Ready, Steady...Tow!

Yeah for Michelle Bonfils visiting!

2007-02-21T20:52:00.000-05:00

Visit Michelle's youtube site. http://youtube.com/mabonfils

Some wacko on the street, Charlotte Pike

Michelle and Bill at Robert's Western World

Me and Michelle and two cans of PBR

This is Michelle in total astonishment in front of the local Walgreen's in East Nashville

Here we are in the Airstream, I'm giving the tour, and showing off my Master Control Panel to Michelle

Here we are, "trailer sisters"

I long for the days that I can spend a whole day in a Goodwill with an old friend. Our days in Nashville just keep draggin' and draggin'. Now I understand how so much sad music was produced in this town.

Nashville Music City Hostel

2007-01-31T23:00:00.000-05:00

We left our place in Ashland City. It was a sad departure. Thankfully we still keep in good touch with Lisa and Stephen regularly. We really miss the dogs! Dewy, and Bonnie and Sue Baby, and JoJo. Our new arrangement is working 10 or so hours a week renovating a 1968 Airstream Tradewind. It's parked in the backyard of the Nashville Music City Hostel. So we are parked right up against it, and we spend our days researching and doing labor on their Airstream. To be honest Bill does all the manual labor. I won't take his fire away. We also work part time hours in the office checking people in a few nights a week. Our experiences here at the hostel have been overall positive. There is a heap of drama, which neither of us like to be involved with, and you get lots of clashing personalities, but on occasion that special traveler comes through and inspires us, and gives us their contact information which grows our world wide network of friends. Our Location you can't beat. We are in the Midtown section of town. Walking distance to several decent neighborhoods, Vanderbilt University, the only place to get food after 9:00 pm. Cafe CoCos, and a few other coffee shops that i have found I enjoy. We are about a 30 minute walk from the sites in downtown, which is where we find ourselves often showing the tourists where the good honky tonk bars are.

Yay! I got a job downtown as a Bartender!

2007-01-13T20:24:00.000-05:00

I was so excited to find out that my food service resume landed me a server/bartender job right off Broadway in Downtown. It's been years since I waited tables, but my eagerness to serve plates of food must of meant something to the owners. My first shift I made $140 in tips. Not bad. My second shift, $13, and every other shift after that for two weeks varied between $12 and $16. After two weeks I couldn't afford to come back. It was too bad because I was excited to have possibly wait on country megastars that I could care less about. They even had a good jukebox to boot. The place was somewhat reminiscent of my days working at Jitter's Cafe in Minneapolis, so that alone was worth my time there. After talking to a few people in town, it turned out that Past Perfect can't seem to hol don to their employees. Other than the few suckers that have been there since day one. It's a pretty miserable place.

If you are new to Nashville and you came across my blog by googling 'Past Perfect Nashville' consider this a sign, that you shouldn't waste your time.

New Years in Ashland City, Tennessee 2007

2007-01-12T00:30:00.000-05:00

HAPPY 2007!!

Since our car is not in working order, and it wouldn't be too cool of us to take our Home Owners car out on New Years, we decided to keep in in the neighborhood. There isn't much in Ashland city. There is one Walmart 15 minutes away, and there is another Walmart about 25 minutes in the other direction. Did I mention that we live in the middle of nowheresville? And then there is the VFW hall a half mile down the road. (no sidewalks of course - so you gotta watch out for speeding pick up trucks) This place looks so perfect from the outside. My kind of place if you know my tastes.

We had heard that they had $2 dollar beers and they accepted cards. Which that's unheard of anywhere I've been. Usually a VFW requires a membership but this location justs asks that you sign in at the front door! We figures New Years would be the best time to check it out for our first time.

These are some of our new friends that helped us ring in the New Year...

Even the local Marshal came in for a midnight two step with his honey!

The Drivers provided music for the evening. They told their story of how they got their name. All of them but one used to be bus drivers for various touring acts. The other guys never was a professional driver, but he had a truck!

This next clip is of The Drivers announcing that CJ is on the phone wishing everybody a Happy New Years. CJ is a local hero fighting the war over in Iraq. The Drivers wanted to send a special shout out to CJ and his troop. Here you can hear The Drivers Perform the Star Spangled Banner. Towards the end of the clip some lady fell off her chair but i missed that unfortunately.

Here are some couples dancing. It's a rather dark clip but you can hear The Drivers pretty good in this one.

Here's me and Bill, happy as bugs in Tennessee. We LOVED the VFW Hall.
We had a real good time!Yay for 2007!

