Author Archives: Jerry

Night in Bozeman

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It is late here, ridiculously late almost to the point of being early. It is raining outside.

In the distance is a siren, slowly fading in the distance, but taking a long time to go. They can’t be trying too hard to go fast or they would be long gone by now. There is thunder. Rumbly distant thunder and the sharper intermediate distance sort. The thunder takes a long time to build and just as long to fade away. Cool air is rushing through the window – maybe I should close it before John’s electronics get wet.

But the smell, the smell. John just passed through, so I’m off the hook for the safety of his toys.

Went to do some bar writing tonight, and that went well. I was at a look-at-the-cieling point when a guy at the next table asked, “You writing the great american novel over there?” I was working on The Fish, so I said, “I can’t say whether it’s going to be great or not.” One of the girls at that table was very excited – she’s studying history and literature so she can write historical fiction. I ended up turned around and talking to her about the process of keeping your brain out of the way while you write. Finally I joined their table. There were three women and two men. As soon as I sat down, the two men left. Cowabunga.

It turns out I was in the midst of a low-key bachelorette party. The one studying to be a writer had had a quickie marriage with her boyfriend who was in the Air Force a couple years back, but they finally had the chance to do it right. (“Do it” is a euphemism for getting married.) I was sharing the table with the bride, the mother-in-law, and the sister-in-law. After the menfolk left I kind of felt like I was crashing the party, but they were all drunk enough to welcome me. For the most part they talked books, specifically chick-porn, and I listened and learned. I managed to participate when the conversation took a wild swing to Homer via that movie Troy. Apparently the wrong people survive in the movie. LitBride was quite in agreement when I said “The story’s been working for people for thousands of years; there’s not much point in changing it now.” LitBride and I found a great deal of common ground over the thesis that most of the best stories do not have happy endings.

Had I worked at it, I might have gotten somewhere with Mother-in-Law of LitBride. She made a point of mentioning that she was single, and she seemed fun and happy. (*BAM!* a nice sharp thunderclap.) Let’s face it. I’m not interested in working at anything like that right now. Better to walk away “the most interesting guy they met that night”, walk away clean, walk away before anything got complicated. Just Walk away. When closing time was called, MiLoLB was extra-friendly, but they were all together and nothing was going to change that. I’m just a shadow here anyway.

Thanks!

Jer’s Novel Writer Milestone

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I actually learned this a while back, but hadn’t bothered telling you guys. Derek Gilbert used my software to write his novel, The God Conspiracy. When it comes out, I expect you all to flood Amazon with orders and post reviews like, “Wow! He must have used one hell of a word processor to write a story like that!”

You can find more info here. In my limited correspondence with the author he strikes me as an articulate and thoughtful guy, so I have high hopes for his work. It appears Derek’s wife has quite a few books out already.

I can’t be certain, but I believe every novel ever written using Jer’s Novel Writer that has been submitted to a publisher has been accepted. What other word processor can say that?

Thanks!

Something to notice

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You’ll hear nothing of my most magnificent trip to Yellowstone today. I’m going back and building something bigger. I’m going to try to step up and photograph the place well, and write something new.

In the meantime, I have added a link in over there to the right – Baghdad Burning. It is a very personal story of life in the ancient city by an articulate and passionate individual. Check it out.

Addendum: I’m coming up empty for the next poll. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Writing in Bozeman

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Been getting a lot done here in Bozeman, mostly fixing bugs in Jer’s Novel Writer and going over The Monster Within. The thing’s going to come out to about 600 pages, I think.

I’ve spent a lot if time in this chair, with my laptop in my lap of all places, and my ass getting sweaty. It’s a well-designed chair, comfy and all, but it’s leather and after a few hours things get damp down there. I need to be going to bars more, sitting on wood, drinking beer pulled from taps, and chatting up waitresses. Instead I have been content most of the time to sit here with a sweaty ass.

Speaking of bars, I haven’t done any writing there, but I have certainly spent plenty of time at the Aleworks. John is a bit more than simply a regular there. On the day I came into town he waited for me and after I had hung out for a while it was time to go for a beer and a bite to eat. We got down there and the girl at the door said, “John! We were worried about you.” OK, I think he qualifies as a fly. We’ve been back almost every day since. I would guess that John has more than half his meals there.

