Miscellaneous Debris – Archive

I was surprised at first to find so many motels in Livingston, Montana (pop. 7146). It was over an hour away from Yellowstone and seemed to have nothing to recommend itself. It was only when I saw a couple of taxidermists’ shops scattered among the hotels that I understood the reason. This here is huntin’ […]

The road to Yellowstone ran slowly through the great state of Wyoming, past towns like Moneta  (pop. 44) and Hiland (pop. 10). Wyoming, as I mentioned earlier, is huge. I only reached the vicinity of Yellowstone well after dark, and found myself a bed in Jackson Hole, some miles south of Yellowstone. Now Jackson Hole, this […]

I just stopped somewhere along the highway, on the side. My laptop power cable is falling apart and I needed to fix it again with electrical tape, but that’s not the point. The point is that I can’t even see a building anywhere around except what might be a farmhouse half a mile from here, […]

Watching Lethal Weapon on television one night, I was surprised to hear Danny Glover’s signature phrase has transformed into “I’m too old for this stuff”. A Mexican restaurant’s cocktail menu offers the well known choices,  S** On The Beach and O*****. What the fuck is the MATTER with these people?

This was my first impression of Wyoming: Which, I think, sets the tune for the rest of the boring, dreary, pointless state, full of cows and mountains and empty, empty roads. Oh, they try to alleviate the boredom of the roads. Overlooking the interstate is a gigantic, traumatizing bust of Lincoln, for no apparent reason except […]

Heading west from Denver, I started climbing the Rocky Mountains. Did I say earlier that I’m more of a city boy and got tired of landscapes easily? It seems I lied, or was at best grossly misled by Nebraska. The Rockies are simply wonderful. Start with winding mountain roads that make me feel like I’m […]

Much has changed, naturally, since Jack Kerouac’s heady Denver nights of 1948. Larimer St., where Dean Moriarty lived, is now a fancy bisto-and-sports-bar neighborhood, while the jazz neighborhood where they got their kicks is now full of adult bookstores and a limping hobo who tried to sell me Vicodin. This seems to be Denver, from the […]

In case anyone’s interested, this is where I’ve come so far.

Driving across the prairie at 80 MPH, there isn’t much you can do but look straight ahead. And when the prairie is the flat, featureless Nebraska plains, there isn’t much to seee except the sky. Pretty sky.