The stumble home that night may have been the most interesting of all my stumbles home.. Getting there I was mostly concerned with not getting hit by a redneck in his truck racing down our country road. It's narrow, hilly, and no sidewalk, and ditches. Not meant to be walked down. I was too happy and drunk on the walk home to worry about passing cars, and it was rather quiet. I had the shit scared out of me though cause i heard this LOUD noise. I was like, "What the fuck is that Bill?" it was a cow. and then the Cow got the horses going, and then it was total mayhem. I guess these farm animals don't see pedestrians that often walking these roads in the middle of the night. I've never really been on a farm or anything so pardon me for my lack of knowledge. While I was walking with my head down, texting "Happy New Years" to a friend in NY, I felt something soft under my sneaker. It was a GIANT dead animal. I didn't stay to figure out what kind of animal it used to be, but it i think had been there for a while. Roadkill is all over the place out where we live in Ashland City, Tennessee. Deer will jump out at you while you drive all the time. It was so gross. In any case we made it home safe and sound that night.

"You gonna get stuuuck"

2007-01-01T20:59:00.000-05:00

One night these two kids 12, and 13 came over. I've never tripped out so hard on two young boys before. It's the southern accent. These kids were so awesome. It was sort of like having Gummo in the living room with me. They weren't to thrilled with me shooting video of them, so this is the best I got.

Airstreaming on down to Tennessee

2007-01-01T20:45:00.000-05:00

Getting out of the door took two tries. The first time we left we didn't use the weight distribution bars given to us by Uncle John. Uncle John is Bill's Uncle that spends his spare time Rving around New England with Bills Nanna (Nanner if you are from their part of the country). Like idiots we got about 40 minutes away and we decided to turn around and hook up the confusing rusty piece of junk that we had no idea what to do with it. Turns out we needed it. We totally would of died without once on the road. It was like the scariest thing ever. We had towed it empty, no problem. But then you load it up with 5,000 lbs of junk, it's like a fish out of water back there. Thanks Uncle John.

Leaving Merrimack, NH

It took us about 13 hours driving time (16 hours total) to get to the half way point of Pittsburgh. There we got to catch up with my Grandma, Steve and Ivy and of course eat some Hot Primanti's Sammiches. It was a quick in and out trip to da burgh, but never a bad time. I love Pittsburgh. Go Stillers.

Me and Bill up on Mount Worshington. Downtown Pittsburgh it's so pretty.

Here I am with Grandma Anne Celeste. She's my #1.

Grandma is very proud of her Christmas Hallway Decorating skills

Here I am with Jon Huha and his lady Veronica at the Squirrel Cage

Here I am with Steve Novick right before we departed from my Uncle Sonny's
(Thanks Steve and Ivy for a great time in Pittsburgh)

Day 2 of our trip was from Pittsburgh to Nashville. That also took about 13 hours of driving time. We pulled over in a Wallmart Parking lot in Kentucky for a night. (Sam Walton was big into RVing so he encourages travel trailers to park nightly in their lots) Here is a photo of our rig in the Wallmart lot. It was cold that night. We just slept in the Suburban though that night, we were in transit and the Airstream wasn't quite ready for us. Shit really gets tossed around when in tow.

We only planned on sleeping for 3-4 hours and somehow we managed to sleep like 9 hours in the cold truck. We must of needed it.

The following morning we got started around 10:00 am and head south for Nashville. We were only about 4 hours away at this point. Things were looking bright! Almost to our new home!

Here are a few Roadside monuments we saw in Kentucky

Pulling into Tennessee was not that monumental. Ashland City is Northwest of Downtown, and we were driving in from the North so we didn't get like the grand hello from the downtown skyline or anything, and then all of a sudden, all went to hell. "ssssssssss" was the noise from the engine, and then came the steam. Thankfully we were on level ground an over on the right hand lane already. The Suburban shut itself down, and we pulled over onto the dirt. We got over quick, and we called our helpful roadside assistance people, Good Sam. They told me that a tow truck should arrive in about an hour. Within 5 minutes somebody pulled over. Of course my first instinct is to "quick, lock the doors, roll up the window" I was just living in Brooklyn. Nobody pulls over to help a dying puppy dog there. And who gets out of his car but Garth Brooks! Just kidding, but the guy sure did look like him. In Boots, overalls and a cowboy hat this southern gent gets out of his Dodge mini caravan and took a few minute out of his day to see if we were Ok!

Tom Kovach for Congress!

And then about 15 minutes after he left the second guy came. I was too afraid of snatching a photo without him noticing, and he just wasn't the type of dude I felt I could ask either, but he ended up giving us his cell phone # and told us to please call if we ran into any trouble at all...waaaah?? Where the hell are we?? I did manage to sneak a pic of his car. Notice his bumper sticker: "Horn Broken, Watch for Finger"

And then WTF!!! a third dude pulled over checking on us. I couldn't believe this this. Where are we that three nice people would offer us help. This guy offered us more than help, he offered to go down the road and "git us sum cold drinks" he was persistent too. We had to convince him that we were fine and people we on their way shortly for us. I mean, what an introduction to the south huh? Here is a photo of our dude who wanted to bring us cold beverages.

