A THOUSAND PHOTOGRAPHS ABOUT AMERICA, pt 1

I just got back from the mega-american roadtrip (9000 miles - 15000ish kilometres - in 5 weeks) and it's finally TIME FOR SOME POSTIN'. I am going to post America. Mmm hmm. I can't start at the beginning of the trip because I have those photos on a disk which I burned on a PC, which apparently does not work on the mac. I blame Steve Jobs. Anyway, those first photos where we drove through the desert (45 DEGREES CELSIUS WITH NO AIR CONDITIONING) saw the grandest of canyons and all that, will come later.

R.I.P. Mr Gorilla.
So, cut to already being in the midwest. We ended up at the Como Zoo in St Paul by accident pretty much, and it is pretty much THE most depressing zoo of all time. When I find it, I'll post a photo of the real-life gorilla, who was a huge and freaky and disgruntled mo-fo. But I did get this injection-molded gorilla made in front of my eyes by a machine that I put two dollars into. The gorilla got crushed at some stage during the trip home, which makes me VERY sad.

At Ely (2hrs north of Duluth, Minnesota... 20km south of the canada border) we stayed at this LOG CABIN beside a lake. Staying at anything other than a tent or a friend's house sounded a bit decadent to me, but I got won over by the fact that these lakeside cabins were cheap and just genuine bloody log cabins. Hel-LO Americana. So we got there and it was EVEN MORE RUSTIC THAN I HAD EVER DREAMED!!! Brian is cooking us some dinner on the rustic propane stove.

The muffler was all breaking apart and making embarrassing rattling noises, so Brian fixed it up with a wire coat hanger. That boy's got the number 8 fencing wire spirit, I tells ya! Also: how Wonder Years all-American is this scene, huh??

Near the cabin/lake area was this little town called Ely. We drove in one night to find a bar because I am currently addicted to beer. Ely was pretty much awesome, half tourists hiring canoes, and half locals driving loud trucks and cruising the main street.

More Ely skeenery.

We cruised the strip on foot, then decided on a bar to go to. Local, but not scary-local, was the order of the day. And boy did we get it right. I went to put some songs on the jukebox, and this drunk local woman gave me another two dollars to put in, and told me I had to choose the songs. It was all classic rock and new country. Three dollars total equaled 15 songs. I ruled the jukebox all night! I attempted to get a quality but crowd-pleasing selection. (sidenote: you know how in new zealand when you watch a band, people are prone to yelling out things during quiet moments between songs eg "play some slayer!!!" (or is that just you murdoch?). Anyway, in the US they yell "play freebird!!!" which is a lynard skynard song, and I put that on the jukebox because I had never actually heard the song before. When the song finally came on, the surly bartending lady yelled out "FREEBIRD!" and people cheered. It was pretty much the most glorious moment of my life).

OK ANYWAY, the drunk woman forced me and Brian to pose for a photo, which you can see above, and due to her drunk swayingness it is one blurry-ass photo.

Turns out I didn't even get a beer, I got a gin and tonic. Note the glass-chunk perfectly 70s-ish lampshade at the back. This bar was awesome and at each booth there was a button on the wall that you could push and it would buzz the bartender to come over and serve you another drink. Amazing!

Brian pretending to sleep in the r-r-r-rustic bed.

Goodbye cabin #28!

Mall of America in the suburbs of Minneapolis. This is in the center atrium thing where there is a theme park and like three roller coasters. Hmm. I wanted to go there for cultural-studies kicks, but being the biggest mall in the world, I was expecting the M.O.A to have some kind of qualitative difference from your regular mall. However, it was pretty much just a regular mall but bigger. Boring.

Somewhere in South Dakota. Brian with his new friend the indian.

Also in South Dakota, we went to the Corn Palace. This in a little shit-town off the interstate where they started covering this "palace" (building) with corn cobs about a hundred years ago, in order to try and drum up interest in their town. Apparently it succeeded, because every year they still put up a whole new cob design and people love it. Here is Brian INSIDE the corn palace, standing in front of a hand-coloured photo of the first ever corn palace. Sweet sweet corn. Also, not sure why Brian is always carrying a travel mug which presumably has coffee in it, because South Dakota was totally hot and humid and you just want to drink BEER.

The car started to fuck up at about this time, and we ended up at a dead stop in the Badlands of South Dakota. Yep, that's right, the actual real-life Badlands National Park. How apt, I guess, but it weren't no fun at the time. We ended up driving ten miles, the car would putt to a stop, so we'd "rest" it for 15 minutes then drive a bit more. It took an age. The badlands were HOT and bad like michael jackson.

Finally at the end of the badlands we popped out at Wall, home of Wall Drug. I won't even try to explain Wall Drug, except to say that there are billboards advertising it as far away as London, which is their shtick I guess. It is a drug store slash roadside attraction par excellence, with hi-larious olde thyme fiberglass photo ops (see above) and even vege-burgers at the restaurant. Which we ate.

Mount Rushmore. This is all the closer we got (as midwesterners would say because they can't speak english properly) because it cost EIGHT DOLLARS to park and we are cheapskates. Plus it wasn't that exciting anyway.

The abandoned and toxic pit-mine at Butte, Montana. Butte is totally cool.

Camping somewhere, I think in Glacier National Park, in Montana near the border of Canada.

Myself looking like a golden god in front of some mountains in Glacier national park.

The park is all spectacular and mountainy of course, and this is a somewhat boring photo where you can maybe make out the little mountainside road that we drove along, called the "Going to the Sun Road". There was about a million foot drop if you accidentally drive off the road.

I got to drive the G.T.T.S. road for the most part, and since I am kind of a crash-y driver it was a bit scary. Also, look how low down I had to sit in the blue volvo! I can barely see over the steering wheel, like a little old lady.

We drove through Glacier then up into Canada (after getting our entire car searched at the border for like an hour because apparently there is a criminal from kansas who uses the name "Brian Schumacher" as an alias, which is VERY inconvenient) to Calgary to see brother Thomas. Calgary is suburban sprawl crazyness, so we whisked Tom away on our drive to Vancouver for a PENDERGRAST SIBLING REUNION. We camped somewhere I forget but it was nice, and drank some expensive Canadian beer (seriously - $12 for a six pack of shitty beer! I was like "take me back to america!" where the booze is cheap and the women are easy). Tom lost the drinking game and had to cut off his tongue as a penalty. Just kidding.

Couple photo! Pretty cute, huh? I hope you like my Argentine faux-heavy metal tshirt, because I certainly do.

Oh Canada! Driving to British Columbia, on practically the first cloudy day of the trip. Brooding! Scenic! Road narrows ahead!


...Well. Phew. That took me approximately one hundred hours to post. If I can muster the energy, I will put up some more photos tomorrow, of the Pendergrasts Three who all turn out to have eerily similar haircuts. Eerie!

Goodnight all, and love to you and your families. Auf Wiedersehen!