Cycledelic ("music") Trip

hey

2011-05-30T21:53:00.000-07:00

hi , the first job I held I had for so long http://g.msn.com.br/BR9/1369.0?http://cnbc7.com/news

Various aftermaths

2009-05-19T14:43:00.001-07:00

Kinds boring, but I felt like I'd be doing a disservice to reality if
I didn't tell this part..

Basically, the trip, which I had thought would largely pay for itself
before we began, exhausted our savings and we even had to sell some
stuff (my laptop and sampler) to keep it going at times... Now that we
were done, we hadn't enough money to get back to San Francisco, much
less pay October rent once we got out there.. We ended up staying in
Mass for another month and a half, having picked up odd jobs, getting
food stamps, and staying at my dad and later sisters houses... Though
we eventually had the scratch to get back to SF, we were still poor
for months paying back loans and such, though this also had to do with
the economic slump and that winter in San Fran can be slow for those
in the hospitality biz..

We should certainly have obtained food stamps before we started the
trip, as not only would it have helped with a majority of our
expenses, but would've helped keep us from eating in restaurants in
our many fits of hungry weakness, also a major expense that we hadn't
budgeted for.

About a month after getting back from riding, I recieved an emailfrom
Ryan Martin, of secret boyfriend, who we played with at eaglewing
farms in chapel hill, who wanted to put out a split 7" with me... This
has since turned into a 12" and I'll be mailing off my piece and the
cover art shortly (like in a day) ....

Kurt and I played one last show the night before I flew home, at the
peoples pint in greenfield, which was packed full of people I love and
some guys that had no idea what was going on who sat down to eat at
the table I had set up stuff on!

In the weeks and months since getting back, I don't exactly know
what's kept me from banging out these last few entries, especially
seeing as I have a lot more time now than I did on tour, and managed
to stay pretty on top of our weekly travels, not to mention that I get
at least a mention a week from my mother, "time to finish the blog!"
which is probably what really got this done (thanks mom!!!)...

Now I'm sitting in a cafe on clement street in San francisco, about to
finish this, the last loose thread of my obligation to this cycledelic
continuum, and am not sure what's next.. Though my tent is on the way
here, and with the weather getting warmer, perhaps it's time to plan a
west coast tour ....

...To be continued...

Warp

2009-05-19T14:38:00.001-07:00

For 2 days straight we drove back from whence we came, all of our
stuff in the back of our rented budget van, with an improvised bed
consisting of all of our bedding and a weird strap that dianne devised
to serve as a "bedbelt" of sorts -never needed, but would've been
effective in case of anythin but the most devastating accident, plus
we had a "helmet on all the time while riding in the back" rule... No,
just kidding about that. I slept so well back there though, with the
quiet rumbling vibrations of the highway under my head - fantastic!

Being the only nondriver (liscense suspended in '02 for too many
"moving violations" in a 3 month span, mostly due to a faulty
brakelight I kept getting pulled over for, fixing, and having break
again - I refused to take a 8 hour driver safety course to get it
reinstated, and now bike places, viola!) meant I napped, and
entertained the drivers as well as I could.

Not too much interesting stuff happened on this last leg of the trip,
though we talked about stopping by somewhere neat just to break up the
drive a little, monetary limitations (this was at the height of the
gas price spike, like 4.30/gal) and just wanting to warp back
surreally got us back to Springfield, Mass on the eve of my 30th
birthday where we returned the truck to budget (after getting as lost
as we'd been anytime in the entire trip and right in our own backyard
to boot!), and wandered up to a tavern for a celebratory beer while we
waited for my Mom, her partner Mark, and my sister to come pick us an
all our stuff up, which only seemed a little silly as we could easily
have biked the last 30 miles ourselves, but were grateful to not have
to... Though perhaps mark, who had the privelege of driving with the
majority of our gear, would've appreciated our having ridden it, as
out gear smelled so terrible (completely unbeknownst to us till he
announced it!) after all that riding and weeks without a proper shower!

We apologize to anyone we came into contact with in those last few
weeks in particular! We just didn't realize!

We had ice cream and pie at my dad's place that night, and in the
morning rode with kurt partway back to his house, then turned off and
took a scenic route back to greenfield..

I had a birthday party that night at my sisters house and the next
morning I was 30, dirt poor, home, and stranded with Dianne in
Massachusetts.

Sweet.

Athens and Atlanta

2009-05-19T13:35:00.001-07:00

We followed our directions to an industrial area, and down a dirt road
that we weren't too sure about, but ultimatrly led us to a small
parking area and a compound of small artist spaces across a bridge
over a little dried up moat... This is where we found kurt, who had
arrived the night before! The show was billed as being at a bike shop/
collective(?) called ben's bikes, which was a very small shop in one
of the artist spaces there... I recall being a bit confused and
anxious as to where we'd actually end up playing! As we hung around
waiting for the other bands to arrive, I had a lookabout a big section
of the building that was only a roof and rubble, though there was a
large fenced off portion that contained hundreds of old bikes,
presumably to be used as parts by ben...
Getting back to the main hang out area in front of ben's, I joked that
we were going to play in the big dilapadated area, only to find a
short time later that the joke was on me, and that was indeed where we
were to play!
People with long extension cords and lights started showing up and
before we knew it, a psuedo-livingroom had materialized, couches and
all!
As the first band

(INSERT!!!!)

played, the space filled out with people, one if the biggest crowds
we'd had on the trip, which was pretty neat considering the improvised
space the show was in

(INSERT)

As I recall, kurt played next, loveley-ly, and then Theo, our main
contact from orange twin (an intentional community and record label)
played a short and sweet set of acoustic punk tunes with intricate and
tricky sung-spoken lyrics (which was invigorating and excellent).
I played last, and though all but 2 batteries for the dictaphones were
dead (leaving the chimes portion a lonely single player) the rest went
well and people seemed to like it, including Heather, who, then and
there invited me to be on a copmilation cd of experimental Athens (and
me) based music.. That should be out sometime in 2009, I believe!
After the show we headed downtown for pizza, then back to "the
hanger", an old airplane hanger in the middle of town that now houses
several regulars and any number of transients (like ourselves) on any
given day - and a bike welding shop for making double (and taller!)
framed bicycles that one must mount from a ladder! Dianne and I hung
out with the welder and some of the occupants, and tried a couple
bikes before hitting the sack - this time the sack was 2 couches in
the entrance if the hanger, and with the doors left open, all sorts of
sounds of autumnal Athens night joined us in sleep!

That was Wednesday. Wednesday the 15th of September. We were
due in Atlanta on the 17th - usually, we'd've to start riding
immediately, but since we now had the van, it meant a little vacation
in Athens as we only had an hours ride ahead of us!
In the morning, we headed out for coffee, breakfast, and exploring the
uunivrrsity campus... Donations from the show had been good, and with
no proper venue to share the door with, we were all somewhat rich!
(thus facilitating coffee and breakfast)
We wandered all around downtown Athens, checking out a sweet comic
book store, a pretty sweet record shop, and a really quite sweet used
bookstore (where I picked up carlos castenadas fourth book, the fire
within on dan friendly's recommendation....
(I still haven't finished it (but have read other books in the
interim) for the record, maybe now that I'm wrapping up this story...)
Time to eat! After a thorough investigation, we hungrily settled on a
seemingly cheap taco place, which ended up much more expensive than we
wanted... An hour later we ran into someone from the hangar who
informed us that food not bombs was going on - darnit!
We headed back towards the hangar.
Stopping at a goodwill along the way, we grabbed some national
geographics (echoes of the first entery here) and I attempted to
bargain for a part of a walker that I thought I could use to extend
the comfort of my handlebars even further - they wanted too much
though, and left with 3 natty geo's only..
Back at the hangar we read, rode, and practiced our tall bike mounting
before passing out in theo's room this time - a death metal band was
staying on the couches that night.
It was Friday morning - the last show I the trip! We were able to go
have coffee, witness an unbelievably loud Bluetooth user drive several
people from an outdoor general use patio, and were all packed up with
plenty of time to spare.

The drive to ATL was uneventfull, kurt sat in the middle, Dianne
drove, and I navigated - at one point, as we approached Atlanta
proper, we realized that we hadn't figured out where the venue,
wonderoot, was and pulled off the highway so I could surf for wifi,
which I immediately found at a motel 6, and though locked, a quick and
confident word with the front office secured me access, directions,
and away we went!

A brief traffic jam later, we pulled into wonderoot, dropped off our
stuff, an went to find dinner in a quite cool area called the
(something) patch.. Over dinner, kurt and dianne joked about her being
ready for her performance, and it being only a few days from my
birthday, I got paranoid that my father may have put them up to some
embarassing shenanigans that would take place at the show! The more
they denied it, the more anxious I got!
Upon our return, we met the 2 girls that we were to play with, and a
couple guys that ran the PA and did the door... These are the only
people that ended up showing up, so we all just played to each other,
the first girl strummed an acoustic guitar and improvised lyrics for
10 minutes, then kurt went on and improvised a guitar piece that had
me wishing I had been recording, it was so spot on! He did a couple
more tunes, and cut it short.
The second girl (can't remember names
Right now, can look up, but if you see this, I didn't) played a string
of fancy effect units in a dynamic noise style.
I played last and by all accounts, nailed it - I think I put in some
extra energy to sort of spite those that hadn't come out, if you know
what I mean - teach them to not support improvised underground touring
musicians!

It was suggested that we go to an experimental open mic that was
already infer way, which we did, but was already too booked, so we
watched a couple acts and left... To go home to Massachusetts...

Truckin!

2009-02-19T14:36:00.000-08:00

So... thrift shops...

These thrift and goodwill shops were the vintage collector/resellars dream... Old adidas hoodies and such for 2 dollars, a few treasures at every shop... But for lack of funds and cargo space we were limited to a pair of deck shoes (that might not be what they're actually called) and some wool socks.

As soon as we left this adorable little community, we were in farm and watershed land for miles and miles... We soon realized that we had gone wrong too many times, the wrong turn, taking too long to camp and waking up late as result, and stopping at those thrift shops all had taken too much of a toll and we were in serious doubt as to whether we'd make it to Athens on time... This, combined with our predicament on getting home is what led to our charting a course for Greenville, on order to pick up a budget rental truck!
On Truckin:
Now, you, dear reader must understand that this was near tantamount to a failed mission for us, but with only a few hundred dollars left, including kurt's alleged $30, it was actually going to be cheaper to drive back in a 2 day sprint, than to stay on the road the 16+ more days necessary to bike back... Not only do our appetites require more than that amount would get us while riding, but just to get back and start working again (kurt in particular needed to get some shifts in before October rent was due) was a need... We had dome the math, and even in the current gas market (this was right after the Texas refinery fire... Only the week before we had been passing gas stations either completely out of gas) and with the low mileage afforded us by a large moving truck, we figured we could just make it..
...we were worried about what kurt would think, as we were out of touch with him for a few days, but figured that we kind of had no choice... So neither did he!

We ultimately made this decision at a crossroads where we could venture 25 miles to Greenville, where we could pick up such a rental car, or continue 160 miles to Athens (my numbers may be off)... We made a reservation with budget for the next day, and headed out on the road to Greenville...

That night, we got a bunch of junk food and a can of greens for dinner, and found a very peculiar place to eat and camp... From the road it looked like a church with a small graveyard and a largish field, with a perimeter of trees, but upon investigation, we found there to also be a playground and a large hangar/auditorium building, which emitted some strange dance music and rock sounds a few times... With the church there, we guessed there was a Christian youth group listening to Christian rock music, and of course a Christian dj in between sets.
In the playground was a play structure modelled after a house, with a roof, and as it had started raining, we decided to take our dinner in there... Though upon climbing the kid size ladder and looking around, we found the interior decorators choice of decorating materiels somewhat creepy... All around us were fake flowers, little flags and a couple little stuffed animals, which I immediately presumed had been stolen from the adjacent graveyard! Dianne wasn't so sure, but I know graveyard décor when I see it, and this was it!
After creepy dinner, we nestled into the (also creepy) forested perimeter to sleep.
The next morning, I was very pleased to get an early start!

Our ride to the greenvile budget rental place was largely uneventful... We got the truck (though the smallest one was broken, so we had to get the next size up, unfortunately) and were away!

Weird being in a truck after 2 months of (mostly) not having been... Suddenly what would have been a 14 hour ride became a 1 hour ride, and after eeking out a wifi connection immediately into Athens, we got directions to the show and were there in minutes! What an amazing contraption, this "truck"!

on to meet kurt...

sick, stranded in the black mountains

2009-01-19T21:16:00.001-08:00

... sorry for the IMMENSE delay, dear readers...

So we were up on the parkway, I was ill, we had just slept illegally in a picnic area, and shortly thereafter waking, were alerted to the possibility of help or trouble when a park ranger truck tooled into the area... Quickly deciding that we needed help more than we were concerned with getting in trouble, we (dianne) approached the guy, who was out collecting trash, and got very little trouble or help from him indeed! He told us about the proper campground down the way, and warned us that if the ranger (apparently this was but a minion of a more powerful head ranger) caught us at the picnic site, we'd be fined... Ok. Thanks for next to nothing. Kurt and Dianne set out for the campground (oh yeah, there is a store there... The one helpful thing learned from baby ranger!) whip I set about deconstructing our set up and trying to look like I hadn't just slept there in the event a real ranger did swing by... He didn't.

