Day 7
Today is actually day 7, but it seems as though we’ve been on the road a lot longer. Well, what’s happened since then? Friday night, we drove across the Hoover Dam, a feat of modern science unrivaled by even the most technologically advanced of James Bond movies. I swear, we could have been in the next film, although without the wiles and charm of Pierce Brosnan, who might have been one of the best next to Connery. Oh well. The drive up the mountain could have been a case of “fording the mountain pass and my oxen just died…again,” as the car had a bit of trouble chugging around the winding hills that led to the secret government lair. But this was no M5, of course, because we’d have to be in Britain. This was definitely curmudgeonly old Nevada and we were on our way to Las Vegas. As we approached the top of the damn, it was evident that there was some sort of huge conspiracy in progress. Never had we seen such awesomeness: the quad guard towers above the reservoir, the myriad bright lights urging us to keep to the road and the distinct lack of police vehicles, personnel or otherwise. On the drive out, however, after stopping to take some very blurry pictures, the latter estimate was perjured. A car behind us forgot to turn his lights back on as we climbed up and out of the installation. I thought nothing of it for about 5 minutes, until what appeared to be a heavy duty police truck popped out of literally nowhere to stop the insurgent in his tracks. He pulled over and we did not see him again. This was all very amusing, but we were certainly schooled in the great art of deception by the US government, which I suppose happens a lot. After this incident, we glided down the mountainside towards Vegas. I believe myself to have been elucidatory on the subject of Las Vegas’ dejected state in my last post, so I will not bore you here with another rant.
Saturday night, we drove (well, Lee drove…he insisted on it [I guess that’s what happens when you give a man a 24 oz. coffee and a mission]) to Santa Rosa, California, where it was clear that we’d been missing a whole lot in the desolate wastelands of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. Ah, what paradise was afforded to us! Apart from pictures, neither of us had ever seen “wine country” before, but to set foot on the grassy hills peppered with miles of grapevines was almost too much to take in. Now, when you hear about the glorious sunsets and the sun-kissed hills and the sun-blown hair of the sunny-faced California natives, it makes you want to puke. I am the same way, except that being in California, I couldn’t help but play along. We have so many great pictures of brilliantly colored hilltops nestled in the presence of larger tree-covered hilltops and cows and sheep grazing all over the damn place that we could make a photo album and call it “Living in Minnesota BLOWS.” That night, we ended up at my friend Jacob Greenberg’s house in Santa Rosa, where he was kind enough to show us around and give us a roof over our heads for the night. We had a late-night stop at Denny’s, but get this – Denny’s has increased the price of the fabled Grand Slam! Instead of a very affordable, very hip price of $4.99, our total came to a wallet-raping $6.79! What the hell? After I got over the initial shock, however, it became clear that I was full, so life suddenly became happier. The next morning, Sir Greenbej and I woke up at 9:00 (well, I woke up at 8:30, dressed, and then stood at his bedside and watched him snore before poking him with a stick) and rushed off to play Frisbee with some of the aforementioned’s friends from high school. A pleasant surprise awaited to my, um, surprise. Not only did his friends show up, some of whom now played for Frisbee teams across the country, but there were also a fair number of what could be termed “old people” that showed up. Perturbing as that as was at first, the age difference quickly became a non-issue; I observed that most of them played better than I. Humbling, yes, but it made for some exciting ultimate. There was this one dude who was about 6’ 2”, probably mid-40s and had the sweetest break backhand of all time. He could make that sucker do whatever he wanted, and that proved to be a boon for my tem, especially in the end zone. I was a little aggressive at first, which kind of backfired when I went for the D in the end zone and ended up careening into a player from the other team, who just happened to be a fairly attractive female. We did not speak for the rest of the game. Follies aside, however, the game turned out toe be some of the best sunburned three hours of my life this entire break, not only because I got off my non-existent Asian ass, but mostly because I was playing Frisbee in California without a care in the world. No papers hanging over my head, no angry Philip Rhodes to bitch at me about my comps and best of all, sweet Mexican food