Red Truck Road Trip – WEST Coast Team

All good things come to an end, or so I’ve been told. I’m pretty sure that it’s just another lie of Mike’s that he tells to ruin my fun (you know, like “no, sorry, the authorities will not think it’s funny that you tried to get a grizzly bear drunk in Yellowstone,” or “yes, that label makes you look fat”), but apparently this hellish captivity has finally reached its final moments. Our last few days took place in Boston, which is considered by many to be the birthplace of our nation. It’s pretty unique because there aren’t really any other cities in America which have so much historical locations in their downtowns, and there certainly aren’t many that provide a color-coded walkthrough of said landmarks.

Mike, of course, loves the Freedom Trail, because it not only happened to run nearby his hotel and provided him with an effortless map he could use for his masochistic runs (I’m pretty sure that enjoying the amount of pain he receives from those qualifies him as needing medication of some kind), but it also let him feel like he was literally running through history instead of just reading about it. Of course, he didn’t take his camera with him, because that just wouldn’t be fun to run with, so I guess you’ll just have to take his word that it’s worth checking out.

If you happen to have some time to kill, Quincy Market (pronounced “Quinzy” by the locals) is as good a way to murder it as any. Not only does the place boast a number of colorful shops (as well as the generic ones like American Eagle and a few tacky souvenir places), but it also has the historic Faneuil Hall to explore, talented street performers appearing almost every hour (like the talented family of British acrobats, the Sardine Family, pictured below), and is located about a block-and-a-half away from the New England Aquarium, which features possibly the coolest Penguin sanctuary ever. Oh, and there’s also free wi-fi connections available in Quincy Market, too, which allowed Mike to walk around and check his email via his PDA (I fail to see what’s so exciting about this, but he loved it).

So, what else did we do? Well, there was Boston Common, which contains a number of sculptures and fountains featuring mythological and angelic figures, as well as some truly beautiful scenery and some of the most brazen squirrels one could ever hope to find outside of Yosemite. Mike liked it because of all the people who were lounging around and just enjoying the nice weather, I liked it because I got to tease the local wildlife and drive them nuts (no pun intended). There was also Walden Pond, which is a favorite hangout of Bostonians looking to cool off on a hot day (and, apparently, was also a lurking place for Henry David Thoreau). I was dragged into its murky depths by Mike’s creepy friend Lucy, who acted as our tour guide for a day and a half, but once she left me alone I’ll admit that it felt nice to just bob along the surface for a while.

And then, after two days of exploring the city, it was time to return the car, still somehow intact despite the month’s worth of abuses inflicted upon it by my dubious traveling companions. Alamo took the vehicle back, surprisingly without any comments, and then Mike had to check his bags… which totally drove home the point that trip was coming to a close. It was surprising and surreal all at once, I think because none of the guys actually believed that the end would actually come.

But it did come, and now we’ve returned to California. And now the real world is reasserting its presence in Mike’s life, with work and errands and bills that need to be paid… but I’m still around to remind him (sitting on his shelf, of course; there’s no way he’s getting rid of me now) of how good he had it this one fateful July; all of it thanks to me, of course.

I still don’t have any words to describe all the indignities I suffered whilst traveling with Mike in New York. The only words that come to mind right now are a bunch of four-letter ones. Actually, I just want to spew those verbal bullets because I wanted to go watch a musical on Broadway, but Mike wouldn’t take me. Instead, he met up with his Uncle (who proceeded to take us all over Manhattan) and then forced me to have my picture taken with the Naked Cowboy of Times Square. Mike’s uncle, Sid, had the right idea: while Mike was making me engage in what many states would consider soft-core pornography, he was standing across the street pretending to have no association with his deviant nephew.

So we spent a grand total of a day and a half in New York, which essentially amounted to a forced march all over the island while Sid rambled on about historical trivia concerning each site we visited. Mike, of course, loved every minute of it. I kept on nagging the jerks to take me to see Sweeney Todd, and they finally caved and took me to go see Hairspray… the movie, not the musical. Whatever, it was two hours in a cool theater on a hot and muggy day, so it was good enough for me (even if it did have John Travolta in a fat suit and a mini skirt).

So Sid and Mike (and me, stuffed in a bag, naturally), covered most of the territories between Central Park and Battery Park, including Times Square, the Apple Store, a street fair in the middle of downtown, Union Square (Mike found some pretty talented breakdancers, incidentally), the Meatpacking District, Little Italy (some of the best eateries *ever*, by the way), and Ground Zero.   I’d write more, but I’m still recovering from the jetlag.  And laughing at Mike for how he walked a blister onto his foot… again.

