Rock legends and fish flies

We started the weekend off with a nice, leasurely cruise on the boat. I got to spend some time driving, which was nice. On the way back we spotted a house burning in the distance. No trip to Detroit would be complete without seeing the smoke from a burning house. 

I went out to My Dad's Bar Saturday night and met some cool guys from the area. It was my first time hanging out with young people in what seems like forever. I felt like it was worth mentioning. 

Sunday was a long distance sailing race, which turned into a shorter race because of the lack of wind, but was still a few hours long. The Bayview races are unique in that you have to start headed up wind and up current, so it took us a few minutes just to cross the start line. 

I love racing because everything has to be done so quickly. Tim was talking about two Makinac races where he came in second by only a few seconds. The Makinac race is hundreds of miles long, and to lose by only seconds shows how much the little things really count. 

Sunday night we went to the Blue Goose (reminiscent of the Blue Spruce in Packwood) to play in a blues night open jam. I met Tim's friend, Eric Gobel, who's the most insane guitar player I've ever seen in person. 

What was even more awesome was that Jim McCarty showed up and played right after us. So basically I opened for a guy who has recorded with Jimi Hendrix. Yeah, look him up. 

The fun doesn't end there. Monday was the enormous event of the Ford Fireworks show. The guy who designed the pyrotechnics also did the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. So with a group of about 16 people we motored the boat out and anchored in the river. We got front row seats without having to deal with the crowds and pandemonium downtown. It was great learning how to anchor too. 

An extra little fun note is that it's fish fly season here in Grosse Pointe. Every year thousands on thousands of fish flys swarm the area. You can hear them crunching under your tires as you drive under EVERY streetlight. They cover store fronts and houses. It's insanity. 

Here's a link to a video of one of the songs we played. Unfortunately you need Facebook to view it, but it's worth checking out. My uncle and his friends shred. 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10152492576331223&id=691891222

Grosse Pointe is strange

The past few days I've been biking around Grosse Pointe, getting my bearings and seeing what this place has to offer (nothing interesting... I've biked 50 miles since Monday.) Grosse Pointe is a suburb just outside the city limits of Detroit. I may have mentioned the rich suburbs where cops drive corvettes. Grosse Pointe isn't that bad, but boy is it a weird place. 

Tuesday we were supposed to race, but the weather was bad and there wasn't enough crew. I decided to go to the bar and try to make some friends. I came to realize that people my age can't afford to live here. So I hungout with the rich, washed up, ex-frat president Tom, known to friends as Gondo. Tom was a little drunk when I rolled up and, after hearing my story, bought me a drink (and a shot and another drink.) 

Gondo taught me some valuable life lessons. Like "Don't spit infront of women" and "The shortest distance between two people is a sense of humor." A lady walked in and asked us if we wanted to go get some food, obviously I wanted to keep the train rolling and went. So I got another drink there and Gondo also paid for my dinner. I think we're dating at this point (but he was making out with his lady friend so we're through now.) After he had a duet with another lady in the restaurant, he and his lady friend took off and the night was through. 

The next day I decided to bike around Belle Isle, a park on an island in the middle of the Detroit river. We went there a lot as kids, so it was fun to see some old places. 

I knew it was going to rain later, but I ended up chatting with this old man outside the aquarium for a bit. That turned out to be a bad idea. On the ride home I saw a thunderstorm coming, I mean like, green sky behind a serious wall-looking cloud. I pedaled my heart out but it caught up to me. And where else, but two-or-so miles outside Grosse Pointe (in other words, the hood.) So I go into this Soul Food joint and ask them if I can bring my bike inside. They were confused but let me anyway. This place had inch thick plexiglass enclosing the entire area behind the counter. I waited out the worst of it and walked my poor bike back in the rain. 

Thursday night is casual race night at the yacht club. Yacht clubs are exactly what you might expect. I felt a little out of place without Sperry's and a Polo shirt. This goes for all boats except my uncle's. 

My Uncle Tim is the current commodore of Bayview Yacht Club. He's been slowly tearing down the militaristic rituals that previous commodores, who think everything should be run like the navy, have set before him. Not to say that he wants the club to burn, but to bring the focus back to sailing as opposed to general pretentiousness. In a tradition that had been looked over the past couple years, he got the fleet blessed by a local priest, and to make it nondenominational he asked for a second guy to make everyone feel welcome. His extra guy just happened to be from Africa and couldn't speak much English. So obviously I've decided to stop dressing nice and go strait punk. I'm working on patching up a vest and I'm already getting double takes in GP. 

