Photo-documentation from a cross-country road trip with Michael McKiernan.

* denotes photos by Michael McKiernan
** denotes photos by Adam Dooling
click thumbnails open, double-click close



Excerpts from road-book:

Things to avoid:
locking keys in car
rattlesnakes
dehydration
mountain lions
scorpions
SNAXE!!!!
food poisoning
gittin shot up
copz
barfing


Animals (selected):
bunny
PRARIE DOG!
birds (various)
booger slugs
cockroach
LLAMAS on a misty hillside
OSTRICHES!!?
chipmunk
buffalo
raven
FOX(es)
rabbit (jackrabbit?) :( R.I.P.
MEERCAT!
batz


Smells:
manure
ocean
lilacs
fried chicken
dunkin donuts
goldenrod
petroleum
grass
hay (truck of hay)
childhood tent mat
skunk
smoke
tortillas
burnt rubber
grape magik marker
piss manure
low tide manure
wet dog manure
kitty litter cat shit
extra strong manure xxx
stale freezer baking soda moth balls
feet


Pertinent Music:
Fido Your Leash Is Too Long
She's Like a Rainbow
that grizzly bear song
Small Black
Nico
Major Lazor
Paul Simon
Elvis
L.L. Cool J



Bryce Canyon Was Like:
the ceiling of a cave
star wars
tie-dye
crystals
glass
coral / the bottom of the ocean
foam
another planet
mud castles


General Notes:
STUCK IN SOHO

West Friendship

VIRGINIA IS THE BEST

missing biscuit!!

BIBLE PHONE RADIO
the police killed his best friend

IT'S YOUR CHOICE: HEAVEN OR HELL

I HAVE A ROAD COLD

WHAT IS HUDDLE HOUSE?
Basket Bargains $4.99 = ambiguous

you takin pictures?
- yeah
you like it?
- yeah.

BATHTUB YARD
DID NOT TAKE A PICTURE
SHIT

FLAVA BEAUTY SALON

The Mississippi from its bridge
appears to move at the pace of
Southern coversation

mississippi is pretty rad too even
though Elvis wasn't home
and an ant bit my ankle

red soil, mud, tobacco,
yellow flowers, white flowers,
hot peppers?, sunflowers, dry corn

a man at the produce stand in AK
who looked like the orchid guy
from Adaptation

Jesus lit' available in lobby = GIT IT

That plumb sucks, don't it?

This hotel smelled like
hot sewage in the morning.

YOU ARE CONFUSED

PIZZA INN

JESUS

It's easy to forget with a soundtrack
playing in the car that this is not
so much my life as someone else's.

Jesus, I trust in you!
WHEN I DOUBT LET JESUS LEAD
NOTHING'S TOO HARD FOR GOD
LOOK UP FOR YOU REDEMPTION DRAWS NEAR

Every day we are so sticky and hot.
I wonder if the Texans dislike my
floozy tank top. We had those milkshakes
last night, always so good for the first
minute then I slam it by the next and feel
like a dog who has swallowed a living bird.
Two pieces of white bread with packaged
jelly for breakfast, then two tomatoes as we
watched the train of tanks go by in the rain.
The somber feeling was enhanced by
our soundtrack and the sky.

We've stopped at a gas station.
Our rear view mirror flower conglomeration
is rustling in the slight breeze from
the highway, making a sound we've been
driving too fast to hear until now.
The flowers are all crispy and dry,
like my hair, kind of.

Last night I thought about a BLT.
I thought we should get the ingredients
and make some, bring them in the car to save time.
But then, how would we cook the bacon.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I was
preturbed to be at all preoccupied over
a predicament involving bacon. We could
cook it in the hotel microwave, but grocery
stores were closed by this time anyway.
Cook bacon in the morning? No. We could cook
it while camping but by then the thought of
BLTs would probably seem totally irrelevent.
Best not to waste any more time
thinking about bacon.

I'm not as shocked as I thought I would be
to be in Texas.

I wonder if we'll see any wild horses.
- That'd be sweet.
That'd be cool.

Just passed a truck full of wire crates,
containing live chickens whose feathers
were blowing aside with the roar of the
highway to expose their bare skin. Chickens
are birds. It was a disturbing sight.

