4:31pm :: Finally back in Tucson! What a drive, too! Wildfires, accidents, excessive heat, window-closing cold, sleeping on the res, partying down in Prescott. Total time with stops and sleep was about 30 hours. I had actually almost turned south in the Central Valley, but hated Stockton so much that I figured Fresno, Modesto and the other towns along the San Joaquin couldn't be that much better. Bishop turned out to be pretty cool and the Sierras were nice, but just didn't live up to their hype. The wildfire visible from the highway had scorched it and the surrounding landscape the previous day. The ground was black and smoldering, and signs bent and disfigured littered the shoulders. The fire was striking but a little whimpy looking. I've only seen pictures of wildfires and they look so monstrous. This one was two major areas on the mountainside, lots of smoke and many, scattered hotspots, including one actually just a few feet from the highway. There were cops and forest service vehicles everywhere, but none seemed interested in the speeding but instead the natural disaster. They had evacuated a town and closed the highway the day before, but everything was open and seemingly normal last evening.
Shit, last evening. I stopped in at Barstow for a break with pie and coffee. I got asshole Californians, a town full of tweakers (who else is up at 3am on a Monday morning?) and a bit of a stomach ache. I'm done with SoCal except for SD for the next year at least. Not even going to consider jobs there anymore. Northern CA was bad enough, but the Southern part of the state offered a whole range of other frustrations. Fuck California.
Now I'm killing time until I can sleep, drinking coffee, of course, and checking email. I also have a development issue to fix. But how? I can barely see the damn screen let alone code at this point. It'll have to wait.

8:29pm PDT (South San Francisco, CA) :: Thought I'd catch up on the past few days of the trip:

• Saturday, 6-30: I had intended to right the MAX train into town to explore, but saw how far the station was from the hotel and decided to drive. I ended up getting there pretty late, but spent about four hours walking around Downtown. I had parked in front of a church that claimed "1-Hour Parking, Monday-Friday" but was still worried about getting a ticket. Portland was cool as hell. I got to the Oregon History Museum (not very cool) and just walked around a lot. When I got back to the car, no ticket, thankfully, so all was good. I returned to the hotel for just a bit and went back out for a show at the Doug Fir. The show was mostly cellos accompanied by some local eclectic artists. Damn cool! That was one of the best shows I'd seen in a while, and the crowd was great. When I came out, there were cops all around my car. I talked to the cop and it was just a bar fight, and he asked the car blocking me in to move. It was weird though.
• Sunday, 7-1: Drove back into town for a small brewpub tour. Hit two little neighborhood places in a cute area along 24th Avenue. Good beer, but I really liked the bars. Once again: Portland is so damn cool. Went up to the rose garden, then got somewhat lost and wound up in the Saint John's neighborhood. I tried to hit a coffee shop that also had good beer on tap (my dream place), but the wait was too long. Bought a pack of cigarettes and headed toward Marine Drive. Got lost again, but eventually found my way back to Gresham.
• Monday, 7-2: Left about 10am and headed south toward Oregon City. I decided to try a side road and ended going in a big circle. For some reason, I was really upset by this. Made it to the Oregon Garden which seemed nice, but the admission was $10, so I kept driving to Salem. Salem was very cool. I hit the state capitol, the Downtown area (which included an awesome CD store), and a riverside park with a carousel. Then west to Independence which, not surprisingly, was getting ready for a huge Fourth of July festival. Then south to Corvallis, which was kind of nice but a little isolated. I bought a cute Oregon State souvenir and checked out the campus a little. Then, on to Eugene. All I'll say is: Fuck Eugene.
  That night, I got out into the forest and found a paved trailhead to park at for the night. It turns out that this was a good move as there wasn't even any traffic on the road (I would find out why), and it was a cool spot. The mosquitoes and the kind of high temp made it uncomfortable for a while, but I got about four hours.
• Tuesday, 7-2: Got woken up by logging machinery at about 5am (I had parked really close to them) and went for a hike on the trail, which turned out to be pretty beautiful. Per Rand McNally, I continued up the road thinking it would of similar quality. This was a huge miscalculation though. The road quickly went to one-lane, unstriped. Then to one-lane, graded gravel. Then to gravel track with grass in the middle. At one point, I hit a fork, with one signed toward Reedsport, the other to Florence. I chose Reedsport thinking that was the road the map was showing. A couple of miles later, another fork. The sign on the left said: "Reedsport - 29". The sign on the right said: "Reedsport - 29". No joke. I chose the right, thinking that was the direction I wanted to go (south and west). The road didn't deteriorate much, but got kind of scary at points. I drove right under a hawk's nest, and had my first experience of seeing a bear as it ran down the road away from me as I rounded a corner. How exciting! Finally I started to see logging activity and knew that I was close, but hit yet another, unsigned fork (the signs had abandoned me long ago) with an unoccupied trailer and campsite. Since I couldn't ask them, I just picked right. This road deteriorated pretty quickly and I only made it about a mile before the logging dropped off and I figured out that it was the wrong road. Going back down the mountains (they seemed endless the whole time), the road improved slightly and I finally hit the paved road that was promised, which followed a river to Reedsport. Then: the 101. I spent the rest of the day slowly going down the Oregon coast, stopping in a couple of little towns for food and to check out the sights. Some of it was strikingly beautiful. I got down to near some tidepools at one of the few free state parks, which is at the end of the road to Cape Arago.
  I was worried about getting to the hostel at a reasonable time, so I bolted the rest of the highway through Brookings and Crescent City. The hostel turned out to be pretty empty, even at 5:30. I took a short nap (since I hadn't gotten much sleep) then went to the beach to watch the sunset. It was long and beautiful.
• Wednesday, 7-4: Finally got a chance to the check out to the redwoods. Crap, they're really big. I forgot it was the Fourth until I encountered a closed-off section of Downtown Arcata. A little too crowded for me. Checked out Humboldt State and continued onto Eureka. Eureka had a small festival and was also pretty packed. I stopped into the Lost Coast Brewery which was, of course, slammed. Since I had a ways to drive, I just got a pint of their IPA (you may have had their Great White wit) but it took a long time and even longer to leave. Sorry, no tip, but they had wi-fi and my laptop actually worked the whole time (although it flickered a lot).

