KFC to go

Offsite was in Brasada Ranch, fairly close to Bend, OR. Bend has a MADabolic, so I had to stay for a week. Competing theory: I didn't know Bend has a MAD and just hung out there cause it's a cool town with a cool venue that hosted a cool band that doesn't know how to capitalize (LaMP). Got those Asheville vibes but a thousand or two miles away: small-ish, lots of personality, great music and art scene, breweries, hiking and pretty landscapes... all the classics--plus incredibly cheap cannabis, to a degree that seems like it should be illegal (says the narc in me).

I tried hiking in the snow. The snow tried to swallow my foot. I said "nah." It said "snow." A little Groot-like, which is not a negative. Still, it was enough to convince me that the PNW wasn't quite the place for warmth, not to mention that I hadn't winterized my van, which came back to haunt me a few months later, but nothing my friends at Van City in Vegas couldn't fix (more on that when I write about it in 8 years). I drove up to Portland to say hi(gh) to Dove (human friend, I swear), attend another sonic light show by LaMP, and hang out for a few days, but then turned the ship around in hopes of finding warmer weather and snowless hiking in CA.

Redding, CA ended up being the next stop 'cause, as I alluded to, I'm a sucker for hiking on dry land, especially sunrise hiking. It was also true to its name with fall colors. Aside from that, there's not a whole lot to say for Redding, but you know, maybe that's an opportunity, and I should open a MADabolic there. For the timing when I was there, it was a great jumping off point for starting a JRAD chase scene, though.

Sacramento, Oakland, and LA. These are all cities in California graced by JRAD's beautiful cacophony of Grateful sounds. Every other city should cry and stare in the mirror to search their soul for some inkling of understanding of how they didn't make the list when Sacramento did. This groupie stint was a bit last-minute and entirely worth it. One of the beauties of van life. In LA, I had the pleasure of attending their show at the Greek (first time there), co-working with Adrian at a bungalow (maybe the coolest co-working space I've visited so far), and catching just a little more fall colors in San Bernardino National Forest.

After the chase scene, I ended up in San Diego, which I made my home for the next few weeks. It's a seriously magical, basically perfect place--aside from minor issues like cost of living and a homelessness situation with room for improvement. More wonderful things to say about it in the next post...

I love Montana. There, I said it. Now the ensuing words of endearment won't be charged--if we pretend there's a long-term relationship behind them. In the same manner a comedian makes an attempt at being redeeming right before they take a shit on someone/something.

Anyway, Montana and I are fixing to get married. To be clear, the state of Montana and I are hitching our wagons. Not the individuals living in Montana. The state. I'll let you know what that means when you're older, and you're technically older now so the explanation is that I don't know, I felt like being a little weird, and I'm too lazy to _ so my thoughts will not take the form of some facade of retroactive life explanations. It's good to self-reflect. That doesn't mean your conclusions are right. Still a good thing to do, though.

I got to Montana around September 17. The drive through Wyoming was mostly nighttime with lightning strikes, so pretty cool if you're into that, which I am, so I thought it was pretty cool.

I caught more Umphrey's in Bozeman, which was where I hung out the most out of an unfortunately short period of time--to be corrected in 2026.

Also flew to Atlanta to see family for Rosh Hashanah. Happened to be in town at the same time as Goose, so I dragged a couple of friends to the show. Good sports.

Anyway, Montana is stunning, which i came to appreciate via hiking around Bozeman and then confirmed 10-fold while driving to Missoula. All of that--without even getting close to Glacier--leads me to believe that Montana is my future home (while I'm there in a van this summer).

this time just photos and videos cause I'm getting even lazier

Continuation of last post's highlights and photo dump

Buena Vista (pronounced "BV"): S/O Fortitude Fitness for being my gym/shower place for the week, S/O Mt. Yale for being my first 14er and extra S/O to the unintended death defying rock walk when I went off trail and some poor soul thought it'd be a good idea to follow me near the summit

Boulder and Lyons (definitely not pronounced "Lee-yonz", thanks for setting me straight Salihah)

The incredible JRAD at the lovely Vail and gorgeous Dillon

Colorado Springs: Garden of Gods S/O moose I scared (in my defense, he scared me, too), new PRs at Pikes Peak (S/O clouds for obscuring views, S/O slowest last mile to the peak ever)

Denver: art! James!