That’s all for today. The novel needs more work, and the TV ate my brain.

Thanks!

Reusable Space Vehicle, part 2

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After watching SpaceShipOne on TV this morning, I was thinking again about my electromagnetic double-barreled space gun which captures the energy of a returning craft to launch the next one. Obviously, since a hotel on the moon is my ultimate goal, the gun needs to be able to fire its projectile at what is for all intents and purposes escape velocity, plus extra for the loss due to drag the first few miles of flight. Since the acceleration would have to be moderate in deference to my squishy guests, I knew that to get up to that kind of speed would take a launcher several kilometers long.

But how long? Well, this morning I did the math. Escape velocity is about 11100 m/s. We’ll shoot for 12000 m/s to give us a little cushion. Plus, it makes the math easier. OK, the first warning bells started to go off when I realized that in the last second of the launch the capsule would need almost 12 Km of launcher. Uh, oh.

Get out your shovels, boys and girls, because to get the capsule up to target velocity at the only moderately-stressful acceleration of 40m/s/s would take 300 seconds, or five minutes. In that time the capsule would travel 1800 Km, almost 1/4 of the diameter of the Earth.

The electrogun could still be used for an initial boost for a ship which also carried its own rockets to allow it to claw up out of the gravity well, and indeed several people have already thought of that. (I have not seen any design that recaptures the energy on return, however.) A gun with much greater acceleration and a shorter barrel could also be used to launch non-squishy payloads.

It’s also worth noting that it would take only a tiny fraction of the energy to needed achieve escape velocity to match the feat of SpaceShipOne, so I’ll still happily accept any large donations to make my dream a reality. In the meantime, I’m back to rooting for the Space Elevator boys to deliver my hotel guests.

Thanks!

Glacier

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reflected mountains You’ve probably already seen the pictures, but while I am happy with several of the pics for what they are I look at them and I know I utterly failed to capture what I saw in Glacier National Park. Some times I just put the camera away and pulled to the side of the road, breathless. Just me among mountains that defied the sky, air so clean it hurt, and the sound of birds singing their tiny lungs out.

And lots of cars.

I was on a thin, crumbling ribbon of a road, riding the shoulders of mountains into the pure blue sky. On my right the world fell away; on the left cold streams danced down the rocks, splashing the road and sometimes me with a sweet mountain kiss.

There was construction on parts of the road, places where workers were being lowered over the edge in cages to do I-don’t-want-to-know-what to keep the road from sliding down the mountain. At those places there was only room for one lane of cars, so the uphill and downhill traffic would take turns waiting. Inevitably, the car waiting at the front of the line was controlled by a terrified driver not willing to go up the hill at any greater than walking speed, slowing further when forced by oncoming traffic to occupy their own lane. Thus, crawling up the hill were long, creeping trains of cars. I wasn’t in a hurry, but I had better things to look at than the ass of some SUV.

Obligatory_dead_tree_shot.jpg After one construction stop, there was a scenic pullout just past. I broke away from my train and parked. I found some food left over from my my shopping trip in Columbia Falls and sat on the low rock wall that was there to keep cars from taking the shortcut down. Dangling my feet over the edge into space I ate my apple. The train passed, and most of the others at the pullout moved on soon after. Two Harley riders and I hung out for a while, I having a snack while they peeled off a layer of their riding gear. It was quiet – up here there weren’t even many songbirds. There was the sound of wind and the sound of my apple crunching between my teeth. It was a good apple.

Finally I could see the next train pulling up the hill toward me. I climbed back into my machine and pulled back onto the road before it reached me, with nothing ahead but empty road – until the next pullout, where someone else was doing the same thing I was. Someone who was terrified driving up the hill, creeping along, pushing well over into the oncoming lane, away from the edge, slowing down even further when forced to occupy their own space. Best laid plans and all that. Oh, well.

At Logan Pass there is a visitor center which is a nice place to get up and walk around, but not such a great place to learn about the park. There are a few stuffed animals and things, but nothing about the history or the geology of the area. That information is on signs at the pullouts along the drive. Stop and read them. It’s good stuff.

So, Glacier National Park. Go. Take snacks. Relax, and enjoy a slow ride.

Thanks!

