That's how long it had been since my last week-long True Vacation, defined as time away from Real Work (SWR) while not engaged in Unreal Work (touring). I can bitch all I want, but the fact is I set it up that way. Pretty unhealthy.

The barren, mountainous element of the Western U.S. fascinates me to no end, and one day I'll live in a town with a population of less than 300 and I'll have to drive thirty miles to the nearest traffic light/highway interchange/paved road. Until then I'll have to settle for just driving through, which was the only real "plan" for this True Vacation. I had a guide book on Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, and I hoped to get to all of them. Other than that, it was travel jazz.

For the second time in three Acts, I have to classify this as less than literary. I was happy simply to get my thoughts down in some form or fashion, and I just so happened to have the laptop and a microcassette recorder with me. Think Member Missive, solo tour, no music. (There–I just tied it to the Keneally world by the thinnest of tethers.) The following was culled from hours of self-dictation, seven rolls of pictures, and some raw text written during the trip, as well as some commentary added after the fact.

So join me now, in the moment, as I set off for eight of the most unscripted days of my last four years.

DAY ONE: Sunday, December 17, 2000

Woke up in: North Hollywood, CA

Fell asleep in: San Simeon, CA

The goal is the California coast, the famous Highway 1 from San Luis Obispo to Monterey. You see it outlined in all the travel books–Best Drives In America. Problem is, I'm late getting out (11:00 AM) and I have a stop in Simi Valley to see a friend. I'm also wise enough to have chosen late December for my True Vacation, which I say facetiously because the sun is disappearing at 5:30 PM sharp and exploratory driving is fairly pointless in the dark. I'll never finish the whole coast drive by nightfall, so I'll just take the scenic route from LA to San Simeon–the town closest to the starting point–and begin early on Monday.

I could take the 101 all the way to San Simeon, but why do that when there's this little detour through the Ojai and Cuyama Valleys by way of a National Forest?

33 North. Valley/lowland road, cruising through a little town called Oak Park. Some fast food places dressed up in town code décor, supposedly so as not to look like fast food places. California's weird about that. There are about 1,000 towns containing only a gas station and a couple of national burger chains, and they all have MexiCali-style rooftops and beige stone construction. Like the Natives would have done, I guess.

Lots of chrome up ahead…it's a biker bar. More than 100 Harleys lined up on both sides of the street, folks drinking outside and in. The people don't look like Hell's Angels at all. Some leather and tight jeans on the surprisingly attractive (read: not totally rode-hard-put-away-wet-looking) women.

Goodbye Ojai Valley civilization, hello 33 North through the Los Padres National Forest. An unexpected climb–4,000 feet–and a view from a mountaintop of the Pacific Ocean a good twenty miles off. First score of the day.

After forty mountainous miles, the Cuyama Valley is upon me. Descent over; 33 is now a fucked-up, badly paved, straight-line, up-and-downhill road with a 40 m.p.h. crosswind. I'm doing 95, bolting towards the 166. The sky is fuzzy and turning dark, probably from the machinery of agriculture in the area. Scattered houses every five miles or so. Real tumbleweeds blowing by. Tough living.

166 West. Mobil station in New Cuyama, a five building outpost that has a sign which adds their population, their elevation and the year of its founding (1950-something) for a "Total" of 4,863. It's the biggest sign in town. I ask the gas station attendant, an African-American of maybe 24, if he lives here. "Unfortunately, my whole life," he mutters. "That's twenty-four dollars." Regular gas here is $2.35 a gallon.

Hard ninety mile cut over to the California coast and arrive by nightfall. After drinks and nachos in the quaint little town of Cambria, it's a Motel 6 in San Simeon, home of the Hearst Castle. I swear I can hear that awful violin music and Tom Bodett's voice as I drift off to sleep.

DAY TWO: Monday, December 18, 2000

Woke up in: San Simeon, CA

Fell asleep in: Reno, NV

Hwy. 1 doesn't disappoint. It's a road for the ages, with curves hugging a mountain cliff and grades both ascending and descending at alarming rates. Looking back I can see fog gathering against ocean bluffs, and the sun poking holes through the mist straight down to the water. Impossible, crazy, ethereal views from all angles. I stop at a Vista Point, sit on a bench overlooking a ten-mile stretch of coastline, take off my shirt, break out the LA Times and read about Bush's new National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice. Relaxing, for the most part.

