This morning brought a daylight version of the tour, with stops by the Deseret Industries Thrift Store, Sam Weller’s Book Store, and the Utah State Fair (two hours before it opened). Then I was treated to a look at the surprisingly cruisy parks in Sugar House and Memory Grove. Lunch at Hire’s Big H, with carhop and tray.

  

I could go into more detail about Salt Lake City and the “Mormon factor” and all, and I will…later…Right now I’m fantasizing about Beck on MTV and trying not to think about tomorrow’s horrendous drive to Denver.

Thursday night in Salt Lake brought a trip to Brick’s, the happenin’ bar in town. The scenery was nice, if untouchable; it was all-age rave children night. Nice bar…they serve double-size Rolling Rocks. I’m not sure if this is a good thing.

  

A few more random notes on Salt Lake City:

It was similarly unnerving to note the similarities between Eric (my host) and myself. That’s another story entirely.

Salt Lake is a definite cute boy magnet. Maybe that caffeine-avoidance and all that clean living have some benefits. Everyone looks really healthy here.

  

It’s frightening how much this place reminds me of North Carolina. Substitute “Southern Baptist” for “LDS” and you immediately understand both the religion and the politics, not to mention the oppression. Also, Greensboro and Salt Lake are physically similar in a number of ways; both are about the same size and both seem to have a huge preoccupation with making sure that everything is pretty and inoffensive and appears free of any type of conflict.

 

All in all, I had a strangely good time in Salt Lake City. My good experience here made me somewhat less apprehensive about the mysteries of the remainder of the trip.

Boy, is Nevada a boring state to drive across. I’d forgotten just how monotonous it actually is. The scenery is really interesting for the first fifteen minutes. And then it never changes. Fortunately the speed limit’s 75, and there are some interesting towns to drive through if you leave the freeway.

 

Winnemucca was as exciting as ever. Lunch in Battle Mountain was a joy; imagine eating at McDonald’s not because you want to or because you’re trying to save money, but because THERE’S NOTHING ELSE THERE!

All this scenery and solitude and flat-out boredom gave me time to ponder many of my life’s mysteries and challenges, but discussion of that will have to wait.

As if to serve as a warning about the repression inherent to Utah, the speed limit inexplicably drops to 55 at the state line, and continues at this glacial pace for about ten miles of nonexistent road construction. A mild gas trauma greeted me as I hit Salt Lake City; I’ve never seen any city with so few gas stations on the outskirts. I was near panic, but I survived.

  

Once in the city, though, and once settled at Eric’s place, I began feeling more comfortable with the surroundings. This was a pretty big relief, as this was the first of many nights to come sleeping in the home of someone I’ve never met. Points to Eric for pulling off a potentially uncomfortable scenario and making me feel right at home.

Dinner at Bill and Nada’s Diner — a truly wonderful place with chicken-fried steak, chocolate cream pie and individual juke boxes at each table — was followed by a tour of neon Salt Lake by night and a couple of beers at the Deer Hunter, where disco never died.

Bags packed. Laptop configured. Email answered. Winnemucca tonight!

Monday was laundry day, which was a more daunting task than one might imagine. Afterward, there was another last minute Target run with Sarah, at which point she provided me with a really cool book for the trip (review forthcoming).

The rest of the day was spent making road tapes, packing, moving things around the house, asking myself what the hell I’m doing, etc. Fortunately, Nick at Nite provided a sanity break in the form of a “Green Acres” marathon.

It all starts this morning.

 

Left home a little later than planned (surprise…) and decided that it would be worth an extra two hours tomorrow to just stay the night in Reno. The choice was thus: $40 for a room in Winnemucca, where it’s boring and the sights take ten minutes to see, or $25 for a room in Reno, where there are cheap buffets, sleazy motels, and even queer bars. Hmmm…some choice…

Lunch at the Chick-fil-A is Farifield was a good thing. However, I think I first started getting excited about the trip when I passed Sacramento and the scenery stopped being so familiar. I really started getting excited around Truckee, where it stopped being insufferably hot.

