Also, the new Scooterworks catalog just came out, and it's got a bunch of photos from my trip sprinkled throughout. This catalog wasn't designed by me, it was designed by Eric, my replacement and a talented designer in his own right. I should also note that while I supplied them with a disc full of photos, I had nothing to do with the "PJ" content. It's funny, they asked me to write a synopsis of my trip, why I did it, and about traveling by scooter...which I did (twice, at different lengths and with different emphasis), and in the end they just kind of ditched it and wrote their own little paragraph, which is very nice and complimentary toward me, but doesn't say as much about my trip... Maybe I'll post my blurb below...

And speaking of Blurb, I'll soon start working on a book version of the RAMBLE which I will self-publish through their website, at least initially...once I've got a few copies in my hands I may shop it around to real publishers, but it doesn't really matter to me, as long as my family and friends can get something in their hands to look at and read (lots of photos, I'm thinking about a 130-page 8x10 book, which would retail for about $35-40 on the Blurb site, IIRC). It won't be just a copy-and-paste from the weblog, since the weblog is terribly inconsistent and probably goes off on wild tangents. I may focus more on images and select story excerpts than long, windy passages recounting every beige meal and bump in the road...suggestions are welcome.

Here's the long version of the overview of my trip and my thoughts on "Traveling by Scooter":

A basic overview of my trip

I love to travel and I love scooters (haven’t owned a car in the 6 years since I got a Vespa). I had been in the same city and job for a good spell and was starting to wonder what I was doing. I got restless, pining for adventure and the lure of the road. I had managed so save up some money over the previous couple of years and figured I’d use it for some kind of big trip. I could’ve gone to the far reaches of the globe, but I felt like moving out of Chicago, and the problem was: I wasn’t sure where to. Being very inspired by all kinds of road stories (I See By My Outfit, the Second Chance Tour, Easy Rider, Travels With Charley, etc.) I decided to plan a trip that would take me all over a sizable chunk of the US in search of adventure and a new place to hang my hat.

I had a map of the Eastern US on my wall in my bedroom, maybe it steered me in this direction for the trip…also the variety of that half of the country, not to mention the greater population density and quantity of worthy cities. The West is just so vast, and much of it sparsely-populated, it didn’t have the same appeal. If I’d had unlimited time and money I would’ve done the whole 48, but I had to make a decision and I chose East and South. I bought what I thought was a good map (nope!), charted a rough course that would take me through most of the major cities, and made up a website, postcards and magnets to promote the trip.

With well-wishes all around I stepped down from my post as graphic designer at Scooterworks and found a talented guy named Eric to take the reins (he’s designed the catalog you’re holding in your hands now!). I hedged my bets, ended my apartment lease and started packing what I figured I would need. My scooter was a newly-rebuilt and custom-painted Stella called “Ramblin’ Man” after the Hank Williams song. I loaded up my gear, said my goodbyes, crossed my fingers and headed East. After a bit of a rough start in the first few days (newly-rebuilt engine had an oil seal come undone, had to be rebuilt with fresh topend and broken-in on the road), I was on my way. I spent 10 weeks traveling 10,000 miles across 30 states and provinces. That works out to about 143 miles a day. Some days I’d go 250 miles, some days 90, it depended on the local scenery and weather, but mostly distances between destinations.

Generalizations about travel by scooter:

It’s not the fastest way to get there, nor is it the most practical or comfortable. It IS great for engaging in conversations with strangers from all walks of life. The same questions come up constantly, and having traveled by scooter before I knew to print up an FAQ on my postcards about gas mileage, top speed, gas-tank capacity, and the jaw-dropper: “Yes, I rode this thing all the way here from Chicago.” I liked to joke that most riding lawnmowers have more horsepower than my scooter (funny because it’s true!) FYI, I cruised at around 55 and averaged between 60-70mpg with my setup.

Routes:
Taking the back roads is practically required, in the interests of safety, sanity and scenery. 2- or 4-lane “state highways” are perfect and offer the best riding and sightseeing experience. Divided highways and Interstates will get you there, but you’ll barely feel like you’re moving on that wide swath (and have very little to look at while doing so). Some people can’t fathom how you’d get across the country without taking the Interstate, not realizing that the Interstates weren’t even built in most cases until the 1960s! The US has a whole system of lovely pre-Eisenhower highways that can get you just about anywhere. Someone asked if there was anywhere I hated, the answer is No. I dislike suburban sprawl and the ugliness associated with that, but that is not confined to any particular area. Apart from that I saw some palpable form of beauty and worthiness everywhere.

Luxuries:
Stopping whenever you please to take photos, take a look or take a leak. The only time I couldn’t pull over was when I was forced onto the larger highways or bridges. You have to stop for gas several times a day, and in my case, I had to stop to check the map quite often because I was usually lost. Roads can be VERY poorly-marked, a source of both frustration and happy accidents. I had a rough itinerary but no absolute timeline, in some cases I had people (usually very kind fellow scooterists) to meet, but often I did not, and could go wherever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to, steered only by whims and wits. If a road looked good, I could take it. If I saw a flea market or a gift shop, I could indulge myself. Someone asked me if I didn’t get lonely riding alone, but the answer is No, not really. I enjoyed the company of everyone I met but was glad to have the luxury of answering to no other.

Characters:
The people I met were incredible; I really wish I’d had a clandestine voice recorder to capture the conversations. As it was I managed to scribble down a few quotes here and there. Besides scooterists I met good ol’ country boys, sophisticated women, gritty urbanites, hell-raising barflys, fast-talking street philosophers, soccer-moms, friendly hobos, wily entrepreneurs, Cajun swampers, Texas cowboys, back-to-the-land idealists and various students of life. The fabric of this big patchwork quilt we inhabit, all indispensable.

Hazards:
There are dangers to a trip like this, vulnerabilities. You’re out in the open, for better or worse. Usually it’s for better, but when the bottom falls out of the sky, you’re going to be fairly miserable even if you’ve got great raingear. Classic scooters are not made for touring, so you are pushing your luck there and can never fully “relax” without thinking of what might go wrong and how you’ll react. Metal grates, high winds and big trucks can have you checking your shorts. Scooters are conspicuous and likely targets for theft. When I stayed in cheap motels I’d get a room on the ground floor that I could wheel my scooter right into, for peace of mind. I had a few close calls, a couple of would-be highwaymen almost intercepted me in rural Louisiana and I had the awful misfortune of hitting and killing a cat at nighttime on a Georgia country road, but no other accidents or serious injuries. I did wear an armored jacket, a full-face helmet, Kevlar gloves, and steel-toe boots at all times, and armored pants sometimes, just in case.

Technical:
After my initial engine problem, I had smooth sailing and no real mechanical troubles, even while burning crap-quality gas station 2-stroke oil. I would’ve preferred to use better oil but was too lazy to track it down and carry a bunch with me, so I left it in the hands of fate. Invariably I’d be almost out, find a gas station, buy a quart of sludge with silhouettes of a chainsaw and a boat motor on the label, dump it in, and pass a motorcycle shop 2 miles later. I learned the importance of a spare gas can after pushing the loaded scooter for a couple of miles in the hot sun. I brought lots of spare parts and manuals that I ended up not needing (thankfully). I didn’t break a single (Prima!) cable in 10,000 miles. I did go through about 2.5 rear tires, though I was using a softer, racier tire than I probably should’ve. My gear (topcase and Prima bag) worked pretty well for me, though my scooter was heavy and a little unwieldy.

Lodging:
The scooter community knew of my trip and welcomed me with open arms; I saved a lot of money by staying with other scooterists. I stayed at people’s houses maybe half of the time, and stayed in hostels or really cheap motels the rest of the time. The least I paid for a motel was $22/night in Texas, the most was $80/night in Montreal; average was probably $35-40 (I stayed in the cheapest I could find, often pretty sketchy ones). Hostels were usually $18-25/night, camping is about the same. I got a few hours of restless sleep outside on a pallet (behind an abandoned building) one night in Lake Charles, LA when I was feeling too cheap to spend $50 on a motel.

Regrets:
Only two things, really. Bringing a tent turned out to be a waste; I was really looking at cities to live in so I almost always stayed in towns and not in the countryside, plus I usually drove until dark or after, so setting up camp would've been difficult at best. I could've definitely done without the tent, I only camped out with it on one night. The bigger regret I have was not having a laptop computer with me, it would've made life SO much easier in terms of journaling and photo-wrangling...having to rely on internet cafes and people's home computers is FAR from ideal, and it really limited what I could do.

I could've done more research about the places I was headed to and done a better job of letting people (and scooter shops, and possibly even local press) know when I'd be through their area, but it was pretty seat-of-the-pants and the schedule was really subject to change, so I could never tell anyone with much certainty where I'd be (or when). I lost a bunch of stuff on the trip, a combination of me not being very thorough and bad luck. But mostly it was wonderful, eye-opening and positive. I would do the trip again in a heartbeat, it was the time of my life.

Postscript:
After much deliberation I moved to Louisville, KY. It’s a nice, medium-sized city, cheaper and warmer than Chicago, slightly different part of the country but still relatively close to my friends and family.