"Come to Midland on vacation,
leave on probation."
TEXAS:
- WIND MILLS
- GRAZING CATTLE
- OIL RIGS
- CACTI
- RED DIRT ROCK CLIFF HILLS
- boot + country clothing shops
- THE ARMADILLO
weird purple guts, an organ that looked like
the combination of a brain, heart and liver,
laying in the gaping hole of its upper half.
I couldn't help but think that he looked like Groover.

Oh yeah and we are in Midland, home of
George Jr + Barb Bush YAY = get postcards
also it smells of petrol

Gizzard or 2 Chicken legs with one side for $2.99!
PUNCH HUNGER IN THE FACE!!

GUM'S 5¢

NEW MEXICO IS GOOD
Everything was illuminated in golden light,
and I thought we might get kicked out of
the state for not believing in God
at that moment.

This is the second day in a row I've tried
to eat nachos for dinner while driving.
The fourth night in a row we are staying in
a motel because our camping plans were thwarted.

THERE'S MONEY IN THE MICROWAVE!

SANDS MOTEL
Weird, old '70s/ethnic decour, typed signs,
sometimes outlined in marker, taped around
the room indicating directions for various switches.
Fake roses in a vase, below a big, epic
landscape painting mounted at the top of the wall
by the ceiling. A light switch for the
air conditioner. Holiday Inn Express soap
by the sink. A paper, floral trim peeling off
the top of the wall.
and this "BATHMAT"
the fucking internet doesn't work AH
OH GOD IT DOES

The folling is a presentation for
Meaningful Beauty, from Cindy Crawford.

Leaving Socorro, it is getting more "deserty."
More sand, less plants. Stopped into a New Mexico
craft/paraphernalia shop on our way out.
When I said hello to the owner, he delved
immediately into a pitch / explanation of the
different kids of chili christmas tree lights.
Unprovoked, without hesitation or explanation.
At first we thought he was talking to someone else,
but he wasn't. There was also a huge fat friendly
dog. "Her name is SARAH."

WELCOME TO BELEN
HOME OF THE EAGLES
THE HUB OF ENCHANTMENT

10:52am finished breakfast burrito
should have waited 2 more house or so
for that.

REMEMBER WHEN YOUR DAD BROUGHT YOU HERE

My lips are so chapped if they were a flavor
they would be cinnamon

I've thought about my lost pillow occasionally.
It is probably in a dumpster. What do hotels do
when someone leaves their own pillow behind?
They have no use for it, do they? I felt sad
to think of someone finding it, picking it up
by the corner, looking at it, shrugging, and
tossing it into a dumpster. Something would
smudge against its yellow cover, maybe the person
would even shove it down deeper with both hands.
I didn't think that I had any attachment to that
pillow, but now when I think of it alone,
abandoned in a dumpster I feel sad. I don't
know what I would do with a left-behind pillow
that wasn't mine, it seems sort of dirty
and personal, that it's been under someone's face
and clutched in their arms for so long. No one
would want my pillow but me.
I wonder if it's gone.

We are camping I do not miss the city.

It was so dark and still. We could hear the
highway but it was more like white noise.
I faded into a dream soundscape.

We are on Rte. 66. It is prarie dog country.
The road is lined with big brown-eyed susans.

We are at the River Valley Motor Lodge in
Needles, CA. The room is hot as balls
due to its proximity to the Mojave.
The man who checked us in was wearing
mesh shorts and a short, short-sleeved mesh
jersey, and wrote down my debit card number
when he couldn't get the card reader to work.
AHHHHHHHHH H H HHH HH H H

Mike tried to move into the left lane
and the woman in the backseat of the car
who wouldn't let him in mouthed
"fuck you" to him.

heading to L.A.
my ears have been popping for days

LAUREN'S HOUSE
"so where the fuck is the ocean?"

we are here
IT IS RAD

The day is dim and foggy and exactly
how I feel.
10:59 - ocean to our left but all we can see
is a wall of white mist. Mountains and
hillsides to the right pillowed by the same
mist. Smells of goldenrod
Black cattle traversing the hills

I am struck with this feeling that the rock
to our left has had a sad history.

