Random Pics from the Road...

Whistle Stop, Minnesota


Talking to Ulla


Minnesotan Cornfield Irrigation




Wilson in the Cornfield


Anyone know what this keyhole is? Alexis Bailley Vineyard, Minnesota


Alexis Bailley Vineyard




Shrine in Wisconsin. We hit a tres successful church garage sale next door.


The Sands Motel, Wisconsin. Lotta correctional institutions along the Mississippi River


Wisconsin cheese at Carr Valley Cheese


Igor




Rollingstone, Minnesota


Minnesotan Sheep - run sheep run!

Indiana Presents the N Word

At the Scholar's Inn, Bloomington, Indiana


Dinner n Drinks at Crazy Horse, Bloomington, Indiana




Pinch and his sweet ride, the bumblebee

Catching up on emails and blogging at the Scholar's Inn in Bloomington, Indiana. We drove from Eldon via Danville, Illinois, to meet up with Pinch who is in town for a metadata/digital information and archiving course. He's staying at a lovely b&b and it's cheek to jowl here, very cozy, like peas in a pod. What a trip! It's so great to see Pinchy here. We shall meet again in New York.



Last night, we took in some of the local fare and caught a late movie at the local cineplex. We saw Knocked Up. The guys behind the snack counter at the theater were yukking it up. It was like amateur night in Bloomington. One of them let me take his pic while he simulated the act of spritzing the pretzels.

On our way to Bloomington, we passed thru a town called Crawfordsville, Indiana where we checked out The Old Jail Museum. What makes this jail unique is that it is a rotary jail. The inmates enter thru one door into a triangular cheese shaped cell, the entire cell of cells (wheel of cheese) rotates and another empty cell appears. Capish? Lookit the pics, it might make sense.








Rotary Hand Crank




The Old Jailer




The Boiler Room


Mosquito Bite


The Boiler Room


Our tour guide Megan




Z Walking the Catwalk


Solitary Jail Toilet



Went across the street to Stoney's, a ramshackle house with darkened windows and a couple Miller High Life neon signs in them. The tour guide at the jail said it wasn't uncommon for guys to get drunk, leave Stoney's and get immediately arrested as soon as they hit the streets. Walking into the bar, I could see how times probably haven't changed that much: a handful of old guys sitting around smoking and drinking at noon. We got comfy at the bar with a few bottles of PBR ($3.50 for two!) and watched Springer and Maury on the tv. Old guy next to Z called one of the guests on Springer the N word and the bartender, a short fat curly haired woman w/ moustache called the regulars a bunch of white hos when they got rowdy with their empty beer cans.





I could've spent all day in there but we had to get back on the road. The old racist guy was friendly enough and managed to take our pic after 3 attempts at pressing the shutter. He finally got it and thankfully, according to him, he did manage to get my "right boob in".


Z Watching Springer

Gooooooo Colts!


The Stoney's Special of the Day

Mines of Spain, close to Dubuque, Iowa

Wisconsin cheese from Carr Valley Cheese...
leftover cheese still heating up in the car


Word to the wise: Don't mess with a swallow's feed

"I got an APB on a 5'11 white male and a 5'4" asian female..."

The scene of the crime

I went to my first Walmart. It was everything I expected: a consumerist's wet dream with enough useless crap and food to fill your pickup truck and stuff your ever-expanding gourd. I managed to escape with a pack of beef jerky (Oh Oh Oberto!) and Gold's Gym resistance bands (???). Where am I?

It was what it was.

Zandy thought the line of shopping carts outside the Walmart Super Center looked interesting under the neon lights in the darkness, so he pulled out his tripod and starting taking pics. Unbeknownst to me, he was approached by a female officer. Apparently, somebody saw him, got suspicious or weary and called the cops. Yes, Zandy does cut a very shady figure in the Iowa landscape and we are, after all, under a code orange in the terrorist alert. She was nice enough about it but asked for his ID two seconds into the conversation, and ran it through the system. I was in the dark, just sitting in the car eating my beef jerky. Everything was fine, she left, he finished up his pics and came back to the car.

