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Bucket List Item Failure: Dyngus Day

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One of my bucket list items is to celebrate Dyngus Day and document it. Dyngus Day has a great tradition in Poland and Polish Americans have adopted it across the country…and totally different. A few years ago I wrote an article about Dyngus Day (aptly titled the same) and its genius marketing and it is a day I have always been a fan of. I do need to apologize for the possibility that the piece will be hard to read. The pictures don’t always align that well on some devices and it may show them at odd places. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal for most.

According to Wikipedia, in Poland Dyngus Day is, “Traditionally, boys throw water over girls and spank them with pussy willow branches on Easter Monday, and girls do the same to boys. This is accompanied by a number of other rituals, such as making verse declarations and holding door-to-door processions, in some regions involving boys dressed as bears. The origins of the celebration are uncertain, but it may date to pagan times (before 1000 AD); it is described in writing as early as the 15th century. It continues to be observed in Central Europe, and also in the United States, where certain patriotic American elements have been added to the traditional Polish ones.” In America it differs from community to community. Buffalo, New York has a big parade and a Dyngus Day Queen and Cleveland is similar. South Bend, Indiana has a few bars and private clubs with a bus route. Much of the money raised on Dyngus Day goes to benefit the club’s pet projects or to charities. Political candidates go from bar to bar to campaign during the day. It’s a lot of fun. In La Porte, Indiana (where I spent the bulk of my day), it’s a big pub crawl. Bars earn an estimated twenty-five to thirty-five percent of their annual profits on just this one day. They hire a shuttle bus company to take people from bar to bar because it’s big money. There are always ten to twelve bars on the route and you get a button at each bar you stop at. I was once told that you can still get a button even if you only drink water, but I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life. I added the link to the Facebook page of the various places I visited. 

At 9AM Centeal, Brandon picked me up at my house to take me to breakfast with the news that he has a job interview at 11:30 today. So it was a quick trip to South Bend, but that’s cool. It’s just breakfast. 

(Note 1: Please understand that I am not editing the stop-by-stop account of the day to show the possible effects of alcohol on a person. This should be a fun little experiment.)

 

(Note 2: I have not had anything to drink in about two months to simulate Lent and as such, I have to tolerance for alcohol at this time.)

 

In the words of Hannibal Lecture, “Okey-dokie, let’s get started!

Stop 0: ZB Falcons. South Bend, Indiana.

Brandon and I went there to eat mostly. Because of South Bend being on Eastern time and I live in Central, it’s a late (10AM) breakfast my time or 11 for them. I ate a sausage sandwich (Polish sausage), Polish wedding noodles, and a large cheese pierogi. The plate had sweet and sour cabbage which is a big Polish thing but I hate cabbage. Growing up, mother tried getting me to eat that crap too much and just the smell gets to me. Sorry for the diatribe of unresolved childhood issues. Anyway, I also had a shat of blackberry brandy and a margarita Jell-O shot. Next I’ll go home and do a few things, then run to Michigan City for a much needed shave and a hair cut (head shave).

Shave and a haircut (head shave). Franklin Street Barbers. Michigan City, Indiana.

I feel great! They do an excellent job and I always walk out feeling like a new man. If anyone wonders why I have someone else do it for me instead of doing it myself since it’s fairly easy, they’ve simply never had it done. Any man who wonders why a man would have someone do that, deserves to have his man card suspended till he’s had one. It is worth the price and the service is amazing. I had to add a before and after. See how much happier I am after?

Pregame. La Porte Best Western. La Porte, Indiana.

So I sat up the booze in my room that Brandon and I both brought and an assortment of stuff to make the day go well and be fun. In the past I have been warned against presuming Dyngus Day and perhaps they were right. I completed the route last year but I did pregame it and that may have been a mistake.

Stop 12 Part 1 (Or 0.2). Rother’s Pub. La Porte, Indiana.

I am checked into the the La Porte Best Western. and Rother’s is the 12th bar on the route, so we can grab the bus here and start on the route at the first bar, so it just makes sense to have a couple drinks here. Right? This is more or less a continuation of our pregame exploits.

Stop 1. Casey’s Lanes. La Porte, Indiana.

Ok. So I’m already drunk from the pregame and I can see already that tonight is a bad idea. This is a bowling ally and they’ve done a decent job with it. At 6:45 pm the place is over half full. My posse is one person though it was supposed to be a group. Whatever! I have bourbon and my friend so we are all good!

Stop 4. PRCU. La Porte, Indiana.

I’m feeling it. We went out of order to meet up with Amy and Daniel. I just ate the saddest Polish dinner I’ve ever had at a Polish place. Fortunately I’ve had more bourbon so I’m ok. I’m seeing now that I’m drunk enough that my post is rather short. No! I am still sad! I want their Polish cards taken away from them!

Stop 5. JJs Side Out. La Porte, Indiana.

Oh god! I’m only a quarter oh the way through! I got this? Kaluski noodles and another bourbon and sprite should help. I like this bar. It had a bad reputation in town before but it’s better. I think this is the one I tried walking from last year and Ryan had to come get me so I didn’t get lost. I’m feeling it nor.

Stop 2. Dicks Bar. La Porte, Indiana.