After a bit, the team returned with the news that the camp store was really close, and had food... Excellent! They had also asked the staff about the reality of getting across the closed section of the parkway on bike... Someone seemed to think that it was actually legal for cyclists to cross, and everyone was pretty sure that some had done it regardless of legality... Good news, sort of.

We ate, got some supplies, and headed out... I wasn't sure I felt totally up to it, but was gonna give it a shot...

Just out of the campground, the fog was thicker than the graveyard in a cheap 80's horror flick...

I think we got a few miles or so when I realized that I was just way too sick to make it to ashville, or indeed anywhere really! We decided to split up, kurt would hightail it to ashville, where hopefully there'd be a show ready for him, and dianne and I would just get to the camp on top of mt Mitchell, which wasn't too far ahead, and was as far as one could travel legally in the parkway... If kurt got caught and turned away, we'd meet him there.. Otherwise, the plan was to catch up as well as we could once I was better.

Off went kurt, and after a somewhat lengthy nap, off we went too.

The ride to the campgroung was slow and grueling, I couldn't tell for myself if it was all that steep or I was just too weak, dianne assured me that it was me, as it wasn't nearly as bad as rt80 the day before!

We eventually arrive at the Mt Mitchell state park and campground a bit before dusk, a little disappointed to find the restaurant to be closed, but exceedingly pleased with the campground - only 9 sites, piled one on top of the next up a particuarly vertical section of the mountain so that everyone had a balcony seat view, of you will.

Using the book dianne had just finished as kindling, and borrowing a small axe from a neighboring site, we eventually got a decent fire going, on which we grilled some pears we had picked earlier in the week ... Delish!

The next morning, we went to investigate the restaurant, had breakfast and found out that they'd allow us to buy food items from them at grocery store prices which was excellent news.

We wandered along a path after breakfast, picking wild raspberries that grew in great abundance up there until I grew tired (still a bit ill) and had to rest in some shade before continuing on to our campsite. At some point my cellphone found itself a signal (hadn't had one since early friday) and got a message from Kurt which appeared to still be fresh - he said he was at a community bikeshop in Ashville fixing his spoke... I called back and he was still there! He had gotten into Ashville on Friday night just fine, but came to find that no show had been set up after all, which suited him just fine and he went out and enjoyed a giant drumcircle in the town square before heading out of town to camp... and would get started towards Greenville that night... oh, and he was down to his last $30! uh oh!

The sunset that night was extraordinary! we grilled veggie burgers and more pears and I accidentally melted my sandals.

Sunday morning finally found me feeling better (able to keep down food, that is!) and after one more breakfast at the restaurant, took off to catch up with Kurt, who was supposed to be getting to Greenville, SC that night.

Down the mountain, and back on the parkway, a moment of tension as we crossed the barrier to the closed part of the parkway was dissipated as a family on recumbents came down the hill towards us - if a full family can ride on this road, so could we!

The ride along the closed section was lovely and refreshingly car free! we finally got to see the broken down section of road - lots of pavement breaking down, but plenty of room for a couple bicycles, and then we crossed the barrier on the other side and were home free!!

As I recall, we got into Ashville around 3pm... headed for the downtown to try to first find a coffee shop with free wi-fi, and secondly use that wi-fi to figure out our options for catching up with kurt and the schedule (the next place we had to be was in Athens on the 16th - about 170 miles in 2 days... possibly possible) and then how to get home on what little money we had left! We found a nice cafe and quickly discovered that my old friend Ian worked there! Ian hooked us up with oatcakes for later, bagels and smoothies for there, and we had a very pleasant visit!

We figured that we could possibly make it to athens by showtime on tuesday if we just buckled down and rode, though trains and rental cars were researched as options too... the main problem, besides getting to the last 2 shows in Athens and Atlanta, was then getting back - Dianne was the only one with any significant amount of money left, and I had told her that the trip would pay for itself! There's a number of reasons we fell short of our budget in the end, which I'll get into as an afterword, perhaps, ok?

We thanked Ian, headed out, and got almost to the S. Carolina border when our route suddenly turned into highway and we were forced to take a backroad around... but missed a turn and ended up man miles to the east of where we were meant to be... we only realized this as we rode into a little town called Saluda just north of the border... I think we got there around 10pm, and though we were off course, decided to stay in or somewhere near this town as it was just too cute, with a bunch of little cafes and diners for us to go to in the morning, thusly alleviating the usual morning search for just such a place(s)!
...unfortunately we had an incredibly hard time finding anywhere to set up camp, riding in every direction for a couple miles finding only houses and steep hills... we finally decided to just dig into the town and try to find a weird little nook somewhere near the main street... sure enough, just up one of the (incredibly steep) side streets, was a church with some promising looking grounds... lots of little sections blocked off by bushes... which at 2:30am we finally found an appropriately well hiddden section and tucked in for the night.

We woke up well after our 7am alarm clock went off, and headed into town for a greasy spoon breakfast consisting of every breakfast food there is, and it all came to under 10 dollars! Weirdly, the silverware was presented in little plastic bags... like as a sanitary measure? How strange...

Heading on our way again, we enjoyed a 4 mile twisty turvy downhill that brought us right into another adorable little town... all told, there were 3 successive little towns that we went through, stopping in each one to look at the adorable little thrift stores (I was looking for something to replace my sandals and a new t-shirt, as my main one was thoroughly disintegrated) even though we knew we were in a hurry!

ok, going to bed, but more tomorrow....

route 80

2008-11-03T08:46:00.001-08:00

how beautiful! a quiet mountain road lined with shady trees and a creek, traveled only by those who want to take the scenic route or live on the mountain...in other words drivers are slow and cautious. we had the road to ourselves. we winded around lake tahoma...it was a beautiful afternoon! i was listening to an ipod shuffle that raub had loaded with various artists and they were perfect for that ride, a wonderful soundtrack. he has an awesome talent for that. i was getting carried away with daydreaming and life...grinning from ear to ear. the road twisted left and right and started to get a bit hilly. we thought no big deal. the span of the 80 we had to travel was only 12 miles. easy! the hill started getting steeper. flat tires. breaks were happening more often. we were bored of the food we had with us...one can only eat so much peanut butter. we were getting slower. the fog started rolling in as we neared the top. the sun started to go down. we were still about 3 miles from where we were supposed to pick up the blue ridge parkway. frustration set in for all of us. i was exhausted. no longer was i feeling daydreamy or grinning. raub seemed to enjoy the hill. i couldn't stand it. i hate going slow on my bike. i think kurt just wanted to get it over with. we were all excited about riding the blue ridge parkway and anticipating asheville, people from everywhere were sure that is was going to be the best of the trip. all we had to do was get to the top of this darn mountain...we had measured the miles but paid no attention to the altitude we had to climb...2000 ft. yes! TWO-THOUSAND! we somehow managed to reach the top and guess what! the blue ridge parkway was closed. no explanation. just a sign. it was so dark and so foggy. we were nearly out of water. we knew there was a nearby campground in which to stay for the evening. we needed the facilities. while searching for the campground kurt's spoke broke. we were getting cold and had no idea of what the terrain was going to be like because we couldn't see. the campground was only 4 miles away. that could take all night at the pace we were going. we started to feel a bit of a panic and decided that if a car was to pass that we would flag them down for information. we had a lot of questions...why is the parkway closed? what is the terrain like between here and the campground? where could we find water? is there a store for food nearby? it had been a while since we had seen a car and because it was late weren't sure if we would see one for a while. raub and i sat on the side of the road and tried to make a plan while kurt fixed his bike. we weren't sure if we had to go back down the 80. we had spent all day climmbing this darn mountain and we might have to go back down. it was unnerving. we weren't even sure if it would be safe to ride down because of the weight in our trailers. they could easily push us out of control. just before we started to realy freak out, we noticed headlights of a car approaching. raub and i quickly jumped to our feet and flagged down the car. the small suv slowed to a stop just beside raub. he greeted them in his friendly way but it took them a peculiar amount of time to roll down their window and when the gentleman driver did, he only rolled it down a little less than halfway. we were thrown off by this as everyone we had encountered so far was extremely friendly and helpful. it seemed as though they were affraid of us. raub gave them a rundown of our situation to which they were shocked and appalled that we even had the idea to travel the area on bicycle. it was quite a while before we were able to get any information from them. the gentleman was a joker, asking about our herritage, the story of raub's name, how beautiful i was and possibly the other woman in our group...hahaha...which was kurt in the dark fixing his bike. we corrected him and he finally gave us some information...DO NOT TRAVEL ON THE BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY. IT WOULD BE A GRAVE MISTAKE! he was adamant. he said we would have to go back down the 80. he kept repeating it, assured us that is was a short, not too steep ride to the campground for the night and if there was an emergency, an emergency only, we could ride to his house for help. he gave us directions, warned us again about the blue ridge parkway and drove off. yikes! here we were in the dark cold fog on top of a mountain in north carolina with a broken bike and low spirits about what tomorrow had in store for us. we slowly rode to a rest stop we found before the campground. it had a bathroom and water, that's all that we needed. we set up camp and went to sleep for the first time feeling a little defeated.

2008-09-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

Disassembling camp the morning after we left Chapel Hill, bike/trailer shot, kurt and raub pose our neck warmers.

2008-09-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

Raub at Eaglewins Farm, Chapel Hill

2008-09-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

Eaglewing Farms, Chapel Hill scenes:

Raub edits new tape work in the studio, felt battery playing, kurt playing

2008-09-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

one of our camps in the morning, side of the road break in NC, Raub tapes sunglasses to his helmet, can't understand what's so funny about it.... realizes now that it LOOKS funny.

We rode bikes, played music. A lot.

2008-09-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Before I move on, i'd like to recognize that these posts are of no
little stature, and I figure those of you inclined to read them might
like a break from the excess, and with that, I refer to a "lost" day,
when we rode bikes, played a show, ate, slept, and was unmemorable
enough to be wholly discounted thus far... Until now. Hope I didn't
just bore the ____ out of ya, but that's what'd be like without the
stuffing. Siiit.

Sent from my iPod

Journeys to Asheville

2008-09-26T12:54:00.001-07:00

We hung around eaglewing farms until early afternoon on Sunday,
organizing and rearranging our stuff, patching old tubes, and planning
our routes for the next couple legs of the journey... One of which,
charlotte, was decided to be a waste of our time within an hour of our
planning our route to it.. No show lined up, and an extra days riding
when we could put some of that extra time into getting to Asheville,
which is nestled 3000 feet up the appalacian mountains, and which,
while we still didn't have a show there (we'd thought we did, but in
Norfolk found out that the people who ran the place hadn't really
committed ever and now couldn't do it), we had contacts working on
getting us one so it seemed like more of a destination.
We headed to a bike shop in downtown chapel hill for some new brake
pads for Dianne, and a trailer tire tube for me, though when we got
there, new handlebar tape seemed like a good idea to get as well (my
$8 tape had fallen off around Richmond and I was using zip-away pant
legs to pad my grip) so we got those, and a tire pressure gauge,
which, when the old pump had broken after the exploding tires of
Williamsburg incident, our replacement did not include one of... My
Mom bankrolled all of this as we were getting low on funds, and any
more would be awhile in coming, thanks mom!
One of the mechanics at the bike shop had done and blogged a bike tour
too, and I keep meaning to vheckbit out, perhaps when I get home! I
think it was "findrich.blogspot.com".... Someone check that, see how
it is...!
We set out only to stop again at a co-op for awhile before really
setting out in earnest, getting a good ways out of the city before
finding a nice big field to camp in for the night... Dianne and I had
an utterly flavorless bean and corn with tortilla dinner... Always
pack spices!
Honestly, the next week was a little all mixed together in my memory,
as it was just riding from Monday to Friday, and though there was
stuff to break it up, I may get some of the timeline wrong, ok?

Monday, sept 8:
We headed up the road for not too long before we all noticed a sign
for good homemade breakfast around the corner, a mile down the road...
I was dissappointed to take note of it's Thursday through Sunday
hours, but apparently nobody else noticed because a minute later we
had turned down the road the place was on.. I asked kurt if this was
our route, and he responded curtly that it was "the road we're on."..
Hmm. maybe this was also just the way to go, I didn't exactly know,
and we were sort of taking turns navigating, the navigators decisions
having bren deemed best left unchallenged, lest the apparition of
bickering or the spectre of second guessing get into the fray.. Kurt's
response was a little flip, then, being the navigator and finding his
choice questioned, not to mention the before coffeeness of the whole
thing!
When we arrived at the cafe only to find it closed, of course, I took
my turn at being curt by grumbling that if anyone had taken a second
to mention to me that we were going to this closed cafe, I could have
spent my time more wisely heading up the street to an open
establishment... flipped my bike around and took off to do exactly
that.. Yes, things sometimes got tense! This tension would lurk We had
gas station coffee and cereal that morning at a weird place; they had
3 computers on a long card table, under a sign that advertised
"Internet cafe", though as we started signing into our gmail accounts,
the attendant came over and took the keyboards away from us (!)
explaining that it was only for gambling! He was kind of a lame dude,
and forfeited his chance to win any kind of gas station advertisment
in our blog... In fact, don't go to any gas station, they're probably
out of gas anyways!
A couple hours down the road we loaded up on canned food from an
extreme discount store, lots of expired stuff for 25 cents.. We bought
enough stuff for the next two days... Cheap but heavy!
Around now, I noticed that with the welting ant bites from Greenville
was a curious double welt that seemed to be a little grosser than the
rest, which kurt identified as to most likely be poison ivy, ugh!
We had a pretty tough time finding camping that night, eventually
finding a clearing in a dank forest up a steep, pricker bush laden
embankment, as usual, on the side of the road... We had to disconnect
all the trailers and hand everything up one by one, this embankment
was so steep! This dank a forest, we usually would refer to as
yodaville, after yoda's thickly forested home planet, and wouldn't
camp in, but it seemed to be the thinnest of the many yodavillages
we'd encountered that night already, and we took it!

