Into the Wild

…blue yonder.   Killing time before my flight east. Check leTumblr for travel pics of New Jersey diners.

Kayekilla Pan-a-View

1. Mississippi River near Harbor Town in Memphis
2. Cotton King and Queen gear at The Pink Palace
3. Crystal Bridges, AR
4. Mini Golf on Summer Ave in Memphis
5. The Ridgeway Malco Theater in Memphis
6. Tuba Museum in Okemos, MI
7. Hot air balloons in Howell, MI

Sizzling. Hot. Meat.

At the Summer Drive In from kayekilla on Vimeo.

Shooting Nature

Been out.

Lofty Ideas

For those of you that don’t know, I am newly liberated and have been traveling a lot lately. Metaphorically and quite literally – like see this photo of me on the moon?

More importantly, I’ve been cooking up some ideas for the next great blog project and it got me thinking that so much blogging and internet content nowadays is kind of “stunt” writing – you know, like when people are like “I am going to take one photo a day of this” (ok, that can be pretty cool) or “I will write about the weather in LA every day for a year” (ok I did that). It makes me wonder if this is something I should fight against or just give into. Am I destined to be a stunt blogger?

Here are a few ideas I have been tossing around:

• Strike up a conversation about __________ with one stranger a day
• Entering the underground culture of sweeping
• Start an advice column where I have my girlfriend from the west coast, mid-west, and the south answer (no one needs east-coast advice, JK)
• One craft a day from my thrifted craft books
• Anything to do with truck-driving school
• Adventures in starting my own spray tan business
• A daily investigation/analysis into/about one of the following dusty books on my bookshelf: Southern Living’s Travel South (a book obtained from Idontknowwhere??), Dena Kaye’s The Traveling Woman, Story Structure Architect, Backstage Pass by Angela Bowie, Put Offs and Come Ons: Psychological Maneuvers and Stratagems by A.H. Chapman, M.D., Photomontage by Dawn Ades, or Day Trips From Memphis by R Finlayson and S Sprott Pace.  (I may never finish this blog post if I keep looking at all the weird books I have)

Any other suggestions for stunt blogging are appreciated. Until then, I am off to eat some Soul Fish.

Side-seat Driver

I stopped taking odometer photos (usually taken to document each stop) after the 202.9 mile mark of my 765-mile trek back home. Something happened after the first 200 miles and it was nothing but me, my thoughts, (and the audiobook version of “Freedom” – which I rather liked, maybe I am Franzen’s target audience, maybe I enjoy reading character studies of midwestern people after hanging out with midwestern people), and the road.

I might have been eager to hurry on home because I knew I wasn’t going to get to see the Fairmount James Dean/Garfield museum or stop at the Louisville Slugger Factory or maybe because I knew my trunk was full of more alcohol than I consumed in the first half of 2012. (Michigan has cheap wine and my dad likes to buy me six-packs of Kid Rock’s Bad Ass beer.) I know it isn’t illegal or anything but it’s not like my trunk has temperature control so there were many factors and varieties of grapes to consider.

When I arrived back home a little after 8pm on Thursday night, I was in a daze of highway hypnosis. I looked over at the passenger seat and saw:

• The spilled contents of a half bag of sunflower seeds
• 2009 edition of “the Next Exit”  - thanks KFW
• Three different kinds of chapstick/lip balm
• A notebook and pen (I can drive with my knees when I have to) with one entire page taken up by the scribbley word/s:  BERNE, IN
• Two half-empty bottles of water (plastic)
• Napkins from Arby’s and Love’s travel stops

I’m an experienced roaddawg, but I’ve noticed that as I get older, the road stays the same age – no seriously, I mean, my trips take on different dimensions (special thanks to B’s mom for the different dimension phrase). I don’t remember much from this one except: not taking phone calls (even practically hanging up on my own mother who was calling to check in on a traffic jam), texting and photographing while operating my vehicle at high speeds, and driving straight west into the setting sun - half-blind and fueled on curly-fries (especially dangerous considering the high-MSG content)! I was probably more dangerous out there than any trucker or teen-driver hopped up on speed, bath-salts, and fake gas-station marijuana, but I made it back all in one piece with only a dirty windshield to worry about. The road is truly one of my favorite miracles of life.