Eventually I round into Big Sur, an ever-so-slightly inland enclave of about 3,000 folks who work a brisk tourist business during the summer. But it's December, and when I stop at a charming old Shell station the folks seem starved for new human contact. I hear…what is that?…booming bass coming from the right of the gas pumps? Tell me, who's driving by with the boomin' system in Big Sur?

I walk towards the noise's origin, through a carefully detailed cactus garden and into a small wooden shop called The Garden Gallery. A peace-loving female is swaying to the music inside the store, arranging bags of herbs along a homemade shelf. We get to talking–Shannon is a native of the eastern Canadian coast, and opened the Gallery with two other friends. Shannon is the herbalist, one of her friends is a world-traveling bead and stone collector, and the other makes clothing items and runs "the only secondhand clothing store in Big Sur." So we have a Hippie Charlie's Angels setup on our hands here.

Shannon is just delightful, and we even get to talking about the possibility of Keneally/BFD coming up for a night of esoteric musical entertainment. Got nothing against that.

An hour later I'm in Monterey. Strange to see houses and Civilized Things again. See a sign for "Fisherman's Wharf," feel the hunger pains and follow it to its destination. Mmmm. Fresh shrimp cocktail, octopus cocktail, clam chowder, and a shrimp and scallop kebob. Mmmm. Now feeling guilty, I spy a bike path that seems to lead around the peninsula. Grab the rollerblades out of the back seat and work the meal off in style with a forty-minute jaunt in absolutely perfect weather. I figured this would be the last time I'd see 75 degrees for a while, so why not. Even got a little color on my face.

Now it's time to get some mileage going. The goal is Winnemucca, NV. So many different highways–152, 101, 280, 580, etc. Tooling through Silicon Valley, noticing the disturbing prevalence of men my age, slightly overweight and geeky-looking, passing me at speeds of 90 m.p.h. or higher in sports cars worth more than I am. Drive through Gilroy (the "garlic capital of the world"–I lean out my window to see if I can catch a whiff, but no dice), Livermore, and eventually Tracy, where I make a spur-of-the-moment stop at the house of James Santiago and Cosette Trombino-Santiago, my newlywed friends who just bought their first home. James, a computer/music/home recording freak of the highest order, has a drumset up and miked, ready to record to a finished track in Pro Tools. Call it Fisher Price's My First Drumtrack, as the shaky 6/8 groove I hammered through had its moments both good and otherwise.

Dark outside, left Tracy an hour ago, cruising up the 5 through Sacramento, hit the 80 towards Reno. Feeling very tired, been awake for thirteen hours. Maybe Reno is the best I can hope for. Tough mountain curves, sharp ascents, trucks all over the place, signs that say "Bridges may be icy even when road is dry." Not for the faint of heart. Cruise over the Donner Pass, checking out the SNOW. Shooting star blazes across the sky, very nice. Angry, snarling music on the stereo, the Nels Cline Trio, an avant-garde guitar/bass/drums outfit that makes MK/BFD seem downright commercial by comparison. Feeling weak, achy, headache, muscle aches–fuck, am I getting sick? Stop to get some water, which helps a little but not much.

Motel 6 in Reno is as far as I get. 20 degrees outside and I've got the shakes. Turn the heat up full blast, pop a bunch of pills, and go fetal position under the covers for a rough night of waking up in sweats, tossing, turning and shivering. Sickness, or bad seafood? I curse myself to sleep.

DAY THREE: Tuesday, December 19, 2000

Woke up in: Reno, NV

Fell asleep in: Twin Falls, ID

Wake up feeling better but definitely affected. I think a sickness has gotten to me. It's so typical of me to get sick the second I have my heart set on relaxing. It's a well-known by-product of my overdriven M.O. Whenever I slow down for a second, my system doesn't know what to do and just goes bonky.

So I get some O.J., Vitamin C, pop a bunch of pills and hit the road. This is a strict driving day, straight across Nevada as fast as fucking possible. Not too difficult, since the stated speed limit is 75 and I'm cruising at 90 on 80 East and no one seems to mind. Towns noted on the way through the nothing: Lovelock, Beverly Hills.