Odd and Ends from Canada

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Don’t ask me to be chronological here. All right, you can ask, but you’re just asking for disappointment.

The sign that read, “Trucks please do not use engine retarding brakes in urban areas.” In this case the urban area was at most ten buildings.

The time I was a capital-F Foreigner. After a little while at Earl’s in Edmonton (“We’re pricey, but we’re trendy!”), I decided that perhaps a quiet brewski or six without the silliness of a manufactured drinking environment was in order. Had there been a real bar within walking distance, that would have been a better choice, but you take what you can get. It was raining and windy and downright nasty, but there was a convenience store nearby so no problem. I dashed through the nasty weather in shorts to the Husky store to grab myself a sixer. There was nothing in the cooler, but I thought I’d better ask. “Do you have beer here?” She looked at me like I’d grown another head. “Beer? No, eh. Beer?” She didn’t have any idea where someone could come up with the notion that one would go to a convenience store to buy beer. She turned to the other guy working and said, “Is the liquor store over there going to be open today?” It was Sunday. In the end, there was no six-pack for Jerry, I just got a funny look and perhaps I provided a story for some Canadians.

A word I made up on the road from Calgary to Edmonton: Constructivitis

In Naksup I stopped by a little record store with a fairly eclectic assortment of used CD’s. What was most impressive was the amount of vinyl for sale. I was hoping to find some good Irish music and one of the first CD’s I picked up was exactly what I was looking for. It was a collection by various artists, but most of the tracks are really good, freighted with sweet sadness. That’s what got me thinking about that Solitude episode back there. (I’m going to go back and redo that one soon; I’m not to happy with how it turned out.) Listening to Irish music alone is much like drinking alone.

Thanks!

The Sportsman Club

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Location:The Sportsman Club, Columbia Falls, Montana (map)
Miles: 5606.9

Safely and legitimately back in the US, with a tankful of crappy gas I bought in Bonner’s Ferry, I steered east toward Glacier National Park. Highway 2 is in pretty good shape up there, and now that I’m keeping the daily dose of driving down, I am better able to appreciate the beauty of the land once more. Top down, sunscreen on, tunes playing louder than was strictly necessary (Desolation Boulevard by Sweet – remember them?), I was making time.

I missed the sign welcoming me to Montana; I was trying to read all the different speed limits to make sure I didn’t get caught in the fine print. The speed limit is different based on what you’re driving and the time of day. Speed limits are not based on the size or quality of the road. I know of no other place that allows you to drive 70 on little twisty two-laners. Montana’s approach to speed law is more or less to let people drive as fast as they want, and point out along the way where people have died. There are lots of little white crosses along each side of Highway 2, sometimes in bunches. I wonder if people drive differently as the number of death markers increases. The locals have probably stopped seeing them.

I had planned to stop in Kalispell, but all the hotels were the upmarket Holiday Inn sort of thing or were crappy-looking. I would have accepted crappy if there were a interesting-looking bar nearby. There were lots of casino/lounge combinations, but I wasn’t up for that kind of thing. The sound of video poker and slot machines is not what I’m looking for when I want to relax with a beer and write. I even stopped at one crappy-looking hotel that didn’t look so bad from the road, but I couldn’t find anyone to give money to. I didn’t try that hard. Onward, then, toward Glacier.

Columbia Falls is a nice little town. I found a room that was only marginally overpriced and asked about a bar while registering. After some consultation the hotel staff recommended The Sportsman Club. It was on the main drag and I found it easily. I didn’t take any technology with me; I decided to try some conversation with the bartender and to just relax for a while.

I wasn’t too surprised when I discovered myself in a bar with both kinds of beer – Bud and Bud Light. I had a Bud and my first pleasant surprise was that the beer was pretty cheap. My Cheap Bastard genes overcame my Beer Snob genes and it became a Budweiser night. The NBA finals were on that night, and the bartender told anyone who asked, “We’ll have that on all the TV’s except this one right here. I’m watching baseball.” The bartender and I got along great, and I spent the rest of my time on the fringes of the conversations around me.

Happy hour started. Two drinks for the price of one. Patrons would walk in and Helen the bartender (her name probably wasn’t Helen, but that’s the best guess I can come up with now), would set up two glasses and pour a pair of cocktails. Three guys came in from fishing, and she immediately set to work on six glasses of booze.