Originally I wanted to learn to sail as a means to get around the world and racing wasn't really that interesting to me. It took one casual race to change that. There was screaming and swearing and cranking winches like a MF. I now understand the term "talks like a sailor." 

My favorite task on a boat is skirting the sail. When you're sailing upwind and the sails are parallel with the boat, the front sail gets caught on the lifelines and you have to pull it inside. Going upwind the boat is heeling (leaning) super hard and the sails are on the low side. So running up there is scary and awesome. Needless to say I'm absolutely addicted. 

Alumni Weekend

After the first few days in Detroit, we went up north to my mom's childhood horse camp where her "alumni weekend" was being held. Not high school alumni, horse camp. And if I forgot to mention, this is an all girl horse camp. So imagine alumni weekend as 91 drunk middle aged women acting like they're in middle school and you'll get a rough picture. Needless to say my dad was not thrilled about the idea of meeting all my mom's horse camp friends, though he came around in the end. 

Since me and my dad are obviously not horse camp alumni, we got to stay at the cottage owned by the family who owns the horse camp. This place was cush to say the least. It's on the shores of Lake Huron with a private beach, hammock, BBQ, the works. 

We went up a night early to visit with the horse camp owners who have become family friends. During diner I got roped in (horse joke) to playing banjo for the ladies Friday night. What an experience that was. Never in my life have I been surrounded my so much estrogen. There are pictures from the event, but none of them are appropriate for this blog. 

My poor father has been enduring meeting all my mom's friends for weeks. I told him it wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't wait 24 years before coming to Michigan after they got married. Since it was Father's Day weekend he got a break. We spent all day Saturday at the cottage drinking beer and watching World Cup games. It was a nice break from all the traveling, and I got to spend some quality time with my favorite old man. We don't get to see each other often enough these days. 

One day of rest was all we got though. Sunday alumni weekend was continued at another alumni's house on Cedar Island Lake. It was a good time spent on the pontoon boat and more campfire music. We took out the speed boat Monday morning and tried some wake surfing. I promise you it is not as easy as it looks. Getting up is fine, but finding the pocket where you don't need the rope is tough. 

We said our goodbyes and headed back to The D for another Slow Roll Monday night, 30 miles around the great city of Detroit. 

Now that I'm staying at my uncle's, I'm borrowing his bike which used to belong to my grandfather. He was an avid cyclist, and it's great to be riding his bike (a mint condition vintage Peugeot 10 speed) down the same roads he biked on. And now I'm drinking coffee at his favorite spot, with this bike locked up right infront of me. 

And, dear readers, at last the world was quiet. 

(-Wizard People, Dear Reader quote. Seriously though look it up. HP for life.)

Finally in Detroit

We made the eight hour drive to Kalamazoo, Michigan to visit some family. It was nice seeing people that I haven't seen in years. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had to get to Detroit for Slow Roll. 

We check into our hotel with valet parking. It's in the Renaissance Center, the big cylindrical complex in the middle of downtown. It basically defines the Detroit skyline and is the headquarters of GM. (I'm writing this in the lobby above the GM showroom.) 

Yeah, our room is on the 62nd floor. It's insane to go from homeless to THIS in a week. 

But time was of the essence, so we mobbed to Grosse Point where we could borrow some bikes. We started off there and rode the 8 or so miles back into downtown with a group of about 14. I was not prepared for the craziness of Slow Roll. This is a weekly bike ride, about 10 miles long, with roughly 2,000 people. Did I mention it's weekly? I mean, we were shutting down streets for about 10 minutes as the entire ride rolls through. 

Photos just don't do it justice. There's a bunch of people that customize their bikes with huge stereos and lights. There was constantly music playing, no matter where you were in the crowd. 

I know the photo sucks, but this guy had the Fat Tire bike! I love that beer. 

I ended up getting two flat tires on the ride, most likely due to Detroit diamonds (the broken glass that litters every street.) The ride has people who roll around and fix flats though, and they were super nice and had spare tubes. It was a blast riding through all the neighborhoods with people out on the stoops, and children were always super excited to see us. 

On the way back we rode through some of the streets that don't have street lights anymore. It was really eery to be in pitch black in the middle of a city. I had heard of these streets, but it's definitely another thing to experiences it first hand. Detroit feels like the world has really moved past it, like a huge, forgotten wasteland. Which was a stark contrast to the energy in everyone in the Slow Roll. The people here aren't going to let Detroit fall. 

