Tag: hotel

Sketches of East of Here

~ johnbrandall

I. Setting Out.

My brother is driving. I'm in the backseat at liberty to write. Dad, riding shotgun, shuffles through sheets of paper explaining stock valuations and physical therapy exercises.

The car is a 2015 Buick Lucerne with 62,000 miles on it and counting. Destination: Ludlow, Massachusetts, where my dad grew up, where he's from, where he still has family: his cousins, his aunt (who turns 88 in two days), his sister (who he hasn't seen in 25 years), his niece (likewise).

We left Belleville, Illinois, at 8 a.m. this morning, yours truly behind the wheel. Football (a.k.a. soccer) streams on satellite radio, channel 157, the European Championship tournament. This is the first round of the tournament, dubbed group play. Earlier, Russia knocked off Finland. Now, it's Turkey and Wales.

It's been awhile since I've been in a car's backseat. I'm enjoying it; it feels like a luxury. Like I'm flying on an airplane. What else is there to do but to read, to write? To describe, to explain, to tell?

At the first rest stop, my dad pointed at some new socks he was wearing.

"What do you think of these?" he asked...


Click to continue with my account of traveling by car to Ludlow, MA with my dad and brother to visit family there...

Onion Trucker

~ johnbrandall

Bakersfield to Boston,
A little overweight.
If you saw some onions
By the side of the highway
They were probably mine.

The guy who loaded my rig
Didn't know what he was doing
So I didn't mind a few
Rolling loose back there
On Highway 58
On Interstate 40
On Interstate 44.
You didn't see any
Whole bags of them, did you?
Just so long as I didn't drop
Any whole bags.

They've already been on there for a week.
In all this sun?
I'm a little worried, to be honest.
They're paying me six grand
To get the load to Boston.
That's a lot of money.
But if I get 'em there rotten
I'll be heading back west
With nothing but onions
On my breath.

I Don’t Know What It Is About A Field—Part Two

~ johnbrandall

Left Tucumcari, New Mexico at 8:40. The woman at the Best Western when I checked out says, "You look like you could use more sleep." Oh, thanks! What a nice thing for you to say. Yeah, I could have used some more sleep. But other guests stirring early, doors clanging, and then someone freaking out when a cat jumped out of the hallway trash can meant it was time for me to get out of bed. That and needing to drive another eight hours today.

I'm on U.S. Highway 54 headed east. This highway takes me all the way to Wichita. Land is mostly flat. Ranch land. Cattle grazing. Mesas in the distance, to the west. Lots of Aermotors. I've realized that's a trademarked name for the old-style windmills.

Lots of empty buildings here. There were lots of them in Tucumcari, too. That town is hollowed out. Abandoned homes. I suppose Tucumcari had its day. Post World War II. Car culture. Route 66. Before passenger air travel proliferated...


The second and final part of the travelogue continues here...

I Don’t Know What It Is About A Field

~ johnbrandall

In eastern Butler County the fields opened up, took on the wispy gold of uncut hay. Not long after that hills appeared. I could see the outcome of geological events, the hint of a rock facade where the road cut through. But the grass didn't mind the hills and it ran long and uncut up and down the slopes still. A valley appeared, a vantage, a vista. I thought of some of that scene from Dances With Wolves where they creep up to a crest and look down to see a herd of buffalo grazing in peace.

It would've been a good place to stop but I was going 75 and I was only an hour into the drive. It's a spot to think about, for another. A spot worth reaching over into the glove compartment and pulling out this notebook for, an emergency notebook, never been written in before, the two notebooks I did bring secure in my bag.

I'm east of Wichita, KS on U.S. Highway 54, where Butler County ends and Greenwood County begins. Hay, cow ponds, the cattle so dark against the golden light of the field, dark against the blue of the sky, against the shapely hills.

FDR had some sort of windbreak tree-planting program. A shelterbelt. I never gave much thought to windbreaks, to trees as a line against the wind. This tree I keep seeing, that is so prevalent, must have been one of the trees of choice for the shelterbelt planting. It's often got a lopsided crown and most of the time its trunk splits into two not far from the ground, a couple of feet, maybe less. This tree, whatever it is, is not at Farm. It's a Dust Bowl thing. Kansas, Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, northeastern New Mexico.


