Day 23: June 22 (Portland, Oregon)

Las Vegas

This town had a lot of things going against it for me. To begin with, I don’t particularly like gambling. I never have enough money to do it properly and when I do gamble with a limited bankroll I usually do so poorly. Also at a time when the numbers of my bank account are only a fraction less important than the fitness of my car, needless to say, I didn’t have enough money (or wasn’t ready to risk enough money, it’s really all the same though) to sit at these tables properly.

Secondly, tourism rubs me the wrong way. The disingenuous nature of it, the “hey, hey look over here at all the neat things we have for you to do!” and fake smiles and feigned interest. Tourism, by and large, is greed coated in bullshit that’s sold with a big grin. This is a city built on tourism and greed. It is a city designed to dazzle and overwhelm and amaze. But for me, all the flashing lights did was bathe the gluttony of the city in a warm yellow glow.

Thirdly, I was alone.

But. I had to see it. Skipping it for any of those reasons never really registered with me. I had to see it. Had to see the spectacle. Had to see what everyone was so damned excited about. And so I did.

Initially I parked my car at the north end of the strip in front of a cheap casino/gift shop/restaurant/whatever. I had no intentions of paying to park my car and this particular parking lot was well lit and its location on the north end of Las Vegas Boulevard meant that I could walk down the strip, see the sights, gamble, lose, and walk back to my car all in one neat linear jaunt. I left my car in the row nearest to the entrance of the gift shop portion of the building and as I was locking the door I looked in. The woman working one of the registers was watching me, worse than that, it looked like she had been watching me for a while. Was I allowed to park in the lot if I wasn’t going to gamble/eat/shop/sacrifice a lamb (hey, why not?) here? I turned my key to the right, locking the doors, and tried to forget about it.

I couldn’t forget about it for long. The number of drunks and bums and drunk bums on the north end of the strip was a little unnerving. I thought about my car with its way-out-of-town plates and cooler visible in the backseat. I thought about my computer in the trunk. I thought about my not so cleverly hidden iPod and camera. I thought about a drunk or a bum or a drunk bum or the woman at the register who had been giving me stink eye getting a laugh at the expense of this foreigner, this tourist. Who the hell is from Ohio anyway? they would think. Why didn’t that son of bitch fly out like all the rest of these bloated tourists with their cameras hanging around their necks?

The greater the distance between myself and the car the more I worried. Maybe their alcoholic father was a Buckeye fan. Maybe the landlord who evicted them hung portraits of Warren G Harding in his office. Maybe the woman working the register was from Michigan. I had walked 10 blocks and was just getting to the edge of the major casinos when I turned around. I was going to find somewhere else to park my car with it’s out of town license plates and cooler to boot.

By the time I had walked from my new parking space (a dark, slightly populated so that my car wasn’t alone but not too well populated as to attract vandals and thieves lot behind a Denny’s) back to the main casinos I was starting to feel better. The bums had been replaced by balding white men who wore tennis shoes and socks up to their shins. There were women faulting their sunburned cleavage. There were people selling bottled water on the sides of street for reasonable prices. The world was back in order again. Hell, maybe I would even win some money I thought. Who knows, a couple of breaks this way or that, a bit of good luck with the roulette table and I might actually have a little extra cash to burn once I got to California. I would spend my evening at the Venetian Casino. I’ve been to Venice, hot shit I was even wearing a shirt I got when I was in Venice! Luck by lady tonight, right Mr. Sinatra?

No. No, of course not. I lost, gracefully and in very modest increments, and walked over the bridge. Below me were men wearing black and white striped shirts and broad hats, standing in their faux gondolas. The bastards probably couldn’t even find Venice on a map I thought to myself as I walked back north. I was out of cash, my feet hurt and I was tired from a day of driving, Hoover damming, and fretting over the prospect of hoodlums. My car was still in the lot behind Denny’s, mercifully unmolested, and I got behind the wheel to look for a quiet place off the strip where I could sleep in my car.

My first choice was a semi-lit one way street that had lower-income apartments on both sides of it but the yelling and crying of babies drove me from there promptly. Next I pulled into a neighborhood, one with not too shabby homes and an occasional Beamer in the driveway. I parked next to house with a truck in front of it, leaned my seat back and closed my eyes. Not five minutes after I had settled in did the ignition turn in the truck. The engine roared as the truck pulled out of the driveway only to return in a matter of minutes. Voices from the truck called into house, voices from the house called back to the truck. It was 1 AM on a Sunday, but Las Vegas wouldn’t let me sleep.