Thanks to Good Sam our $400 dollar tow was covered by our $65 dollar annual fee that we paid before we did our first tow with the Airstream. It covers both the truck and the trailer. We are so lucky we broke down when we did and not in the Pocono Mountains or in rural Kentucky. We happened to break down only about 15 miles from the house in Ashland City. This meant the tow truck could tow us right to the address, which was a total life saver. Two tow trucks came and towed our road real estate one at a time. I went with the guy towing the truck and Bill hung out with the guy towing the Airstream. While I was talking about fried chicken and Alan Jackson's residence (which is a half mile from our the place we are staying at) Bill was rapping with his dude about how his dude has never left Nashville and can't wait to get the hell out. In the end we learned that we somehow lost the A/c belt on our travels which caused this whole chain reaction of error under the hood. Two rods when shooting through the oil pan, and we blew the main gasket. We are looking at an $1,800 repair. Ugh.

This is the gimpy 3 legged dog from next door that stole my heart, Sue Baby

Grocery shopping here is so much fun. It's like being in another country!
Stuff is so cheap! They love their biscuits down there, that's for sure. They manage to display biscuits in 4-5 grocery aisles.

The KKK took my Elijay away

2006-12-25T22:09:00.000-05:00

When Bill and I were in Iceland, Bill went on www.mandy.com looking for Cameraman jobs and there was only one job available in the whole state of Georgia, and we thought, well that sucks, but at least it's in the small town we are moving too. Then he read a little further into the listing and it turned out that it was to shoot the KKK rally happening in Downtown Elijay. Whha? But, this is where we are moving. This blows. I mean we knew the Nazi's were still hanging out in the deep south, but why in the llama town we were heading for? So while we were in Iceland we kicked the idea around of coming up with a Plan B. When we got back to NH, we sat on it for a few more days and we both decided that the llama farm idea was a great idea but our kind just aren't welcomed down there. We were excited about the prospect of working on the farm and the people we were going to work with seemed great too. It was the town and the lack of anything to do within an hour radius is what really changed our minds.

We kind of came up with Nashville (as we had kicked the idea about visiting for quite some time now) and it turned out to be an easy decision without much discussion. We started posting on craigslist that morning for any opportunities to park the Airstream. That night we got a great response. This leads us to where we are today, Christmas Day.

We are currently in Ashland City, TN. approximately 20 miles out of downtown Nashville out in the country Side. An extremely nice couple wrote us looking for a Pet/House sitter while they went away to Europe for a month long backpacking trip. They originally hail from Northern California, and after a year of road tripping back and forth across the US, they decided Nashville would be their next residence. They welcomed us here with loads of hospitality, invited us to eat all their food, drive their car, and pretty much have full run of the house while they are gone. They have given us a place to park the Airstream, electrical hook ups, and an extra bedroom in the house too. They are so nice, and we feel so lucky that we have such a nice place to be, with warm people in a time that we had to make a quick decision with little to no money.

New Hampshire is in our past. Nashville is our future.

2006-12-25T21:07:00.000-05:00

All in all New Hampshire was the worst place I've ever lived. 1. People drive like total jackasses 2. Everybody is out to prove you wrong on absolutely everything 3. It's overall it's a pretty negative place, oh.. and 4. They add r's behind a's for no reason, example - "I sawr Lind'r yesterday with grandmer and grandper." We were anxious to leave, but we are also very grateful for the situation we had in Merrimack. We had a place to live, rent free. A place to park the Airstream while we worked on it. We had family around who were nice to spend time with and Lois and John were pretty happy there too. Of course with the bad a few good things must come. While we were there we took on a primarily macrobiotic diet and I lost 6 inches, and we both feel great. I found myself cooking around 3 hours a day, and I discovered that I really like cooking and I'm not half bad at it. We started getting our produce locally from Farmer Rodger Noonan. We became seasonal shareholders to his farm. If you visit www.localharvest.org you can find out who you can get fresh organic seasonal produce from. The best part is that a lot of the farms deliver right to you.

While I spent most of my spare time cooking, Bill took up a new past time as an assistant soccer coach for The Tigers. Bill just didn't seek out some little kid soccer team like a creep, but it was his little cousin Chris' team. We all had our fingers crossed that B'brad would score a goal by the end of the season and with all of Bill's encouraging words and tugs B'brad scored at the last game of the season.

Chris and Conner are Bill's two little cousins who we spent a lot of time with while living in NH. Bill's mom takes care of them after school so we seem them almost every day. Chris is 7 and Conner is 5. Chris eats one kind of chicken nuggets (strips) and Conner eats another kind (Tyson Nugs), Chris will eat a few other things, but Conner won't even try pizza. He literally only eats Chicken nuggets. Anyways here are a few photos of the boys. I personally grew attached to them, and Bill was really happy to spend some time with them during their more formative years.

