right on bro!

Things have been quiet and chill out here. I’m hanging out at my brother and his wife’s place in Jersey. Parents drove down from New York for the weekend as well. Thanksgiving was good, full of turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and football on TV. On Friday we went to Delaware to the cemetery to see my grandparents and have lunch with my aunt & uncles, and on Saturday we went to Atlantic City for the buffet at the Trump Taj Mahal and a little bit of gambling. Won $60 playing craps and slots.

Slots are the worst possible thing you can play when gambling, but I’m going to let you in on another of my dirty little secrets: I love the Wheel of Fortune slot machines. I get hooked on the possibility of getting the spin for extra credits on top of the machine. They’re not worth nearly as much as the progressive jackpot that the machines are linked to, and 95% of the time you get a piddley amount of credits, but when I play Wheel of Fortune, the only thing I think about is getting those extra spins. It’s like really good crack, hearing the machine play the crowd yelling “Wheel! Of! Fortune!,” hearing the tick-tock of the timer, and watching the wheel spin. Yup, really good crack indeed.

Yesterday we saw The Incredibles. The only thing I knew about it was that Sarah Vowell was the voice of Violet Parr, and that was good enough for me. It turned out to be a really fun movie, and highly recommended.

Today I just ran a couple of errands (oil change and money order to pay the Navajo speeding ticket), played some of the new CSI: Miami game, and had Indian food for dinner. I also called that motel in Okahloma City for the last time, asking about my sweater. It was my favorite sweater but over the weekend I read Page’s blog and this entry has been inspiring. I’ll get a new favorite sweater in the next couple of weeks, I guess.

81st Street and crew have been quiet for the past couple of days. How was your Thanksgiving? Did you go shopping on Black Friday? I checked out the clan’s Halo 2 stats - looking forward to jumping in when I get back.

I made it. I’m now at my brother’s place in Jersey, where Thanksgiving will be taking place. I drove

clear across the United States! It sure beat sitting around in my apartment all day long.

Today’s drive was pretty rough - even though it was a straight shot from one end of Pennsylvania to the

other, it was incredibly foggy and raining pretty heavily the entire time. I could barely see the cars in

front of me for most of the day. I didn’t stop to see anything today except for rest stops on the

Pennsylvania Turnpike - whose union happened to go on strike today. They saved me about fifteen bucks,

because there were no toll takers to work the toll booths, so they didn’t collect tolls today. Go

union!

I’ll be hanging out here for a few days, so I’m not going to update on a daily basis for a bit. I’ll put

up yesterday’s photos soon. In the meantime, gonna sleep, hang out with family, do laundry, catch up on

emails and news, find out what’s gonna be on sale on Friday, and start planning the return drive. In

addition I think we’re going to Atlantic City on Sunday so hopefully I’ll get some craps action going as

well.

Have a good Thanksgiving everybody!

Okay, so people are wondering why I went to Chili’s last night. As it turns out…the Hilliard/Dublin

area is brand new - that explains the total urban sprawl of chain stores, and little else. More on this

in a bit.

Just to be clear, here are my Three Rules About Eating at Chain Stores While Traveling:
1. Local restaurants are preferred
2. If local restaurants are not available or look too scary, local chain stores are acceptable
3. If #1 and #2 don’t work, eat wherever you can (this rule applied last night)

First stop of the day: I read on Roadside America that there is a field of giant corn in Dublin. So I

went looking for it, and I got lost. I ended up at the Dublin Convention & Visitors’ Bureau, where the

lady there seemed to take great interest in the fact that I was driving cross-country, and that I wanted

to see the field of corn along the way. I also got a history of Dublin - it used to be all corn farms,

until the city incorporated in 1987 and then went through a rapid period of development. That explains

the Chili’s, Best Buys, Dave n Busters, Starbucks, Bob Evans, Tim Hortons, etc. Dublin is now on Money

magazine’s list of best places to do something or other in the United States. It certainly seemed like a

very safe, upscale suburb.

Anyway, the field of corn is a public arts project - it was made to memorialize Dublin’s history of once

being a bunch of corn farms. She also pointed me to another art project, Leatherlips - which is a face

made out of stone that’s supposed to look like one of the early Native Americans that was in the area.

So after I got a map from the bureau lady, I went to see both things. They were pretty cool.

After that it was onto Cleveland for the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. It was a two-hour drive to Cleveland,

and I was playing the new Guided by Voices album along the way. When I saw smoke billowing out of some

industrial buildings, I knew I had arrived. I parked, went in, bought my admission, and went downstairs

into the main exhibit, which had a section called History of Music in Ohio, and it featured…Guided by

Voices! They only had album covers, but it’s good to see a band like GBV get a mention.