We got Amy to drive us! Hell yeah! You like this place. This seems to be the place to be. We stayed at the last place e too long and now we have 2 hours to do 7 more bars. I’m not sure I can last. You know you’re in a bar in Indiana when you see guns as decorations in a case. Haha!!!!

Stop 3. Burger Bar. La Porte, Indiana.

More food at last. I need subtype to eat. I’ve never eaten here before but I hear the food if. I’m peckish but not hungry like the hippo. They only have the fryer going so mozzarella stix it is. Hellz to the yeah! I want food. The food was awesome. I’m also really drunk right now. Maybe the Long Island wasn’t the best choice here. The second one was definitely not a great idea. Hot chix in the dance floor though so I’m gonna chill for a bit and enjoy. Pregame was a mistake. I should have done the route in order and just post games this shit. Fuck I’m drunk!

Stop 12 Part 2. Rother’s Pub. La Porte, Indiana.

Brandon decided to tuen in early. I decided I needed two more long islands. That may have been a big mistake. Anyway, Amy and Daniel also left so I am making new friends at the bar. Thank God for autocorrect or no one could see what I am writing. The busses are stopped having running now and I think I am done after this drink.

It’s kind of fun to see after this how my grammar and spelling deteriorated through the night.

 

 

Sometimes we can’t complete our goals and we need to learn from our failures. That was the case this year. My bucket list item was to finish the route and document it. I did finish last year but I wanted to do that this year with documentation. So next year I will take some lessons away with me and be ready to finish:

1. I will be ready to start the route immediately upon checking in to the hotel.

2. I won’t pregame in the room. Post game, sure, but not pregame.

3. Do the route in order. Don’t skip around.

4. Get my haircut and shave on Friday or Saturday before to look pretty, not the day of.

5. Eat more at the Falcon Nest in South Bend before hand.

6. Postgame! There is no need to take booze with. You can post game with Long Islands after at Rother’s till they close.

7. Don’t let Amy distract me with “I’m at another bar and I guess you guys won’t see me” crap. The route gets done in order!

With those seven key tips, I should be able to do the entire route with full documentation next year. I will see you in La Porte Monday, April 22, 2019. Lets achieve our goals together!

 

For more from Michael Beebe, please read his blog on TheMichaelBeebe.com.

Shitcoin Digest: Neuro (NRO)

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If you’re interested in buying cryptocurrency, I suggest Coinbase for the easiest transfers and they have more than just Bitcoin. If you click on the link to sign up, I get $10 after you deposit a total of $100. So please check out Coinbase.

Neuro (NRO)

For some reason, I like this one. They do a great job of social media outreach, which is important in acceptance of any currency and they have a historical high of between 2 and 3 cents a coin, but are valued at the time of this writing, considerably lower. I think this is a great rebound buy for a mid term hold and if I am wrong, I will be out what, $10? This is going into my yes list for sure since I think they have a potentially strong network.

Update on 11-26-2020: This coin is no longer traded.

NOTE: This piece was originally posted by Michael as an on- site page on TheMichaelBeebe.com while he was doing research into cryptocurrencies.

 

Disclaimer: Michael Beebe is not a financial advisor and all research is for his own purposes. He is simply sharing the research with the readers of this or other blogs and makes no claims to be an expert in finance or any forms of investment.

Shitcoin Digest: LiteCoinUltra (LTCU)

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If you’re interested in buying cryptocurrency, I suggest Coinbase for the easiest transfers and they have more than just Bitcoin. If you click on the link to sign up, I get $10 after you deposit a total of $100. So please check out Coinbase.

LiteCoinUltra (LTCU)

LiteCoinUltra uses the adoption of Proof Of Stake and Proof Of Work random superblocks. This adds to both the security and easy of mining of the currency. Every other aspect is identical to LiteCoin and it was, in fact, developed by fans of LiteCoin. It is also (according to their website) four times faster than BitCoin and reduces bottlenecks of transaction processing. In my opinion, this is a strong maybe.

NOTE: This piece was originally posted by Michael as an on- site page on TheMichaelBeebe.com while he was doing research into cryptocurrencies.

 

Disclaimer: Michael Beebe is not a financial advisor and all research is for his own purposes. He is simply sharing the research with the readers of this or other blogs and makes no claims to be an expert in finance or any forms of investment.

Shitcoin Digest: TorCoin (TOR)

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If you’re interested in buying cryptocurrency, I suggest Coinbase for the easiest transfers and they have more than just Bitcoin. If you click on the link to sign up, I get $10 after you deposit a total of $100. So please check out Coinbase.

As I do the research, I am reading some information calling TOR a scam coin that doesn’t really exist. One writer said it’s noting more than a Ponzi scam and upon further research, their website points back to an Apache Server Node site and there is no data from the creators of the cryptocurrency. I initially felt this would become a good darkweb currency since it’s name (“tor”) is the same as the main access browser to darkweb websites and based on potential marketing to that segment of society, it seemed like a potentially good investment regardless of the ethics of those involved in its usage. As of this writing, TOR has not had a twitter post in roughly one year and I am now eliminating them as contenders.