On my way out of New Orleans (across the Mississippi River in Gretna or Harvey) I was seeing a few Vietnamese-looking businesses along the way, so I got off of the aerial superhighway thing that I was on and got onto the surface street that ran parallel below. Craving Vietnamese food, I had the good fortune of happening upon Pho Tau Bay Restaurant in a strip mall in front of a bowling alley. I savored their air conditioning (it was hotter than Hades outside) and filled up on veggie spring rolls and soup before getting back on the road. This stretch of road following just south of the river is memorable for its frontage roads boasting all manner of strip malls, strip clubs, auto repairers and other gritty commerce. I remember driving through here on the 1999 No Respect Team Tour with Ryan and Shunsuke, we camped south of the city in Bayou Segnette State Park and this is the scenery on the way to and from New Orleans.

After the meal I jumped back onto Business 90 aka "FUT 49" west and followed it out through the 8 or 10 miles of developed area until eventually the gas stations gave way, first to woods interspersed with dullness, and 30 or 40 miles later to proper Louisiana swamp somewhere around the turnoff for Houma. 90 was kind of a boring Interstate-y highway so after consulting the map I got off near Donner and picked up a smaller highway called 20. I passed a nice little bayou and doubled back for a photo. As I did I saw two black locals fishing on the other side of the road. One of them called out, warning me to be careful because they'd just seen a pack of wild boars near there and they were some of the biggest he'd ever seen ("and he was from there"). I could barely make out what the guy was saying because he talked fast and had a very thick accent, but the fact that he was genuinely startled by said animals was crystal clear. I thanked him and cautiously made my way west, hoping not to cross paths with any angry swamp creatures.

I stopped to stretch my legs and grab a snack at a gas station near Amelia, where I overheard some locals talking. One guy, in his mid-20s and driving a slick SUV was heard to remark "Man, I don't trust no one, all I got is my balls and my word." Poetry on the bayou. There was an edginess at that place, I felt very conspicuous among the shady characters coming and going, which both scared and excited me at the prospects of what lay ahead. I scooted past the shipyards, scrappers and strip clubs in Morgan City and picked up Hwy 182, the local alternative to the MegaHighway 90 (which it runs roughly parallel to, going through great sugarcane fields and small towns). I should note that in southern LA there were lots of billboards for the oil industry, both recruiting people to work offshore AND for lawyers who specialized in cases where workers had been injured working offshore. Nice dichotomy.

Now I could tell that I was getting into Cajun Country as I headed through Franklin and Jeanerette, seeing sights like this crawfish painting, sugar factories and lots of good French names. Also a plethora of interesting little shacks selling Sno Cones, I suppose it makes sense considering how hot as it usually is down there, and that there's such a low overhead to that business...almost like a lemonade stand. Hwy 182 was a nice route, I liked the slow pace and small towns. Around New Iberia I picked up Hwy 86 headed toward Loreauville, my destination being the grave of The King of Zydeco, Mr. Clifton Chenier. Fortunately my Lonely Planet Louisiana and the Deep South guidebook provided a more detailed map than my atlas, supplemented by a friendly stranger in downtown Loreauville pointing me in the right direction. After a series of turns, some 2 or 3 miles out of town I came upon the graveyard, surrounded by humble little farms and sugarcane fields. Near here I'd also seen the sign for the turnoff to Clifton's Place, a dancehall erected posthumously (IIRC) by his widow. After some searching I found the grave and paid my respects in much the same way I'd done for Hank Williams a week or so earlier. After a few quiet moments I was back on the road to take a look at my first authentic zydeco dancehall, not sure what I'd find but picturing something like a juke joint. I was shocked to find an enormous polebuilding in the middle of nowhere, and it really hit home what a rural culture this music belongs to. The place was closed and empty but I could picture it on a hot weekend night, cars everywhere and beautiful music flowing out into the dark fields nearby.

I was almost out of daylight now, pretty far off the main road and a good 30 miles from Lafayette, my destination for the night. I somehow found my way back to civilization in the form of St. Martinville (famous for Longfellow's poem "Evangeline"). I drove in the dark into Lafayette on Hwy 182 and BUS 90, wondering when I'd see some sort of downtown. Well, I basically went all the way through to the opposite outskirts without ever seeing it, turns out there isn't much to see in the way of big buildings. I was quite hungry and looking for a place to stay, and the guidebook said there wasn't much besides crappy chain motels near the highway. Determined, I doubled back to a real sketchy place I'd passed called the Acadian. I liked the name and the price was right, even if the neighborhood was edgy. I got my room, unloaded some gear and was off in search of food and music.

Thinking I might only be in Lafayette for the night, I looked in the guidebook and found recommendations for local Cajun and Zydeco clubs. Craving some red beans and rice, I saw that the highly-recommended Mulate's club in nearby Breaux Bridge (7 or 8 miles away through the Louisiana night) was also a restaurant and had live Cajun music. Sounded perfect, so I rode over to check it out. There was a decent band playing and a "family fun" atmosphere with lots of people dancing, as well as walls adorned with autographed celebrity photos from all of the luminaries who'd been there before me. This place has a proud history and I felt the magic. Unfortunately they didn't have anything I could eat, and I was starving, so back to Lafayette I went after only a couple of songs. It was getting late and a lot of places were closed, so in the end I caved and in desperation, went to a fast food joint; my first-ever trip to Popeye's. I hate their goddamn commercials and shtick, but they make a good cup of rice and beans (and curly fries). I'm afraid to look up the ingredients online, but there's a strong chance they weren't totally vegan. Sorry.

Now that my gut was squared-away, I was off to the highly-rated Zydeco club called El Sid-O's. I happened to catch Curley Taylor and his band that night and they put on a hell of a show. Not really traditional Zydeco, but the newer generation. They had their hearts in it, and that's what counts. More importantly I was transfixed with the beautiful dancing, just sat there in awe of it all. When I approached the club from the outside, I was a little apprehensive, wondering if I'd be the only honky in the place, but hearing those sweet bass lines and accordion sounds in the humid night air there was no way I wasn't going in...you only live once! (and my fears were unfounded, it was a mixed crowd, though the majority were black, and I felt no hostility or ill will from anyone). It was here that I started to fall in love with the people of Acadiana, in addition to the music. It's hard to put it to words, but there's just a friendliness, a joy for life and a laid-back attitude that is very intoxicating. And the music! I hung out for a few hours, awkwardly and shyly declined to zydeco with a beautiful woman, bought a CD from the band, and headed back for a night of rest at the Acadian, really happy to be in Lafayette, LA.

With no further adieu, I offer the "Best of RAMBLE" photos on Flickr. If you don't want to "sneak ahead" past the point of the journal writing, that's cool, I will be going back to the writing soon now that the photos have all been gone-through. I apologize again for the lack of updates but I have been working hard on trip-related stuff, and now that the photos are ready the journaling will go faster because I won't have to do both simultaneously (a real drag!). It was a lot of fun going through these photos, seeing most of them for the first time in 4 or 5 months! Like living the road trip all over again...I had such a great time.

When you look at the photos on Flickr, I'd recommend using "Detail View", that way you're looking at decent-sized thumbnails and not those tiny little squares...plus the "Detail View" pages load faster than 1,000 thumbnails do! Also, if you see photos that you like don't hesitate to click on "browse" in the little "pjchmiel's photostream" box at the upper right, then you'll see the other 75% of the photos from the trip that aren't in this Best-of set. Click on tags too to see other similar photos.

Thanks for following along, look for more updates in the next couple of weeks (I'm really busy with work projects at the moment but hope to free up some time soon). Happy scootering, spring is almost upon us!

PJ

Also, I have been in the process of moving from Chicago to Louisville and that has taken the majority of my time and attention. Now I have high-speed internet in my new apartment and some work lined up freelancing (I haven't drawn a paycheck in what seems like a month of Sundays), so I will be getting back to it soon as time allows. I still hope to do some kind of book about the trip this year. Thanks for your patience and for bearing with me during this transitional phase in my life, there's still a lot of great stuff to write about so check back sometime.

Best regards for a happy new year,
PJ Chmiel

Where I last left off was at my scooter's 7,000th mile, which occured 10 miles or so northeast of New Orleans. It being dark and not knowing what to expect of the city, I was originally thinking of finding a cheap motel and staying the night in Slidell, but since my route didn't take me there, I met the city at night. The outskirts were pretty quiet, as I mentioned there was virtually no traffic on Hwy 90, but once I was near I-510 I started to see more strip malls, small industrial sites and more residential neighborhoods. I noticed a pronounced Vietnamese flavor to many of the businesses for a mile or two (and noticed another pocket of Vietnamese businesses and restaurants upon leaving town, just across the river in Gretna or Harvey). I started to see a few dodgy-looking motels, I stopped at one to inquire and was quoted around $45/night. Thinking that I could always come back to this one if nothing else panned out, I proceeded on into the city.

New Orleans can be a confusing town to the uninitiated and I was no exception, only having passed through a couple of times before and never for more than a day or two. Hwy 90 did some weird things and put me onto some sort of Interstate, though I couldn't tell if I was headed toward downtown or not, so I got off again pretty quickly. The part of town I found myself in was dark and foreboding, a tangle of industry, soaring highways in the sky, underpasses and a few businesses. Lost with a totally useless map, and now probably at least 10 miles from the motel mentioned earlier, I stopped at a well-lit intersection across from a McDonalds to check my guidebook for hostel listings. I called a few that were booked-up but the least-appealing of the lot did have a vacancy and I had until 10pm to get there and check in. I headed down one street that I thought might get me somewhere but it turned out to lead through a mostly-abandoned, totally-unmarked (roads) and very frightening Upper 9th Ward (I found this out later on my tour with Chris when we took the same street). After passing block after block of despondent boarded-up houses, I did a U-turn and stopped at a gas station to ask how to get downtown. The woman working didn't speak English well, and told me the route by Interstate (I hate it that most people, and online mapping programs, only think of travel in terms of Interstates).

