginia in between. Strip mines contrasted oddly against signs advertising coal as "Clean, Green Energy". Pastoral farms still dotted the hilly landscape every mile or so, many of them still bearing the Harley Warrick painted ads for Mail Pouch Tobacco. By now it had been 10 hours on the road, and a gas and coffee stop in Ohio signaled driver swap, and brought up the question that would nag us for at least the next few hours... What is a Buckeye?

So it's 6 p.m., we're about an hour into Ohio (that's about a 1/4 on your maps, for those of you following along), fresh gas, fresh coffee, fresh driver, and a fresh blizzard heading right for us. Our network of progress-tracking well-wishers had made contact to inform us of an impending Midwest snow storm.

"OK, so where is it?"

"Wait, it can't be the whole Midwest."

"OK, we'll be in Columbus at about 7:00."

"So the snow starts in Columbus... at 7... and moves East."

"Nope, we have to go through it."

OK, so it turned out not to be a blizzard... at least not for us. That system did continue East and dump 10" on Connecticut, snowing in my fiancée, closing my office at noon. But, remarkably, as I drove through it -- and I did drive straight through it, from mid-Ohio through Indiana and Illinois, for no less than six straight hours -- there was never more than 1" of snow; slushy in parts of Indiana, dry powder for the rest, but never more than an inch.

Missouri brought me two new challenges I'd never faced driving: freezing fog, and an angry TomTom. The former was an interesting anomaly. Now pretty much past the storm system, residual moisture has made it a foggy night. Not the worst of conditions after 6 hours of snow, and not so dense as to slow driving conditions, but the unexpected part was the freezing aspect. The well-below-freezing temperatures caused this fog to freeze directly on the windshield, making it near impossible to keep the view clear as the wipers tried in vain to act as ice scrapers. Defroster on full and wipers double-time, we pushed forward, nearly at St. Louis. When we did finally stop, we removed a 1/2" thick cast ice mold of the front grill and licence plate, perfectly molded.

But if the freezing fog wasn't discomforting enough, it was the angry TomTom that really made that last leg of the trip difficult. We based the trip on directions from Mapquest. Two options were provided, but given that it was February, we opted for the route that didn't go through the Colorado Rockies. We have the driving directions, we have a road atlas of the 50 states, and we have a borrowed TomTom GPS. When all is going well, the three tend to be in agreement. When Mapquest takes us on an Alt route around a major city, TomTom spends 30 seconds recalculating the route, and is soon synced up with the printed directions. But, when Mapquest starts us down a route into Kansas, because it knows that I-64 is closed for the entirety of the state of Missouri... TomTom freaked out.

For 300 miles I drove through Missouri, across the old US-66 bridge over the Mississippi, just north of St. Louis, and every time I passed a highway exit, TomTom barked at me to get off and turn around; go back the way I came, because it will still be shorter to double back and take I-64... which was closed. 300 miles of this. I wasn't worried that I couldn't follow the Mapquest directions without the aid of TomTom, but I had to wonder, how far out of the way are we going if TomTom still thinks turning around and driving 300 miles in the opposite direction is still faster.

Against TomTom's better judgement, I got us to Kingdom City, Missouri, by the end of my 10 hours. Pulled off at a Phillips 66 truckstop just of the highway, right about where Route 66 would have crossed Highway 54. A newly-awoken Tim gets out of the car in a vain attempt to gas up, while I proceed to walk laps around the store in hopes of fending of leg cramps. It's almost 4 a.m., and I see through the massive display of Confederate flags that the cantankerous old clerk is growing increasingly agitated with Tim's inability to pump gas from what we would discover to be a broken pump, and I -- now awake for 21 hours straight -- was becoming increasingly agitated with his comments. I wonder what the penalty is in Missouri for hitting an 80 year-old man. Not wanting to find out, I left it at "Lay off; he just woke up." His tone changed, Tim gassed up at an adjacent pump, I got back in the car, and slept until Kansas.

