We hit Breckenridge for a day of skiing:

I am smiling here, but this was on the tail end of my flu. Combine that with smoking and an altitude of 10,000 feet. Eesh. Every 1/3 of a run I’d lean on my poles and wheeze and hack up phlegm. But it was soooo worth it. I skied the Rockies for the first time, although I can barely remember it. The village reminded me of growing up in the Adirondacks – it was very much reminiscent of Lake Placid, only very yuppiized. Although that’s what I hear happened to Lake Placid, too.

So, Zoo began schooling me on pool at Tarantula’s (see center of this photo). Lots of tables, sometimes lots of cute gals, though I wasn’t in any condition to appreciate that :(

Denver is a great-looking city. I mean, ain’t it grand to have the Rockies as your neighbor?

And we had our first encounter with Croc’s. Ummmmmm, yeah. We made friends with one of the watresses and had a blast drinking with her and the other wait staff the following evening.

And after that, a jealous male friend form the wait staff almost killed hisself tearing through red lights in a drunken state because someone decided that sticking a tongue out at at him was good behavior. Score one for sobriety. Dork should have listened to us and not driven. We checked the next day and he ended up OK.

Ah, Denver. A great cooldown after 1,862 miles driven and 32 Starbucks visited

Some of the fragments that I remember right now …

… Spammer standing outside Barney’s Beanery (after rocking the house, karaoke style, of course), hammered, telling me that he might urinate himself. Fat girl groping me. Taping conversation with the agent of an actor (who shall remain unnamed) ranting about said actor.

… strippers who had book recommendations.

… the ceiling of dollar bills in Seligman, THE road.

… Spammer getting deathly ill in Santa Fe, getting groped by cougars, chili.

… Breckenridge, Crocs, Spammer watching Christy kissing me like a rabbit, “poor baby”, her friend almost killing himself running a red light.

IMO, Albequerque was pretty boring. We stopped in Old Town for lunch. Great food. Looked touristy. The outskirts of town, coming in on Route 66 looked tired… not in an interesting way. But I did stop at a roadside stand to get some nuts I had never had before. They were like pistascios in a sunflower seed shell. Good shit.

Albequerque has an Edo section (East Downtown) that is similar to Williamsburg in Brooklyn – gentrification and such. Trendy kids, cheap flats.

We stopped so Zoo could look at some apartments he had heard about in an old school. Pretty cool, if you ask me, but unfortunately, it’s a heavily gated community, and we go there at 5:15, so they office was closed. Looked cool anyway.

Santa Fe is only ’bout 2 hours north of there. Arrived around dusk.

Checked in and went out to Cowgirl for dinner. More barbeque and texas chili fries. Yum. After that, a local bar with live music. Was D-E-A-D in Santa Fe, but it was a godo time to drink. So I did! And if you’re ever at 7,500 feet (or any altitude you’re not used to…), here is a rule of thumb: DRINK ONLY 1/2 OF WHAT YOU’RE USED TO DRINKING, NOT DOUBLE.

Yup – you guessed it. A massive hangover and some embarrassing moments. Like flirting with 50-something lesbians. Hey – they were awesome! Great gals.

Anyway… next day – terrible hangover and then some nasty 24-hour flu. In bed for a day. Went our for lunch – incredible green chili stew, then back in bed. Stayed overnight – bad weather coming in and our plans to skit at Taos ruined becuase they don’t like snowboarders (Ki snowboards, I ski). One of our goals is to run up to the Aspen are and see an old friend of mine from high school… but blizzard is coming in, ole’ Spammer is sick and the west side of the Rockies is looking dangerous to drive over in February…

So far, Santa Fe has felt more right than any city, despite the fact that I am dead sick and can barely understand what’s going on. It’s full of artists and beautiful surroundings. It’s like a small town, comfy and a short run gets you to the wilderness or skiing.

After crossing into New Mexico, we saw another off-road loop opportunity and wanted to get off the highway. 

So after extricating ourselves in reverse, we stopped above the canyon for a photo opp and beef jerky. When I find the B/W scans, I’ll post those. They were awesome.

