the maine accomplishment

one of the corniest things about this most northern state is all of the plays on the word 'maine.' so, i figured i would play to the choir while in rome, or whatever. i left montpelier a couple of days ago, which was sad because i liked that place. if it were so far north and destined for so much snow i would live there. anyway. my intention was to go to new hampshire and stay the night somewhere there.

that failed. the route i took was through the great north woods and i didnt come upon anyplace that looked as if i could stay there for the night and not get hassled. so i pushed on into maine.

maine was supposed to be a crowning jewel of this trip, a final destination, an accomplishment that would make traveling resume complete. although i cant get into canada and i am not bold enough to try to drive into mexico, there isnt a state in the lower 48 that hasnt smelled my sweat. or tasted my tears or whatever.

rumford falls!

the place i found in maine was called rumford. really it was just the first place that i came upon that would have me. there wasnt much special to it. it had a nice waterfall and visitors center but there was nothing in the town. i think that was sunday, and everything was closed or otherwise not accessible to me. so i just walked around this dead town for a few hours, reading.

the scenery around the place was something out of my ideals, however. i would love nothing more than to be back in time around the turn of the century when this was a logging area and there were factories just being built along the river, and they would spew a dense white cloud of pollution. the hills would still be first growth forests and a fog would have settled among the trees.

people would mill about on dirt roads, there would be stick built taverns and in my mind everything would be great. of course, i wouldnt want to do anything to this time, i would just want to go back and watch it. and rumford maine would be the place where it all happened. but thats all fantasy.

i parked next to the river and hung out at the visitors center, which was closed, but they had internet there. and they had the waterfall and stuff. it was nice, but i didnt stay long. i moved on the next day to augusta.

augusta, i had imagined, would be awesome. a far north capitol city with a bunch of history that i could absorb. i was looking forward to a historic downtown that was situated around the capitol building. boy, was i wrong. the historic downtown was far from the capitol and, again, dead. even though this was monday. most of the shops were closed and the capitol was up a hill near the highway and malls.

the state capitol

i walked up to it and hoped for a tour, but no luck. they dont have guided tours. the reason, i discovered, was because there was nothing to tour. many capitol buildings have slowly been restored to their original states over the years, but not this one. it looked like a brand new building on the inside and simply had pictures of various statesmen on the walls, no history. lame. i wasnt there long.

i slept in augusta that night, but was happy to get out the next day. i almost drove away from augusta that night towards portland, but i caught myself before i got on the expressway because i didnt want to go to portland next. i had looked on the map and saw this place called lewiston that i wanted to go to. so, the next day i made my way there.

in lewiston it was a beautiful day, weather wise. i parked somewhere downtown and lugged my bag setting off on foot around the city. eventually i found the library and i sat there for awhile. when i left the library i wanted to go back to my truck. but i got lost. severely lost. it is easier to get lost in a moderate sized city than a large city because there arent many markers to point your way.

i ended up walking a couple miles - in circles - trying to find my truck or the downtown area that i had parked in. eventually i gave up on that and tried to find the library again, perhaps i could find my way from there. i found the library and realized that when i left it i had gone in the complete opposite direction than i should of. which is why i couldnt find anything i was looking for with my memory of blocks walked in either direction.

becasue that is how i keep rack of myself. when walking, i note how many blocks up and over from my truck. usually that works and i can walk back and forth through all the blocks and always know where my truck is. not so that day. i was scared for a little bit. but i got over it. i am good at getting over things.

once i found my truck again i wanted to eat. i hadnt yet that day and it was getting dark. i didnt want to pay for food so i drove off looking for a grocery store. my food stamps were supposed to be refilled that day and i was looking forward it. i drove for awhile and eventually found a grocery store behind the college.

i bought a few items but was dismayed to see that my food stamps had been canceled. i half expected that. the state of oregon had called me last month inquiring why all of my purchases were out of state. they said they would cancel them, but i didnt really beleive that the state of oregon would have things together enough to actually cancel them. i was wrong.

so, another thing i need to keep an eye on. and another money drain. oh well. i went back to the college and parked, then walked around the campus for awhile. it was raining and i just found some refuge and read for awhile, then went back to my truck and called it a night. i had thought about staying in lewiston another day, but decided against it this morning.

hey, the ocean!

this morning, i drove to portland maine. which marked another milestone. from border to border and coast to coast, no longer am i headed east and north. south and west from here on out (for the most part). which is the path that will lead me home.

portland seems nice so far, certainly better than augusta. it is moderately sized and has a number of attractions. i went to the ocean (really a bay or something) and the visitors center for some info. i got a walking map and set off following my nose. i could smell a brewery in the air and it had been awhile since i had a beer, let alone a cold beer. so i found the brewery, took the tour, and tasted their brews. they werent very good, but thats okay.