Tuesday, sept 9:
Kurt had packed his tent away before we were even really out of ours,
and announced that he was going ahead to find coffee, would stop at
the first obvious spot, but if it seemed too far, would turn around
and come back, ok? Ok, see ya soon. The weird poison ivy welt had
turned into a giant bubble overnight and combined with the sort of
decomposing creepiness of the forest, got us going really fast! Once
we got pedaling, it seemed like a while before we finally got to a
town and that perhaps kurt should've turned around, especially since
we have a tendency to get flat tires first thing in the morning, and
he was the patch kit carrier, but maybe it just seemed long, it being
first thing in the morning, before coffee even!
We rolled through the little town expecting to see kurt's bike in the
gas station parking lot, and not finding it there, looked for an
obvious second choice, perhaps a bakery was around, but there sure
wasn't! Wondering whether he had just continued on, or where kurt may
be at all seemed like a useless task, and we thought to just stay
where we were, so we got gas station coffee, but in doing so, became
even more confused as the attendant said he'd just seen another
cyclist with a big yellow trailer pass through not ten minutes before!
Why wouldn't he have stopped!?! He always took the first available
option for morning coffee, never trying to hold out for something
better than convenience store quality, for example... I had noticed
the police station across the way, and decided to ask them to tell him
where we were, if they happened across him in their patrol.. The woman
at the desk also verified that she saw him to through about 15 minutes
before, his yellow (it's rainbow, but certainly has it's fair share of
yellow) bike and trailer having caught her eye, in any case, she'd
call the patrolman. "thanks.", I said to her.
Several minutes later, eating cereal in front of the gas station, and
staring at the point up the road where kurt would be coming in from,
we were startled by a hissing sound from behind us... It was kurt!
Turned out, there had been a little downtown off on a road to the left
just after where we camped, and he had left a note for us on a sign
that said he'd gone that way, though we never saw it, of course! It
then took him even longer, as he went back up to the campsite to see
if we were stuck there before proceeding along! Weirdly, both the gas
station attendant and the policewoman must'v seen me (but not Dianne)
as we were going through town looking for kurt in the first place, and
in the policewomans case, mistaking my blue and silver bike for a
yellow one! It's now that I'd like to say that this actually
corresponds with a rule of thumb we'd started going by, which was
called "never trust anybody", and referred to a recurring event that
we had come to rely on and hasn't failed us yet, really, which was
that whenever we asked someone in a town for information, they'd be
sure to give us the completely wrong advice, which we'd only figure
out after taking it... For example, several times we'd asked for a
recommendation on where to eat in a town, and would hear that there
was but one fast food place (see Williamsburg, but lots of otther
times too) and after having something there, right down the road would
be a plethora of interesting, local eateries! Or saying to avoid a bad
part of town by taking some out of the way route, but we'd get lost
and go the easy, bad part of town way anyway, only to find that it
isn't that bad, just a little crummy maybe! Or the COUNTLESS times
someone has told us that we can't do some particular route on our
bikes, and again, it turns out to be a regular road (this one is a
little different, but helped secure in our collective mind that no one
was to be trusted for correct information) anyways, you get the point!
Before we continued riding, my bubble of poison ivy (which we later
realized to have been a nasty spider bite) had to be dealt with, which
made me feel queasy to think about, and shan't get into the details of
here, suffice to say there's still a giant scab there now, more than 2
weeks later!
...an hour or so down the road dianne and kurt got ahead of me and
stopped to use the bathroom at a crossroads where we switched routes,
apparently each thinking the other would see me and stop me from
passing, but neither did, nor did I notice their bikes, and kept on
riding, wondering to myself why they hadn't waited at the the route
changeover, which was standard practice at this point... Basically at
this point I became indignant at their not waiting and that grew more
and more as I rode along, never catching up to them... Eventually
stopping, calling Dianne's cell phone, and discovering that I had
passed them, at which point I stopped and 15 minutes later along they
came! We lucked out with camping that night, basically just finding a
lovely clearing in an otherwise dense forest, with a thick bed of loam
under the pine needles... A rare delight that I would take over a fine
mattress any night!

Thursday, sept 11: we began this day in fine spirits, as I recall...
Good weather for riding, a little overcast but not raining.. Went a
couple hours in the morning before kurt noticed that his brake pads
had worn to the metal, I belive... Not too long after that, we came
into a town, that I now forget the name of... Maybe hickory? If you
felt like knowing, it'd be about 70 miles east of ashville on rt 70...
Anyways, we came into the strip mall section of town, where we noticed
a bike shop tucked away behind a mattress store and some other
incongrueties... Which I only say because bike shops are usually found
in the main downtown, not off a highway that only long distance riders
would want to be on.. So incongruency of location, but I guess the
mattress store must've seemed weird to me at the time too, or why else
would I have mentioned it? This may, to the shrewd reader, seem like a
bit if foreshadowing, but is in fact not... Just a ramble that I can
get away with as I have no editor to submit to.
We went to the bike shop.
In the driveway of the bikeshop, my bike started making a funny
clattering sound... Something caught in the back wheel? No, a broken
spoke! Probably the extra bit of weight from a (recently migrated from
trailer to pannier) large Gatorade bottle of backup water had been
just a little too much.. Also we later realized that our new crummy
pump had only gotten my rear tire to about 70psi, a whopping 30 under
it's max pressure... Putting more strain on the wheel, and this the
spokes... Oh well,
What better place to happen than in a bike shop driveway? Oh, how
about a bike shop driveway that has your spoke size? That would be
better, yeah... He also didn't have the right brake pads for kurt's
bike in stock, but actually took them off of his own bike and gave
them for free, so howabout that?!? He told us how to get to another
bike shop in town, about 3 miles away, downtown, called Clark's... As
we rode out of the driveway, the rain arrived in force.. So much so
that, almost to the bike shop a bit later, we encountered shin deep
flooding and the kind of wind that pushes your eyelids, nostrils, and
mouth all the way open if you let it hit you face on... We walked our
bikes the rest of the way! There's an orange soil in north Carolina,
and as it washed away, rivers of bright orange traverled down the road
with us.
Clark's appeared to be closed, just a sign on the side of the building
and a big ummsrked, closed metal door... But lo! It opened, and after
a breif period of their not being able to get to it for a few days at
least, and after hearing of our adventure (we only brought my bike in,
the trailers are a dead giveaway usually... Without them in sight,
we're just weird cyclists who've chosen the rainiest ever day to want
our bike fixed!) they took a look at the spoke, looked for a new
spoke that would fit, and, not finding one, called the next bike shop
on our route, in Glen Alpine, about 20mi along, and they could make
the spoke, we'll be along soon, we said! The fellow who helped me
there was the only person we ran into who seemed to know of what I
meant when I said I play electro-acoustic music, excellent!
We wanted a coffee before heading out, and had that, some chili, and
kind of warmed up and waited out the rain... We also found the bike
shop in glen alpine to be closing far before we'd be able to get
there.. We said we'd be there upon their opening in the morning,
though that wouldn't be until 11, which meant we'd only be able to
travel another 20 miles instead of the 50 we would have hoped to by
the next noon... Hmmm, looked like we'd have (yet another) late night
tomorrow!
At this point, we split up while kurt went back to the first bike shop
to retrieve a left behind metal water bottle, and we continued at a
slightly slow pace, though kurt was sure to catch up sooner than
later, as he's just that fast!
Along the way, we were excited to see a sign; "Asheville 60mi"!! A
whopping 50 miles less than we had (mis)calculated!
When kurt caught up, he had seen the sign too, and we all relaxed
about our 11 o'clock bike appointment, as we could easily make it
before Friday...
We got to within 5 miles of glen alpine where there were some stores,
kurt got some nice wool socks, and we went camp hunting... Quickly
finding the North Carolina School for the Deaf to be an excellent
choice, plopping down in the front yard semi-obscured by a single tree
and little else, but sure the rainy weather would keep peoples eyes on
their studies... Which I guess panned out well for us as we slept in
until about 9am, and weren't bothered by campus security or anything...
We made for the bike shop, stopping along the way at a most inviting
little farm stand where the woman who owned it gave us free peaches,
banannas, and Scuppernong grapes... North carolina's official fruit,
and a tasty one at that, though they each have 3 or more seeds that
must be navigated...
The bike store was allegedly right up the road from the fruit stand,
but we climbed hill after hill expecting to descend into a downtown
each time, but never seeing sign of it.. We traveled to a very small
gas station where we stopped and called the bike store, who somewhat
grumpily informed us that we had gone 5 miles too far... That the
downtown was off to the right a bit, not right on the main road which
is what we thought we had been told...
After considerations, we decided to forge ahead and hope for another
bike shop to appear instead of backtracking over all those hills...
Over a break at a terribly greasy diner, a fellow suggested that we
not take 70 all the way in, but take a route a little north west of
Asheville to the blue ridge parkway, which he said was actually pretty
flat once you got up to it, and the 70 turns into a busy highway for
several miles, apparently... Looked like we had a new route!
An hour or so later, we entered the town of Marin, which after being
dissappointed to hear had no bike shop, were relieved to find that our
dictum to never trust anybody came to our rescue when we of course
found that it did have one, and I took off to get my spoke fixed (only
$10!) while kurt and Dianne hung at a cafe... In short order, we were
tip top and on the road again... Within another 20 minutes, we turned
onto rt 80, which climbs 3300 feet in it's 12 mile span...

Sent from my iPod

Chapel Hill

2008-09-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

On the morning of the 5th, the wind was already getting a little
blustery, and it looked like rain would soon be with us soon.. The
tail of hurricaine gustav wagging a little less, but still enough to
kinda hurt your leg.. If you'll excuse the metaphor.
Weirdly, though we knew we had a good ways to go that day, we let
ourselves drag and lag - we stopped for breakfast next to a pond that
had a gigantic wide mouth bass right at the edge that we had first
mistaken for a snapping turtle on it's side, we stopped for coffee and
Internet, a Buffett, and having only covered a third of what we were
supposed to so as the late afternoon grew dark and started to rain in
earnest, we stopped one more time at an Amish furniture store that was
outside under a pavillion between two barns... We took this stop just
so I could get out of my soaked socks, but there were no salespeople
out and we had soon made ourselves at home, pulling chairs and tables
together to make a little living room, chatting about how ridiculous
it was to be relaxing all day instead of trying to beat the pending
storm..
..Dianne soon brought out the map (she's been the map mamager and
senior navigator for the majority of the trip) and was pouring over it
when she doscovered that we were closer to our destination than we
thought, it being maybe 15 miles less than we thought! While she was
discovering this, I had taken to recording the assortment of wind
chimes that were on display, on my tape recorders... Having gotten
tired of the assorted beeps I had prepared the tapes with at the very
beginning of the trip, I had tried recording some sounds from my iPod
to them as a replacement, but the tape players reproduced their detail
poorly, with constant distortion (the reason for using clean, simple
beeps in the first place) and I had now no useable sounds for them!
The wind chimes seemed like they might ne a bit cliché or cheesy, and
would have traffic noise in the in them, but anything would be better
than just distortion... And there was a dissonance to the chimes that
was more appealing than the usual 4 notes that all go along all too
well of a single chime set... Both kurt and I, upon listening back to
the recordings after a moment, got really excited, and started talking
about ways to process them if we had a computer, and how nice some
creative removal of the traffic noise might bring out the harmonics
of the chimes and other unforseen sounds... But back to that in a bit!
Where was I? Oh yes, ..."the princess buttercup leaned against the
castle wall, fatigued from her endeavor, when a slow but sure shift in
her skull told her she'd have little time to spare if she was to make
it to the safe room that night before she became her evil husband, the
King of Disturbia, again..." oops, I got ahead of myself in the story!
Forget that stuff for now, please!
We left our Amish livingroom away from Amish livingroom and set out to
tear up the last 25 miles of pavement before safety... Which we
achieved about 15 miles of before being pulled over by a policeman who
claimed that he had recieved complaints about our being hard to see in
the rain, which I think he made up, but we told him we were getting
off the main street and going down a backroad to our destination,
which we would be at soon, which he accepted (not to mention that
we're all adorned with multiple blinking red lights and headlights)
and let us go.
About 8 miles south of chapel hill we crossed lake on a long bridge,
and the wind, warmer than usual, hinted at the closeness if the storm...
...we pulled into eaglewing farms at about midnight, mike greeted us
and we soon realized him to be a kindred spirit and fell into easy
conversation for awhile before bed.. And showers! This was the last
time I shaved, and we were without another shower until we got to
Athens almost 2 weeks later, and one of us skipped that one and is
still ripening! Though for the record, the term "ripening" actually is
more icky than any hygenic defeciencies any of us have had! About an
hour after arriving, the winds finally revealed their full force and
howled until the dawn...
We woke late (Yaay!) and Mike and Abby had made coffee, and fixed up a
large pot of oatmeal with brown sugar and currants, yum! With the sun
cimpng out and the day coming into it's own, fears that our (outdoor)
show may be rained out disissipated and we all took to our own
pleasures; kurt riding his bike (no trailer though!) into town and
exploring, eventually returning with new mint green handlebar tape,
Dianne read her book and lounged by turns, and I set about
transforming my chime recordings in mike's studio, eventually coming
up with a new set of tapes to use in our remaining shows! Mike and
Abby, both teachers, worked on school stuff for awhile and mime
eventually made a killer white bean and proscuitto stew for the show
that night! After I finished transferring my new sounds to the tape
recorders, Dianne and I went out to an adjacent field to fufill my
dream of eating grasshoppers, which were of supreme difficulty to
catch and keep! After some mild sucess with a giant mosquito net
draped over a large branch that we waved across the grass, I thought
to look up other suggested techniques on the Internet, which is where
we found out that one must leave caught hoppers overnight to allow
them to purge, as well as that some may spit blood to scare you, once
caught, and we gave up completely upon my reading that some species
have been known to bite humans! Instead of providing fried
grasshoppers for the party guests, we bought some cheap beer to share!
The people and other bands all started showing up around dusk, and
soon the first band, "felt battery" took to the stage and the duo who
make up the band played prepared guitar, nose whistle, kalimba, tent
stake, various pieces of iron and some looping pedals to create a
prarie drone that was accented well by the cicadia chorus that had
been everpresent all summer... Good stuff!
Kurt played after them, one of my favorite sets he'd done on the tour,
the amplification really allowing him to focus on microtonalities in
his sung notes as well as in the tone and texture of his voice, really
beautiful! A solo fellow called "secret boyfriend" did a noise/electro
set with singing through a mélange of pedals that Dianne enjoyed
immensly, claiming it as her favorite band she'd seen on tour yet!
Fourth up was matt bauer, a banjo playing singer with upright bass
and electric guitar backing him up.. They played bittersweet songs
with elaborate melodic interleavings, reminding me of iron and wine in
a way.
I played last, and the moisture still on the grass stretched my drums
out so the balloons only sang under close supervision, and I was
pretty sure the transducers were lost in the openness of the large
yard, but people seemed to like it and both Kurt and Dianne said that
I was wrong about the clarity of the sounds, kurt adding that he found
the new chime tapes very peacefull, ok!
After the show, the partygoers left and the overnighters bedded down
till the morning..,