At one point an attractive woman settled onto the stool next to mine. Two drinks appeared in front of her almost immediately. She didn’t seem to be in a conversational mood, so I just nursed my beer and wished the fishermen would take at least a short break between cigarettes. I talked baseball with the bartender. Two younger woman came in and once they had a drink in each fist they started talking to the woman next to me. The bitter, angry girl turned out to be the woman’s daughter. At that point my surreptitious ring check was out of curiosity more than any personal interest in the woman. Ring finger empty. The two girls went down to the end of the bar and the woman ordered another pair of drinks.

Alcohol in quantity attracts a pretty good crowd, and soon the place is getting pretty loud and my eyes are starting to burn from the smoke. I was still having fun talking to people, however (except the guy who refused to speak with me after I told him I was from San Diego) so I ordered another beer. During that beer I learned that a happy, scruffy drunk around the corner of the bar was the woman’s husband. He was drunk, she was drunk, the daughter was getting rapidly plastered and increasingly angry. One big happy family. About to get happier – the woman told me her daughter was pregnant.

Happy hour ended after – get this – an hour. People stayed in the bar, however, having got their drinking momentum going. I chatted a while longer but it was time to get out of there. I went up the street to the supermarket and got supper, then headed back to the hotel. I was so throughly impregnated with smoke that I took a shower when I got back to the room. My clothes reeked so badly that after I got out of the shower you would never have guessed that I was in a non-smoking room. Thick smoke aside, however, it was an interesting and educational evening at the Sportsman Club.

Thanks!

Customs

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Heading out of Creston, I grabbed a deli sandwich and a coke at a convenience store and headed south. It’s not far from Creston to the border, and I was there before I knew it.

Was it the beard? Was it the Deli sandwich? I spent quite a while in customs. I pulled up to the window, happy to see that there was no line. The customs agent started very politely asking me where I had been and what I was bringing back with me, and asked me for ID. I pulled the shirt from the passenger seat where I had had my passport. It wasn’t there. Hm. I pushed the winnebaggo out of the way to check the seat for the passport. Not there. Uh oh. Wait a minute.. it’s in my pocket. Whew.

The sandwich has beef in it. It’s not coming into the US. I’m hungry. “Is there a place I can sit and eat my sandwich here?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said. “park over there and bring your sandwich into the office. You can eat it while we search your car.” So there it was. I was in secondary. I wasn’t in a hurry; I knew that getting searched was likely. I suppose if I was a customs agent I would send people like me into secondary. This way I got to eat my sandwich as well.

In the office another guy gave me a more intensive grilling. Where I’d been, and so on, then a very long list of questions about what I was bringing back with me. In the end, the sum total of the things I had purchased in Canada and brought back over the border: a deli sandwich and a coke. “No souvenirs?” No. “Nothing?” No. Finally I’m allowed to sit and eat my sandwich. Mmmm. Good sandwich.

From where I sit I can see the agent outside, pulling the bags out of my car. Out comes the bag with everything from my bathroom. (I’ll do an episode on packing soon). I hear the echo of the customs officer: “Any prescription drugs?” “No,” I had said. But what if there were prescription drugs in there? At such times, the most inconsequential worries are somehow magically magnified. Like they’re not going to let me back into the country if there was some old penicillin I missed when I was throwing everything away. so I was nervous for no reason. But did they notice I was nervous? Was that suspicious?

The woman searching the car moved on to another bag, and I returned to my sandwich. Finally she was done, but I had to stay for a while longer. They were running some kind of check on me in one of those new-fangled databases of subversives and no-goodnicks.

Lighter by one sandwich, I pulled out of customs and into northern Idaho. Now I’m back in the good ‘ol USA, and it’s nice to be here.

Thanks!

Pepper’s

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Location:Pepper’s Pub, Creston, Canada
Miles: 5400.2

Just another drive through beautiful country amid scattered showers. I thought about stopping in Nelson, but I was in the mood to travel, and Nelson seemed too “shoppy” for my mood. I drove the downtown and stopped at the Civic Pub for lunch – burger and a beer for $5. The burger was excellent.