8:29pm PDT (Portland, OR) :: I woke up this morning in the seaside village to a rain on the roof. It had rained most of the night, but, being Washington, it seemed to have little effect on the surroundings. The Columbia River became quite striking just east of its meeting with the ocean. It was a wide swath of mostly shallow water flanked by mud flats. There was a small park in the town of Chinook where I was pulled to the side by the sight of it. An old woman pulling her trash can in yelled at me to slow down, all to no avail. I also got my recycling done in that town. Quite productive.
The journey into Oregon was on one of the few bridges over the Columbia River between the two states. There are not many bridges because the river is just that large; just over four miles wide, in fact. Driving at 50mph on the enormous iron bridge to Astoria took nearly ten minutes. It also turns out that bridge is the longest continuous bridge in the country (thanks, Wikipedia).
Astoria didn't fulfill my expectations completely. It's a beautiful town, and it was quite quaint but I had actually expected it to be more tourist-oriented. There were no kitschy B&B's, fudge shops, poster stores or garbage nick-nack parlors. Instead, there were a couple of hotels, restaurants, a Downtown JC Penney store (has to be one of the few left), and the brewpub above the river, where I ate, drank and wasted time talking to crazy locals. It's possible that people in bars are just generally a little off, which is why they're in bars, or maybe I'm a little off and is why I'm in a bar, but the ones I encounter always seem to have something a little off about them. Either way, it's all in good fun and I never see them again. My version of the one-night stand since I can take no sort of anonymous inter-personal interaction which supercedes this sort of meaningless chatter. It, in itself, is a step for me.
Nonetheless, the drive up was very beautiful. I took a side road after getting frustrated with the amount of highway traffic, and wound up quickly in Oregon's timber country. State forests, tree farms, mills and tiny towns. And, appropriately, my car decided to veer into a ravine where a tree branch stuck between the wheel and fender, dragging it along briefly (it made a horrible noise). I removed it, but not before a truck passed me and stopped. The door on the truck opened, but no one exited. Then I heard a woman's voice ask if I was okay. I shouted at the apparent ghost that it was just a tree branch under my car and everything was fine.
Portland's quite a trip. The Downtown looks really cool, and I was listening to bands playing tonight before I got caught up in this. The local indie/media conglomerate rag picked a show that I didn't particularly like, so I checked out the Doug Fir, which is where The Helio Sequence, Hypatia Lake, and the Dandies (once upon a time) have played. Sure enough, much better bands, but I'm conflicted on going. Here it is almost 9pm, I'm at least 20 minutes from the club in an unknown town, and I would have to park, sight-unseen at an unfamiliar venue. I may hate it, I may love it. I suppose that these upcoming random live shows must make up for that insane show in Kelowna, but I'm not sure I want this one. The line-up is all local: The Prids, The Sun The Sea and Go Fever. There's another show on Sunday though, and I feel like I have to choose. Choices, choices.
Oh, but one of these randos in the brewpub this afternoon (I actually went in right after they opened at 11am because I was just hungry and had nothing to do) told me there was a beer festival in Portland this weekend. That got me excited, but the said beer fest is actually in Seattle, which is not quite Portland. Oh well.

3:21pm PST (Seaview, WA) :: I just fell right on my ass. I was moving the computer monitor into my hotel room, and sprinted from the car, hit the wooden deck, slipped and slammed down on my ass. Not only that, but the computer monitor slammed into my chest. At least it didn't fall on the ground and break. What the hell would I do then?
But what the hell am I doing now? There's no wi-fi as was promised by the web site, but my cabin is so cute that I don't really care. I may just sit around and read the rest of the afternoon, as I have coffee, a comfy place to sit, and a few books that I should pick back up. Who needs email when you have days like this.
The beach is actually only a few to the west, and I can faintly hear it and sometimes smell it in the wind. But it's just too wet to head there now. And, like I said, the coffee and warm, cozy cabin make me want to stay.
I did get to see two different lighthouses today and had my first glimpse of the ocean on this trip. It started raining this morning, but was off an on for much of the drive. It actually stopped completely while I was at Cape Disappointment, at least long enough for me to enjoy it. Cape Disappointment's lighthouse is one of many on the Pacific Coast that also serves as a Coast Guard Station. Getting to the lighthouse requires parking, then walking about 1/2 mile on a winding, muddy trail, then walking another 1/2 mile up a narrow, cement service road. It was kind of weird, but at least there's access. Not really much to see, but the view was pretty spectacular. My main objective was to see where the Columbia meets the ocean. There's a jetty on the north side of it, but the south is mostly sandbar. I couldn't really tell where the channel was, but it must be very narrow there.
Tonight I'll probably just head to the supermarket and get something since I actually have a microwave here. I had a Northwest Chicken Safeway sandwich in Aberdeen despite having the intention of eating at a local cafe there. I was disappointed that the animals that had been painted on the buildings Downtown there are now gone. These were apparently controversial though. Now the Downtown area looks much more drab and depressed, save for the big, yellow building that is supposedly apartments but looks abandoned. Poor Aberdeen.

