RIDIN' HIGH ON THE FLY

(hoppin' trains with Soup and the Polaroid Kidd)

Taking a break from the raft for a bit, some work and travel are calling. Already miss the river, the raft, and the friendly faces like hell. Kind of feel like I am making a mistake, but I hope to get back there come September. Making the right decision is hard when there is no wrong choice.

- One topic of late night conversation: Communisim is akin to Religion in that their failure is due to the poor execution by mankind.
- Driving the pickup in a crazy storm blasting classical music.
- Eating spaghetti with Bud in his farm house.
- Getting jealous over stories of life in San Fran.
- Going back to amateur strip night, and our friend winning this time!
- Hanging out with David the Bike Guy in Rock Island.
- Waiting for two hours to get picked up by friends who are too high to find you/follow directions.
- Hearing stories of old friends in Chicago majorly dicking-over other friends.
- Resurrecting my soda addiction from last year.
- Serious group sleeping-around drama, and friends leaving.
- Realizing that I look kinda scary with lots of facial hair.
- Finding out that a crew member from last year was recently kidnapped in Palestine.
- Sitting among garbage cans so your friends will have better luck hitching a ride to the hospital.
- Piloting a 70 ft. long raft in high winds with weak engines our first day out.
- Exploring an island full of poison ivy and stinging nettles.
- Accidentally roasting a bunch of turtle eggs under our cooking fire on the beach (the embryos were really cute though).
- Having a bonfire in the middle of a huge sand pit.
- Remembering/joking about the time last year when we tied up to a dead tree and immediately got swarmed by flying termites that bit their wings off once they landed on the raft. . . and the subsequent frantic massacre of the termites to protect our raft.
- Having my clothes literally falling apart on my body.
- Buying girl's jeans cause they were the only ones in the thrift store that fit me.
- Polishing off a pint of Ben & Jerry's in the parking lot of the Kum & Go and watching the parade of locals and their attempts at starting fights with each other.
- Earl and the woman with the newborn baby monkeys.
- Jumping off a thirty-foot-tall ship in the dark.
- Hanging out at the homeless mission and eating hot dogs with a "bounty hunter" and the minister.
- Getting run out of Muscatine by the cops.
- Literally holding my tent down in a fierce storm that produced a tornado thirty miles away.
- Watching the most amazing lightning I've ever seen in my life. . . several nights in a row.
- Slipping, falling and busting my ass on the corner of a 2x4, broke a nice chunk out of my rear and it hurt for a week.
- Waking up one morning to find the river literally lapping at my tent.
- Cory falling overboard and getting cut up by the engine prop.
- Meeting a friendly drunk guy while we were stranded on a beach who invites us to his mobile home on the river. . . we promptly crash into his dock and bend it, but he was still really nice and really drunk.
- Wandering around the cutest small town main streets.
- Realizing that giving a phone interview while riding a loud bus when you haven't slept for two days is not a good idea.
- Hopping my first freight train, on the fly.
- Freezing all night on a mail express train hauling ass while riding piggyback.
- Getting run out of a public park in Chicago by an armed rent-a-cop "Because I said so."
- Dumpstering still-chilled boxed lunches from a kids summer program.
- Camping out at the end of an entire street of abandoned houses in suburbia.
- When you haven't had a meal in a couple days peanut butter tastes amazing.
- Funny thing about riding trains is that it's so loud you have to shout to be heard, yet it puts you right to sleep.
- Getting caught by the railroad police five minutes after arriving in Milwaukee, although after running our IDs he was nice enough to welcome us to Milwaukee and suggest a good cheap Mexican restaurant.
- Looking forward to the art show featuring Brodie (aka The Polaroid Kidd), Monica Canilao, and Soup.

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MP3:

Soup loves this song, and so do I.

• Huey 'Piano' Smith - Don't You Just Know It

A band's place in myspace.