We finally got back to our hotel room and had an awesome view of the city at night. I'm excited to spend a month here. 

In the hills of Tennessee

As I told a few of you, the reason I was meeting my parents in Tennessee was to work on and old family cemetery. The past few days have been spent doing exactly that. 

All ten headstones were knocked over, most of them partially buried. One was even grown over by the roots of a tree. Needless to say my mother has been working our fingers to the bone. We poured new concrete bases and glued the rest of the stones back together. 

One of the headstones belonged to my great, great grandfather, William Snoody. He was a Mason and inspired me to become one. It was really awesome to stand his stone back up. 

It was cool to be in a place where my ancestors have been for years. The oldest grave was dug in 1884. It's a cool feeling to think you've got roots somewhere in the hills of Tennessee. Tennessee is an awesome place. The country is covered in forests that are so thick I feel like it's a tropical rainforest. The people are all super polite and laid back. It's like going back in time where everything just moves slower. And everyone has an accent. I swear, I will marry a girl with a southern accent. And being this close to moonshine country, I got to try some of the late Popcorn Sutton's moonshine. 

I also got to go to the Grand Ole Opry, which was undoubtedly one of the highlights of Tennessee. There were so many old-timers there. Ricky Skaggs, Mel Tillis, Charlie Pride, all greats. It really felt like being there back in the old days. 

It was also nice meeting my mom's cousin Diane and her husband Scott. They're the kindest and funniest people in the whole state. Scott even let me touch his dad's Gibson 335 guitar, which was quite the treat. Everywhere I go I meet the nicest people. It was nice to be able to spend a little more time in one place. We head out for Kalamazoo, MI tomorrow. 

Bum life is over

Woke up to a jackhammer tearing up the parking lot next to my awesome spot. I got some quick breakfast and headed out to try and beat my parents to Cookeville. 

After a few hours on the on ramp, I actually got picked up by a trucker. He stopped on the on ramp, that never happens. He said he was going through Nashville, then north. As we're rolling down the freeway toward Knoxville, he turns north on I-75! I'm like, "Dude, Nashville is the other way..." He apologized and dropped me off, but I was still on the wrong freeway. 

Luckily I was picked up really soon. The people who picked me up were super nice. They took me to the bus station and told me what bus would take me to the edge of town. Google couldn't even do that. 

Hitched another ride about fifteen minutes down the road, and another for about forty-five. Finally, I got picked up by a nice couple that were headed to Nashville, my last ride. After all my crazy bum shenanigans, my last ride was from an off duty police officer. I finally got picked up by the fuzz. He was a killer dude and his lady was awesome too. Thanks guys!

I got to Cookeville an hour or two before my parents and got some food. I walked to the hotel to meet them and it was so nice to see familiar faces. I realized I hadn't seen anyone that I'd ever met before since Boulder. 

The excitement factor dropped to around 0 as we spent the first hour or two together waiting for prescriptions. I talked to my boy Arlo while I was waiting and he told me about the Tennessee sunsets. On the way to my mom's cousin's house I got the chance to witness one. It was very nice. 

My crazy days are over for a while. No more 40's with bums, no more sleeping in the bushes, and no more homelessness. After 12 states and just over 3,000 miles, my hitchhiking adventure has come to an end. I'm spending the next few days working on a family cemetery with my parents, then headed to Michigan to visit family and stuff. Needless to say, blog posts will probably slow down. I'll be learning how to sail in Detroit and definitely hitchhiking back to Washington. Me and Arlo will be canoeing the Columbia river later this summer, so there will be more awesome adventures down the road. 

Heading back west

Woke up in the bushes. What I thought was a parking lot was actually a road, so tons of cars were driving by. It was awkward. 

I got a Rideshare from Craigslist, but they weren't leaving until four and I wanted to meet a trucker in Knoxville to get back with some time to spare. I went to the on ramp to get see if I could get back to Knoxville. This lady picked me up with her daughter. She asked if I could drive because she was sick and feeling tired. Of course, I helped her out, but she lived in this town that was just far enough off the freeway to have another freeway-double-interchange thing. Whatever it was, there was nowhere to hitch out. 

I still had that Rideshare so I didn't panic, I decided to hang around and wait until four. There was a community college nearby with a cool pond with a little mill on it. It was the most picturesque frisbee golf course I've ever seen. 

My ride asked if I made it to the nearest town. So in fear of losing this ride, I walked the two miles to the nearest on ramp and hitched a ride into town. 