Tired and cranky I started my car and made for I-15 towards Los Angeles. I was broke, I was tired, and I needed to get somewhere that made sense. Nick Cage may have left Las Vegas, but Joel Bahr got the fuck out.

Day 14: June 13 (Las Vegas, Nevada)

Outside of Kayenta, Arizona there is a billboard advertising for the World War II Navajo Code-Talkers museum. Kayenta is Navajo territory, you see. To be completely honest, it was more of an issue of bladder than of curiosity that brought my car to a stop in Kayenta. After pulling out of the gas station I pulled back onto the highway until I saw a big electronic sign advertising the museum. Above the sign was a familiar logo, a circle with the capital letters B and K in the middle. The World War II Navajo Code-Talkers museum was in a Burger King. I parked my car in the lot and walked inside. The museum was a 12 foot glass display case which housed period era fatigues, rifles and helmets. There were newspaper clippings and a computer screen. Next to the display was a family of four munching on their whoppers and chicken sandwiches. They were not Navajo. I didn’t stay in the Burger King much longer after that. As I was walking to the parking lot a man with black hair and red skin asked me if I wanted to buy an arrowhead that he was holding in his hand. I declined, started my car, and left Kayenta and the World War II Navajo Code-Talkers museum and Burger King behind me.

June 13: Day 14 (Las Vegas, Nevada)

It took me a long time to realize that Colorado was home. I had to move away, go to college, visit several times, study abroad (twice) and then graduate for it to really sink in—Colorado is my heart. Growing up my mailing address was Colorado Springs but my real hometown was Monument. Over the years I got to know the Springs and Denver and Boulder and Fort Collins and Pueblo. Those were the cities I visited and came to know. I lived on Colorado’s Front Range for 14 years before moving away. I knew it, I liked it, and I would eventually miss it.

So here I am back in Colorado, only it’s not the Colorado I knew. And not only is it not the Colorado I knew, it was different in a way that I hadn’t anticipated. I had visited Monument after moving and it had exploded with growth since I left. Untamed open spaces had been paved and Home Depots and coffee shops had sprung up. A second middle school was built, then a second high school. Monument was a rapidly growing city in a rapidly growing county in a rapidly growing state, but this was not the Colorado I found when I came back this time.

After I plowed through northern New Mexico during the night I woke the next morning to a Colorado I’ve never known. I had fallen in love with Colorado’s Front Range when I was growing up there, but in Durango I was introduced to the Front Range’s beautiful little sister, the Western Slope. She was smaller, quieter, prettier, and the kind of girl who didn’t shave her legs.

Durango is tucked away in the southwest corner of the state in the Animas River valley. A quick glance at its Wikipedia page would tell you that the word “Durango” is a derivative of “urango”, a Basque word for “water town” but it would be impossible to understand what the Animas River means to Durango in the summer without being there.

The first day I was in Durango one of my oldest friends took me to Baker’s Bridge to jump into the river. The summer runoffs had swollen the river and its muddy waters ran cold and swift. I watched a new friend contemplate the distance from the bridge to the rushing water 30 feet below him. After hearing that a few people had already died in the river this summer I was comfortable to watch him from the safety of the rocks 15 feet below him (but still 15 feet above the river).The considerable spring run-off meant that here at the bridge the water would be deep enough so he wouldn’t touch the river bottom. He took his time, 10 minutes or so, until he stood. Painstakingly he first removed his sunglasses, then his hat, then his shirt. Then he jumped.

The river carried him 10 or 15 feet before his head broke the muddy surface. Even with the quick current he was able to get out of the river with some strong strokes. How was it Johnny? we asked him. Cold, and pretty fast he said. I watched another new friend jump from the rocks. Then my old friend jumped. Then it was my turn. As I stood at the edge of the rock I thought about what everyone had said when we told them that we were going to Baker’s Bridge. “Swim hard it’s really fast right now.” Was I a strong swimmer? Swimming in my parents pool that bottoms out at 6 feet doesn’t really count does it? The Animas was churning brown below me and I tried to gauge how fast it was by watching sticks floating along the surface as they made their way downstream.