3:46pm PST (Seaview, WA) :: There are tiki torches just outside, and it's a little ironic here. I mean, we're in the Pacific Northwest. Sure there's an ocean right next door, but it's just not the same as if, say, we were in Hawaii. Then, tiki torches would be very relevant.
But, damn, this place is quiet. All I can hear is the wind, rain, and the light traffic on the highway outside. Ah, Pacific County. The North Beach Peninsula. The edge of Washington and the domain of Lewis and Clark. How much money have those dumb bastards made this area? Has to be in the billions in this point. I mean, have you ever read one of their letters? Spelling and grammar nightmare! Whenever I see them quoted in the museums of the Pacific Northwest (which seem to all have a quintessential Lewis and Clark hommage), there are lots of "(sics)" on it. At least the museum is printing as is and not trying to correct them. I guess, from how a folk hero is revered, you have an expectation that they're going to be somehwat perfect. Now, people like Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett, I can understand bad spelling (were they even literate?), but a supposedly educated individual, especially an explorer, you would expect a little more from. To me, it's almost as if I was reading a letter from Thomas Jefferson where he switches "effect" and "affect." I could overlook a couple of instances of that, but Lewis and Clark's letters always seem to be full of glaring errors.
Anyway, the coffee is quite delicious. It's a local roaster, and this roast is labelled specifically for this motel. All the nice, little things in this place! I'm sorry that I didn't come here when I was last in Washington. And it would actually be nice to stay another night. Too bad I've already booked Portland for tomorrow and the next few days. I'm more looking forward to San Francisco though. The hotel is near the airport, so I'll be able to either drive or take public transit into town for a couple of days, plus I have a show (Talk Demonic) to attend one night in the southern part of the city. Hopefully the wi-fi gets turned on soon so that I can listen to them again. Quite good. Very much like the Album Leaf, if anyone likes them anymore, but not quite as repetitive and more oriented around the strings. Delicious.

3:25pm PDT (Vancouver, BC) :: Fun drive but, fuck it was long! I only stopped once, too, in Chilliwick, to get food and gas. The gas there was a whole $0.13 per liter cheaper than everywhere else for some reason. All the gas stations had the same price, but the Esso I went to knocked down an extra $0.03 for some reason. I won't complain. Lunch was hummus and bread bowl. The pita was overpriced, I thought while the hummus was on sale. Thank goodness for Safeway.
Brewpub time? Definitely! There's one about a mile away, which I found out despite Yahoo! Maps best efforts to thwart me. I could use a shower though. It's been two fucking days since I showered and I probably smell like a Bangladeshi fisherman right now.

2:24pm PDT (Kelowna, BC) :: I think I'm done with Kelowna. Or, at least, I'm tired to the point that I just dont really want any part of it anymore. Very little sleep last night and I went to taste some BC wine which sort of put me out. I was dozing off on the way back somewhat. At the winery, the woman pouring tried to guilt me into buying a bottle as the tastings were free. However, she also said in regards to the general wine touring "If you don't like it, then don't buy it." My sentiments exactly.
But, yeah fatigue. I had forgotten why I dislike hostels. There are nice people and this is much better than paying $150 or so for a hotel, but you get little sleep because of others making noise. Plus, you have to deal with a lot of annoying people. There are a lot of kids in this particular ones. I don't mean "kids" as in young kids, but young adults (over 18) who are very much not yet ready for the adult transition. And that's fine, but they're annoying. But, like I said, lots of nice people here.
Vancouver is a lot further than I had thought and I'll probably end up having to get gas somewhere in BC. It's 242 miles and I have a little under 3/4 tank of gas, which means that I could probably barely make it, but I then couldn't drive anywhere in the city and probably wouldn't make it to the border, which itself is about 30 miles south of Vancouver. Oh, the travesty of it all! Paying ridiculous Canadian gas prices.
Ugh...

5:24pm PDT (Kelowna, BC) :: Much more sleep than intended. Much more... But, what can you do? Now I feel like I should find a brewpub. But where? Maybe the phonebook will yield some info. Failing that, I could just go Downtown and run into something. It's gloomy outside, so I'll unfortunately have to drive it. Drive what?
Since I'm practically doing nothing in Kelowna, I guess the question may come up what the hell am I going to do in Vancouver? Well, Vancouver is a much, much larger city (actually, the second "much" is probably not warranted) and has many more cultural opportunities: museums, live music, cool public parks, etc., as well as many more natural opportunities. The mountains are supposedly adjacent to my hotel, so I can be there relatively quickly.
Supposedly BBQ tonight, but nothing of the sort happening. I walked into the kitchen because I smelled something that turned out to be Kraft Mac n' Cheese. Yum! Maybe just find something myself Downtown. That's right.

6:58pm PDT (Kelowna, BC) :: Turns out Canadian beer (crappy Canadian beer) is like $11 per six. And cans! I think that alone has killed my idea of living here. Maybe not since I feel like I could get used to it pretty quickly. The salaries are higher, but the housing and food costs are just a little more. Alcohol prices a little more? I guess I could live with it.
Ended up at a pizza place kind of on the east side of town with 2 for $5 slices. Not the best, but still pretty good. At least, for a Canadian pizza. And, yes, they were topped with Canadian bacon (i.e. - ham).
The laptop's out again and I can't see a fucking thing, so that's it.