Four came and my ride picked me up in Canton, NC. She was the coolest chick ever. You don't meet a lot of hippies that are still down to earth. She has been living in Guatemala for the past couple years and came back to the US to travel to music festivals, dance, and blog about the whole thing, while getting paid for it. We had some great life/universe conversation and belted some Temper Trap. She dropped me off at the truck stop just outside Knoxville, TN. 

I figured it'd be best to keep moving and try to hitch a ride out before the sun set, but no luck. So I decided to try the trucker strategy and sit outside the truck stop with my sign for a bit. 

Even though I looked like a soon to be famous country music star, no one was biting here either. It sure is fun watching truckers though. They come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. I can't imagine truck life being a good one. You go from one truck stop to another, all with the same shitty gas station food. 

Around midnight I called it a night. I figured I'd have better luck in the morning. My last night on the road I pulled out all the stops and got my sleeping bag out and everything. I slept in this nicely mowed field behind the Taco Bell. I haven't decided whether I'm going to miss road life or not. It's definitely hard, but it's also very rewarding. 

Who cares what day it is.

I woke up on my hill, and on a gut feeling went strait to the on ramp. I got picked up by this lady who informed me the cops in the area are real bad about hitchhikers. I made it about a town down the road, but progress is progress. While waiting in the side of the road, I looked down and found an arrowhead. 

I got another ride with a rafting guide. She told me all about how deep in Appalachia we were. She had met the legendary Popcorn Sutton, the old moonshiner. She took me to basically the top of the Appalachian Mountains, where she guides. My last ride was also a raft guide, and she took me all the way to Asheville! I made it to North Carolina and officially made it across the US. 

The Smokey Mountains are awesome, by the way. 

When I got to Asheville I basically just walked strait to downtown, saw some train-riding hippies, and kicked it with them for the afternoon, making signs that said, "Smile, it makes your butt tingle." 

Our group grew, and after getting asked to move out of the way of the restaurant entrances, we learned it was legal to go topless in Asheville. So all the hippie chicks promptly indulged in their new found freedom. 

One of the guys there offered to wrap my arrowhead in silver. 

We left our bench spot for a little bit, and when we returned there were two young ladies playing music in front of our bench, so obviously I hopped in with the banjo. Another homeless guy walks up and picks up another guitar. One of the girls had mandolin, and we were shredding. Playing whatever songs people knew the words to, Zeppelin, AC/DC, and even some Sabbath. 

Some guy walking down the street was like, hey come into our bar and play there! So we go to this bar, and some girl is having a birthday. We keep playing these off the wall, ragtag songs and got some free beers. 

We made some tips and went to the gas station to buy some good ol' malt liquor. One of the guys we were with had this awesome bum spot where we could get down like some real bums. We drank the 40's and played more music. I had left my stuff in this guy's car, so we walked back and found some good trash food on the way. 

He was sleeping in his car so I grabbed my stuff and got to walking. I lost all my homeless hippie friends so I walked back out to the freeway to pass out in the bushes. Asheville is a great place. 

Day #14: Two weeks

I woke up super early in the grass by the on ramp. I went to McDonald's to get some wifi and charge my phone. I texted the guy who told me he could give me a ride and he never hit me back. 

So I went out to the on ramp to thumb it for a bit. I got super hot so I took another break, but when I went back out a guy pulled over before I even got to my on ramp spot. He was going to Nashville! 

This dude was a little gnar though. Chain smoking with the windows up, playing bubble breaker while driving, and smoking while pumping gas! He was a super nice dude though, and he dropped me off close enough to get into town. 

Nashville is awesome. The whole city revolves around country music. Of course it's all sold out and terrible, but it's the Music City. Downtown there's like three bars with live music on the roof. The architecture was awesome too. 

But I had to go to the recording booth at Third Man Records, the same one that was on the Tonight Show. You can record yourself strait to vinyl. So I started walking. It was SO humid out. I swear I sweated so much that it wasn't even salty anymore. I lost like ten pounds in water. And when I arrive at Third Man, I see this:

So I walked back. 

I had a craigslist ride coming from a trucker who was headed to Knoxville. I had to wait for him for a bit so I kicked it outside a hood Exxon. I was really excited since this would be the first ride I got from a trucker. 

He was a super nice dude. Thanks Dane, for the ride. He dropped me off just outside Knoxville at the truck stop and gave me his free shower, which was MUCH needed. 

I got some food and found a nice little hill to pass out on. I got a lot of miles in, and I'm about 50 miles from North Carolina. I can only go one more state east. Then it will be the entire US. I've already made it to Eastern Time!