LOCATION 3 OF 3: V-Twin TV (Speed Channel)
To quote the man in black… “I’ve been everywhere“. So far on just this shoot alone I’ve been in or passed through:
Orlando, FL / Daytona, FL / Omaha, NE / Sioux City, IA / Sioux Falls, SD / Raleigh-Durham, NC / Charlotte, NC
[ Click to enlarge ]
Travel Day (17 March)
to Charlotte, NC from Sioux Falls, SD
We just finished driving to the airport in Omaha, NE (heading for Chicago Midway) and I’m sitting at the terminal gate waiting on a plane that’s now an hour late. The news of the delay spread as a rumor and jumped from passenger to passenger like the “telephone game”. It has, only a few minutes ago, been confirmed. We’re off to a great start!
The drive here was a reasonably long drive – 175 miles. I’ve been driving these past few days. I just took it upon myself to drive. It’s been nice to be sure and I think I needed it – a bit of normalcy amongst the foreignness around me. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a driving fool.
The view from the driver’s seat is filled with nothing but big skies with puffy cotton ball clouds and vast, open land dotted occasionally by farm houses and silos. Wherever you look, you find these islands of trees that surround the barns and farm houses like wagons circling settlers in the mist of an attack. In this case, the attack usually comes from the wind, snow and heat. Everything here is dry and dead right now. I haven’t seen a bird once during the past three days. Whoa, I take that back. I did see three hawks in the span on five miles. It was like déjà vu – each bird of prey was facing east and sitting on a tree that looked remarkably similar to the last. I marvel at how quickly the snow covered ground of Sioux Falls faded away to the barren land of Iowa.
Much of that South Dakota snow finds its way onto the underside of cars, trucks and semis and from time-to-time that buildup of dirty snow and muddy ice falls off. On really big trucks, when large loads of snow and ice fall off, (pardon my crudeness) it really looks like a horse in a parade taking a dump! It’s funny – real funny when you’re tired – in this case, it’s no big deal if you go over it. And then there’s the dead skunk in the road that took at least ten miles to get the smell out of the van.
The roads here are long, straight, and generally wide open. Eight miles-per-hours is the norm. These roads offers a driver a Zen like quality. Solitude and a time to focus without much thinking – at times, so much so, a chance to forget oneself. And then there’s the time where you get to think and be a little introspective. Thinking of home and friends and family and those things left behind and undone.
It hasn’t been a huge amount of time away but it’s been a lot longer than just a weekend jump. (Today marks the 12th of 18 days away.) I miss my bed and the girl I share it with. I miss her touch, her affections, her smell, her gaze. Just a bunch of guys on a road trip is fun for only so long. And let me tell you I really miss her profoundly delicious cooking that just shouts “home” to me. I think I only had two good meals this trip so far. I miss the waft of cooking as I come in the front door, I miss stinky cheese, a good Tequila cocktail, bread from La Brea, and the variety and taste of anything that’s not from a nation-wide chain restaurants. I miss Tivo, my couch, my crappy truck, my other clothes and shoes. In general, I miss home in Los Angeles and the familiar.
Signs abound here with “Omaha” written on them and with each, I am transported to my childhood my memories of watching “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom”. How I loved watching that show each week and how terribly disappointed I was when it stopped airing. It was a family event to watch the show together. But hell, all good things must end.
Bye, bye Omaha…
Up, up and away. Thirty-thousand feet in the air with Chicago sprawled out beneath me and our heading is set to Raleigh, North Carolina. Below Chicago is a systematic pattern of grids. Tracks flow north and south and east and west like engineer’s paper. I love it – I have to guess that it’s easy to get around in such a set-up. My only disappointment is that our delay gave us no time to eat some authentic Chicago pizza!
Someone passed gas near by while on the plane and even with the fan aimed straight at me and set to full blast, it isn’t enough to keep the stink away. (I think someone did it on the flight out here too.) It’s a full house tonight – everyone is suspect! Tip to the traveller, always check-in online. We always do it and we always get to go in first.
All of Shy-town beneath my feet…
That’s my room in the cross-hairs. Shui!!! – Thanks Google Earth
I hate getting “juked”! In this case, the vending machine here has drinks for 80¢. I’m thinking it’s the usual 16 oz. can – what a bargain. Nope. It’s this tiny 10 oz shot. I know it’s only 6 oz. less but a matter of principle. One usually expects a 16 oz can from a vending machine and you should get one – especially when there aren’t any signs saying otherwise. I’m grumpy because I’m tired.
