The Astral Log

7 October 2015

Reason Fest Day 2: O Canada, Where Art Thou?

Filed under: Artifacts & Holdovers, Canada, River City Reason Fest, US-North Dakota — Andrew T. @ 23:27

Morning broke in Fargo, North Dakota. Leaving the city was slow going, though. First, I was enticed by the smell of Perkins...even though they weren't running their all-you-can-eat pancake special and I got food poisoning the last time I went to one of their restaurants. Then, I was enticed by the distraction of another nearby construct: The West Acres Mall. I stepped inside and promptly discovered two epic surprises: A operational, coin-filled fountain original to the mall's 1972 construction, and a roman-lettered Sears sign that was miraculously still intact.

I came dangerously close to buying a tank top at 50% off (forgetting that I'd almost never have a reason to wear one) until I discovered that it had screen printing inside the front of the garment. Somehow, that was enough to wake me from my shopping stupor...and I made tracks north on U.S. 81.

Most of North Dakota was very sparsely populated...and it felt very peaceful. Almost discordantly peaceful, given some of the sinister shit that goes on within the state's bounds.

One of the few incorporated places I encountered was Hillsboro, home of the forlorn Traill Theatre and county courthouse.

The moderately larger abode of Grand Forks (third largest city in the state) offered some roadside artifacts of its own, including a Phillips 66 gullwing canopy and a rare Matawan-style Texaco building. Both had been shorn of their pumps decades ago and turned into adaptive reuse.

U.S. 81 had dumped me quite a few kilometres west of the main highway. When I slowly wheeled the car to the border crossing at Gretna, the customs official seemed suspicious. "Why are you going this way? Were you rejected at the other crossing?" I had nothing to incriminate myself, however, and was traveling lightly. The official collected my passport, followed up with questions about my trip details, employer, starting point, and other expected minutia, asked to look in the back of the car, jostled my suitcase momentarily...and left me to go on my way. I was mildly annoyed that I had to open my car (a far cry from the 1990s era when you could cross the border with a driver's license and no searching at all)...but compared to the experience I'd have four days later, it was quick, upfront, and painless.

I was thrilled and psyched to be in Canada at last. Which way to Winnipeg, though? I didn't have a good map, and I was well off the beaten path...I even ended up on dirt without trying. Everything in the prairies is laid out on a grid, though, and I successfully worked my way to the main road that I should have taken in the first place.

50 kilometres later, I was there. The day wasn't done, though: I stopped at Tim's for dinner, where I mustered up some energy and had the added bonus of receiving an American nickel in my change. I then drove around for over an hour both to gain a crash course on Winnipeg's street grid layout and to find my conspicuous, yet strangely hard-to-find hotel. I wound up arriving in the city the same day as an AC/DC concert, so traffic was tied up to oblivion in some corridors.

Winnipeg had the aura of a decidedly multicultural city, and I often heard languages other than English being spoken. It was also a vast place where seemingly anything and everything could be. I had been in Manitoba's capital for less than a day, but I liked it already.

I'd get to explore the city on my own in another day's time...but for now, it was time to relax.

6 October 2015

Reason Fest Day 1: Journey through the Land O' Lakes

Filed under: Artifacts & Holdovers, River City Reason Fest, US-Minnesota — Andrew T. @ 23:32

When I launched the Astral Log earlier this year, all I knew was that it had the potential to develop in any direction. I didn't expect to use it primarily as a vehicle for travelogues. But I can never stay put in one place for long...so it was probably inevitable. The latest raison d'être? My first international conference in 30 years.

I left home around 9 a.m., pointed the car northwest, and drove like hell until I reached the Minnesota border. Well, almost the Minnesota border: I wound up getting sidetracked in La Crosse long enough to visit the Valley View Mall, which features a JCPenney store with the (bricked-over remains of) auto service bays along one side. This wound up being a recurring theme on the trip.

Minutes later, I had crossed the Mississippi and was safely in Minnesota. Yes, Minnesota...the wonderful land of milk and honey I came within a hair's split of moving to in 2012; the state that legislated marriage equality while my back-stabbing neighbors were legislating Wisconsin Synod Sharia Law.

I was somewhat stingy with pictures on this portion of the trip. During my journey to Arkansas a couple months earlier, I ran out of room on my memory card and I was fearful that the same thing would happen again. Still, there were a number of scenes of artifacts and coincidences that captured my attention...and my photo frames. How often do you see one Geo Prizm hatchback on the road...let alone two in the same color? Both of these are probably '89s, since they have pillar-mounted seatbelts.

A former Ben Franklin variety store in Lake City, with a rather creative reuse of the original sign.

After creeping through Winona, Wabasha, Lake City, Red Wing, and Hastings, I reached the Twin Cities area...the cultural and economic epicenter of the upper midwest. Sadly this wasn't the day to stay there for long...and since my view of it was miles upon miles of a gray, gridlocked concrete jungle under the dim glow of a cloudy day, I didn't get to see Saint Paul or Minneapolis at their most congenial or inviting, either.

Soon it became apparent that there were two Minnesotas. There was the Twin Cities area, which was cosmopolitan, reasonably secular, and free of the worst kinds of economic disparities that affect many other cities in the USA. And there was the interior of the state, which basically consisted of farmland and wilderness peppered with anti-abortion billboards. By the time I was halfway to Fergus Falls, my arm was so tired flipping the forced-birthers off that I wanted to take a rest break then and there. But there were no facilities to be found...so I drove on until night fell and I was able to cross one more state off my list.