Most of the DeCaLiBron with Karlyn + BF, cameo by James + doggo

Longs Peak 🙃

Denver: Papadosio show, first Rover with Colby & Big O (Oden)

Fort Collins: Kendall Street Company, chill hangout before UM at the Mish

Spending time with co-workers in SF and sleeping in a hotel room without wheels was rejuvenating, even if the the classic ship-a-thon hours didn't permit the mostest sleep. It also just so happened that Dead & Co. was doing a run of shows at Golden Gate Park to mark 60 years of the Grateful Dead during the weekend tailing the ship-a-thon. I was fortunate enough to catch a Grahame Lesh & Friends show on Saturday night and the final finale on Sunday--my first D&C show and their very last (RIP Bobby).

I stuck around the Bay area for a couple more days the following week. did some laundry. got some maintenance work done on the van at a Big O. hit up yet another MADabolic gym. all the essentials. I then took a few days off 'cause I was jonesing on getting to Colorado quickly to take advantage of my hard-earned hiking legs. From SF, I drove up through Lake Tahoe--missed a turn and decided to see if the van can do a proper duck tour (it cannot but at least I can say it got a solid rinse)--and across Nevada on the "Loneliest Road in America." Great Basin National Park was basically on the way, so I decided to take a stab at Wheeler Peak, and after a few shanks accompanied by absurd winds, loads of rocks, and a family of deer that could not care less about some humans, I made my way to the tipy-top of Nevada, crossing off my first 13er. Can't say I was properly prepared, but I made it nonetheless.

From Great Basin, it was a hop, skip, and 5-hour drive across Utah to get to Arches National Park, where I got to spend more time with some southwest rocks and their whacky arrangements. Even got to hang out and read next to a Dark Angel.

Very fittingly, Arches is practically a gateway to Grand Junction, Colorado. I spent the next several weeks hiking around the state and going to concerts, mostly around the center line. Which brings me to the question of what can I say about Colorado? A lot. Can I do so eloquently? Maybe if I try hard enough and ask ChatGPT. Will I try? Naaaaaah. Suffice it to say that even with it being the "place"--a crude grouping for a state so jam packed with natural beauty, culture, and events--in which I spent the most time during my travels so far, I saw and experienced but a fraction of what Colorado has to offer... Sooooo here's the first part of some highlights followed by the first part of a photo dump (Tumblr says I'm overstepping with the number of photos):

Smoky hike in Grand Junction (and I didn't even contribute this time)

Last second detour to see SCI in Vail

Very friendly (read "shoe chewing") critters at White River National Forest

One of my favorite parts of doing this blog is that I'm so far behind, that by the time I get to write about a place I visited, it's been a few months. (It's currently January 2026, and I'm in St. Pete, FL, but I'm writing about visiting California at the end of July 2025.) Given the time passage and my atrocious memory, one of the ways I conjure experiences of the past out of my frail noggin is by looking at photos I took at the time about which I'm writing. Today's version involves looking at photos of Yosemite, so the smiles are extra wide and the warm fuzzy feelings inside are extra cozy. It's like I'm wrapped in a blanket sitting by a fire, and I'm so relaxed that I'm not even noticing the fire is expanding and burning down the house.

I got to Lee Vining, a tiny town right outside of Yosemite, the same night of my ill-fated hike near Vegas. Although my feet were in bad shape, I was absolutely giddy. The next morning, even just the drive into Yosemite through Tioga Pass was already jaw dropping. I drove through the park for about an hour to get to Hetch Hetchy and then spent another hour figuring out how to get my banged up feet into a pair of shoes without crying. The winning combo was my low cut Astrals. Putting my new insoles--same ones that were a big contributor to the back of my feet's demise--inside the Astrals lifted my feet just enough to avoid friction with the no-no region. Between that, 7 pairs of socks, and mountains of bandaids, I was able to protect my walkers enough to get moving. It wasn't particularly pain-free, but I wasn't about to miss hiking in Yosemite. And Hetch Hetchy did not disappoint. Plus, it's just a fun name to have a reason to say over and over.