Sent from my iPod

Greenville st blvd

2008-09-21T05:59:00.000-07:00

Greenville st blvd
Coming out of Norfolk, we followed route 17, I believe, south, along a
giant state park called "dismal swamp" where at one point, we heard
something in the bushes next to us for awhile, something that seemed
to be trying to run away from us, but at the same pace and in the same
direction as us.. Kurt thinks it was lots of frogs, Dianne thought it
to be deer, and I now suspect a team of timid mountain bikers was
startled out of their mid-swamp protein-gel break by us.
We crossed over into North Carolina late at night, and due to the
swampiness present, had a bit of a hard time finding a place to camp,
finally settling on the edge of a soybean field, something we normally
wouldn't do as farmers tend to wake early and be protective of their
crops... No need to worry though, woke and got on the road with no
trouble at all!
We stopped at the NC welcome center for water and found that there was
a bike path going in our direction for a few miles, ending in a
business route of rt 17, which would be safer... One of the ladies at
the welcome center took pictures of us as we headed onto the trail,
which they apparently wanted for a pamphlet, so look for us if you're
down there!
The trail was nice, and came out by a "convenience foods" mart, at
which we were shocked to see the counter woman smoking a cigarette in
the store! We then realized that there were ashtrays at all the little
tables and that smoking inside was the way of these parts... Really
surreal, coming from some of the most smoke-unfriendly parts of the
US, but something we'd have to accept for the next 2 weeks.
The ride that day was accentuated by tractor-trailers full of pigs and
chickens passing us periodically and giving off the most awful stench
and turning both Kurt and I off to meat for a couple days... Actually,
we ate at a barbeque Buffett the very next day, but who's counting?
We rolled onto Greenville around 4:30, immediately attracting the
attention of a cyclist who led us into town and told us the 2 places
we could look and maybe play an impromptu show; a cafe, and a wine
store... Turned out, the cafe was closed for just that day, andbyhe
wine store already had a hip-hop show booked... Plus, the downtown on
a whole was devoid of people, and a little depressing. We took a
siesta in the town park which sits along a river and soon realized
that we were barefoot on a nest of biting, welt-leaving ants! Ow! Kurt
escaped unscathed, but Dianne and I both looked like we had a special
chicken pox of the feet! Luckily, a few motrin did the trick and we
were able to enjoy a pizza dinner with ease! The college kids were
headed out towards the end of our stay, presumably to drink until the
wee morning hours, as many buildings we had taken for closed up
businesses, opened their doors around then (9:30ish) to reveal a
cascade of bars! A young group of freshmen, upon being asked to
confirm that we were headed for Greenville st, exclaimed "greenville
street boulevard?!!? That's really far from here!" ... We found
Greenville street around the corner, and indeed, Greenville boulevard
made an appearance miles down the road somewhere...
We took our nights rest a bit out of town behind a vetrinarians
office, just to the side of the dog run, as we discovered in the
morning!
That day we mostly just rode, not too many distractions on this
particular stretch of the American landscape, just flat, straight,
road... Got pretty boring after awhile, and about a week later, when
it started getting hilly again, we actually were quite relieved! That
night, I had Dianne snap a picture of our encampment, and in reviewing
the pictures, we couldn't help but notice the visage of a young woman
wearing a headband standing behind kurt's trailer! No one slept well
that night...
I believe that this was now the morning of September the 5th.. And at
this point we had begun getting storm warnings about the remnants of
hurricaine gustav, which was supposed to arrive in north Carolina
early in the morning on the 6th, so we were trying to get to chapel
hill that night...

Sent from my iPod

Norfolk

2008-09-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Norfolk
Getting to Norfolk, like New London, one must traverse an inlet, and
again like New London, the only direct method is by car... That said,
I give you our Norfolk adventure:
Our ride there was marked by kurt buying a can of greens (creecy, if I
properly recall) and sardines for lunch, which turned into our staple
diet (tuna for Dianne and I - choona!) for most days of the trip when
gas stations were to be the most reliable source of food. It was also
marked by our collective missing of the plentiful and excellent ice
cream shops up north, which, to satisfy our ice cream hunger, we
decided to settle for ice cream sandwiches or Popsicles or whatever
the next gas station had... which turned out to be a freezer bin full
of freezer burned and completely fused together fudgesicles probably
from the 80's! We each dealt with our dissapointment in different
ways.. I chiseled away at a slightly less than completely messed up
fudgesicle, Dianne had a dr pepper and m&m's, and kurt got a can each
of pepsi and coke. mixed them together, and discovered the ultimate
cola - the sweetness of coke, but with the fizz of pepsi, perfect!
Before leaving, he also noticed an RC cola machine and had one of
those... He then became an expert on cola, who may be contacted at any
time of day to answer cola questions. His direct line is: "38^
£=]eb47€,•\{".
We got to the Jamestown ferry (on bike, one must cross the james river
30 miles before the main (car only) bridge and go about 60 miles south
east to get to Norfolk) around 6, I think, and upon discovering that
it runs all night, decided to go into Williamsburg for food, which dan
friendly and some cyclists we met at our junk food stop had
recommended.. And was only a few miles down the road.
We rode directly into historic Williamsburg, which was very pretty,
but too expensive for us.. So Dianne went to ask a random store clerk
if there was another part of town that was less touristy where we
might find something more reasonably priced... Only a hamburger place,
according to the clerk... Hmmmm.
In disbelief, I try my luck, this time asking a waiter for the
location of a grocery store... "way down the road, past all the
mansions and then past all the hotels.. On your left." is what I got
out of him.
Seeing as it sounded like it'd be a trek to anywhere, we thought maybe
we'd just share an expensive pizza and hope for the best, but just
before doing that, I asked yet another woman (a hostess) how far to
the grocery store, which I was immediately informed would not be
walking distance, though once I pointed out that we were on bikes, she
told me that'd be "real easy, straight through 2 lights, on the left,
can't miss it.. No more than a mile" - no more than a mile?!?
Unwalkable? This place was weird!
So, imagine our suprise when, not a half mile from historic
Williamsburg, all sorts of regular eateries start popping up! I wonder
if employees of the historic district are sort of supposed to pretend
there isn't a present day district around... Perhaps to preserve the
illusion of historisism?
As we approached the grocery store, a sight of great beauty arrested
to us from across the street: "the wok'n'roll - Asian buffet"!!! We
discovered a Japanese, Mongolian, and Chinese buffet, all (wok'n')
rolled into one!
One hour later, we had all gorged ourselves silly, and had spent way
more money than we would've in the historic district (well, maybe..)!
We decided to not embarass ourselves by collapsing on the ground right
in the Buffett parking lot, but rather to gently ride it off on the
way back to the ferry.
An interesting thing happened at a gas station a few minutes later,
where I wanted to stop and see if I could get a shorter route to the
ferry; I walked in to find the counter woman on the phone, and not
wanting to inturrupt or make her feel rushed, I took a leisurely walk
around the store for a minute until she was off the phone, at which
point I asked, and recieved directions... I thanked her, and she asked
me if I was going to buy anything, to which I replied that "no, we had
a huge meal just now, but thanks" which got me looked up and down and
told that "you lied!"! I actually wasn't sure I heard her right (she
had a Chinese (I think) accent) so asked her what she said again now,
please? Again, "you lied", and pointed to the door.. I sort of thanked
her and left, confused... In explaining this to Dianne and Kurt
outside, we decided that she had only given me directions freely under
the presumption that I'd be buying something, and that she knew that I
knew this too, and took my initial walk around the store as a feigned
interest in a purchase, so that she'd give me directions! "I lied"
about my unspoken agreement to buy something, and so abused her
services! It wasn't until the next day, in retelling the story, that
someone pointed out that, considering the accent, she could well have
been saying "you ride" referring to the bicycles, wondering about our
trip!
I guess it's funny either way, which is why it made the cut..
Continuing, we were about halfway back to the ferry when suddenly, I
saw about a foot ahead of me a veritable pool of broken glass, which I
was only in the preliminary stages of gasping about as I rolled
through and heard my back tire hiss angrily at me as it deflated to
nothing....
... Two hours later, we had patched it, plus tried a couple more
tubes, all of which had exploded in our faces. Exhausted, we looked
for a quick camping place, which we found just up the street in some
woods next to a pond, where we slept in until late the next morning,
it being Sunday, and the bike stores not opening until later.
We spent most of the rest of our morning at some bakery, waiting for
noon to roll around, oh, I forgot to mention that all the exploding
tires had rendered us out of tubes and patches, which is what we
needed from the bike store... Ah, right, so kurt took off to get the
stuff, and we blow up one more before noticing that the tire itself
has a giant rupture that we were somehow able to overlook in the
nights light.. We also start to suspect that our pump is broken, as it
won't pump past 75psi... So we tape up the tire rupture, half inflate
my tire, and hope to be able to make it to the bike shop to get this
taken care of once and for all, but not 5 minites down the road, !
>pop<! ... At which point we also realize that we're going to be late
for our gig; a barbeque in Sarah Carter's backyard, which sounded to
be really fun, so of course we didn't want to miss it! So Dianne and
Kurt go back to the bike shop with my wheel, I sit by the side of the
road and discuss options with Sarah Carter on the phone for a long
time, eventually coming up with a plan to meet her friend-with-a-truck
on our side of the car only bridge, and get a lift across... Which,
barring a bit more confusion, is what we did. I can't remember her
name right now, but Sarah's roomate picked us up, and was the one who
figured out the "you lied/you ride" conundrum, excellent work!
Arriving at Sarah's, the first thing we saw was a fellow in a white
blazer, and a whole bunch more people who didn't seem to adhere to our
usual noise/folk appreciation crowd.. Which I think made both kurt and
I nervous to perform, though, after some showers and food, it was time
to play.. Turned out, the 7 or so people who actually sat and watched
were the few I would've picked out as being there for music, while the
rest just enjoyed the party that continued across the back yard, as we
played.. Kurt played first, I second, and I tried a new piece, which
is comprised of vibrating a drum with 2 electric toothbrushes and
throat singing over it... Went over well!
Slept in a guest room.
In the morning we had huervos rancheros, decided we had enough time to
go to the beach, and did! Neither I, Kurt, nor Dianne had ever felt
ocean water that warm! Sooo niiiice! Once out, we realized that there
dolphins(!) swimming up and down the beach, at a couple points within
15ft of us! Underwater, we could hear their chirps, and when they were
close enough, we could feel the clicks and chirps in our necks! Really
awesome weird feeling!
We also did some body surfing, ate some snacks on the beach, and sunned.
Back at Sarah's, we prepared for our Greenville show, at a cool place
called r3v3rb... This means we put it on our myspaces, and wrote to a
few bike and music stores about who we are and that we were coming...
Also, it would include mapping a route to the show, but I couldn't get
google maps to recognize the address to the club, it kept sending me
to a Greenville, South Carolina, instead of North Carolina...
Irritatingly. Eventually, I remembered that r3v3rb had a little cutout
of google maps with it's location on their website, which I could just
"get directions to" with... This is when I realized that r3v3rb
actually is in south Carolina, not north at all! I must've not noticed
when I was booking it! Dummmmb! So now, not only did we not have a
show lined up, but we had to write back to all those bike and music
stores to say, sorry, got the wrong city... Though I then realized
that all the results for bike stores I had gotten and written to were
also in the south carolina version! This is when I began to think that
we had made an even greater error than booking the "wrong" Greenville;
I began to suspect that way back when we were getting recommendations
for cool cities in the south to play, and someone mentioned
Greenville, we were meant (by them) to go to gville, sc, in the first
place, that it was the cool city... But then, we knew greenville, nc
was a college town, so maybe it was cool too...? A few google searches
for an "out" music scene, cool bike shop, or music store all came up
with the same dissappointing news: nothing in greenville for us! But,
since we'd planned time for it, we decided to go there and see for
ourselves, so headed out at dusk, and after stopping in south Norfolk
for a cheap Chinese Buffett, were off for...