Eager to get out of this grim area, I followed her advice and got on the Interstate, taking the cruelly ironic "Superdome" exit downtown...just seeing that word on a sign put images of horror and misery in my mind. I shot through some rough-looking downtown areas before getting to Canal St., which I recognized as a main thoroughfare. Now at least I was somewhere on the maps that I had and could get myself going in the right direction toward the hostel (after some false starts and frustration, of course). The downtown appeared to be in better shape than the more outlying area I'd just come from in the northeast part of the city, but it was still pretty quiet compared to my memories of it from previous visits.

I eventually found the place, The Marquette House. It was unlike any other hostel I'd ever seen; it was a large collection of buildings that might've formerly been crappy apartments, laid out around a sort of pathway, with several hundred beds in total. Most were full with itinerant workers doing various construction and manual labor jobs around town. When the hurricane hit, it took out a very large percentage of lower-rent housing stock, so now there are very few habitable places and consequently rents everywhere are quite high. My roommate at the hostel was a worker in town from Houston and he was paying something like $600 a month to sleep in a hostel, with no privacy and just a bunk in a bunkbed to himself, strangers coming and going constantly and kind of a rough crowd overall, not your typical backpacking European teenagers.

The strange guy at the desk of the hostel had told me where I could find an internet cafe, so in several trips I hauled my heavy gear to the room, which I couldn't find on the first try, I mistakenly went into some other dark rooms where people were already sleeping; I had to go back and re-check the directions at the desk. Such a weird setup. When I first got there my roommate was gone and the other two bunks were empty so I was able to lay out my bunk with the lights on, on later returns to the room at night it was always dark. I rode out to find this internet cafe, and hopefully find something to eat, because I was hungry. The cafe ended up being a lot farther than I thought, it struck me then that New Orleans is a bigger city than I'd remembered it before, it probably took me 15-20 minutes to get to this place that didn't seem far at all on the map. I think that all of the vegetarian-friendly restaurants I passed at that hour had just closed so I opted for a cookie or some other baked good with my tea at the coffeeshop. It was smoky and there were nerdy gamers sitting right behind me playing Magick®, but I was able to get an internet terminal and spend a few hours checking the e-mail and writing an update. This place was open 24/7 so there were no worries about time, I probably stayed until 2 or 3.

On my ride home the streets were dark and quiet and bumpy (and this was on a main road, New Orleans has some of the worst streets I've ever seen outside of India, the only other city that gave it a run for its money was Brooklyn/NYC). Apparently these ball-breaking and treacherous roads were a fixture in the city long before Katrina, New Orleans is reported to have very poor public services in general. After nearly being ejected from my seat several times these roads got me to standing on the floorboards of my scooter, knees sprung to absorb the irregularities. I got back to the hostel, locked my scooter to the metal stairs out front (off the sidewalk and road but in plain view) and prayed that it would still be there in the morning. I found may way to the room in the pitch dark, when I got there the AC was cranked, there was a radio on broadcasting Fox News(!) and my roommate was snoring. I quietly got into bed and tried to fall asleep, which didn't take too long since it had been quite a full day. I probably dreamt of rogue highwaymen and deserted shotgun houses, with snippets of right-wing talk radio drifting in improbably, in typically nonsensical dream fashion.

I awoke late in the morning, hung around the hostel for a bit and finally met my roommate Brian face to face, he'd only worked half a day that day. We chatted for a while, I asked him about living in New Orleans and what he did there, he said he'd come a few months earlier because he'd heard that there was a lot of work to be had. So he just took a bus and showed up and started asking around, eventually he found some work...I believe it was hauling rubble or some other kind of relatively unskilled manual labor. Brian appeared to have virtually no belongings with him, he worked hard in the day doing various jobs and then spent most of his money at night drinking. I asked him if he was saving any money and he said that he wasn't. He made a decent wage (I can't remember what exactly it was, maybe $15/hr.) but as I've mentioned, he paid a lot of that in rent to the hostel and spent the rest of it on food, drinking and entertaining himself. I imagine one could save a little if they had full-time work and watched their money, but as usual it's not the workingmen who really profit, it's the contractors they work for (more on them later).

I headed downtown for some lunch, remembering a good Indian restaurant called Tandoori Chicken on Canal St. that I'd eaten in with Draplin the year before. After some vexing one-way streets and unintentional detours, I found the place and was heartened to see that it was still in business. I had a hearty trip to the buffet (or two) and talked with a nice woman who worked there about the state of their business since the hurricane. She said that they'd sustained some damage and hardship, but they're on the second floor, so it wasn't nearly as bad as so many others had gotten it. I noticed that most of the downtown area still seemed relatively "open," though it was certainly missing a lot of the vibrancy that I saw in it before. I didn't see people dancing in the street, there was only one vendor selling wares (incense, jewelry, etc.) on the sidealk on Canal, and several businesses looked ready for the wrecking ball.

After surveying the downtown for a while and standing in traffic on Canal St. for what seemed like an eternity, I went over to check out the French Quarter. This is the part of town that I'd seen the most of before, and as I'd heard, it fared pretty well during Katrina due to being built on higher ground than other parts of the city. Almost all shops and houses appeared to be open and inhabited, a smattering of tourists (and the myriad of tourist shops, now selling ironic post-Katrina shirts in addition to the usual tasteless, shocking, and "I Got Wasted in New Orleans!!!" variety) were about and I'd say it was 75% "business as usual" in this part of town. I parked my scooter and went into several tourist shops, sweating in my riding jacket as I walked around in the oppressive 90+ degree heat. I found one computer place that offered internet terminals, and even though it was overpriced I spent the minimum 15 or 20 minutes cooling off with their air conditioning. As an aside, I'm always bummed at how little the Cajun and Zydeco cultures are visible in NOLA, you'd think it would be more prevalent but I suppose New Orleans has its own musical traditions and cultures distinct from those other southern Louisianans. Most of the Cajun influence you see in NOLA seems to be relegated to hot sauces, language jokes and a few cheesy compilation CDs.

I strolled for a while and took a few pictures, but didn't really buy much. Oh, I almost forgot, I went into a stripper club on Bourbon St., but it was pretty pathetically dead on a weekday mid-afternoon, the few guys who were there when I entered soon left, and I was the only one remaining. Not a good vibe, that means getting the collective attention/pressure of however-many girls are working, on you, to pay their wages. Unfortunately for them, I don't throw down for lap dances, they're a waste of money and don't do anything for me. I'd rather dispense several dollars to a number of dancers and look at a variety of bodies (and bask in a range of cheap perfumes) for my money.

After handing over a fistful of dollars to the local sleaze economy I felt like finding a coffeeshop for some reason. I swore that I'd passed a few in the Quarter before, but went up and down seemingly every one-way street numerous times on my scooter trying to find one, to no avail. During this quest it started raining, and the roads got a little slick, so I pulled over and took shelter for a few minutes under someone's balcony. I've heard that these brief, sudden showers are commonplace in this part of the country, and fortunately it soon passed. Having seen the doubledecker porches, gingerbread French houses, street artists and bare breasts, passing innumerable vendors of daquiris, shiny necklaces and the occult, and smelling the bile of human upchuck, I had gotten my fill of the French Quarter, and sought to see the uglier side of the coin.

I got lost trying to drive in a direction I thought might have been devestated, but had the good fortune of calling a local scooterist named Chris who had contacted me by e-mail. His combination of timing and kindness was perfect, he came to meet me where I was, cutting across town in great time during rush hour. He led me from the Greyhound station where I was, up to the northwest part of the city where one of the levees had been breached. We only had a couple of hours of daylight and there was so much to see that we didn't spend a long time in any one place, I just got the "sampler platter" if you will. The scenes that unfolded in front of my scooter will haunt me forever...as we got away from downtown we saw more and more abandoned businesses and houses with piles of rubble near the street, huge sections of low-income housing that had been boarded up and the tenants never allowed back, other apartment buildings standing vacant, and eventually whole middle-class neighborhoods devestated, quiet and empty. We stopped near where one of the levees broke at 17th St. and took a look at some houses. Here you can see me pointing to a water line on the outside of a house, some 8 feet high. A look into a missing window revealed a snapshot of someone's bedroom, most everything still molding and rotting away in place. Some fared better than others and will be gutted and reclaimed, but many of the houses in this area had major structural damage and will have to be torn down. On the way out we saw one house that had drifted entirely off its foundation and planted itself partially over a road.

From this neighborhood we traveled about 3 miles east, past City Park to the New London area, another levee breach. Here was a very similar story, middle-class neighborhood with your typical ranch-style suburban houses, obliterated in an instant when a levee nearby gave way. As we drove I started noticing the numbers and symbols spray-painted on the outside walls of the houses, in some cases they were near the roofline, this indicates a search done by boat when the area was still underwater. Many of these had a second set of symbols from a later date, spraypainted lower, from when the waters had receded. Usually there was a number "0" in the bottom quadrant of the X symbol, this position indicates dead bodies found inside. However in this New London section, we happened to be stopped in front of a house with a "5" in that quadrant, and that blew my mind and really disturbed me, especially seeing the inside. These scenes reminded me of reading The Stand as a teenager, visions of Americana gone horribly wrong, with mass deaths and people and places left abandoned and rotting. Horrific.