9:54am PDT (Pendicton, BC) :: CANADA! And finally! Had no trouble whatsoever at the border. The long-haired Canuck border guy didn't even check my ID. Just lots of stupid questions, like why I needed a computer, then why I needed a computer monitor. What am I going to do, sell the monitor that I bought for $5?
It felt good to get across the line. Canada is actually very different. The speed limits in km/h has already proven complex as my speedometer (as is that of most American-sold cars) shows km/h in increments of 20, while Canada has speed limits in 50 and 70 and such. I also had issues getting cash. Apparently my debit card is not a debit card here and tried and true supermarket cash back method failed me (resulting in an unnecessary expenditure for bakery goods). Just when I was panicking about not having any cash, I saw ScotiaBank and remembered that B of A has a partnership with them. So, I now have about $100 Canadian in my wallet. The excessive amount is mainly for the hostel tonight, as hotels don't always take credito. What was especially weird about the crossing was that, right after I crossed, what had been Mexican-staffed apple orchards because Pakistani-staffed apple orchards. There were also now fruit stands where none had been before. I'm not really sure why Washington wasn't cashing in on its apple bounty along US 97.
The motel last night was pretty scary, but it was clean and I ended up with a really good night's sleep. Maybe I was just tired, but I woke up at 6 after shutting down right away at about 11 and wanted to stay in bed. I was watching a really old episode of COPS where a guy was spouting off non-stop about implants in his mother's uterus and such, and had been driving around with a megaphone blasting people.
I was also listening to the CBC this morning (Kelowna's version of it) and have found, already, lots of other words that Canadians pronounce strangely or have different words for that I didn't know. Well, I guess it was mainly the store interactions. For instance, a donut hole is called something like a "tibbler" while an ATM is called a "debit machine." I can't really honestly recall what the CBC was saying now, but it was funny. And, actually CBC has a really interesting news broadcast. There was a long story on why Canadians hate Toronto. I didn't even know that they did!
I finally got my cash and coffee, know exactly where I'm going, have a room reservation there, have tons and tons of time, and my laptop is still working for the moment. Lots of problems with it the past couple of days, but it may be okay for the next couple. It's very intermitent.
At this point, even though I haven't totally decided, I am leaning more toward heading west from here to Vancouver and going down the coast instead of heading east. The only issue with this idea is the costs, as this is the high travel season for the Pacific Northwest coast and hotels are at a premium. Even the Motel 6 in Bellingham is $50/night on special. The grungy places by Sea-Tac are also running about $50/night. The only way out of it is to get away from the tourist areas, but that's pretty much impossible in Western Washington, even, as I found out, somewhat in Eastern Washington as well. Oregon is even worse. The coast in that state is one, long string of B&B's, kitchsy cafes and weekend warrior motorcycle bars. It's beautiful, but I can't stand to be around so many tourists. I would avoid the whole thing somewhat though by cutting east north of Sacramento so that I could hit Chico, part of the Central Valley and then onto Death Valley.
How long would this take? I have no real clue, but I do absolutely have to be back in Tucson on July 11. Otherwise, I'm out $85. I'm not sure how long I'll stay there either as I haven't purchased my return ticket. Maybe I could just take the damn train back. It wasn't that bad, and it would probably be cheaper than flying, or at least much less trouble than flying plus having to get a ride back to Austin.
I realized last night that I can play my keyboard in my car if I'd like since I purchased a multi-voltage car adapter before I left (thinking that I had lost my other car adapter), but it's become useless to me since my mp3 player decided to fly out of my hand and stop working. Fun stuff and definitely a way to pass the time.
Laptop still working, so good stuff. Very good mood now. Canada is nice, and I think it's having a strong effect on me. Oh, and crazy stuff: Safeway is here. Not just in BC, but in Penticton. Just didn't expect that at all.
So I'll talk a little of the drive yesterday. I went from Spokane west through the little towns of Davenport and Wilbur, hitting the end of the rolling wheat fields of Eastern Washington. Then I went north into the eerily-desolate Columbia River area, crossed the river on Kellers Ferry (very nice), then headed west on a small, but well-traveled road through the Colville Indian Reservation to Grand Coulee Dam. At Grand Coulee Dam, there was a space-aged looking visitors center and a large, grassy park below it. The park was inhabited by at least ten small beavers, who were so damn cute but were skittish and wouldn't let me get close to them. The river was just below the park, so they would bolt under the fence and down the hill toward it when I came slightly close. So cute though. I got a few pictures, but they kept hiding and going out of focus (example beaver pic). It was the first time that I had seen beavers in the wild, so it was really exciting. They were actually much smaller than I thought they would be, and, at first, I had thought that they were just large groundhogs until I saw the quintessential tail. But there were also these obnoxious birds that had nested in the trees in the park that made a huge fuss when I got close. People don't understand that they don't have to be afraid of these birds dive-bombing them. If a bird starts to threaten this and make a bunch of noise, just throw something at it: rocks, coins, anything that the bird will notice. This isn't to hit it so much as scare it. Even the throwing motion will freak it out, but only temporarily so you do actually have to throw an object. The same goes for squirrels, which can also get somewhat territorial, but won't dive-bomb you, although they do often inadvertently (or maybe not) launch pinecones at you sometimes when they scamper on branches. Damn rodents, but beavers are cool.
After the dam though, the trip went downhill quickly. Nothing bad, but every town I went through sucked. I hit a predominately Mexican area and there were several towns of solid poverty and general ass-ness. Bridgeport was probably the worst, although Brewster, Okanogan (American interpretation of "Okanagan") and even Omak were pretty bad. Omak though was larger, and even had a Home Depot along the highway. I got an Arby's milkshake there and continued along my way. The town I stayed in (I can't recall the exact name now as it's kind of strange) was pretty nice though. The slummy motel (one of two in town and three in the area) was just up the hill from town so you could walk to everything. In the evening, I went looking for food and stumbled upon a taco van. Normally I wouldn't patronize these places as they're typically overpriced for the quality of food you get, but I had little choice in the matter at this point, as I didn't imagine there being much better food down the road. Three tacos for $1 each wasn't terrible and they came with some decent tomatillo in a dixie cup. Yummy. Sided with chips it made for a good meal, and was the only hot meal of the day as lunch had been pita and hummus (which is actually one of my favorites, but I'm very picky on the hummus). I want to say the name is Tonasket, but I could be wrong. The last town before the border is Oroville, and that's actually fairly large, probably due to its important location and amount of diesel stations and stupid shops Canadians use to subvert their VAT.
Oh, that's another thing: I haven't figured out how much gas costs here. The stations have a sign with "114.9" on them, which I now assume means $1.149/liter (or "litre"), but I don't know how many liters are in a gallon. My 2 liter bottle of soda says it's 2.1 quarts, but I can't remember how many quarts in a gallon, although I think it's 4. So that puts gas at between $4.50 and $5 per gallon. I'm certainly glad I filled up just before the border for a, at the time, seemingly ungodly $3.26. So, that means, if I head west, I probably won't have to get gas in Canada. If I head east over the mountains though, I'll surely have to get gas at some point, probably in Alberta. Although I'd imagine Alberta's gas is cheaper since they actually produce oil there.
Coffee-fueled rants about petroleum concerns. This is what I do with my free time, you see. Nothing but. I'm still not too worried about not having a job. I have still have several thousand dollars to play with, and my travel plans put me finishing travel at the end of July. My forthcoming bills are car insurance, which isn't really that terrible and the monthly car payment. See what trouble a car is, kids? Not including the gas and factoring in the payment, the insurance and the registration, this car costs me over $450/month. That's like fucking rent! I should live in this damn thing for that. I have no one to blame but myself and the state of Arizona, with its higher insurance rates and "luxury tax" on car registrations. Fuck that.
So why write so much? Lots of coffee and lack of wi-fi. The coffee shop charges $2 per half-hour, which I think is ridiculous, and the other network available is for a college across the street and requires a login. I actually encountered a network at a tiny shopping mall that I was at earlier while trying to get cash. Strangely, I caught the network (named the same as the shopping center) in my car but could not get it again when inside in a couple of different places. I tried again on the trunk of my car and still couldn't get it again. It's possible that the network went down right after I hit it, but it's also possible that something inside my car extended the antenna. It could be just like how antennas work better when you grasp them as they use your body as an extension, maybe actually having the computer on my lap helped receive the signal for that brief moment. But I need wi-fi now to look further into the next stage of my trip. I have to further research the costs, which looks bad right now. For example, I looked up camping in Washington, and even in the most isolated of state parks the fee is $17 per night, on top of which you have to pay the entry fee for the park and, in some popular parks, an additional $2 per night fee because of the heavy use. Fuck, man! What happened to the public park? It's now the public if you can afford it park. California is probably worse, as it usually is on just about every other subject. See, most Americans have reason to hate Californians. Their generally pretentious nature, mean-spirited cynicism and recent nationwide ventures into real estate speculation have made the country a worse place for most (at least in the West). But I don't understand why Canadians dislike Toronto so much. Maybe they dislike the town but have no issue with the people. I'll have to research this.
This place has some fun music. It went from a jazz cover of The Doors' "Light My Fire" to a vintage-sounding Samba number. Again, I really like Canada thus far. At least this part of it. Inland BC, I guess it's called. And Kelowna is actually pronouced "ca-LOW-na" where it's "low" as in "below" and not "allow." Strange. But, again, Canadians pattern of speech is just altogether strange to me. May as well be a different country...

