...started out fri. afternoon 28th feb. 97. packed up , cleared and partied out by the end of the week in complete disarray with no plans but to be in santa barbara on thurs... was lucky to helmet out when we did. daniel and lincoln were ready as they said, but i should have packed and cleaned up instead of doing the queen street thing till 3am. had clint, a buddy of lincoln's, drive us down to buffalo. clint was a big guy, with a big van and a big gut that can handle the wheel leaving the hands free for multiple brewskis. he also had a big beard and a big heart.

• fri.
  the drive to the border was pretty uneventful other than the QEW traffic which was painfully slow out of toronto. finally two alias leather jackets, two pony tails, three beards, an indian passport, an arrest record and a truckload of stuff hit the border. and then there was clint... standing in front of the immigration officer in a military cap and a black tshirt with a skull and daggers that said "kill em all, let god sort em out". one guy headed to california for upto six months, one to california for a week, on to florida for another and then back, a third to california for the week and flying back to toronto (with a return ticket)... and clint, who was in it as chauffeur and chief buffalo wing consumer. and of course the one way rental vehicle with fake plates which was waiting with the engine running at the buffalo airport. it took some explaining but we got across! by the time we got the car, it was too late for the dinner plans in columbus ohio. got some wings and spagetti and meatball pizza at a place called picasso's in buffalo near the airport. then drove non-stop.... hit ohio at an unearthly hour in the morning and with the rain pouring down, drove on...
• sat.
  reached nashville early having driven blind through the second coming of noah. had breakfast and decided to cross the storm blazing through memphis and stopping for lunch on the outskirts of little rock arkansas. had some great margaritas at a place called senor tequila. from there on it was historic route 66 wherever you wanted to be. it was not a road but a state of mind. stopped in tulsa oklahoma for the night. had a good soak in the jacuzzi and a pretty wild evening with a bar brawl that never quite happened. tulsa is a rich oil town at least the area we were at. saw a pink van that said check-a-mate, spousal espionage (much call for it in tulsa).
• sun.
  offroaded through oklahoma around an area where a guy called blackjack ketchum the horsethief had his head fall off as he was hung. went in search of mesas that we never quite found. took some unpaved roads. reached amarillo, center of the bible belt early evening. amarillo texas, home of the cadillac grayeyard with official signs over town that say, "way to go" and "big deal", land of warehouses, concealed weapons and open beverage containers. home of the crystal pistol. had beer and wicken chings at the famous hooters in amarillo texas where barbara bush used to be a waitress before she met george. stopped for the night in tucumcari, the motel capital of the world.
• mon.
  drove through some great countryside in new mexico, had a big ass lunch in santa fe and the obligatory margaritas. spent all afternoon around santa fe. went up to the santa fe institute, came back armed with tech reports about the unknown and the unknowable, stopped by an art gallery with a cool tall sculpture of a native americans face with horns. drove through alberquerque and stopped for the night in the middle of nowhere near the arizona border at some town called chambers.
• tues.
  started out early, drove through the painted desert, the petrified forest natnl park. outside of which we all bought stetsons. went by some interesting little towns camp verde and sedona where we stopped for sangria. got into the grand canyon park late evening. the drive was beautiful. stopped at the yavapai lodge inside the park. snarfed gargantuan porterhouses for dinner.
• wed.
  trekked down one of the trails in the morning which was quite treacherous initially. most people were using crampons. lincoln was using well worn doc martens with holes for soles. the trail was a wonderfully inconsistent mixture of snow, ice, red mud, slush, rocks and donkey poop. lincoln had a generous sample of all of these in his shoes at the end of it. trekked down and up some 4 miles in as many hours. just as we came up some guy from michigan with no shirt but a camoflage cap on came running by us in 2 and half hours, all the way down and back. we were pulled over for speeding by a cop in a souped up camaro with a blower on the hood just as we got into a town called williams. i told him the truth... that we were only speeding to get to a restroom because daniel really need to take a leak. so he let us off with just a warning. had lunch and sangria at a cool mexican/irish place in williams called poncho mcgillicuddys. from there on it was a boring drive into california. stopped at a crummy old place called the cactus motel in barstow.
• thurs.
  drove straight through the mojave desert and then the orange orchards and into the a|w parking lot as the clock on the car showed 2pm. the trip had been planned accurate to the minute. that evening we hung out on state st. and back at the hotel we composed and performed the swansong "donkey poop blues".