Zoo loves his beef jerky. He likes spicy beef jerky even more. Apparently, it’s low in fat and high in protein. Much better for you than potato chips. I believe he was shocked by how hot this was, though…

So, we awoke, grabbed our coffee and found out that the main highway leading back up to the interstate that runs through Red Rock State Park was closed, due to part of it falling into the canyon… the previous day. Seems like our  previous day;s excuriosn on the greatest road on earth was fortuitous! Now we just got to see less.. must come back sometime to see the majesty of those red rocks…

Simplest public voting system I have ever seen…

We were aimed towards making Seonda, AZ when we spotted a way to loop down south from Ash Fork under and come up on it so that we didn’t have to backtrack. We hate driving the same road twice and will do anything to avoid it. It simply isn’t in the road tripper spirit, or manly.

As we drove down the highway, Zoo spotted a side road the seemed to cut north of the mountains and drop straight into Sedona. I said, “where is it?”

He pointed, “there!” SHARP LEFT, boogie right, then stop. That wonderful, bullet-ridden sign and a cattle gate. I’m form the East Coast and had never seen a cattle gate. I was afraid we would fall in. No worries, we forged on into… cattle land.

Wide open spaces, black steer staring us down with clumps of yellow grass hanging from their mouths… it was idyllic. It was awesome. It was exciting. We stop and bust out the film camera. Bam. Wow. Breathless, because I knew the latent images I was burning into the silver halides would knock me over… I mean, how could they not? This was the great unknown. Now.

And this was just the beginning…

After this, the road dipped through gullies, wound around lots of enormous ranches and we passed (I swear) only seven trucks on their way out and one poor PT Cruiser loaded with a family later on… But I will get to that.

It was gorgeous. No one was around, we had a feeling (mind you, only a feeling) we would make it out of this alive when we realized that turning back would put us severely out of our way and damage our manly road tripping egos. So, despite the disappearing light and rising elevation, we pressed on. It was only supposed to be about 9 miles on rough road, and this was all dirt and gravel, baby.

That’s when the PT Cruiser passed us, loaded with parents, kids and vacation accoutrements. We gasped and sighed. Oh, God, they are not likely to make it out of here. I mean, we were looking at little gray lines on the map and there were tons of branchings on the way to where we were at this point, and they were just starting at dusk! Hopefully, they were headed out to a ranch… Bu that PT Cruiser was a little lower to the ground than our Toyota Highlander had a titch more clearance… We waved at them like the devil was chasing them. They just smiled gaily and waved back… Sigh…

As we continued on, the hills and gullies turned into mountainous terrain. We had gone from almost-desert flatlands to the mountains, and it was just plain invigorating. And we did NOT want to be out in this area in the dark. As we crested a rise and saw the cut in the mountain ahead, our hopes rose, and then the road curve to the right and switchbacked around mountainsides, no guard rail, 10′, 20′ 40′ 100′ drops around the mountains… eventually bringing us to the cut in the mountain pass.

It was dusk, and I swear as we passed through the cut onto the near-summit, a wash of moisture passed over us. We stopped the truck,hopped out and landed in mud. It was totally arid moments before and all along our path. Spread out below us was the Sedona Valley, lit up and glittering… waiting for us to come and quench out thirst on their beer, and perhaps make a pass at some locals. Squish. Cold. Wonderful.

We hopped back in the car and headed down to what we hoped was a little town called Jerome. On the edge of town, our welcome was a sign that bore this warning, “IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU ARE IN RANGE” and it was ridden with bullet holes and rode a chain-link fence with barbed wire. WTF? We boogied.

And in 100 yards, we were in the quaint, artsy town of Jerome. WTF again? We were relieved, and proceeded to drive down the windy (paved) roads into Sedona. Dropped our shite off at the hotel and went out for brisket at a local family-style BBQ joint.

We awoke late this day… it was a long night in Vegas. We drove over the Hoover Dam and to Route 40. Lunchtime found us in Seligman, AZ where we stopped at the Roadkill Cafe on good old Route 66. In fact, this was my first time touching Route 66! Moment of truth…

Inside the bar, we ate chili, added our own dollar bills to the collection and contemplated selling unattended children as salve. Hey – it was a house rule. Chili was decent, beer  was cold and our waitress was a townie from forever.