Spot a bumper sticker between Lovelock and whatever the next stop is: "EARTH FIRST–We'll Mine The Other Planets Later!" On the back of a pickup truck, in case there was any doubt.

Stop in Elko, NV. I ask a waitress at a supposedly Basque-style (which apparently means "bad American-style" in Northeastern Nevada) restaurant how best to get to Idaho. She asks me why I'm going there. I say I'm on vacation and I've never seen it. She rolls her eyes, sighs, and generally makes like Al Gore in the first debate. Whatever, girlfriend, just give up the directions. Even in that, she's useless. Elko was pretty uninspiring.

US 93 North, however, is not. A great two-lane road with Big Sky and snow-capped mountains and weird reflecting sunsets all over the place. I roll into Tom Bodett's Twin Falls outpost at dusk, still fighting intermittent headaches and leftovers from the previous night's fever. I'm hoping the 400+ miles I logged today will payoff tomorrow.

DAY FOUR: Wednesday, December 20, 2000

Woke up in: Twin Falls, ID

Fell asleep in: Wisdom, MT

Wake up feeling great, totally over whatever sickness I thought I had. The weather, though cold, is holding up just fine. Break out the Montana, Wyoming & Idaho "Travel-Smart" book and do as the good man says: eat breakfast at Elmer's Pancake and Waffle House. Charming little joint, all decked out in nice wood and a fireplace to boot. Read the paper, drink coffee, and order a short stack of wheat and grain pancakes, which turns out to be a fucking skyscraper–four flapjacks the size of dinner plates. When I ask what the full stack is, the waitress just smiles and says, "We use a bigger plate for that."

They call it Twin Falls, ID, because it's home to the Snake River Canyon, made infamous by one Evel Knievel back when I was a toddler. I start by taking a road that winds down to the river level, a good 750 feet below the main road. From there it's a killer vantage point of this ridiculous bridge that spans the canyon. Sunrise reflecting off the water, spigots off the rock cliffs turned to wall-sized icicles, the works. East about two miles is a point overlooking Shoshone Falls, and I climb up a precarious rock to get a picture of myself leaning practically over the edge. Finally I drive over the confounded bridge and get pictures from underneath. Yeah, baby.

93 North onto the town of Shoshone, where The Road To Take becomes Idaho 75. After cruising up into uninspiring Bellevue–the "Gateway to the Sawtooths [mountain range]"–I'm treated to the sight of birds of prey picking through blood-soaked snow as they feast on a dead animal carcass on the side of the road. Nice.

Downtown Ketchum follows, where the local theatre company is putting on a show called "A Tuna Christmas." This ain't no hick town, though–it's a high-class ski resort, along with its sister city Sun Valley. Nice restaurants, pricy condos, Starbucks, it's all here. Uh, next.

From the tape: "75 has turned into an unbelievably treacherous road: totally snow-covered, icy, and–Holy shit, look at this, the Golena Overlook! Elevation 8,450, and…oh my god." The Scenic Byway sign doesn't lie–it's as scenic as anything I've ever seen, and the drive gets increasingly difficult as you ascend. Got the snow chains in the back, but fuck that. I'm from Jersey, dammit. Snowy mountain bluffs and everything else you could ask for. And I haven't even seen the Salmon River yet.

Stanley, ID. Population: 69. Have to stop here. Now the Salmon River is before me. Serious-ass whitewater rafting during the summer. Now it flows in between wide shoulders of ice and a light steam comes off the surface. I'm imagining that, come January, the whole thing ices over. It's incredible. Stanley's cool too, a little resort town with five motels all centered around river rafting.

Again, from the tape: "In the middle of this freezing cold mountain range, I run across something called the Sunbeam Hot Springs, and there's steam blowing all over the road, and there's water coming out of the side of the mountain. I'm like, 'Could this really be hot water?' I put my hand in there–goddamn it was hot water!" When the hot springs' water hits the half-frozen Salmon River, you can practically feel the clashing energies in your bones.