Michigan, Sweet Peninsula of Dreams and Magic

Lady sawed in half at American Museum Of Magic in Marshall, MI. Flea Circus from there too.  Heading west on G-D River road at 9:45pm. Michigan Challenge Balloon Fest in Howell, MI. Pre-storm sky and blurry bird in backyard Fowlerville, MI. Old basketball court at Fowlerville Community Park. Community pool at Grosse Point Park. Lil nephew smooching  giraffe at Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek, MI.  (some photos from my tumblr)

I will miss this place. Back to Memphis tomorrow!

Michigan List Pt 2

American Museum of Magic
Colon, MI
Fireflies (reminder to self: google "how to photograph fireflies")
Seventh Day Adventist Village
Ducks or something squawking outside my window in the early morn.
Hot air balloon racing
Grosse Pointe Parks and pools
Binder Park Zoo
10:10pm sunsets
Perfectly reasonable wine prices

Photos of Meals

Yeah yeah, I understand that thisiswhatwehadfordinner food pictures are made for registered yelp users and roadfood.com enthusiasts and personal blogs of people that take pictures of their food and their feet in crazy places, but consider this a genre post. And consider that you are looking at a baby greek salad from National Coney Island. You can't get that anywhere.
Only in Michigan.

Did you know the term Michigander was coined by Abe Lincoln?

My Michigany list this week:

People stopping by (Michigan small towny)
Pop (I've had a lot of it here)
75 mph MINIMUM,ok?
Sightings of new/test Chevy/Ford vehicles
Farms, cherries, beets, apples
Chicken Shawarma (I dream of the old La Sish when they still had gobs of weapons on their walls)
Kellogg Sanitarium
Unsolved small town murder

Made It All These Miles

Got in way, way later than I anticipated. Wouldn't have been a big deal if my night vision hadn't been impaired by bug-guts-on-the-windshield glare for the last hour.  Forgot about the time zone change, ran into a couple traffic jams, and some surprising slow fast food service in southern Indiana.

All of that will get you to a place called Pure Michigan.

Strange Sightings

It's been a weird couple weeks. For example, I saw these guys dressed up like lime heros driving down Walnut Grove waving at people and falpping their lime capes around and I spotted a vanity plate that said YU1DRNG.  Did the owner of that plate know I would be wondering about chubby dudes dressed up like green fruity super heros?

I'll be back on the road soon. My tumblr will be the place to check for updates.  More content here soon.

Another Photo Round-Up

Safeco. It was cold. I had fish and chips. The Tigers lost, but the mariners won so a lot of people in North Face jackets were happy.

The very best flights are when I get a window seat AND one of these flight-map monitors.  The very, very best would be if I could co-pilot for a bit, but they don’t let you do that post Airplane II. 

Mount Rainier from a plane window. One big ol mountain.

I took a test at the Gates Foundation Visitors Center (our work group got a special tour) and it said that the way I could be of most help to humanity is through the use of my artistic talents so I made this. So, I’m pretty much even-steven on the saving the world front now. Are you inspired?

The bathrooms at the visitors center remind you that you should be happy you are not peeing in a hole in the floor.

Random airport photo.

Ft. Lewis where my sister makes justice happen. (I know, I could have gotten a better picture).

Space needle reflection on the Gates Foundation building. ARTY (that is just me saving the world again).

Hippos underwater at the Woodland Park Zoo. This exhibit has zebras, giraffes (you can see waaaaay in the background), and antelope (?) all living together with the hippos. Progressive!

Army stuff.

Salt Lake City (top), Seattle (bottom).

This blog has been replacing words with pictures more and more (excuses: time, existential crises, hypoglycemia). I wonder if someday I will eventually merge (pick one over the other) kayekilla with my tumblr. Until them you will have to continue to check out both.

A Picture Diary

My days of late: People at the zoo, pre-schoolers’ Memphis Grizzlies diorama, burpee print-out from elementary school rec room, window seat over Chicago, my hand holding the pelt of a cheetah, a real-live grizzlie bear under water, a crab with one giant claw and one small claw.