After this stop Chris led me along the southern edge of Lake Ponchartrain and over to the area where I'd been lost the night before. I'll tell you, it wasn't much more optimistic in the daytime. We headed south into what is known as the Upper 9th Ward, an area that didn't get it quite as bad as the famed Lower 9th (but still got it really bad). One of the strangest sights I saw was this ghetto of townhomes, I don't recall exactly what the story was with them but maybe Chris can tell me again. In any case, it was really, really a strange and desolate sight. As we continued the tour of the Upper 9th we came upon the black neighborhood. The doors were wide open so I took a peek inside, hoping not to encounter anyone squatting or living in there, as far as I could tell the place didn't see much traffic.

At this point is was getting dark, so we headed back somewhat toward the downtown, taking in a few more sights along the way. Chris led us to a small neighborhood bar that he liked, which seemed more like a speakeasy to me since you had to be buzzed in by the bartender (they'd gotten robbed a few times recently and had to take this measure to stop it happening). I tried to absorb what I'd just seen and asked Chris a handful of questions on the state of things in his town.

Here are a few statistics about New Orleans, gleaned from conversations with Chris and other sources:
The city of New Orleans has lost nearly 2/3rds of its pre-Katrina population, more than 60% of the people are gone and have not returned in the 15+ months since the storm. Imagine your town or ANY town instantly losing that percentage of people and think about how city services and other quality-of-life matters would suffer. Something like 60,000 poor blacks were evacuated and have no means to return, and not much to return to if they could.

The cleanup process is painfully slow, out-of-town workers and contractors don't always have New Orleans' best interests at heart and the infrastructure is still not back to normal (garbage pickup is irregular at best, and some areas still don't have water or electrical service). Apparently gentrification and land-grabbers aren't as bad as some people had imagined (visions of New Orleans being rebuilt as a luxury resort for affluent whites), though the population demographics have shifted from a strong black majority to nearly half-and-half black and white.

Chris is frustrated and has grappled with depression over what has happened, but he implores people to visit if they can, and to help any way they can, to defend New Orleans and rebuild her.

I don't think I could say things as well as Chris has said them in a recent e-mail to me, so, in the words of a native New Orleanian:

PJ,
Not too much has changed here since your visit. New Orleans is still dirty and debris covered - and they (the powers that be - city hall - Mayor Nagin - FEMA - and the rest) have decided to stop debris pick up in several parts of the city (by ZIP code). By fucking zip code. I live in 70115 but that stretches in a weird shape across the city. Me and Dorie's neighborhood is somewhat clean - but a house just 4 houses down is just getting around to renovation so a big pile of wood and plaster sits outside on the curb. Four or so blocks away in the same zip code there is pile after pile of debris and Andrew's street is much worse. Weeks ago when FEMA was still collecting debris they busted a water line in front of the house next to him so water is bubbling up from the lawn. Anyway the city is a mess and is suffering from really poor planning and leadership.

I will always be here - I was born here and intend to die here - this is my native land and I will fight for it.
Defend New Orleans
Thanks, Chris

This post has been far too long in coming. I urge everyone to take a look at all of my Katrina Aftermath photos on Flickr. The photos are nothing like being there, but they give you an idea. If you can go to New Orleans or the Gulf Coast, and see it firsthand, you should. If you can donate something to the relief effort that is still very much underway, you should do that too. Chris recommends the Red Cross, Common Ground, and Catholic Charities as good organizations. New Orleans needs people, it needs supplies, it still needs a lot of help. In lieu of anyone I know giving me a gift this winter holiday season, I would ask that you instead make a donation to Common Ground.

Chris and I met up with his girlfriend (in the photo) at a bar in the French Quarter, then rode over to meet another scooterist named Andrew for dinner at a middle eastern restaurant near the internet cafe. Andrew was a big guy on a little scooter, but for some reason I don't seem to have any photos of him (though I did interview him on video). After I parted ways with Chris and Andrew I went to the internet cafe and did another update, and got back to the hostel pretty late. The next morning I got up an hour or so before checkout (probably 11am) and hauled all of my stuff back down to the scooter. I cruised around a little more, went back downtown to send a FedEx package of videos to Craig, couldn't find anywhere decent to eat, and headed across the bridge and over the Mississippi, following 90 west for a while toward Cajun country.

As with Florida, my preliminary route map above is not an accurate reflction of the path I took from Mobile to New Orleans, I didn't go up into the "meat" of Mississippi. Instead I left Mobile and headed southwest along the Gulf Coast, though I didn't see any signs of the ocean for the first hour, until about 10 miles into Mississippi. Not much to report about that little chunk of southwest Alabama, as Henry predicted I found aging motels interspersed with nature in a fairly conventional way. As was to be the case on both ends of Mississippi, I saw no sign letting me know that I was entering or leaving a state. Judging by what I saw, I chalk this up to hurricane damage, not malevolence.

Once I got close to the water, near Gautier, the landscape changed radically. The further west I got, the more the scenes of destruction unfolded; first I saw battered buildings and then I saw basically no buildings. The landscape near the water, moving from south to north, basically consisted of ocean, beach (deserted), the occasional boat marooned on the land like a whale, Hwy 90, slabs of cement and piles of rubble where businesses and houses once stood, scrubby little trees, and then as you got 1/4 mile or so inland a scattering of houses still standing in various states of abandonment or renovation, many had sprouted FEMA trailers or other campers alongside for people to live in while they picked up the pieces.

The Hwy 90 bridge was out at Biloxi (mind you, this is 13 months after Hurricane Katrina), so I had to take a detour onto Interstate 10. Once I got past Biloxi (pronounced "Biluhxi" by many people locally) and back to 90 I saw more of the same. I had to detour again 30 miles or so west at Pass Christian/Bay St. Louis, and in that case there was absolutely no "detour route" posted, just ominous signs a few miles before you got to the bridge saying that it was out.

Since the landscape is so unique and swampy in these parts, you don't find the usual grid of roads every mile or so like we have in the midwest, it's much more haphazard and defined by the local terrain (and not only did I have a maddeningly inadequate map, but there were no gas stations around, or even businesses open or signs of life). I took 90 as far as it would go, trusting that I would see a posted detour route eventually, but I followed it all the way to the "bridge out" end of the road and saw no detour signs. Fearing that my overloaded scooter's roughly 9 Horsepower would not be enough to jump the unseen bridge "Dukes of Hazzard Style," I turned down the first road I saw to the north, hoping to run into the Interstate at some point. This wasn't to be, this road was more of an overgrown two-track and near the end of it I came across a smashed VW Beetle. I have no idea what this road was before, if there were houses there or if it was fairly rural, but at this point I couldn't tell, just lots of weeds with some rubble and garbage and no people. Sketchy.

So I started back east on 90, dreading the thought of backtracking (for some reason it makes me crazy to backtrack at all, even a few miles). Since I'd never been in a landscape like the one I was in, and since there obviously used to be houses and businesses along the entire seacoast, I had a really hard time determining where a town began or ended. I was hunting for the first town on my map, Pass Christian, which I had seen no signs for when passing through before, but I eventually found it (I think), after a lot of hopeful driving in what I guessed to be the right direction. At this point night dusk was upon me, I wasn't prepared for the kind of desolate wasteland I encountered and I was very worried about running out of gas. My tank was nearly empty and the only gas station I'd seen in hours was this one.

Fortunately I found a gas station (which had quite a flurry of activity, being the only thing of its kind open for god-knows-how-many miles) and filled up. I also saw a bar open next door named "Hurricane Katrina's" or something similarly bitter/saucy, as well as a snow-cone stand (closed that evening). If time permitted I would've loved to have gone into the bar to get the scoop from the locals, but as I mentioned, night was falling and I was determined to make it to New Orleans. Of course there were no marked main roads in Pass Christian (if that is the town I was in, who knows!?), and no signs pointing me toward the Interstate, so I turned left onto what appeared to be a fairly well-trafficked road and hoped to run into the highway. After several miles of curves, no signs and no luck, I started to get nervous and consulted my compass. I found a little convenience store and asked an oldtimer if the road I was on would get me to the highway, he assured me that it would and I took it. Somewhere between there and the highway I crossed this bridge, which was awfully pretty.

I got on I-10 and followed it west until exit 13, where I took 43 southeast back to pick up 90 in Bay St. Louis. Now I was a few miles inland and things didn't look quite so bad, though it was still rough and uncertain, wholly abandoned strip malls and lots of places like this where I couldn't really tell if they were dead or alive.

It was basically dark, with just a trace of light still in the sky, a little more light than a full moon...and I lost my way. I suspect that what happened was that I missed a turn where 90 splits south from a 4-lane highway called 607...whatever the case was, it wasn't marked well, or at all, and all day long there were precious few roadsigns of any kind telling me where I was, what direction I was headed, or how far I was from New Orleans.

It was on this deserted 4-lane divided highway that two sketchy-looking men walking down the middle of the road tried to intercept me, I believe they wanted to rob me and thought they could overtake me on the scooter if I tried to pass. It was almost surreal, there was no traffic and just these two guys, almost like a dream, or a video game where you have to get past them to continue on. I stopped about 100 feet shy of them and they kept coming toward me, not yelling, injured or in distress, just leering and advancing. I turned around before they could get close, crossed the median and drove against traffic (there wasn't any) to get away from them, as they couldn't run across the median in time to stop me. Lots of things I saw on the Gulf Coast reminded me of some sci-fi Mad Max world. Scary. My uncle Bob is a truck driver and he had warned me that this was a volatile area, he'd narrowly escaped being killed and robbed for his truck in New Orleans, he'd overheard some people plotting it out.