Then something really weird: on a whim I stop at an unincorporated locale named Elk Bend, ID, specifically at the Elk Bend Sports Lodge. After using the restroom, I strike up a conversation with the diminutive bartender Jim, hoping to become just friendly enough to get him to take a picture of me, as I don't want to have six rolls of just mountains when I get back. Turns out he grew up in Sun Valley, CA (home of SWR), went to North Hollywood High School (two blocks from my current address), worked at Roscoe Hardware for ten years (drive by it every day), and knew the whole northern San Fernando Valley cold. Then others at the bar started piping in: "Yeah, I grew up in Sylmar." "My sister lived in Pacoima." "I was in Westlake Village for a while." A whole bar–I mean, a whole town!–in ultra-rural Idaho, comprised solely of people who left the SF Valley en masse twenty years ago? There were a million places I could have stopped. Sometimes you have to wonder why you do the things you do. I mean, who's really in control here? To the degree that I believed I was, I did manage to get my picture taken. With Jim.

75 ends in Challis, ID. Back on US93, in a valley on a nicely paved road. Speeds are getting up to 80, 90. This is good. I'm racing against the sun.

Salmon, ID. A little bigger and more agri-business-y. 3,000 people, car dealerships, public library, radio station–even a Subway. Can't stop, have to get a move on if I want to make it to Butte, MT or Missoula, MT by nightfall. The safe way to go is stay on 93 North to Missoula, but that means more mileage and it's out of the way. I'd like to cut over on Montana 43 East, but it might be dark when I get there, and if it's a snowy, icy, descending mountain road it might be the last drive I ever take. How about a sign?

After some more time on dry valley roads, the ascent begins again on 93 North. This one's almost as tough as the first, and I'm worried that if this is the main road, I can only wonder what Montana 43 is like (probably impassable). Winding up snowy switchbacks for what seems like hours…and then, jackpot. A sign on the left that says, "Lost Trail Pass, 7,014 feet. Welcome to Montana." Then, on the right, double jackpot: Junction Montana 43. Coming down from 43 at that very moment is a huge snowplow/blower, and it's just finishing up its work on my risky road of choice. Even better, it's blowing the white stuff forty feet high over another sign, this one more official, that reads, "Welcome To Montana!" in rainbow lettering. The choice has been made for me.

Minutes later, I cross the Continental Divide. Radiohead's "Kid A" is playing, and what I'm looking at looks like the album cover. It's called the Big Hole Valley, site of an old U.S./Indian battleground (Custer got his ass handed to him somewhere around here as well; also, Lewis and Clark were all over this place). Mountains off in the distance (over twenty miles) in every direction, shadows on mountainsides from the partial sunset, a straight-line hilly road, hitting speeds of 95-100. Beyond awesome.

Wisdom, MT. Seems like a nasty little place at first glance, but it starts growing on me. Tiny little town. Stopped at Letty's Café for a coffee and ended up with some homemade chili in my gut. The proprietor is a bit aloof, though. After serving me with stunted silence, he says to me as I'm walking out, "You know what they say in China–have a rice day." He smiles. I smile. I leave.

But the town itself is charming. I take a picture of the post office and lament the fact that there's not even an option of staying here, as Butte is 100 miles away and it's almost dark. Montana 43 isn't as bad as I thought, but I'm still not thrilled about doing it in pitch black and icy conditions. As I'm about to leave town I see something called the Nez Perce Motel. It looks charming, like a B&B. No in-room phones, a TV channel listing straight out of the twilight zone (CNN Headline, TNT, USA, TBS, Country Music TV, The Nashville Network, end of story), $36. a night. Sold. I'll write my Elton John live CD review (for Onstage magazine) tonight and e-mail it from the office computer of nice lady/co-proprietor Barb Challoner, as she offered.

So I'll be in Wisdom, Montana tonight. I suppose it beats Beverly Hills, Nevada.

DAY FOUR continued…after a night on the town of Wisdom, MT.

Half in the bag as I write this…

Just spent the most AMAZING night at Antler's Saloon, where barkeep/proprietor Christy, a crusty woman of 50-something, held court in grand fashion. She served the booze, drank the booze, made homemade pizza, and told a joke I'll never forget: "How do you get a girl to sound like a dolphin?" "How?" I asked. "Well," she leered, "you take your prick and stick it near her asshole, and then she goes 'wheeee! Eeeeeeeeee!!'"

