The Medusa Fora

i have returned from my 22 state, 4800 mile road trip. in the time frame of one week. with a surprising amount of time spent, each night, to dig another one of our fine cities. aside from government and all, this is one of...if not THEE most amazing country on the globe. in that week, 4800 miles...blah blah blah. i spent roughly 24 hours of it sleeping. which is not a lot at all. but...you'll sleep when you're dead. i have returned a changed man. for one... i have broken my mind. i've decided to search for mystery. not to solve it; but to find it. i got the bug. i need the road. one wheel in my hand, and four on the road.

from nj (here) across pennsylvania into ohio, directly to indiana, to sleep the night 60 miles north of indianapolis...in a bed. through illinois to st.louis for lunch. detour into kentucky...continue to memphis. amazing teaming, undulating city with much to do. slept in the car in a parking lot. memphis through arkansas, into texas. detour to oklahoma. (where the only sign i saw said "sandwich"...nothing else) down to dallas. shitty city. rhymes. slept at a weird truck stop south of dallas. dallas to san antonio, very very nice city. back up to austin. AMAZING place. great music. slept in the car on a dark road. austin to houston, for breakfast... then ball the jack to new orleans. (I HAVE GOOD PICTURE OF ME ON BURGANDY AND CLAIBORNE AVE, THAT I NEED TO GET ON HERE) actully got a hotel (and a shower) there. through the bayou, cross the mississippi delta, wasted time in alabama. visited hurrican ravaged florida. more alabama, to atlanta. worst city ever. you gotta grease the palm of every vagrant who sees you and sprints towards you. you have to pay them just so they'll stop following you, and leave you alone. driven from atlanta by them... to a weird truck stop. where you can by beer at 4.00 am at a truckstop. got drunk in the car...called a friend in south carolina. drove 70 miles SOUTH AGAIN. just to sleep on a couch, and see my married friend that i was meant to marry. long story. thoroughly pissed off, i took the longest straight drive i had so far... and blew her passed the carolina's and virginia, into washing dc. where we had another place to stay. last day we covered the rest of maryland and delaware in no time flat. proceeded to get drunk and do nothing in my old hometown

Was wondering what had happened to you.

Wish you'd emailed before getting to S.A. Glad you liked south central Texas. Happen to agree with you about the rest of the state.

Nothing like getting back to your own home town to get drunk.

san antonio was beautiful. i spent most of my time totally making fun of the fact that they completely fabricated the "san antonio river" it's 16 feet wide. concrete on both banks. until i saw that riverwalk. recessed a level below the street. with magical night spots lining both sides. it's absolutely beautiful. and austin was amazing. however, it was the most sweat my body ever produced. i wasn't ready for that heavy texas air. you really gotta work at taking a breath in. where are you, in texas, again? you've probably told me already. i saw too many cities in too short a time. i no longer have any concept of distance or time. and i'n incapable in differentiating the bowels of the metropolitan areas.

i would never go on a lame trip like that.

yea... why go out and do things when you can just sit at home on your computer crapping on what other's enjoy and do.

welcome back Tom, great to hear your story, I'd love to jump on the road, 1. I can't drive

2. England's not great place to go drving (apart from London, one city is the same as another),
but maybe one day I'll do it in Ireland.

Nothing like a good road trip - sounds like it was great, Tom.

Damnit - thought I was logged in when I posted that note from "guest". Oh well, it's Monday.

Tom, I didn't know you were a beat poet!
being on the road is always great fun and opens new horizons. The thing I enjoy most when travelling is getting to know the people.

I'd love to drive around Scotland (or Ireland) one day but I'd have to get used to driving on the left before.

Eyeball_Kid wrote:Tom, I didn't know you were a beat poet!
being on the road is always great fun and opens new horizons. The thing I enjoy most when travelling is getting to know the people.

I'd love to drive around Scotland (or Ireland) one day but I'd have to get used to driving on the left before.

I'll just have to worry about getting use to driving full stop

Tom Wade wrote:san antonio was beautiful. i spent most of my time totally making fun of the fact that they completely fabricated the "san antonio river" it's 16 feet wide. concrete on both banks. until i saw that riverwalk. recessed a level below the street. with magical night spots lining both sides. it's absolutely beautiful. and austin was amazing. however, it was the most sweat my body ever produced. i wasn't ready for that heavy texas air. you really gotta work at taking a breath in. where are you, in texas, again? you've probably told me already. i saw too many cities in too short a time. i no longer have any concept of distance or time. and i'n incapable in differentiating the bowels of the metropolitan areas.

Its good to know someone likes our city. The River walk is fabricated but the river by nature used to be bigger and nicer. Did you do the tourist thing and see the Alamo? The Cenotaph outside is cool. Hope you skipped the haunted tour, it sucks. I knew it was hot lately , but i always assume houstons humidity is worse...who knows maybe we suck just as much? Did you like any of east texas? I like to do alot of photography up there since it sort of fluxuates between sad (trashy), hauntingly beautiful and um...pretty fucking scarey at night.

Anyways sounds like you had a great trip!

first of all... dammit. my travelling companion and i were pretty sure that the alamo was some remote location like 7 miles out of mexico. we were, however, impressed with the very accurate reproduction in the middle of town. we were wrong. so yes, i saw and liked it, but didn't really appreciate like i should have. we could only really spend the afternoon in san antonio. throughout the whole trip, we avoided the usual tourist traps. i mostly walked through pawn shops and antique stores all day. and haunted the diviest of dive bars at nights. i wouldn't mind a drink along the river, but we spent that night in austin. which lived up to the reputation as a good town for music. houston may have been nice, i was not impressed with their..accomodations, though. we hit dead center of town and started looking for a place to park, circle out. like a ripple affect. by the time we found a place, we were nowhere near the city... so we continued on to the nearest ihop.

as for the heat...never felt anything like it. it sits on your face. it's hard to draw breath. every night in texas, we slept in the car. you wake up smelling a bit gamey. new orleans air lays on ya pretty heavy, also. but in a different way. those few days of texas heat toughened me up, though. it's been 103 degrees here, the passed 2 days. i work in a warehouse. everyone else is complaining, buckets of sweat, naseau, vomit, dropping like flies. i need to find a light jacket, and bead of sweat accumulates. this is nothing, here. i like going into texas, driving all night, 80 miles an hour on county routes, and by the next day... you're still in texas.

some real gone little mexican chicks, though. adorable. VERY attractive people in texas. where as...OHIO is the hideous individual capitol of the US.

Travelling is always worthwhile! I have been on a four week road trip through Europe and it was great but the best way to travel is by train. When you go by car, you don´t really meet people beside the ones you share the vehicle with, but on a long railroad trip you have time chat with people from different places. Watching scenery is better as well + nothing stops you from getting drunk all the time you want... By far the best trip I have made was by train from Helsinki, Finland to Hong Kong, China. We went through Moscow, Siberia, Mongolia, Beijing, Shanghai... Stopping and spending time at some major cities. Then we continued by plane to Vietnam but that´s another story. I just wanted to advertise travelling by train..

And the driver can't have a drink untill you reach the place of sleep that night.

Why? He can... And you may reach the place of eternal sleep then... But who cares when all of you share that drink..