The Sugarcubes Reunion in Reykjavik, Iceland (Sykurmolarnir) Nov. 17th, 2006

2006-11-18T21:00:00.000-05:00

I still cant believe I actually got to see the Sugarcubes live, and In Reykjavik. My dream come true. YAY! Definitely the best Birthday EVER. Oh, did you hear..? Bjork and Matthew Barney were on my flight home too! On my flight there we had Mike White up in first class. So my three favorite creative genuisis in film, art and music were all on my flights in and out of Iceland. So strange. Well, here are some photos from the concert as well as some other people who I became friends with who also traveled far and wide for the big event! For a venue for 5,000 people 1,000 came from outside of Iceland. What pull. Opening acts were Mum and Rass.

here are some video snipits too!

"Deus"

"Bee"

"Planet"

"Walkabout"

"Motorcrash"

"Hit"

"Fucking in Rhythm and Sorrow"

Luftgutair

IKEA, Swans and Wigeon Face Attacks

2006-11-15T21:34:00.000-05:00

Had the IKEA in Reykjavik been anything different than what any of you have seen already, I would of taken some photos. It happened to be a lot like any of the American locations. Some exceptions include cans of beer you could purchase at the hot dog stand downstairs near the exit, the metric system on the throwaway rulers and more plenty more espresso accessories. The highlight of my day however was on the way home from IKEA and hearing the Icelandic version of "Birthday" from the Sugarcubes on the radio, on the actual day of my birth nonetheless. Little things rock my socks off, and this was one of them.

Earlier today Bill and I spent some time at the Tjornin Lake. Locals refer to it as "the pond". This is one of the most amazing places in Reykjavik. Feeding the birds is one of the only things to do there other than waste some time at the City Hall building. There you can see the largest topographic map of Iceland, get a free wifi hook up, have some coffee and sit in a window with a beautiful view of the pond and watch all the other people feeding the birds freeze their asses off. Today we decided to freeze our asses off for a bit and feed these dinosaurs. Here are some photos and video of the area/birds. I felt a bit like an arctic snow white.

Here is Bill dodging a flying attack from a wigeon. Yep, apparently they don't have pigeons here.

If you look closely you can see a wigeon that tried attaching itself to Bill's face. They really liked Bill.

This guy here was my favorite geese of the day. He was the only patient son of a gun on the whole pond!

Look at the neck on this turkey.

This one melts my heart. Look how he tilts his little head like Lois..

Me and more swans.

I like this photo. You can see City Hall in the background. It's architecturally an amazing building.

This is me being honest.

Here I am with the large topographic map of Iceland.

Here is Bill on the other side of the topographic map pointing out an extremely remote populated area of the island.

This is a view of the pond at around 4:45 pm. It's just so beautiful.

Iceland, Birthday, Sugarcubes

2006-11-15T13:38:00.000-05:00

They all go hand in hand don't they? I'm not talking abou the hit single "birthday" but my actual birthday! Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, I'm 29! Holy shit I'm in iceland. and this Friday I'll get to see my favorite band play, the Sugarcubes! Thanks Sugarcubes!!! This will be the best birthday present ever! It's currently 13:38 and Bill's in the shower. I'm eating Skonsur, that's basically thick pancake in a bag that you can get for roughly a dollar at the Bonus discount Super Market on the main shopping street, Laugavgur. It's about 30 degrees outside and we got about 4 more hours of daylight if we are lucky. Our Couch Surfing hosts here in Reykjavik are Setta og Bjarni. og means and. They are two stylish scandinavians with a fantastic apt. right in the center of town. They have been so kind to let us stay for 6 whole nights. We even have our own room and we've purchased groceries that we've been cooking here as well, anything to save a kronur here. its $$$$$. Yeah Bill and I are real high flutin'. We only go to real high class joints on our Holidays. We got in a few days ago and since then we've mainly caught up on sleep, and ventured out with the daylight. Setta og Bjarni have invited us to IKEA later today so pictures should follow. It feels so great to be back in Iceland. I am so pissed I didn't get accepted to this program I had applied to back when I had a short stint at the University of Minnesota. Damned that Scandinavian Graduate student who got a full ride to the University of Iceland because he wanted to translate the Old Norse Language into Binary Code. I suppose the administrators found that to be more applicable over my eagerness to study fine arts here in Iceland. This is definielty a place I could live. To date, it is still my favorite place I've ever been. Here are some photos of our stay here thus far in Iceland:

Well this is some cockamamy statement. This graf is pro alcohol and anti-cannibas. Who finds the time for this?

After the Sugarcubes concert Friday night, I'll be here at Sirkus, with DJ Gus Gus! Yay!

Here I am hanging out with some troll wall art on the wall outside of the bar Sirkus.

Here is Bill with the same wall art.

More amazing colorful graffetti.

I'm gonna go find out how much this dress costs. I love it. I'm sure it would break my piggily wiggily bank

Is there a film I don't know about with Leo starring as Che Guevara? (cause I saw this in a store front last night)

These Dorrritos really amused us. They call Cool Ranch Flavor, "Cool American".