Two steps backwards, one big step forwards, airborne.

It’s hard to say what sensation hit me first (or harder for that matter) the cold or the current. No matter what the sensation was that drove me, before my head broke the surface I knew that I did not want to be in the river anymore. As it turns out, I am a strong enough swimmer and made it to the bank with nine or ten strokes and hauled myself out of the river and onto the red rocks to dry out. I did not jump in again.

The rest of the week that I was in Durango followed the tempo that had been set that first day. Rope swinging into the Vallecito reservoir, day tripping to Telluride, bar hopping , days flowed into each other as naturally as the Animas. Yet, by the end of the week I knew I had stayed long enough. Durango is a town that I should love. It is progressive (people who practice what the preach when it comes to organic living and sustainability—right down to solar powered trash compactors), liberal (4 marijuana dispensaries for a town of 15,000 in 2005), and in an absolutely stunning location nestled in the La Plata mountains, but I didn’t love it.

This realization unnerved me then and still does now. I didn’t think that living in St. Louis and Ohio had changed me as much as it did. On more than one occasion I found myself joking with people that I was a city slicker knowing full well that there was at least a little bit of truth in the joke. On the drive to Telluride at about 10,000 feet I got my first ever case of altitude sickness. It wasn’t serious, a minor headache and a bit of nausea, but it was enough for me to understand the message: I don’t live here anymore. It’s an easy message for me to reconcile—it’s been 6 years after all since I officially lived in Colorado and 10,000 feet in the air is no joke. But I can’t shake off one lingering thought: if my love affair with the Western Slope wasn’t meant to be; what of my first love and the only place I feel that I can call home? What of the Front Range and I?

I left Durango with Colorado dirt under my fingernails and, with all the hope that earth can hold, it is still there. I haven’t cleaned it out yet.

Day 7: June 6 (Durango, Colorado)

30 miles west of San Antonio mesas began to rise out of the ground. Massive trapezoids dotted the landscape with green trees along their sides and too-big houses sometimes christened their tops. My black 2-door snaked between them trying, perhaps vainly and naively, to get out of Texas.

West Texas was the kind of place where the road never changes. 80, 85, 90 miles per hour, it made no difference; outside of the white lines the scene was constant. Gold flecked with the green of shoulder-high scrub slid past my windows, soundless save for the noise of the tires and the asphalt. Road signs attempted to convince me that there is life out there. Towns like Sterling City and Sonora, Ozona and Pandale appeared on the green signs on the side of the road and I blew by them.

West Texas was the kind of place where I not only considered stopping to fill up when I had a quarter of a tank left, I actually did it. It was the kind of place that after exiting the highway I drove 4 miles into a town, more like a neighborhood really, to the filling station. There was no explanation for the town or the people who live there, they just were. At the filling station gas was 50 cents more than it was the last time I stopped but I paid it.

In West Texas cell phones were reduced to shiny plastic rectangles and blown out tires rotted on the highway like corpses. There were road signs that read “STRONG CROSS WINDS” and after having my car lurch 2 feet to the left I took them seriously. In Fort Stockton there were two FM radio stations, they were both in Spanish. Billboards in Pecos boasted being the home of the first rodeo. There were unmarked fast food restaurants that offered “small pig” for 85 cents. Buildings were rusted and permanently leaning to the side after a lifetime of being bullied by the wind. It was Cormac McCarthy’s wet dream. My 2-door Acura with Ohio plates would only be more out of place if it were painted rainbow and had a re-animated Freddy Mercury riding shotgun. I wondered to myself after leaving Pecos behind me traveling north on the 285, if something were to happen to me, how long would it take for someone to find my body? Because in West Texas you have kick off 3 inches of dirt and dust to unearth words like “remote” and “desolate.”

Maybe it was the powers that be rather than time and stress that made my right front tire rupture. Perhaps I was supposed to have the “oh shit” moment. It was fate, it was destiny, it was irony. No matter what the motivation was once I felt the steering wheel shake and heard the grinding from the right side of my hood, I had my oh shit moment. I knew I had blown a tire even before I brought the car to a stop on the side of the road. But no one would have to find my body; there would be no need for a search party this time. 45 minutes later the shredded tire was in my trunk under my clothes and camping equipment and the spare had been tightened on. I drove slowly, 50, until reaching Carlsbad, New Mexico under a big starry sky. I drove around looking for a place where I could park and sleep in my car for the night. The next day, I would have to buy a new tire.