We drove to the Walmart gas station a few meters away. The officer who was driving off, slowly reversed and drove up to us at the gas station. Kinda laughing, she says, "We got a problem here." Apparently, the rental car is not registered even though there's a sticker on the plate! So she starts asking for papers and this n that and lo and behold, another officer in his own cruiser drives up. Back up baby! They don't know who they're dealing with here!!! I am wielding a wet squeegee at this point. Tres dangereuse. The new guy, a blonde terminator, with gloves, asks me for ID. Blahblahblah. It goes on... Questions: where you from? where do you live? where are you going? where did you come from? blahblahblah... Quiet night, I guess. Well, they let us off - no citations, thank you very much and nobody was taken in. They were just doing their job, I suppose. Seemed a little extreme and what was up with the gloves? It was so warm out?

The 'Rus vs. Townies

In Fairfield, Iowa, there are two types of people: the 'rus and the townies. The 'rus are the gurus, the followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and they have taken over the city of Fairfield. They come from near and far to practise the art of transcendental meditation at the Maharishi University of Management.

Zandy and I rolled into town in our white Pontiac G6 and immediately caught the cool new agey vibe right from the town square. Look around, there's the Health and Wellness shop, the Indian Ayurvedia Cuisine restaurant Mohan Delights, and art gallery here, hippy shop there. It was kinda like being back in Kitsilano, Vancouver. And in the middle of the mid-west, seeing such establishments was a real shock b/c driving thru Nowhere, USA, I really began to realize how different and special Vancouver is from the rest of North America.



We spent a lot of time checking out the exhibition on The Study of Man Arabian Expedition at ICON Gallery but when we came out of the gallery, the entire town shut down. Well, almost. Seems a lot of the restaurants stop serving food at 3 pm. I guess they go off to the golden dome or wherever and meditate. Word on the Fairfield street is some folks meditate 8 hours a day. Doesn't anybody work round here? Anyhow, I did eventually find a place that was serving and it was pretty obvious walking into the bar/restaurant that is was the domain of the townies. I was hankering for some healthy fare, so went with the Rock Wedge Salad. Hands down, the most disappointing and odd salad EVER. It was a head of iceberg lettuce hacked in half, sitting in a pool of bacon grease w/ a tablespoon of bacon bits and a teaspoon of crumbled blue cheese. What on earth? Where am I? Somebody get me a Coors Light, stat. I think they were trying to be fancy or something. Suffice it to say, they failed. It wasn't even cheap - I'm getting fleeced in Fairfield! Next time: just order the burger.

David Lynch, the director, is a frequent visitor to the town, as is a number of other Hollywood types. The Maharishi is a rock star! There are all these houses around town that are built following the Stapathya Vedic principles and in rural Iowa, it's a funny site to see. There's the Fairfield water tower and looky there, Jeb, there's another mansion with a gold dome.

Didn't see any flowing robes and didn't see any mediation. People were generally nice but not that warm or friendly like in Minnesota. Did I mention I love Minnesota?

Okay, onward...



Right next to Fairfield is the town of Eldon, famous for the little white house in the background of Grant Wood's painting, American Gothic. We arrived at the house right around the time the local councilmen and women and Roger, the town mayor, were holding a meeting. Very nice folk who grabbed a pitchfork for us so we could recreate our own American Gothic pic.

Day 3 - St. Paul, Minnesota

Chilling at our Craiglister's condo in St. Paul, Minnesota. It's our last day before we head for ... IOWA! We don't really have a plan, just following whatever plastic bag floats in front of us. Actually, we have a loose plan to hug the Mississippi River down to Memphis.

So far, the trip has been amazing! Getting to St Paul was a bit of a hassle - major bollocky airline headaches (long story, too much of a headache to relive by relaying it). In the end, we arrived safe and sound in downtown St. Paul to meet the woman who Z found on Craigslist. Her place is a great apartment, on the riverfront, close to big ass smokestacks and abandoned grain elevators. We couldn't have found a better place to crash. Our room is spacious with private bath and secure parking, easy in and out access and wowie wow wow, amazing gorgeous view of the Mississippi River. Went for a mini run along the riverfront yesterday before the wedding. It was pretty cool, I enjoyed it beaucoup. I'd like to come back and explore the 10,000 lakes and check out the scene in Minneapolis. Next time!

