Horse heaven humidity

I've finally reached my destination -- Louisville, KY.

Holy mother of god, it is humid here.  I have to change my shirt after walking from the apartment to my car.  Welcome to the Midwest, you weather-spoiled Angelino.

I'm not complaining.  I've died and gone to horse heaven.  I was shopping at Kroger yesterday, and above me in the spice aisle was a banner commemorating War Admiral's win in the 1937 Kentucky Derby.  Above the bread aisle was Secretariat.  By the deli, a picture of the 1972 Run for the Roses, as they rounded the clubhouse turn.

I've never enjoyed a trip to Kroger so much in my life.  As I put the groceries in the car, I could see the Twin Spires of Churchill Downs.  They're directly across from the University of Louisville campus, where I will spend much of the next year.  Pinch me.

I wandered through the beautiful campus buildings and picked up my student ID, feeling like a clueless freshman because I stopped at almost every map kiosk.  Sure, I was about the oldest person eating free pizza at the student government welcome event, but no one seemed to wonder why the gentlemen with gray hairs on his temples was so interested in the student body president's initiative for swapping textbooks.  Besides, I now have a student ID to prove that I am indeed a 40-year-old 5th-year freshman.

I stopped by the Equine Business building, where I will be doing my studies, and there on the wall was a mathematical analysis of the probability that a claiming horse will return a profit for its owner.  E=CRTV3x*+& or something like that.  I guess I will learn it soon.  I am one happy horse geek.

Louisville is a cool town with a well-recognized arts scene, fantastic restaurants and some of the friendliest people on earth.  In the Highlands area, there are five Irish pubs within two blocks of each other.  None of them are chains, and I am digging it.

At one local pub, I ran into an assistant for successful thoroughbred trainer Michael Maker and struck up a conversation.  That wouldn't happen in LA. And I've only been here two days.

I'm still searching for the blue grass, though.  I have looked everywhere, and I don't see any grass that is blue.  It's green, just like everywhere else.

But make no mistake, the ground here is special, a tie that binds horses and bourbon together.

Kentucky's grass sits on a bed of limestone, and when limestone seeps into the water, it makes the finest bourbon whiskey and the strongest horse legs imaginable.  Near Lexington, you'll find multi-million dollar horse farms and distilleries, sometimes on the same property.  They know all about the secret of Kentucky.  I took these photos on my last trip here:

 

 
The last photo is a tree at Buffalo Trace, a fantastic distillery that sits on an old buffalo roaming route and where bourbon has been made since 1787.  The tree is covered in bourbon mash from the distilling process, basically.  It doesn't harm the tree.  Just turns it black.

Blackgrass.  Bluegrass.  Greengrass.  It's all beautiful to me.

Monotony, Kansas

Greetings from Lawrence, KS.

Lawrence holds a special place in my heart.  My wife, Megan, lived here at one point.  And Lawrence is home to the Kansas Jayhawks, a formidable basketball school that is a distinct rival to my alma mater, the UNC Tarheels.  In fact, I saw a shirt in a store window that said:  Kansas.  Home of North Carolina Basketball.  If you know your college b-ball history, you'll get that reference.  It should get under my skin, but I'm simply amused.  Two of North Carolina's greatest coaches, Dean Smith and Roy Williams, have roots as Jayhawks.

Lawrence is also home to the Free State Brewery, which kicks ass, and is worth stopping for.  I enjoyed a couple of Ad Astra ales before coming back to the motel tonight.  Lawrence is an excellent college town that is similar to Chapel Hill, so I feel at home here.

I visited a friend in Denver last night and drove 550 miles today through eastern Colorado and western Kansas.  Here's a picture.  Just imagine any place in Kansas and this is a photo of it:

I spent the day wishing a tornado would appear on the horizon to take me away to a better place or at least give me something to look at for a few minutes.  Alas, I got a couple strikes of lightning and that was it.