One thing that I’ve emphasized during this trip is that I’m traveling with a bunch of uber-nerds. I don’t think you can be an artist without having at least a couple of nerdy characteristics, to be perfectly blunt. However, Mike takes nerdiness to weird extremes in certain cases: he’s a rampant science fiction addict, takes historical tours of towns he visits, loves technology and is always on the lookout for shiny new gadgets to play with, draws comics in his spare time, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of world mythology at his command. So, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when he insisted we stop off at Metropolis, IL, while we were en route from St. Louis to Nashville, TN (this was last Wednesday, we’ve been a little busy and haven’t been able to post for a couple of days).

Before I go any further, I should explain something: all his life, Mike’s wanted to be Clark Kent. His parents thought it would be a good idea to teach him to read via comic books and, much to their chagrin, he never put them down. Granted, when he was younger, he thought he wanted to be Superman himself because he loved running around in a cape and singing the movie theme. I’m sure his folks were convinced that he was a some sort of Karmic retribution for a crime spree in a previous life, since they had to take both he and his cape out in public numerous times and to the hospital once or twice before he learned that he could not, in fact, fly.

Now, back to the main story. Metropolis, IL is a town which must be populated by almost nothing but comic nerds. In 1972, both DC Comics and the Illinois State Legislature declared Metropolis to be “the home of Superman” and the city has fully embraced its adopted son ever since. In the 1980s, the town decided to erect a seven-foot-tall statue to Kal-El on the north side of its courthouse, which a number of folks decided to test the bulletproof nature of after its erection. 1993 saw over $100,000 raised in fundraising, and a fifteen-foot-tall statue was built out of bronze (and, yes, before you ask: it’s much more durable than its predecessor). Not content with a mere monument to the Man of Steel, Metropolis pays homage to the comics with its local newspaper, the Metropolis Planet, and the world’s largest Superman Museum (located about 50 feet down the street from the statue).

The museum itself actually fills a lot of space and is jam-packed with toys, props, costumes, posters, and famous comics from Superman’s 69 year existence (admission is $3 and well worth the price). At first glance, it’s almost like wandering through a fan’s cluttered basement, but it quickly becomes apparent that it’s organized in a rough chronological order and is chock-full of all sorts of fun stuff. If you want to allocate enough time to properly check the museum out, plan on spending 45 minutes to an hour wandering around its aisles. Just don’t feel obligated to wear a fedora whilst meandering around the town, like Mike did; the locals tend to look at you kind of funny.

Say what you want about the Catholic Church: they sure do have some great artwork, particularly in their cathedrals around the world. When walking around St. Louis, Mike was advised by one of the locals that he simply had to go check out the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, which is apparently renowned for the collection of mosaics contained within.  Not only that, but it’s so well-known that the Pope (the good one: John Paul, not his lackluster successor) visited the place in 1999 shortly after it was declared a Basilica. Seeing as how a large part of Mike’s history major focused on the Church in Medieval Europe, he was excited enough to leave the hotel around 9 AM and check the place out (nerd). The cathedral is actually a bit off the beaten path in St. Louis, lying well outside of the downtown areas and not anywhere within walking distance of The Arch. The structure itself is a bit daunting at first approach, largely due to its immense scale compared to the surrounding buildings, but if you look around the exterior of the building it quickly becomes apparent that the place is a home to some truly beautiful artwork (as evidenced by The Angel of Harmony sculpture in the garden).

Getting me into the cathedral was a little bit of a challenge, but a little fast-talking got us around it (we claimed I was just a bottle of Christ’s Blood in disguise and then legged it through the door as soon as the volunteer looked the other way). Once we were inside the building’s main chamber, though, it took us a minute just to collect our thoughts because we were hit by both the immense size of the place and the beauty it contained all at once. Unless you’ve wandered through some of the Basilica cathedrals found in Europe, there is absolutely nothing which can prepare you for what you’ll see in this place: towering ceilings which leap and curve every which way, vibrant colors surrounded by golden t

iles, mosaics so detailed that they look exactly like paintings until viewed up close, and sculptures which look like they’re straight out of a Botticelli exhibit are all things you’ll encounter as you walk through this hallowed place.

Somehow (meaning a volunteer told us to follow them), we wound up attached to a tour group that was actually training tour guides on the Cathedral’s history; as a result, we ended up hearing a lot more details about the place than most of the general public normally gets to. Mike found it fascinating, I wound up getting distracted by my reflection in some of the gold tiles (I get lost in my eyes)… but we both had a good time wandering around.

