Dalton

Dalton
Round Robin Burgers
Dalton, Nebraska
Sept. 2010




Took a quick break from driving the I-80 and made a pitstop to visit Paulie. Chicago, IL to Sidney, NE in a single day. It was so flat, so damn flat. I was ready to gauge my eyeballs out. I was praying for hills, trees, mountains, anything. A rest was definitely well appreciated. After a night out on the town we drove over to Dalton (population 332) for one of the Round Robin's world-famous Dalton burgers. I was not disappointed.




Round Robin.


Hungry Paulie.

Milk Shake.

Your Wife.

Truckin'

Truckin'
I-80
Still somewhere in Nebraska
Sept. 2010




What in the world ever became of sweet Jane?
She lost her sparkle, you know she isn't the same
Living on reds, vitamin C and cocaine
all a friend can say is "ain't it a shame."

Straight on til morning.

Rain

Rain
I-80, Somewhere in Nebraska
Sept. 2010




I live in SoCal now. I don't do rain. Especially when its 90+ degrees outside and the car has no AC. The only way to stay cool is to roll down the windows and crank the radio. No such luck when its pouring out. We had passed through showers before on the trip. None lasted more then 20 or 30 minutes though. This was totally different. It lasted hours and hours. It was raining so hard, kinda like a cow peeing on a flat rock. It was a rough stretch of highway.

Louisville

Louisville
Louisville, KY
Sept. 2010




Got tired of I-80. Gave Bethwards a quick call. "Hey where you at? Hmmm Louisville you say. Me? Ohhh umm outside of Akron, westbound and down. You hungry, feel like brunch? Yah! Okay cool. I'll swing by in the am. Rad!" And so I had a brunch date. Awesome! And of course it was. Living in and exploring around Louisville more, yup its on the bucket list.

Horses. Everywhere. Still not sure why.

Heartland

Heartland
Ohio
Sept. 2010

Lonely, Motel.

Gilgo

Dawn Patrol
Gilgo Beach, Long Island, NY
Aug. 2010

Peaks.

Jim.

Sara.

Amish Aaron.

Jelly.

Lincoln

Lincoln, Abe
Oakdale, Long Island, NY
Aug. 2010

Sit.

Short Stack.

Boston Jon

Boston Jon
BBQ, New House
Auburn, ME
Aug. 2010

Capo.

Nephew, JoshuaBear, mesmerized.

XX/XX/XX.

Magic Hat No. 9, Resulted.

Pops Truck

Pops Truck
Auburn, ME
Aug. 2010




Dad and his truck.

Some Rainy Morning.

[Redacted] Boulders

[Redacted] Boulders
[redacted], Me
Aug 2010



It has been quite some time since I last climbed in Maine. Even when I was climbing in Maine the last time we hardly ever bouldered. Back then we were young hard bodies who scoffed at the idea of bouldering only a few dozen feet off the ground. If we were attempting free solos and other kamikaze attempts hundreds of feet off the ground, why would we bother with screwing around on a rock only dozens of feet off the ground.

In the 8 or 9 years since I was pulling down on all sorts of granite craziness, bouldering has become my premier appeal. Maybe since then I've mellowed with age or gotten wiser or just plain wimpier. I don't know really. On this trip however I really wanted to see what Maine bouldering was all about. I felt like I had never really given it a fair shake. This trip we would go at it fiercely.

Finding a collection of 20 foot high rocks in the middle of the wilds of Maine can be about as easy as finding a virgin at Club Med to do the butt chug. Its possible without knowing what you're looking for but probably not gonna happen no matter how much you drink. I managed to track down a couple soggy old crag hounds that helped point me in the proper direction. We figured to start out at [redacted] early in the week to see how it went before trying out the infamous [redacted] boulders out in [redacted]. For [redacted] our directions read as such;


-start at the [redacted] entrance of the park.
-park in the abandoned lot to the south of the jungle gym.
-head up the trail.
-after the third wooden staircase veer right into the woods.
-stop at the 20ft. high slab.
-put your back to the slab and walk into the forest for 10- 15 minutes.


With a full belly of barely and these hastily scribbled directions in my trusty notebook we beat feet to [Redacted] Mountain. I thought finding this unclaimed mecca sounded easy enough. Little did we know. The slab we were looking for turned out to be about 50 feet long and curved gently back into the trees about 90 degrees from start to finish. The left-most tip of the slab points almost directly due south while the right most terminus of the slab pointed leisurely to the west. Depending on where you started walking straight into the woods after 15 minutes of hoofing it you could end up either generally misplaced, more or less lost, or royally screwed. We climbed to the top of the slab to have a better look. All we could see were massive pine trees and dark gray thunder clouds. Royally screwed seemed more and more like our final destination.