I didn't see Mods or Rockers in England. WTF?

2006-11-12T20:15:00.001-05:00

We arrived into dreary London the morning of Nov. 11th. We had no set agenda and we had our accommodations set with somebody we met through www.couchsurfing.com. John Wright was our couch surfing host and what a great host he was. We were staying in a south west suburb called Kingston which wasn't really a suburb but more like an outdoor shopping centre. It was also home to Kingston University. John was very welcoming, and gave us tips and ideas what to do with our short stay. John had another couch surfer staying with him, Santiago from Argentina. We hope to cross paths with the both of them again someday. Two day's isn't long in London, but our wallets couldn't handle much more so it was good to say good bye. (not that Iceland is any cheaper). The highlight of our trip was seeing Borat in Camden. Go see it if you haven't already and bring your loved ones too. We found it interesting that we laughed our asses off at times that the English audience had no reaction. The American's and the English are just on two totally different pages in the funny dept. Here are some of the things we saw:

Am I the only one in the dark here about this? Who knew that Patrick Swayze had a staring role in Guys and Dolls?

These kids ruled. Notice the boys jacket, that's right.. Fresno State Bulldogs. I had to say something. I asked the kid if he knew what he had on, and he replied with a no. I told him I was originally from Fresno and that it was a cowboy town in California with lots of raisins. The two of them were so stoked. I asked if I could take a photo and they cheerfully accepted.

For some reason I was really amused with the oversized bottom half of a punk rocker that was attached to the side of a building in Camden.

This was the most interesting street signage I came across on my travels.

Here is Bill crushing a Mini Cooper with his fingers.

Bill and The Mona Lisa in the Tubes.

Bill and the London Bridge Underground Sign. It's so hard not to take photos in the Underground. Their logo looks too good.

Traditional English Breakfast with John Wright our Couch Surfing Host.

The Tate Modern

Bill inside the Tate Modern

This guy had it going on. He was playing under a bridge along the Thames River next to the Tate Modern museum.

The Millennium Bridge and Swiss Re Building

I caught this moment of a man and his daughter assisting his construction of a rock tower formation they built along the river bank of The Thames. It was quite sweet.

My new car that I'm bringing home in my purse.

Here we are in front of a colorful public art piece under a bridge near The Cut

This is some sort of legal skating hotspot right along The Thames. Lots of kids. It reminded me of an English River version of Venice Beach.

A view of Big Ben from across The Thames River and me and Bill

The classic Telephone booth photo

Couch surfing with John Wright, and other couch surfer from Argentina, Santiago!

Meet Santiago...

So are the English offended by TJ maxx or is it that the Americans offended by TK maxx?

Burning bodies hanging from poles, I remember Halloween

2006-11-12T20:13:00.001-05:00

The Day family really understand the true meaning of Halloween. Bill's family has a tradition to outdo every house in their entire town by nature, not on purpose. They pick a new theme every year and do it 110% This year, Dragons and Wizards. Bill's dad dressed up as King Arthur, and built by hand a motion censored mechanical mechanism to move a 6 foot tall rubber dragon that Bill's mom constructed over the course of a month prior to the 31st. They add more tombstones to their graveyard this year, and included a smoke machine and a grim reaper. We heard more than one kid cry. The bonus for the kiddies is that they get a full sized candy bar once they get to the door. What is happening though to the young kids of today. We had to remind them over and over, "what do you say....?" Then they would let out a pathetic, "trick or treat" on a very low volume. Sadly I didn't have an award winning costume this year, but bill scrapped together something quick, but really only pulled it off with the help of our beloved John.

Bill's brother Bob and friends Tara, Jeremy and Kristen

Why hasn't anybody written a song about temping? We've all done it.

2006-11-12T20:13:00.000-05:00

Out temp jobs have been rather trying since we've been in NH. Not that we are incompetent people, but the jobs and people we have to work with were so boring and hard to deal with. The first temp gig was with a National Health Care provider, and Bill and I worked together, which was nice. We could have our lunches together, and we could drive Margaritaville to work and back. "Who is Margaritaville?", you ask... Oh that's the white Taurus that belongs to Bill's Uncle, you can tell because the it's covered in Buffett related stickers and the license plate reads "MGT8VL". He's a big Jimmy Buffet fan. Need I say more? He's been so kind to allow us to use his spare car. Thanks to him we have saved so much money since the Suburban is easily an $80 fill up. It seems as if most (if not all) office jobs in NH begin their day at 8:00 am with flexibility to arrive even earlier. These fools we worked with would came in at 6:00 am then make you feel lazy if you stroll in a few minutes past 8:00 am. I don't know about you, but where I come from in California, 8:00 is goddamn early. How is one supposed to be productive? So here I would come in a casual 10 minutes late, (no biggie right?) and holy shit, that gave the whole office something to gossip about all day long. It's just unreal how bored these people are.