The Cathedral Basilica was originally erected in 1907 and took over 60 years to decorate with all the mosaics that appear on its walls and ceilings.   In each half-dome (the East and West wings of the church), scenes from the Old and New Testaments respectively appear.  Mike was particularly fascinated by the Southern arch beneath the main dome, mainly because of the way it depicts Judgment Day: there’s the usual stuff about the dead rising from their graves, going before God on his throne and being judged, and St. Michael putting away his sword because the Great Battle is now over, but Mike really got a kick out of the story behind the representation of the damned going down to Hell.  Instead of a lake of fire, cloaked figures are seen being led into a snowy cave; it turns out that the artist was originally born in Siberia and hated the cold much more than than the heat, which in turn led to his choice in depicting damnation the way he did.

Ultimately, though, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis is one of those places where once can spend days exploring and learning about.  We only had a couple of hours, one of which was spent wandering with the tour group.  Was it beautiful and interesting?  Yes, yes it was.  But I maintain that I’m still prettier.

It has been noted, in a previous post, that Team West was invited to visit Nashville, TN , by some local restaurant owners earlier in the trip. Well, somehow, Mike didn’t lose Pamela and John’s contact info and arranged to visit their fantastic eatery last night. It’s a good thing he did, since I was getting sick and tired of dealing with all the fast food the guys have been eating lately. Were I running the show, Wendy’s visits would be limited to once-per-day… and the less said about Hardee’s, the better.

Anyway, I digress: Mike managed to snag a reservation at The Acorn Restaurant, and we were treated to what was quite possibly the best meal of the trip. Nestled in Nashville near Vanderbilt (and almost directly behind the scenic Centennial Park), The Acorn features truly high-class dining, great atmosphere, and some of the friendliest staff members one could ever hope to encounter. Truly, if food this good was being served during the Civil War, it’s possible that Lincoln would have surrendered in exchange for some of the recipes. While it may sound like we’re exaggerating, it should be noted that (unlike the rest of the team) I am an individual with a truly high-class palate and know what I’m talking about. Seriously: my idea of camping is staying at the Holiday Inn.

What many people don’t expect from… well, anywhere in Tennessee, I guess… is a sense of sophistication and appreciation for the arts. Nashville in particular seems to be fighting the public perception that it’s a Hollywood knockoff which simply distinguishes itself by draping everything with rhinestones and a country accent. If you’re looking for a reason, blame the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and Country Music Television: there’s only so many Redneck jokes one can hear and so many Trace Adkins music videos one can watch before they stamp the entire Southern U.S. with the label of “Not Worth My Time To Investigate”. However, The Acorn is a great example of just how wrong that stereotype is: not only does it serve up delicious food (with exquisite presentation, I might add), but the building it’s housed in is decorated with some beautiful photographs and paintings (some of which were provided by the staff themselves). It also happens to be located in an elegant structure that is beautifully lit and always has great music playing over the sound system (strange as it sounds, there was not a single song the group didn’t like while we ate our dinner). After you finish your meal there, I’d highly recommend wandering around both of the building’s levels (the upper level is a little more raucous, but with outside seating; the lower level is much quieter but doesn’t have an outer deck) and investigating all the pieces providing decoration. However, that’s assuming you can actually manage to stand after eating the sinfully delicious Chocolate Decadence Cake served up by the restaurant’s amazing pastry chef.

If you can’t get out of your chair due to eating too much good food, don’t panic: just hang out with the staff until they finally kick you out of the building. Hidden amongst their ranks are several photographers and musicians, all of whom are pretty dang talented in their own right, and they’re all worth getting to know. Ultimately, it boils down to this: if you’re in Nashville, you can’t afford to miss dinner at The Acorn Restaurant. It’s just that simple.

St. Louis is one of those cities which not only has a lot of history associated with it, but it also embraces its past at every available opportunity. While there is a lot of modern architecture downtown, along with renovations and remodeling jobs around just about every corner, there are a lot of untouched older structures (turn-of-the-century apartment and office buildings, mainly) mixed in with the newer skyscrapers. The further away from The Arch one gets, though, more and more older buildings appear along the streets. It’s probably a good thing we headed away from The Arch: Mike wanted to ride to the top, but I wanted a frappucino.

Walking around St. Louis will eventually bring a pedestrian to a number of different parks, fountains, and public works of art which are peppered all over the city. A lot of the places embrace older, more classical styles of art instead of putting up more modern works… the effect creates an atmosphere that is largely in keeping with the art deco movement from the 1920s and 30s that feels, for lack of a better term, uniform throughout much of the downtown area.