Pepper’s is the lounge attached to the cheap-ass motel I’m staying in tonight. Across the valley the rain is falling on the hills, lit from behind by the setting sun. There are railroad tracks paralleling the highway outside the window, but no trains while I’ve been sitting here. The bartender when I came in, Diana, turned forty today. She must not be too bothered by that if she told me. She stayed for a while after her shift drinking with two girlfriends who I assumed were a couple until I heard them talking about their kids. I guess that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not a couple.

The new bartender is very pretty, friendly, and a fan of Monster Garage. Don’t get too excited, boys; I’m pretty sure she’s taken.

Thanks!

The Flavors of Solitude

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Solitude is not simply the state of being alone, it implies active insulation from the rest of humanity. Solitude has many flavors, characterized by what is avoided and what is missed.

The taste of solitude changes dramatically depending on whether one is stationary or in motion, isolated or ostracized. When you are stationary you can form a connection to a place, even if it’s just a rock in a meadow, and even if it’s just for a short time. You are somewhere, and it is a place that is yours. Sitting alone at your spot in a bar or in your comfy chair, solitude at rest is peaceful, a shelter.

Solitude in motion has a different flavor. No connectedness, no restfulness. There is a drive behind the motion, something disquieting that prevents rest, either a quest for something unattainable or a flight from something. The mind is at work, gnawing at itself, yearning for the unattainable. The only thing harder than moving on is staying put, for motion becomes the mechanism that enforces solitude. By never staying too long in one place, no attachments can form.

I heard an interview of a guy who spent five years riding freight cars, not knowing how he was going to eat that night when he woke up in the morning. He found a way to express his thoughts as he drifted, and published a book of poetry that made quite a bit of money. In the interview he said something like “I’ve been settled down for a few months now, but I’m going back out there soon. I feel the need growing in me.” Unasked, unanswered, unanswerable, is where the need comes from. Is life in mainstream society smothering him, threatening him, or just disappointing him?

Solitude is the state that allows the mind to turn inward. Free from the obligations that come with all human interaction, you can simply think. This is the essence and the allure of solitude, and also its curse. Free to think, there is no avoiding thought. ‘Curling up with a book’ is not solitude, even though you’re not with other people. You’re with a book. Solitude is the state when thoughts are free and unfettered, and consciously you have very little control over them. It is the state of complete personal honesty, when the thoughts happen that you will never tell anyone else. It is the time we dance with madness.

Artists are the ones with the courage to tell us what they saw there.

Thanks!

Lists

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Wildlife I’ve seen, in no particular order:

  • Bear
  • Deer
  • Birds of all categories, notably eagles, osprey, geese, and a little guy that was picking the bugs out of my radiator
  • Big horn sheep
  • Bobcat…? It was large, and had a bobbed tail, but it was pure black. Do bobcats come that way? (And yes, it crossed my path)
  • People
  • Squirrels (both suicidal and non-)
  • Mountain Goat
  • Coyote
  • Bison
  • Elk

Animals in captivity:

  • Sheep
  • Caribou
  • Horses
  • Cattle
  • Llamas (could have been alpacas)
  • Ostriches
  • One donkey
  • People

I debated putting people in the lists, but I’m pretty sure whoever was in that moose suit in Weed felt like a captive animal. Conversely, some of the bikers I’ve seen certainly qualify as wildlife. Of all the animals in captivity, I think the horses were making the best of it. I caught them having fun on several occasions.

Thanks!

Wing Night

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Now I’m at the hotel bar. It’s a good one. A whole bunch of guys just came in, and they have a $100 bet that one of them can’t eat 30 suicide wings in 30 minutes. You know I’m sticking around for that. Usually there’s a cover charge for a show like this. The victim is drinking a big glass of milk right now. There was a brief scare that the kitchen didn’t have enough wings, but we’re go now. I have an excellent view.

3 wings in, he’s sweating. He’s doing a diligent job wiping the sauce off his lips. He’s trying to pick up speed without success. He’s got another milk. He’s using his fingers to tear the meat off the bones to save his lips, but before long his fingers are going to start burning. He doesn’t know that. He’s Canadian. My Greek Salad is so cool and refreshing. He’s starting to lose focus, but he’s still going. Deep breath, another bite.