On the second day of Christmas/Yosemite, I kept it relatively light, as I was trying to save some pain and leg endurance for the finale (I was only in Yosemite for 3 days this time). So I did a brief recon mission of the next day's outing with a hike to Mt. Watkins, which has direct views of Half Dome.

I then drove through the park and settled for the night near the Yosemite Valley entrance. I got there with plenty of time to warm my bones with inhaled pyrotechnics, including but not limited to the crazy light show in the sky.

The next morning, I woke up extra early with a grin that barely left my face the rest of the day. It was finally time to take on the hike I'd been manifesting for years. Half Dome absolutely lived up to the hype and scared the crap out of me. My poor legs were no match for the adrenaline of the day, even if it took an hour to prep myself physically and mentally once I got to the parking area, which wasn't at the trailhead and added a couple of miles to the excursion. Despite that, it was all magic. The hike's actual trailhead started with an almost immediate "fuck you" as I made it up the steep climb to Vernal Falls. The sun slowly rose over the valley as my heart pumped from the ascent and nature's majesty. By 7:30, I was feeling the force that is Nevada Falls. From there, it was a completely misleading flat section that ended with a bunch of rough, rocky switchbacks that eventually landed me at the base of Sub Dome. That's when the angles and exposure started getting extra wonky.

As I was climbing Sub Dome and enjoying the occasional, relatively flat section, I could see the infamous cables that present the only avenue for defeating the final boss in the distance. I kept telling myself there's no way the angle is really that bad, that the incline is really that severe.

By the time I got to the base of Half Dome itself, where the cables start, I realized I was absolutely right. The angle was even worse than I expected. I stared at it in a spell of disbelief for a couple of minutes, and then gathered just enough motivation from my stupid ego telling me there's no chance I was gonna get this far and not at least try the cables.

About halfway up the dome (Quarter Dome if you will), I hated myself for making this horrible decision. And to think: I actually entered my name into a lottery and crossed my fingers for 3 months to have the privilege to risk my life in this completely unnecessary way. My fear of heights was kicking in on full blast. The one or two poles that weren't fully secured in place were mindfucks--but then again, how is anyone meant to fix them? How the hell did anyone even install these cables in the first place?! I assume aliens from space did it while they were in the neighborhood to build the pyramids in Egypt.

In my head--I wanted to be considerate of the other hikers and their internal yelling--I was vehemently, passionately questioning how I could be so stupid as to think this is a good idea, never mind an activity I would enjoy. Even my shoes were trying to leave, i.e. slipping off of my feet due to the lovely combination of the insane angle, extra socks, and the shoes' low cut.

But I was already halfway there and the idea of turning around was somehow scarier, so I kept tearing up my gloves as I held on to the cables for dear life. Eventually, the angle got a little less crazy, graduating from solitary confinement to group activities with the other well-behaved, out-of-their-minds patients. By some miracle, I made it to the top.

While taking my time appreciating the views, I made a couple of friends. Camaraderie is a lot easier when you just shared a near-death experience. (Fiiine, I'm being a little dramatic.) We made our way back down as a group. Somehow, facing the rock and climbing backwards made the reverse journey significantly less scary, except for those moments where others were passing by going in the opposite direction. I hugged more poles and cables that day than I care to admit. And then I saw kids going up without gloves or a harness or any sort of safety mechanism. I'm not even sure their adult was with them. Little showoffs.