As we walked around, Mike asked some of the locals about what was good to check out and was directed towards Union Station as a point of interest. The building was a passenger train station from the late 1800s until 1978, and it’s now been converted into a quirky shopping mall peppered with cool local stores (thankfully, there’s a lack of the standard franchise shops one typically sees in such places). Mike and I were particularly entertained by The Fudgery, which hand-makes their fudge and then entertains an audience of mall-walkers with a performance straight out of a gospel church. While the store itself is actually a small (but multi-state) chain, its gimmick of singing (beautifully, I might add) for sales makes it highly original and entertaining to visit. Also, their Cookies ‘n’ Cream fudge is apparently delicious, but Mike recommends running at least three miles after eating it.

The other cool thing about Union Station is that there happens to be a quaint little lake outside its main entrance; it comes complete with paddle boat, faux fire-hose nozzles (which can be turned to spray boat paddlers), and an insane crowd of Koi fish which are constantly begging for food. A few more details about that last bit: the Koi have come to realize that people standing at the edge of the docks surrounding the lake are probably going to feed them, so they will literally swarm all over the place as they jockey for a better position to receive the food from your hands. However, they apparently think that cameras will dispense tasty treats, too. Sure, they may be cute, but they’re really not very bright.

I have decided that Team West’s stay in Chicago will be hereafter known as The Irish Portion Of The Trip due to the following reasons: Chicago is the only city arguably more proud of its Irish heritage than Boston (they do dye the Chicago river green for St. Patty’s Day, after all), the group saw the band Travis perform live (admittedly, the band is Scottish, but that’s almost as good as being Irish), and Mike broke out his Irish drinking ability during the concert. Oh, yeah, and we also saw a lot of Irish pubs during our walking tour of the city, too.

The thing about Chicago is that it’s a great place to walk around, sort of like Portland. However, unlike Portland, this isn’t because everything is lumped together within a couple of square miles; it’s because the place is flat and there’s something interesting to see no matter where you turn. It’s also a town with a lot of artwork and interesting street performers all over the place, but it doesn’t have the small town feel of somewhere like, say, Minneapolis. What it does have, though, is a grand sense of scale: once you’re downtown, the buildings loom and tower over the pedestrians strolling between them. It’s a little daunting, and more than a little weird, when you’re walking down the street and realize that the twenty degree drop in temperature which just occurred is due to the fact that you’ve stepped into a giant shadow cast by a skyscraper.

After taking the train into Chicago from Geneva (roughly an hour’s ride, and the $5 weekend pass is a great deal), Mike sauntered down to Millennium Park, where weekend festivities were in full swing and families were out in force. Aside from the “oohing” and “ahhing” at the various cool fountains, running under the Cloud Gate (better known amongst the locals as “The Bean”), and taking a minute or two to lounge on the lawn by the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, we also got to be entertained by a number of performers who did things like juggle, play music, and blow bubbles while standing on rather tall stilts. They were there as part of a joint venture between the city and Target Stores, but they were there promoting a science weekend and were actually entertaining, so I’m pretty sure that even the most jaded of conspiracy theorists would’ve been hard-pressed to find anything sinister there.

From there, we walked around the Marina towards Navy Pier, which is a lot like San Francisco’s Pier 39… only out here it’s a little more crowded and a little less sleazy. There’re museums here. And a ferris wheel. A permanent one (permanently installed ferris wheels equal classy tourist attractions; it’s an established fact). There’s even a great lighthouse which, when the light hits the water just right, looks like it’s straight out of the Caribbean. Actually, Lake Michigan -despite the fact that it’s got a high count of ecoli bacteria- looked absolutely stunning in the summer sun: a combination of greens and blues which looked downright tropical. If you’re looking for some cool art, the entrance to Navy Pier has a great public exhibit in which a number of different artists decorated pre-made globes however they wanted… just so long as it fit into the theme of protecting the environment. Some of them look really great, and some of them look childish, but the overall showcase (and the fountains across the street) are well worth the visit.

After Navy Pier, Mike met up with his honorary cousin and her husband (AKA “Kathy and Jay”) to wander around Michigan Ave for a while (whereupon Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was purchased) before joining Mikey and Brad for dinner. After dinner, everyone regrouped and saw Travis play at the Vic Theater. Side note: on his way to rejoin Team West, Mike was entertained to find about four different wedding parties and a conspiracy theorist claiming Russia had invaded America within a three-block span. The show was amazing, featuring some of the best live music heard this side of the Atlantic Ocean, homages to the Rocky movies, bringing culture to the audience by teaching us some Swedish, and telling everyone to post YouTube videos if they happened to get any cool footage on their cameras and/or cell phones. From there, we all returned to Geneva and Mike immediately crashed when he hit the mattress. Apparently, not only can he drink like the Irish, but he sleeps like them, too.