That wasn't all we talked about. I met a fifth-generation cattle rancher named Ed Reinhardt, who'd just recently returned from a big trip to Las Vegas because the national Rodeo Championships were being held there. It just so happened that the Trinidad-Vargas fight was that very same weekend, and according to Ed, he and his Montana buddies ended up hanging out with some hardcore gangbanger cholos from East L.A. for most of a night. His perspectives were priceless. You should have seen Ed's face when I said I was from Los Angeles. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Then another guy came in named Mike, and he wanted to talk politics. Oh boy, I thought–here comes the vast right-wing conspiracy, up close and personal. Not at all. Mike turns out to be a moderate conservative–pro-farmer, anti-EPA, pro-NRA, and pro-choice. I find an impressive amount of support for legalizing marijuana and ending the War On Drugs (and the military-industrial racket that goes along with funding it). Barkeep Christy is a self-described "bleeding-heart fucking liberal," but she still didn't vote for Gore based solely on his positions on environmental issues. A spirited debate ensued. Hmmm, Gore lost West Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas, all coal states, all reliably Democratic…and when I hit the lottery in Montana and find an actual liberal, even she can't vote for Gore because of this one issue. Is the pro-environmental movement the abortion (read: non-winning fringe issue) splinter of the Democratic party? Then again, what about Nader? Oh, hell, they're all so thrilled about their Governor Marc Racicot possibly becoming A.G. that they don't know what to do with themselves, so let me just leave it at that. But not without saying that nights like this are the reason why I'm out here.

DAY FIVE: Thursday, December 21, 2000

Woke up in: Wisdom, MT

Fell asleep in: West Yellowstone, MT

So I wake up super-early in FREEZING COLD Wisdom, grab the paper, hit Letty's for an obscene omelet breakfast (my diet is going out the window), and read about how Montana Republican Gov. Racicot stiffed W. on his offer of A.G. of the U.S. because there just wasn't enough money in it ($150G). I guess after making $75G @ year for eight years as Montana Governor he had every right. Plus, he signed a state executive order banning state employment discrimination against gays and lesbians, which supposedly angered conservatives (including, I wonder, the same folks who agreed with the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision on equal protection grounds?). Turns out Racicot's a pro-choice GOP'er as well. His quote in the paper explaining his decision reads like an author's revised paragraph. He doesn't want to leave the state. Several high-powered law firms have offered him positions in which he can work from his Montana home. No wonder they love him up here.

Before leaving, I use the kind lady's computer to submit my Elton John review. Montana.com is the ISP. If I was writing full-time, I could REALLY get used to a lifestyle like this. Major life goal: find non-locational employment.

Time to leave Wisdom behind (something I've done many times–ba da bum chhh). The townsfolk all say "avoid the interstate [15] and take Montana 287" towards Dillon if I want to get to West Yellowstone, the "snowmobile capital of the world." I'd like to see some nice roads like Idaho 75 or US 93 along the way, but my standards for such things are now way too high, and I end up being slightly disappointed. A small consolation is that southwestern Montana is the Beavis & Butthead capital of the world. At one point, I was on my way to Butte, driving through the Big Hole Valley in the middle of the Beaverhead National Forest. Huh huh.

The towns along the way are none too special, either. Dillon is home of Montana's Biggest Weekend, which has something to do with a rodeo. It's kind of a dirty town, old industry. Nothing special. At Twin Bridges I take Montana 41 North. Then it's on back to Montana 287 and a series of cute but unspectacular towns in what they call the Ruby Valley. Sheridan (which contains the ever-popular Ruby Valley Sump Saloon), the ancient, wooden, creaky Nevada City (oxymoronic?), Virginia City (lots of bauble shops, tourist-y, decent post office). Then it's up a mountain pass and–bang!–back to splendor. A panoramic view of the Madison Valley, last stop before the Grand Tetons and the ubiquitous Gallatin range.

Onto Ennis. A bigger town, with a confusing crossroads where Montana 287 hits US 287. Takes me five minutes to figure the thing out, even with Rand McNally's finest in my hand.