now i have a city to explore.

technical notes #6 (hey i can still write html!)

holy shit! i have traveled over 10000 miles! and i have spent over $1000 on gas! and i can still write in html!

this cycle started on 9/2/09 in clyde, oh and ended on 10/4/09 in lancaster, nh. i was in six different states and spent almost a half hour in canadian customs (technically in canada).

	current cycle	total trip
miles	1742	10432
gallons	75.5	424.5
dollars	200	1108.3
mpg avg	23	24.6
costpg avg	2.64	2.61
days	32	142

montpelier is a very nice place

montpelier is so awesome, seriously. it is just a tiny little town tucked away in the middle of the great north woods. i got here yesterday and almost missd it. i was traveling east on route 2 and it was splitting, i was offered to stay on route 2 or take route 2 business, the business option didnt look like much and i figured i was close to montpelier so i stayed on the main route. i quickly realized that i was opted to go around montpelier.

the state building

so i turned around and saw the state building and a very quaint little downtown area. i parked and started walking around. the weather was gorgeous, low 60's and sunny. i walked back to the capitol and took the tour. it has been a long time since i have been in a capitol building, about two months, and gosh i just like taking those tours. the people are usually so full of information about the history of the state. and they generally arent biased to tell the story based on how the government would like it to be remembered, but sometimes you have to pick things out.

after that tour i walked through the downtown area. the first stop i came to was a fiddler sitting on a bridge spanning the winooski river. i sat near him for awhile, reading, when he broke i chatted with him about the town and asked is there was a square dance i could go to. no such luck.

i kept on, in full enjoyment, there are some really nice old buildings here and for how small the downtown is, a ton of bookstores. even a volunteer radical bookstore, called black sheep books. it wasnt opened when i first passed. i did the whole loop, walking slow, stopping frequently to enjoy the world around me or read a few pages of my book. people smiled, one lady thought she knew me and came up and said hi how are you in a way suggesting that we knew each other well. then she realized i was not who she thought. she smiled and wished me a good day.

so nice. i went into all the bookstores (5) and perused looking for some titles that i would like to have with me. eventually black sheep opened and i went in there. i talked with the volunteer for awhile, talking about black rose in portland, sharing struggles of having a volunteer run business. eventually the fiddler came in there as well and we all chatted.

it has been so long since i just had a conversation with someone, and that is really necessary to remember that i am a real person living a real life. it felt great. i wanted them to trade some of my books that i have read and no longer require for some of theirs that i havent read, but they didnt think there was a precedent for book trading and apologizingly declined my offer. i went to the library, where there was a book sale. i bought six books for $3.50. awesome.

my cat friend

then i walked over to the co-op and when i saw it i knew that i had been here before. they have such a nice co-op here. there were at least twenty varieties of apples, all local, for purchase. there were a similar amount of potatoes for sale, again all local. how awesome. i bought some things and continued walking along. i stopped on the train tracks to pet a cat for a few minues. that made me happy. i went and sat downtown and finished reading my book. rain was coming on so i started looking for a place to spend a few hours once darkness and rain came. unfortunately i didnt find a place.

there was one little cafe but it was completely packed and there was a jazz band. i wanted a bit more peace and quiet, so i sat under the eve at city hall and read for an hour, then i went back to the old truck (earlier than i wanted) and watched a movie then slept. i wasnt cold at all throughout the night, and i dont know why. i could see my breath clearly and it was cold out. maybe i had parked in such a way to have the winds broken, but i was pretty warm. i liked that. it rained all night, but when i woke up the rain decided to stop.

my plan for the morning was simple. walk to the visitors center where they offered free coffee (green mountain organic, yum) then to the library to use the internet, then to the farmers market where a historic city tour would be lead by the preservation society. the plan went off pretty well. i stopped into the farmers market to buy a pear and a carrot before starting the tour.

there were only four people on the tour and the guide was a graduate student at the university of vermont, she wasnt very well versed in monteplier history, so it was an adventure. and all of us shared little tidbits that we knew along the way. my tidbit had to do with the capitol dome, because the guide hadnt taken the capitol tour and i did the previous day. i love tours like this though, especially when they are smaller and more personal.

we learned about the architectural history of a number of the buildings and history of vermont and the city of montpelier. towards the end the rain started and we broke. but one interesting point about the tour was the way she ended it. she ended by talking about how the city of montpelier and the preservation society stopped a mcdonalds from setting up shop in the city. i already knew that montpelier was the only capitol city in the country without a mcdonalds, but i was surprised to learn how big of a deal it was at the time and how proud the people of the city are about that fact.