10:50am PDT (Penticton, BC) :: I forgot how much I had to piss. The eternal problem of finding a public restroom shouldn't be as much of an issue here in Canada, methinks. Their socialist nature automatically excludes the requirement of purchases in exchange for the use of facilities to perform essential bodily functions. I think that's truly an American phenomanon. In China, as I recall. places had bathrooms and would let you use them, although there were typically disgusting public toilets in most places. Disgusting, but safe, unlike a lot of America's public toilets, especially those in urban public parks. Also there's apparently no need to feed meters here in Penticton. My car is right out front, parked at a meter, and I've yet to see an enforcement officer.
Oh, but I have to mention that this weekend in Penticton is the Elvis festival. I just saw one guy walk by who was an obvious impersonator and it reminded me of it. The barista (and probably owner) also mentioned it, but I had already seen the sign on the entrance to town and, not only have no interest in it, remarked on how I needed to leave town. These festivals make things really difficult not only for locals, but tourists like me who aren't really interested in them. They drive up hotel prices to ridiculous levels and make everything and anything very crowded.
Maybe it's time to leave. I'd like to check email, but I'm not paying $2 and staying in this riduculous town. 50 or so more km to Kelowna on the beautiful BC 97, or so the signs say.

10:26 PDT (Spokane) :: Still in Spokane and still doing relatively nothing. I had planned to be on the road about two hours ago, but decided that seeing live music and having another day in my new favorite down (sarcasm) was worth the $40 or so I'm paying for my room with the mini-fridge, wave oven and coffee maker. But, anyway, I do plan to hike today, provided that I can find a place to do so.
Yesterday I had actually planned to get to Idaho and Coeur d'Alene (written "CdA" locally), but decided to turn around at the last minute before even crossing the state line (although I did reach the town of State Line, WA). On my way back, the road along the Spokane River that looked so cool was closed for construction. There's a lot of construction in Spokane. In fact, their one freeway is being redone right now. I haven't really been on it, so I can't so much, but it's supposed to be a nightmare.
I'm still very excited about this keyboard that I bought. Sure, it's not the greatest thing ever, but some of the banks are very inventive. A lot sound like sounds from a Nintendo game, and that's probably not coincidental.

10:55pm PDT (Spokane) :: As I'm gone, I'm keep up with the Tucson paper, and I have to say that I never realized how much that city is surrounded by death. This weekend there were four skeletons on illegal immigrants found in the desert west of town, while, in town, there were several strange murders. It seems like every day (and it is pretty literally almost every day) there's some sort of death-related item of newsworthiness in the local paper. And I'm not even talking about the migrant deaths, which themselves are pretty much not considered newsworthy and don't make it past the print media in town, let alone outside of the city. But... damn.
I talked for a while with the bartender at a brewpub here about Spokane, his time in Australia, and his friends coming back from China on miscellaneous missionary work. He seemed a little offended that I had assumed it was Mormon (it wasn't). But I enjoy these conversations because it gives me further insight on who these people are and what sort of town I'm in at the time. Either way, I'm staying in Spokane another night. The Rodeway hasn't been too bad. I fixed my a/c and I now have a pretty cool keyboard to screw around with. It can only get worse, I guess.
Discovery (one of the few channels I get in the room) has been running "Deadliest Catch" all fucking day as a marathon leading up to a new episode. The new episode was supposed to be tonight, but I guess it wasn't, because the fucking marathon is still on. Discovery seems to have gotten to the point of three shows: Crabs, Myths and How It's Made. There's also some ridiculous animation show that shows extinct species from the, maybe, Cretaceous Period. I say Fuck That. They keep having to split off Discovery because they're so focused on ratings instead of what is truly educational. Discovery used to be a commercial PBS, while it's now the same reality-based basic cable garbage that you see on VH1 or anywhere else. Fuck that.

