Rainy River City

Hey. What's up?
I think we'll have 2 or 3 shows posted in the next 5 days...
so Hang Loose...



...in the meantime, here's a shot of Louisville, Kentucky
from Jeffersonville, Indiana, across the Ohio River.



January 10, 2009 . . . rainy
(click to see bigger if ya want)

Unfortunately, I don't have a shot of Robert Plant's tea... but I saw some! Well, it wasn't his his but it was tea that was purchased specifically per his request for his stay where I was... but I forgot to grab a few bags to bring home. Oh well.

A most exciting post, eh? Yeah... I thought so, too!

Part 6 -- The Grand Finale

Prepared the day before departure and auto-posted, I hope.

Part 6 -- Full Day #5

western Arkansas-> through Memphis, Tennesse Jed->
northern Mississippi-> Alabama-> through Hotlanta, Georgia->

Encore: the Lowcountry of South Carolina

6 states again.

953 miles (1534 km)

At the time this gets auto-posted I should be somewhere west of and on my way through Atlanta. I'll then be on the last leg with arrival in the heat of the Lowcountry finally sometime as the hour approaches midnight(?).* It could be After Midnight but hopefully it'll be earlier if I can get an early start in the day. I just don't know this far ahead of time.

* Tired schmired, you wanna go ahead and call me ANYTIME after 10? I might even be in at 8. Absolutely impossible to know even approximately when... but I'm making my best guess (I'll be shooting for) about 10. (Due to slowness I could even be back around 8 or 10 a.m. ... but I hate to think I'll be behind schedule. Schedules suck, I usually don't care for living by one, but eh, whatever.) I'd hate to wait until morning to talk but I s'pose it won't kill me.

Part 5 -- A Whole Buncha States

auto-posted, i hope, 'cause i'm not at the internet right now, i'm somewhere in America so please leave a beep when you hear the message...

Day 4 -- Part 5 I'll be an Okie from Muskogee...

Wyoming-> Colorado-> New Mexico-> Texas-> Oklahoma-> Arkansas

That's a buncha states!

Approximately 1,014 miles (1631 km)

Now what's the deal with Arkansas?

There's the state of Kansas, right? Kansas.

Now pronounce Arkansas. Ar-kin-saw ... or Ar-kan-saw?

Shouldn't it be Ar-kans-sez?

Hellll-lo?!!?

Wait.

Perhaps Kansas should be pronounced Kan-saw? No, how stoopid is that!?

Next week we discuss Brett Favre -- Farve or Favor?!?

Part 4 -- The Beautiful West

prepared ahead of time,
hopefully auto-posting will auto-post this...

Day 3 -- Part 4

The Plan: start the day from around Calgary, Alberta
down through Billings, Montana, still further
down the country to somewhere around Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Approximate mileage: 1,000 miles (1609 km)

due west and I'll hit Rock Springs, Park City, Salt Lake City, Wendover, Winnemucca, Reno, Tahoe, Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, Pacific Ocean... hmmm.... how awesome would that be?! sounds tempting but it's the other ocean I've got to start heading towards.

Part 3 -- A Day in Canada

Prepared ahead of time, testing out Auto-posting....

Part 3 - Day 2

This, I hope, will be my plan for Saturday.

From the Fort Nelson, British Columbia area
through Dawson Creek and onto Edmonton and Calgary.

(at least) 815 miles / 1311 km

Across North America - Parts 1 & 2

I set this up before I left to test out Auto-posting.

Drove out of Fairbanks sometime Thursday Night.

That nite I hopefully I made it into Canada, eh.

Friday nite I expect to be around Fort Nelson, British Columbia.

Not having a laptop and mobile internet access kinda sucks right now.

But eh, at the same time, I don't have a lot of time to be futzing around with internet on this journey. Essentially this roadtrip sucks my butt because I'm not taking my time. Driving from Point A to Point B on boring highways is so lame. Fortunately much of this trip is through GORGEOUS country so that's kinda cool... except I'm gonna have ZERO time to stop and smell the juniper. That kinda sucks. That really sucks, actually. And next time I do a trip like this -- digital camera!! Then again -- not a lot of time to stop and take pictures. No time, really. The quicker I can get from central Alaska to the southeast United States, the better.

1182 miles (1902 km)

Speaking of Heidelberg, it's a long way from St. Louis, Cassidy!

