I was already late for my first band practice with the eccentric stranger who’d answered my “New in Town, Looking to Jam!” ad on Craiglist. I could already hear her playing inside, so instead of interrupting, I decided to just march into her house without announcing myself.
That eccentric stranger turned out to be a badass musician, artist, and luthier named Ellie, and it was to be the first of many times I would barge into her house unannounced over the years. Typically, I would be met on these occasions with offerings of food and an invitation to see the guitar she was building in her workshop — or the oak log she was chain-sawing into a Tiki head, or the surreal sculpture she’d assembled out of abandoned toys.
I ended up living with Ellie and her wife, Kori — a writer and engineer who served as tech sorceress for the many bands Ellie played in — for two and a half years during college. First, I was crashing in a broken-down RV in their driveway (the first of many vehicles I would live in, it turned out); then, when the Wisconsin winter set in, I moved to the spare bedroom.
A portrait of Ellie and Kori. OK, not really, but they did dress these skeletons up as themselves and put them on the buffet table at their wedding.
Though densely populated with mannequins, skulls, creepy dolls, and alarmingly realistic rubber masks, Ellie and Kori’s house always felt safe and homey to me. I liked to call it “The Baldwin Street Home for Wayward Girls,” because, in addition to myself, there seemed to be an endless flow of friends and friends-of-friends occupying the spare bedrooms and empty couches.
When Sean and I decided to stay in Wisconsin for a while to pick up some work, I wasn’t surprised to find that Ellie and Kori had a vacancy; the house has a mind of its own at times, seeming to direct its own flow depending on who needs what.
We’re still not entirely sure what the next step is, but at least we’ve got a soft place to land. I’m doing full-time farm work for a former employer of mine, and Sean’s picked up a modeling gig.
OK, he’s working at a restaurant. And, as usual, making the world a more colorful and beautiful place.
Sean Graham, 2019.
In a couple weeks we’ll head towards North Carolina to close our great cross-continental loop and reunite with our poor abandoned cat. (Apparently my mom’s been feeding her fresh salmon and tuna, so she may or may not be in a hurry to take us back.)
It’s been a crazy and miraculous trip. Soon it’ll be time for the next adventure: figuring out where home is.
We were sad to say goodbye to La Paz last week, but the homeland was calling, and we knew if we stayed much longer Sean would descend even further into his Mexican Coca-Cola addiction. We said our farewells and hit the road, heading back the way we came.
Adios, Baja!
Well, more or less the same way — I confess there was one instance where I neglected my navigational duties and took us down a country road that soon turned to gravel. By the time we realized my mistake, we’d gone too far to backtrack, and before long the gravel turned to large rocks — some of them menacing enough that I had to jump out of the car and hurl them out of the way to ensure that Watermelon’s dainty underbelly could proceed unscathed. It wasn’t that close to sunset and we weren’t that low on gas, and we did end up making it to our hotel with plenty of time to spare, but let’s just say we both spent a lot of time thinking about how we’d survive in the desert if it came down to it.
If only we could eat breathtaking vistas.
Other than that, the drive up was fairly uneventful, although we did discover that military checkpoints are considerably less nonchalant when you’re driving towards the States. It was a true test of our Spanish skills trying to explain to Mexican officials what all the weird crap in our car was. (Things like antihistamines and tarot cards and odor-eating charcoal bags just don’t come up very often in Duolingo lessons.)
Just shy of Tijuana, we hit an exciting milestone:
That’s right, Watermelon is now a ripe 100,000 miles old. Gifts aren’t necessary, but she’d love to get a card. Ziggy is always nice. A check would be fine too.
After spending the night in Tijuana, we made our slow way back across the border and drove to our next stop: Joshua Tree.
Even in the dead of summer, Joshua Tree was by far the most crowded park we’ve been to, but somehow it felt more remote and pristine than anywhere we’d camped so far. Maybe it was the quiet: whereas the other campgrounds were filled with bird chatter or insect songs, in Joshua Tree we barely heard a wing flutter.
We did, however, have some uninvited guests.
In fact, much of our time at Joshua Tree was spent waging a rodent war of Caddyshack proportions. Every time we turned around, these disturbingly brazen creatures were infiltrating our food, water, beer and coffee supplies. They managed to devour an entire bag of guacamole chips, which I was hoping would at least cause them some mild intestinal discomfort, but it seemed only to cement their conviction that we wanted desperately to feed them and needed only to be shown how.
