Colorado and Texas

This one is a kind of hard update for me to write. You’ll see why close to the end.

But let’s start where we last left off. I was in Colorado for a full week. Three nights in Fraser with Uncle Eric and Aunt Katherine, three nights in Longmont with Uncle Tom, and a night in Carbondale with my good friend Nina.

As one might expect in Colorado, I tried to take advantage of the outdoors - mostly by way of hikes. I explored part of the Fraser/Winter Park valley (this is where I recorded one of my favorite sounds so far - a stream that was frozen on the top and gurgling underneath). I walked around the Maroon Bells in Aspen with Nina. And the most epic of all was a four or five hour hike with Uncle Tom up to Arapaho Pass on the Continental Divide! I had driven across the divide before but had never stood on it with my own feet - merely passed through. The weather was summer at the trailhead at 9000 feet and SOLIDLY WINTER at the pass at 11900. Uncle Tom told me I would need to bring my nice winter coat (thanks Epic Mountain!) and, quite frankly, I was skeptical. It was warm down in Longmont and still warm at the trailhead. But wow, with the air thinning so much and without the mountains to block the eastward wind, it was very very cold. I needed gloves and a hat and a fleece and a parka. And my fingers were still getting a little numb!

A quick note here about acclimation (acclimatization?): I could breathe easily at 11900 feet, but was getting very lightheaded at the beginning of the journey in the High Sierras at 10500. I think I was OK because I had been staying in Fraser, which sits at around 9000 feet, for three nights beforehand. My lungs and body were used to it. Amazing what we can get used to with just a little time. I’ve already gotten used to road life, something I had serious trepidation about when I was leaving. And it’s hardly even been a month.

Another fond memory from Colorado is the night I spent in Carbondale (or Bonedale, as the locals call it). I happened to get there on the night of the Zombie Pub Crawl, an evening where people dress up (to the nines, I might add) as zombies and make their way from bar to bar. I didn’t dress up as a zombie, but I don’t feel bad because I didn’t know it was happening until I arrived. People really went all out - there were zombie cheerleaders and luchadores and a Hulk Hogan and quite a few others that I’m sure I would remember more clearly if I hadn’t been drinking. There was even a vampire… maybe he didn’t get the zombie memo. So we socialized with zombies and drank discounted zombie-themed drinks and then made our way back to Nina’s place. One might expect that that’s when the night ended - but NO! Nina was going to a baby shower the next day and wanted to bring apple-cranberry turnovers. So we began making and baking turnovers late at night (didn’t finish until 2 am) and had time to really catch up, and eventually, to pass the time, we started thinking of baby names. First we were thinking of “good” baby names. But then we started trying to think of the worst baby names we could imagine, a very entertaining process. I think my favorite Bad Baby Name was “Crab.”

Hi, I’m Tennessee and this is my son Crab Mowrey.

Oof, we really couldn’t stop laughing at that one. Even now, writing this on the Megabus, I’m chuckling again.

Eventually, I left Longmont and made my way to Dallas by way of Wichita. Why Wichita? Because the AirBnB was cheaper than Amarillo. That route brings you through Oklahoma City, and I stopped off in a well-reviewed burger joint called Nick’s Grill for lunch. Boy, did I make the right decision. The food was incredible. But even better was the conversation with the man cooking it. In the course of the conversation, the scope of what I’m doing with this project became apparent to him. He said that when I’m done I gotta come back and tell him some stories, that he’s always felt the wanderlust and the desire to see other cultures, and then he put my card on the wall and told me the meal was on the house, go spend my money on more important things in Europe and Asia. Oh, and also fuck Kevin Durant for joining the Warriors. I very much hope to see him again… and made sure to keep my mouth shut about the Warriors. I recommend that spot any time you are in OKC.

And then I got to Dallas to see my brother from another mother Sam. I stayed there five nights. I took a solo day to see art and checked out the Kimbell Art Museum (wow! two Picassos and a Mondrian!) and the Fort Worth MoMA (wow! two Warhols!). I saw the longhorn cattle being driven through the Fort Worth Stockyards. On Friday night, we went out for tacos and saw a local band, Mariachi Allende, who Sam’s family has been going to see for years. We were the most VIP gringos in the place. It felt pretty cool to “know the band” - everyone was talking to Sam and he was introducing me and they all gave him a hug when we went to leave. Oh, and the tacos were great. I had a chile relleno taco (I had never had that before) - so filling and creamy and custardy. 10/10 would consume again.

Most importantly, I went to my father’s mother’s old house in Fort Worth and connected again with her ex-partner Nick, who I had never had a connection to in my cognizant life. She passed away about twenty years ago, when I was four or five, and I haven’t been back to the house since then. Nick, just a few years before, had found several boxes of old photos in the attic. To my reckoning, they are photos that maybe no one in the family has ever seen before. Certainly more photos of my grandmother in one place than I had ever seen. I was overcome by emotion when Nick offered to send both boxes to my house in the Bay Area. Thank you, Nick.

And then I left Dallas and made my way to Houston. (This is the hard part to write) I was less than 10 minutes from my friend Tiffany’s house when the accident happened. I thought I had missed my exit and I looked to the right to check. About two seconds later I hit my airbag. I guess traffic had come to a sudden slow or a sudden stop. I totaled my car. Everyone was OK, the car I hit looked like it had barely been in an accident. But mine was really messed up. That’s a memory that will stick with me for a very long time - the acrid smell of the smoke as it billowed into the driver’s area, the sound of the windshield blades going back and forth on the dry windshield, the way the door wouldn’t open more than 10 or 15 degrees. Even writing about it is hard.

That changed my plans pretty drastically. I was planning to drive across the States. How could I do that without a car? How much would this cost? Would I need to cut the trip short? How long did I need to stay in Houston to deal with it? How could I have prevented it?

So much love to Tiffany for all the support she provided during some of the most trying days of my life. She picked me up on the side of the road after the accident. I’m sure she won’t forget the image of me and all my stuff next to a dilapidated warehouse, me with my head in my hands, some of my stuff in trash bags. I know I won’t forget the sight of her pulling in - the first moment I had felt a glimmer of hope since the crash.

And, all things considered, it all worked out OK. I signed my car over to a junkyard - the price of the tow and the overnight was approximately the price of the scrap metal the car was worth and we called it a wash. I downsized a bit in Houston, sent some stuff back to my mom, gave some to Tiffany (hope you like the cooler!), and threw away the rest. And now I’m traveling via Amtrak and Megabus across the US armed with only a backpacking backpack, a suitcase, and my travel guitar. I’m writing this on my way to New Orleans on a bus for Halloween night. I’m meeting my good friend Mickey in New Orleans and traveling with him to Nashville in early November. There’s a way forward. There’s always a way forward.

One more thing - I’ve started making a bed journal, documentation of all the places I’ve slept over the course of this journey. Since I’m starting late I’m relying on the people I stayed with to send me pictures of the first few places, and those are trickling in. I think by the time I’ve posted this, the journal won’t quite be up, but it will be soon, up on the top bar of the website next to Recent Sounds and Recent Images and Blah Blah Blog (what you’re reading right now!). So get excited for that. In the month of October alone I slept in 17 beds, so who knows how many I will sleep in by the time this is all said and done.

And that’s where I’m at right now. More to come. I can’t wait to be in New Orleans again. Happy Halloween everyone, stay spooky out there.