Day 5: June 4 (Austin, Texas)

Dallas is roads. Highways, tollways, expressways, freeways, parkways. I've seldom seen traffic like the traffic in Dallas. It's not such much a reflection of congestion or accidents but more the sheer volume of cars and the people in them. Everyone racing around, jerking the wheel and veering in and out of lanes, right foot hardly ever straying from the accelerator. Building after building adorn these thoroughfares. The ones downtown glow neon green and blue in the night, while the others shimmer with gold and silver windows. So many buildings reaching up into the sky, so many people zooming around their bases. After 4 days in Dallas I feel like I know less about the city layout than I did before I came--my head awash with byways and buildings. Though I can say that Dallas is the following: it's big, it's noisy, it's rich, it's fast, and it's a lot of fun.

For the last 2 nights I slept in arguably the nicest apartment I've ever been in. Floor to ceiling windows with a view of a highway and the chaos that takes place on it. But tonight, 200 miles south of Dallas and 2o miles west of Austin I am sleeping not in a plush luxury apartment overlooking the SMU football stadium, but in my car. Tonight I am without the two old friends and a half dozen new ones the 220 miles to the north. I am alone in my car in an empty parking lot attached to an empty campground save for Roger, the owner and operator of the park. There is only one road, there are no buildings, and it is very, very quiet.

A female deer walked past the hood of my car while I reclined in my seat and tried to sleep. As she walked in front of me I wanted to ask her what she thought. What did she have to say of this--of Austin and Dallas and empty parking lots? And what of me leaving St. Louis? And of my car, loaded up with most of my life and me behind the wheel? What did she think of it? What did she think of me and my return to the West?

I fingered the window button to pull the glass between she and I down, removing the barrier between my car and her woods. Before the glass began to slide the sound of Roger's Winnebago door slamming startled her and she ran off into the woods and into the quiet.

Windy Point Park on Lake Travis, Austin, Texas

May 31, 2010: St. Louis (Night before the trip)

So what does a guy who majored in Political Science, minored in History, and got a Foreign Service Certificate at Saint Louis University do with his degree? How does a 1-2 month long road trip across the Southwest, up the West Coast, and across the Rockies to return to the place that has felt most like home sound to you? That's the plan all right. I remember when I told my Dad sophomore year that I was going to declare poli sci-- he told me that all the political science factories back East had all closed. 2 years, a degree, and a number of rejections from jobs I didn't really want all that badly anyway I'm choosing to shelve the "go out and get a real job" mantra for just one more, one last, summer.

The (rough) Itinerary

from St. Louis, MO

• Dallas, TX
• Austin, TX
• Albuquerque, NM
• Santa Fe, NM
• Taos, NM
• Durango, CO
• Telluride, CO
• Flagstaff, AZ
• Los Angeles, CA
• San Francisco, CA (via HWY 1)
• Eugene, OR
• Portland, OR
• Seattle, WA
• Vancouver, BC
• Salt Lake City, UT
• Boulder, CO

What to wear?

• 9 boxers/boxer briefs
• 1 Levi Strauss Jeans
• 1 corduroy pant
• 4 non-athletic shorts
• 2 athletic shorts
• 1 swimming trunks
• 8 t-shirts
• 2 long sleeved shirts
• 3 collared shirts
• 6 socks
• 3 shoes (Sperry, sandal, Nike)
• 1 Northface jacket
• 1 Light jacket

The Things He Carried

• Poetry by Pablo Neruda, Stories by TC Boyle and Raymond Carver
• Checks
• Passport
• Digital Camera
• Journal
• Computer
• Ipod
• Cell Phone (doubles as GPS)
• Toiletries, Meds, etc.
• Towel
• Sunglasses
• Cooler
• Food
• Tent
• Small propane stove
• Flashlight
• Pillow
• Sleeping bag
• Collapsible chair

How I'm Getting There

• 1997 Acura CL 2.3, black with Ohio plates, new brakes, a potentially slipping clutch, freshly changed oil, and enough miles on it to make me too nervous to put the exact number down (think north of 150k). Tom Joad listened nervously to the sounds coming from the family truck as they went West from Oklahoma, hopefully things fare better for me than what became of the Joads.
• Graduation money (thank you! to everyone who gave me a check, seriously you guys rock)
• My wonderful and supportive parents that will get a call from their son daily to let them know that he is still alive and having a kick ass time.