Safely away from this harrowing encounter (and not wishing to backtrack), I took the first road I saw to the south, which wound me through some swampy woods, made extra-frightening by their unfamiliarity, the sense of being lost in an unfriendly place and the general air of desperation in the area. I passed worn trailers in the thickets, scabby houses with too many derelict vehicles in the yards, barking dogs and FEMA trailers all swirled throughout the brush. I eventually found 90 again and thanked my lucky stars, though there was just as little to see there. At some point I crossed into Louisiana, it could've been this bridge, but wherever it was it was unmarked, so I have no idea. Whoo-hoo, welcome to Louisiana.

Not having studied the map well, I was expecting to come into Slidell, (a large suburb of New Orleans on the northeast side of Lake Ponchartrain) before too long. I kept going for miles and miles and miles, wondering why I wasn't hitting it or at least seeing the lights from it polluting the night sky. It turns out 90 goes southwest and avoids the town entirely, and I was actually on a very narrow strip of land which eventually turned into the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. If you remember from my Georgia entry, nighttime + wildlife + scooter = bad idea, so I was nervous to be on the road anyway, and there were almost no cars and no businesses or development (if there were a few houses they might've been abandoned like so many others, in any case, few signs of life...it was a lonely feeling). If I'd run into trouble on that stretch I'dve been up Shit's Creek, sans-paddle.

At some point in this sandy, quiet wilderness my odometer ticked over its 7,000th mile and I celebrated with a photo. Eventually, after 30 or 40 miles of inky Louisiana nothingness I came upon the fringes of the city of New Orleans, which I will write about in my next installment. Lots of sad tales and adventures to come, my friends, so stay tuned...

I left Selma on Hwy 22, which eventually turned into 5 South, which eventually merged into 13/43 South just north of Thomasville. The country was similar to some terrain I'd seen in Georgia, fairly flat with a few hills and curves and a decent amount of trees, many of them evergreen. I didn't see as much farmland as you'd see farther west in Mississippi, closer to the Mississippi River. Two things that stood out on this leg of the trip were lots of abandoned roadside spots (what appeared to have been restaurants, juke joints, bars and gas stations in a former life), and logging trucks, which were busy hauling away the fruits of those pretty woods I saw. Lots of great hand-painted signs and interesting little places to stop, like the vanishing breed of gas station/grocer in Orrville, an autobody/convenience store in the middle of nowhere, and Lucy's One-Stop, where you could get a haircut, a hot pizza, groceries or dinner.

The homes in these rurual areas were smaller and generally poorer than many places I'd been on the trip. I met a couple of characters during my gas stops, a guy named Brian from Cleveland on a BMW touring motorcycle who'd been around the whole country and a well-meaning but slightly awkward middle aged fellow in Creola who called himself Brother Harvey. I gave Brother Harvey one of my magnets and he inquired about who I was doing the trip for; when I replied that I was doing it for myself he said "When you get ready to do it again maybe I'll sponsor you, carry a flag with the Lord's Army or sumpin'." A minute later he came back with a pamphlet bearing the hip, no-nonsense title "Satan Sucks," which, as a jaded member of Generation X, stirred something inside me. The weather was warm and fine, and the bugs weren't as bad as they'd been in Florida, though they did get a little worse just as I rolled into Mobile as dusk.

On my way into Mobile I passed through a couple of northern suburbs, namely Saraland and Pritchard, snapping a few photos of worn industrial sites and strangely-called tastee freezes, bathed alternately in orange setting sunlight or cool evening shadow, depending on which side of the road. I could see Mobile a few miles before I got there, and was worried that I had gotten myself into some kind of no-man's-land railyard area that wouldn't allow me access to the downtown; fortunately I found a way there using the one big skyscraper as my beacon in the unfamiliar town. Henry had given me good directions to his house so after a quick pass through the downtown I found it without much trouble. His house is located in a beautiful historic district, with handsome lanes shaded by live oaks.

He'd left his blue Stella parked out front so I'd recognize the place, and I pulled in and parked, thinking that he might hear my loud exhaust and come out. I waited for a minute and didn't see anyone...it was one of those large houses where you're not sure which entrance is the primary, both the front and the rear seemed equally plausible, so I sort of walked around toward the back, and one of the neighbors saw me and asked "if they could help me with something," as I probably looked quite foreign and suspicious in their neighborhood. Luckily, Henry came out a moment later to meet me and help me carry my gear inside. He wasn't exactly how I'd pictured him, I was imagining a stately older gentleman for some reason, maybe based on the thorough and eloquent writing of his e-mails (always on his law firm's e-mail "stationery"). He was every bit as kind and charming in person, just younger and better-looking than I'd imagined. He has a lovely wife named Emily, who shares his interest in scooters, I think (and hope!) Henry appreciates the rarity and blessing of this situation. They also have two teenaged sons, Miller and Harrison; Henry explained to me that it is a southern tradition to give your children surnames as first names. Seems like a very dignified and well-bred practice, I like it.

After I dropped my gear in one of the boys' rooms, Henry and Emily led me on a twilight scooter ride through this attractive residential part of Mobile, then to a Thai restaurant downtown, with Emily usually commanding the lead on her comparatively tiny Honda Metropolitan 50cc scooter. I tried to take a lot of photos while riding, but as usual, most were blurry and badly-composed. At dinner I had a red curry dish with tofu and the three of us talked about scooters, my trip, Mobile, my being vegan, and more. Here's a portrait of the two of them at the restaurant. After the meal Emily headed home and Henry led me around the city on scooter, we went 10 miles or so out on a causeway where the evidence of last year's hurricane was still quite visible, we saw several gas stations, seafood restaurants and other roadside enterprises that were boarded-up and abandoned. The restaurants that remained were built on tall stilts.

Shortly into the ride we remarked on how the temperature can change when riding, the "green" areas were much cooler than the city center and it was downright chilly in some places. I lent Henry my patented, bug-splattered "Gorton's Fisherman" raincoat to keep the wind off his bare arms and I think it helped. Mobile straddles the little cloven nub of land that connects Alabama to the Gulf of Mexico, most of the state is cut off from the coast by the 40-mile tall arm of Florida's panhandle. Knowing that Pensacola, Florida was close I entertained the idea of riding all the way over there, but it was too chilly and late and it was farther than I'd imagined it, 40-something miles to the east, so we headed back home via a short tunnel leading into downtown (Henry wasn't too crazy about the idea of riding through it, as he hadn't done so many times before, but it turned out fine). I remember being terrified of the tunnels leading in and out of Norfolk when I lived there, always imaginging the worst accident or breakdown scenario at the bottom; if I recall there was only one route out of Norfolk that didn't involve a tunnel. But riding with someone else, especially when traffic is light, makes it a lot less daunting.

Once back at his house Henry showed me to the computer room where I could work on uploading photos and checking e-mail, which I did until about 5AM. Since my computer access was so iffy during the trip I had to take full advantage of a computer/internet combo when I had the chance (especially uploading photos, as this was my primary means of storing them and making room for the new ones on my camera card).

The next morning I slept in until about 10:30, got my stuff together and talked to Henry, who had kindly offered to leave work, come back to his house, tour me around the city some more and then take me out to lunch. I gave my scooter a quick wash to remove some of the more egregious bug splatter (its first and only bath on the trip), then we had a tasty bite to eat at a middle eastern restaurant downtown and I got to see a little more of the city by daylight. It's a nice little city, lots of great architecture, sharing a style of two-storied, ornately-porched building (and the Mardi Gras tradition) with New Orleans. Many oaken boulevards felt like I could've just as easily been in Savannah or Charleston. There weren't many big buildings downtown, apparently the really tall one with the scaffolding on the top is just being finished and Henry's firm will be moving into that building soon. It's a fairly small city on the bay, not too much to see but dignified and cozy, and the downtown seemed to be in decent shape after the hurricane (I don't think this area was hit as heavily as the gulf coast farther west, which you'll see in my next update).

I said goodbye to Henry, cruised through the downtown a little more, back through the fancy tree-lined area and then west out of town, through some poorer, blacker neighborhoods and commercial strips along the increasingly devestated Gulf Coast...

I haven't decided where I'm moving to yet, but several places appealed to me for different reasons. There's a good chance I'll only be moving for a year or two, so this doesn't have to be a place where I "settle," just livable and interesting enough to call home for a time. I'd like to get people's feedback on the most likely contenders at this point (in no particular order):

Philadelphia, PA
The biggest city that I'm seriously considering, Philadelphia has great architecture, cool neighborhoods and housing stock, fairly diverse population, a healthy local scooter scene, tasty vegan food, close proximity to NYC, Washington DC and other mid-east cities, not to mention the beautiful pine barrens of New Jersey. Downsides: the weather probably wouldn't be much of an improvement over Chicago, and people say that it's not a very "friendly" city, plus higher cost of living than most of the others on my list.