So it's 6 a.m. when I wake up up from my brief nap; Garner, Kansas. 22 hours in and the first day is over. Good to his word, perhaps steeled by his determination, Tim has gotten us to Kansas -- about 30 miles passed Kansas City -- before the road was too much. And so we walked up to the night clerk at the Super 8 Motel, there in Gardner, Kansas, and asked for a room for the night.

"Just tonight? Check-out's at 11."

"What's time zone are we in? It's 6? What's that, 5 hours? That'll be fine."

And so we slept.

From York Street to Oblivion

I’m going back to Tennessee, back where I come from...

OK, I'm not from Tennessee, but then again, neither is Neil Fallon. Neil -- and his buddies Tim, Dan, Jean-Paul, and Mick -- actually hail from a place called Germantown, Maryland. I've never been there, but I'm sure I've driven trough it on the I-95 approach to Baltimore. But this isn't a blog about geography...

I've lost track of exactly how many times I've seen Clutch play live now -- few times in Connecticut; once in Jersey; Rhode Island for my first show -- never disappointed. Never the same show twice, even if it's twice on the same tour. Strangely, though, it is the same fans twice, or most of the time... of course, Jimbo's there every time, but I couldn't imagine going to see Clutch without him... and after a while, you begin to recognize a bulk of the fans, like they're your distant cousins or something.

Now Thursday night, the crowd was huge. I've been to a couple Valby Christmas shows, and I've still never seen Toad's Place that packed. Clutch is a great band, but I've never known them to pack a house like that, especially around here, and especially on a Thursday. But packed it was, and it was a very good crowd.

Covin was up first; a local original rock band from right here in New Haven. Solid band. Because they're local, I know I'll get to check them out again; give them a solid review of their own. Any band that can pull off a Life of Agony cover the way they did deserves a blog of their own.

No one knows what happened to Puny Human. I was told good things about them, but alas they no-showed the gig. In the end, what I think that really added up to was more time for Priestess.

When Priestess took the stage I immediately noticed two things. The first was that I now knew what it would have looked like to see Mountain in 1972. The second was that the lone dude manning their merch table was indeed to guitarist/lead singer Mikey Heppner. Very DIY... very cool in my book.

The bearded boys of Montréal put on a show of insane ferocity. Wailing guitars and screaming vocals, both kept in time by, and challenged by, Vince Nudo's insanely energetic drumming. That guy is an animal, plain and simple, and you have to respect a guy who can still play a drum solo in modern music. The Priestess set was amazing, but the capper was when, as their final song of the night, they ripped into Lay Down, their single most of us know from Guitar Hero III. Who could help but to green-yellow-red along with it?

So is a short cigarette break, a random discussion on GH:3 and whether or not Slash cheats, a couple bottles of water, and them on the the main event, and a giant Maryland state flag hanging from the rafters.

Barely had the band taken to the stage when, over the roar of the assembled masses, the open chords of Devil & Me started up. The would-be-title-track of the most recent album sent the audience into motion. The opening few songs were played much in the style of classic Clutch, Tim on guitars, Dan on bass, Mick on the organ, and Jean-Paul keeping it all in time while Neil barks, screams, sings, and gesticulates as he ministers to his audience-parish.

Jean-Paul Gaster, who I contend may be the hardest working drummer in rock today, and potentially the most talented, earned his paycheck Thursday night. Beyond his incredible talent, in addition to punching up some of the older tunes to the level of percussive acrobatics he displays in later works, three sprawling solos -- including the one that marked the division of Big News I and II -- not only took the audience on a rhythmic ride of tempo and technique, but gave his band mates some 10+ minutes of breather and beer-break he never saw nor slowed down for.

The second half of the set featured the newest track King of Arizona, another very bluesy track, but with a big, wall of sound dynamic to it, driven by the full and extended line-up instrumentation with 2 guitars, organ, and harmonica. Power Player, One-Eye Dollar, and Electric Worry rounded out the Beale Street component of the set, and the rest of the night was an eclectic sampling of many of their older works, covering just about everything but Elephant Riders -- odd since the merch table seemed to be focused on Elephant Riders and Pure Rock Fury shirts and other swag.