One of my new hiking buddies and I started booking it in an effort to get to the sweet valley floor ASAP. We were probably 4-5 miles away when he suggested we take a totally legit shortcut. It turned out that the pass was blocked for reasons unknown (the ranger really wasn't in a talkative mood). Fortunately for us, that meant our shortcut turned into extra steps. Woo! I ran out of water. Yay! My phone died so I couldn't tell how to navigate back to the path we needed to take. Whoopee! We made it back. Boooo!

There once was a sillily optimistic man who thought that 2 weeks in Prescott, AZ, is surely enough to resolve the yet undiagnosed fix he needed to his van (alternator not charging the house batteries cause it turns out you still need wires). That man's silly optimism rewarded him with a lesson: don't be so quick to send your mail to St. George, Utah.

...

So I found myself in St. George, Utah. Very cool place. Close to Zion National Park. If I think about it real hard and swallow the bitter pill of missing out, the idea was that I'd stop there to pick up mail and reconnect with humanity between outings to Zion. Instead, I settled for a couple of other hikes closer by--Snow Canyon State Park is very cool btw--as I needed to head to Las Vegas to finish the job Prescott flicked me off about with a proper Nelson "HAHA!"

Still, the weekend in St. George was cool. Except for that increasingly louder rattling noise whenever I drove. It's definitely the interior cushioning on the sliding door just coming loose with the drive, right? For sure. Fixed it with glue. BOOM.

Didn't work. Turns out there was a different problem. I found out in a very exciting way: While driving down the highway at 70+ mph going to Vegas from St. George, my rear, passenger-side tire did this gnarly trick where it basically blew up. I was fortunate enough to be right by a truck pull-off off on side of the highway and steered my careening vessel there while yelping like Yosemite Sam. Cherry on top of the clown cake: turns out, I don't have a spare, so I got to spend the next 4 hours waiting by the side of the road for emergency tire repair to show up, rip off what remained of the rubber I used to call a tire (Teddy was his name 😢), and overcharge me for a new tire (Theodore is his name). But hey, new tire!

I then proceeded to drive to Vegas. I probably should've called it enough excitement for a day and slept by the side of the road, but I had already reserved a hotel room previously. In my defense, "tire explosion" wasn't on my to-do list when I booked. By some miracle, I made it to Vegas alive.

The point of the Vegas trip was to get that pesky electrical system working again. George and the good folks at Van City RV were the heroes I needed. Best van shop experience so far, and it's not even close. I still call them sometimes to catch up, i.e.--spoiler alert!--talk to them about van issues that have cropped up since then, as this was 6 months ago and KFC has been a needy 5-year-old. Other Vegas highlights included staying at the hotel, working, buying new Hokas, and staying firmly away from the Stip (see: "working"). At least I'll be back soon (i.e. March 2026), likely before I even catch this blog up to the end of my time in Colorado 😬.

At the end of the week in Vegas, I had a functional house, which was very comforting as I was headed straight to Yosemite for the long-awaited visit, including the bucket list hike of Half Dome. However, the functional house thing made life feel a little too settled and comfortable. Thankfully, I was able resolve that with a small hike in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Very rosy views. Very bad placement of my new insoles inside my new hiking shoes.

A cool thing about shoes is that feature where your foot sits inside of them at the right height. I learned to appreciate that by having the insoles lift my feet just enough to create a constant "conversation" between the backs of my shoes and the backs of my feet a bit above the heels. That was not a very pleasant conversation and the ill will remained for a while to the degree that my feet and shoes simply could not be in the same room at the same time for a few weeks. In fact, my feet were very anti-shoes for a while. They allowed my low-cut walking shoes and flip-flops, but that was about it. No worries, I had a couple of days before trying to tackle the longest, most challenging hike I'd ever done to that point.

Anyhow, Yosemite was the next day. At least I made some new donkey and cow friends along the way.