Zoooma's (Kinda) Random Old Postcard and Picture Show
		Volume: I'm Not Really Keeping Track

At work (where I am right now) I almost never use the internet but I'll take a moment here and gamble that I can finish and put up this post without getting interrupted by yet another helpless person who needs me to come and take care of their medical needs. Oh wait, that's what I get paid to do... and it's what I've come to enjoy doing... guess I'd better hurry up in case a call comes in and I've got to be out the door in a moment's notice...

as always, click to see it bigger, if ya want

	When my dear ol' Grandma passed away several years ago, I gained possession of her fairly huge collection of old postcards. They've been boxed up for so long and most of them I've been meaning to auction off on ebay... I'm keeping some but most just don't have any sentimental meaning to me plus I don't really like to own stuff. In any case, I thought I'd post one now and then...
Heidelberg, Germany -- 1954 (from my Uncle Paul in the Army while stationed in Europe)

On the end of the Grateful Dead 1995 Summer Tour, driving to Springfield, Illinois (and onto Soldier Field in Chicago) from the campground in Wentzville, Missouri on the morning after the Riverport Amphitheatre shows in nearby Maryland Heights.

Gateway Arch, St. Louis

After heading east to downtown S.L., we (my friend Mike from Coral Springs, Florida was with me) swung north along the Missouri side of the Mississippi River before eventually crossing at Hannibal, hometown of some famous dude named Samuel Clemens.

I promised my friend Sugar Mag a pic of my dog as a puppy... here's one that's kinda blurry. Why this one? I'm saving the best for last (I'll post those eventually for all puppy lovers to go, "Awwwwwww.")

my "Dead" dog Cassidy the Super Samoyed
at about 11-12 weeks old, Nov. 1995





Back to work...

Ridin' AZ shotgun...

I don't like grapefruit. Or peaches. But I pop into my mouth a few Vitamin C drops everyday and sometimes one of 'em is grapefruit... and I like it. Never would I eat a grapefruit, though or drink grapefruit juice... well, I suppose if I was starving but I just don't like it.

Similar thing with peach flavor and peaches. I used to like just fine peach Jolly Ranchers and then Peach Snapple Iced Tea... but never an actual peach. No, thanks.

Apples and oranges and kiwis and bananas and mangos and watermelon and cantaloupe and honeydew and grapes... sure. No peaches. No grapefruits. Sue me.

I don't know why I thought of that, it hasn't nothing to do with this...

some (other) randomness...

from my massive ginormous collection (numbering well into the dozens!) of personal photographs from through the years, here's a couple for maybe no other reason except to put something else up before I motivate this afternoon...

In my '67 VW bus, cruising westbound on I-40, I think this is west of Winslow, Arizona on the way into Flagstaff for the night.

A day or two after the Super Bowl in 1995, my friend Summer and I started the journey in the rural Virginia countryside, in the town of Sperryville, far from almost anywhere... heading down through Columbia, South Carolina & New Orleans, Louisiana, taking the southern route on the way to Fair Oaks, California which is right next to Sacramento. (She was moving there from VA

Shortly after that it was back to Salt Lake City for the first Grateful Dead shows of 1995 (and first in Utah since 1987) then back to Northern Cali for Mardi Gras shows in Oakland and then back to Salt Lake City for me. Whew. Somewhere in there there was supposed to be 3 Jerry shows at the Warfield which got canceled. Oh well... still a great trip... not including the fact that my bus had a cracked head requiring a 98 mile tow through the Mojave Desert at 2 in the morning which stranded me in Bakersfield for 3 days while Summer went on to Sacto via Greyhound. And also somewhere in there, after one of those runs of shows, I drove from Sacramento to Los Angeles and back, doing a favor for a friend driving him home and while down there I spent a couple days soakin' up the sun in LaLaLand. Man... I'm sure glad gas only coast like a buck and a quarter then!

(as usual, click to see bigger, if ya want)



Other pics from this journey: Texas - Earth - New Mexico

plus here's a GD shot from 1969 by Rosie McGee...

There actually are mountains in Texas... just not here!

PhotoHunt is a good excuse for me to post something other than music/running. Photography's not a passion of mine but taking pictures is something that I used to casually enjoy. Kind of amazingly, these days I don't have a digital camera (yes, I'm behind the times ... sue me) and not having that many photographs from through the years, pickins are slim. Mayhaps one of these days I'll git me one of dem fancy electronic picture takin' machines and I'll be able to post some better shots. But it looks like I came up with something...

the PhotoHunt theme for this week: glass

The stated rule for Photo Hunt is:
"Post a photo, on your site, that best represents the theme."

Well, as someone who doesn't always care for rules,
I've decided to take some liberty with this week's theme.

(click images to see 'em bigger, if you'd like.)

Texas Panhandle... (or close to it) in early 1995 on a cross- country roadtrip of mine.
	Photo taken with a camera and the lens is made of glass... and the view is through the [glass] windshield.