(Update 11-25-2020) This coin is now inactive

NOTE: This piece was originally posted by Michael as an on- site page on TheMichaelBeebe.com while he was doing research into cryptocurrencies. Michael is not a financial consultant and is not making any recommendations. Michael is a hobbies and a novice in the world of cryptocurrencies and securities and nothing here should be seen as financial advice.

I Hate Texas

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There! I said it! But what if I really don’t hate Texas? I’ve taken more than a few trips through Texas but always down Interstate 40 through Amarillo, but I haven’t seen the whole state really. Maybe there’s more to see than a desert and stockyard. Statewide Texas is a strange mix of churches and strip clubs; adult toy superstores and stores just named “guns.”

 

Going down I40 from Oklahoma you will hit Texas pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Then you’ll drive another hundred miles to hit Amarillo. One look around Amarillo and you see it looks like any other American Southwest town with a slightly higher crime rate, transient motels, grifters, homeless, and an underlying drug habit. My highlight is that I can eat at Whataburger when I pass through. About thirty miles past the city you’ll find a big stockyard. From a distance in the daytime it looks like an ant colony in a freshly split log. You see the black and white dots moving in an almost nauseating form for miles before you get there to see a sea of cows. At night, you can smell it from the same distance. That area is dry and boring. Maybe twenty miles before you hit the New Mexico State line there are some hills that are actually beautiful, but that’s short lived and you’re back in an arid wasteland again. Even the final exit heading west down the interstate has a little gas station that’s been abandoned for decades and looks like a perfect place to stash a dead body. Going this way is a necessary evil to take a southern route to California during the winter and miss driving down I80 in the snow.

 

El Paso was once referred to by a friend as “the armpit of Texas,” which surprised me since (from my limited experience) I thought all of Texas was an arm pit. I loved it!!! I wasn’t there long, but the harmonious mix of cultures and little shops downtown was amazing. The historic downtown has these old beautiful buildings and small Mexican stores and restaurants. Taking an Uber at one point we asked what the “big red X” was to the driver and he said it was some building in Mexico. I knew we were on the boarder but I didn’t realize if you had a good arm that you could whip a stone into Mexico and start an international incident (note to self: add “start international incident” to my personal bucket list). It’s a boarder town in the desert. I’ve been in many worse towns throughout the country and I can’t call El Paso an armpit. I can say that people from other countries have different living standards from Americans and the people living there (legally or not) are living a much better life than they would give miles to the south. Sure the taxi stand had the word “taxi” spray painted on a piece of plywood on a carport with chicken wire walls, but that added to the charm.

 

Most recently I had to go to McAllen, Texas…and I loved it. I entered Texas just below Texarkana, Arkansas and drove the state roads south. There is an I69 corridor but that interstates under construction. It is in tact for roughly 70 miles with Houston in the middle of that stretch and it’s a fantastic road, though any road going top to bottom would have been fantastic to me after driving five hours on state roads and US highways that don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere. I’ve been in Houston one other time by briefly and it remains a city I want to explore in depth at some point because it is beautiful. I believe you can tell a lot about a major city by it’s downtown skyline and Houston’s is amazing. Moving south, I hit the Corpus Christi area and there were these quaint little restaurants attached to gas stations (gas stations in that area seem to have a restaurant or bait shop attached to them). I was mad I had just eaten because fresh seafood would have really hit the spot over a Golden Corral.

 

Finally I hit McAllen after sixteen days of driving through Texas (it may not have actually been that long) and I fell in love with “The Valley.” Edinburg and McAllen are awesome! I loved McAllen so much I requested another trip down there in a couple weeks for my birthday so I can cross into Mexico for my first time. It has most of the things I love about Los Angeles except the ocean and the cost of living is manageable. Like El Paso, it has a huge Mexican population and a vibrant downtown area because of it. My Uber driver dropped me off at the bus station and told me there was a Subway inside. I had three hours till my bus and I smelled good food. I walked into a little place and seated myself. I ordered some tacos and a Coke. The owner asked if I wanted a Mexican Coke or a regular Coke. Please! I would have just eaten at Subway if I wanted “regular Coke.” The place was called La Mordidad and I will be back there. I had three pork tacos and a Coke for $7. When he told me the price I laughed in his face with excitement. That’s it? He got a nice tip. The food was so good that I left a five star review and and wrote out a review on their Facebook page while still in the restaurant. It may be the best Mexican food I’ve ever had. I had a few personal interactions with people in the area. Some didn’t speak English at all and my limited English compounded by the volume of the music being played where I was made accurate communication nearly impossible but everyone was gracious and appreciated that I at least made an attempt at Spanish. I figure my Spanish sucks but it’s better than their English.

 

The bus from McAllen dropped me off in Dallas. I walked to the McDonald’s and ate. It was 1am and that’s all that was open. While there I asked the security guard if I should take an Uber to the airport or wait on the train (the real underlying question was if this area was a shithole at night that I should avoid walking around in). He suggested I Uber and I heeded his advice.