apparently the fight was rather epic and the citizens and city eventually won the fight by citing traffic safety, that the increased traffic at the intersection would create a safety hazard (a tactic we had attempted in the fight against mississippi lofts in north portland). afterwards i went to a local diner that only uses local products, mostly farm fresh. that was nice. i'll stay here another night and then move on to new hampshire. and then maine, my crowning jewel!

the good times are killing me

for a long time my default favorite movie was 'mondo, new york.' for a number of reasons. first, i saw it when i was at the height of my impressionability, 19 years old, recently transplanted to new york, didnt know many people and worked at a video/convenient store. second, it is an incredibly hard movie to find so i havent been able to recheck since i last saw it to see if it is still as amazing as i believe it is.

the movie is a walk in the life of a young lady who is visiting new york city for the first time (presumably). set in the early 1980's she just walks throughout the streets of nyc with her denim jacket tossed over her shoulder. we see the seedy lower east side, go to a cockfight, see some animal crucifixtion, watch lydia lunch perform one of her poems, see some other bands perform, watch some people shoot heroin, etc.

another film that really struck home with me when i first saw it, i cannot recall the year, but i think whenever it came out, was a film called 'waking life.' this film is a mixture of a person walking through his dream world and having conversations with a myriad of people. sometimes he isnt directly involved, just a bystander watching this dream world unfold around him.

well, if you combine those two movies thats kind of what my life feels like right now, a healthy dose of detachment from what is going on around me at any given time, the sense that i am just a part of life and not an active part of it. and then every now and again i am engaged in a wonderfully diverse conversation in the unlikeliest of places or stumble upon something that is just a wonder to the world.

last night i stumbled upon the jeh kulu dancers/drummers. it was awesome. i was just cruising about downtown burlington vermont, it was almost 10. i was just enjoying the chill of the night and the world as it happened to me. i had walked down to the bank of lake champlaign and along the bike path to the boardwalk. then i just walked up a random street towards my truck. all of a sudden i hear a thunderous beat of drums above me and just within earshot. i walk toward it.

i find a huge building that appears to be completely locked down and on the top most floor (about 5 stories or so) there are lights on and i can hear clearly this beat awakening the night. i wanted nothing more than to get closer to the sound and experience it fully. i tried some doors, eventually walking all the way around the building until i found one that was accidently not closed all the way. i walked up dark stairs to the source of the sound, it was growing louder and more amazing with each step i took. when i got to the top, the last stairwells were blocked off, not very well but the image it portrayed was that they were not to be disturbed.

i sat at the last stairwell just listening. eventually someone found me and invited me up to watch. i sat on a radiator watching some of the most amazing and enthusiastic performers i had ever seen. they were simply practicing. wow. at one point someone else came up the stairs and told me that their time was up and that i would have to tell them to stop. i laughed very emphatically (on the inside) at this. here, a stranger in this wondrosity suddenly called upon to end something so amazing. clearly i didnt tell them to stop.

but they knew anyway and i beat a hasty retreat. i walked back out into the chill of the night and just smiled and let the memory of my encounter reverberate through me.

what this means, of course, is that i am now in burlington. i drove all day yesterday from watertown to get here. i didnt think it would take as long as it did, but i drove over 200 miles. i hadnt driven that much in one day since i left indiana, the day i left indiana as a matter of fact. i opened and closed the month of september with long drives to someplace new. what a life.

the last time i was in vermont, the first time, was when i was trying to cross the border in 2004. i think we stopped in montpelier then, and i am headed there next. today it rained all day. i spent the clear hours walking about the town and the rainy hours in the library or walking around town. i like it here. although it currently feels and looks like the heart of winter in portland. that part i dont like very much.

as i was milling about the town i kept remarking to myself just how much this place reminded me of portland, but then i caught myself and remembered that i have done this with other places, which i think adds up to me just seeing portland everywhere i go because i want to be in portland. only a couple more months of *torture* left. i dont really think of this as torture, but the winter is coming on much quicker than i had anticipated, i may not be able to beat the snow and i may run out of money.

that money think is something i figured out the other day because i looked into my unemployment benefits to see how much i had left. $1000. i started with about $4500 in unemployment. i left with $2000 or so in savings and now i have about $1500. which means i have spent about $4000 (this includes insurance, gas, the truck fixes, my cell phone, etc) so far on this trip. that means i have spent an average of $28 a day or so. the way that i am gauging the rest of my trip, 120 more days or so, means that i can spend about $20 a day (as an average, including all expenses) and wind up in portland completely broke.

i had planned to come back with a little bit of cash to start back up, but whatever. i have spent virtually no time so far thinking about money or its potential impact on the future of the trip. i dont really intend to start now.