Continue with Part One of this travelogue...

Notas de Maleta de Tijuana 2.0

~ johnbrandall

What follows is a thorough, categorical examination of what I took with me to Tijuana when I traveled there on a mission trip with members of the Burlingame Presbyterian church this past July. I wrote this mostly for my own benefit, in order to pack smarter next time I travel, to Tijuana or to anywhere. Writing this out, which I did on the first full day I was back at home, also serves as a sort of trip debriefing. It's a different way for me to record an account of the trip, albeit in a more straightforward and less lyrical style than what I wrote while I was actually in Mexico (which can be found here)...


Click here for the rest of the pack notes...

Tijuana Exodus & Old Tricks in San Diego

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

13:04. I'm in my room, 1415, at the Westin San Diego. This is two hours in the room I didn't think I'd have. Because check-in isn't until three o'clock. I'm grateful.

I've looked at myself in the mirror. I look rough! My cheeks are approaching brick red, or burgundy. I stink!

First order of business is a full-on shower. Then some walkin' around, looking perhaps for a notebook store. Then I'm going to that burrito place I went to a year ago. I'm-a get two burritos, one for this afternoon, one for dinner...


Continue with this short travel essay...

New Orleans 2016

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

Wooden doors.  French doors.  Lockbar, cord sheath.  Dormers, slate roofs—lots of slate roofs.  Slate mulch for trees on Esplanade.  Fluorescent plastic straws, a few pennies.  Failed mortar.  Church bell. If I had started counting from the top I would know what time it was.  Gum wrappers, gum.  Cracks.  A red substance—wax?  Wrought iron.  Gas lamps, flickering flames.  Cool breeze.  The neck of a glass bottle.  Spigots lacking handles.  Woebegone cigars.  Sheathes now for the downspouts.  Tender aluminum?  Spit, phlegm, leaves.  Trumpet playing on Jackson Square.  Heels on these pavers, dog snuff, bags being rolled along their luggage wheels burning and turning.  Feathers, sparkles, glints, sequins.  Buttons.  Shadows.  This building I'm leaning on improved by the Works Progress Administration, 1935-1936.  Trumpeter playing and singing that Hank Williams song, "...down the bayou...," his singing not as good as his trumpet playing and I'm a little hung over, a little emotional, having a moment here, a future memory I think, tears caught on the inner face of my sunglasses.


To continue reading, click here...

Vegas

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

Everyone debauched but everyone a virgin in some way.  You can’t have tried everything, you can’t have tired of everything.  Something to come back for, something to save for next time, when you’ve got more money, some savings to play with, and hopefully better luck.

There’s a premium on everything, and nothing is free.  Not even luck. Luck costs money.  Luck for a buck?  Maybe the stars are free, but good luck seeing them through the neon broil. Maybe it’s time for a drink.  Maybe it’s time to skim some winnings, to cash out, to double down, to parlay, to bet the house, to count some cards.  

Good place to come for a birthday.  One you don’t want to remember.  Just cab doors opening and closing.  Croupiers changing shifts, cleansing their hands of the table and all the bad luck that came with it.  Cashiers sitting behind bars.  Chips in their neat little stacks of hundreds or thousands.  The peaks in the distance.  The hotels standing and stretching in the hot, dry desert air, the sun not far away.

Gathering chips for their bets, trying to get free drinks, trying to get comped.  A generous mix of Filipino, white, some blacks, you name it, a few Koreans, the new wealth Chinese—cabbies called them whales because they were big fish, big betters.  Old and older.  A bunch of kids crawling around doing god knows what, more likely to get kicked out of the casinos than anyone else because they don’t bet.

Mafia types—Skyball Chibelli and Baba, hoping the croupiers don’t look too close at their money.  Cabbies who went to high school here.  Eighties music, light shows, five-dollar minimums, champagne bottles, sixes and eights, Manhattans, Coronas, the hot sun, no clouds, bellmen looking for tips, towel boys looking for tips, everyone looking for tips and some people giving them.  The whole place like an octopus but with more arms, looking for anyway to get its hands on your money, and when it does—bang!  it pops its barb into you like an unexpected sting ray, whether you are an expert or not.  Here, no one is an expert.  Experts get beat up and know better...


Vegas never closes...