Unfortunately the museum did not allow photography so I couldn’t take any pictures. But I will bore you

with the list of stuff I saw. It’s mostly costumes - there were a lot of costumes.
* A couple of Christina Aguilera’s dresses
* Andre 3000’s suit from the “Hey Ya” video
* A couple of Jerry Garcia’s guitars
* Old Jimi Hendrix costumes
* One of Curtis Mayfield’s guitars
* Pete Townsend’s custom Hiwatt stack
* Old tape machines from Sun Studios in Memphis

Oddly enough I found little mention of three artists that I thought had a pretty significant impact on

music: R.E.M., U2, and the Replacements. Jeff Buckley got his own kiosk and I haven’t even heard any of

his songs. There was also nothing on Def Leppard, which was a disappointment.

That was pretty much it. I mean, there was a lot of other stuff as well - some funny letters from the

Rolling Stone staff, especially Hunter S. Thompson, and Michael Jackson’s glove. But I don’t think this

museum was nearly as comprehensive as it could have been. I’ll give it a 2 out of 5, also because I had to drive to Cleveland to see it, it was twenty bucks to get in and seven bucks to park., and I can’t get this damn admission wristband off.

Well, that was my day. After that I drove east. I ate dinner at a Perkins (it’s like Denny’s, see chain

store rule #2). I’m now holed up in Corapolis, Pennsylvania, about 15 miles outside of Pittsburgh. All I

really want to do is get to my brother’s place at this point, see my family, and get my Thanksgiving grub

on. It’s been a long trip, and even though it’s been cool so far, the driving is getting to me. One more

day to go.

Two more things:
1. Kelly, I forgot to mention that somebody called into a talk radio station in Arkansas and was

complaining about how they cancelled Hawaii. You are not alone.
2. Identify This Movie, Part 2: Clint Eastwood plays a Phoenix cop who goes to Vegas to pick up a witness.

When he gets there, he finds out there’s a betting line on whether he’s going to make it back or not.

Violence and stuff ensues. I want to see the end of this movie. Thanks.

I woke up at the Wigwam feeling totally rejuvenated, and started off. It was still cloudy out, but it didn’t seem to matter as much today. Up I-65 for about 30 miles, and then out into the Kentucky countryside. The day’s destination was the Maker’s Mark distillery in Loretto, KY.

After awhile I started seeing signs for Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin birthplace. I had no idea Lincoln was born in Kentucky - I’m sure I learned it back in high school but it’s not something that I think about every day. So I decide to stop at the national park. Lincoln’s got himself a nice little park off of Route 68 near Hodgenville. I stopped at the visitor’s center and got a map of the park, and then walked off to the memorial to see his birthplace. The memorial is actually a huge building in which the cabin is housed, to protect it from the elements.

I walked inside, talked to the park ranger for a bit, and discovered the memorial’s dirty little secret - it’s not really Lincoln’s cabin. Apparently back in the day, two guys from New York bought the farm where the cabin stood, dismantled the cabin, and took some of the logs on tour around the United States, and after they went bankrupt, the logs were in storage quite awhile in places like New York City and Lexington. The cabin’s been re-built a couple of different times since then, including once to move the cabin down the hill so they could construct the memorial back in the early 1900s. So now what we have here, the ranger said, is a “symbolic cabin.” Okay.

Onward to Maker’s Mark. But again, I saw another sign for Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood place in Knob Creek, so I stopped again. There was no one at the park, but there was another log cabin and a little sign that had a quote from Lincoln saying that his earliest memories of his boyhood were from this cabin. I suspect that this cabin might not be real either, since it’s not covered - how can a log cabin survive 150 years and be in almost pristine condition?

Finally I reached the outskirts of Loretto on a winding, hilly two-lane road through a bunch of farms, to the Maker’s Mark distillery, which is a United States historic place for being the oldest distillery in Kentucky. This place was really cool - I got to see the fermenting room and taste whatever it was that was fermenting, one of the warehouses where the whiskey is aged (white oak barrels with the insides charred, hand-rotated for an average of 6 years per barrel), and the bottling line. The warehouse smelled just like when you open a bottle of Maker’s. Unfortunately there was no whiskey sampling to be had - the “personal bottle dipping” mentioned on the Website meant that you can buy a small bottle and dip your own wax seal. Which I did anyway.

That was it for the day - after that it was straight driving. I’m in Hilliard, Ohio right now, which is a suburb of Columbus. There’s nothing but chain stores here, and almost everything was closed, so I ended up getting some food from Chili’s and watching a Kurt Russell movie on HBO. It’s the one where his wife gets kidnapped in the desert by a trucker - anyone have any idea what that’s called?