I've been wanting to take this trip for several months now, a blue line wiggling across the American West was (and is) the background image on my computer and got me through some tough times during my final semester. I wanted to graduate and be free of everything, free of school, free from work, no ties to anyone or anything; and now I have. There's a lot going into this trip for me. Going home. Finding home. Figuring out where I want to live next. Seeing people I thought I probably wouldn't see again. Scoping out graduate programs. And learning how much I loved St. Louis and my life here by leaving it for a while.

I know how cliche it is to take time off after school and travel, but if it's a cliche at least I can make it my own. I don't really know what to expect from this trip, but I do know that I want to get out there, to see it, to feel it. This blog will be a place for my head on this trip, and I invite you stop in periodically and see what's going on between ears and in front of my face. If I'm in your city then show me some love. If I'm not in your city, let me know you miss me (blog, twitter, facebook, email, cell). Much love guys, I'll be seeing you.

Joel

Life in my Pockets: A Story of Senior Year

I always keep them separate. One in the left, the other in the right and they are not allowed to swap. They have their homes and if they are anywhere other than the right or the left pocket then they are lost.

In my left is my past. California, Colorado, Ohio, New Orleans, Ireland, and St. Louis are all there. Family is in there—people I should call more often than I do. Lovers are in there, not many of them and those are numbers seldom punched now, but they sit there and stir me when I scroll past them. There are a handful of names that have meaning to them in my left pocket. The people who would be on the “favorites” list if I ever used it. Old bosses and references are in there too because, you know, I might need them later. Something my right pocket could interested in.

Then there are names and numbers that probably shouldn’t be there and they’re given away by not having a last name. The one namers are ghosts. You were a pretty face that night and I had to, had to, have your number. Or maybe you insisted on giving it to me. Maybe if I look at your one name long enough I can remember that party or that kiss or that joke and remember the urgency that brought you into my left pocket. I don’t know though. I can’t ever really remember.

Megan, Megan, Megan. Who are you? How did you come to be here? Above and below you are people. People that matter. People that make me laugh and smile, but you—who are you? And Aren too. What made you special? How many of you ghosts are in here? And why are you still here? I should know these things, I suppose. I put you there after all. And I can take you out just as easily, easier even. But I haven’t yet, you’re still here. I can’t delete you. You’ve made it this far, why should today be your day to disappear into the void, falling out of my left pocket and gone forever? You didn’t do anything to deserve it today. You haven’t done anything so I guess you can stay. I must like having ghosts in the phone, a comforting haunting in my left pocket.

While the left pocket carries the weight of the past the right is harder and colder. There is no nostalgia among the grooves and ridges and points in the right pocket. The metallic song that sings from my keys doesn’t remind me anyone or anywhere. There are no foggy memories of a party or washed out remembrances of job that really wasn’t that bad. Even the little Spanish bull that dangles among the starters and openers is metal and cold and sings the same song—its attempts to remind me drowned out and indistinguishable. There are no ghosts in the right pocket. It is firm and finite and functional. Key/keyhole. Door open/door closed. Home/not home. There are no mysteries in the right pocket.

Recently though, while the ghosts mingle with lovers and new friends in the left pocket, the right pocket has gotten lighter. Keys circle around the ring and are gone. While I can choose to keep my ghosts of the left pocket, there is no comfort once a key is gone. The song of the remaining keys is the same as it was before, metallic and cold. But I’m starting to notice it now. First one key, then another have circled the ring and more will soon make the trip. With each ending I lose a key. First work, then school, and next the apartment. Soon the only key left will the one with the gnarled plastic head that makes my car come to life. As the key count dwindles in the right the ghost population rises in the left.

I always keep them separate but the occupants of my right and left pocket live together now. Swapping significance and meaning from one hip to the other. The distance between them is the same. The distance between them is different. They have their homes, but I can't say the same.