My second job was with the NH lottery commission. The people I worked with there very nice and the job they had me do was tolerable. I was there for only two weeks but get this... You know how on the back of a scratch off there is usually an address to send your loser tickets to for a second chance drawing. Well, that's where I came in. Thanks to me, hundreds of losing lottery players in NH now get a second chance at wining a prize. My job was to credit their accounts accordingly. The things I learned about the lottery was that 1. You gotta play to win 2. You gotta pay to play and 3. Old people tend to win, cause they are the ones paying to play and playing to win. I really admire the people who play the lottery. I feel like I myself might become a full time lottery player. People do really win. You actually can win 1,000,000 from a scratch off ticket. I now know this, cause I saw it happen. Some players were inclined to send along their own thoughts and drawings with their entries. I couldn't resist a few photos. I found these to be very endearing...

Driving the 95 - Our 3rd move in 1 year

2006-11-12T18:46:00.000-05:00

It's been a month and a half since I updated this thing. I'm about to tell you of course all about just how busy I've actually been. I'll have you know that Bill and I aren't sitting around like loaves of trailer trash. We've certainly been up to quite a bit, and are having a great time even though we want to throw an occasional dish.

First, the plans to move to GA are 100% and we will leave NH Thanksgiving night with a plate of leftovers in the fridge to last us down the 95. We will first start in Woburn, Mass with Bill's fam, then down to New Bedford to get more leftovers from my family, then picking up the 95 and heading South.

Day 1: will be in Philadelphia That night, (providing we arrange a place to park) on Nov. 24.

Day 2: Sat. Morning we leave Philly midday and arrive into Kilmarnock, VA (near Chesapeake Bay) and stay with my Grandma's Sister and her daughter.

Day 3-5: Sunday afternoon we plan to arrive in Midlothian, VA and will stay parked in front of Michelle and Chris' house for 3 nights - Happy Birthday Chris!!

Day 6-7: We leave Richmond the crackass of dawn and head onward to Fayetteville, NC and visit with Jessica Abbott! We'll be with her for 2 days

Day 8: We arrive into Talking Rock, GA on Dec. 1st to live on the Riseland Llama Farm.

The Airstream could be further along, but we soon will have more free time in GA than we've had in NH. Not to mention it's been raining every weekend, and it's super nippy outside. Not conducive for working in an aluminum shell. Once we get back from our vacation in London/Iceland we'll have a few days to tie up loose ends, not work shitty temp jobs and we'll see what last minute things we can get accomplished in trailer land.

Here are some photos of the airstream in progress:

Sugarcubes, Matching Bikes and Pastel Water Towers

2006-09-26T14:35:00.000-04:00

The last few weeks have been rather exciting for us. After being here in Merrimack feeling stuck, we now have an idea as to when we will leave NH, and we've planned a little getaway as our last chance to take off to another country before we are bound to the silver trailer for an extended amount of time. I had received an email from Icelandair.com informing me of off season low rates as well as packages specially priced for those wishing to attend the Sugarcubes reunion concert being held Nov. 17th in Reykjavik, Iceland...Whaa??? Yeah, so after I was done having my heart attack I got Bill in the room with me, and showed him the email and that next morning we got ourselves tickets! Yeah! It's 10 years exactly since my last visit to Iceland. That was my first trip ever out of the United States. That trip changed my life. Naturally, I am due to renew my passport, and I find that having to renew my passport for a trip to Iceland is only appropriate considering that's reason why I got one in the first place. Another strange thing, is that when I went in '96 I flew out of Boston, hmmmm.

You can read more about this show, and if you want to get a ticket too. click below. It priced out to be cheaper for us with a RT to London instead of direct to Iceland, so we will be in London for 2 days (Nov. 11-13) before arriving in Iceland (Nov. 13-19). This will be the best birthday ever!

www.smekkleysa.net

www.icelandair.com

www.quik-auctions.com/iceland/fws2003/pkg/index2.asp?package=276

The Airstream "Ferlin" is still gutted and being worked on. Today we replaced some of the lights, and I drew out the plans for the new dining room area. We plan on having an area for the animals, and a platform which can double as an extra bed or a seating area which is covered with pillows and can still be used for an eating area. "Ferlin" the airstream is parked in Bill's parents yard, where we have access to his Dad's tools, and an electrical hook up while we test out our connections. Here is our most recent photo of the trailer.

We have been on a search for some good bicycles to take with us on our airstream adventure (one more thing done, on our long list of to-do's) and we came across a guy on Craigslist in Derry, NH who restores old banana seat bikes and sells them at banana seat bike fairs. He happened to have a few older bikes, (pre-banana seat) and we went by to check them out, and ended up bringing the matching pair home with us. Mine has a name plate attached to the frame which reads "Donald" so naturally we named the other one "Rumsfeld". They are beautiful, and we can't wait to ride them. They will compliment the Suburban and Airstream perfectly!