 

One thing about my travels is that I’ve learned to find cheaper transportation. McAllen to Chicago was just shy of $600 on American Airlines but Greyhound to Dallas was $35 and Dallas to Chicago on American was $53. So add the extra $30 Uber and I still saved some $480. Smaller airports are just too expensive but the bus can get you places cheaper, but you’ll be stuck on a bus with the thought “this bus smells like corn chips and I’m the only one not on meth at the bus station.”

My next chance I will explore Houston and Austin. Both are places I want to know better and Austin is the home of SXSW and I want to attend that some day.

 

One tip on Texas I think everyone should know. Drivers in Texas are awesome. They are both competent and friendly. If you need over in a lane, turn your blinker on and they will wave you on through. County deputies and city police officers are great men and women doing the work of the people, protecting and serving their communities. I’ve only come close to having an accident in Texas three times (compared to New York City’s five times in one day). Guess who I almost had accidents with. That’s right! Each time it was a Texas State Trooper. Stay clear of them! One followed me so close I couldn’t see his headlights, then went around me, swerved onto the shoulder, and I had to avoid hitting him since his ass end was still on the road. No emergency flashers or anything. I thought it was isolated but I had a similar experience in Houston one other trip with a pair that may have been street racing each other on the interstate. They just swerved all over the road at high speeds.

 

Ok. So I don’t hate Texas, just parts of Texas and some things about Texas. It is so large that it really is like a whole other country with its own unique set of laws and customs. I even had boarder patrol get on my bus and ask each of us if we were U.S. citizens (I was mad they tapped me on the shoulder to wake me up and ask). Go to Texas. If you don’t like where you’re at, go about one hundred miles and it’ll be different.

 

Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.

Nowhere Special in North Dakota

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With my job, I have visited a lot of states. Coupled with family vacations, I’m so close to seeing the Lower 48. I had two to go and now there’s just one. I drove through North Dakota last week…and it sucked.

 

It started out when I got to Fargo and took a nap, then woke up to snow…a lot of snow. I asked the girl about the storm and it’s size and she looked it up on her phone. She then responded, “Oh geez! Yur screwed,” in that uniquely North Dakotan accent (with the movie Fargo if you don’t know what I’m talking about). Then there was that laugh they do.  I asked how big the storm was and she said “it’s North Dakota.” She showed me a map on her phone and it really was the entire state and about 100 miles into Montana. Apparently there was a convergence of three different winter storm fronts over the state and that did not make for fun driving. I never knew they named storms, but it was named Winter Storm Quinn.

 

There was a thirty mile per hour cross wind and most places were expecting five to nine inches of snow out of the storm. When I woke up from my nap in Fargo and pulled to a gas pump, all the pumps facing North were covered in snow and ice while the South-facing pumps were clear, but you had to stand on the cold side of the truck as the wind blew at you since I was on the north side of the truck. So I stepped down into two inches of slush to get my gas. After I left I continued west and many times thought it was a mistake. The wind was blowing about thirty miles per hour with gusts up to about fifty. I was driving anywhere between thirty and forty, but closer to thirty, so about half the speed limit at best.

 

Onward to Bismark! That’s where I stopped for lunch at a HuHot (visit their Facebook Page), which has become one of my favorite places when I can find them. I asked the hostess how the if the state usually does a good job plowing and she said, “Not really! We’re really behind the times with that. They wait till its about half over till they get out there.” Crap! Nothing she said was any different than what I was noticing, but I was hopeful. That hope was crushed twenty minutes later when I hit a snow drift in the middle of the interstate and nearly went off the road.

 

Finally I got to Beach, North Dakota, which is the last city in North Dakota headed west on Interstate 94 and it was anything but a beach. Yep! It sucked as bad as the rest of the state. At least it was a flat state so the interstate didn’t twist and turn around.

 

Years back, North Dakota was the only state with a declining population. They had more people moving from there than the aggregate of people moving there and being born. They were the only state in the Union with a declining population and I fully understand why. I also have no reason to believe that trend has changed. It was a wasteland of cold that felt like there would never be happiness in the world again. Your mood truly starts to change in an environment like that and not for the better. It was truly miserable. I would like to go back in the summer and see the things I missed, one place being the Enchanted Highway. Stopping in those temperatures and that wind to see steel sculptures was not going to happen on this trip.

 

Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.

The Great American Road Trip

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One of the hardest things about writing this blog is the variety of places I go but only for a short time. How do I sit down and talk about Times Square in five hundred to a thousand words when pictures can’t even do such an amazing place justice? Do people want to really know about me sleeping upright on a Manhattan park bench because I missed my flight and got stuck taking a bus home from the city that never sleeps? How do people feel about hearing about pure exhaustion and pushing through as hard as you can to the point of delirium and finally falling asleep on an airplane with less than a graceful rumble of snoring? Yeah. That crap all happens. So instead of talking about a place, I think I am going to talk about my job for a little bit and tell people exactly what I do.

 

I drive. I drive a lot. I drive box delivery trucks from the builder (actually a terminal about thirty miles from where they are built) to the (mostly) end user. My normal run consists of me waking up, driving an hour to my job, then talking with the people in the office for a few minutes. After that is all done, I go to the truck assigned to me and throw some license plates on, placards (the thing that has the company I contract for’s DOT number) in the windows, and check under the hood to make sure all the fluids are where they should be and the caps are all tight, then I inspect the tuck for physical damage. After all that, I go to a gas station and fill it up. This all takes about thirty minutes or so. Now the real fun starts. I punch in my GPS where I am going and…I’m off.

