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Added by Eric Stone on July 13, 2008 at 10:00am — 1 Comment

CLASSIFYING THE CONSTITUENTS OF CHAOS

Natchez, Mississippi: 4,380 miles The whole quote is: "The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here essayed." and it's from Moby Dick, which I am currently rereading. A good road trip is something like that. You point your car here or there, pretty much at random but with an abiding sense of where you're headed, and soone or later you've made something of it. What? I'm not sure yet. But something. And so far something very good. Following two great meals in Chicago… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on November 1, 2007 at 7:05am — No Comments

CRUISING & ABUSING THE ARTERIES

Merriam, KS - 2,186 miles It's a good thing that my doctor isn't along for this ride. America's heartland hasn't confronted me with much traffic on its highways, but it's clogging my arteries. Lunch yesterday was at Al's Chickenette in Hays, Kansas. It's famous for its fried chicken. So of course, that's what I had. The place looks great, old neon, been there forever, but alas, the chicken was pretty bland. Nicely cooked but without much flavor. Dinner was a big salad that might have been some… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on November 1, 2007 at 7:03am — No Comments

PITY THE ELK

Denver, CO: 1,576 miles
Luckily, the two grazing elk I saw along Interstate 25 last night - fleetingly, they flitted by at about 82 miles per hour - didn't leap out in front of my car. It might have been a mercy killing though. Of them, not me. It's hunting season in south Colorado and I couldn't find a motel room in Raton, New Mexico or Trinidad, CO. All the rooms were filled with people looking to bag their quota of elk. I passed by a lot of bars wh… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on October 18, 2007 at 5:10pm — No Comments

Cruising & Abusing the Arteries

Merriam, KS - 2,186 miles
It's a good thing that my doctor isn't along for this ride. America's heartland hasn't confronted me with much traffic on its highways, but it's clogging my arteries.

Lunch yesterday was at Al's Chickenette in Hays, Kansas. It's famous for its fried chicken. So of course, that's what I had. The place looks great, old neon, been there forever, but alas, the chicken was pretty bland. Nicely cooked but without much fla… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on October 17, 2007 at 4:44am — No Comments

THE DRIVE-BY GETS A JUMP START

Scottsdale, AZ: 569 miles
Gila Bend, Arizona, where highways 8 and 85 meet, is a place that doesn't seem to have many surprises in store. There's gas stations, motels, convenience stores, plenty of fast food chain outlets. Get off the main street and there's cacti and rattlesnakes, probably some gila monsters (how else was the town named?), plenty of sand and rocks. The Space Age Restaurant is impressive - it has a very large flying saucer parked on i… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on October 16, 2007 at 3:02am — No Comments

NEW YORK BUGS ME

Bed bugs, that is. A significant infestation of them. Eva is bit to within an inch of her life. They liked her better than me. Which is good for me, but I still didn't escape. For however long this lasts - I keep hearing different stories - I am going to be on tour as the itchy-scratchy author.

The Gershwin is, by New York standards (which are lower in these matters than standards in the real world), a very nice inexpensive hotel. A standard room runs a "mere" two hundred bucks a night.… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on October 16, 2007 at 3:00am — 1 Comment

NYC MOODS

I will never kill a cab driver in one of my books. I promised Preston. He was my hack yesterday, here in New York City. He was one of those taxi drivers who really make you feel good about being here: bright, funny, opinionated, knowledgeable, an excellent conversationalist. So when he asked what I do and I told him, and then he asked if I'd ever killed a cabbie in one of my books and I told him I haven't, he asked me to promise I never would. And I did.

On the other hand, the construct… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on October 11, 2007 at 12:12am — No Comments

HERE I COME

Yet another Eric Stone Drive-By Book Tour is getting underway. I've been warming up with events on home ground and am headed for New York tomorrow.

My last book tour, the Disoriented Express with Colin Cotterill, we added up the estimated weight of our assembled crowds. I don't think I'll bother with that this time. For one, I don't have Colin along to help me with the estimates. And unless something truly untoward or special occurs along the way, I'm not sure I want to spend a whole l… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on October 8, 2007 at 7:41am — No Comments

MOOSE NOT MYTH, AFTER ALL

I take it back. Alaskans were not simply having fun with outsiders by claiming that there's such a thing as a moose. Unless this is a guy in a really good moose suit. Which, considering how remarkable everything else has been in Alaska, could be the… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on October 1, 2007 at 8:10am — No Comments

Maybe A Moose

Talking to the locals you might get the impression that moose are as thick on the ground in Alaska as rats in Rome.
They aren’t. Not that I can see.
Alaska has lived up to most of the superlatives. But it has been something of a let down in the charismatic mega-fauna sighting department.
Three eagles, some white dots in the distance that seemed to be dall sheep, a couple of swans, otters – plenty of otters, both ocean going and river otters (you can tell the difference because the… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on September 26, 2007 at 6:27pm — 1 Comment

Ships and Other Big Things At Sea

Attempting to beat the heat - 107 (41.666 celsius) in our neighborhood yesterday - Eva and I and a couple of friends took to the water. We drove down to Long Beach, boarded a large catamaran and motored out to the channel between the mainland and Catalina Island. It was a whole lot cooler on the water. In spite of which - and a liberal slather of sunscreen - I got viciously sunburnt.

We did see whales. Blue whales, the biggest animals on Earth. We saw five of them, three for more than a… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on September 5, 2007 at 10:56am — No Comments

NEW BOOKS COMING - WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO?

I wonder what a book tour is like in Africa? Take a look at this picture. It's from the current issue of The Economist. It's a satellite view of Europe and Africa at night. The Africans are certainly doing more than their fair share of the work to combat global warming.

… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on August 22, 2007 at 5:43am — 1 Comment

Why I Don't Have Any Tattoos (But Why I Like Them)

Commitment issues. It's as simple as that. I can't come up with any particular image, word or symbol that I want permanently on my body. I know myself. I'd change my mind sooner or later and getting tattoos removed is painful and not all that effective.

The closest I ever came was when I was in college in Olympia, Washington. I used to hang out on Pacific Avenue in Tacoma and I had befriended a tattoo artist named Painless Brenda. One night I was drunk. I walked in to Brenda's shop, sat… Continue

Added by Eric Stone on July 23, 2007 at 3:01pm — 7 Comments

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