6:25 PDT (Spokane) :: Whereas May crept by in astounding sluggishness, June has quite flown by. Amazing, isn't it?
While sitting in my car in a darkened parking lot the other night, I began to ponder my intangible list of things that I like in cities. I like my lists, but rarely actually write them down, but I want to dictate this one at this point. So, I've done that. But, I've also colored red what Tucson has, colored blue what Boise has and bolded what both have. Here it goes:

• Tourist Culture: More than four major museums as well as other smaller ones. Basically, something fun to do on the weekends or take visitors from out of town to that would be interesting.
• An excellent, local brewery: Boise actually has a few local brews, but I only found one that blew me away. Tucson has a couple of places, but all need to work on their beer and stop worrying about their fruit-infused crap to placate the pisswater crews (looking at you Gentle Ben's).
• Cool diner Downtown with good food and alcohol: Boise has a diner Downtown, but it sounds a lot like Five and Diner in Tucson: overpriced and ass for food. Tucson, of course, has The Grill, which laughs at all possible competition.
• 24-Hour Supermarket: Tucson has one (Fry's on Grant/Swan), and I didn't get a chance to check Boise, but I somewhat kinda doubt it.
• Good Thai Restaurants: Sorry, but I never found good Thai in Tucson whereas Boise has 8 different establishments. And this is in a white-bred Idaho town with about half Tucson's population.
• Cool, indie radio station: I may have missed it in Boise, but Tucson has one of the best in the country: KXCI, which is independent, not associated with a college or government, and plays an excellent eclectic mix of music.
• Close to the outdoors/mountains: The geography of the two cities is actually very similar.
• Good thrift stores: I actually think that Boise's are a little better, but I do need to investigate more.
• Excellent CD store: Record Exchange in Boise, Zia's in Tucson. For this, the store needs to have a good selection of both new and used. DVDs are also a plus.
• Asian supermarket: The one I stumbled upon in Boise was small, but I have the feeling that there's another one I didn't see. Tucson has 17th Street, which is very much geared toward Asian food.
• Great public parks: Tucson has a lot of work to do on its park system. Actually, it sort of missed the boat when it decided to not plan any open space and allow rampant development.
• Safety: People in Boise laugh at you for worrying about your car getting broke into. In Tucson, this is absolutely inevitable: if you haven't had something stolen yet, just wait a week.
• Reliable but small airport: Both cities are about the same. I haven't flown out of Boise, but it seems like it has about the same amount of flights and general traffic.
• Good music scene + touring acts: Both could be better, but they get their fair share of touring acts and seem to have a good talent pool with some excellent local bands as scene staples.
• Large university: UA/Boise State.
• Hippy/Alternative part of town: Tucson has 4th Ave while Boise has Hyde Park and, actually, a couple of other areas.
• Cool general architecture: Both cities are very different, but the architecture is there.
• Good vibe: This is, absolutely, the most important and can't really be analyzed with quantitative data. You just have to go to the place and feel it out.
• Good economy: In case you get sick of your job, you want to have options. Really, neither place has a good economy, but Tucson has a few more web developer jobs out there at any given time.
• Art Movie House: Tucson has The Loft and Boise has its Flicks. Both serve alcohol at their snack counters, which is a big plus.

That's it? Yeah, but I'll think of more.

8:31pm PDT (Spokane) :: Walking down the street, I realize that, strangely, I feel somewhat at home here. Of course, I don't particularly like Spokane and couldn't see myself staying here much longer, although I also thought about staying here longer. Does that make sense? Maybe it's just that I'm running out of travel juice. Not coffee, but this 20-something male, possibly testosterone-fueled drive to keep moving. The frustration and resentment toward permanence and all that it represents. Maybe the last dying gasps of the independent mindset. But does that mean dependence is around the corner? I doubt it, and moving away from Tucson would further isolate that dependence. I've not lived it myself, so I'm not sure exactly what drives people toward the life after they've worked so hard against it all their own, but I think it's mostly social pressure. You become more open to what you should do and realize that what you had wanted to do is not so much a dream, but rather an ill-fated attempt at capitalizing on your over-confidence. Is that too deep?
Maybe it is, but I feel very clear-headed about this, and I am glad that epiphones are popping up as they are since that was the main point of the trip: not necessarily to find myself, but to find the next step. I know who I am and what drives me, and that will not change, but where I go about my business will certainly change soon. A year, a month, a decade. I don't know.
Anyway, I'm tired. Today I walked around a bit, but really did nothing. Not only because Spokane doesn't really have much to do, but because I just didn't feel like doing much. I'll probably leave later tonight: take a drive into the hills and check out the city lights. But it's still not the same.
I did find a pretty cool diner and an excellent beer that I'll have to check out tomorrow. But tomorrow is also $5 all-you-can-eat tacos at a bar just to the east of me, apparently a local tradition. So what else?

7:18 PDT (Spokane) :: Ah, the computer. On again, off again, old friend. I'm basically just letting its battery charge, but the screen dies suddenly. This stopped for a while, but may be back with a vengence. Oh well, I guess. I'll have to find some other way to kill 5 hours in Spokane.
Last night was pretty hellish. I picked a pretty bad spot on top of a hill on the side of a road far southwest of Spokane. It was at a junction with a very small road and neither had much of any traffic. I finally fell asleep about 9:30 but, about 10, a car turns onto the smaller street and I was woken up. It then turned into the space where I was parked, circled me, then positioned itself so that its lights were pointed into my car. It then backed up and continued down the road. I waited until he left then took off myself through the wet, Western Washington back roads. It looked like just a little teenage boy, but I couldn't tell for sure and didn't really want to deal with any shit anyway. So, I ended up at a viewpoint over the dam that creates Lake Spokane. The road (a state highway, no less) had relatively little traffic. About 1:30, some guy with one of those annoying "Look at me" tailpipes came into the lot, pulled to the far end, then left. He came back about 15 minutes later but didn't stop in the lot. I'm pretty sure he had a girl he wanted to fuck but was nervous about me being there (and rightly so). I think I got about 3.5 hours of sleep total, which isn't that bad, I guess. It was still probably the worst car camping experience since Coachella '04. I think I'm slightly less tired now, but not by much.
But now that the laptop is out, I have no idea what I'm going to do. Just have to wait and see.