Nashville or Knoxville, TN
I just love the climate and scenery in this part of the country...still a little taste of winter, but mild compared to the midwest. Nashville is the biggest city in the state and has a great little scooter community (though no local scooter shop). Nashville is centrally-located and offers reasonable flight prices to other places, though it is a bit lacking in cool neighborhoods and architecture. Knoxville is smaller but has some good things going for it, especially Yee-Haw Industries, cost of living and its proximity to the mountains. Memphis has gotten too bland for me to consider moving there, and while Chattanooga has some great scooter folks and a pretty setting, it didn't make a strong impression on me as a city. So as far as TN is concerned, I would move to Knoxville if I could work with YHI, otherwise Nashville looks like my top choice.

Louisville, KY
Louisville has a lot of the same appeal as the TN cities, weather- and scenery-wise, and a low cost of living. Lots of great architecture and cheap housing stock, a decent amount of hip young people, and seems fairly vegan-friendly. Close to Cincinatti, which is a great scooter town and nice place to visit. The downsides are its proximity to the state of Indiana, and the fact that I'd have to drive across the length of Indiana to get back to either Chicago or my hometown in Michigan, and that's 5 or 6 hours of punishment each way in a car. It also has no real scooter scene that I could see.

Southern Louisiana
New Orleans made quite an impression on me, I was shocked at the destruction still present in so many areas. I got a great tour from a local guy named Chris and had a great talk with him about the state of affairs there. Simply put, New Orleans needs help, badly. They've only got 1/3 of their population and a LOT of work that needs to be done. Since there are so many houses still uninhabitable the housing market is probably tough, and I'm not sure where I would fit in there job-wise...I've been wanting to do something besides graphic design full-time, so maybe I could swing a hammer or something and pick up some new skills. A move to New Orleans would be more for the charity of helping it recover in some small way, but the very hot weather, roads, crime and food would probably be tough. Moreover, it seems that they've only applied a band-aid solution to the levee problem that destroyed the city last year, and with the yearly hurricanes and the oceans rising from global warming, who's to say that the city won't be underwater again soon? It really is a magical place and it would be a shame for it not to be rebuilt, but if it is to be, there needs to be more done to protect it in this vulnerable spot. I also really loved Lafayette, LA, a small city a couple of hours to the west. Really great people and the heart of Cajun/Zydeco music; Lafayette is a cool small city in the heart of Cajun country. I'm probably not seriously considering a move to Lafayette at this point, but it was a very special place and I can't wait to visit again.

Other cities I'd love to live in, but am not considering too seriously right now:

Toronto, Canada and New York City
Both are world-class, liberal enough, super-diverse and have so much to offer culturally, with great food and scooter scenes. On the other hand both have a cold winter and I'm not sure if I have the money and/or ambition to tackle either right now, Toronto offers the additional hurdle of being in another country so there'd be issues with having a legitimate job there. New York blows my mind every time I visit, it's just expensive and almost overwhelming. Hopefully someday.

Portland, Oregon
My friend Aaron Draplin is sure that I'd love Portland, I've never been there but from most everything I've heard it sounds like I probably would. A lot of the same things I loved about Minneapolis, with better weather and scenery. But after this epic journey around the east and south, I feel like my next move should be somewhere I've just been...I'm sure Portland will still be amazing in 2-3 years, maybe I'll move there then.

I'm also interested in hearing people's opinions for "write-in" suggestions, there are certainly other places I'd consider, but these stood out to me as making the most sense right now. Ideally I'm looking for: a milder winter, cheap-ish to medium cost of living, decent vegan food options, good housing stock and interesting architecture (ie the whole downtown hasn't been razed for malls and parking lots), somewhat progressive (or at least not backwards) atmosphere, availability of organic produce and/or good health food store(s), good neighborhoods to walk and spend time in, at least one artsy theater and one good video store, the less interstates and strip malls the better, proximity to some good scenery, availability of cute (and hip) girls around my age, and having other scooter folks around. I realize I can't have it all, but the more of those things the better.

I've been doing some reading at bestplaces.net and other similar comparative websites. Please post your comments here or e-mail me directly at pjchmiel {at] yahoo [dot} com. Thanks for any feedback you may have.

I passed a Voting Rights monument in West Selmont, then crossed that sadly-historic bridge and got into downtown Selma just as the sun was leaving the sky. As is my custom, I drove to the edges of town in most major directions to size it up for food and lodging possibilities. My first impression of downtown was that it was quiet and forlorn, though with its buildings mostly intact. I stopped at a gas station where a heavyset and jovial young black woman called out to me from inside a car "Take me with you!" to which I asked "Where?". Her name was Corvesha and her reply was "Anywhere but Selma!". I can't say if this is indicative of the prevailing youth sentiment, but I could see where Selma could leave one wanting for a taste of the larger world. I followed 80 all the way to the bland commercial strip, then went east for a mile or two before turning back south toward downtown. I passed through some depressed-looking residential neighborhoods full of small houses, saw a nice little juke joint and generally raced against time to see and photograph as much of the small city as I could during the magic hour before it got totally dark.

I took quite a few photos in Selma, it was a good subject and the weather was agreeable. In some places I visit, I just get the feeling that "this is important, I want to remember this, this should be documented," and Selma was one of those places. This doesn't mean that my photos are anything special or that they reveal anything new about the place, I just felt compelled to take a lot for myself, and if they're interesting to other people too, that's great. I won't pretend to know a lot about Selma, so my photos aren't informed by knowledge (as they would be for someone who'd lived there for the last 60 or 70 years), though I learned some things about it while there. They're just a portrait of a struggling small city in the south which played a role in the civil rights movement (and some various objects from its local museums, many unrelated to civil rights).

After I'd lost all available daylight, I decided that the Chinese restaurant downtown was my best bet for a meal, so I ate a plate of vegetable lomein there, pretty standard and pretty greasy as I recall, didn't even take a photo of it. The restaurant was typical of Chinese restaurants in small-town America, run by a few very amiable, hardworking, quiet folks who are usually studying or reading in-between customers, decorated with an eye toward generic orientalia, with a few overweight white families sitting around chowing on sweet-and-sour, egg-drop soup, pork fried rice and really traditional Chinese dishes like wontons stuffed with creamcheese(?).

After the meal it was time to settle on a motel, I'd seen some fairly run-down cheap-looking ones in West Selmont on my way into town from Montgomery, so I crossed the Edmund Pettus once again and left the lights of town for the cool Alabama night. I passed one called the Craig Motel (relatively nondescript late-model vinyl-lettered sign indicating a recent name change), sized it up as I drove by and went to investigate another one I'd seen farther out past a trailer park. After inquiring at that one and being quoted a similar price (something in the neighborhood of $30) I decided that the Craig was probably the better bet, being closer to town and not next to a trailer park. There was some suspicious thing where the owner of the motel wasn't there but a woman who said she was a maid there and appeared to be staying in one of the rooms would take my money and give me the key (turned out to be fine and a true story, just sounded a bit odd and given the circumstances. Given the sidewalk logistics I couldn't get my scooter into the room, but the maid woman came over and unlocked an area where they do the laundry and keep cleaning supplies, and she let me wheel it in there for the night. The owners, who I met in the morning, were Indian (as with 90% of the motels I took lodging in on this trip), all very nice people. The room was nothing special, a roof over my head for the night and a television to fall asleep to.

I woke up in the AM and headed over to the Pancake House I'd seen the day before, with such a nice sign how could I refuse? Good oatmeal and OJ there. Then, running low on Franklins after paying for the motel in cash, I stopped at an ATM to get some and pay both the local bank and my bank a couple of dollars each for the privilege.

I wanted to see a couple of museums recommended in my Lonely Planet guidebook and the first one was the Old Depot Museum. It was a handsome museum and I was greeted by a very kindly older woman named Jean Martin who I think is the curator there, she introduced me to a man named Earl Hopkins, a woodworker who used to work at Colonial Williamsburg and also works at this museum. He gave me a lot of great information, especially about the exhibits in the African-American History room. Next I was met by Charles Payne, who led me through the majority of the exhibits and answered all of my questions. Some of the highlights of the Old Depot Museum: 1) The Courageous Eight 2) Murals by Felix Baine 3) a Long Black Veil 4) Old Buildings Lost to Progress 5) This crazy quilt made of scraps, and most impressively a collection of 30-something early photographs documenting the everyday life and work of black slaves on a plantation. Unfortunately the Museum doesn't allow these to be photographed, but the collection is one of a kind and they alone make this place worth a visit (I hope that they can eventually be published in history books for the world to see).

My last stop in Selma was the National Voting Rights Museum, a smaller place dedicated to suffrage, both for women and minorities. This museum had an excellent display of black and white photos from the 1965 marches, showing brave blacks and their supporters peacefully uniting while State Troopers, many who were probably just as scared and some feeling righteous, finger their clubs and teargas in anticipation. It's hard to imagine that scene, like any police state given orders to stop the assembled it must've been so frightening. I have total respect and admiration for those who marched in the face of that ugliness, and I feel shame that my country was in this state so few years ago. Other items of interest were a wall of hand-written "I Was There" recollections from people who marched, monuments to those who sacrificed their lives as martyrs for the cause, political posters for black candidates, disturbing KKK artifacts (chilling to see this stuff in person if you've only ever encountered it in films, probably like when Japanese friends of mine have come to the States and seen a *real* gun for the first time) and more. Both good, important museums and worth the time if you're passing near Selma.

On my way out of town I saw what I took to be the more affluent, whiter side of Selma to the southwest of downtown. Selma is an interesting city, it has potential and I hope it can realize it. It still has a lot of great original buildings standing, though many are in danger of dereliction if not occupied or somehow rediscovered; there were a LOT of what appeared to be vacant or under-used buildings around town. Definitely worth a visit, it made quite an impression on me and I'm glad I spent the time there.