 

We are required to follow the same DOT regulations as truck drivers; no more than eleven hours of actual drive time, fourteen hours of on-duty time (which includes breaks, fuel, and other reasons to stop and do things), and a thirty-minute break within any eight-hour stint. Oh yeah, we also have to log all of this stuff as we do it on our phones or tablets. After the first week, none of this stuff is even a question; you just do it automatically. Where do the problems come in? Each driver has different flaws. I hate bad weather and mountains, but I excel at city driving. Fog mesmerizes me. After a couple hours of foggy driving, I am ready for bed. That bed is rather uncomfortable at times since it’s just a hammock slung from the support posts in the truck. It’s seldom a comfortable temperature to sleep in with either being too hot or too cold. Several cold nights I slept up front with a blanket wrapped around me, the heat on, while seated upright in the driver’s seat. The DOT also requires ten hours of continuous off-time daily, so under rather adverse conditions, you just want to get on them road in hopes of getting somewhere warmer or cooler just to get more comfortable. Exhaustion becomes a constant. Urine is the body’s natural radiator. When I get to a truck stop, I go relieve myself before I go to sleep. On cold nights, almost exactly two hours after I fall asleep, I have to take a leak and I’m not talking where you wake up and think, “I may need to pee soon,” but the type of urgency that you consider not wearing your shoes to run back inside to go. Sometimes behind that snow bank looks a lot closer than inside the truck stop. After that, I’m good for the next eight hours if I want without needing to go at all. I assume it’s just caused by the body cooling as heat escapes and you really don’t need it anymore. There are also places that get down to ninety degrees at night so you lay there sweating, miserable, and wide awake like some kind of hotbox punishment in a backwoods state prison. I could get a motel room, but that’s money that’s not staying in my pocket then and I’d rather spend the money I earn at home.

 

After that lack of sleep, you drive another seven hundred and some odd miles just to repeat the night before. Then after that is one more night just like the last two. Day four hits and you work a few hours more only and you are delivered. Now it’s time to go home.

 

I hate buses-I hate them with a passion. My personal preference for comfort is Amtrak, but from California, its a fifty hour ride (including layovers and transfers to other trains) to Chicago, so it’s inefficient. The train from New York City or from D.C. isn’t bad because you get enough sleep that you can do the next run, but flying is your best option. You get home in a reasonable time and sleep in your own bed while coworkers are sleeping upright on the Amtrak or Greyhound. Either way, we Uber out of wherever we dropped off the truck and go to the airport or station of departure. Sometimes the Uber costs more so instead of spending thirty dollars on an Uber, we will spend five dollars and just have them take us to some public city transportation option. This sucks! Ever ride a city bus with a big suitcase full of everything you need for four days? This country boy didn’t till he started this job. Remember, where I live in Northwest Indiana has a way different climate than Southern California or Southern Florida, so you have a big winter coat with you and shorts for when you get to where you need them. So you have to get to the airport two hours early to go through security and now your bored because sometimes you get through rather quickly. You haven’t slept well for days and now you’re at the airport. Finally you get on your flight and before you take off, you are in dreamland then you land. At least five different times, I woke up upon landing…by smacking my face into the seat in front of me when the plane hit its brakes. Those were not among my proudest moments. Now that I am back in Chicago I take the Blue Line from O’Hare up to Millennium Station where I now wait on the South Shore to take me to Michigan City, Indiana and then my friend usually gives me a ride to Elkhart, Indiana where my car is or just to my house one town over and I deal with getting my car the next day after I sleep some fourteen hours.

 

You know you’re tired when you can fall asleep on a New York City subway or on a bench in Los Angelas’ Chinatown. After a while you get used to the fatigue—somewhat.

 

A friend of mine asked me a few months ago if I mean what I said in the piece I did titled No Regrets or if it was just a bunch of bullshit and he asked me why I haven’t written anything in a long time. The answers are: Yes, I meant every word of that piece and I still love what I do and because I’m always tired. To the latter, I will try to write more often and to the former, I see something new every run I’m on to fall in love with again. This job has made me appreciate America and what it means to be an American in a way I never thought was possible. Anyone that knows me knows that my startups are my passion in life, but this is a good way for me to see the country I love and discover new things and live new life experiences. As I travel, my goal is one new experience per trip and I have been successful. Some of the experiences are poverty to comfort to relaxation, to great food or drinks in a place I’d never imagine going in to.

 

I get paid to do what I do at two in the morning when I can’t sleep because something is on my mind. Driving clears my head and I do it constantly and it’s become an addition. Another friend asked about vacation and I had to explain to her that it’s not about going somewhere and stopping, I am addicted to the constant moving and as much as I loved it when I wrote my first piece, I love it more now. Even bad days don’t suck that bad. This job isn’t for everyone, but I go vagabonding every week, sometimes three and four times a week. The people I meet along the way and the experiences I have had in the last eight months are cumulatively the most valuable I have had in my entire life.

 

Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.

