Outside of Nashville are suburbs; beyond those is Cotton Town. This is a proto-suburb, forming from the replacement of farmland with track homes. Currently, it’s the best of both worlds: wide open spaces, livestock, clean air, neighbors, and stores not to far away. Unfortunately, those stores are the same you’d find anywhere else. And to see another beautiful field paved over for a Best Buy is a little sad. Most of the time was spent at J.’s family’s house. Her two young cousins demanded near constant attention and stimulation. The toddler was adorable, but also prone to digging through and scattering anything within two feet from the floor.

It was a relaxing time, full of play, meat, and head colds. Games played: pool, spades, Catan, Pictionary, Taboo, washer toss, RC airplanes. Instruments played: guitar, piano, toy piano. Food eaten: beef, bacon, eggs, french toast, rolls, pancakes, chicken sandwiches, cereal, cornbread, cole slaw, BBQ, fudge, ice cream, steam cake, soda, water, coffee, minimal salad and vegetables.

A few photos:

The horizon seen near a trailhead and cemetery in the neighboring town of White House.

A. in the go-kart.

The ruins of Johnny Cash’s house by the lake. It burned down in a ring of fire.

Donkeys seen from the 4 mile greenbelt hike J. and I took.

A shot of numerous fossils exposed in a stone riverbed.

Pink berries.

Lake near J.’s childhood neighborhood.

The toddler’s breakfast. Snap is up to something though, and I don’t like it one bit.

The roast with the most.

This game called washer toss was built by a relative. It is a cross between a carnival game and horseshoes. The player tries to score by throwing large washers into holes of different point values. The first to twenty wins. Note: I sucked at this game.

A few of J.’s relatives playing with an electric airplane.

My little RC airplane. Small, but fast. It took a few bad crashes in the beginning, bending the prop. It also had the tendency to land on roofs. Two flights were epic however. One got hundreds of feet into the air for minutes before getting out of range and crashing within a foot of the road. Another flight caught a strong tail wind and ended up down the block and across a field, crashing next to a herd of cows. They looked at me with confusion as I climbed the fence to retrieve the wreck. Watch out Portland skies, the Baron is in town.

J.’s father and uncle watching over the air show.

We were in the air for New Year’s because of a delay at the Dallas airport. There was no Champagne. I am sick of planes. There are no resolutions. I am happy.

I’m heading home from Chicago tonight on an aging United 737. I’ll keep this brief: Sam Reimi dropped the ball on Spiderman 3. It’s pretty horrible in general, especially in many lines of dialogue that seem so out of place as to be laughable. The villains are weird in the wrongs ways, the action is relentless, and the tone shifts schizophrenically. The director tries too hard to manufacture emotional moments, and takes the lazy route of having the characters speak to each other in themes. Even worse, he’s just taking things too seriously.

The trip to Chicago was only for two days, but it felt much longer. A large group of people from work came out to present creative and media strategies to the client who’s headquartered there. I had never been to Chicago before, and overall it feels like a cross between Dallas and New York. Dallas because of the heat and laid back feeling for an urban area, the latter because of it’s size, variety, history and sense if purpose. I chewed neither hot dog nor deep dish pizza, but I consumed enough other delicious food to weave an eternal golden braid. The hotel was nice, the people were nice, the presentation went well. It was refreshing to see the inner working of a new company, seeing how it differs from my own. The office towers may have been full of boring cubicles, but most of the people we met belied their surroundings. Working in a fancy pants ad agency, I kind of buy into us being weirder or more interesting than the average work environment. But it’s not as true as everyone thinks. Within every organization I’ve been there’s always a variety of people: brain dead bores, rebels, weirdos, talkers, sad sacks, leaders, story tellers, mystics. The ratios and extremes may vary from place to place, but people will be people. As much chest thumping and Koolade drinking as a company does, its still just a company. And if we accept that we are all sort of lame for prostituting our time, I think we could start taking a more balanced view of work.

A business trip is like being a kid again. Mommy corporation is giving you a place to stay, food, a reason to travel. All you have to do in return is love it back, or at least not bite the teat too much. But Mommy also spoils her babies. They start to expect all these luxuries on a trip, they begin to feel entitled to them. In complaining about little inconveniences or meals not served right, they are losing a sense of humility. To be given free food and fancy places to sleep means you’re fortunate. And if you lose the ability to appreciate it, what does all the finery mean?

I guess this is a roundabout way of telling you I feel fortunate. And that I want to go back and watch me some cable tvs while eating candy in a bathrobe.

Here are some photos, starting with a few from Portland before the trip:

Pouring cement on an expansion to the lightrail track.

People playing extreme croquet in the Park Blocks. Dressed in costume, they substituted the traditional equipment for bowling balls, sledgehammers, and rebar wickets.

Me throwing a soccer ball with my feet. This was the end to an afternoon of frisbee, ball kicking, and a hybrid game that involved both. To play, I had to throw the soccer ball in the air while a frisbee was being thrown to me, then catch both. I called this a DOUBLE. Later in soccer, I patented a ball stopping move called THE BUTT BLOCK.

Now in Chicago. A tunnel under Lakeshore Drive to the lake.

Part of the city at night as seen from the lake.

Mysterious door.