Seligman remember what it isn’t anymore…

And I wonder what the benefits of “direct dial queen beds” would be… I mean, Google doesn’t even know, except for some bike riders out there saying that this motel “still has ‘em”. Someone wanna comment and let us know? Perhaps it;s just a fancy way of saying you can call the rooms direct…

…is sometimes hard to remember. I remember the indescribably delicious steak dinner at nine, complete with beautiful being carnivores, like well-dressed velociraptors.

I believe there was other stuff after that, in fact I am sure, but I decided to combat by hangover with hair of the dog, so it remains fuzzy memories rounded at the edges.

Zoo suggested I write out my goals for life. It was a good exercise, even if I didn’t complete it at that point – it was important to start thinking about it in those terms.

Los Angeles had done me well.

Zoo drove the whole way to Vegas… I was in no shape to drive. Now is a good time to mention that he only drinks top-shelf tequila gimlets or shots and grande sugar-free vanilla mistos. I may be wrong about his exact coffee drink, but it’s something like that. And, we made our Starbucks quota by stopping for his fuel often. I’m a Grande Mocha man, myself, but switched up and got some regular drip once in a while. Enough about coffee…

As previously mentioned, we drove out of LA northeast to Vegas through the Mojave desert. Stopped for Jack in the Box in Barstow. Mmmm. First time at the Jack. Got me a hangover-killing burger and crappy onion rings. Filled up on gas at 7-Eleven and drove on into the desert.

Wow… Outside of being in Vegas 17 times in my life, I’ve never been IN the desert. I was drooling. How fucking cool. Ow, my head…

Zoo telling me that he is surrounded by tarantula holes… getting skittish.

I brought five cameras with me, plus a battery-powered flash pack with a softbox and a tripod. What a getup. Glad I focused on enjoying the experience as opposed to actually using all of that gear… (hehe).

And there was traffic. We fought through an 11-mile backup because of an accident by the NV border and flew into Nevada. Why do they have casinos so far away from Vegas? Is it for the elderly? They are so silly, standing alone out there ont he highway…

And that part sucked

But we skipped going to a Ghost Town
 

And I must admit that I had a headache/hangover that lasted until we sat down for dinner in Vegas. Fortunately, it was not here:

The man in action:

Spammer says: Someone should have told me the back of my head looked like a careworn teddy bear.

Storm in the distance:

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I look like a deer in the headlights, right?

So we headed out for a bit of LA sunshine. I got a haircut. You know, fresh beginnings and all that crap. Then eventually we made our way over to West Hollywood and eat a fantastic dinner, complete with margaritas delicious-o at Spanish Kitchen on North LaCinenega. Highly recommended if you’re going to head over to the super-secret bar after that.

So, we walked uphill to that bar we won’t mention because it’s so awesome and we don’t want to share… but we’ll post a photo anyway and if you figure it out, then go enjoy yourself.

I was deliberately ready to get trashed. I admit it. I needed to forget a whole bunch of things and I did get trashed… But while running headlong down this path, we met some so-LA people. I was tossing back Hoegaardens and Zoo was drinking his Tequila Gimlets. I think we was keeping 2 for 1 in front me, swell gut that he is :)

We sat at  long table. I slapped down my audio recorder and camera. I turned on the recorder and after a few minutes of chatting with our neighbors, this fella who had no neck fornwed and asked if I was recording the conversation. I relied, “yes.”

“Why are you recording it? Are you a reporter?”

“Yes, of a sort,” I replied. “I am reporting on my life.”

He grabs the recorder, starts rattling off his name, his agent’s name and the fact that this was an unauthorized recording. No joke – it’s LA. Passes it down the table and three or four more people do the same. He hands it back to me and says, “let’s party, man.” And we did. Turns out he and his gal were from the same area of NJ I was living in at the time.

So our table was decorated well…

And our neighbors were a hoot. LA hoot, that is..

Zoo made some friends (I was so gone at this point, I am surprised I could aim a camera…)

(thinks that guy… Yes!!!! It didn’t!)

I love you, too, LA.

Seems like everyone was looking for a salt lick that night.