6:21 MDT (Midvale, Idaho) :: I've begun to dread this evening of, most likely, sleeping in my car. I don't really know why. Maybe I've become used to the nice comfort of a hotel room bed, or the security of being able to close my door and not worry about gun-toting drunks tapping on your window at 3am. But I'll be in Oregon soon, and I'm of the opinion that there's not much of that going on.
I was actually in Oregon for about 10 minutes. There were two parallel highways on either side of the Snake River, and I decided on the western one just to go into Oregon. To my surprise, it did actually seem different. Something about the homes just looked different from their neighbors across the river. Most of the time, states look exactly the same near each other, but, occassionally, you'll encounter slight nuances and differences that make it a really different place. The Louisiana-Texas line on the Sabine has this, as does, I think, the Oklahoma-Texas line on the Red. Maybe this always exists.
Boise brought drunkeness and probably embarrassment on my part. I even applied for a job there as a GIS Analyst, which actually didn't pay too poorly as I had expected. But I also didn't expect housing prices in Idaho to be so damn high, and I'm starting to think that it's, again, the fault of the Californians. I guess it was enough to screw up Washington, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado, but Idaho, famous for its potatoes, salmon and Mormon-esque uber-nerds was the last place I would have expected it. These little towns in this area have even been infiltrated. Fuck!
I have to leave this place by 8pm, but it's about an hour drive and the sun is setting around 9:15 or 9:30. Plus, it's one hour earlier as soon as I cross the Snake River into Oregon. So why drink all this coffee? Why the hell not? I even have PB, J, wheat bread, bananas and chips in my car ready for consumption. Mmmm... But the coffee and fake strawberry smoothie will suffice for now, at least.
I was bored, so I ended up in a used bookstore in Weiser (pronounced like "Weezer"), which was actually one of the largest used bookstores I've ever seen, especially for a town that size. What possible market could this place have in a town that couldn't have had more than 5,000 people? I think the answer is that there is no market for it.
Small businesses be damned, I need a hotel in the Eastern Washington region outside of Spokane or I feel I'll be stick in my car near Grand Coulee Dam, although that may not be so bad in itself. I enjoy the car and camp nights because I almost always treat myself to something since I'm saving the $50 or so on the motel. But, shit, what could be going on Walla Walla this weekend for fuck sake? Weiser, Idaho has some sort of fiddle competition next week, but the only hotels in Southeastern Washington are in the Tri-Cities area or a couple in Pullman, which is where Washington State University is. I guess I'll just figure it out tomorrow at some point. Departure soon, but not yet.

1:05am MDT (Boise) :: What a weird and somewhat terrible series of events. Fuck the world, I say. For a while I thought my laptop was broken, but I'm not so sure anymore. Either way, it's dying and I'm just watching it bleed. I may be able to fix it though, and I may as well try.

7:43am MST (Vernal, UT) :: Somehow I knew that I would find a coffee shop with wi-fi in Vernal, a town of not even 10,000 people. And, I was right. I needed it, too. It wasn't a terrible night, but it wasn't a great night either. In all, I hit three spots. The first was an abandoned section of the highway that was overgrown and evidently no longer used at all, but still not gated off. About midnight, I just got the urge to leave. I then pulled off when I saw a sign for a wildlife viewing area, which usually means a parking lot. However, I didn't go down the road very far and wound up in a spot under power lines that was very, very visible from the highway. That lasted about ten minutes. Then, it was off to Dinosaur National Monument, where I drove down the "auto tour" route up a hill and pulled off at a scenic view. The road saw no traffic for the rest of the night and I was able to sleep until about 6am, mostly without waking up. It strangely never got that cold. I ended up putting on a hoodie, but even when I woke up, it was only about 50 degrees. And here I was worried of below freezing temperatures.
Dinosaur National Monument is currently Dinosaur-less. A sign at the visitor center indicated that the fossil quarry was closed for "Life, Health and Safety reasons" although another sign elaborated that there was some sort of structural issue. Where the "life" and "health" issues come in is beyond me, but I'm sure that the park service knows best. Despite the closure of its namesake attraction, something is still attracting people to this region. One of those tiny, shithole motels in the little town of Dinosaur apparently had no vacancies. It's counterpart almost next door also looked full. Why? I don't really get it. What the hell could be going on here that would fill up all the damn hotels?
Maybe it's the river. The access to the Yampa at the monument seemed to be pretty popular. I had pulled off a beautiful viewpoint there, drank one of the two 24 oz. Coronas I had picked up in Colorado before entering the low alcohol danger zone of Utah, and had intended to sleep. About 30 minutes into the stay, a caravan of about six vehicles came down the road, all at once. It seemed strange. There was also a cow below me near the river that was very upset by my presence. I told it to fuck off, but it didn't listen and kept staring at me. Someone else came in the other direction why I sat and watched the sunset. I waived, which I tend to do when stupid people in cars stare at me wondering what I'm doing. After that, I realized that there were at least ten mosquitoes buzzing around my head. And I love mosquitoes. My favorite bugs, in fact. Back down the road, half-drunk, I passed the unattractive pull-out with the camping sign (even closer to the river, so even more mosquitoes) and the "Turn Out" which already had a resident for the night. Even the entrance information pull-out had a truck parked there, although I couldn't see anyone inside.
So Dinosaur was a bust? I don't know if I'd go that far. It's still a beautiful spot in an otherwise desolate and, honestly, boring region of the country. I kept thinking of the "range" from the famous song as I was driving yesterday. I saw two deer literally on the side of the highway that almost completely ignored my arrival, and more pronghorn antelope than I could count.
Fuck the range. Now I have all day to make Rock Springs, the scenic highway that skirts the Uintahs in view of Utah's highest peak, and drop into Salt Lake in hopes of a bed. I still haven't decided on whether to take the hotel, or just do the hostel. I'm leaning toward the former, only because I'm tired and dirty, but could probably do well with the social interaction that a hostel offers (sometimes, at least). But I do need to just chill out for a while today. Somewhere quiet, cool and beautiful to just sit back and read or just take a nap.
The mp3 player has been doing well. I put it on random and it somehow picked out the perfect songs, although I think I could have done without the Sir Mix-A-Lot at 7am.