Neil likes to play guitar in the second half of the set, but I was happy to see him put it down to sling a mic over his shoulder to join Jean-Paul the only cowbell duet you'll see at a live rock show. Only Clutch could possibly fuse blues and hardcore, highlighted with a Hammond organ and harmonica. But it completely works. Personally I'm not a fan of the harmonica player. I first saw him last year in Sayerville, where Clutch was touring with his band -- don't ask me which band; I have no clue -- and Neil asked him up to play of the last three, very blues-heavy, songs of the night. His continued presence with the band irks me in some weird way; perhaps its his spastic movement, perhaps its the fact that he tries to scream backing vocals into his bullet mic. Whatever the reason, I am please to know that he's not considered part of the band, and although there were as many as 7 people on stage playing during one song, he's still not one of the five that actually make up Clutch.

All in all and excellent show -- not that I'd expect less. And although I was unable to snag the one broke shard of Jean-Paul's stick -- Gaster is one of the few drummers I've seen who does not toss his extra sticks into the crowd after a show -- I was delighted to be handed 2 free lighters and 2 free shot glasses by the guy at the merch table when I bought my tour shirt. It seems that the folks at Jägermeister Music like to give the fans a little something for showing up. That and the CD I got earlier in the year were really nice of them.

So, the next tour kicks off very soon, with back-to-back shows at Cambridge, Massachusetts' Middle East, starting Thursday, February 21, 2008. I know I'll be there one of the two dates, and I know it'll be another great show.

Twas the day before Christmas...

... and all through the town, not a creature was stirring... can't find rhyming noun.

I rode the 7:48 into the fair Elm City with 6 other people this morning... 3 of whom got on at my stop. I've never seen the train that empty. It was eerie. I guess no one works Christmas Eve anymore. Possibly too busy beating each other over the last Transformer in Toys-R-Us.

Against what I might call rational judgement, I was actually engaging in commerce yesterday. It wasn't as bad as I expected. I even... dare I say it... went to the mall. Granted, the lines were a bit longer, and the toy stores looked as if violent tornadoes had relieved them of most of their merchandise, but over all, not the terror I would have expected.

I finished the grand bulk of my Christmas shopping just after Thanksgiving this year, so I had nothing Earth-shaking I had to buy -- that might explain why I was able to navigate the pre-holiday chaos in a relatively stress-free way. It also allowed me a better opportunity to observe the masses -- to view the last-minute shopper in its natural habitat.

This morning, some of my co-workers shared this discussion, so I must in fairness state that not all of these observations are my own. But, that being said, allow me to present to you some thoughts on the last-minute shopper.

20 or so years ago it was the Cabbage Patch Kids; this year, the toy you'd most likely see two adults getting into a fist fight over: Transformers. I saw plenty of displays for them, but not one actual Transformer on a shelf; a couple in carts. I saw a cashier bringing back some cash register restock with at least on Transformer in the basket -- alas some unfortunate person got to the register only to find they couldn't afford little Joey's Transformer -- no less than 3 grown men, sacrificing their spots in a 2-hour long check-out line, dove on the basket to acquire the single, unidentified Transformer action figure.

This year's big shelf-stocking error: Wrestlers. The store shelves are overflowing with them; there are no less than 80 different wresting figures available from 4 different leagues; there are modern wrestlers as well as figures of the greats going back to the late 70's; sold individually, in 2-packs, 4-packs, and whole 10-packs; no one is buying them.

When it comes to last last minute, people aren't shopping for specific items. If I may dare quote Shannon Hamilton in Mallrats, "...I have no respect for people with no shopping agenda." These people are just buying anything to have a gift to give. If it's on a shelf, the seem to believe someone will want it. Sometimes I'd guess they didn't even know who they were buying for, just buying. 'I'm sure someone will need this pair of size 28 men's briefs.'

