Road Journal 1

I am writing this from the backseat of the burgundy Chevy Lumina which we have named "Car-Lisle." Anita K, the Aussia is driving, Lando is riding shotgun. I am still in familiar territory, I have driven through Oregon on I-5 so many times it is silly. Yet, on the horizon lie the Las Vegas strip, and places unknown. Tonight we will stay in Susanville CA, known for the High Desert Prison, and being referenced in Quinten Tarintino's movie Jackie Brown. But let's not talk about the future. We have already had some adventures!

Before I get to that I would like to introduce some of the Australian jargon we will be using. First and foremost, the trunk of the car, or Car-Lisle's ass, is referred to as the "boot." This is a good term for an anthropomorphic car, because it sounds like "booty" a slang term for buttocks! Next, Anita K brought a cooler which is called an "eski", I can only imagine that it comes from "eskimo", or something like that. Truck drivers are from here on only called "truckies" and motorcyclists are called "bikies." These terms are very neat. We like them. We will use them. Feel free to use them as well.

I am sure you are not interested, so I will tell you what we have inside Car-Lisle. Actually no, I am not even interested! I would like you to know that Lando and I managed to shove Dr Hunter S Twilight into the boot, and I have turned up the Harry Nilson so I cannot hear him tapping and cursing. I will not have it, this will be a family adventure, with none of his anti-social antics! He has been there for the past 24 hours, so life has been bearable. Anyway, I would like to share a good omen, which occurred at Kalama high school yesterday, which I felt was the real beginning of our trip!

Kalama high was the school used in the first Twilight movie, and Anita K had not been there. So always the consummate tour guide, and because I needed to use the restroom, I guided our little crew to the scene. It really is a great old school, with covered walkways all over the hill that the school is built on. We walked around a bit, taking pictures from various angles, and were getting ready to go when a Filipino woman pulled up to the house across the street. All three of us knew that I was being twidentified by the way she was looking at us, and it was only a couple of minutes before she walked across and started telling us how her house was in the movie. Apperently in the scene where Edward "Hulk smashes" the van Tyler is driving, you can see it. Soon after telling us this, she told me I "looked like Edward" after which we did a little photo shoot. The cool part was that she took a picture with Lando in it too. She must have thought he was in the movie too! Either that or she "cute-dentified" him. So we had not been on the road 3 hours before we had our first good interaction, to me this seems fine! That is all for now, I am going to get a snack out of the eski, see ya,
                   Buzzsaw
Note: Writing & editing in the backseat of Car-Lisle is not easy, so please go easy on me if these are a little strange. I am just trying to stay ahead of the curve on this trip and get some work done in the downtime.