my most ridiculous hitch hiking experience ever

All this talk of Ireland and Irish folks I met in Alaska reminded me of a funny story from the past. I was at the Talkeetna bluegrass festival in Alaska, which is a pretty long running event. It was my second one and right when it started getting way too big for its breeches. I'd guess its 10 times worse now. It is 3 or 4 days of late nights, all day booze, bottlerockets zipping past your head as you try to find your tent in the blackness, and security provided by the Hell's Angels. On the day after I woke up and decided to pack up and go, staggered through ground zero, stopped by Johnny and Sarah's school bus to say what up and became aware of some major irritation in my eye that was getting worse. It was watering and really sensitive to light and I couldn't really open it. I said goodbye to all the scallawags and walked out to the road to hitch back up to the Denali area to camp somewhere. There was about 20 hitchikers trying to leave and the one in front told me to go down the road after the last of them...this is hitching etiquette in his mind. I couldn't see so I didn't argue or tell him that the reason he can't get a ride is because he looks like an angry dick. After 5 minutes my ride came, bypassed the angry dick and the 19 other hitchikers and came right to me. Karmic retribution in action...or so I thought. One remarkable thing was that it was an RV leaving the festival that stopped. RVs are so unlikely to pick you up that they are not worth the effort of extending an arm, let alone your arm AND your thumb. The driver was some stoner about 30 years old that had "borrowed" the RV from his grandmother. There were several teenagers on board an a guy I used to work with who also happened to be hitching. The first thing anyone said was sorry about the smell, which proceeded to nearly make me puke on my feet. The shitter was broken or full...or something, and it was hideous. But If I could tolerate it for less than 3 hours I could set up a quiet camp and rest, otherwise it was waiting for 20 other guys to get a ride before I did. So we zipped along merrily in a possibly stolen and at least dubiously borrowed RV full of sewage, and I couldn't open one eye. Before too long the driver stopped to pick up another hitchhiker, which ended up being a native woman that was completely shithoused. She was stark raving loaded. So now I've got one good eye left, a nose full of shit smell, and ears full of the incessant cackling of this old drunken coot. Shortly after that, we get pulled over by the highway patrol for speeding. During this intermission everybody is ID'd, and guess what? Me and the guy I know (Hal, if I remember right) are the only ones who have driver's licenses, and Hal did not bring his with him to the festival for fear of losing it in the melee. Because the driver had no ID, It delayed the policeman from learning the probable truth that the guy did not own and probably did not have permission to use the RV. We had made sure to say 10 times that we were hitchhikers to preemptively absolve ourselves from anything these dipshits had done. At this point an amazing thing happened....the drunk woman decided to just walk away down the middle of the highway pushing the cop out of the way when he tried to stop her. Since he was probably patrolling 300 miles of highway alone, he had no choice but to deal with her and let us go. But he ordered me to drive the RV because I had a license. I feebly said "But...my eye" or something like that, which of course he had no time to hear about. So off we went, without the cackling drunken hag at least, but still with an RV load of dipshits, enough shit smell for 1000 hells, and the guy that can't see (me) driving a probably stolen RV....BECAUSE A POLICEMAN ORDERED ME TO (that is the punch line, hence the caps). After a half hour or so I am really struggling because I just can't see and my eye really hurts, we were low on gas anyway so the original driver says he will drive after we get gas. We figure we are off the hook with the cops because the only one probably had to go pretty far south to put the drunk lady in jail. So the guy has no money to purchase any gas. So here's what he does, he takes out the stereo and trades it to the gas station owner for a fill up. What this means is that if he was telling the truth and he borrowed this RV from his grandmother, he will be returning it with a broken shitter badly in need of emptying, and no stereo. Nice guy. He drove the rest of the way and I was so tired of it all I just fell asleep. When I woke up he dropped Me and Hal off at Denali. We didn't really have to say anything we could read the exhaustion and relief on each other's faces.

Epilogue: I hitched another short stretch with somebody I can't remember and decided to stop in and see if I could just crash at Brenda and Kathryn's trailer in Healy. I was really not in the mood for one eyed camp setup in the dark with rain coming. They had a trailer that was so off kilter than you just sort of pitched and tumbled downhill until your fall was cushioned by the bed, cleverly positioned at the lowest point. Kathryn was around so we went to the payphone at the Totem Inn so i could call my dad. He's an optician so I thought he might know something about eyes and what the hell I should do. He thought I had probably scratched my retina or maybe a cinder from someones campfire got in there. But there was nothing I could do at 11:00 pm except see if it got better (eyes heal fast), and if not see a doctor. So we had a few beers, then I went to sleep and woke up with my eyes functioning normally, no shit stench, no borrowed RVs, and no police. So if your eye is ever inexplicably fucked up you should just have a beer and go to bed. The end.