2 men in a hot rod, one wearing goggles,
for a moment having the same experience we are.

5:17 pm = 101°

We hit a rabbit tonight. We saw its
giant white silhouette in the headlights
just before it ripped a slab off the
underside of the front bumper.
Mike yelled out OH MY GOD FUCK
and I yelled OHMYGOD at the same time.

What brought you to Utah?
- A series of unfortunate events.

Great white leaping hare
No haiku is sufficient
to do you justice.

NEBRASKA =
big skies
manure smell
corn
fields
hay rolls populate the skies
as the clouds do the sky

HI FERRIS HOW'S YOUR BOD 8-1-09
6:38 pm: New Jersey High Five

8-1 - 8-2
HUNG OUT WITH CHARLIE
sat on his roofs
1:43: Going back to Baltimore / Magnetic Fields
2:27: "Hey we're in Baltimore"
SALOON??
you got some mashed potatoes on your glasses
5:19: five lane highway
5:34: Wolf Trap Exit 45A?
5:48pm: Oh, we're in Virginia

8-3-09
ZIPLINING with Chris and his awesome crew
10 am: SO MUCH CORN
11:53 am: passed a store called TSHIRTS AND VIDEOS
sad we didn't stop


8-4-09
Seedy Motel checkout, driving to Graceland Too
11:15: no one answered the door
11:20: bought two peaches from a lady at a farmstand and drove off
1:38pm: crossed Mississippi
7-8pm: on hold w/ Bank of America trying to rectify the blocked card situation. service cuts out exactly as someone finally answers NOOOOOOO
12:37am:watching Roseanne in ECONOLODGE
went to busted-ass Hot Springs
ask Mike about the woman

8-5-09
free continental breakfast = white bread THNX
2/3 thrift stores don't exist
watched train of tanks go by
10:59 am: driving to Arlington
11:50 am: passed Rainbow Ranch
no armadillos yet :(
1:12 pm: amazing land fill
WE SAW SO MUCH COOL SHIT TODAY

8-6-09
11:59 am: approaching 2nd salvation army today: ODESSA
a wallet flew off the top of someone's car
1:29pm: speed limit 80
SO MUCH MORE

8-7-09
1:41pm: driving from Albuquerque to the GRAND CANYON ahhhhhhhh
nevermind, not at the Grand Canyon
CAMPING
9:12pm: Mike is asleep.

8-8-09
11:26 am: 8,000 ft above sea level
Just got trapped in the campus of Northern Arizona University
Mike took over
11:40 am: "the trees just got shorter"
11:43 am: 7,000 ft above sea level
12:33 pm: in line to enter Grand Canyon park
12:49 pm: about to see this shit
2:27 pm: synopsis: R - A - D style
3:33 pm: 8,000 ft above sea level
3:50 pm: entering Flagstaff... we were here already
5:32 pm: diving to Tupac (Topock) AZ

8-9-09
went to L.A. Mike drove = thank god.
went to Lauren's, > UCB, surprised the shit out of Eric
hung out in his backyard with his roomates + TECATE

8-10
drove the f out of L.A. > S.D. slammed mini boxes of cereal to cope with traffic stress
met up w/ Zack and Joel, moved some stuff around, made fun of a dog
got PAINT
made fewd and drank TECATE in pimp loft clubhouse/HQ
noted our proximity to the sidewalk
10:19 pm: "woah i DO have third eye blind!"
- "play it!"

8-11-09
AMVETS yields unwearable pants
paint
we ride bikes around with Zack in his hood, get sushi, drink beer

8-12-09
paint
made GIFZ for TEENS while eating marshmallows

8-13-09
TEENS WORKSHOP

8-14-09
show/beer/people/COUSIN MICHAEL!
sleep on Jordan's grandma's pullout couch

8-15-09
8am wakeup
> house for toast + eggs on porch
SWAP MEET
ERIC LAUREN KEVIN

8-16-09
bfast w sezio folks
subtext, GOODBYE :(
> Santa Barbara, shitty movie

8-17-09
10:31 am: driving
12:40 pm: gonna keep driving