New photos are here, galleries 7 and 8.

[Note: This entry is about Sunday.]

It hasn’t been sunny since I went through Oklahoma City, and Sunday was no exception. Memphis’ skies were gray and depressing, and a light drizzle permeated the air. Ugh.

My first stop of the day was Graceland. I’m not an Elvis fan by any means - I recognize some of his songs, but have never seen his movies or anything like that. But Graceland was pretty cool. Elvis had a really nice house. I didn’t know that he had two 8th-degree black belts in karate - but now I do.

After the Graceland tour, I hit I-40 again, headed towards Nashville and the night’s planned stop after that. I stopped for lunch at the Cottage Patch Restaurant in Parker’s Crossing, about halfway to Nashville. I guess the area had a big battle back in the Civil War - the walls were lined with pictures of Confederate soldiers. The drive seemed to go on forever, but I finally made it, up through I-65 and into Kentucky.

The night’s planned stop was Cave City, Kentucky, which is right next to the Mammoth Caves national park. The reason for this stop wasn’t the caves, but for the Wigwam Motel. This place is a series of 15 teepees, arranged in a half-circle facing Dixie Highway. I read about it on Roadside America a long time ago, and since then I’ve always wanted to visit.

I was in Wigwam #11 for only an hour and this I know this place is already going to be the best place I stayed at on my trip. After a week of Motel 6 and Best Westerns, this was a fantastic change. Glad to know there is still a small slice of weird Americana left.

Hey all - per a couple of requests, here’s a basic map of where I’ve been and where I’m going. Click here.

I know I have two days of updates, I’ll post them tomorrow. I’m in Hilliard, Ohio, right now, just outside of Columbus.

Left Clarksville at about 10 yesterday morning, after stopping at a local Wal-Mart for apples, water, and

gas. East on I-40, and then I decide to skip the directions to stay on a major highway and take Route 7

south at Russellville. I’m rewarded with a beautiful drive through the Ouchita National Forest, which

rivals New England for its foliage. By now the sun is trying to peek through the clouds, and there’s only

a small layer of fog settled over the countryside that’s burning up.

A bit over two hours later, I’m in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Hot Springs bills itself as the “Boyhood Home

of President Clinton,” but I didn’t see anything Clintonesque on my drive through, except at today’s

planned stop - McClard’s BBQ

restaurant, just outside of downtown. McClard’s is an old-school restaurant, described by Bill

Clinton as his favorite BBQ place, and it is indeed packed. The walls are lined with celebrity photos

(including multiple ones with the President). I sat at the lunch counter and ate a chopped BBQ beef plate

- best beans I’ve ever had.

I drove downtown after that, which is undergoing a revitalization of sorts. On one side you have a number

of shops & restaurants; on the other, old bath houses of intricate design that are being renovated. Not

really sure how the baths worked but I guess that was the point behind the town’s name.

After that, I added an unplanned stop to my trip: the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little

Rock, which was an hour’s drive northeast and located on the banks of the Arkansas River. They were still

taking down the bleachers from the dedication ceremony, so the park and parkings lots were closed and

everyone had to park on the other side of the freeway. The museum was open (admission $7) and contains,

umm, history and a bunch of stuff from the Clinton era, including copies of old speeches, archives of his

daily schedules, gifts from dignitaries, a pretty cool replica of the Oval Office, and

href="http://www.rightonbro.com/photos/view.php?gid=7&phid=17">this important letter from a very important

person on an important subject. It was pretty cool. Also I noticed that the opening of the library

didn’t keep this guy from his

favorite fishing hole.

By then it was dark, so I drove to Memphis for the night’s stop. Originally I was planning to stop for

the night at the casinos in Tunica, but I’m casino’ed out. So I ended up booking a room right on the

Tennessee-Mississippi border, near Graceland, which is where I am now. Last night I drove to Beale

Street. It’s 2 blocks of bars and clubs, all with huge neon signs, and most with live blues bands. They

close off the streets, and when they do, you can buy beer in a plastic cup and walk around with the beer.

Which is what I did for an hour, and then I went back to the motel and went to bed.

New photos are online now.

Note: There will be no updates until either Monday night or Tuesday - I think I’m going to be staying

somewhere where there’s no telephone lines.

Yesterday was overcast and dark, setting the tone for the entire day. All I could think about all day long was curling up in bed with a cup of tea and a book. But I’m halfway across the country, and I got another half to go.