Trapped in New York

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I love New York! There, I said it. I also violated one of the biggest rules of a columnist (not that I am one, but the same rules apply for a personal blog) and started a piece with the word “I,” but it had to be said. With all that, it’s an OK place to be trapped if the bartenders are amicable but I learned a few lessons.

 

The first lesson is, call if you’re going to be late. I was sick on one of my runs so I took a nap. One thing I know about Amtrak is that if you miss a train but had a ticket, you can just use it later. That is NOT true. I had a really good $104 deal from New York City to Elkhart, Indiana but I was sick and decided that it was better to nap for a few hours and just grab my return trip a day later. Yeah. That program doesn’t exist anymore. So not only did I lose my $104 ticket, but can’t get another one for that price for two days, not just one. The next day price is $200. So I now have two real options, stay at Hotel Pennsylvania for $99 plus tax or pay an extra $120 for the next day Amtrak ticket. Either way, it’ll cost me $220. According to Amtrak policy, you have until the time of departure to call and change a reservation, but they are not exactly forthcoming about that policy nor do that place a phone number that is easy to just find while in a New York City traffic jam. So yeah, I screwed up and the customer service rep and “your supervisor” all agreed that I was screwed and not getting my money back in any way, shape, or form.

 

The second lesson is that hotels don’t take cash in New York City. I attempted to check in to the Hotel Pennsylvania for the night but they require a credit card and then you can pay cash when you check out. Because of the nature of my job, I have cash on me and get paid via ATM card, not direct deposit to my bank. Also, I use a bank that’s local to where I live, so I can’t just run my deposit to the bank as soon as I get it. Basically, the $99 room rate is just a big joke that I can’t get because I have actual money on me.

 

Third is that bars close at 4AM, which can be good or bad, depending on how many drinks you have while at the bar (still to be determined), but right now I am REALLY sleepy! Are you really homeless while in a bar? I tend to think not.

 

Park benches are hard to find, even in parks and when you do find one, another homeless parson is on it already. There is a fine line between my job and being homeless and for such a nice night, I have crossed that line. With that, airports are great for being homeless. You are out of the elements and can sleep without being harassed too much, but I still suggest wrapping the straps of your bags around you.

 

My friend took pity upon me and charged a plane ticket for me so I just walked around for a bit and was homeless just over 24 hours. In conclusion, being homeless isn’t that rough if you are properly prepared and have a good social network of friends along with cash on your person. If you are a homeless advocate for whatever reasons…it was a joke and I am drunk. Screw you!

 

After I left the bar around 2AM I went to Penn Station. I decided to leave the bar early because I was at the point of needing either enough more to drink to get rid of my headache or it was just going to get worse while waiting there. While near Penn Station, I found a few open food carts and the one I picked was awesome. I had an Italian Sausage on a pita for only $6, the best prices on anything I found in New York City. My friend told me to take the E Train from Penn Station to where I needed to be. That didn’t make much sense since the Long Island Railroad went right where I wanted to go also…till I realized it did’t go where I wanted it to. My bad! So I took the Long Island Railroad to Jamacia Station then had to bring the E Train back toward Manhattan then I got off in Queens at Washington Heights so I could take a bus to LaGuardia. Yes. The first several times you in New York are very confusing and hard to get around. After several trips there, it’s still difficult to get around even when you do know where you’re going. After finally making it to the airport, I found a nice area of the food court to sleep in. I woke up around noon or so to a rather full airport and hung out and ate, then got on my 6:30 flight to Chicago.

 

My night of homelessness consisted of me getting hammered at Playwrights Irish Pub (which ironically has a VERY limited number of electrical outlets to keep your MacBook running so I’m not sure how they expect the next great play to be written here in 2017 on dead laptops, but the food is good and drinks are strong so I can’t complain. Tom, Carrie, and Catherine (she was from my last trip here) are all friendly and will take care of your beverage needs. I will defiantly stay at Hotel Pennsylvania when I have money on my card to check in. It’s a nice place with a good price if you aren’t paying cash and are willing to pay for your room online.

 

Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.

Surprising South Dakota

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One of the hardest parts about this blog is finding something to write about. It’s not for lack of content, but because it’s hard to sum up some things in just a few hundred words. South Dakota along Interstate 90 is one of those places. I was amazed! South Dakota is a. State I never felt like going to…ever…and now I can’t wait to go back. The natural scenery mixed with the kitsch roadside stops make it one of the coolest places I have ever visited.

 

In Mitchell, South Dakota was the Corn Palace, which touts itself as being the only corn palace in the world (like they had to tell us that). Ever year the Palace cuts corn cobs in half and nails them to plywood, thus creating gigantic murals of different scenery and it’s actually really awesome. Mitchell is the town that leftover corn built. In fact knowing where their bread is buttered, City Hall is attached via lower-level entrench to the Corn Palace. It serves as a small music venue and has served as a stage for many a great artist, mostly ones our grandparents would appreciate. They have the obligatory crap sales stuff so you can get your souvaniours or other “Cracker Barrel front room” type products. They have ice cream for the kids and booze for the parents, along with all kinds of good old home cookin’ restaurants. The town itself has a plethora of antique shops too, which seem mostly like fronts to sell the crap from grandma’s house after she passed away, but I did see some really good, underrated finds there as well. For instance, there are a lack of Victorian homes there, yet a lot of Victorian era furniture and lighting fixtures for cheap in these shops.