The street grid of Fargo, North Dakota is divided into numbered streets and numbered avenues, each with directional splits. An incomplete address like "210 7th" is therefore useless unless you trek over all four corners of the city trying to find it. Some streets are disconnected, further complicating matters. After doubling back on myself and wasting time driving in Fargo for nearly an hour, I checked into a Motel 6 room with an air conditioner that leaked on the floor and plotted out the plans for the next exciting day.

Compared to the last motel I stayed at, it was bliss.

2 August 2015

Travel Tribulations, Vol. 1

Filed under: ALPCA Convention, Artifacts & Holdovers — Andrew T. @ 13:05

Not all of the excitement from last month's ALPCA Convention happened at the destination. A lot of it happened during the journey...whether for better or worse.

I had the misfortune of riding into St. Louis the week an Herbalife convention was going on. So not only was the Gateway Arch and all of downtown overrun with hundreds of snake-oil salespeople completely oblivious to the pyramid scheme they were in, but my motel for the night also had a stiff "convention tax" added to the bill.

On the drive home, I intentionally drove past dusk through all of Missouri and into Quincy, Illinois just to see how the sales tax structure over there compared. Except...a good room in Quincy was hard to find: Even though there was no convention or special event going on, most of the hotels were either booked to the brim, priced beyond my range, or both.

After driving around and about for some time, I wound up at the Budget Host Inn downtown. It was late and I was happy just to have a roof over my head, so I checked in for the night.

The first thing I noticed afterwards was a drunk man standing on a balcony a couple floors up calling out to me in the parking lot, asking what I was doing in Quincy, and opining that he had clothes in his room that I could try on.

I walked into my room. I was immediately taken aback by a musty odor: The air conditioner had leaked onto the carpet, leaving a gigantic patch of damp floor. There was a fly buzzing around the room, and a second insect crawling around in the bathtub. I couldn't get the WiFi to work, so I put my electronic toys away and went to sleep.

I didn't sleep well. The sheet slid off the bed, leaving me pinned between a bare mattress and a pile of bedspreads. I was jolted awake during the night by a torrential thunderstorm, and by the sound of SMS emergency messages on my cell phone warning of a flash flood nearby.

Eventually I woke up at last...and discovered the dining room, which had a plywood and cardboard cover-up over one of the windows. Surprisingly, the continental breakfast was excellent: There was a food bar with hot biscuits, sausages, pancakes, coffee, and cereal. But how the food got there was anyone's guess, since the dining room and office were deserted and there was not a single other soul around.

Now that daylight was out, I could see the actual building. One look at the labelscar revealed the property to be a former Days Inn that lost its franchise...and considering some of the terrible experiences I've had at active Days Inn franchises over the years, that was saying something! I tracked down a receptionist with a bit of difficulty, then got the hell away.

Soon I was serenely driving down U.S. 24 in central Illinois, when a semi came barrelling the other way kicking up gravel and debris as it went along. BANG!!! I heard a terrible sound, and the windshield of my nine-month-old Veloster had a nine-inch crack.

Two days later, my wallet was a lot lighter and the windshield was replaced. But I still wasn't happy about it...

14 July 2015

Rogers, day 1: Welcome to Wally World!

Filed under: ALPCA Convention, Artifacts & Holdovers, License Plates, US-Arkansas — Andrew T. @ 23:04

The city of Rogers, Arkansas is right next door to Bentonville, Arkansas...and Bentonville's greatest claim to fame might be its status as the home of a store chain that might be a bit familiar.

Did you know that there's a Wal-Mart Employee Cheer? (Whoops, sorry. Wal-Mart insists it has "associates," not employees.)

This seems as good a time as any to tout this other video, showing what appears to be a cancerous growth spreading from Arkansas.

The first Wal-Mart store actually opened over in Rogers in July 1962. The original building still stands, although it's very inauspicious and is currently split between a building-supply store and antique mall. The local tourism book claims that the building contains a plaque commemorating its pioneering status, but the book lied.

There still is a Wal-Mart store 0001, though its physical location has been shunted from building to building a few times. Its second site presently houses Wal-Mart's claims administration office, of all things.

Of course, Sam Walton's retail empire had an existence that was seeded before 1962. Years before they crushed the competition, strong-armed their suppliers, and ran afoul of every labor issue in the book, they were here. Walton managed his first variety store in 1945; this store as the first "Walton's" Ben Franklin per se came five years later.

There is a plaque here! Maybe the tourism book was just confused.

The facsimile of Walton's 5-10 store now forms part of a Wal-Mart museum spanning an entire corner in downtown Bentonville. It contains several physical exhibits of products, packages, advertising, and memorabilia; video presentations, and an ice cream cafe...if you're in the mood to dine on Wal-Mart food, of course.

Lest anyone think they weren't trying hard enough, a facsimile of Sam Walton's '79 Ford truck is parked outside. The South Carolina inspection sticker kind of hints that it isn't the genuine Arkansas article, but if you want to see the actual truck you don't have far to go. That's on display inside, along with a painstaking re-creation of Sam Walton's actual office. I'd sure hate to have been the lowly associate tasked with putting that together!

Remember the Wal-Mart Cheer? That's mentioned in the museum, too. You just needed to know that.

At least admission is free. Much like a stopped clock is right twice a day, Wal-Mart winds up being benevolent once in a while.

Altogether, I'd have to place this attraction in the "see" category. I was at once both strangely captivated and appalled.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

©2015-16 Andrew Turnbull