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When I moved to California, I drove the Southern route on I-10 with my cat, Sweetpea.  She was a royal pain in the ass, starting our cross-country voyage by puking all over my stuff and otherwise being difficult.  While I was living in LA, Sweetpea died at the age of 16.  Despite her proclivity for being a pain in the ass, I was overwhelmed with grief, and I kept her ashes.  After a while, I didn't know what to do with them, so her remains ended up in our garage.

In the moving process, I realized Sweetpea was in a canister in the garage, so I decided it was time to get some closure.  During this trip, I've slowly spread Sweetpea's remains across the West.  When I reached Bozeman, MT, I saw they were having their annual Sweetpea Festival to celebrate the blooming of a rare flower, and I knew it was fate.  I let Sweetpea's final ashes go in a beautiful spot on the Yellowstone River near the entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

I was fine until the last ashes floated onto the wind, and then, I became emotional.

Today, while I was driving through Kansas, I was listening to David Sedaris tell the story of his cat.  Like me, David was overwhelmed with grief and kept the ashes.

And like me, he wasn't sure what to do with them.  Eventually, he realized his cat hated the outdoors, so he spread the kitty's remains on the living room carpet and then vacuumed them up.

His mother wrote a check for the procedure, and at the bottom of the check, it said:

For:  Pet Burning.

I laughed so hard, tears were streaming down my face.

Again.

Big skies and bikers

My travel blog continues from northwest Nebraska.

I'm in the only town of substance for miles around here.  Every once in a while, the town's college basketball team makes the NCAA tournament, and people say -- Chadron State?  Where the hell is that?  Well, here it is, in Chadron, NE.

Yesterday, I drove east from Billings, Montana and stopped at the Little Bighorn memorial -- the site of Custer's Last Stand.  I wasn't planning to stop, but I'm glad I did.  Here lies the remains of 220 American soldiers who were defeated June 26, 1876 by Native Americans trying to defend their land.  It was one of the few victories against the US government.

Custer's gravestone is here, but he is buried at West Point.

The ranger told the story of the battle with so much passion, you'd think it happened last week.  He explained how the Lakotas never wanted a fight, even though they far outnumbered the soldiers.  The tribes couldn't afford to lose their warriors -- the men who provided and protected.  It would take a generation to replace them, while a new US soldier could be trained in five or six months.  The whole thing was very moving and made me ponder the senseless behavior of our government. 

Later in the day, I stopped at Mount Rushmore, seemingly a monument to American brilliance.  But  the faces of our leaders are carved into land that was once sacred to the Sioux.  The US government just took it from them.  The carvings are pretty extraordinary, but I found Little Bighorn more compelling.  Here's Rushmore from the parking lot:

Some photos without my car in them:

Not far from Mt. Rushmore is Custer, South Dakota.  Custer is a good 60 miles from Sturgis, site of this week's gigantic biker rally.  It doesn't matter.  Bikers are EVERYWHERE around here.  It's good people-watching.

Hey, I thought you were buried at West Point?

Here are some high-speed photos, and by that I mean they were taken while I was driving 80 mph (or less):

Why they call it Big Sky country.  Wyoming:

If you look behind the biker's head, you can see the carving of chief Crazy Horse:

A storm brews over the grasslands of Nebraska:

Greetings from Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park is stunning beyond words, so I'll try to use as few words as possible and stick with my large photos and a few comments and stories.

Yellowstone sits on a volcano.  It could erupt at any time, and when it does erupt, it will spew ash over half of the United States.  Scientists believe it has erupted three times so far and is due for another explosion any century now.  Until then, we get to enjoy its immense beauty.

The ground beneath Yellowstone is literally boiling.  It creates strange geological wonders you won't find anywhere else.  Like this:

This is not snow:

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble.  A boiling sulfur cauldron:

Now that you've been warned that Yellowstone sits on a volcano, do you see anything wrong in this picture?

Apparently, some people don't understand the words DO NOT ENTER.  Ranger Betty told me that every year, Yellowstone transports people to the Salt Lake Burn Center because they do stupid things like this -- walk on ground that could collapse at any minute and burn their legs to cinders.