We are happy to announce our first plan of action with living on the road with the Airstream. We are tentatively planning to live in Talking Rock, Georgia with an anticipated arrival date of Dec. 1st. We have been sorting out the details with a lovely couple who own the Riseland Llama Farm. They are looking for two farmhands to help out with the opening of the farm two days a week and general llama farm maintenance. Our work week will consist of 10 hours a week, and in exchange we get free hook ups and a free and safe place to park Ferlin. Talking Rock is a small town of 49 people located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, an hour north of Atlanta, and just south of Chattanooga, TN and close driving distance to Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham, AL, South Carolina, and more. What we find most appealing is that we can take extended periods of time off, The location is very central to the Southern states and we can work part time jobs to cover our asses. Um, not to mention we get to play with llamas. Nothing will be finalized until early Nov. so there is that possibility the farm could change their mind on us, but from our end, we are very excited about this plan. Our commitment would be approximately 1 year to the llamas. We are planning on staying here in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving and later that night we plan on setting out for the South. We will give ourselves one week to get to Talking Rock with stops in Pittsburgh, PA and Richmond, VA along the way.

www.riselandllamafarm.com

I've been driving around Manchester, NH trying to keep myself occupied while Bill is working. Unfortunately my job doesn't begin until my background check is completed, which is taking a while. They are aggressively blaming the hold up on the fact that "you've lived in so many counties, so it's just taking a while". So, I take photos of pastel colored water towers, which I find to be beautiful, but really are no match to the landscape of Mill Town Manchester. Also known as Manch Vegas to the locals. Why they call it that is beyond me, but I'll try to get to the bottom of it.

This past weekend we went down to Boston to visit with Jeff Alulis and his band the Dead Kennedy's. They did a show at this bar called Axis right across the street from Fenway Stadium. It is in a rather "Strip" like part of town, with lots of flashy themed bars. Here I am with Jeff, always nice seeing old friends away from home. By the way, these days I refer to "home" as Los Angeles.

One bar in particular really knocked our red socks off. HA! I fucking hate the red socks.. anyways.. It's next door to Axis and it's called Jake Ivory's Rock and Roll Piano Bar. Everybody was trashed, there are two dueling pianos that played the hits non-stop. This place was awesome in a strange kind of way. Here is a clip of one guy playing rock and roll piano in the style of The Darkness.

www.jakeivorys.com

One of our favorite social hours thus far living in New England has been our night spent with Bill's Grandma, Clara Day. She's 85, as sharp as one of Bill's brother's swords and provides plenty of good conversation. She has the ladies over twice a week for Dominos, so we got her to teach us how to play Mexican Train style. We are hooked. I always wanted to learn, now we have this gained skill to take on the road to challenge the old timers we meet along the way.

Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour, Waterbury, Vermont

2006-09-11T11:06:00.000-04:00

We made it! After several visits to New Hampshire over the years and much talk about when we would make it to the Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour, we did the two hour drive to Waterbury, VT and decided to visit. I was a bit disappointed to be honest. Your $3 gets you a 20 minute tour. For 6.5 minutes you watch a video. Here is a sneak peak of the video.

Then you go into the factory room and watch a small handful of factory workers do their thing on two lines. The most exciting part is the machine that flips the pints over since they are top heavy then are easier to pack then. Of course they wouldn't let you take photos of the cool stuff.

Then they get you into this room that feels like a typical Ben & Jerry's store and they give you a sample scoop of a predetermined flavor. Which I thought was entirely bogus. I have had dreams of being at the Ben & Jerry's factory and having the opportunity to try a bunch of new flavors that no one else had. Well they make it seem like that, but then a dude comes out with a tray with their new apple pie flavor. Which is good. But not like what I see in my dreams. Here is a guy showing our group what pints have been introduced for 2006.

The best part of the tour is the flavorgraveyard. Its over and around the hill from the factory in a little field and it's an actual graveyard with tomb stones of all the retired flavors. Some people had left flowers I noticed, or the factory workers put them there for dramatic effect.

Here is bill cow tipping a trash can

This is the factory

This is the Main Entrance

Our adventure begins in New Hampshire!

2006-09-09T18:19:00.000-04:00

We have been in New Hampshire for 5 days now. We got a late start of our New York, late Sunday night last week. We arrived into New Bedford, Mass at my sister Kathy's place unloaded the last of our storage and got into Merrimack Late Tuesday night. It was maybe one of the most difficult moves I have ever endured. Emotionally it was rough, as well as physically. This whole project of ours has been done on such a short time frame with so many tight time frames, we are both feeling entirely hosed.