Nevertheless, after securing our comestibles, we managed to get in some very scenic hikes. I don’t know anything about rocks, but the ones in Joshua Tree look like giant pebbles stacked by a daydreaming child, piled in such improbable configurations that you can’t help but see whimsical shapes in them. It’s not unlike staring at a bunch of clouds.
When you’re just trying to get a cool rock picture and a tree totally photo-bombs.
The trees themselves are equally tempting to the imagination — they seem to be frozen midway through some frantic gesture, like hands grasping at the sky. They also have surprisingly shallow roots, so you frequently see them listing at precarious angles or collapsed entirely in the sand, like a desert traveler crawling towards water.
We kept these hikes short, however, because as soon as the shadows receded under the scorching mid-day sun, we were like ants under a magnifying glass. On our first day I made the mistake of trying to prepare lunch at noon and nearly burned myself on the silverware I’d set on the picnic table just seconds before.
For those particularly punishing hours, Sean and I ventured into town to explore. On the main drag we found a little gathering of weird galleries and shops, and we happened across a loosely defined outdoor art space that featured a spaceship-like construction with revolving disco boulders.
All the people we talked to (except the mannequins) was friendly and helpful, giving us suggestions for coffee-shops, bars, galleries, and tourist attractions. Following one tip, we drove out to a little Old West village called Pioneertown, which has served as a film set for famous westerns over the years such as, I kid you not, “The Gay Amigo.” The town is also home to a famous bar called Pappy and Harriet’s, which, in spite of its remote location, boasts such big names as Paul McCartney and Lorde in its roster. (We didn’t see any superstars, but their nachos were divine.)
After Joshua Tree, our trajectory will take us steadily Northward, which will bring a welcome change in climate. I love the desert, but we only have so many layers of skin left between the two of us.
Next we’ll be heading to Santa Barbara for a little dose of perfect weather (and to see some dear friends and family). Will we stop in L.A. and get famous real quick along the way? Probably. Stay tuned.
The stretch of road between Roswell and Santa Fe was perilously empty, in the way that makes you glance nervously at your gas gauge every few minutes even if you just fueled up. It seemed we were the only people on the road.
Well… almost the only people. (art by John Cerney)
When we finally spotted a glinting chrome diner just off the highway — the first functioning business we’d seen in hours — we all but screeched the car to a cartoon stop.
Penny’s Diner was one of the few fixtures of a small town called Vaughn, New Mexico. It provided exactly the classic diner experience its retro image promised: generous but poker-faced waitresses in heavy eyeshadow, a white-haired man in suspenders cleaning egg out of his moustache, a misspelled specials board, rewardingly bland sandwiches.
After devouring said sandwiches, we soldiered on through the emptiness towards Santa Fe National Forest, where we set up for the night at Black Canyon Campground.
After the wide-open landscapes of western Texas, the tall pines had a sort of magical hush that felt like true wilderness. The quiet was punctuated with wingbeats up above, crows and robin trading places in the branches, the occasional whirr of a hummingbird.
We spent a couple peaceful nights as forest creatures, then ventured back down into the city to do a little exploring. We wound up springing for tickets to Meow Wolf‘s House of Eternal Return, something we’d heard about from almost everyone we’d talked to since Marfa.
Built from an old bowling alley owned by George R. R. Martin, House of Eternal Return is something of a real-life choose-your-own-adventure story with a highly interpretable plot. The installation essentially has two layers: visitors start out exploring the very believable facade of an ordinary household, but crawl into the fireplace or hop through the fridge and you’ll find yourself in a kaleidoscopic wonderland of neon surrealism.
Unfortunately, even on a Wednesday morning the place was shoulder-to-shoulder with visitors. Any detail that called for more than a few seconds’ attention — a newspaper clipping on the fridge, a bedside journal, a computer full of mysterious documents — was quickly swarmed with impatient bodies vying for their turn. The place itself was also rife with narrow tunnels and stairs, so anyone with limited mobility would miss out on most of the good stuff.
Emerging back into the soothing palette of reality, our imaginations and retinas still aflame, Sean and I retired to a nearby brewery to plan the route to our next stop: Phoenix. There, we’d meet up with two different factions of Sean’s family as well as some friends of mine from when I came through on my solo epic roadtrip a few years ago.