So...back to Ireland. I ended my Ireland trip with a visit to Kathryn's house about 12 years after the above experience. She and her fella Dunnock have a nice house near Clonakilty with a flat floor, no pitching or tumbling, easy access to the beach (they are surfers), and close to Castle Freke (pronounced "freak") owned by none other than Lord Freke. Also they have a new baby, good work.

Dingle pensinsula and Killarney

I took a few days on my own to see parts of Kerry I had always wanted to see, including the Irish-speaking Dingle peninsula. After my last trip to Ireland, I had met a crazy Swiss guy in Scotland who had spent 3 weeks in Ireland and never left the Dingle peninsula. Seemed like a good place to go according to what he had to say....although the same guy seemed to think that since we were sleeping in an airport in sleeping bags, it would be ok to just whip out a camp stove and cook dinner and play hackeysack inside the airport.

One of the draws is a walking route called the Dingle way, which is a totally silly name. It sounds like the way of life for a gnome-like race of beings called the dingles. And where do they live? In Dingle town of course. Usually people take about 2 weeks to do the whole thing, but I just wanted a sample for 1 or 2 days. Since I got the bus to the town of Dingle, I walked from there to Dun Cuoinn, about 20 km away. Also Brenda had recommended this stretch. Her and Kathryn had done the hike years ago, forgot tent poles, but went anyway. Don't let minor inconveniences like a lack of adequate shelter stop you!

The walk turned out to be my best day. The route is constantly changing and impressive for different reasons. Walking over to the town of Ventry takes paved country roads, and extraordinarily muddy cattle runs over a minor pass, then you walk about 2km on a really nice beach. The sun had come out here, so it was hard to remember this sunny beach was in Ireland. I managed to waste a couple hours having a coffee, laying on the beach, buying stuff for dinner, and totally misunderstanding where the route was supposed to go. I was unconcerned because I thought I was traveling 14 km , not 20. After the beach you make your way through some some roads and mud, and emerge pretty unexpectedly at some stunning rocky cliffs along the coast. I stopped to see a prehistoric hill fort only to learn that that town over yonder was not my destination, and I still had 8 km to go, and it was already 5:00 with fog settling in on the mountains. So I was hurrying... the route goes over the top of the uppermost pastures on the hillslopes, just below the fog. I passed numerous other hillforts and beehive huts but didn't have time to stop. I just remember the sheep had done a fine job of mowing everything down to a homogenous golf course like turf. The hillslopes were covered with mazes of gray stone walls. Basically this was the Ireland you see in movies, on postcards, and advertisements from the board of tourism. I think the first photograph I ever saw of Ireland may have looked just like this, and consequently I've had a life-long interest in Ireland. Nice to finally see it. I made my way finally to the town which also featured my hostel and the westernmost pub in Europe (this claim seems dubious, but it was a decent pub). The rain came in shortly after I arrived. The hostel owner thought I was nuts to have walked all that way in sandals...but why not, it doesn't matter if sandals get soaked right?

Turns out the next day was pretty rough weather. The rain wasn't so bad, it was the body flattening wind. Since my only opportunity for a bus back to Dingle was that day, I took it, otherwise it was hitching out in the wind and rain, or a sand-blasting while walking on the beach. Dick Mack's is in Dingle, and it is probably the perfect example of an Irish pub, a fine place to read a book and have a beer while the wind rips off peoples heads.

The next day I was going to bus back to Cork to visit another friend, but since the weather had calmed down I took the opportunity to stop in Killarney and tour the National Park and the lakes frenetically on the shittiest rental bike ever. Usually when you rent a bike, it has actually been tuned...but I had to do that myself. It really felt good to get back on a bike, I have been wondering about Ireland as a touring destination...but people have widely differing opinions on this proposition. European national parks are decidedly more tame, but the history gives them alot of character that most of our parks lack. For example, In addition to lakes, mountains and waterfalls, this park has an old abbey, a castle, and some sort of mansion I didn't have time to see.

How I learned to stop worrying about nutrition, and embrace the curry chips diet

I was skipping along the Dingle way, making merry with an elf at one elbow, and Fungie the dolphin with his fin crooked through my other arm. We sang, and sang...and laughed. Good times! We stopped at the chip house for curry chips. Fungie had dolphin-safe tuna and washed it down with a bottle of T-bird which had floated across the ocean. Then, satisfied, he lit up a discarded cigar stub that some careless tourist had thrown overboard into the harbor.

You probably can't think of a single Irish food, except perhaps corned beef, which is neither common or popular in Ireland. This is probably because they have a rough climate for growing a variety of crops, and had a long history of poverty (until 10 years ago, about) and having other people take all of the fruits of their labor. But there is a fast food delicacy (oxymoron?....I say "no!") in Ireland. Everybody knows of fish and chips and that it is perhaps the only popular food export from England. But its also common in Ireland and the attraction isn't really the fish, its the spuds. They put the wierdest things over a pile of chips: cole slaw, stuffing, peas and carrots. The best is a curry sauce....I looked it up, its made of apple, onion, tomato and curry powder (nothing too dubious). Going to Ireland and not having curry chips is like not having a stout...seriously what the fuck is your problem if you don't have a stout at least once. I don't care if you don't like beer, you can have one once. After departing from Cork, with nobody watching, I ate curry chips daily. Go ahead lock me up, I'll just do it again when I get out.