I stopped in a town called Hogansville to rest for a few minutes and enjoy a song or two from Ryan's CD, decent but fairly boring little town on a hill. Saw a couple of young kids skateboarding, I actually saw a fair amount of that on the trip, and wished that I could join them, if not for the boots. Got back on the road and eventually crossed a river, which you'd think would be the border between the two states...but no, not here. In this case, the border follows that river, but not right next to it, so that land on both sides of the river belongs to Georgia and the border is another 1/2 mile away or something. Moreover, there's most of a town between the river and the border. Weird. In any case, this was the first time either my Michelins or moccasins had ever touched down in the state of Alabama, so it was cause for excitement.

After passing several more stupidly-named gas stations, within 20 miles of crossing the border the skies turned steel-grey and ominous. Having been caught with my (rain)pants down before on this trip, I decided that I would be wise to put on my raingear. I pulled over just as the first few drops started showing up on my visor. No sooner could I step off the scooter than the heavens sent down a real mean shower, nearly soaking me before I could scramble the raingear on (reminded me of Niagara Falls), the kind of huge drops of sudden rain that make visible splashes when they hit the road. Unfortunately it rained for the duration of my trip to Montgomery, some 70+ miles. Since it was getting dark and the rain showed no signs of relenting, I got onto Interstate 85 at some point (I believe 29 joins 85 before Auburn and I just stayed on all the way to Montgomery). Fortunately the ride was without incident and provided one of the most stunning sunsets I've ever seen.

I'd been in touch with a nice local scooterist named Rob and he offered to put me up for the night. He's done a lot of long-distance riding on his Stella (his girlfriend has one too!), so we traded stories about our respective journeys. He is in the military and is also a boardgame enthusiast. He had to get up really early in the AM to go to work but at his place I was able to let my gear dry out (for the most part) and do a web update. Rob is a great guy, wish I'd been able to spend more time visiting and riding with him.

After my web update in the morning I headed into the downtown area in the early afternoon (the weather and time had prevented us from doing a proper tour the night before). The downtown was smallish, maybe somewhere between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids size as a point of reference for my Michigan friends. I was hungry and wanted some breakfast, oatmeal was all I asked, but the place I chose, the Farmer's Market Cafe (don't let the name fool you!) didn't have it. Instead they served what are known as "plate lunches", from whose dismal, meat-laden cafeteria-style menu I got to pick a few side dishes and pray for the best. I chose badly and wound up paying something like 6 or 8 dollars for one of the beigest, greasiest, starchiest, saddest meals that I've ever picked at. Christ.

After the promising lunch I couldn't wait to see what else Montgomery had in store for me; I did a little driving around in the hot sun and eventually found the Hank Williams Museum. Fortunately the museum was nothing like the lunch and I spent a wonderful couple of hours there enjoying the exhibits, buying memorabilia and shooting the breeze with Cecil Jackson, the curator of the museum. As a big fan of Old Hank it was really something special to pull the Ramblin' Man (named after the Hank song of the same name) in front of the place and get a photo. Another highlight was the brilliant film shown about Hank's life, which I watched probably 40 minutes of and then saw for sale in the lobby, part of the American Masters series...I bought a copy on DVD. Seeing the man's suits, the car he died in, the clothes he died in, all of the great old LP covers, and possibly my favorite piece, the hand-written lyrics to Men With Broken Hearts kind of blew me away.

After I was done buying stuff, with my Map of Other Area Hank Attractions in hand, I said goodbye to Cecil and cruised around downtown Montgomery some more, admiring some impressive state-capitol type buildings. I found the statue of Hank and also found the boneyard where his he and his wife Audrey are buried, and paid my respects to their impressive graves...one Ramblin' Man standing at the grave of another, saying "God's called home his Ramblin' Man."

Montgomery has potential, it has not too bad of a downtown with a lot of nice buildings still intact. I saw a lot of abandoned motels west of town on Hwy 80, but I noticed a fair amount of construction around town, so maybe the local economy isn't too bad...hopefully they won't tear all of the nice old buildings down; towns that do that will look back in years to come, after they realize they're living in an insipid concrete hell and wonder how anyone could let such a dark transaction occur. One of the most pleasant surprises was that Montgomery also has an "indie" movie theater, a rarity in these parts, I wish I'd been able to catch a flick there. I didn't have time for the Rosa Parks museum because I'd spent so much time with Hank and needed to get to Selma.

From Jake's place (between Ocala and Gainesville), I rode 318 west to ALT 27 and stayed on that for 100 miles or so (seemed like forever) up to Perry. The bad thing about ALT 27 is that it's all 4-lane divided highway, which I've come to realize is about my least favorite type of road to ride on (outside of interstate highways and gravel roads). The pace can be too fast and the scenery is generally disappointing, not offering much more than an interstate would, not to mention the sensation that you're not moving very fast since the road cuts such a wide swath through the countryside and there are no trees, or shade(!) nearby. And it was hotter than hell that day, so the sun was killing me. No fun when you can only go 55mph.

So in Perry I was thrilled to get the hell off of ALT 27/19/98 and onto a smaller road, 221N. This took me the remaining 50-something miles out of Florida and back into Georgia, the state I'd come out of just the day before. I stayed on 76 up to Adel, where I found 41, a road which runs within a few miles of Interstate 75 all the way up to Atlanta. The scenery in northern FL and southern GA is pretty, lots of houses with tall, tall trees shading the front yard (there are a few different variants on this theme and unfortunately I don't have a good photographic example of it, but it's almost magical-looking, a large-scale grove with huge trees spaced well apart that shade the entire expanse of yard, a gorgeous sight).

At some point in northern Florida I turned over the 6,000th mile on my odometer. I traveled down the sun-baked road past a whole lot of nothing, with the occasional sight to pull over for, like this strange landscape and this abandoned BP gas station. I made it to that Georgia line with much less than an hour of daylight left. I passed a nice swamp and then it got dark.

I'd been trying not to drive in the dark too much if I could avoid it, too many bugs and Hazards of the Road. But I wanted to make it up to Atlanta as soon as possible so as not to miss too much of the rally action, and since it was such a late start, this meant at least a few hours of night driving. I was planning on going about 2/3rds of the way (possibly up near Macon) and getting a motel for the night, then trying to make it up to the rally by midday Saturday. I was trucking along in the dark, the temperature was still decent and the bugs weren't too bad so I figured I could go for a while.

At some point almost an hour past Tifton in the middle of nowhere, maybe near Arabi, something dashed out onto the road. I braked hard and tried to swerve but it scurried back and forth (as animals in the road do) and I hit it dead on with a sickening thud, sending the front wheel of the scooter up and over. It was a good-sized animal, I guessed it to be a raccoon. I was simultaneously full of dread and amazement that I didn't wreck the scooter; those 10-inch wheels hitting just about anything (especially when you're not bracing for it) is usually a losing proposition.

I went about a half mile up the road and pulled over, shaking with fright and adrenaline. I thought that I'd better turn back to see what I'd hit and whether or not it was dead, as much as I didn't want to confront it the thought of maiming an animal and leaving it to suffer was worse. So I turned back around and went back, and I came upon the poor thing in the road. I pulled the scooter over and left it running for the headlight's illumination, and I could immediately see that it wasn't a raccoon, but a good-sized striped cat. I am a "cat person" and have a striped cat that looks very much like this one and was horrified to see what I'd done. Fortunately it was dead and not suffering, not that that makes me feel any better about it.

The cat had no tags and there were no houses within a mile or more on the road, it was late at night and I was in a state of shock, so decided to move the body to the side of the road where it wouldn't be hit again but would be visible to somebody driving if they were looking for it. So to the cat and its guardians, if any: I'm so, so, so sorry. This was the worst experience I have had on the trip and the first time I've ever hit anything larger than a bug on my scooter (I hit a squirrel once in a car as a teenager). I was immensely bummed and couldn't go on driving that night, I pulled off in the next motel-sized town (Cordele) and got a room for the night, cheapest-looking motel I could find.

The next morning I got up at a decent time (decenter than usual, i.e. I got out of there before check-out time, probably 8-something). I thought I had just over a hundred miles to Atlanta but it turned out to be more than that through some attractively hilly and pine-y roads. I also stopped in a small town to buy a discman CD player at a pawn shop so that I could listen to the "SOS" music CD Ryan had mailed me c/o Jake's place in Florida. After some searching I eventually found one, paid $20 for it (too much, esp. considering that when I went next door to Dollar General to buy batteries for it I saw brand new players for $12...oh well). No matter the price, hearing the sweet sounds of Townes Van Zandt, Woody Guthrie, The Carter Family and Stompin' Tom Connors was worth it as I sailed along the hi-way, thrilled to be hearing these songs that I'd been dreaming of for weeks. Thanks again to Ryan.

Once I got close to Atlanta and started crawling through its big suburban sprawl nightmare I decided to aim for the interstate about 12 or 15 miles outside of downtown and rode that in, too hot and impatient to deal with the stop-and-go strip mall and fast food route.

