Just a quick note,
my travel blog on USAtourist.com, On The Road with Bryan, is now being translated into:

Spanish –> Viajando Con Bryan
German –> Auf der Strasse mit Bryan
Japanese –> BRYANと一緒にロードトリップに

So now all those native non-English speakers and their friends can follow along. Happy trails.

First of all, I’m learning that my plan of double-travel-blogging, here and on USAtourist.com, was a little too ambitious. I’m going to be reporting on my day-to-day travel adventures here. The RSS feed is here. So go there to follow my day-to-day travel adventures and stuff. I will use this venue for more personal stuff, artistic stuff, inspirational stuff, and stuff not suitable for the other site. So there you have it.

Second: I’m at a Ketchum, Idaho (Ketchum, Idaho is freaking sweet) bookstore right now reading the giant coffee table book ‘Wisdom’ by Robert Zuckerman. It’s a collection of a bunch of ‘wise’ over-65-year-olds giving their concentrated wisdom spiels.

Here’s what painter Chuck Close had to say about why he loves painting, and the separation he sees between painting and photography:

“I really never understood the argument of why make a painting or why make a photograph. They’re just so different. A painting doesn’t happen the same way a photograph happens. A photograph is all over at once. It’s a continuous surface. You can go back in and alter it, but basically it all comes up at once. When a painting happens, it’s always unfinished before it’s finished: you get a chance to see what you just put in, how that affects what’s already there, and how it anticipates what else is going to happen. You have this long dance, this long performance. A painter is really a performing artist; it’s just no one watches the performance. The painting is the frozen evidence that this ritual dance or performance took place. We’re moving our arms and we’re building this thing out of thin air with colored dirt on a cloth wrapped around some sticks of wood and it’s the most magical of mediums, the most transcendent. it transcends its physical reality. It doesn’t remain just colored dirt on a flat surface, it makes space where there is no space, it reminds you of life experiences you’ve had, it transports you somewhere else. A painting can make you cry, and it also can bring you great pleasure. I love the magic, I love the alchemy of taking this colored dirt and smearing it around with a stick with hairs on the end of it until you conjure up some kind of illusion or some magic. I like to leave evidence of the trip taken. I’m like Hansel and Gretel, dropping crumbs on a trail: not only do you have the image I made for you, I’ll show you how I made that image. I don’t want to destroy the magic; I want to pull a rabbit out of a hat and have everybody go, “Ooh,” - then I’ll slow the whole thing down again and I’ll show you how I pull a rabbit out of the hat. And because photography has no incident, no hands, no touch, no physicality, it’s really ethereal, there’s no evidence of the road taken, you have no shared experience with the artist of taking this trip, this route some place. I love photography, it’s really the only thing I collect and of course I am a photographer as well. But there’s no question that painting is of a different order. It’s a different kind of experience and it’s one that I really enjoy making and enjoy showing to other people. And it’s interesting: once you know what art looks like, it’s not hard to make some of it. But if you’re going to be a painter, you are going to make a lot of really bad paintings before you ever make a good one. With photography and video it’s possible to have an accidental masterpiece. Let me tell you, that is not possible with painting. Some amateur is not going to accidentally make an incredible masterpiece. There are other kinds of things going on than just framing a chunk of the world and lighting it and snapping a shot.”

Wisdom, indeed.

some photos from Tacoma, WA:

Here’s some photos from Fremont, WA

Here’s some photos from Seattle/Olympia:

I’ve been lazy about putting up some of my photos. Here’s some from Portland:

(actually that last one was from Sacramento)

(Update: I’ve received a couple emails disagreeing with what I wrote about Spokane. These come from people who know the area much better than I do. They point to a vibrant culture, natural beauty everywhere, warm, friendly, hearty people, and the excitement of a city on the upswing. While I can only write about what I see, I’ve learned that it’s not my place to judge, especially when I don’t fully understandand a place. I owe Spokane an apology. Sorry, Spokane.)

I’m back on the road. Been in the Spokane area with my buddy Justin. We camped at Priest Lake in northwestern Idaho for a few days. It was incredible. I wrote about it on usatourist here. It looked like this:

What incredible country. I can’t say enough about it. It was just one of those times where everything is perfect. We had to leave Sunday night because Justin has to work (suckaa).

I thought I’d take the opportunity to check out Spokane. It’s another of those places I’ve passed through but never explored.

I don’t like Spokane. Maybe being out in the woods for a few days away from all the little distractions and stresses is affecting me. But I really don’t like it. I haven’t really spent enough time to pass judgment, but I will anyway.

Spokane is:
-A city on the edge of the wilderness.
-Set on a beautiful location with a river and waterfall cutting through the heart of town.
-Full of hearty people.
-An interesting history.
-A downtown with interesting local establishments that hint at some type of colloquial culture.

Spokane is also:
-Impossible to drive. The one way streets and insane construction and heavy traffic spilling everywhere all day and dividers in the middle of seemingly every road so you can’t turn the direction you want is blindingly frustrating.
-Impossible to park. It’s not big enough of a city to charge that much for parking.
-Centered not on the nifty local businesses downtown or the beautiful river, but around a huge mall right on the riverfront. The mall is full of department stores and chains that destroy the local businesses. The mall mutates traffic flow and parking in all of downtown. The mall is an eyesore and a culture vacuum and a pain in the ass.
-Cheap corporate signs and icons and billboards competing for your attention along roads spiraling out in all directions from downtown. Cheap chain stores competing for space in strip malls and chain stores spaced at regular intervals along the road. It’s like you’re tracking a monster that shits out generic mini malls with random assortments of bland national chains every block. I went looking for a local sandwich shop yesterday. After over an hour of driving I came back with chicken strips and french fries. Yuck. There are 16 McDonalds’ in Spokane.

Spokane makes me sad. There’s the beautiful setup with the river flowing through downtown, much like in Portland or Sacramento. There’s the incredible natural beauty surrounding the area. But it lost its soul to corporate America.

Reminds me of a funny Dilbert cartoon the other day.

Check it out.
Here
No time to write anything else, must go meet my uncle in Kent. But: I’ve got my head together and made some big decisions about the trip.
So far it’s been too much vacation, not enough adventure. I blame the trouble in finding a spot to sleep each night, the dependency on peoples’ couches, hostel, and campsite availability, planning, coordinating, all of those things I was sort of trying to avoid.
So, I’m going to trade my car for a van with a big enough space to sleep in and blast out into the unknown where all I have to do to go to sleep is pull over to the side of the road and crawl into the back seat.

Yeehaw!

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to embed it so I’ll just link it.
Funny comic

Also, new posts on usatourist:
Road to Portland
Portland
free-culinary-schools-in-new-york.info michiganmortgage-rates.com tommyhomicide.com cool-site-xxx.com whaljx.com rzytts.com holidayinmauritius.org davidmstorey.com quedlazik.com tenstakvinnojour.com  
Olympia
Seattle