The other thing you need to know about is brown bread, the best bread I've ever had and a type of soda bread. People have offered me homemade "soda bread" in the states before and i thought it was total crapola. They always make the white variety (always much lamer in my opinion), and then totally ruin it by adding raisins and shit like that. It's like a giant dry scone. The brown variety is made with a really course whole wheat flour, buttermilk, and it uses the an acid-base reaction between the buttermilk and baking soda to "leaven" the bread...no yeast. It stays fresh for days even if you leave it out, and fits nicely into a muddy, dank backpack. I have no idea why this bread has not become popular anywhere else.

ireland pt. 1

I just returned from my first trip to Ireland in, I think, 8 years. I missed the "celtic tiger" economic and housing boom, but heard the phrase at least once every day. I first noticed the increase in cost of living about 10 minutes after arriving in Dublin, when I ordered a pint and it was 4.50 euro, about 7 bucks! last time i was here a pint came in at just under 2 pounds (less if it was Beamish, which is my favorite anyway). I think this is due to the boom, membership in the EU and the price of fuel...but what do i know I don't live there. Everything got a lot more expensive, but I am a master of as cheap as possible. Which is what I was thinking when I booked my flight on Ryan air from Dublin to Cork, for 0 euros (only 26 euros in hidden fees!!! fuck you Ryan air). the only problem was I had booked the ticket on the 29th not the 19th, which was why I was not in Cork, rather I was in Dublin drinking a 4.50 pint. I like to think I'm fairly smart, but when it comes to booking travel or managing money I am the Titanic, the Hindenberg, Katrina, etc.

The upshot was I got to catch up with my friends Johnny and Sarah, who I had not spoken to in years. They used to have a school bus in Alaska, and throw parties on it at music festivals. Despite all the booze, I remember (in between the inexplicable forgotten parts) those as being great times full of freedom. I used to work really hard while going to school at the same time, tenaciously saving small amounts of money. Then when the Vegas heat was unbearable I would take my paltry savings rarely exceeding $500 and escape to Alaska to live the life of a born free scallawag and relish my unemployment and near total lack of expenses or plans. I would encounter the same people year after year (other scallawags), then they would bring their friends who went on to become people I would run into year after year. This was how I met all of my Irish friends, and their friends, and so on.

After the stopover in Dublin, I got the bus down to Cork City and on to Bandon, which is near where Brenda and Jeff live. They are running an organic farm there with Brenda's brother, Eugene, and living in a really cool old house which had not been lived in since the 60s. Its on their family farm which used to be a dairy farm, in fact at one point Eugene may have been the world's only vegan dairy farmer.
There was no running water or electricity, so in alot of ways it was reminiscent of the Alaska experience. In the farming operation they use a no-till system, and simply cut grass repeatedly and apply it as mulch on the beds. The spuds like this just fine and they are incredibly easy to harvest...although its a tough year for all the farmers because there hasn't really been much sun, basically no summer.

Heres a few more of my favorite pics from County Cork. The ruin is the 14th century abbey-cemetary at Timoleague, and the coastline is near Courtmacsherry. Then we were all devoured by slugs (no picture available).

Maxibon, you vex me so

Its been pretty hot. not quite phoenix or vegas hot, but pretty hot. Every other street corner in metro madrid has a little stand that sells Maxibon, a brand of ice cream sandwich, cleverly hybridized in a Frankenstein sort of way (you can see the bolts and stitches) with a chocolate covered ice cream bar. you can hold the ice cream sandwich half while you eat the ice cream bar half, while only getting your hands moderately sticky. One of the stands were I go running often is run by africans, and is sort of a hangout for africans who congregate there every night and play chess. every stand has a picture of some guy, I'll call him maxibon for simplicity, sometimes alone and sometimes with his zany friends. They are so cool, they are always doing crazy things like eating ice cream bars sideways. From day one I have hated this guys face, and his straight white teeth so frequently exposed. he looks like a guy at the university, raul, who i like but something in the back of my mind remembers maxibon and how badly i want to punch him (maxibon not raul)....poor raul has no idea this thought is crossing my mind and probably wonders why i have such a difficult time concentrating when we speak. Maxibon is like the jingle you hate, then one day you are singing it to yourself walking down the street and you realize it and want to just leap in front of a bus. if i ever see maxibon in the street im gonna deck him right in his toothy ice cream cavern....right in his dental dairy processor...right in the moon pie...right in the vanilla vurmhole...right in the chuckling confection composter.....MAXIBON.

i'm going to ireland next week, i hope its cloudy every second, with plenty of water falling out of the sky, and noone has ever heard of sunscreen.