Sent from my iPod

Dan Friendly!

2008-09-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

Upon waking (somewhat later than planned, as usual) we went over to
the 7-11 from the night previous, and had coffee, donuts, and
banannas for breakfast. Dianne and I were sitting against a wall,
facing the parking lot, and kurt was against the wall around the
corner ... When kurt saw something coming up the road, that made him
exclaim to us that we "should take a look, something's coming!" and as
we didn't look, I remember him wondering aloud, "what's he carrying? A
lawnmower", the subject of his speculation rode into the parking lot
moments later, on top of an old sears bike, all in camoflauge, and
with front and rear racks loaded up with camping gear... Another
touring cyclist!
We said hello's and so became introduced to Dan Friendly, who had been
riding in the south all summer, and from the sound of it, been riding
and camping for a long time... We spoke with him for quite awhile, or
rather, he told us a great many things (I think we talked for an hour)
about touring, which I think I'll list now:
1. Camoflauge is worth a million bucks! He told about how you can get
a hunters tent, and sew tarp to the bottom to keep the ants out, and
that's only $50 at lowe's.. He had modified his so it could be lowered
nearly to the ground if he could only find a field to sleep in that
was close to the road, for example...

2. If we wanted to get across the James river, there were thrift shops
around where for just a few dollars, we could pick up some old sheets,
some paint (which may be old and dried, but we could just mix some
water into it...) and sew the sheets into a big donut tube, coat it
all with paint, and inflate it to make a raft...

3. Further south, it's all swamp, so he carries a pruning saw (which
one may pick up for $12 at lowes) to cut a path, and a clearing in the
swamp for camping.

4. North Carolina has lots of great camping!

5. In the south, there's lots of church meals that you can really load
up on carbs at.. Lotsa pancakes and bacon and all sorts of stuff every
day!

6. To get fewer flats, he uses car tire sealant, which is very
fibrous, and though it will make you a bit slower, will let you ride
for weeks without a flat.

7. Something he told us secretly, which I cannot divulge here, but can
say was very interesting indeed!

8. The later books by carlos casteneda, which tell of techniques to
achieve dreams and rest, which is very important, but sorely
underappreciated in today's world.

He thought he might meet us in chapel hill, or Greensboro, but would
surely see us again, there are so few of us around!
And off he went, leaving us with great inspiration and anticipation
for our remaining journey, which was half over...

Sent from my iPod

Richmond

2008-09-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

We made it a good little ways that night, eventually finding some not-
too-dense forest to camp in... Where we were startled by a large bird
(owl?) of some sort flapping around right over us, probably startled
by us, as well!
The next morning, in the middle of nowheresville, it took us awhile to
find our morning coffee... Which just meant a gas station, though I
sometimes had wanted to hold out for a proper cafe... The little place
we found on this particular morning was not at all up to snuff for my
taste, and I decided to finally just hold out for something better
down the road (also, I had finally revieved my new debit card in the
mail, which i has been without for the majority of this trip, but
hadn't activated it, so it didn't work yet, which also influenced my
decision!).
I thought that some music might make the lack of coffee bearable, so
made a little playlist on my iPod (which I usually only use for email
and maps, to preserve the battery) which played for 2 songs before
promptly breaking! It broke in a frustrating way, where it's touch
screen wouldn't respond to touch...! I lagged terribly that day for
hours until we finally got to a little town about 23 miles from
Richmond that had a cafe with a computer and espresso, excellent! I
found the apple store in Richmond so as to pay then a visit and get my
iPod fixed while kurt went to a thrift store to get a pair of pants to
replace ones he believed to have left at monkeyclaus (we each only
have one set of clothes, and bike shorts)... He came back with pink
genie pants he had bought for a dollar, which I've yet to see him wear
after the initial modelling for us!
Upon broaching the city limits, we split up, kurt headed towards the
venue (the camel) and Dianne and myself headed to the apple store (out
in some strip malls), where my iPod started working again as I tried
demonstrating what was supposed to be wrong with it! Ridiculous!
We headed down 8 miles of burger kings, staples, mattress stores, and
so on to get to the city proper, where we found the camel and kurt
sitting in front... He had already been inside, and suggested that the
vibe was decidedly strange, describing an encounter with a general
manager who had asked a bunch of questions about how the show was
promoted, if a local band was playing, and so forth... Also, when kurt
inquired as to where he should set up/stash his stuff and was directed
to the stage, the same strange manager popped in again to ask if the
bike was a prop, for if it was, it was ok on stage, if not, then it
would have to go! "Yes, it's a prop" replied kurt!
A quick aside now, before getting on with it - shortly after I first
acquired the show at the camel, a fellow from Richmond with whom I had
Been in contact with in looking for shows said that it was a lot of
peoples least favorite place to go, and that I should try for another
spot.. Since I had already secured the show, I thought it would be
rude to back out.. Though was further rattled when laslo, the booker
for the camel at the time (worked
there no longer though) had asked for me to be sure to send
promotional materiels to my contacts there... Which I didn't really
have! So for awhile, Richmond was a dark cloud in my future, but a
week and a half before, while we were in new York, I was contacted by
an online faction of a Richmond paper called "InRich" who wanted to do
a story on us... So I did a phone interview, and the woman (whose name
I forget right now) said she'd be there, and would surely bring some
friends, so with (online) newspaper exposure, and her friends coming,
I started to feel like it may in fact be well attended! So! Aside
aside, getting on with it, back to the narrative!
The show was scheduled for 7... Nobody. Not unusual though - most of
our earlier shows wouldn't get off the ground till after dark - we
waited, and had supper... Just the bartenderss, a doorman, the cook
and us...
Around 7:45, a young man came in, and we told him that we were going
to give it some time, hang out or come back in half an hour.. Which,
when he did, he was still the only attendee! His name was andy, and he
disn't mind being the only audience, which could be a little
uncomfortable for some people, so I set up my stuff and just before
playing, another guy came in to see us too! Yaaay! Both kurt and I
played to an audience of andy, Dianne, and that guy, whose friend
showed up towards the end - they were bike touring enthusiasts -
and they gave us lots of maps of Virginia, and one of north
Carolina... they also pointed out that to get to Norfolk, we'd have to
take a longer than expected roundabout route due to it's being on the
south side of an inlet, and car only bridges crossing that inlet
directly!! Another New London situation perhaps! As for what happened
with that online paper thing.. When I tried to look it up
subsequentially, it was nowhere to be found.. Huh.
We headed out to camp a bit south of the city, where we found a nice
big field next to an old burnt out husk of a house.. Something of a
classic moment for us, as, unbeknownst to Dianne or kurt, who were up
ahead (as usual - I'm an extremely lethargic rider) I was getting too
sleepy to ride, and was struggling to keep my eyes open.. So as I came
upon the field, which looked perfect (no fence, deep enough to keep
cars from seeing us) and saw that they were going past it, I got a
little confused, and caught up to them at the 7-11 they were
apparently passing up the field for, and announced that I would be
spending the night in that field, and they could too, or not, that's
just how tired I was! (in retelling this to Dianne just now, as I was
typing, I found out that they had stopped at the field, but since I
was so far behind, decided to pick up some late night snacks... Heh..)
anyway, that ended our day in Richmond.

Sent from my iPod

Monkeyclause

2008-09-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

... Woke the next morning at 5 to the realization that we hadn't put
up our rain guard and the remnants from hurricane hannah had arrived.
After properly shielding ourselves, we slept till 8ish, and then
struck out for nellysford, which looked to be about 15 or 20 miles
south west of Charlottesville, which is what our original route had
been plotted for... So, 57 miles to cville, break, and then a
relatively short jaunt over to nellysford, and monkeyclause, right? In
a way, yes, correct.. But that day we ended up being rained on with
some of the coldest summer rain I've ever felt... Though we had rain
gear (well, kurt actually doesn't really wear his.. It's an 89 cent
emergency poncho and may be more bother than it' a worth!) we ended up
soaked through and through, though it may have been sweat that really
got us wet! Our usual 15 mile matker breaks were compromised by the
fact that getting off our bikes for even just a couple minutes would
allow the chill to catch up to us - had to keep moving!
After a super narrow shoulder/busy/fast section of rt 29, we arrived
in Charlottesville around 4:30 and a little shaken up... Pulled into a
whole foods grocery store and had soup and tea outside on their porch
area..
At this point I had my first phone conversation with peter, the man
behind monkeyclause... He held promise of hot showers, food, and tea
upon our arrival, gave us the directions, and confirmed that it was at
least 35 miles still from where we were...! Ouch... This had been a
possibility in the backs of our minds, as my friend John (doofgoblin)
had written to tell us that very same information, but we half chose
to ignore it, and half just thought that our interpretation of the map
was correct... No.
So, we knew we'd be late, and weren't really relishing going back out
for quite that long in the cold rain, but what really did it was the
vigour with which the rain grew in intensity and how quickly it grew
dark that evening...
But we trudged on, and were about half way there (already really late
though)
When a stranger pulls over to warn us that once we enter the next
county, the shoulder completely disappears and the road becomes all
blind curves and hills... Sure enough, not 10 yards from the county
limits sign, the road become insurmountable and we decide that we're
pretty seriously stranded, and need to call for help, maybe stash our
bikes and equipment really well, get picked up in a car and hope for
the best...
No matter, no cell service.. Which peter had warned me of! Ok, time to
rely on strangers! We started to walk our bikes (one can walk a bike
on the outside of the guard rail easier than riding it..) down the
highway, to get to the next house/exit.. Weirdly enough, there was a
hidden driveway a few hundred feet down from where we were... a small
house with lights on at the top... Up we go! Approaching the house, we
could see a man doing something on the back porch, but didn't want to
startle him, so went to the front and rang the bell... Waited...
Knocked a bit... Waited... No answer. "Huh" we thought, I think... We
go ahead around to the back, where we finally get the man's
attention.. He looks at us with an (now familiar) incredulous
expression as we make our way around to the back door (oh, it was more
like am enclosed patio) and announce our plight! I think he barely
said anything and simply handed me his cell phone.. As I called, we
became introduced - his name is Jesùs and he's there building the
house (probably thought our knock was his partner nailing something)
late, trying to get it done so he can go to back to Georgia, and be
with his family...
Meanwhile, I had gotten a message machine at monkeyclause and told
them to call back... And that we'd be really late!
"well, I can give you a ride in my work van, but there's only 2 seats"
Jesus offered moments later... As one may well imagine, to our immense
relief!
Proper seats notwithstanding we piled in (Dianne got the only other
seat, kurt and I got squished in the back with the three bikes, three
trailers, and four panniers) and headed out at an excellent pace, the
fastest we've yet traveled on this bike tour!
Of course we thanked Jesus again and again, though he deferred, saying
that when he was a Christian missionary in Meqico, anything he needed
was given freely, so he knew about having to ask for help, and had
since dedicated his life to helping when he could (earlier that day
had given a homeless man a lift somewhere)
We got to the studio after a little lostedness (not too much, just
enough), let Jesus get some pictures of us crazy travellers, and off
be went, and in we went.....
Peter greeted us warmly and enthusiastically, directing gear trailers
to the studio, clothes and stuff to the house, and us into some hot
showers!
Once we started feeling human again, we set up our stuff to play, they
mic'd us up and we played... Hopefully soon, the video and mp3s will
be up on their site and I'll be sure to link to them..
After the show proper, we went back to the house where we ate roasted
root veggies peter had made, while he waxed poetically to us all about
the strange origins of monkeyclaus, time travel, binaural brain wave
research beingm conducted down the road, why western Virginia would be
the place to get back to before 2012, and interrelated these topics in
ways I simply don't have the capacity to properly relate here...!
The next day we uploaded lots of pictures to this very blog(!) and
eventually got headed out for Richmond very late in the day... Maybe
5ish... We got a few miles down the road when the smell of barbeque
stalled us a little further! When in nellysford, find the barbeque!