waiting to be eaten. We stopped at this great place called the Santa Rosa Taqueria, and I ordered a three taco plate with a large class of hibiscus iced tea. The girl that I had brushed ribs with earlier sat down across from me, so for a while it was kind of awkward. Arriving back at Jacob’s house, we picked up Lee (who doesn’t play Frisbee…tsk, tsk, so unfortunate) and headed off to Bodega Bay. I can’t even describe how beautiful that sunset appeared, gently fading over the crystal clear but ice cold waves of the Pacific Ocean. We frolicked for around an hour on the beach, had some pictures taken of us by some drunken middle aged women and then peed on a sculpture made of driftwood and dreams. After singing the Bing Bong Bros. theme song a bunch of times, we headed up the dunes and through the strangely painful beach grass to the car. On the way back along the bay, Jacob told us about the many people who died along the highway…maybe not the best tour guide-type information, but information nonetheless. We stopped at a restaurant and sucked down a tasty, tasty delicacy: barbecued oysters. I ended up licking up the mixture of butter, barbecue sauce, Tabasco sauce and lemon juice left on the plate, they were so good. I am positive that taste cannot be accurately reproduced anywhere but California, which grieves me to no end. We said our goodbyes to Jacob with promises to meet up at school (duh) and in less time it takes for two fish to mate, we were in the car again on the road to Palo Alto.
So that was Sunday. That night, we left Jacob’s house and sailed down the freeway to Stanford, where Nate, my best friend from high school, lives. His residence is a co-op nestled in a grove of buildings on the outskirts of campus, and is home to some pretty sweet people. I had called Nate that morning, and like a good friend, decided not to study for his final (of which he probably ripped a new asshole), opting instead to get drunk with Lee and me. A few minutes after we arrived, we decided that we were hungry, so Nate and I went to the kitchen to make some quesadillas while Lee went to his car for more beer. Apparently the kitchen is an “industrial kitchen,” which means it has to meet certain health requirements to stay in operation. According to Nate, and as I might well have expected, it usually passed. But just barely. We began to fix up the quesadillas and Lee arrived bearing beer. It was at this point that a stunningly gorgeous girl wearing only a leopard-skin coat burst into the kitchen and yelled “Streaking!” This statement was confusing, as Lee and I had thought previously that Carleton was the only place that streaking was prevalent. Apparently not. The funny thing is that she was completely sober. I finished my beer and convinced Nate to come with us (it took some cajoling, but finally he agreed), and we were off. Now, there are some marked differences about streaking at Stanford. First of all, at Carleton, we run though (or play patty-cake, at least during Knights concerts) and don’t stop to register the disgusted/joyous/confused stares given to our disrobed party. At Stanford, however, we walked through 3 floors of one library and 2 of another. WALKED. Had I been sober, this might have been sort of awkward. The other difference came from the surprisingly not skewed gender ratio. At Carleton, and no offense everybody, but we usually have fewer women and they are sometimes [well, mostly] ugly. Contrasts aside, though, the evening was an enjoyable one and we finally turned in at around 2:00am, not completely sober, but very happy. The next morning, we got up around 11 and went to get sushi at Miyake after Nate’s final. As is always the case, the food was fresh and fast. We could use a restaurant like that in Northfield, but unfortunately we are close to the sea like a convicted sex offender is close to a girl’s Catholic high school. We do have “Wiggles and Wok” but I’m pretty sure that the food is as bad as I’ve imagined. In fact, I’m going to start calling it “Wiggles IN Wok.” It’s like that video of some dudes making Cat stew in Malaysia. Amazing.
The reason Lee and I came to California was to visit wine country. After NOT visiting wine country for most of the trip, we finally got to make 1 stop. We would have gone to two wineries, but the second one was very large, ugly and corporate. However, the first one gave us the tastiest fifteen minutes of our trip. The winery was about to close, but we were able to get in a short tasting session. The man who proctored our tasting session was a nice old man who sort of looked like a turtle, and who was very knowledgeable, at least about the wine he was selling. We were given a large glass and four wines to try, all for 5 dollars. In the course of our conversation, the steward found out that I was a musician and he offered me a bonus glass of wine, a gewürztraminer, a bottle of which I ended up purchasing.