By the time I finally rolled up to the rally it was about 2pm and I'd missed the group rides, but I got a warm welcome from just about everyone there, it seemed like a lot of people recognized me and/or my trip, and that was flattering. I spent the afternoon chatting with people and watching the various gymkhana events, had a veggie burger and tried to stay cool and somewhat out of the blistering sun. The rally is held at a great venue called the Masquerade, I think it used to be some kind of factory or brewery, it's a gigantic building that now houses a dance club, or several. They have a large lawn area out back (inside some sort of castle walls) and that's where most of the scooter stuff is, except for the nighttime bar part, which is inside in the bar. Some cute dreadlock'd beauties working there. So after several hours of fun-in-the-sun antics-watching people kind of went their separate ways, planning to meet back up at the Masquerade later that night for the bar stuff.

During this intermission I rendezvous'd with Danielle, the girl whose apartment I'd crashed at my previous night in Atlanta, and she was kind enough to offer her couch and cat for my enjoyment once again. So I unloaded some of my gear and then walked across the street to Soul Veg to have another fantastic dinner there. After that I played with the cat for a while and checked my e-mail and went out to join the evening festivities at 9 or 10.

They had karaoke in the one bar and some kind of dance club party in the other part, and scooterists were hanging out and drinking all around. When they did the awards ceremony bit I wasn't very surprised to be called to the stage for being Furthest Ridden, but I was quite surprised (and more than a little embarrassed) to get called back up for my scooter being named Best in Show. That is a tall honor and I give all the credit to Will Christman at the Sign Shop of Racine who did my paint work. Shortly after the awards I learned that a woman named Becky had actually ridden a little farther to the rally than I had from Florida, and that she was really hoping to win Furthest Ridden, so I gave her the trophy. No big deal, she earned it and it meant one less thing for me to carry or ship home.

As the evening drew on some of my newfound friends told me they were going to a titty bar called the Cleremont Lounge, located in the basement of a sleazy motel, and that the strippers there were basically all age 40-60+. Sounded like a plan to me so I rode over with some others and paid my cover charge for admission into a red, hot, crowded, smoky room with a couple of old ladies dancing up a storm on a couple of stages and an ancient DJ (looked to be about 70, dressed in the height of late 1970s fashion) spinning tunes. Unfortunately cameras are prohibited in strip clubs but it's quite a venue, simultaneously fun and pathetic.

After that I called it a night and slept well. The next morning there was a breakfast at some Irish bar/restaurant in a suburb, and after getting lost trying to find it I eventually arrived, if a little late. Ordered up the least of the evils on the menu, a mess of potatoes, onions and soy sausage with a strange, dry bread that tasted like soda bread mated with rye, and sat and chatted with some of the BNSSC folks and a few other friends I'd just made. After breakfast some people headed over to a park to play kickball, I went along with them (to watch, not to play) and chatted some more. After this I went back to Danielle's place to collect my gear and ended up staying the night (and most of the next day) with Matt and Christina, a sweet scooter couple who'd recently moved to Atlanta from Pensacola. They were so kind and let me stay the night in their cool loft apartment (after they'd just said goodbye to a houseful of guests for the rally) and take over their computer for the better part of a full day, trying my best to upload photos and pen an update or two. I had a really good time at Deliverance 5 and thank all the great folks I met for the conversations and southern hospitality. I hope to attend more Atlanta rallies in the future. To see more photos from the rally, check out the Deliverance 5 gallery on scoot.net.

I left the next day for Montgomery, AL, that update to follow soon...this one is long enough!

Thanks to all who have been following along, I apologize for the dearth of updates and barrage of photos (uploading hundreds at a time instead of a slow trickle). My biggest regret about the trip is not having a laptop with me, meaning that my updates have gotten so scattered and far-behind. Probably better to read the book when it comes out than trudge through page after page of new stuff in a few days' time. 10 weeks into the trip, looking down the barrel of 10,000 miles. Shiny/buggy side up...bald, rubber side down.
PJ

This is out of order but I just wanted to check in and say that I've been in Nashville for the last two days, and was in Memphis, Hope and Longview before that. Lots of riding, did 500-something miles in two days cutting across Arkansas and Tennessee. Will report in detail later, but I'm doing fine, the scooter is still running, and the creek hasn't risen. I'm on the "home stretch" now, aiming to be back in Chicago on Saturday the 14th of October. Headed up to Louisville, KY this afternoon through some pretty mountain roads, will probably spend two nights there, then across southern IN to Murphysboro where I hope to meet up with Bill Bartolone, then I'm going to try to rendezvous with Draplin and Ryno somewhere in Missouri on Sunday and Monday.

8,500 miles into the trip now and nearly 9 weeks on the road, god damn it. Lots of new photos over on my Flickr account, sorry I can only dump them on there once a week or so and that means a ridiculous quantity of new stuff to sift through, but there are some gems if you have the time. Note: Flickr seems to have been overwhelmed by my "RAMBLE" set with its nearly-4,000 photos, so it somehow dropped out about 3,000 of them and now it's down to 600-something. I have no idea how or why this happened but I will fix it later when I have time, for now you'll have to go backwards through the pages and they'll be in reverse order, most recent first, etc). Will do more organizing and weeding of the photos once the trip is through and make a "best-of" gallery or two.

Thanks again to all the great folks I've met on the road who have offered advice, directions, lodging, warnings, iced tea, or whatever; you've made the trip what it is and I can't thank you enough.

I left Savannah after meeting with Russ and his gang and was headed south on Route 17 on a hot afternoon. The weather down here has generally been in the 80s or 90s every day since I left Atlanta. I went through some marshy areas and crossed another trendy bridge or two, stopped to investigate condemned Country Stores (as usual), derelict drive-ins and boarded-up barbecues. Then it was over a blue bridge and over the state line to the sunshine state.

Shortly after crossing the line I came upon a real dandy of a souvenir shop, which had sadly closed an hour or two earlier. I wish they'd been open because I had so little time in FL and didn't see anything else like it during my trip through (thought I'd see a bunch of 'em but I guess I wasn't near enough to the tourist areas or coast). Once over the border I jumped on A1A (Beachfront Avenue!) west to 301 to avoid Jacksonville, and took 301 all the way south to Citra where I picked up 318 to Jake's. Man, once the sun went down the bugs came out and they were like snow hurling themselves at me, smashing into my headlight and helmet (and jacket) with softly audible little "splats" and building up like snow does on a windshield. Unfortunately I have no windshield so I bear the full brunt of bugs and rain...the only benefit is that when it rains after the bugs, it washes a lot of it off me and the scooter. Gross but true.

I called Jake to let him know where I was and he met me at a gas station near his house (I'd never seen a picture of him either and didn't know what to expect), he pulled up as a tall guy with a grey ponytail, a smiling warm greeting, a firm handshake and the air of a 50-something Johnny Cash (looked kind of like and had a good presence). Jake and his wife Helen are originally from Detroit but have lived in Florida for many years. They have a beautiful home/farm there where they work with reptiles and giant turtles. They have a fascinating lifestyle, lots of great stories and a pleasure to hang out with. I would sort of call them aging hippies, with the best possible connotations of that word...not like "peace and dope", but they have a well-rounded, somewhat new age and liberal sensibility and are *very* cool, laid-back and down-to-earth. They live just north of Ocala in northern Florida in a pretty, rolling area dominated by horse farms.

I stayed up late uploading photos and slept in the next morning. I got up and went for a nice swim in their beautiful pool, then Jake and I went for a great ride around the area on some lovely, tree-shaded roads. We couldn't stay out for too long because I wanted to get up to Atlanta for the Deliverance rally and it was 400-something miles I had to go. I was sad to say goodbye to Jake and Helen so soon, I could've easily spent a week hanging out, talking with them and seeing the area, but time was short and I'd made the decision to go to the rally, so I missed almost all of Florida. Not getting to see much of Florida was one of the most disappointing things in my trip (also not getting to spend more time in Maine, not meeting Janis, Ronald or Benny in Longview, not making it into West Virginia, etc). Hopefully I can return to Florida for a proper tour on another trip and see it from one end to the other, and back.

I hadn't originally planned on staying a night in Savannah, Georgia, but I did, and it was worth it. It was raining when I left Charleston in the early afternoon, and it rained pretty much all day. The drive is only about 120 miles by the route that I took, but the rain always slows things down (and makes for a lot less photos and a lot more misery, overall). I took 17 southwest out of Charleston and followed that down to Savannah, though it actually put me on 95 for a few miles near Coosawhatchie. On the way down I stopped at a gift shop to get out of the driving rain for a few minutes, I bought some "sweet potato butter" (doesn't actually contain butter), basically just sweet potatoes and spices that you can spread on breads, etc. It's okay, a little thin and not as sweet as I'd imagined. I also stopped and got the camera wet for a photo of a swamp (not sure why I'm so taken by swamps, but they always compel me to stop and stare), and was pleased to stumble upon a roadside place with giant elephants and some impressive signage. I speculate that at one time you could order a giant pink elephant out of the same catalog that the "giant men holding stuff" came from.

The daylight was fading and the rain was letting up, which made for a nice photo. By the time I got to Savannah it had just gotten dark. I came over another trendy bridge and the first thing I noticed were blocks of housing for the Savannah College of Art and Design, looked like giant hotels. Someone told me that they have something like 7,000 students! That blows my mind, my art college (MCAD) had more like 700 students, it sounds like SCAD is making a big business out of art education. SCAD was definitely a huge presence in Savannah, buying up all kinds of buildings around town and running shuttle buses between them.

I inquired at a good-looking motel called the Thunderbird, my guidebook listed it as being fairly reasonable but apparently it had new owners and they are now trying to get about $80/night for lodging, which seems a bit much for what it is: a nice