More flatness, same road: U.S. Highway 84, between either Abilene & Lubbock or Lubbock & Clovis, New Mexico.

Oil wells this time, on the same road, possibly south of the other pictures, more towards Abilene?
	When taking these I must've been riding shotgun while my friend Summer drove.

Great journey that was. A few more pics from that trip which I've posted
that you can see if you want -- Earth and Billy The Kid's gravesite...
also my VW bus that I was traveling in.

Earthly Arrival by '67 VW

This is a pretty good excuse to put up a post that's not about running or music ... but actually this is related to music, at least the images below are, kinda, sorta, because the ultimate destination was Oakland and Salt Lake to see the Grateful Dead in early 1995.

the PhotoHunt theme for this week: metal

Photography is not a passion of mine but taking pictures is something that I used to casually enjoy ... these days I do not have a digital camera (yes, I'm behind the times ... sue me) and not having that many photographs from through the years, pickins are slim ... but for this week's Photo Hunt, my second, I was able to come up something.

Mayhaps one of these days I'll git me one of dem fancy electronic picture takin' machines and I'll be able to post some better shots. But for now, for this week's theme, here's what I've got...

(click to see bigger, if you wish)

On a roadtrip from rural Virginia to New Orleans, Louisiana and then up to Sacramento, California and onward to Salt Lake City, Utah, my friend Summer and I swung up through west Texas making a stop in a little place called Earth. Located not in the Milky Way galaxy but almost in the Texas panhandle, Earth, Texas (population only about 1,100) is a few miles off the main road from Lubbock to Clovis, New Mexico. This metal sign can be seen (or at least it was there over a decade ago) on Route 70 westbound between Springlake and Muleshoe.

This same roadtrip we made a stop in Fort Sumner, New Mexico where I took a few pics of Billy The Kid's gravesite.

All the way from the Virginia countryside, this was quite a journey, especially breaking down in the tiny Mojave Desert town of Four Corners. Luckily my AAA at the time had free 100 mile maximum limit tows. To get to the nearest VW repair shop, my bus, at like 2 in the morning, rode on a AAA flatbed from Four Corners across the desert 98 miles to Bakersfield. There I was stranded for three days getting a new head put in. Summer took a bus onward to Sacto and I finally made my way there a few days later.

It's almost always an adventure when crossing the country by old VW. Not having some sort of breakdown was usually an uneventful and boring trip!

(again: click to see bigger, if you wish)

Dead Dog on a Bus

(unfortunately kinda blurry but click to see bigger, if you wish)

Looking through the very few photos
that I possess anymore... I saw this one
and thought I'd post it up.

I don't especially care for little football dogs
(yappy pint-sized dogs you can punt halfway down a field)
or dogs wearing clothing!
but this little guy in tie-dye was pretty cool
just chillin' on top of someone's bus.

7/7/95

This was at a campground on the edge of Springfield on the day
between the Riverport shows (near St. Louis, Missouri)
and the final two Grateful Dead shows
at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.

A jammin' funkin' groovy GD cover band played that night.
There's not a whole lot I remember...
I dosed the second we entered the park.
But I took a few pics right after getting there.

All I wanted to do here was post a couple pics but now there's more... Kinda surreal recalling this now ... no one knew that there would only be a mere two more days left with life existing as so many of us had known it for oh so long. It's difficult to put into words how I'm feeling thinking about this right now; it boils down to... it's like I'm again in disbelief. Only two more days and that would be it as far as traveling to shows and seeing all the Heads who've driven from one end of the country to the other just to hear the boys play. "Yeah, we mailordered, no way we'd be missing shows at Soldier," I can imagine hearing someone say to me. It was probably not too long after this that I mailordered for some shows on the 1995 Fall Tour... tickets today buried in a box, maybe never to be seen again. A sad memory. But what great times there were!

There's a band out on the highway.
They're high-steppin' into town.
They're a rainbow full of sound.
It's fireworks, calliopes and clowns --

Everybody's dancing.

My bus is the red & white '67 on the right.

(click the pic to see it plenty bigger)

Regulators!!! .... Saddle Up

William Henry McCarty
William Antrim
William H. Bonney

Born on NYC's Lower East Side...

... killed in New Mexico.

After loving the movie Young Guns, how could I not stop in Fort Sumner, New Mexico to check out this spot? Seriously... how could i NOT?! Actually, yeah, I probably could've skipped it but eh, why not stop in! And I did!!

It's such a small collection of photos I have from my travels... but these three survived. Not sure what year this was, early 90's for sure, on one of my cross-country Grateful Dead journeys.

(click 'em all to see bigger if you want)

Billy The Kid