4:53 MST (Steamboat Springs, CO) :: After something like three weeks in Colorado, it seems especially hard to leave. It's a beautiful, warm day on the Western Slope and it was an excellent drive from Boulder. I found a crazy back road that allowed me to avoid Fort Collins and, more importantly, most of Loveland (I really dislike Loveland). This was Larimer County Road 27, Stove's Prarie Road. It was a narrow, windy road through the foothills following a small creek. The speed limit went down to 20 for about 5 miles and there was, of all things, a bike race going the other direction. The race had people stationed all over the road, including two women charged with holding up one of those slow/stop signs. As I approached, she held her sign high, then waived at me frantically to slow down, so I waived hello at them which caused the other woman to waive back to me. There were lots of these idiots along the road that I assumed I gave a flying fuck about their little bike race. It's a cool road to race on, but I don't see why I should really be too concerned with it if it's going in the opposite direction.
Anyway, I wound up in Poudre Canyon, which is absolutely gorgeous. I had been on CO 14 in the area known as North Park but never in this beautiful canyon. Lots of campgrounds and places to pull off and fish. There were signs everywhere indicating a restriction on fishing with real luers because of the native, wild trout population (only fake flies and such were permitted). I pulled off to just hang out by the river, which was crazy cold. I couldn't imagine what you could actually do in a river in Northern Colorado at this time of year since they're all snowmelt right now.
Just before finally hitting US 40, a huge bee flew into my window (half open), nailed the door frame, bounced off my forehead and landed on the floor next to the seat. Bees always freak me out, but this one was especially disturbing since it was below my seat, potentially unconscious and very angry. I first accidentally threw it into a very hard to reach place, but got it out with a piece of paper finally. The whole event reminded me of several other window and animal incidents I had had in vehicles.
But finally Steamboat, where there's actually a reasonably-priced and very nice coffee shop that even has beer and wine (which is also very reasonable). Why spend time here? Because I knew I'd be sick of driving by the point I reached here, and I think I was. I was also tired. I've gotten to the point where I don't seem to feel the effects of alcohol the next day, but am still tired. Actually, I think I just sober up before I sleep since my stomach can't take nearly as much as it used to.
But, for whatever reason, all hotels west of Steamboat and east of Salt Lake are either full or are more than double their regular price. I haven't been able to figure out why yet. But, really, why would you want to stay in Rock Springs, Wyoming or Craig, Colorado? Both towns have their bits of charm, but I don't see why it would fill up all of the hotels.

7:56pm MDT (Denver) :: Actually, I'm not really sure what municipality I'm in. It's either Greenwood Village, Cherry Hills Village, Aurora or Denver. I guess I could just ask, but that would spoil all of my fun.
There was no coffee when I checked in to this hotel, and I later found that someone had taken all the forks and spoons from the room, but strangely had left the knives. The hotel clerk found me forks, but searched for and failed to find a single spoon. It's strange, but I guess it goes as it goes, and I just got a cheap plastic spoon at Safeway.
I took a drive west to Littleton, Chatfield Reservoir and what's called Waterton Canyon. On the map, a large state highway ends suddenly on the southwest side of Denver. This is actually a Lockheed-Martin facility, and it has to be one of their largest. The buildings filtered into the hillsides and rose up to the mountains, connected by swaths of asphalt. You could see jets under hangars and towers on the sides of mountains. It was like some sort of secret CIA facility, and I guess that's close to what it really is. There's a huge gate at the one entrance to the facility and, like most quasi-government facilities, this one takes itself very seriously. I'm actually surprised that someone didn't come after me after I whipped around just before the gate.
So I've never believed the "360 days of sunshine" claim by residents of the Denver area. And this trip has just reinforced that distrust. I've been here about 8 days now, and it's rained at some point for 7 of them. On that day that it didn't rain, it was cloudy, with big gray monsters emerging from the mountains. Today was actually beautiful and it was a great day to walk around and enjoy the outdoors. But, on my drive to Littleton, it started to rain. And, like most of the West, a rain is typically a drizzle that lasts for about ten minutes, and that's exactly what this was. But it was still rain, and there were still clouds.
I learned today that Centennial, Colorado, just to the south of my hotel (and I'm certain that I'm not inside its limits), was incorporated only a few years ago and had the highest population of any new incorporation in US history. Approximately 96,000 people lived in the new city when it was born. The Denver area is also home to one of the country's new counties. Broomfield, to the northwest of Denver, was a city in three separate counties before November 2001 and Broomfield County was born. And this city-county concept is actually common here. Denver itself is a city-county where the county changes its boundaries when the city annexes land, like it did when Denver International Airport was built.
Well, shit, enough of this nonsense, right. It's Saturday night and I'm sitting around typing and watching TV. Why? Because I refuse to spend money right now. I just can't without any guaranteed income. My hotel ends on Monday. Then, I'll head back to Boulder, most likely to again stay with Tyler for another night, then head out again, most likely to the west toward Steamboat Springs, Craig, Rock Springs and, eventually, Salt Lake City. From there, it's a northern jaunt toward Boise and then further into unexplored lands in northeast Oregon and into Spokane. I thought about dropping into the Bay Area but asked myself "Why?" and decided against it. It's just too far, and I don't really know that it would be worth my trouble. Oh, and then the main goal: CANADA! I plan to spend about a week in the city of Calgary, which is actually only a hundred or so miles north of the border. After that, I'm not so sure.
It's again coming to the surface how desperate of a worker mentality I have. A couple of days ago, I began searching for jobs. SEARCHING FOR JOBS! I had said not even a month ago that I wasn't going to work until July at the earliest. So, I think, if this Boulder job falls through (and I've this weekend become more pessimistic regarding my chances at it), I'm just not going to even try until mid-July, or whenver I'm done with my trip. Denver? I certainly haven't ruled it out, but I'll be damned if I'm staying here for six months. The perfect job isn't open? Fuck it then, I'll leave. It's not like I really need a paycheck now. Almost all of my savings are in tact and my credit card is only up to about $1500. That may sound like a lot, but you have to remember that I haven't worked since mid-March and bought a new car in early April with a sizeable down payment. I could have never imagined pulling something like that off. My original plan had my savings down about $2500 by this time. So why not splurge? Because that's stupid. I've never understood this idea of "Oh, you've got some extra money, so you should spend it." I will, but at the right time and on things that are worthwhile. At some point, I will take a trip to Asia, hopefully for an extended period (two weeks or so), going to China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. You have nothing to say about that.