We decided to split the difference. We would start smack dab in the middle of the slab and slowly work our way South-Southwest. Worst case scenario we would end up some where on the road. Okay maybe this wasn't the worst case scenario-- hearing dueling banjos baring down on our flank, getting lost in the quagmire & catching ebola from pesky 'squiters, or stepping in a bear trap and having to chew our own leg off would be plausible worser worst cases-- but we were trying to stay positive.

To make a long story short, we scaled down the mountain side like hunger-crazed Bear Grills w/ a plump defenseless banana slug in sight. We crossed raging storm swollen ravines using only our wits. We mucked through Amazonian like swamps in our bare feet. We spent two grueling hours huffing and puffing and sweating balls scouring the cliff sides for any sign of bouldering Valhalla. And eventually we were rewarded by the site of the car. Daaaaaaaaaaang! Back up the mountain we went to give the right side of the ridge line a shot.

Yah we found approximately 12 minutes later. After going right. Straight down the saddle. 12 bloody minutes! And at this point we were so frikin' lost we had no idea how to get back. We (and by we I mean Boston Jon) felt like an ass. But what is important is that we found it. In the rain. At sunset. We came back everyday rain or shine for a week. We really only left to get more beer and 'cause Mom was calling us in for dinner.

When you see this you know you are close.

Self-portrait, obviously.

The sis.

Boston Jon warming up for the day, Cha Cha Cha Chia Pet Fondue boulder.

Balloons

Balloons Festival
Railroad Park
Lewiston-Auburn, Maine
August 2010




Sunrise lift-off in the rain. Happy happy.

First Light Launch.

Splash Down.

Ziggy

Siegfried Tree Walker
Cozy Cove Camp
Outside Oakland, ME
Aug. 2010




Tessie and I spent a day up country with the 'rents working on my grandpops old camp. The family has been busy all year putting on a new roof and repainting the camp before the winter sets in. The majority of the work had been done already by the time we got there. This gave me ample time to relax and reminisce about long gone summers spent at the camp as a kid.

There was no relaxing for Tessie however. She went and got herself a new beau, an English Tree Walking Coonhound. There aint nothing like a hound dog with a crush let me tell yah. These two puppers tore up one side of Cozy Cove and down the other wrestling and making a fuss for hours on end. It was love at first site though Tessie let it be known that she would not be easily had. Didn't matter much though. Poor Seigfreid was so smitten he didn't really care how much protesting Ms. Tess put on. He was aiming to prove he was in it for the long hall.

Hearts were broken at the end of the day when the roofing & painting were done and Tessie was called to go back to the city. C'est le vie, c'est le guerre.

Perplexed by the screen door.

Flirting.

"I just wanna smell, just a lil' smell, come on darlin'. Don't you judge me!"

Camp

Camp
Cozy Cove
Outside Oakland, ME
Aug. 2010

Uncle Andy

05.29.1950

Rocking.

Dew Point.

Blades.

Supreme II.

Home.

New Coat.

Roof.

Chief.

Wells Beach

Wells Beach
Wells, Maine
Aug. 18th, 2010



Funny, the first thing I do on the east coast is hit up the beach. Typical.

Lobster Boat.

Dune Grass.

Beach Houses.

3d12h

3d12h
Calif. to Maine
Aug. 14th- Aug. 17th




3402 miles, 89 gallons of gas, 15 states, 12 Highways, 4 time zones, $268.58 in gas, $24.03 in Red Bull, $8 in Wasabi Peas, 27 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act construction zones (thanks Obama), 7 hours added to trip fighting traffic to get through those 27 zones, 1200 songs on the iPod, 14 5 Hour Energies (70hrs total energy), 13 pee breaks, 10 dog walking breaks (3 conversations explaining that yes Tessie was a Boxer not a great dane puppy, yes she is a little tiny for her age, and no brindle is perfectly normal markings for a Boxer.), 17 hours sleeping in the back of the Focus, 6 hours sleeping in the front seat, 0 speeding tickets/flat tires/times lost. 1 car, 1 driver and 1 very tired dog.

3 days, 12 hours.

You gotta start somewhere. 5:30am, VTA, CA.

Hiding from the rain. Start Day 2, outside Amarillo, TX.

Arkansas- Tennessee border. End Day 2.

Wired. End day 4.