I think I like Reno better than Vegas; it seems less slick and processed. The grittiness adds a certain charm which Vegas is lacking. And everything is on a slightly smaller scale. The casino strip is not nearly so exciting, but then again, it’s also not nearly so oppressive.

So now I’m comfortably settled into the Motel 6 on Wells Avenue. It has its own Denny’s. Alas, I missed “Roseanne”, so I think I’ll take a crap now and find food…

****

Good crap, passable food. Love those $6.49 bloat buffets. I sampled Fitzgerald’s. The food and service were not upto Vegas standards, but it worked.

 

A few observations on Reno:

• It’s a much better spot for a carless vacation than Vegas. Everything is pretty much concentrated around the intersection of 4th and Virginia. There are even queer bars within walking distance.
• On the Tuesday after Labor Day, the average age of everyone in Reno seems to be about 70. Everyone smokes. I wonder how many of these characters are locals.
• It’s really dark here once you leave the strip.
• It rained here most of the evening. I didn’t think it rained anywhere west of the Rockies this time of year.
• Why I’m sitting here watching “Moesha” and “In the House” just like I was in SF I don’t know. Could be the lack of sleep last night. I’m beat.

The Reno bar tour proved pretty uneventful, most likely due once again to the fact that it was the Tuesday after Labor Day. I limited my drinking to The Quest on Commercial Row, but I also drove by the empty parking lots at 1099, Visions, the Five Star, and Bad Dolly’s. I wasn’t inspired.

The McDonald’s at Seventh and Market is really creepy and getting creepier. It’s a strange mix of crackheads, career alcoholics, street people, and very scrubbed but very lost foreign tourists. How so many tourists end up here I don’t know. For some reason I felt extremely paranoid there today; the place usually doesn’t phase me. It got worse when this really scary guy brushed up against me as he got in line behind me. When I reached for my wallet to pay, it wasn’t there. I freaked. It turned out I’d left it at home, but this thought didn’t even occur to me at the time.

Why am I so paranoid lately? Frankly, I usually feel safer in SF than almost anyplace else. But I’ve noticed myself being much more apprehensive lately. I find myself checking my back pocket constatly to make sure the wallet’s till there like I do in New York. I’m afraid every time I go to my car that I’ll be missing a window. I’m more likely to keep the windows rolled up and the doors locked. Muni is getting more and more frightening.

The neighborhood’s getting annoying. Too much construction. Too many noisy, drunk yuppies. Not nearly enough parking, even on my sticker-protected street. More on this soon. But doing any of the following one more time may cause me to snap and go “postal”:

• Standing in line behind one more stoned trendoid who takes ten minutes to decide on one bottle of liquor at the corner store.
• Walking in the middle of Folsom Street because Julie’s Supper Club can’t contain all its loud-mouthed slumming stockbrokers or even make them leave a path on the sidewalk.
• Getting a parking ticket on a street two blocks from my house because the Department of Parking and Traffic can’t seem to control the non-residents parking on my own sticker-protected street which is where I SHOULD have been able to park in the first place.
• Being awakened early in the morning by whatever that pounding sound is at the building they’re renovating up the street, which is no doubt in the process of being converted into yet another zoning-exempt “artist’s loft” which no artist could possibly afford.

Three days and counting. I’d get more excited if I could get rid of this cold I seem to have picked up somewhere. Actually, it’s a little better now, but I’ve been sounding a little like Brenda Vaccaro all day.

Anyhow, Friday brought good news and jumper cables. I needed both as it’s been a long week and I’m not convinced that AAA will instantly remedy any roadside traumas I may experience.

 

So there was the obligatory trip to Target for trip supplies. Mark came along and over burritos at Pancho Villa offered me the use of a spare PowerBook for the trip. This made me most happy. This will also, in his words, “guarantee that we get updates”. Cool.

There was an inordinate fascination with the shopping cart lift at Target and with the warm and fuzzy T-shirts contained therein. I was unable to find a suitable travel alarm, but I settled for Cocoa Pebbles on sale. We made it safely back into the City before Critical mass hit.

 

Saturday and Sunday are devoted to laundry and cleaning up and yet more errands and printing cards and gathering maps, and…

There will be no rest this weekend.