I encountered other absolutely asinine behavior at Yellowstone.  Early on in my drive through the park, I spotted a bison a few hundred yards away on a plain.  I pulled over to grab a shot with the zoom.  While I was doing this, two other cars pulled over, and the families inside sprinted toward the bison, leaving the doors to their mini-vans wide open.  

When one of the families returned to their car, I said to the guy:

"That wasn't the brightest thing in the world."

"What?"

"You running after that bison with your kids.  Last summer I saw a bison charge a family just like yours (lying).  A couple weeks ago, somebody was eaten by a grizzly bear out here (not lying)."

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that."

All over the park, there are signs warning people not to approach the wildlife because bison do charge and grizzly bears do eat people.

The stupidity of tourists is unavoidable here, but thankfully so is nature's grandeur.  Exhibits A, B & C:

At some points in the park, the wildlife comes to you.  In Hayden Valley, the bison seem extremely comfortable with humans:

This bison and elk couldn't have been more than 20 feet away:

I did stop at Old Faithful, but I couldn't wait around for it to spew.  Apparently, Faithful didn't get my itinerary ahead of time, so I was only able to watch it cough:

I left Yellowstone on 212 East, which is considered by many to be the most scenic highway in America.  I won't argue with them.  It is breathtaking:

The road itself is amazing.  It's not for the faint of heart.  It reminded me of a Formula One course on the edge of a cliff.  Check out the road:

When I reached the top of the canyons on 212 East, it was 52 degrees and magnificent (although the photos can't nearly do it justice):

The only words I have left -- it was worth every mile I drove to get here.

Beer and Potatoes

My cross-country travel-blog continues from Bozeman, MT.

I started the day in Salt Lake City, where I downed a couple of fine beers before crashing early last night.  Yes, you can buy real beer in Salt Lake, and the microbreweries there are quite good.  I sampled a tasty porter from Wasatch and ales from Unita, Desert Edge and Hoppers.  Utah still has fairly strict alcohol laws.  In state-run wine stores, you can only buy "near-beer" (3.5% alcohol), but in taverns and restaurants, full-strength beer in all its glory is available.  I was happy to find a collection of microbreweries I had neither tried nor heard of.

I made a quick stop on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, the magnificent body of water you see above.  Then, I spud northward to Idaho.  I realize Idaho is known for its potatoes, but I didn't think it would look like them.  The hills around Pocatello resemble giant potatoes with chives sprinkled on them.  Take a look!  Otherwise, southeastern Idaho isn't much to write home about.  But as you get closer to Montana and Wyoming, the terrain changes in spectacular ways.

I won't make it to the Grand Tetons this trip, but you can see them off in the distance of this photo.  Even from far away, they look HUGE.  I stopped briefly in West Yellowstone, the gateway to the national park.  I chose not to stay there because it is swamped with tourists and insanely expensive for what you get.  Instead, I tacked on an hour or so and headed even further north to Bozeman, a rugged, outdoorsy place -- home to Montana State University and lots of rodeo.  I feel like I'm driving a toy car around here.  At every stoplight, I see a truck that is bigger than the biggest truck I've ever seen.  These aren't trucks.  They are TRUCKS.

I've been doing a lot of driving (1300+ miles in 3 days).  Seeing America like that gives it a different perspective than if you stay over in one place for a couple of days.  If you keep moving, you feel how distinctive each state is, and how they bleed together into one enormous country.  The reddish crags of Nevada and Arizona give way to the blue and green peaks of Utah, which roll into the yellow and brown potato hills of Idaho, which give way to the cedar and pine forests of Montana.  It's a visual rollercoaster -- albeit a really, really long and slow one.

I passed through a bit of Yellowstone, and I can already tell it's a special place.  The fly fisherman were wading into the quiet streams, while further north, bus loads of whitewater rafters were tackling the rapids.  The forests are breathtaking.  I can't wait to see more of it tomorrow.

Today's soundtrack included Johnny Cash, The Jayhawks, Jay Nash, Keith Wasserman, Kings of Leon and KT Tunstall among others. 