He’s nodding now – He’s in a groove. The pain has stopped getting worse.

He’s starting to wipe the sauce off his fingers. My camera’s back in the room. Dammit.

Posture change. He’s back in his chair now, not forward over the table. His friends, who stand to lose a hundred bucks if he succeeds, are completely behind him now. Shoulder massages, a new five-minute “bump” period after the 30 minutes have expired. They’re checking his pace against the clock, giving him advice. Mostly, “eat faster.” He’s falling behind. The call has gone out for more napkins. Not from the eater; he hasn’t said a word for fifteen minutes.

He quit. There are 14 left. 16 is pretty damn good. The waitress says 16 is a house record, but I doubt she really knows. The dude is hurting, but he’s recovering already.

He’s thinking about going for it! 5 minutes, 14 suicide wings. He’s doing it! “Better get a bucket,” I advised the crowd. “Don’t bother chewing,” a friend advises. What a way to choke to death. Two minutes, one wing. He’s a black guy, but he’s looking green. He’s chewing. Chewing. He’s not looking good.

“Where’s the bathroom?” he asked, and got up quickly. His buddy followed with the camera. Buddy returns. “He had the door closed,” Buddy says, “but I got the audio.”

Now the remaining wings are being passed around. “I’m not eating one because I’m not a dumbshit,” the guy at the end of the table said. Someone just found “Fire Down Below” by Bob Seger on the jukebox.

Thus we learn the price of hubris. He has returned from his de-winging and is having another milk. It seems last night he had first said he could eat fifteen, but had escalated to 30 to get a bigger bet. Instinctively he knew his limit, but he had to push it. He’s smiling now, but he went through an hour of hell to be $100 poorer.

Thanks!

The Perfect Road

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Location: Nakusp, Canada
Miles: 5235.2

I’m making my way back down to the states now, but I’m taking the scenic route, as usual. By scenic, I suppose I mean indirect, since all the routes seem to be scenic. As I studied the map for today’s leg, I had to choose between a larger road marked as a scenic route and a smaller road with no such blessing. I took the smaller road and am really happy I did. I took it because it had a ferry at one point. I knew the ferry would be nothing fancy, but it was a nice change of pace.

Let me tell you, boys and girls, that Highway 6 from Vernon to Nakusp is a great bit of driving. It probably isn’t marked as scenic because it’s too small to be noticed, but it is beautiful, and curvy, and not busy. The pavement is rough in some places, but I was happy to put up with that. I had breakfast at Waddy’s in Vernon, eggs over easy done almost perfectly, bacon, toast, and hashbrowns for five bucks, including coffee or tea. Good deal. I feel good as I find the highway and continue east.

I’m getting better at reading the isolated clouds that wander around dumping rain, and after only a few miles I decided to put the top up. I patted myself on the back as I passed through Lumby and the rain started to fall. There were signs up all over town for the “Lumby Days” celebration this weekend, which probably explains why it was raining there.

My atlas shows the road out of there as being pretty straight, but happily it is not. As the rain began to fall harder, the road became curvier, and the slopes steeper. I recognized the big, fat drops that presaged a hail storm back in New Mexico, and sure enough the drops started leaving little grains of ice behind on my windshield. I slowed down further, hoping that no one would run into me from behind, and glad that I wasn’t one of the motorcyclists I saw passing the other direction.

Then the sky opened up, flinging abuse at me like I was back in junior high. The roar of the ice crashing against my windshield drowned out my music and thunderclaps from even the closest lightning strikes. The road was immediately coated with icy spheres. I was driving on ball bearings made of ice with badly worn tires. Not good. Put an infant in the car and you have a tire commercial. I just wanted off the road. Twice the car skated dangerously, once taking me into the oncoming lane while I pointed the front wheels the right direction and prayed.

Finally I found a place to pull off, but someone else was already in it. There was no way I was going to stop if I couldn’t get all the way off the road. Solid rock was on my right, and I really couldn’t see what was down the slope on the other side. I crept on. After a couple more miles I found a spot to pull over, but by then the hail was letting up, yielding to ordinary, small-drop rain. Not far past that was a little restaurant with several motorcycles parked outside. As my adrenaline levels returned to normal I began to appreciate the road again.