I started off the day by going to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. It’s the site where Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred Murrah Federal Building back in 1995. There’s a memorial now where the building once stood, and they closed off 5th street and replaced it with two giant gates - one labeled 9:01, the other 9:03, signifying the times before and after the bombing - and a reflecting pool, which was under repair. The building next door used to house the local newspaper, the Journal-Record, but they’ve turned it into a museum. They preserved the wall that faced the Murrah building, and left the scars in the concrete and the fire escape that got twisted up in the bombing.

The museum was pretty intense, describing everything from what the Federal Building was used for before bombing, to the timeline of the bombing, to the coverage afterwards, to a history of terrorism. They actually had a recording of the bombing from a taped government meeting, which was scary to listen to. And they had a history of the capture of McVeigh and the trial afterwards. I went through the museum pretty quickly, and left feeling a bit sad.

After that, I got lost driving around in Oklahoma City for a bit, and then it was off to my next destination: Bentonville, Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart. Up north up 44 to Tulsa, and then east on 412/Cherokee Turnpike to Siloam Springs. I broke my “no chain food” rule today and got some lunch at McDonald’s. I was running late and was worried that I wouldn’t make it to the Wal-Mart Visitors Center in time, so I ignored my printed directions and shortcut through some backroads (Route 59 to Route 102). The weather continued to be overcast and crappy, and it started raining, but the Arkansas countryside was beautiful and calming.

I finally made it to Bentonville, 30 minutes before the Visitors Center closed. The Visitors Center is where Sam Walton opened up his first store back in the day. It’s located in a square on Main Street that looks like the city square in Back to the Future, except Bentonville’s version is almost totally deserted. The Visitors Center is a giant PR job, full of positive images of the growth of Wal-Mart (I didn’t know they had stores in China) and Walton’s own success as a businessman (CEO of the year, Presidential Freedom award, etc.), but whether you like Wal-Mart or not, it’s hard not to respect (and even admire) the impact he’s had on the retail industry. I bought a bumper sticker (”Bury Me Next to a Wal-Mart So My Wife Will Visit Me”) and a copy of Sam’s Rules of Doing Business from the musem store.

By then it was getting dark. My plan was to get drive far enough to get close to tomorrow’s destination, so I cruised around Bentonville for a quick minute (passed the Wal-Mart Home Office, the Wal-Mart Transportation Services building, and the Wal-Mart Logistics building), and then jumped on Interstate 540 and headed south. The traffic in the Bentonville/Rogers/Fayetteville was, surprisingly as crowded as one might find traffic in Los Angeles. It thinned out after I passed the area, and that’s when it got foggy and rainy out.

So now I’m here in Clarksville, Arkansas, typing this from my motel room (which has free Internet access). I ate dinner last night at the Catfish House - an all-you-can-eat buffet of garden salad, cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, and fried everything else. Now I’m going to let you in on a little secret - I love eating catfish. So when I saw the billboard advertising this joint on I-40, I knew that’s where I was going to eat. I arrived 20 minutes before closing and pretty much ate all the catfish fillets they had left there.

I left my favorite sweater in Oklahoma City. Weak.

Music of the Day
Guided by Voices, “Huffman Prairie Flying Cloud”
Rollmottle, Unfinished Track

New photos are here. Not very many today.

Yesterday was a straight shot east on I-40, starting from Albuquerque. It was mostly trucks on the road. There were a lot of Wal-Mart trucks out there. The highway was littered with billboards advertising Love’s travel stops, Stuckey’s travel stops, Tucumcari Tonite, fireworks, and putting on your seatbelt (”Stop driving without your seatbelt bucked or WE’LL STOP YOU.”).

I-40 runs parallel to the old Route 66, or at least what’s left of it. I stopped in Tucumcari, New Mexico, which bills itself as the “Heart of Route 66.” I guess it was once a vibrant place, filled with old-school roadside motels and restaurants, but a lot of them were closed up now, and the town felt depressing and desolate. I bought a PowerBall lottery ticket here - the jackpot is $83 million dollars.

Headed east again, into the Texas panhandle. The sky turned cloudy and gray. It’s flat as a pancake, and there’s not much else except grass, cows, and a couple of trees here and there. I flipped through radio stations - mostly Christian rock, religious talk, and country, with a couple of “today’s hits” type
stations, and NPR. I don’t even recognize the music on the hits stations.