Sent from my iPod

fun facts and fancy figures

2008-09-06T15:48:00.001-07:00

here's a little bit of the basics about some things...

daily average ride: 65 miles
average speed: 11 mph (faster in the morning after our coffee stop and slowest at night while searching for camping spot)
fastest speed: 42 mph (kurt), 37 mph (dianne), 32 mph (raub)
average number of times a day we tell our story: 6
number of times we've been told we're setting a world record: 2
number of recycling centers in virginia: 2 (that we came across. yes, we carry all of our recycling with us until we find a recycling center!)
best bbq (so far): nellysford, virginia...delicious place off the side of the road...you don't need to know the name you can smell it form miles away...delish!!!
average days without shower: 5
best campsite finder: raub...this is his favorite part of the trip...beware thorn bushes...he's got a stick and not afraid to use it!
best mechanic: kurt...he can fix it all...but because of excessive flat tires for some we are now in charge of fixing our own.
most giggly: dianne...these guys keep me in stitches
number of exploding tires: 3 (all raub's)
fav cheap and quick meal: can of greens and sardines
most common bike problem: chain falling off
number of bathroom stops per day: 10 (15 for kurt!)
earliest start time: 5 am
latest riding time: 4am
average number of times we change our route per day: 3...but we're getting better at planning...it was a lot more in the beginning

that's all i can think of for now...enjoy!!

September Reflections

2008-09-06T13:28:00.001-07:00

September Reflections from Mom

September 5 – you are now way closer to the end of your journey than the beginning. Impressive -- and kind of bittersweet, I imagine! So what began as a bit of a pipe dream almost a year ago, is a reality now.

When I think of what you three have accomplished and when I pull out a U. S. map to follow your journey, I actually find myself getting choked up (oh, the blubbering mama syndrome!). I know you've had your ups and downs, and perhaps it has been somewhat of a financial strain on you. But, oh, it is so very, very worth it! You'll have stories to tell and you'll have pride that will never, ever leave. This trip wasn't really about making money – or it shouldn't have been; it's about going green and having the adventure of your lives – and you've accomplished both of those goals.

Meanwhile, back north, I continue to sigh – enviously -- wondering if I'll ever be able to do anything even remotely similar to this adventure of yours!

I wonder how it's going to feel to you when you really finish – when you're back home in the world of cars and jobs and daily schedules – and a wide variety food you can cook on the stove, and flush toilets and showers and lots of different clothes to wear. . . . again, bittersweet, no doubt.

We're all watching Hannah and Ike and hoping they won't blow you out of Atlanta, Even if the hurricanes do end up stopping you, keep realizing that you DID what you set out to do; it won't be by any inability on your parts if you don't get there. Blame it all on Mother Nature!

Keep those blogs and photos coming – they are so imaginative entertaining, and everyone wants to hear all about each part of your trip. I hope one of you kept track of your daily mileage along the way. What a feast you can have at the People's Pint when you get back! ☺

Best wishes, Raub, Dianne and Kurt, on the final leg of your Cycledelic Music Trip! Bike safely, and enjoy each and every adventure to its fullest!

Ride on. . . .

Mom/Phyllis

Sent Saturday, September 5, 4;30 pm

Always remember your dream of peace. . . and live it

2008-09-06T12:52:00.001-07:00

our secret spot in a haunted North Carolina forest... see the ghost girl that freaked us out behind kurt's tent? heh heh heh..

Virginia is for (car) lovers

2008-09-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

Entering Virginia from Maryland the next day, after having made some
headway that Sunday evening, we immediately noticed that the shoulder
completely disappeared, and all of a sudden everyone was driving much
faster... What we've come to know and expect and to some extent,
accept, is that this is the case all over Virginia, as they just paved
the old dirt roads, and never widened them.. A little frustrating
also because they retain the feel of an old dirt road and are very
pretty, but very hard to ride a bike along... After rerouting we were
on our way, but still a bit behind due to our late start out of
Baltimore, with over a hundred miles to go by the next night (kinda
late afternoon at this point) we realize we have some serious night
riding to do!
Unfortunately, kurt got something in his eye really bad a bit after
nightfall, and we stopped for the night, hoping that a good nights
rest would clear it out, so we camped alongside a bike path we came
across, woke up at 5, got 2 flat tires in an hour, but were still on
the road nice and early... Around 11am, we pulled into a town that I
now forget the name of, but it was very pretty, and we stopped for
lunch, and to refresh our route... It was here that we realized that
our estimations of how far we still had to go were drastically low,
and we actually still had aroumd a hundred miles to travel! In poor
spirits, we started considering our options, perhaps a train?did we
need to cancel yet another show?!? The impossibility of riding a
hundred miles in time to play made calling it off and just getting to
our next show in richmond early seem really attractive.. But then
monkeyclause, the barn turned all recycled materiels studio that we
were to play, was maybe my most highly anticipated destination of our
whole trip... A hard decision to make indeed...
...on very little sleep after days of riding 60+ miles a day and
camping in secret spots that can take a long time to find when
exhausted late at night, one can start thinking... derangedly... To
say the least...
This said, upon deciding to call monkeyclause so as to let them know
that we wouldn't make it after all, we noticed that next to their
contact information, was the date we were supposed to play there -
august 27th - the NEXT DAY!!! Our relief and excitement took the form
of a looong coffee and sandwich break that actually we probably
shouldn't have taken as long of one of.. Sorry for the sloppy
sentence.. Heh.
So we continued along a few hours later, still trying to get as far as
we could, so as to not have to hurry at all the next day... We got to
a town called culpeper that night, and were loafing outside a 7-11
eating snacks (Dianne had a corn dog, kurt had some chips, and I had
sardines with saltines) when a fellow named "ed payne" saw us and
recommended that if we were camping we could go right across the
street to this apartment complex he owns and camp on the 5 acres
behind it.. Which we did, and had a lovely time!
......

Sent from my iPod

after party, providence!

2008-09-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

marthas vineyard

2008-09-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

Upcoming shows

2008-09-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

Sept 3rd - Greenville, nc (still want to play here!!)

Sept 5th- Raleigh, nc (need show here, too!!!)

Sept 6th - eaglewing farms, chapel hill, nc

Sept 7th - greensboro, nc (show?)

Sept 9th - charlotte, nc (need a show!!)

Sept 12th - ashville, nc (showtime!?!)

Sept 16th - Athens, ga (need a showwwww!!!)

Sept 18 - wonder
root, Atlanta, ga

Sent from my iPod

B'more

2008-09-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

Writing from Williamsburg still, where my tire has exploded 5 times,
our pump seems to have broken, and because of these things, I have
some time to write while kurt and Dianne go get a new tire and pump
from the bike store... Anyway, the ride to Baltimore that day was
pretty smooth, mostly on rt. 1 and we enjoyed a breif section through
some state park before heading down 40 through increasingly dense
strip malls (this is usually the case when entering cities on bike
friendly routes), stopped for dinner, and shortly after dinner, kurt
broke a spoke...! This is no easy fix without the proper tools, and a
new spoke.. And is a rather debilitating one to boot! We had
discovered earlier that day that our show wasn't scheduled to start
until 10:30, which had relaxed us quite a bit (we're usually expected
around 6 or 7, and rarely arrive on time... Heh heh) and we had been
joking about how, though we still had hours to spare, something would
end up making us late.. Well this was it!
After a while, Kurt somehow jury-rigged his tire to be able to roll,
though it would be bad in the long run for his wheel on a whole, and
we set off very slowly and carefully, kurt between Dianne and I.. And
we arrived at the golden west around 11..Yesss!!
The show was fun, lexie (who booked it, and of the lexie mountain
boys) was great and had made really cute posters for us, which we have
one of and should probably post a picture of..
My set was one of my better ones, at one point discovering that
resting my balloon on the linoleum table makes a great sound, then
playing with that for a minute or so... Discoveries are fun!
Kurt went on next, and had deferred amplification, but hadn't realized
that only part of the space was for performance, and the rest is the
bar proper, and that while there were a plentitude of people there to
see the show, there was a rather large crowd in the bar still, loudly
singing along to the talking heads at one point, and in general
drowning out kurt! So, having discovered this during his first sing,
he then requested a mic, and for several minutes he and lexis fought
feedback problems and he went on again, though still somewhat quiet
and getting little fits of amp squall here and there! So, for the
third song, he moved further into the audience area, and had similiar
problems as with the second song, the fourth one he gave up the amp
altogether and just sat in the audience... Which is how he ended up
playing the remaining few songs... Lesson: do a soundcheck, then if
you can play acoustically, do it, but if not, you'll be prepared! A
life lesson, that...
Teeth mountain played after, two drummers, a cellist, and two
violinists, the strings all going through effects.. Excellent!!
We got a little lost going to the teeth mountain household after,
where we were to stay, but found it eventually, and I now refer you to
the "backed up in Baltimore" entry from the day after all of this
where we find a great bike shop but don't leave the city until very
late In the day...

Sent from my iPod

Philly

2008-08-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

So as Dianne wrote, new jersey was super hard to bike through, all our
small looking routes turning into immense highways in the blink of an
eye, making for constant revisions and backtracking... We did
eventually make it through but were then late for our show at
marvelous music in Philly... Supposed to be there at 7, as another
completely different show started at 8:30! We actually thought we
might make it when we entered the city limits around 6:30, but soon
got thrown off our course (rt 13) by a bunk sign, asked some cops how
to get back on 13, which thee never heard of, and gave us different
directions between bouts of incredulity and proclomations that it was
impossible and that "you'll have to go under the L!!" which was no big
deal as it turned out.. Their directions called for an immediate left
onto a one way road going the wrong way, which I pointed out, and they
revised their directions seeing as we went with the flow of traffic..
Weird!
We got to the beginning of walnut st 45 minutes later, and needed to
get to walnut and 42nd in about 5 minutes, if we were going to play at
all... This was the fastest and hardest I've ridden ever, in high gear
the whole way up, weaving through the standstill traffic and
eventually breaking through the downtowneyness and racing to the show,
arriving in just enough time to play really really short sets (upon
arrival we were told we had a half hour to set up, play, and get it
put away) which we did - I played first and in my rush to set up,
tangled the cords into a rats nest and tried to work it out during the
prformance, accidentally disconnecting plugs and cords in the
process.. U got the feeling that the doc in "back to the future" must
have felt when the plug from the clocktower came undone, though u had
only to walk over to plug it back in, while he had an exciting ride
down a cable into some bushes to fix his... Not quite the same,
nevermind!
Anyways, then kurt put a chair in the middle of the room and started
to play, though partway through the first song the soundguy tossed a
cable across the record bins towards him, followed by a mic stand and
mic... Basically did the soundcheck during the second verse! Kurt
played 2 more songs, and we all (we had met up with Brooke from espers
and Mary, with whom we were to stay that night as well as my friend
aliene from Northampton) went to Indian Buffett and let Mary drive our
gear back to her place while the rest of us followed Brooke on a
somewhat helter skelter ride up one way streets, down sidewalks, over
cars, and so on, presumably it's Philly bikers like Brooke the cops
were referring to when they were suprised at our hesitance to go the
wrong way up a one way street!!
Got to Mary's, she showed up later, having gotten caught in an hour
and a half traffic jam, tough!
Hung out for a minute, then showered and passed out hard!
Woke late the next day, and basically took forever to get going, but
did eventually, and followed the greenway through some oil refineries
and then down on some little paths through state parks bringing us to
wilmington, deleware, where we ate salad pizza for dinner, and
recieved a couple warnings that our route would take us through the
bad part of town, and we should reroute immediately, which we did, and
upon mounting our bikes to head out again, another cyclist suggested
that our new route was ridiculously out of the way to avoid an
imagined danger, and we should take a simple route that he laid out
for us.. And got us lost in what i presume to to be the bad part of
town (not so bad..) and we ended up just happening upon our intended
road!
About an hour later we stopped at a gas station for further directions
(we make it up as we go along) and state police officer Fry
recommended headind west through Newark to some state reserved land he
thought we could find camping in... We ended up finding a ginourmous
field with super long grass (really good to sleep on) and upon waking
saw several deer across the field, excellent spot! On to Baltimore...

Sent from my iPod

Held up in Williamsburg

2008-08-31T08:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the immense delay in textual entries... Our free time has
been limited.. To say the least! We're in Jamestown, virginia right
now, a couple miles away from Williamsburg, a college town with enough
smashed beer bottles on the side of the road to render us out of tubes
and patches in an hour last night... So I blog as we're held up, once
again waiting for the bike store to open (late: Sunday) in order to
get going again, just like last Sunday in Baltimore.

Sent from my iPod

2008-08-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

more silly pics, and at velocipede in B'more

2008-08-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

random travelling silly shots

2008-08-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

ghost raub at spacespace

2008-08-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

shayna, kalim, matthew... of new york fame..

2008-08-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

Raub at goodbye blue monday

2008-08-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

Kurt at Goodbye Blue monday, Brooklyn... me and Katy Haas (hello!), Me at GBM.

new haven pics, Ice cream!!!

2008-08-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

Me (raub) in the gazebo. us (kurt and raub with ice cream1
Raub

2008-08-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

kurt at spacespace, kurt with kaleem

Upcoming shows

2008-08-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

Aug27th - monkeyclause studios, nellysford, va (near Charlottesville)

Aug 29th - the camel, Richmond, va

Aug 31st- Sarah carters house (314 north shore rd), Norfolk, va

Sept 3rd - R3v3rb, Greenville, nc

Sept 5th- Raleigh, nc (need show here, too!!!)

Sept 6th - eaglewing farms, chapel hill, nc (1533 clearwater lake road)

Sept 7th - Greensboro, NC (needed: show)

Sept 9th - charlotte, nc (need a show!!)