Yes, it was hot enough for me

I've started my journey across America, and it began with a new low point in my life -- the lowest point in North America, in fact.  I left LA yesterday and headed for Death Valley, one of the few major sites in California I hadn't seen.  I'm fascinated by extremes, and Death Valley has two of them -- heat and (a lack of) elevation.  As I descended into the valley, my car thermometer kept rising.  I drove down, down, down until I felt like I was going under the earth.  But I kept driving down, down, down until I reached Badwater Basin, 283 feet below sea level, where the temperature was 117 degrees.

In the South, people say the heat feels like an oven.  Here it's more like a blast furnace.  In Hell.  You actually have to pass through Hell's Gate to get into the national park. The photo on the left is the Devil's Golf Course, where if you played even 9 holes, you'd probably be dead.  Down here, it really feels like you're at the bottom of the world with the weight of the planet (and the sun) pressing down on you.  What a super fun national park!

I walked out on the salt flat which covers the basin, but I only stayed long enough to get a French tourist to snap a photo.  This isn't a park for dilly-dallying, unless you've always wanted to be a raisin.  I saw one woman who looked like she had rubbed her face with Crisco and laid down on the salt flat for an hour.  Scary!  I quickly bolted for the comfort of an air-conditioned car and made my way to Rhyolite, Nevada -- population zero.

Once upon a time, Rhyolite was a booming mining town.  Today, there isn't much, except rattlesnakes and ghosts.  I imagined what it must've been like back in the day as I strolled through the ruins of the bank, the general store and other buildings.  This part of Nevada is extremely desolate.  What am I saying?  The entire state of Nevada is extremely desolate except for Reno and Vegas.  The driving gets pretty painful when the only sights on the roadside are prisons.

I eventually made it to Vegas, where I stayed at the Imperial Palace.  Back in the day, this place might've been dope, but now it's just for people who like to kick it truly old-school or unemployed people traveling across America who want to pay $28 a night.  It's kind of a dump, but it's also right across from Caesar's Palace.

Vegas is the only place I know where you need a GPS system to navigate indoors.  I mean, have you ever tried to get out of Caesar's Palace?  This is the 2nd time I've gotten lost in the bowels of that casino, despite my determination this time to avoid such a fate.  What else can I say about Vegas?  It's the best people-watching in the world.  The elevator doors opened to reveal three gentlemen speaking Danish, I believe.  The scrawniest one of them was wearing:  A straw cowboy hat, cowboy boots, shorts and a cut-off t-shirt that said MUSCLE BEACH.  Take a moment to imagine that.  When the doors closed, everyone giggled.  Poor guy.  He probably thought he was being a cool American.

I left Vegas this morning after playing a few spins of Russian Roulette. Hey, I like to live on the edge. I guess more accurately, I sat at a Roulette table where all the other players were people from Russia.  And come to think of it, there were guns involved.  The dealer kept bragging about his collection of Russian firearms and wanted to know the intricate details of weapons regulations in Russia.  The Russians just nodded and put their chips on black.

Today, I drove though Utah to Salt Lake City.  Utah is gorgeous.  The expansive sky and prairies and the ever-changing mountains create a state of melancholy exhilaration in which you can legally drive 80 mph.  When you come over the crest of highway 15 into Provo, the Rockies soar into view.  Awesome.  Three names I always enjoy -- Marvin, Thelma and Provo.

I'm sure somebody will get that movie reference.  I passed a lot of people with motorcycles.  I imagine they're heading up to Sturgis, South Dakota for the insane motorcycle rally they have every year.  It kind of put a crimp in my plans.  I was going to stay in Rapid City, SD, but thanks to Sturgis, the cheapest motels in Rapid City, SD are going for $300 a night!  I can stay four stars in Beverly Hill for less than that.  I'm sure thousands and thousands of Harleys would be a sight to behold, but I'm planning to skip that whole traffic nightmare.

Tomorrow, off to Bozeman, MT.  In case you're interested, the official soundtrack to my journey across American includes:  Hayes Carll, Son Volt, Wilco, Ryan Adams, Griffith House, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.  Songs available on Itunes.