August 21

I'm pale and tired in the weird bathroom light. Hot, metallic reverberations beat on the back of my skull and insides of my temples. My ears are still ringing from the thumping sound of my guitar rattling through the hollow walls of the Town Pump, a Little Rock dive bar where my band had our album release show the night before. Dee Dee and I speed through another humid southern mid-day for Dallas where I am to load her up and catch a ride to LA.

When the driver, Michael, meets me in Grapevine nine full hours late he is so bald I firmly believe he was born without hair follicles on his head. After quickly devising a way to load Deed's up (ramp into empty U-Haul, ramp into pickup bed, ride into pickup) I take my place in the crowded king cab. Other riders have paid equal sums for their passage. Q, an opportunity seeking brain and Ricky, bicycle riding hipster, clash ethos' for a thousand miles before I'm unceremoniously dumped in Victorville. They found a 15 year old girls head in a backpack here recently and I'm eager to move on. Ricky forgot his damn backpack on the ground and I have no extra bungees. The stark beauty of my packing system is marred by his bungee hogging sack, which I will return to him in LA after a short detour. Off through the desert.

I slept on my sheepskin pelt in the desert just outside Edwards Air Force Base. The fat, blue halo of light to the south warned of my proximity to Los Angeles and all of its preternatural happenings. Morning sun transversed the lower sky and a fence post shadow crossed my face. I went from sleep to riding in about three minutes.

The rubber seemed to barely meet the road through Bakersfield, with only a brief stop at the cemetery to pay my respects to G. Ware - the second time I'd done so on my bike, which I was proud of. I cut through the cluttered oil fields and even freed myself of my helmet on the deep switchbacks of Hwy. 41. Morro Rock rose out of the sea and I met my Grandpa at his camper on the coast.

Through the vicissitudes of nearly twenty years Justin has been my best accomplice, although our teachers, girlfriends, mothers etc. would probably disagree. I showed up minutes behind our friend Tyler who had flown in from Little Rock. Now a bona fide LA resident, Justin was able to show us the city I had missed on my last, somewhat disastrous trip out.

A mutual friend from Oklahoma, Sam, surfed the feeble afternoon waves with us at Manhattan Beach. A local character flashed a crucifix shaped joint at me at an intersection and I ate more In-N-Out than any one man should. Museums; a ghostly, unlit Hollywood sign; amazing food - nothing disappointed. I even shrugged off the compulsory out-of-towner LA parking ticket.

Jumbo's Clown Room is a self described "exotic dance bar". I'd say it fits snugly in the void between strip club and burlesque show. I've always been fearful of my own weakness towards excess and have avoided swill; I was nearly 25 before I'd ever gotten drunk. So it was no surprise when I managed to get us thrown out of Jumbo's after leering maniacally at Leah, a friend of Justin's, and throwing up and passing out in the bathroom. Tyler snapped this picture outside of the club just before I vomited on the ground, then stumbled out of the car at a Jack In The Box and puked over a retaining wall to a soundtrack of cheers and honking from the cars behind us. I managed to throw up in the shower before finally blacking out in a pile on Justin's floor.

August 31

The guy with an over sized sleeping pad of course rides in shorts and a mesh tank top. I make too few concessions when it comes to comfort, skin grafts and physical therapy be damned. Riding out of LA for Las Vegas is a lot of lane splitting, with a big smile and thumbs up from the guy whose gasoline cap door I closed at 85 mph. No Hangover antics in sin city. I lost a dollar in a slot machine and went to bed.

Utah was transient last go round; Jordan and I hardly caught glimpse of her before sinking below the border into Arizona. The crisp, bright colors of an unexplored atlas page excited me. A wide green line of national parks and forests courses through the entire state like a vein.

Zion. No National Park was better named. I'd watch Vegas cumble before tampling an inch of soil here ill tempered. That night we slept on the ground while the old trees swayed hard in the wind. The next day Justin and I were trammed into the park interior where no cars are allowed. With our shoes over our shoulders we hiked barefoot up the bucolic Virgin River, sandstone canyon walls drawing in closer all the way. Nearly a mile up river, our hushed voices echoed tightly around us. You can leave your heart in San Francisco, but I promise you'll leave a little of your soul in Zion.

The road out of Zion cuts a jagged, washed out line over the sheer face of the mountains. In the loose gravel Dee Dee goes rubber up in a cloud of dirt. Somehow I emerge from the wipeout upright, my virgin knees and palms never hit the ground. Looking at the map, the deep switchbacks pile up so tightly that I start to wonder why they didn't just cut a hole through the mountain. Turns out they did. We sped dangerously through the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel, a 1.06 mile breach through the earth, and came out the other end destined for Bryce Canyon National Park.

In Bryce we took a quick peek at the famous Hoodoo's before arguing ourselves to sleep about bears in the icy campground. By morning we'd forgotten about the nonexistant bears, but the frigid night had sapped Justin's battery. Thanks to the helpful park staff we got a jump and saw the hoodoo's with rested eyes. We finally found a park as weird as us.