 

Farther down the road was Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota. This was a very interesting place. The town is built on an old drug store that grew up big and became a tourist attraction and along I90 you will see signs urging you to stop there for hundreds of miles before. It’s the Western version of “See Rock City” or “See Ruby Falls.” They have old time everything there from photos to dining plus a few saloons across the street and places selling Black Hills gold everywhere. While at Wall Drug, I ate a good dinner that consisted of sliced beef, green beans, masked potatoes and gravy, a dinner roll, and a slice of blueberry pie…all for just $23. Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that price tag on my dinner for what I ordered, but it was good. I’m not sure if it was $23 good though. This is another town where the city hall is right next to the tourist attraction and for good reason. There are jewelry and artisans all around along with your obligatory junk shops selling toys imported from China that will break in two days. The whole place is actually really cool and I want to go back sooner than later.

 

The I90 Corridor is basically a nice family friendly stretch of interstate through South Dakota that also includes casinos and these were some of the saddest casinos I have ever seen in my life. Aside from that, there were many Native American places selling “authentic Indian” goods and selling out their owe heritage, which doesn’t set well with me personally. All told, if you’re looking for family fun, a lot can be had in the I90 stretch of South Dakota.

 

Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.

No Regrets

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Two weeks ago I quit my job without any real notice. Since then, I often wonder if I made the right choice. The job I took is totally not something I pictured myself doing and it was a spur of the moment decision to start driving trucks and see the country.

 

I was right!

Though I may feel bad about the abruptness of my departure, I know myself and after sixteen years in a dead-end job that I felt sucking the life out of me every day, I was complacent; if I didn’t leave like I did, I may have been talked out of it. The new job pays more and is a lot of fun, with opportunities to see things I never knew existed. A good friend of mine has been working for the company for about the last year and told me what all I needed to do to get in (which wasn’t really that extensive).

 

I’m writing this from just outside Jacksonville, Florida but in the last two weeks, I have driven 4,500 miles or so and it’s been AWESOME!!! I deliver delivery trucks for a mid-sized driveaway company. I had never heard of “driveaway” before, but basically I drive a delivery truck to wherever the client wants it and then I fly home (or however I want to get home). The pay is decent and the deductions are even better. Thus far I have been to Brooklyn twice, Los Angeles once, and now I am almost to Jacksonville in a Waffle House next to the truck stop my truck is in.

 

Brooklyn Trip 1.

While driving, I was nervous as hell. My friend was my trainer and we drove with very little deviation from our planned route. Most of Indiana and Ohio were rather boring traveling across the Toll Road. Pennsylvania was gorgeous! The rolling hills, the friendly people, the scenery were all great. At the East end of Pennsylvania the mountains get a little bigger, but not as bad as what the South has to offer, which gave me no real problems. New Jersey might as well not have a speed limit and then crossing into NYC was…busy. Yeah…rush hour in a delivery truck is not as much fun as it sounds. My friend drove first and I followed. I was still getting used to the truck, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be. We drove into Queens on our way to Brooklyn and I saw the most vibrant sea of humanity I have seen in my life. I drove through a Moroccan bazar…complete with Moroccans (they may not have actually been from Morocco). We hit this one area that had Arabic music, little tents set up on both sides of the road, people crossing over from one side to the other while ignoring traffic, and the pungent smell of Middle Eastern spices in the are. It was heaven. People were haggling over the price of cloth and garments and others were just walking around eating. We made our delivery and hopped on the subway which took us to the Jamaica part of Queens. The area had a large Hispanic population and I heard crimes against whites in this area is the highest rate in the city. With that, at no point did I feel unsafe or like anyone was going to take my stuff while here. We went to eat lunch at Delicias Caleñas, which offers Latin American food, not just the standard Mexican food we all love. After lunch, we took a train and then a bus to the airport for me to do another first in my life…fly commercial. I have never flown in a jet before and till then, wasn’t 100% sure that they really worked. After a long drive, I was exhausted and so was my friend. We boarded the plane and I sat down, strapped in, and gripped the arm rests tight. Then I took a nap while we waited for takeoff, which then went all the way through takeoff. I recall hearing the pilot say something over the PA and I woke up during the takeoff with a queasy feeling in my stomach and I was plastered back in my seat. With this, I felt the motion of the plane and wanted to freak out…then I fell back asleep. That part may have lasted 30-seconds. My friend even commented, “Wow, Beebe, I guess you were so nervous that you had to sleep through the whole thing.” Yeah. I woke up when the plane hit the brakes in Chicago. We took a train back to our terminal in Indiana and drove home for some much needed sleep…in beds.

 

Brooklyn Trip 2.

I saw a lot of the same stuff on this trip as the first time, but we flew out of JFK instead. We were running VERY tight and took an Uber to the airport, where we had the best Uber driver. Only in New York will you get picked up in an Uber where the driver has an Infinity. He would talk your ear off and after the 800 mile drive in an uncomfortable basic seat, his cooled leather seats felt amazing. He could talk to us all day and I wouldn’t have cared. Pro tip: if you drive Uber, NYC is the place to do it! We hit our plane and the doors closed maybe ten minutes after we got in the terminal. For this flight, I stayed awake for part of it, still nervous…till I started snoring.