Prescott, AZ, was the next stop in my travels. Initially, the goal was to get some van work done. Something about the electrical system not really working was bumming me out when I wanted to turn on lights, charge my phone, or plug in my electrical propeller hat to see if my Atkins diet finally got me to my target weight of "airborne from weak breezes." However, that purpose for the Prescott visit gave way to a much more inspiring goal: waste money on a diagnosis only to have the shop tell me they don't know when they'll be able to even pretend to start to order the necessary parts and that I might need to move to Prescott for them to ever actually do the work. As much as I enjoyed the money and time wasting, after a couple of weeks, I decided Prescott wasn't for me. I also found another shop that works on Roadtreks in Vegas, so tearfully (in the joyous sense), I gave up on the Prescott shop.

We'll get to Vegas next time, though. During my stint as a Prescott (pronounced "Press-Kit") Biscuit (that's what the locals call themselves I just decided), I did get to do a good bit of hiking and baking in the sun, stargazing while getting baked at night, and some weekend outings, which were nice silver linings. Highlights included:

pulling up late at night to what was probably a parking area in Prescott National Forest and gawking at the shiny sky diamonds with barely any passersby, which was convenient for sleeping there overnight for the purpose of hiking from there in the morning

running around Watson Lake Park whilst shouting "stop following me!" at no one in particular

a couple of far-too-short stops in Sedona, during which I ate at a favorite pizza spot, bought shoes that really didn't like me (more on that during Vegas time), ate chocolate from a tree (shoutout ChocolaTree Organic Eatery), and drank some beers while getting tossed around a spiritual vortex

a tour in Antelope Canyon (no antelopes included, but extra bumps and dust to compensate) and Horseshoe Bend in Page, AZ

retracing the steps of a trespasser bold enough to mark their work on AllTrails

From there, it was on to Vegas for the real repair work with a quick side quest to St. George, Utah, for mail (that will still not make sense when I write about it later, but I'll associate more words with it nonetheless).

Ultimately, I got to Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which marks the transition of this occasional art museums blog into a fairly regular hiking blog (in the sense that I did it often, not in the sense that I'm gonna suddenly get better at writing more often). After that sunrise hike, I made my way to Carlsbad, NM, which I called home for a few days, making my presence known at all of the most important landmarks (Planet Fitness and Denny's mostly).

As this was a long weekend due to Red, White, and Blue Eagles Day (July 4), I took advantage of the extra time by.... you guessed it: hiking in the Carlsbad Caverns area. I spent 'merica's actual birthday in Texas and was literally greeted with fireworks being set off on the side of the road as I arrived in El Paso. I hiked in Franklin Mountains State Park, showered with Bud Light at a Planet Fitness (they take the 4th seriously), and then kept the train/van moving to Arizona. After the roughest road any KFC has ever experienced and many moments when I thought I should abandon the course, I ended up in Chiricahua National Monument--and man, I have absolutely no regrets about putting my house through that abuse. I parked overnight right outside the park entrance and got to walk around a bunch of worn rocks with incredible core strength. To this point in my journeys, it remains one of my favorite places I've visited, especially because of how little I knew about it before deciding to head there (I really plan these things).

From Chiricahua, I headed to Phoenix for a night to see another long-lost family friend (shoutout Achia and fam). He was very gracious and offered to let me crash at their place, but I really wanted to find out what it's like to get baked in your car even at night (not even the fun version this time). From Phoenix, I headed to Prescott to waste yet more time and money on van work, but I'll save that for next time.

Hillel and I skipped through the streets of NOLA for a couple of days, hitting up some of the classics, like the French Quarter, Voodoo Museum, your mom's place, Mardi Gras World (where I got reverse ghosted, I think? tbd maybe she'll still text back 4 months later). Shaya (the kind of hummus the world needs more of), and Blue Nile. Hillel let me crash with him. I repaid him with hummus like a good Israeli.