Beautiful old buildings along the Chicago River.

Under the L-train tracks.

Massive old building.

The corn shaped building on the Wilco album cover.

A serious meeting moment.

Garbage on snack table.

What ever happened to her, I wondered at lunch.

I want to go back for a longer stay.

Looking around at the slobbering and hunched passengers on this vessel, I am filled with intense jealousy. I wish I could sleep on planes. But when my mind isn’t occupied by anything, it tends to get worked up over the truth at hand: I’m miles in the sky, flying over open ocean halfway between nowhere…in the dark. And they are playing the movie “Bridge Over Tarabithia.” More like “Bridge Overly Boring Piece of Bullhshitia,” in my opinion. I had hope for this movie until the boy protagonist began talking to other people in a way penned by an overly sensitive and educated screen writer that eats too much Ben & Jerry’s. I can be harsh because the same criticism applies to my only children’s book manuscript. The whole thing comes off as an exercise in how mature a story I can create for children, when the dialogue just seems false. And if the reality of the story fails, then the fantasy aspects will fail even harder. Because when the shit hits the fan, it’s not a boy overcoming hardship; it’s just a character.

Kauai was everything I hoped it to be, as well as everything I feared. On one island are fish-filled waters as clear as a swimming pool, miles of clean beaches, verdant high-walled canyons and waterfalls, more green and flowers than seem possible in any given spot, tropical fruits littering the road, friendly locals. Trouble in paradise: tourists and tourist shops, bad restaurants, prices. The prices are understandable considering that the island is dependent on importing almost everything. And although I’m a tourist, I resent masses of tourists because of the generic business they support. And yes there are ugly condos and a few resorts on the island, but I understand them. I would want to live there too. But all of the fineries and unauthentic elements stick out dramatically. It’s just not the kind of island for order and progress; it’s too wild for that.

The island seems like another country. The locals are like a mix between a cowboy and a parent. The transplants are a crusty mix of a surfer and dreamer. Everyone is just a little more flexible and relaxed about things. If an old car dies, why not just leave it to rust on a little traveled dirt road? To lazy to mess with processing credit cards? Just take cash in advance for a room. There are obviously a lot of guavas on the trees. Take whatever you want, we just sell the rest to Ocean Spray. We ran out of compact cars, why don’t you just take one of the convertibles over there? Well, these chickens are kind of cute; we might as well let them run wild all over the island. Do we need to sign out this snorkel gear? Nope, and keep it as long as you want.

It’s an attitude that I’m grateful for and terrified by.

Rather than get long winded about the week, I’ll let the following clump of photos do most of the talking. They are in chronological order.

Close to landing at Lihue airport. A tanker ship and tug heading out to sea.

Palm trees at sunset at Waipouli Beach in Kapa’a.

The street our first hotel is off off in Kalaheo.

Bananas growing outside the hotel with J. in the background.

The back of a derelict plant store in Kalaheo.

Waimea Canyon in its permanent overcast state. It’s a visual mix of the Grand Canyon and a jungle.

The view from Pu’u o Kila lookout point towards the Na Pali coast and ocean.

J. at the lookout.

Fern.

Flower.

Two of the many roosters and chickens that run wild all over the island. Their only predator is the car, and its squash attack can be seen every couple of miles. These roosters were prancing around at one of the lookouts in Waimea Canyon.

Our sweet ride, a free upgrade to a convertible. Other than a 4-wheel drive jeep, there’s no better way to experience the island on wheels (except maybe scooter).

One of many scrapped cars hidden to rust in the brush. The salty air makes short work of any metal.

Hilarious markings on an abandoned car.

Donkey at the beach in Waimea.

A delicious dinner made with tuna poke and vegetable. Poke is a mix of raw fish and other seasonings, in this case green onion, seaweed, ginger, garlic, and soy. It’s not supposed to be cooked, but we did just to be safe. Eventually we ate some raw from a takeout counter. Good stuff, like flavor-blasted sashimi.

Abandoned sugar mill in Waimea.

Milling equipment.

Art Deco feeling market.

Mango tree dripping with unreachable mangos. Fortunately, mangos are growing all over the island at the side of the road, falling and getting crushed under cars and picked on by chickens. We’ve eaten some amazing mangos from the dirt so far, especially they taste sweeter when accompanied by a beautiful view next to the tree.

Empty sugar can field with exposed red soil and the ocean in the background.

J. swimming in the clear water of Polihale State Park. To get their, we had to drive down a 3 mile dirt road that was so bumpy we had to keep the car cruising at about 5 MPH. Locals lucky enough to have 4 wheelers, could make the trip quickly and with gusto, driving right up to the water over the sand dunes and getting their tail gate on.

Me with the edge of the Na Pali cliffs in the background.

Green coffee beans on the bush.

One view of the 5 thousand acres of coffee growing in the Kauai Coffee Plantation.

Cows on the south shore.

Vista overlooking an ancient Menehune fish pond.

A commemorate marker covered in ivy.

J. in a field of grass behind Wailua Falls.

Me in some grass.

One of many dried frogs you find stuck to the roads.

J. in the vines.

Kilauea Lighthouse.

View west from a 3 mile hike in the hills near Wailua Falls.

Me kissing my nuts.

See the full post with photos right here.