 

LA Trip.

I have never been west of the Mississippi so this trip was full of firsts for me. We went through Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and finished in California so I added seven new states to my list in just three days. The first day was uneventful with some of the flattest land you’ve ever seen. Nebraska looked just like central Indiana with the sea of farmland that extended to the horizon, but as the sun slowly sat, the prairie light up and almost seemed to be on fire. I didn’t expect to see that kind of beauty in waves of grain, but there it was. The backdrop turned into a shimmering gold as I pulled over for a moment to just take it all in. We hit Colorado at night and slept till morning just East of Denver. When we left, I drove through Denver with no problem. As we approached the city, we could see the Rockies slowly starting to emerge from a fog behind and I was awestruck. Then I drove through that crap and I pissed off a lot of people behind and beside me. After getting a flat tire and dealing with the repair, we didn’t get as far as we wanted to that day and bedded down in the first town we came across in Utah with a truck stop. Utah seemed weird, like I may be abducted by aliens at any moment, but it had its own beauty to it as the sun sat and the sky turned navy blue to black across the horizon. The sun sat over the mountains, but not past the horizon which makes for a really cool sight. The depth of the blue in the sky is a color I don’t recall ever seeing in nature before. We drove through Utah, which had more mountains in it and more white-knuckle driving before making our way into Arizona. We were only there for less than one-hundred miles, but since the trucks are commercial, we had to get permits from the state to drive through (which seems unconstitutional to me since the federal government regulates interstate commerce). Either way, the rock formations changed to something definitively Southwest and it looked really cool. Fractured cliffs and gorges were strewn across the visual fabric. It was dry and warm. We hit Nevada next (another state that requires the possibly unconstitutional permit to drive a commercial truck through). As we hit the boarder between the states, it just got flat and looked like a desert you’d see in an old cowboy movie. We fueled up in Las Vegas and it was hot out there. The air conditioning in our trucks could barely keep up with the temperature and they talk about the “it’s a dry heat” crap but no, all it means as you sweat and as you sweat, it evaporates so your body’s natural cooling system isn’t allowed to work. Vegas was rather ugly because of the fine dust that seemed to cover everything like haze. I bet it looks great at night, but in the day, it was unimpressive and looks rather boring. We crossed into California and the Mojave Desert was 100 degrees. For some reason, it felt better than the 90 degrees in Nevada though and there was a peace to it. I always feared going to California because I wasn’t sure if I’d want to leave and I later found out that I was right. We approached LA in some of the worst traffic I have ever seen and it took over an hour to go twenty miles, but for some reason, my stress in my shoulders from driving in that stop and go traffic wasn’t as bad as it was in the Rockies. We made our delivery just outside of LA and went to dinner at a nice Korean Barbecue place named Doctor Chicken. The food was good, but after driving through 100 degree weather, I guess we weren’t that in the mood for friend chicken or a Korean version of sake. At dinner, he got an email and he then started using the F-word like a comma. Our flight was canceled with no explanation. Our plan was simple, to make our drop off, enjoy the LA area for a few hours, then fly to Chicago, and take the train back to our cars. Yeah…no…. We ended up with a room in a Motel 6 which wasn’t as bad as we thought it’d be. He wanted to Skype his girlfriend and I wanted a drink so I went to the front desk and asked the clerk if there were any bars within walking distance and he told me there were not. Crap! He told me I could buy a beer at the Circle K next to the hotel, but walking around town drinking something out of a brown paper bag just looks sad so I went for a walk instead where I happened upon some unedited hip hop music from a place with a sign that read “Cocktails,” which usually means it’s gonna be classy (haha). I went in and the bouncer did the “no talking bad ass nod” that I could come in. Whatever! I guess they gotta make it look good. I ordered a Long Island and it was $8. I’m used to $7 for them in Indiana, so I expected Chicago prices ($15 or so) and was very happy to pay the $8 for one (or two). The bar was a cross-section of the local area and I was in love with the place. It’s called Bottoms Up Bar & Entertainment. I had an awesome time. It’s just enough of a walk from the hotels that the tourists aren’t there, so it was a local place with local flavor and I may have a new favorite bar…2,200 miles from my house. After this, the next morning we got to the airport promptly two minutes late (thanks to a slow Uber driver, LA traffic, and our own lack of motivation) and missed our flight plus two standby seats to finally leave LA some 19 hours after we were originally scheduled to.

 

Jacksonville Trip.

This trip can be summed up in one word…RAIN!!! It rained from Indiana to Florida. When it didn’t rain, once I was down south, there were just bugs everywhere. I hope the next time down this way fares a bit better for me down here. Maybe a nice wintertime trip down here is in store.

 

I literally get paid to go vagabonding around the country and have the security of a paycheck while I do it. I am living my American dream for now so no, I don’t regret leaving my job and if anyone ever asks why I quit the way I did, I show them a picture from along the way and they usually get it.

 

Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.