CKB – Page 12 – Quartz City

Take the highway that’s the best

After hours and hours of relative nothing, I have to admit that it’s pretty exciting to round a corner and see this in front of you. I forgot to even notice that I crossed the Mississippi (which I always get excited about). I’m a dork.

14 Degrees Of New Jersey

Prior to today, the coldest temperature I’ve ever had to deal with was 19 degrees in a Manassa, Colorado winter where my truck froze solid and I couldn’t open the doors. It was 14 out today in Montclair, but once past the initial “fuckinghellitscold,” I just dealt with it. Everyone else was dealing with it anyway, so stop whining…

And into NYC

The weather held out all the way through except for the last hundred miles in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Apparently it got so cold overnight, that when I hit the front windshield with the defroster, the small crack (that was supposedly fixed) reopened and shot across two-thirds of the glass with a loud “BANG.” At least I got here and it’s not like I have to drive much anymore.

Eastbound VII

Somewhere near the TX/LA border on I-10

Near as I can tell, the entire state of Tennessee is filled with pyromaniacs. There’s no way that many fireworks stands can stay in business. These two were directly across the street from each other (junction of I-24 and I-59)

Obligatory World’s Fair site visit. No wig shops though. At least finding a motel room was easy.

Eastbound VI – New Orleans

New Orleans was the last major American city I hadn’t been to, and I suppose it’s a little anti-climatic. Unless you smoke, drink, gamble, or go to strip clubs there’s not much to do except to look at the architecture. Overall, it reminds me of Las Vegas in the 1980s – there’s a central core where the tourists go to raise hell, a small section of upper class neighborhoods, new exurbs outside of town, and abject poverty filling in everything else.

Of course, being a geek from California my gut reaction was “hey, it looks just like New Orleans Square in Disneyland.”

Grand Isle, LA

Grand Isle, LA… Southeastern-most point of the trip.

I ran across Boudreau & Thibodeau’s diner in Houma completely by accident and it turned out to be one of the best meals of the trip. Miles better than what I was finding in New Orleans even.

Eastbound III – Roswell NM

The signs welcoming you to town indicate that it’s “the dairy capital of New Mexico”, but Roswell has clearly hitched it’s tourist dollar wagon to the rapidly stale alien kitch zeitgeist. The International UFO Museum is the King Hell tourist trap in town but the knockoff alien “museums” surrounding it are much more interesting. Apparently, all you need is an alien “grey” dummy and a pickup truck full of old computer parts, circuit boards, and industrial contaminants. Correct spelling is not necessary but the savvier museums have free Wi-Fi. I especially like the Apple StyleWriter printer reconstituted as an alien stasis machine. The rest of town is your usual assortment of southwest blight with a Wal-Mart the size of an aircraft hangar and little else to do except drink and listen to metal.