US 287 North, between Ennis and Norris. Another pass has a crosswind so fierce it's sending snow flying across the road, and it looks like those time-lapse pictures of the jetstream you see on weather reports. Weird.

Norris, Junction Montana 84 East. Scenic route to US 191, the cool way to West Yellowstone. See a place called the Norris Hot Springs and almost go in, but it looks just a little too funky to commit. Keep going.

30 miles later, US 191 South. Tourist land. A big road, billboards for hotels and everything else you can think of. I guess it's inevitable–this is Yellowstone, after all. I deal with it, though I find myself missing Elk Bend, ID and Wisdom, MT.

In the land of Gallatin: I cross the Gallatin River in Gallatin County, all while being surrounded by the Gallatin mountains. By the time I enter the Gallatin National Forest, I'm thinking that this guy Gallatin, whoever he was, had an excellent PR guy working for him.

Pass a town called Big Sky, MT. Municipalities must have fought over that one for years.

Entering Yellowstone National Park, though only briefly (the road cuts in and out of it). The park is closed to vehicles for the whole winter, you see, but snowmobiles can get in through West Yellowstone anytime they want. Now you see my grand plan, yah? One thing I didn't plan on was the weather. Dark clouds, light snow, icy roads, steady incline, tough going. No wonder everyone's on snowmobiles up here.

I'm TIRED, but I finally make it to West Yellowstone, where it's snowing heavily and the roads haven't seen a plow in days. Break out the Good Book and find the Brandin' Iron Inn. After Chateau Nez Perce I'm ready for a little civilization, and I've found it: phones, data ports, hot tubs, and most importantly, connections to snowmobile rentals. I take a $54. room for two nights, reserve a $100. snowmobile for the following day, eat out badly at a greasy spoon (diet? What diet?), come back, hit the hot tub, get ready for bed.

One last thing. I buy film from a convenience store across the street from my hotel. The lady working the desk–about 35–is named Susan. She lived in Encino for nine years, and her ex lives in NoHo at Burbank and Laurel Canyon, about a five minute walk from my apartment. Anyway, she tells me in detail about how she chucked it all and came up here. Of the folks I've met on this trip, more people than not (with the possible exception of Wisdom) came from somewhere else, and fled city life for a reason. Meanwhile, I've been running into the mountains every chance I've had since my first week in Los Angeles.

Question: how much longer can I hold out in an urban environment when shit like this is available to me whenever I see fit to choose it?

DAY SIX: Friday, December 22, 2000

Woke up in: West Yellowstone, MT

Fell asleep in: West Yellowstone, MT

Wake up eager and early, before dawn. Spend a good ten minutes deciding how many layers I should wear, and which layers they should be clothes-wise. I didn't want to be too cold or too hot out there (I needn't have worried about the latter, but obsessive-compulsive disorder is a bitch of a thing). Hit the Conoco of Encino Susan across the street for coffee, get to the snowmobile place by 8:00 AM. Get dressed up in their provided-for Snowmobile Outfit–jumpsuit, boots, oversized gloves, helmet (over my Knicks hat), and my own scarf. The resident expert (pictured in Viking hat) sizes me up quickly for a snow-motorin' virgin and gives a full tutorial on the machine. They're nasty little beasts, with two-stroke engines that belch white smoke. But they really move.

I get on. They don't go backwards, so you have to plan your turns carefully. West Yellowstone allows for snowmobile travel on all but two of their roads in winter. I maneuver back to my car, drop off my jacket (who needed it when I was wearing that huge jumpsuit?), and get going on the road that led to the park entrance. Then I opened up the throttle…

Holy fucking shit was this fun!! The speed limit is 45, and at first even 35 seemed too fast. But little by little I grow accustomed to the machine, and before you know it I'm booking down the snow-covered road. There are warmers on the handlebars and above the foot rests, and they work so well that I actually have to turn them down. But the cold takes getting used to, and 14 miles in there's a "Warming Hut" at the Madison location, which I hurry into for some chicken soup and diet coke.

