Baby Moses

Summary

The Final Leg

Tuesday, August 14

Start: Indianapolis, IN
Finish: Arlington, VA

Distance: 660 miles
Time: 17 hours

Gateway to the East

Monday, August 13

Start: Fulton, MO
Finish: Indianapolis, IN

Distance: 415 miles
Time: 14 hours

Optimism is true moral courage

Sunday, August 12th

Start: Tulsa, OK
Finish: Fulton, MO

Distance: 430 miles
Time: 14 hours


We started out by driving to the Woolaroc Museum in northern Oklahoma. It's located on Oklahoma oilman Frank Phillips' ranch and it contains his and his family's various collections of Native American artifacts, stuffed animal heads, guns, and porcelain collectibles. It's all contained in this enormous vault-like building.


This was the most interesting thing I saw in the museum.


And I thought this was mildly funny. The book titled "The Peacemaker" is actually a gun case.


We then drove north to Bartlesville, where Frank Phillips' home is located, as well as this Frank Lloyd Wright building that's been converted into a hotel and restaurant.

After a mediocre lunch in a small town just across the Kansas border, we drove up to Chanute, where the Martin & Osa Johnson Safari Museum is located. I've been there before with my Mom (years ago), but it was fun to go again. We watched a decent pair of documentaries about Martin & Osa, and I found out some more about the surreal chain of clothing stores recently opened by American Eagle called "Martin & Osa's". I also gained a newfound appreciation for Martin's photography: both in his movies and in his still photographs. (Though I still wouldn't second the over-the-top comments about his photographic skills that the museum curators made in the documentaries we watched.) I should probably watch some more of their movies. The only problem is that you have to buy them from the museum in order to watch them. I think it would be possible to make a really interesting documentary about Martin & Osa. As it is, the one's we saw didn't really deal with the complexities of Martin & Osa's relationships with their subjects.



We then drove to Kansas City and went directly to a baseball game between the Kansas City Royals and the Toronto Blue Jays. It was disgustingly hot out the entire time, but I've always found baseball games relaxing so I enjoyed it nonetheless. The coolest part about the stadium was that behind the back fence there was an enormous water fountain.

Throughout the drive today we listened to Caroline Alexander's account of Shackleton's adventures down south. Both me and my Dad were struck by Shackleton's statement that "optimism is true moral courage".

We were planning to try and drive all the way to St. Louis after the game, but as we drove across Missouri we found ourselves in the middle of a pretty rough windstorm (with winds up to 60 mph), so we pulled over mid-state and found a hotel.

Home of G.W. Bush

Saturday, August 11th

Start: Albuquerque, NM
Finish: Tulsa, OK

Distance: 730 miles
Time: 14.5 hours

We started out the day by going to the International Balloon Museum in Albuquerque. Albuquerque is the location of the annual International Balloon Fiesta, in which hundreds (or more?) passenger balloons all take off at the same time, creating what I imagine is a rather striking photo opportunity. (I don't know what the point is beyond that.) The balloon museum isn't dedicated to the fiesta, but it's presumably the result of the fiesta being located in Albuquerque. The museum is dedicated to telling the history of ballooning, but it doesn't do a very good job of it. When it comes to the few historic gondolas that they have, for instance, you can't even look inside of them. It did make me want to find out more about airship travel in the 20's and 30's, though.



We then drove west of Albuquerque to Tinkertown, a folk art environment created by a guy named Ross Ward. Now, everyone knows I have a soft spot for kitchy folk art environments, but I wasn't that into Tinkertown. Its two main elements were walls made out of glass bottles and concrete, and hand-carved wooden figurines (which sometimes were automata). Check out the curiously-sexually-ambiguous figurine in the bottom photo (this is becoming a theme of the trip).


On the way to Tinkertown, my Dad spotted a place called "Burger Boy", so we went there for lunch. It was the first decent roadfood discovery of our trip. Their specialty was chili burgers, so I had the green chili burger. The patty was crunchy on the outside the way I like it and the green chili gave it a nice spiciness without overwhelming the rest of the burger.


We then got back on the interstate and drove to Texas.


Just west of Amarillo we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch, a series of ten Cadillacs buried head-first into the Texas dirt. (It was made by a collective of California artists who are also responsible for an architecture book on California Crazy vernacular architecture that I remember liking when I read it back in the late 90's one CTY summer at LMU.) I've stopped here twice before and I always like stopping whenever I drive by, even though it's nothing amazing. You really can see all that it has to offer by looking at the cover of "Road Trip USA". (The Cadillac Ranch and Randy's Donuts appear to be the two most popular Americana sites for tour book covers.) I think I like stopping just because I know it's been years since I was last here and it'll be years until I come by again. And I can never predict when, exactly, that'll be.

