Travel

116 posts

Why I’m Running Away With the Cat Circus

ShadyCatsI’m thirty years old. I get blind drunk once a week because I’m too poor to do it more often. I frequently don’t wear real pants for weeks at a time. Some days the only conversation I have is with my dog.

I’m not just single but divorced and still fuming and sniveling inside about my last relationship. I keep reactivating my OkCupid account, trolling for some kind of unicorn-man to fix me, despite having no car, living with my father, and working fifteen hours a week tending bar at a pizza restaurant.

I like the Cobra Starship song “Hot Mess,” because I relate to it at a visceral level.

I am whatever the opposite is of having one’s shit together. Continue reading →

Terrible Decisions in Sid’s Life: Cocktails in the Corner Pocket

WWKittehCornerPocketBig
Luke’s father had some in with CBS and managed to score Final Four tickets. I lived in New Orleans at the time, so Luke and two other friends came down to stay with me and make it an informal bachelor party week for Luke.

Before they arrived, it was my job to head down to the French Quarter, where CBS had set up operations and a huge hospitality room, to pick up the tickets and the passes to get into the CBS parties. Five tickets and five passes.
Continue reading →

QOTD: Your Terrible Winter Travel Stories

highwaystormThis isn’t a competition, but if it were, the Canadians here would win hands down. Team Canada!!! More snowstorm-driving miles (older members) and kilometres (younger members) per capita than anywhere else in the world, except maybe Siberia.

It’s amusing to tell lurid stories of near-disasters on January roads to Californians who have never seen snow, watch their eyes get round, watch that ‘oh they’re exaggerating’ (we’re not) suspicion enter their eyes. But driving and flying and, indeed, walking down the damned street when it’s cold and icy and snowing sideways are no joke. Continue reading →

Terrible Decisions in Sid’s Life: The Airport Ride

grateful dead poster

I flew from New Orleans to San Francisco for a series of Grateful Dead shows at the Oakland Coliseum culminating with a Chinese New Year concert. Obviously.

We made a connection along the way, and on the second leg of the flight, we met a hippie couple from New Jersey going to the same concerts and had a fun time partying with them over the Rockies. Although they could have taken a direct flight, they took two extra legs because the chick couldn’t make it across country without a cigarette break. I distinctly remember an empty Wild Turkey bottle rolling wildly around the aisle as we came in for a landing and a stern talking-to by the pilot as we exited. Continue reading →

Five Things about West Virginia I Guarantee Buckwild Will Not Show

MTV is premiering a new show in January called Buckwild about West Virginia teenagers. These teens, of course, will not be studious or straight-laced. They will be shooting squirrels and going mudding. This is always what happens when someone films in West Virginia. The film turns into The Wild Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. They never show a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer or even a competent store clerk. I thought I would show you a few things about WV that you aren’t likely to hear elsewhere. Continue reading →

Chinese Food in the Yukon and Chiapas

Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada: New China

It’s a frigid October afternoon. I’m walking towards a Chinese restaurant suggested by Lonely Planet. About halfway there, I see about a dozen middle aged Chinese men (obviously from Mainland China based on their hairstyle and the way they wear their white collared shirts) cramming themselves into a 15-passenger van. With toothpicks in their mouths and loud, satisfying burps, I can tell that they just ate. They came out of New China, which was not my destination. Continue reading →