The sun came out, and the wet road began to form its own fog bank, which I failed to photograph well. Once the top had time to dry out I pulled over next to a deer and went into sunshine configuration. When I stepped out of the car I was a little wobbly. I walked around a bit, trying to see the river I could hear far below me, but it was lost in the dense foliage. The deer watched me warily but was not going to give up whatever choice grazing it had found. No other cars passed while I stayed there.

crossing%20the%20lake.jpg Ten miles down the road I had to put the top back up. So much for my ability to read the clouds. Don’t like the weather? Drive a mile. The wet road and my recent brushes with four-wheel drift made me cautious, so I didn’t get the most out of the road, but it is a very, very good road. The ferry was on the far side of the lake when I pulled up, which allowed me to walk around for a bit in the gentle rain. I had a chance to read that I would soon be passing through Osprey Country, and that there would be nests on many of the power poles. I took some pictures, experimenting with different settings on the camera, then when the rain picked up I went back and put King Crimson on the stereo and studied my map. I decided that Nelson looked like a good place to shoot for.

When I got here I changed my mind. Nelson can wait until tomorrow. Nakusp is beautiful. I drove down the main drag and decided I had gone far enough this day. With plenty of daylight left I had time to walk along the lake, which is a long, well-cared-for park, with gardens lovingly tended. Unusual, I think, for a town this size. All along the walk are benches dedicated to the people who first settled here 100 years ago.

The lake is very low, I noticed. If it gets any lower the boat dock is in trouble. That can’t be good at the peak of runoff.

Now I’m at the hotel bar. It’s a good one.

Thanks!

Desert City Downpour

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Location: Duffy’s Pub, Kamloops, Canada
Miles: ????

Drove back through Prince George (it looked like all the alternate roads were unpaved), stopping there for breakfast. There was a newsletter at the front counter that looked similar to the one I had read in Mcbride, so I picked it up. It was the first issue ever and, alas, the quality of the writing was really poor. The publisher did seem sincere about supporting the rural communities around Prince George, though, so good luck to them. The standards will probably improve with practice. That’s what I hope happens for me, at any rate.

On the way out of town I stopped off for a brief visit at the fairly lame farmer’s market, then drove up the highway I had first come into town on. Now that I wasn’t going to Alaska, I reminded myself to slow down and take advantage of photo ops, like I had earlier in the trip. “Get out of the car, Jerry,” I reminded myself often. It helped. “Stop the narrator in your head, writing about things as you see them,” is tougher. I’ll start with getting out of the car.

I took some pictures, but I’m starting to feel limited by my little camera. It’s a good camera for what it is, but I wish I had multiple lenses now. And the colors see washed out to me. I’m starting to experiment with adjusting the white balance (or something like that) to see if the colors are more vivid. Anyone know what other adjustments I should look at? I also want more pixels, but then don’t we all? What would be cool is a camera that hooks up to the computer while shooting to use the computer monitor as a super high resolution viewscreen. Not always practical, but when feasible it would be really nice.

Passed 50,000 miles on the cars odometer, passed 5,000 miles on the trip staring at the ass of a lumbering truck, and at 50140 miles my road trip was 5014, 10% of the total miles on my car.

Went through some more pretty country, then at Cache Creek things abruptly turned arid. I cruised into kamloops hoping to perhaps find a cheap place with Internet. I had passed a couple up north earlier in the day, so I had hope for the relatively large town. I didn’t look that hard for high-speed, though; I was willing to settle for working dialup.

The pimple-faced kid working the desk of the hotel where I stayed recommended a bar called Duffy’s, a short walk from the hotel. You know you’re in the boonies when you meet a pimple-faced kid who doesn’t know crap about computers, but his bar recommendation was a good one. Here I sit at Duffy’s now, sipping a good Pale Ale which purely by chance is on special tonight, watching the driving rain outside. (“Desert City my ass,” I told the waitress. “We need the rain,” she said.) I can’t take my laptop home in this weather. Looks like I’m stuck here until the rain lets up. Curses!

I think I scared the waitress. She asked me, “You want another beer, honey?” and we had gotten accustomed to each other, so I said, “Certainly, Dear.” I think I put more growl into the “dear” than I intended. It was a while before she came back and after that she called me “guy.”

Thanks!