Sept 12th - ashville, nc (again, need a show!!)

Sept 16th - Athens, ga (need a showwwww!!!)

Sept 18 - wonder
root, Atlanta, ga

Sent from my iPod

From a parent's view. . .

2008-08-25T11:14:00.001-07:00

Wonder where they are now?

Are they getting good weather?

Where are they sleeping tonight?

Did they make it to (fill in the gig)?

Did Raub get his ATM card?

Do they have enough money???

How are the CD’s selling?

Oh! A new entry on the blog -- Hooray!!!

We parents sit back here wondering, from day to day, what these travelers are up to. We peek at the blog; and when there’s an entry or new photo, we’re excited (and sometimes relieved). And though we know it’s hard for Raub, Dianne and Kurt to get access to put in more entries, as soon as we read one, we’re already waiting -- on pins and needles – for the next one.

Yes, we worry and wonder. For me, though, it’s way more than worry and wonder. It’s envy! I read the blogs, and think, “They’re out there having an adventure, and getting fit, and seeing new places; while I’m sitting at my desk counting the hours till I can ‘go out and play.’” Do they realize, as much as we parents do, how lucky they are to have been given this opportunity? Though my little part in the adventure was hard, it still gave me a taste for what could be, and I find myself living vicariously through what I read on the cycledelic music trip blog.

So keep ‘em coming, Raub, Dianne and Kurt, whenever you can! And keep having fun!!

Posted by Phyllis Roy, Raub’s mother, Monday, August 25

Phyllis Roy

Coordinator, Development & Public Relations

Baystate Franklin Medical Center

164 High Street

Greenfield, MA 01301

413-773-2573

413-773-2099

I am riding in a bike event, Wheeling for Healing, on September 20 to raise funds for the Baystate Franklin Medical Center Patient Needs fund. Please visit my web page, www.firstgiving.com/phyllisroy, and consider pledging on my behalf! Thank you!

P Please consider your environmental responsibility before printing this e-mail

Always remember your dream of peace. . . and live it

backed up in baltimore

2008-08-24T13:41:00.001-07:00

we have had little time and even less internet connection!! this is the reason as to why our blog is a little outdated. we have the time and internet now only because we are in bike maintenance land in baltimore. Yikes!! kurt broke a spoke last night and raub has a wobbly wheel (i think due to the way the trailer attaches to the bike). we need to be in d.c. tonight for a show at the lighthouse...its about 35 miles away...and it is 4:30 now. we're hoping to make it there around 9...that's a lot of fast peddlin'...

to be continued...

p.s. for the parents...we're safe and having fun!!

p.p.s. thank you to all of the people we have met on the road that have provided tons of support, from directions to day old pastries...we couldn't do it without you!!

...entered by dianne from the Velocipede Bike Project in Baltimore...check it out this place rocks!!

impossible is nothing

2008-08-22T11:32:00.001-07:00

snooze bar
stairwells
path trains
and scary turnpikes.

giggle fits
library naps
exploding tires
and late night donuts.

middle school hideouts
Yoda in the distance.

never ending new jersey turnpike
Steve god of directions
fancy gloves
we made it out of jersey alive!

New York!

2008-08-22T09:49:00.001-07:00

New York was amazing! We were very nervous on our approach into the Big City but can all agree now that it was our easiest and most relaxed of arrivals. Kalim, a friend of Kurt and Raub's (and now mine!!), was sweet enough to meet us in the Bronx and escort us through Manhattan to our destination in Brooklyn. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday and we rode along the Hudson which was crowded with locals and tourists alike enjoying life under the warm sun. It was quite relaxing.

On Sunday, our arrival day, the guys played at Goodbye Blue Monday, a cute little bar/cafe. Lots of old friends were in attendance...yaay!! We made new friends as well. Thank you Matthew Clark for letting us crash at your place and Simon we appreciate you sharing your space with us as well...glad that we (Raub and I) could entertain you with our snores!

Monday!!! We didn't get on our bikes at all!!! Our little tooshies are sore from all of the riding and were excited for this day. The three of us went in our own direction. Kurt walked the city, I toured around the city by means of subway and ferry (thank you Katy for being my escort for the day!!) and Raub hung low working on tour details and blog updates. We all rallied back together at the end of the night for a backyard potluck show at Matthew's place. The night started off with a guy who played a mandolin with effects surrounded with candles and blue lights...it was amazing!! I'm sorry to not remember his name but he was great. Kurt played a lovely set and the atmosphere was perfect. Everyone listening attentively and settling in closely as the night cooled off. Raub finished off the night...just right!!

Tuesday, more playing around the city finished with one of the best shows i've seen on the tour so far at Space! Space! The peep's there were so friendly...making us dinner and all!!

Wednesday...we're off but not before a maintenance check on the bikes and some delicious ice cream. On to Philly!!

entered by Dianne!!

New London, new haven, dominos

2008-08-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

Our trip to new London was additionally marred by furious storms, a
flat tire, poor roads with little or no shoulder, and lastly the
discovery that we had traveled too far south in rhode island, and that
one must cross an inlet to arrive in new London from the east, and the
only southernly direct bridges weren't accessable by bicycle... One
must cross further south on a ferry if one hopes to achieve one's new
London destination on bicycle... We realized this not long after we
had called to cancel the show... Highlights of this misadventure are
few but funny, one of which will be on a soon to be posted photo, of
me trying (somewhat successfully even!) to dry my soaked tshirt over a
super hot light at a trucker rest stop spot where we were mapping our
route... Apparently, people could see the light flickering a good ways
down the road, and were righteously surprised to discover the source
of such weirdness! I guess I took on the semblance of some sort of
holy man and kinds freaked out Dianne and kurt too... They're over it
now though.

Our other highlight was finding a suitable camping spot, which kurt
ultimately discovered in his observation of some high power transistor
lines, the sort that go for miles and miles and that would be maybe a
nice, albeit weird hike for someone someday... We scoped out a choice
spot under a pine tree, just out of view if the road, using our green
tarp to camouflage our all-too-meant-to-be visible bike trailers from
the street, and had a few oh so soft (thick layer of pine needles
under bedroll is the best!) hours of sleep before a Particuarly early
6am wake up in order to get to new haven on time..,

... So, what had been meticulously planned as an easy 60 mile from new
London to new haven, took on grueling and somewhat obnoxious
proportions that day, as in order to cross the inlet u had mentioned,
we had to backtrack north 20 miles.. Then still had the origional 60
to go!
We started off by sleeping through our alarm clock and getting out an
hour and a half later than planned, the second tier of the domino
effect that was started with our providence social over-indulgences...
.. Dianne got a flat as soon as we got on the road, and another within
20 minutes, where we discovered a tack in her tire... I got a flat an
hour later, and we realized that if we had any more problems or
breaks, we would miss our new haven show as well, which we were told
had a pretty tight time restriction. People in new London hadn't
responded to our emails and we didn't know anybody there so it seemed
ok to miss in a way, like no one would miss us, but the new haven show
was arranged by our good friend molly and we didn't want to let her
down.. In this respect, the heat was on, if you will!
So we rode and rode, discovering that mid conneticut is rather hilly,
the likes of which we hadn't seen since new Hampshire! We finally
found some reprieve in a junction that meant we had only another 20
miles to go, a regular day's bike ride, as kurt pointed out! After all
that, we crossed the town line as a hard and cold rain thrashed us
properly for our last 5 miles... Grueling.

The show was at redscroll records, a metal and noise shop in a well to
do putskirt of new haven, the name of which escapes me right now..
Wellford?

Anyways, we watched some fairly hilarious films molly had collected,
molly is am archivist, then kurt played, and I played out in a gazebo
a block away .. Sorta imvading some teenagers refuge and perhaps
scaring them away.,
Nice show altogether, though poorly attended and subsequently we felt
a little poorly for our grueling ride.. Oh well!

Our trip back to molly's house was 12 miles, but took us forever as I
was cranky and riding slow, but tried to snap out of it, but was
actually exhausted and started falling asleep on my bike, dreaming
weirdness and somehow not falling off... Then a few days ago in new
cacaan upon trying to fall asleep, I kept dreaming that I was riding
my bike and would awake suddnly, alarmed to find that I had fallen
asleep!
Ok... Time to play Brooklyn, will catch you up to today tomorrow! Night!

Sent from my iPod

Providence

2008-08-18T16:50:00.001-07:00

As we neared providence, running late as usual, we started to realize
that our directions were wrong, as the street we were to take avwats
in, was one way in the other direction!
Luckily, a fine young cyclist (jason) came to our aid upon being asked
for directions and actually escorted us straight to firehouse 13! This
is now our preferred method for getting fromthe city limits to the
show proper! In fact, today, in a few or so hours, upon seeing the NYC
skyline, we're to call our friend kaleem who will come meet us and
escort us through the busy ny byways, yessss!

Anyways, everyone at the firehouse was really nice and attentive to
our specific bikey needs, and after a while food not bombs, for which
the show was a benefit, showed up and we ate tasty grilled veggies,
bananna nut muffins, and a sort of anise fennell soup, mmm!
Show was slated to start at 7, but there were only a few folks there
at 8 even, not including our good friends Curtis, joe, and jaime, but
they had special dollar performers beers (Narragansett ale) and we sat
with those while we waited... These same beers were somewhat
responsible for a domino effect that we only caught up with today...
Anyways, kurt went on as late as they'd let him and by the end of his
set the room had filled to third capacity, a nice surprise to come
around to!

We played with metal bands whose audience seemed to never have seen
anything like what I played, unlike some of the more ultra aware art
people we've played for, and I think it made a big impression, at
least in a few people who told me exactly that, but also perhaps all
around... The balloons were very well behaved that night too!

As I had mentioned, our olden friends were there, and we stayed up way
too late before we even realized any time had passed at all.. Fun and
it's time travel applications rearing their uglacious heads together
again!

We woke up late, were slow to get out on our bikes due to wanting to
Internet some first, and then our package of merchandise arrived at
Curtis's work so we waited for him to go get it.. This has actually
been an ongoing problem, our packages of merchandise and maps arriving
the day after or later even than the day of the show... A lucky bit,
which is also a mixed blessing being that we don't actually sell many
CDs at each show, so we've plenty left over... But take note! Many
shows don't pay anything (providence was a benefit for food not bombs,
good cause!) so our only source of income is selling CDs, or we end up
dipping into our "emergency get home" funds account! If you're at a
show, help us eat pleeese! Ok, enough of that...

So, as late in the afternoon as we've ever left a place, (2ish) we
finally headed out for...

Sent from my iPod

More even

2008-08-16T11:51:00.001-07:00

2008-08-16T11:49:00.001-07:00

Martha's vinnie pixxx

2008-08-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

Martha's vineyard

2008-08-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

So... Our big rush to catch the ferry was for naught, as we not only
arrived in plenty of time, but didn't end up playing for a couple
hours due to waiting for people you show up, which never really
happened, I guess due to a festival and another show or something..
Fine fine, tasty Brie and bread after quelled all tensions.. Got lost
in the dark on the way to briannas house, but upon finding it, our
stay waS a delight, with a delishous farm fresh eggs and spuds and
cheesy biscuits breakfast.. Riding all day every day has a tendency of
focusing one's mind on food thoughts and memories, sorry!

Brianna made me a great iPod shuffle mix for biking to, too! Sun city,
willie nelson, Turkish techno!

Went swimming the next day, a picture of which will be posted soon, we
all floated very floatily in the salt wayter.
Rain.

Then headed back to myles standish campground, my mom went home, and
we prepared our route to providence...

Sent from my iPod

SCAPE

2008-08-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

SCAPE
'tis beaut'l here. We are in a grid-like zone called Scape. We
crashed through a glass door mistaken for screen while wholly mesh.
Zone Scape is scallop shell tile-based. Not like brushing your teeth,
nor licking a stamp; Scape is defined by "objectless motion". When
something is clear we call it "non". What a nice zone for cyclists.

Sent from my iPod

Show Listings

2008-08-11T11:02:00.001-07:00

Here is the most up to date list of shows. There will be more!
7.31.08 The Bookmill, Montague, MA with Vetiver
8.01.08 145 South Street, Northampton, MA with Tumble Cat Poof Poofy Poof, Schurt Kwitters
8.02.08 Wickermania, Goshen, MA with Big Blood, Sunburned Hand O' the Man, Visitations, Yuke of Space, Jow Jow, MV & EE, some Bunwinkiesesque kind-a thing, Heavy Creatures, Aswara, Black Medic, Shaw & Anna & a whole lot more, more more more!!!!
8.03.08 The Tinderbox, Brattleboro, VT with MVEE and Travis Laplante
8.06.08 a park?, Portland, ME with ID M Theft Able, Shea (SORRY< RAINED OUT)
8.07.08 Marika's House, Kittery, ME with Chris Weisman and Sheena Charland
8.08.08 Whitehaus, Jamaica Plain, MA with Anna and Shane
8.10.08 Che's Lounge, Vineyard Haven, MA
8.13.08 Firehouse 13, Providence, RI with Food not Bombs
8.14.08 Oasis Pub, New London, CT
8.15.08 Red Scroll Record Store, Wallingford, CT with Molly showing old movies!
8.17.08 Goodbye Blue Monday, Brooklyn, NY with Glass Ghost

8.18.08 Backyard potluck show!!! 59 Linden st, Brooklyn Ny
8.19.08 Spacespace, Queens, Ny with Andrea Williams, living things
8.23.08 Golden West Cafe, Baltimore, MD
8.24.08 Lighthouse, Washington DC with DC Duo Janel & Anthony, New American Folk Hero Travelling Road Show: Mike Tamburo, Tusk Lord, Haunted Creatures, Kohoutek, Chris Niels, and possibly Melissa Moore
8.27.08 Monkeyclaus Studio Nellysford, VA (nearish to charlottesville)
8.29.08 the Camel, Richmond, VA

9.06.08 Eaglewing Farm, Chapel Hill, NC with Matt Bauer, Boyzone

Here are some dates we need shows on (ideas?):

8.21.08 Philadelphia, PA
8.31.08 Norfolk, VA
9.03.08 Greenville, NC
9.05.08 Raleigh, NC
9.06.08 Greensboro, NC
9.09.08 Charlotte, NC
9.16.08 Athens, GA
9.18.08 Atlanta, GA

We decided we'd rather turn around in Atlanta and ride home than ride to Florida and take a train. Sorry Florida.
--
Raub
413.512.1136
--
www.cycledelicmusictrip.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/kurtweisman
www.myspace.com/horaflora
Tour contact #: (413)512-1136

Mom and Dianne on the ferry to MV, Cape Cod cycle shots

2008-08-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Horaflora Album, plus two 20min tour only pieces for donation!