It's so lush here, lotta greenery and water. Kinda like Vancouver. All in all, highly recommended. Minnesota gets a thumbs up. Al Franken for senator!

We came here for Z's college friend's wedding which took place last night on a boat that docked in Stillwater, a super cute town straight out of Seth's comics. We're talkin paddle boats and saltwater taffy. Y'know what I'm talking bout? Anyhow, here are some pics.


Totally lost


Wilson at the local Bakery Thriftshop


Camping along the St. Croix River


Adam and Robin, our wedding table companions


Cruising up n down the St. Croix River


Me loves a good wedding and me loves a good smokestack. That's Quinn, the groom, in the pink shirt


On the poopdeck


Yankee Doodle Zandy

Z in Vancouver - Walk On Part

Zandy becoming one with Mother Nature, Stanley Park

He met some local yokels at the Foundation too...

Oh the humanity!

Where is it? Where?

In international news, poachers in Zambia shot the last two white rhinos this week. When they found the dead female, her horn was removed. The surviving male is undergoing treatment for wounds - the last of his species!

In local news, some jerk in a big industrial truck hit the side of my car and took off this morning! Yes, where is the humanity? Okay, I am certainly not comparing my hit n run accident to the end of an entire species of animal. I am not as foolish as that. It's just, one makes me angry and the other makes me even more enraged!

Circumstances? Driving under the speed limit in the left lane on Nelson, heading towards Pacific, around 9:30 am. Big doughhead in 2nd lane decides to make a left turn after I have entered the intersection. No signal, no checking of mirrors - he just goes crunch into the side of my car, stops for a second and then takes off. He was too far gone for me to see his licence plate or to catch the name of the company on the side of the truck. It was Prudential or something like that. Not the realty company but judging from the look of the truck, it was for construction. It was big, nonetheless.

If anyone has a clue who this company could be, please let me know.

It's frickin freezin!

It's freezing in my apartment and it's late June. So tired of this damp Vancouver weather. Over it. If there was ever any reason to move, it'd have to be the weather. Give me snow and wind chill factors in the winter, I don't mind, as long as the sun is shining and HOT HEAT pours down in the summer.

Los Campesinos - You! Me! Dancing!

This video makes me wish Stargate would make an entire episode in animation.

Fruits of Me Labours

I will go outside this summer. Just gotta get a head start on my summer wardrobe...



I love Built By Wendy. She's got great patterns thru Simplicity which I can't keep from stocking up on every time I go to the fabric shop. When I was in NYC this winter, I checked out her little shop on N. 6th St in Williamsburg. Cute stuff but I could make it...thanks to her patterns!



I made a shirt and a hot pair of black cotton shorts w/ gold piping up the sides. The gold piping I got at Dakota Trimming in New York last summer and the cotton I got super cheap at Textile Clearance House in Vancouver. The shorts are a bit tight but hey, sometimes you just gotta go tight. (Cue song by The Donnas...)



I also reworked an old pair of Gap (*gasp) jeans that I had kicking around for years. I turned the legs into a cropped honky tonk country vest. Got the idea from the handy book "99 Ways to Cut, Sew & Deck Out Your Denim". Okay, some of the 99 ways to cut, sew & deck out your denim were plain hideous but the vest makes up for them. There are some pretty hilarious ideas in the book. Maybe I'll make that rag rug denim bath mat after all. Or maybe a dog collar for Michelle's dog, Chloe. On second thought, I don't think she'd even wear it!

Next up: SEERSUCKER!



Seriously, picture this: me in seersucker w/ tall glass of ice cold lemonade and maybe a piece of fried chicken in my hand, chilling at some gas station in Mississippi. Hell yeah.