The last five days have been spent organizing ourselves into the small spare bedroom in Bill's parents house. Getting John the bunny and Lois adjusted (they have two orange cat roommates now - who happen to be freakishly tall felines) and trying to land jobs. Bill got himself a temp gig starting Monday, and I am still searching. I have my heart set on a creative position at Target Dept. Store, Yes I said Target. I have my fingers crossed I get to wear a red shirt everyday and make signs and set up displays. Sounds like fun and a stress free commute and I would get to work with a bunch of hokey New Hampshire folk, how bad could it be right? If they'll pay me at least decently, I'll take it.

I've reconnected with an old pal from my Minneapolis college days, Krista Olsen. She was roommates with my dear friend Scooter. Bill and I met up with her and her man Dan last night for Happy Hour, and we got our first taste of night life in Manchester, NH. Yay for nearby friends!

Remembering somebody very special to me.

2006-09-09T17:55:00.000-04:00

Steph was a very important person to me. She was such a good friend and I loved her very much. Steph was a close friend that I looked up to, and always looked to her for advice and her opinion. She had such a strong voice and presence. She was a one of a kind, and she stood by her guns. So very admirable. It was her strong will that helped me get through some rough patches in my life. She changed how I see a lot of things, and I have her to thank. The world will not be the same place without Steph Perry. I will think about her every day and I miss her so very much. I am so very grateful that I moved to New York when I did and was able to spend time with her. It had been many years since we lived near one another and could spend time together on a consistent basis.

My time came to a close in New York, only after a short 7 months. I believe a big reason why fate lead me to NYC, was because I was meant to give back to Steph support and be able to see her and love her and care for her in person once again. It meant everything in the world to me that I could be there for her when she was feeling pain and sadness. I felt honored to be her good friend and to make her laugh and share sarcasm, stories and even the occasional gossip with her. I have so much in my heart to remember her by. I can always hear her voice and I will always listen to it.

It's been seven long days, and I must say it hasn't gotten any easier. The move has made my grieving process a bit more complicated. I look forward to when we finally make it on the road. I dedicate my adventure entirely to Steph Perry. I know she would of been there cheering me on during our travels. She would of followed my travels, met me along the way, she would of called me when she could detect something wasn't right. She would tell me she loved me when a challenge was up ahead.

I love you Steph and I miss you so much already.
xoxoxo,
Kelly

In loving memory, Stephanie Perry, 1976-2006

"When the trailer's a rockin..."

2006-09-03T00:43:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everybody who came to our going away (aka retirement) party. Thanks for giving all our favorite possessions a good home, and thanks for being such great friends. We will miss all of you! Here are some photos!

Saying Goodbye...Going Away..

2006-08-29T11:07:00.000-04:00

We are having a dance party at our place Saturday, Sept. 2nd at 9:00 pm. Its our last chance to say bye to all our friends all at once here in NYC. Please click this evite link for details.

Things have been just hectic as hell around here this week. There is always so much more packing to do then you ever anticipate. I'm just glad we don't have a plane to catch. I thought half this shit was tossed last January when we moved from Los Angeles. It's been raining, and we are feeling hosed. Between all our back and forth trips to New England, the packing, looking for temporary work, sorting out random details, = stress, we are over it. Ready for the next thing. We have both been temping in our final week, (lucky for Bill he gets to go to a Publication mega giant while I'm stuck in Life Insurance). Why couldn't we of worked last week? Oh!, and not to mention cleaning, painting, and of course saying bye to friends. This Saturday all that has to be done, so that night we can let our hair down and enjoy a good time. Sunday morning, September 3rd we are loading up the Suburban and off we drive off to New England with the animals.

New York City, one week to go, perhaps..

2006-08-24T01:06:00.000-04:00

Bill and I are READY for our Full-Timing RVing adventure, It's important the airstream remains STEADY while being pulled or we can have an accident and kill somebody. So we have been learning all about Sway Control, Receiving hitches, Weight distribution hitches, real nerdy old timer RV type of stuff, and then we will be in full TOW, (which will be a good portion of our time), hauling approximately 5,500 lbs once we are all packed up. Hence the name of our internets onlines bloggersphere web site. I hate the word blog. Why are we all forced to use it?

Bill and I will be adding to this blog periodically so you can all sleep at night and know where we are headed, sleeping, working and temporarily planting our pink flamingos. You will hear all about how our 28 year old tin can of a house with wheels "Ferlin" keeps us dry (or not) at night, random updates and how much gas money gets put into "Husky" the suburban gas whore. Oh, and of course The fabulous adventures of Lois and John as we travel across the US and cross borders.

As of now we are still here in Brooklyn, NY packing boxes for storage, for the airstream and Goodwill. It looks as if we'll be heading up to New Hampshire where the airstream is currently being stored and worked on at the beginning of Sept. or soon after. We started the renovation already and are having so much fun with it. It feels so good to tear out carpet, and couches and excessive wood paneling. It had a camper musty smell and we've take care of that for the most part. Thanks to Sean we have an architect looking at our blueprints, helping us with a more suitable interior floor plan.