2008-08-11T10:29:00.001-07:00

yup, some folks don't want to buy my limited edition, hand (custom) stamped, hand wrapped in national geographic pages tour CD or album, but wonder if it's available for download somewhere... ok, today we had some spare time, and I did it!

Kurt didn't seem to want to though...

anyways, just paypal to

raubroy@gmail.com

and donate whatever, and I'll send you links to the files, ok?

it's not all fancy automated, but will be a priority so I'll send them to you asap.. prolly within a day, ok?!?

yes.

Boston

2008-08-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

Boston

So, apparently when I try to blog from my phone, only the first page
of text makes it to the blog... This is demonstrated in the last 2
postings I believe... The very last one becoming all the more ominous
for it, huh?
I was going to say tv tell the whitehaus people that we're going to be
late, please call us... And put down my #

They DID call, though it didn't come through, and I got the message
the next afternoon.. Cellphones!

So, after being in the eye of the storm for a good halfhour, it calmed
down or moved on or something and we continued... At one point though
found our way blocked by a knee deep half block long puddle, which we
immediately forged, trailers floating behind us and cars sending waves
in their wakes...

Then we got really lost.

After a good hour or so of complete lostedness, kurt just figured out
which way in general jamacia plain was (south west) and we took a
hundred little alleys and side streets until we finally found
ourselves at berkely performing arts and there was a pretty straight
shot from there, we arrived around midnight, 5 hours after our eta.

The whitehaus family are some of the a1bestest people I've ever met,
immediately making us at home, getting Chinese food for us, and
keeping a core crowd around just long enough to let us relax and
finally play our sets... Lovely people, just lovely.

Yesterday kurt and I rode to south carver and met my mom and Dianne
(remember her from before? My gf, then title changed to friend and
advisor? (but still my girlfriend) well Do ya?) which we were late to
as well...

We all rode out to woods hole to catch the ferry to marthas vineyard,
only realizing how late we were again about 2 hours ago, then sprinted
to make the 6:15 ferry, which only kurt made, waving as I pulled up to
the dock... I'm writing this on the 630 freight, and dianne and my mom
should probably make the 7:30..,

Ok!

Sent from my iPod

2008-08-08T16:26:00.001-07:00

Ok. Torrential downpour. Stuck in a doorway in clifton, maybe? The streets have shin deep rivers... Waiting... Hey whitehaus guys, we're g

2008-08-08T12:27:00.001-07:00

Halfway from portsmouth to boston, should pull in to whitehaus around 6... Btw, canceled our portland show due to rain,but then it cleared

2008-08-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

Raub on the ground, Kurt from below, Shayna on the ground.. all 3

some pics!

2008-08-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

us camping on the side of the road in New Hampshire, roadside snack stop

no Internet, time, power.

2008-08-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

well, it's been a few days now, and with a combination of having
immediately lost an important solar panel adaptor for my email
devicez, little time to spare after riding, playing, and camping, as
well as a thorough lack of wifi in the rural areas we've been
inhabiting, this blog has been sorely neglected!
There will be pictures soon, need to find a computer to use for a bit...
Real quick:
First days ride to noho was nice, show was excellent, great turnout,
considering there were 2 Other big experimental shows that night..
Played with schurt kwitters, whose unplugged audio jacks picked up the
strangeness inherent in josh's basement, josh demonstrated a profound
knack for self defense technique and tape techno...
2nd day:
rain brought a tree down immediately ahead of us seconds after we
stopped arbitrarily..
Goshen was nice, though I discovered that I'd Been riding on flat
trailer tires all day...!
Too many bands played to rum down, but visitations set stood out
amongst the best.. They played with big... Something... Another band,
I'll reedit this later when I remember!
In, met shayna up there, she's riding with us now and has a ridiculous
story of riding to goshen where after she breaks a spoke and gets a
flat, these "miracle max" from princess bride fellas take her in and
fix her up proper on their little shack before sending her out on the
road again.. The deets are best beheld from her telling though..
Brattleboro was a good show, travis laplante is the new
experimental sax president in my mind, mv & ee washed our minds in
piney smoke rings.. Yesss
Now we're on our way to Portland, me... 3 day trip, 90 miles today!
This was written in a cafe in concord nh, and now we must go!
We got a write up in my hometowns local paper, google "recorder
greenfield raub Roy" can't link on this thing.

--
Raub
413.512.1136
www.cycledelicmusictrip.blogspot.com

Spin

2008-07-30T06:57:00.000-07:00

Temporal mind strings squiggle out like grappling hocks in a scrambler. The web is twisted, braided, and some times just squeezed together with the strength it takes to make diamonds. We can't experience this flickering insect energy as motion but as exhausting and exhilarating blue shocks that enter through the nose and forehead.
This will all be a clearing soon. The web is in the path of a tornado. The only web-forms that will survive are those that have been frozen in the lava of a volcano. The rest will be spun back into raw material but the frozen base will form a smooth, grey swath for the void to rest on, a so-called infrastructure cut into the earth over the last hundred mind years. This is the setting for a two month mental glide.
Here are some pictures of Trailer Inspection Crew:

Amtrak deserts, Dianne joins... So.

2008-07-27T07:25:00.000-07:00

Amtrak deserts, Dianne joins...
So.
Thursday the 24th, in my last minute preparations, I called amtrak to
find out whether they had bike boxes stocked in their emeryville
station, as it was actually more on Aarons (my housemate, hi! I'm
writing this on the plane, get any good pictures?) way to work, (and
we wouldn't have to wake up *quite* so early!) than jack London square
in Oakland (hi too short!) The operator who helped me, sue, had me on
the phone for 45minutes, doing all manner of thing except (ever. Ever
ever) telling me if there were boxes at the station! She basically
went to great length to confirm my reservations and review all my
information, but never answer my only, very basic, question! While I
was quite irritated at this waste of my time for 44 minutes, in the
45th minute, sue discovered that from July 15th to august 9th, the
last train in my trip, the Albany, ny to Springfield, ma train, would
not be taking checked baggage! After a full minute of me double,
triple and for a fourth time checking to see that I had this correct,
that if I had gotten on the train in the morning, and gone through
with trip, I would have been stranded in NY, I promptly hung up to
see about flying out, which I had avoided at the beginning due to
environental concerns and the train had seemed a little more bike
friendly. Several minutes later, I had an outgoing flight
confirmation in my inbox for a Saturday night red eye and had
canceled my train tickets, a full refund for which more than covered
the price of my plane ticket. I'm on fronteir airlines right now, all
3 seats in my row to myself(!), my 3 checked bags and bike let on for
a low "starving artist" price (thanks girls!) and getting some good
writing done. Joe McPhee is featured in this months 'the wire' and
told a story about dropping his sax just before a big gig that was to
be broadcast nationwide, and how Pauline oliveros, seeing his state
(terrified, his word) showed him to a place that would fix it up real
fast for him... The whole ancedote helped calm me down some as a
feeling of comraderie and faith in the experimental/avantgarde music
community strengthed yet again (i'm inspired daily, as you'll read, I
think).

Big up to grux, marcella, caroliner, Mick (even though you wouldn't
let me sit on your shoulders at Doo nord), Jacob, kasper, derrick,
Jonah, and the whole (brutal) sf noise scene who have been as
supportive as earth since I first started playing in sf.. I'm taking
that energy energy with me on this trip, thank you!

... And while i'm at it, I might say hi to my coworkers at the Hilton
and rose's cafe, and thank you all for letting me go on this trip so
readily, even if I'll have 2 months of coffee drinks to make and wine
to pour upon my return... Thank you!

Dianne Eveland, my partner in romance and adventure,
has made a last minute decision to join us for the entire trip after
Boston! This ties in with our original plan to try to have a couple
extra (non instrument bearing) people along to help distribute the more
communual supplies a little better. Dianne's ability to drop
everything and join us was enabled by a fortuitous subletting of her
apartment from August through October, as well as her works'
willingness to give her the time off, which is no surprise as she
works at a bike/hike/camp/play store called the sports basement and
they love a good adventure as well as or better than a good coworker!
They have also been a boon in as that she gets a great discount on all
the camping supplies we needed! She may well have something of her
own to add to this all once I send her the password to post on this
blog... !
Kurt hasn't yet met her, let's hope they get along ok!

This has been something of a rambling, personal entry, afforded
largely due to my being on a plane with little else to do (well, in
terms of continuing to find shows and campgrounds) though did read a
very interesting article in a 1989 national geographic about the
Tibetan nomads, thought I might pick up a tip on the old nomadic
lifestyle in general, but mostly just walked away with a yearning for
a yak herd of my own... And a general reinforcement of some basic
ideas about living off the land and going slow to conserve energy.. A
tinge of guilt at not taking the train, oh well, they create tons of
trash, paper tableclothes and disposable everything, no recycling,
according to Dianne.

I should get some sleep, I get into conneticut at 5:34am, and won't be
picked up for a few hours after that due to my own misunderstanding of
time travel and such... It's ok, I'll reassemble my bike as much as
possible and/or camp out in the pickup area, which I'm fully equipped
for with a mat and sleeping
Bag... May even set up my tarp for a little privacy! That's not
"suspicious behavior" is it? Heh heh heh...

Night!

Sent from my iPod

Video!

2008-07-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

above is kurt, below is I ... both are a little old, but new stuff sooon!!!

pretour preparation and trepidation

2008-07-14T17:40:00.001-07:00

so, (oh, raub here) i'm about a week from packing it all up and
getting on the train from jack London square, Oakland, and 3 days
later getting out in Springfield, mass..
that'll be the 28th.. Leaving just a few days to do some last minute
stuff (mostly tracking down shows we have yet to secure) before 60
days out and about!!

The foremost concern of ours is getting shows secured, as we'll be
without a computer for the ride.. Well, I have my little iPod that can
go online, but it just doesn't have the chops that a full fledged
computer does... This is a little unprecedented (to my knowlege
anyways) as most tours of this magnitude would be done in a
automobile, and in half the time, so booking shows at the end is still
only a month away, as opposed to our trying to get people in Miami to
confirm a date for the end of September!

fortunately in this last week a few dates seem to be falling into
place... A bunch more to go, though!! .. I'll post our itenerary
tomorrow, I think...

My other main concern is the near complete lack of training with my
full load.. This was actually the plan for today but I got called in to work. drat! The lack of long distance rides stems
mostly from working 2 jobs most days, since about march ...financial
concerns for paying rent through October and a recent dental visit (hi
Dr Patel and crew!) had me at my most workaholic, not as addictive as
it's liquid cousin, luckily!... This concern has recently been
alleviated a bunch as my roomates cousin just announced that she will
be staying in my room, significantly reducing my cost to a sort of
storage fee... Yesssss!
oh, I was talking about training and weight concerns (gear pounds, not
fat pounds silly!) .. Well, some of my gear is kinds heavy, but we're
packing only the essentialist clothes (super wicking synthetic
underwear, here i come!) and plan to catch and fry up grasshoppers for
dinner once down south, great protein and plentiful!! Our merchandise
will be shipped ahead so we can pick some of it up every few cities...

and we have no camera. Would like to post pictures to this along the
way.. If anyone out there has a tmobile camera phone lying around,
that'd be perfecto! Otherwise, probably get by on disposables, though
no pict till the end that way...

Ok, thanks for joining us! All for now ...

-Raub

Some of our Music!

2008-06-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Here's a huge chunk of my album, "gland canyon" ...

Here's a song off kurts new album, "spiritual sci-fi"

...and a short one from a 7" on mad monk, called "more is more"

pre tour times, pt. 1 (I made a blog)

2008-06-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

Hello world!

Myself and my good buddy Kurt are about a month away from embarking on a bicycle tour of our musics from Maine to Florida... over a 2 month time period, august and september specifically!

we're in the middle of trying to book shows for the first month, mostly New England, but we'll rapidly advance south towards the end of the month, reaching Richmond, VA on the 29th of august...

Shows have been slow but steady in the acquiring, and we hope to be able to begin booking the second half shortly.

more to come!