I reach Amarillo, Texas. My first planned stop here was Cadillac Ranch. I had problems finding it - it’s not really a tourist trap, and there are no signs. But I finally drove along the frontage road until I found it (hint: it’s south of the highway and west of the Hope Road exit). Back in the ’70s, some artists jammed a bunch of old Cadillacs face down into the dirt in the middle of a field. I’m not sure what kind of statement they were trying to make, but whatever it is, I wasn’t feeling it. It looked like the thing to do was sneak onto the field and spraypaint the cars, but there were a bunch of cows in the field, and all were eyeing me warily. I got back in my car and left.

On the othe side of Amarillo was my second planned stop - the Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of the FREE 72-Ounce Steak. The Big Texan is virtually empty when I get there at four o’clock. It looks like a big ol’ Western saloon, with its wooden floors and walls. I did not order the 72 ounce steak, but I did order
an 18-ounce ribeye (ate about half of it). And goddamn if that wasn’t one of the best steaks I’ve ever eaten.

After I ate, I asked about the 72-ounce steak. There’s a whiteboard on the wall with this year’s winners. Since they opened in the 1960s, they said they’ve had about 50,000 attempts, with 8,000 people actually finishing the steak. When you order the 72 ounce steak, they put you on a special raised table in the
middle of the dining room so everybody can watch you. Some of the rules include “fat is optional” and “if you throw up, you lose.” This place would be perfect for Toby.

After dinner, I drove on. More flat earth, blah blah blah. I stopped in Oklahoma City and found out that most of the city’s hotels and motels were sold out, so it took me awhile to find a place to stay. I’m at the Regency Inn at I-40 and Meridian. The owner said they have wireless access in their lobby. I’m about
to go find out, and try to post this.

I’m finally feeling like I’m really on a long trip, and not just a 2-day jaunt to the Grand Canyon or something.

Music of the Day
The Spinanes, Manos

New photos are online. Also, I think that tonight’s stop will have wifi in the rooms so I’ll try to find a map and put it online.

I’m posting this from Napoli Coffee in Albuquerque, NM, which has free wifi, and the coffee is good, too.

Yesterday: I left Flagstaff late, 3 hours off my schedule. I had forgotten about the time difference. Stopped at the local Target for some vitamins and water, took a quick walk around downtown Flagstaff, and then I was off.

Jammed up Highway 89 - more empty desert driving. Forests turned into grassy plain, then into desert as I passed roadside souvenir stands, then into the Navajo Indian Reservation, and finally out to Route 163 and into Tuba City. No tubas to be found, so I moved on.

About 10 miles outside of Kayenta, I got busted for speeding the first time in my life. It was actually the first time I’ve ever been pulled over, too. I was cruising along, and suddenly saw the lights of a police truck flash. I slowed down and looked in the rearview mirror, and he was behind me. Busted for doing 74 in a 65. Ouch. Well, I guess there’s always a first time. It looks like the Navajo police were out in full force, because I saw at least five other busts that day, so I don’t feel so badly.

After switching my car on cruise control (doing 64 and feeling worked) for the next hour and a half, I finally reached my destination in the late afternoon - Four Corners, USA. It’s the only place in the United States where you can stand in four states at once - Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado, and is supposed to be a symbol of unity for these states. I’ve wanted to visit here for quite a long time. It costs $3 to get in, and it’s a big monument, with the center spot marked and state designations on each side. Surrounding the monument are rows and rows of souvenir booths selling Navajo jewelry, T-shirts, food, and pottery, and there’s also a visitor’s office that didn’t really have much.

I bought some frybread - which is kind of like the fried dough you get on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, but heavier, and walked along the souvenir booths, eating the frybread and talking to the people working there. Even though the booths were less than half full, there were more people working there than they were visitors - it was me and two other people. There were a few dogs lying around, except for one who kept following me and begging for some frybread. I took a leak on the Colorado side, and then left.

That was it. I drove to Albuquerque from there - east on route 64, and then south on 550. It got dark just after I hit Farmington, so the drive was pretty dull, and I was glad to get it over with. I stopped at an Indian casino whose name I forget - it’s about halfway down 550 - but I didn’t play anything. It was all slots and blackjack tables, but the blackjack tables didn’t have cards - it was “digital blackjack.” There were small LCD screens at each base, and the dealer explained that everything is done electronically, and she just pushes buttons to advance the hands. Hmmm.

Albuquerque looked like a pretty cool place, but I was too exhausted to go out. I drove about 1/2 a mile looking for dinner, and then said f it, turned around, and got some takeout from a barbecue place right next to the motel I’m staying at. It was good. Watched a bit of David Letterman (it comes on an hour earlier out here) and then went to sleep.

Music of the Day:
My Morning Jacket, It Still Moves
Spiritualized, “Run”

New photos are online in the photo gallery. Hopefully these are a little better than yesterday’s.