Then I get back outside and the fucking thing won't start again. It works like a lawnmower, and I keep pulling the cord to no avail. Then I realize that I've left the start-stop button in the stop position, and pulling the cord has only flooded the engine. Fuck. I have to get the lady ranger out from the hut to show me how to unflood it–pull the cord, hit the throttle with the choke open, get it to turn over and then immediately close the choke back up. The throttle was the key. I curse myself and get back on, abusing the machine for its insolence by taking it over some jumps.

There are these hot springs they call "paint pots" for some reason, and I stop at what looks to be the nicest one. Steam is coming up all over the place, and the area surrounding these hot springs contains vegetation that looks as if it belongs in the Amazon rainforest…which is fully encased in snow! I stand in the steam, warming myself and unknowingly taking on condensation that would freeze the second I left the spring. Also, I take out the map and try to read it while standing in the steam, but the paper begins disintegrating in my hands, and attempts to fold it back up and get it back in my pocket are, shall we say, comical.

Eventually I make it to Old Faithful. (You can snowmobile your way to Old Faithful, I kept saying to myself in disbelief.) They have the eruptions timed, and I've got 45 minutes to go, so I sit in the O.F. Visitors' Center and watch a film narrated by the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite. Pretty cool.

Then head out back and get a ringside seat for the eruption. People slowly begin to gather around the amphitheatre-style seating arrangement, totaling nearly 200 by showtime. I've got the camera, and when she blows, she really blows. I'll spare you the description and the pictures (mine unfortunately do not do it justice), for surely there are wonderfully detailed accounts that far surpass anything I could write. It was just unbelievable.

Off to the Old Faithful gas station. Really. I top off and set out to complete the full South Loop, a route I was advised not to take because a) it would take too long; b) it could never be done in time to have the machine back by 5:00. Ha. I went for it.

The park is at its most desolate. I cruise miles without seeing another soul, goosing the engine to speeds of over 65 m.p.h. What a rush. Up and down several mountain passes, views of mostly-frozen Lake Yellowstone, unreal views of The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (which, for my money, beats the real G.C. hands down), and lots of ice to conquer. Stop at the Canyon Visitor's Center for more gas, a heated bear claw and a hot chocolate. Heaven.

By the time I completed the route I was passing people all over the place. Time was a bit short, but I made it back by 4:30 and all was well.

It's worth noting that, had I shown up between 11/1 and 12/15, the park would have been closed to everyone and everything, including snowmobiles. Also, I just happened to arrive at the lightest time of the year people-wise, and my room at the Brandin' Iron usually went for $90. and up, not the $53. rate I scored. Plus, I was told that, in February, it's so crowded that there could be a line of up to 100 snowmobiles waiting to get into the park. Finally, there was a lot of political sentiment against the EPA and U.S. Bureau of Land Management because of a recent decision to ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone beginning 2002. Obviously such a ban would have serious negative implications on the town of West (as they call it), and a leading machine manufacturer had just come out with something called the Yellowstone Special, a four-stroke machine that polluted a lot less that the current model. I could see why hardcore environmentalists and park managers would detest the two-stroke smoke chokers, but killing the whole business seems way too drastic. My opinion: four-stroke engines only, limited number of snowmobile permits issued per day. But what do warring political factions know of compromise today, anyway? In sum, I got lucky I was able to do it in such grand fashion, and it may be a first and last. I hope not–I'd like to go back with either friends or a woman.

Back to the Brandin' Iron for a hot tub soak. Omigod was it the best fucking thing I ever did. Then off to Bullwinkle's for a rack of ribs. Could the decadence factor possible increase? The answer turns out to be yes, as I go out to a bar called Rustler's Roost that night and, thankfully, leave the camera at home.

DAY SEVEN: Saturday, December 23, 2000

Woke up in: West Yellowstone, MT

Fell asleep in: Salt Lake City, UT

Wake up in the morning with a screaming hangover…bad call on the previous night. Oops.

I crawl out of town at noon, with a 6:00 PM deadline for making it to Salt Lake City for dinner with Poison Pentium Hero Brad Dahl and his lovely wife Shelley. I'd originally had notions about taking the scenic route through Jackson Hole, WY, but I'd had enough of that, and I threw the whole day away with my ill-advised alcoholic adventure anyway. US 20 from West to Idaho Falls is the most painful drive of the trip, as I alternate between withering pain and passing out at the wheel. The snow is gray and ugly, the kind I don't miss. Somehow I rally and make it to the 15, a beautiful road with landscape mountain views and Nevada-Utah style openness. From there it's a straight shot down to SLC.