I will never understand. I'm not big on holiday shopping to begin with; I prefer to shop online when at all possible. But I will never understand what actions lead people to begin their shopping on December 23rd, or what makes them then acquire the things they do. I guess there's only one thing to say...

Merry Christmas! Enjoy your Wrestling action figure and size 28 briefs.

Can we keep the Holidays out of the office?

I'm not trying to be the big Scrooge here, but I feel like filing for conscientious objector status for the holidays here at work. Yes, I'm agnostic, but that has nothing to do with it.

I celebrate Christmas, not out of religious reasons, but simple tradition. I believe most do. While you're standing in line to let your kids sit on the mall Santa's lap, juggling your 30 bags of commerce, most of us aren't thinking 'happy birthday Jesus'. But I digress.

I'm not against the holidays. I love the holidays. Family, friends, cookies, food, music, log in the fireplace... and heck, gifts ain't bad either. I just don't want the holidays in my office. And I'm not even going to go into the omission of Chanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Festivus. Let's start at the beginning...

Monday, November 26th, still bloated with turkey leftovers, still groggy from 4 a.m. Black Friday shopping, I walk into the office at 7 a.m. to be blinded by the "North Polock's" 700 kilowatt winter wonderland. It's the cubicle next to mine, but it pours over into my space -- a light up animatronic reindeer pokes his head over the wall at me every 45 seconds.

Not to be undone, the big dumb Irishman brings us an electronic tree that looks like something Charlie Brown would have had, should he have been skilled with fiber-optics. Now, not only is this tree hideous, but it blocks my view of the front door, so I can no longer see anyone come in the office. And if that wasn't the worst of it, Jolly Ol' St. Patrick doesn't even work in my section of the office... he just thought it would be nice if he spread his Christmas Joy to our workspace.

Then there's the parties. 5 or 6 Government branches work in my building. Each one with a Christmas party. Day parties, luncheons, evening parties, private parties, public parties... just too many parties. One can do maybe one or two, then just try to duck out of the rest. A bunch of us made our decision on one public, nighttime party, $50, open bar, thrown by a different agency. The one our agency throws is a complete drag, plus it's much better to get ripped when your supervisor, boss, and his boss aren't there.

Office luncheon... no way out of that pot-luck nightmare -- luckily, the boss makes good lasagna. Friday, another office party -- really the in-house drinking party; not possibly legal, but often fun. Now the "real" office Christmas party is Thursday night -- skipping that (as I said, drinking with the boss...). I'm overwhelmed already. I want it over.

Nope, not even close. Secret Santa? I opted out of that. Then it was cancelled anyway. OK, good. No office gift exchanging either? Maybe? Probably not. Christmas eve, my desk will invariably be covered with gifts I don't need from people I never intended to exchange gifts with. Heck, half these people wouldn't even be on my Christmas card list if I wasn't getting these mediocrely wrapped packages containing coffee mugs filled with chocolates, or Starbucks 3-packs.

And a candle swap? I'm not even sure what that is. Everyone brings in a Yankee candle, puts them in a bag... and you pull a candle. If I wanted a candle, wouldn't I buy myself a candle? No, I buy a candle, to exchange it, randomly, for a different candle? Is there a point? This is somehow better than Secret Santa? Again, I opt out.

It's holiday time here...

Can I just opt out of the whole thing?

The wandering blog finds a home... maybe.

This blog has been roaming for a bit. Or, maybe more accurately, in limbo for a while. Haven't posted anything in far too long anyway.

I started blogging on MySpace, but, well, my departure from MySpace might require a blog of it's own. Facebook is all well and good, but not an interesting place for hosting a blog. So yesterday I was talking to Jason Page of ESPN radio, and he was mid-blog, so I asked him about this site. He was happy, so I went with it.

I hope now to return to blogging regularly, and keep up with it in the coming year. I have the distinct feeling that 2008 will present me with enough to say. I feel a good year coming up -- not that 2007 was at all bad -- and here will be the place to present it.

So, with luck, this is more permanent home for the blog. And to those of you who haven't followed me over from the old blog, welcome to my astigmatic view of the world.