Anywho, it’s late here – back to -6 GMT. A thousand winks for me. Happy St. Paddy’s day…
When we drink, we get drunk.
When we get drunk, we fall asleep.
When we fall asleep, we commit no sin.
When we commit no sin, we go to heaven.
So, let’s all get drunk, and go to heaven!
Travel Day (17 March)
to Charlotte, NC from Durham, NC
(Trees, trees, trees and I can even hear a few birds.)
(More rivers, waterways and lakes – I love bridges and trains.)
(Bikers on the road with jackets that say “North Carolina Outlaws” – HA! – the last guy on the right, his jacket says, “Probational Outlaw” – I think John said it best – “is he a pledge?”)
(I forget it’s “Hardees” here and not “Carl’s Jr.”.)
Morton’s Custom Cycles (20-22 March)
Concord, NC
Leaving for Cali this morning. We’re driving from Charlotte to Raleigh-Durham then stopping over in Phoenix and finally landing in Burbank. Here are some pix from the past few days. I’ll leave you with this… “Sweet! Like a warm toilette seat!” (How’s that for southern wisdom.)
Waiting in the terminal right now – let’s see how long the batteries last. That bit of southern wisdom came from Dan – one of the shop’s mechanics. I’ll have more on Dan later.
You can’t throw a stick in any east coast, southern state without hitting something that has some Civil War significance. Except perhaps where we were. Still the antebellum influence can be seen in the streets, architecture and even to this day, its people.
The part of Charlotte we were at is eerily reminiscent of South Coast Plaza and the surrounding communities. Affluent people, big cars, large property lots, and an attitude which I think anyone from Orange County would easily spot. If you can get past that (which is a bit hard for me) the what I saw here was nothing short of beautiful. Rich red brick on colonial style homes, fanciful Romanesque columns and round-a-bout drive ways with fountains in the center. Cherry blossoms in full bloom, staggeringly tall, old growth trees, and bold emerald
Running out of power. To be continued… same bat time, same bat channel!
The “M-tric” logo is a girl passing gas. The slogan… “Selling the best looking sound”!
Doug (shop owner) gets a first try at the board bike almost done. All that’s need is to clean up the welds, grind down some parts, paint and wire it up.
Blair (our sound mixer) testing out a custom. Standing still is more my pace, too.
The last time I had to endure sleet was in West Virginia. Most of the time it felt colder in North Carolina than it did in South Dakota.
This is how I imagine the South. Distorted? Yes. Stereotypical? Yes. Idealized? Yes, again.
Terry’s Kitchen used to be a automotive paint shop. When the business when under, Terry started a restaurant. BBQ and fantastic.
Here’s one for the books. The day before leaving we ate at a restaurant call “Harper’s”. Fine dining at a reasonable price. They’ve got a great menu and an excellent wait staff, especially ours. At the end of the meal, I asked if she could break a twenty – bad move. She coyly said, “Sure enough” and looking me dead in the eye, proceeded to tear my twenty in half. I was dumbfounded on the outside and laughing on the inside. The kid’s got moxie.
Here’s something I you don’t see everyday in Southern California – water towers. I always assumed (apparently wrongly) that the towers were water reserves. I suppose in a small way they are but they’re mostly to keep the water pressure high in outlying communities. Sweet, like a warm toilet seat.
Dan and Rodney cleans up the last of the welds on the frame of the “board racer”. At the end of the shoot, I asked if they could let me try the mig welder. They said “yes” and that might have been the best thing about this trip. Tools, fire, sparks, and molten steel – how fricken sweet is that?!
Bojangles is kinda like KFC only a little more tangy and a little more southern. The best part, all you can eat Wednesdays! Not a raw vegetable in sight.
HOMEWARD
“Ding” you are now free to roam around the country… The production company is using Southwest on our trips. I think I like this airline. The service is good, the lack of seating order has been seems to work. The way Southwest works is you’re assigned a boarding designation: A, B, C. The sooner you check-in (we check in online the night before), the chance of getting an “A” improves – an “A” designation allows you to board first. The flight attendants on this trip home were especially funny. I think it’s their thing. She would say things like “this is a no smoking, no complaining, no whining flight…” or “should the cabin loose pressure we would not have shown up to work today…”. A list material, really!