I'm welcomed into Utah by a member of their fine highway patrol as I get a ticket for going 81 in a 65. I'm surprisingly unfazed by it. Accentuating the positive, am I? Can't be.

Dinner with the Dahls is lovely. We do Buffalo Joe's, where I have ribs for the second night in a row. Then–and I'm in a daze by now–I witness the actual Poison Control Center. Within lies a notebook containing the best all-time tales going back eight years. It's a laugh riot. They have the Incoming Caller Names of the Year up on the chalkboard, with examples like Madison Satison and Anita Dupee. (Really.) Plenty of stories we're unable to repeat. Jokes fly back and forth–the lady who calls about unsafe quantities of lead in her household, and she's asking if her kids may be more susceptible to that disease that makes you forget everything, you know, oh shit, she can't remember, what's it called? (Alzheimer's!) Then there's the unpublished Poison Pentium tale of Doing Hard Time, in which an inmate gets into his cellmate's anti-depressant medication, which has the unfortunate side effect of causing a priapism. What's a priapism, you ask? A sustained, painful erection. This would qualify as a life-threatening situation in a prison, would it not? I laugh more in ten minutes than I have all week.

The Dahls have three dogs, one of which is the cutest little three-legged dog you ever did see. Shelley knows just how to hold our physically-challenged canine friend.

Brad has his own toys for boys. There's the TV that's bigger than the whole town of Wisdom, MT. There's also the basement/jam room, with a bass rig and a drumset ready for rock 'n' roll. Call in the Priest–Judas Priest. Brad and I reel off a killer version of "Victim Of Changes." Oh yes, we do.

The Dahls are the coolest people in the world. I sleep in a guest room fit for a king, with a comforter thicker than my mattress back home.

DAY EIGHT: Sunday, December 24, 2000

Woke up in: Salt Lake City, UT

Fell asleep in: North Hollywood, CA

Breakfast at IHOP with the Dahls. Feeling better than I have in days. My cell phone suddenly delivers the seven messages it just couldn't get to me while I was in the wilderness. I try to decide if this is a good thing.

Though I hate to leave, I must and I do. I take off on Bangeter Highway, a road ripe with Beavis & Butthead possibilities. Bang Eater? Banging Her? It leads to the 15 south, which I'm only on for 10 minutes before stopping to get gas. I fill up, close the tank door, and get ready to start the car back up when I realize I'm only holding half a key. The other half broke off in the ignition. Oh boy. After considering myself lucky that it happened in SLC, and not, say, Elk Bend, ID, I call AAA, who sends out a traveling locksmith. He curses like a sailor trying to get the ignition column undone, but once he does, he's masterful. He disassembles the entire mechanism, removes the broken key, and makes a new master key from scratch. And this one actually works, unlike the last batch of copies-of-worn-copies. After the AAA deductible it costs me five bucks. I give the guy twenty and tell him to keep it. Lucky man, I am.

Nothing much left to tell. I stop in Las Vegas at an Outback Steakhouse for one last gluttonous feast before resuming my diet upon my return to LA. Drive, drive, drive–twelve hours in total.

I realize something as I leave the 15 South for the 10 West in San Bernardino –I'm beginning to HATE Los Angeles. The change in energy upon hitting the bowels of the Inland Empire is bone-chilling. People are driving like total maniacs. There's "fog" in the LA basin…yeah, right. No visibility, no stars in the sky. When I finally get home at 1:00 AM, the sound of the Hollywood Freeway adjacent to my apartment complex makes me murderous. I feel ill, weak and angry at the same time.

I'm not quite sure I know what to take away from this trip. I certainly needed it, and I came back beaming with new energy and seven rolls of pictures in my happy little hands. But the desire to escape is different than the desire to live as an escapee. Or is it?

That's not all. There's all sorts of stuff brewing on the MK front. There could even be some traveling involved. The next four months should prove pretty interesting, even if they don't quite measure up to a night on the town in Wisdom, Montana.

Your Charles Osgood in training,

Bryan Beller