I’m still not sure if I fully trust the city of Madison: oh, sure, it happens to have a lovely downtown that is filled with friendly people, but the place always smells faintly of cattle and -let’s face it- it’s in Wisconsin, which happens to be a state only known for its cheese and football.

Team West arrived in Madison last night, and we split up this morning to explore the town after we parked near the capital building. Now, I’m sure a number of you are curious as to how Mike picks out his exploratory routes when he tours a city. It’s really not all that interesting: basically, he just takes the path of least resistance (meaning he just goes downhill) and wanders towards anything that is either loud and/or shiny. What can I say? It’s a formula that seems to work for him.

Today, Mike ended up wandering down State Street, which happened to be undergoing a prolonged street sale known as “Maxwell Street Days” in which nearly all the stores along the road put a lot of their stuff out at a serious discount. Mike found Stetson fedora at Sacred Feather, a store which had such a great selection, funky decor, and friendly staff that it felt like a shop out of Portland or Berkeley rather than downtown Madison (let’s be honest: when you think of cool and interesting stores, Wisconsin is not the first location that comes to mind).

While the capital is at one end of the street, the University of Wisconsin is at the other. It happens to be a campus which is clean, pretty, and situated on Lake Mendota, one of the most absurdly gorgeous bodies of water you can find this side of Lake Tahoe. When Mike and I were hanging out on the dock, we met two lovely lifeguards (named Meghan and Elizabeth, I believe) who couldn’t resist my sensuous curves and decided to cuddle up with me while I looked snazzy for the camera. Poor Mike, he just couldn’t seem to get any attention from them, but it’s easy to understand why he’d be overlooked when he was being outshone by the dazzling brilliance that is me.

The rest of the afternoon passed quietly enough, winding up with the two of us sitting on the lawn outside the Capital Building and napping in the sun before Brad and Mikey met up with us so we could all set out for Chicago. Mike might’ve passed out in the back seat from exhaustion, which I think was just an excuse to not drive… it’s not like he was carrying around a 40 lb. pack full of camera gear or anything, you know?

Team West and Minnesota, it should be noted, did not get off to a good start.  As soon as they crossed the border between South Dakota and the Land of 10,000 Lakes, we found ourselves in a storm so nasty that it felt like it was a hurricane (that’s according to Mike; apparently he’s been through one in the Florida Keys) and were soon watching the skies to make sure no funnels were descending to towards the ground.  While we didn’t see that, we did see red lightning bolts (a first for all of us) and pulled off the road a couple of times because visibility got so bad.

Once we made it through the storm, we found ourselves trapped in a nasty traffic jam  brought on by the population’s desire to go to a Twins’ game.  When we finally arrived in the city proper, Mikey called about seven different hotels before he successfully found a room at the Best Western on 8th St.  Things took an upswing from there: the room itself was gorgeous, the location was fantastic, and the city of Minneapolis is populated with quite possibly the friendliest group of people ever.  The three key members of the team split up and wandered around town for dinner, whereupon Mike had dinner at the Rock Bottom Brewery and got some great advice from his friendly waitress, Maureen, on what to check out around the city.

So, this morning, after his daily bout with masochism (he ran five miles), Mike proceeded to walk around town and gradually make his way to the “sculpture garden” on the southwest end of downtown.  It turns out that Minneapolis is actually a city which happens to be incredibly supportive of the arts.  Yeah, I know, I had no idea either.  Also, if you’re looking for a good place to eat, we highly recommend Joe’s Garage, which features some great food and a spectacular view from its rooftop seating.

The garden is located just past Loring Park and has a number of incredible (and huge) sculptures on display over a total area of eleven acres.  It’s a popular destination for all sorts of visitors, including tourists, children, school field trips, amateur artists, student artists, joggers, and just about anyone else you can think of.  On one end of the park, the Alan Grossman Memorial Arbor and Flower Garden provided Mike with a number of subjects (hey, insects and flowers don’t have parents who glare at random photographers taking pictures of their tiny offspring).  As we wandered around the park, we kept on stopping to stretch out on the grass and indulge in periodic laziness for minutes at a time before we finally had to mosey on back towards the hotel to rendezvous with the rest of the group.

According to Mike, he’s going to be back in Minneapolis soon to check out some more of the local art scene; according to me, I’ll only come along if he promises to stop marching me all over the place.