Hopefully, the desert will continue to smile upon us.
One thing you’ve got to know about Sean: he’s a Texas boy. I’m pretty sure his heart is just one big cast iron star. If you sang “the stars at night, are big and bright,” he’d probably clap four times in his sleep. As soon as we passed the sign welcoming us to the “Drive Friendly” state (which mostly means your fellow drivers will wave as they cut you off), he was in seventh heaven.
I know, I hate the phrase “in seventh heaven” too, but you see what I did there, right?
As evidenced by the surreptitious marketing above, (feel free to sponsor us now, @GuerosTacoBar!) we have indeed been eating a truly impressive amount of tacos. I think it may be a state law that every block in Austin have at least four taco stands. Every imaginable name describing an establishment that serves Tex Mex has been used: Taco Palace! Burrito Canyon! Tamale Wigwam! Nacho Gazebo!
We spent most of our time in Austin bouncing happily from one beer dispensary to the next with various combinations of friends, braving the heat to take in some local art and scenic views.
“Water Woman” by Wangechi Mutu at the Austin Contemporary“Lake Nessy” by Dixie Friend GayRegrettably, this view was made somewhat less peaceful by the church group playing amplified Jesus rock at the lookout point.
Sean and I also spent some time exploring on our own. We passed a morning sunbathing at Barton Springs, a gorgeous spring-fed swimming pool where Robert Redford apparently learned to swim as a child.
We also checked out (get it?) the Austin Central Library in the Market District. As a wandering introvert, I consider myself something of a connoisseur of libraries, and this one topped the charts. Art galleries, tech rentals, work rooms, 3-d printers, a literary puppet exhibit, a rooftop garden, even a cafe and bar. (If you get drunk at a library, it’s still automatically classy, right?)
Making friends with some 3-D art.A whole section just for zines!
I’m pretty sure Sean and I could never afford to live in Austin unless we a) won the lottery or b) became sewer people, but it’s nice knowing we’ve got so many good people in such a fascinating and progressive place.
You know those little toy cars you used to have to wind up by running them backwards on the ground, letting go, and then watching them shoot across the floor, inevitably into your dad’s leg? (For those of you under 25: find a YouTube video. I’m not going to explain it to you.)
Basically, going to North Carolina was our wind-up. We started in the middle of the country (Louisiana), backed up to the East for a few hundred miles, and now we’ve set ourselves loose across the country. We just needed a little momentum.
Hopefully, no one will step on us and then give us a time-out because we were supposed to be cleaning our room anyway.
Before venturing into the great unknown, however, we decided to spend one last night in New Orleans. This was partly because it was on the way to our next stop, and partly because we’d won a luxury hotel stay in a Christmas raffle, and nothing prepares you for four months of roughing it like a king-size bed and HBO.
We weren’t exactly pining for New Orleans after a mere week away, but there was something liberating about being back on familiar ground without all of our usual duties and obligations. We did our best impersonation of tourists, roaming the streets in sunhats and fanny-packs, blocking traffic to take pictures of random buildings because “the lighting’s just right.” In our 12th-floor hotel room, we admired the view of boats hauling up the river, neon signs flashing below, and some guy ironing in the Marriott across the street.
We also had the pleasure of catching the first day of the Lucky Art Fair, a very ambitious and promising art collaboration conceived by a handful of New Orleans badasses. These installations did for me exactly what I always want art to do: invite me to lean into my own discomfort. Am I supposed to open this door? Am I supposed to touch this? Should I stand next to this total stranger while we read the incredibly intimate poem written on this wall? Is this a bathroom, or a work of art?
This guitar said “play someone a song,” so I did.
Sean won a goldfish! Fortunately, a paper one.
For future reference: if you’re a fridge, you never have to tell me to open you.
I wish we’d had days to roam through the rooms. (Fortunately for you, if you live in New Orleans you can see it next weekend, and you should.)
Our next stop is Austin, where we’ll hang out with Sean’s 57 best friends from high school and hopefully eat tacos for every meal. As for New Orleans, consider this our awkward second goodbye like after you’ve already said goodbye once but then you realize you’re walking in the same direction. Love y’all!
The Good Ship Watermelon 