Hillel had some fancy work conference thing and then a still fancier "I gotta go back home" thing, so subsequent frolicking was performed in solo mode. Otherwise known as: I went to the Museum of Art. I also returned to the Ogden to stare at my favorite donkey, Tesseract, and Benny Andrews work. I tanned my eyeballs by gawking at the sun, broke my streak of healthy living toward my #woflow-fitness goals, went to Saba and Tal's (on separate occasions) because there's no such thing as too much hummus, drank in an alley [bar], and spent too long studying a chandelier (and learned about Joystick! the band) at a brewery. I rounded out the NOLA experience with the second--the first was in Jackson, MS--of many attempted van fixes. I got literally nothing accomplished on that front, but I guess I got free parking for a few days. Of course, it wouldn't have been a NOLA visit without the street horns AND indoor horns whoa.

From NOLA, I started heading west. After a stop in Houston to visit an old family friend (shoutout Ido and fam), I drove the rest of the way across Texas. Texas being the totally not flat state that it is (only an eighth kidding) and Half Dome in Yosemite on the mind, I was inspired to start hiking. And in a way, that's what felt like the real start of the adventure.

I made it out of The MUSEUM. Turned out, I had to take a left when I hit the mirror. Between that and the daft, overly enthusiastic usage of a baseball bat, I found my way out.

The next day, I celebrated my independence by going to the birthplace of freedom itself: Kiener Plaza Park, otherwise known as "that park where there's some Missouri government building and a statue of an emaciated runner" (no idea the actual story; good ol' ignorance here). Mouthful of a name. I also shoved myself alongside some strangers into an elevator to go up the Gateway Arch. We spoke about using AI to automate our jobs. What a bond we formed. We still keep in touch. In my heart, I never left that curved elevator, and I never will.

After the most intimate elevator ride of my life, I decided I was finally ready to have a seal stare into my soul, so I went to the zoo. I engaged other animals in stare-downs, and I'm happy to report, only the penguins (surprisingly sticky) and elephants (unsurprisingly sloppy) were successful at projecting their poop at me. Elephants are definitely not above using their trunks to snort their own poop and shoot it at strangers if you make fun of their ears for long enough. This was also night one of two of Billy Strings at Chaifetz Arena. What a day.

The next day: Missouri Botanical Gardens (flowers and trees! geese fight! didn't get poison ivy!), Forest Park again, Wash U, Kemper Art Museum (real live interpretive dance performance), Billy with Punch Brothers (basically played three sets!).

Then Jackson and Memphis on the way to NOLA. then PRISON!!!! Then NOLA!!!

Addressing the title first: I was headed to NOLA. Even better: St. Louis happened to have a string of concerts for which my eardrums were excited to be damaged beyond repair.

I took the week after Chicago off to enjoy the last couple of days in Chicago itself and take it a little slower in St. Louis. I'm writing this at the end of September--because I'm good at this blogging practice--and I'm really seeing the wisdom and appreciating my premoniscient (totally real word) decision given the heightened stress of the last few weeks. Anyway, to state the obvious, after corralling the Jew Crew™️ and dropping them off at the airport, I made my way to St. Louis, MO. I'm already lying. I went to Chesterfield, which is nearby. I F45'd, I breathed, I made a salad, I struggled with the collapsible counter attachment in my kitchen, I had a couple of beers, I "mixed up chronologies" as the my imaginary psychiatrist likes to say about my poor memory, I cleaned the van, I asked a grocery store worker where the Dude Wipes are, and I went to Goose a couple of times.

After the Chesterfield era, I felt prepared to breach the borders of St. Louis. I stormed. I viking'd. I war cried. I sad cried. I laugh cried. I undermined. I lost my mind. I realigned. I porcupine-d. At that point, the mayor decided to accept my conditions of their surrender, appointed me czar of French fries, and gave me a key to the golden toilet at the top of the Arch. With key in hand and the new electro-blue grass St. Louis anthem blaring from KFC's speakers, I felt prepared to tackle Forest Park. St. Louis Art Museum swallowed me whole for a few hours. It's crazy how big big buildings are sometimes. After a walk in the park, I ended up at the Museum of Illusions. It was fine. I think I'm still stuck there. I keep walking into mirrors. The infinite corridors I'm seeing are really short and misleading. Good thing I brought my laptop so that I can remember to write about this 3 months after my capture. PLEASE SEND HELP