Once we got to Amarillo we went to a big Western Wear superstore that I've been to a few times before, but Western Wear bores me now so I didn't get anything.


For dinner we went to the Cattlemen's Cafe in Oklahoma City. Located next to the stockyards, it's a old steakhouse. They serve "Lamb Fries" (lamb balls), which the guy at the next table ordered. Our steaks were good. Late in the night, a guy who was at least 80 years old at another table near us serenaded his special lady friend with a song on his harmonica. The entire restaurant applauded.

Desert Landscapes

Friday, August 10

Start: Tucson, AZ
Finish: Albuquerque, NM

Distance: 500 miles
Time: 14.5 hours


There's a very romantic scene in "Can't But Me Love" in which Patrick Dempsey's character takes his for-hire girlfriend to an airplane graveyard in the desert outside of Tucson. In the movie, they sneak in at night and walk in between rows and rows of out-of-service military aircraft that are being stored for parts. Well, that graveyard actually exists and you can take a bus tour of it. It's called "the Boneyard" and it's right next to the PIMA Air & Space Museum. Sitting in an air conditioned bus is nice, of course, but it's nothing like what I imagine walking amongst rows of old planes at night is like.


At the PIMA Air & Space Museum itself there are a bunch of restored military aircraft sitting outside in the desert sun, as well as a bunch of historically-organized hangars. In a WWII hangar dedicated to the Flying Fortress, I couldn't help but be amused by this unintentionally-sexually-ambiguous mannequin they were using to sell their hats and t-shirts. He/she reminds me of the neighbor on "King of the Hill".

For lunch in Tucson, we went to the El Charro Cafe, which is listed in Jane and Michael Stern's "Roadfood Goodfood". I don't recommend it. Not because it was horrible, but because it was boring. Just a generic after-work TexMex place.

After lunch, we drove to Silver City, New Mexico, which was a very cute small town that had somehow managed to keep businesses--including restaurants with actual customers--in its old downtown.


Then we drove through the Gila National Forest, which was strikingly beautiful: rolling mountains covered with rocks, bushes, and pine trees.



For dinner we went to the "El Camino", which was pretty bad. The interior was in great condition, however, and there was a lounge attached that was full of red leather booths.

Goodbye California

Thursday, August 9th

Start: Los Angeles, CA
Finish: Tucson, AZ

Distance: 530 miles.
Time: 11.5 hours.


The California Experiment has come to an end, at least for now. I left L.A. today at noon, driving south with my Dad in Old School II. (My parents are taking turns helping me out with the California Experiment: my Mom drove out with me last January.)

Our only stop today was in San Diego, where we went to visit a high school friend and mentor of my Dad's named Corky. When my Dad was in high school, he was really into bike racing and Corky was a carpenter who moonlighted as a custom bike manufacturer. From age 13 to 16 my Dad spent a lot of time hanging out with Corky and his son, who was also into bike racing (and was national champ at some point).

Now, Corky and his wife have retired to San Diego, in order to be near their son, who's now a dentist. Corky spends most of his free time working on wooden duck decoys, which he enters into national duck decoy competitions. He came in second place one year. They're very detailed and very realistic.

We spend the afternoon talking about (a) how Corky and his wife met (at an ice skating rink), (b) how Corky got into making bikes (he'd always been fascinated by bikes and when his son was too young to ride a normal racing bike, Corky just made one himself, with no guidance from anyone else), (c) how California life is treating them (they love it), and what we should do about illegal immigration.

After talking for a few hours, we got back in the car and drove east. We had dinner at Taco Bell because we simply couldn't find anywhere else to go. We drove late into the night and finally made it to the outskirts of Tucson by midnight.

Overheard in Culver City

Standing in line for 'Bourne Identity III', next to a poster for a new movie called 'Superdog', I overheard the following conversation between a man and woman who appeared to be romantically linked, but only barely so.

Man: I really don't see the point of all these movies about dogs. First there were all of those Beethoven movies, and then there was even a movie about a dog that could play basketball. Now there's a movie about a dog superhero. Do we really need more movies about dogs?

Woman (in a dismissive tone): People like them.

Man (in a surprisingly upbeat tone, but one which nonetheless suggested he knew his attempt to continue the conversation was doomed to failure): Are you saying that you find these movies interesting, that's there's something I'm missing about their real appeal?

Woman (in an equally dismissive tone as before, but now overtly annoyed): People like dogs.

Man (in what I can only describe as a brave tone of voice): OK, but people like ice cream. Are you saying there should be a ton of movies about ice cream?

Idea for a Philosophy Seminar

I think it would be possible to cover a large swath of the topics that interest me in philosophy by centering a seminar around the following question: what does it mean to say that requiring players to dribble the ball makes basketball a better game than it would be if they were not required to dribble it?