Tomorrow I leave the creepy-ass Mormon capital of the world which is called Salt Lake City and head back to the Bay Area in the Hesh Van . . . and thus will conclude my annual Dude Trip with McCune (and Apache son Harrison). In the span of five days we traveled through California and Nevada and Utah and Idaho and Montana. We saw sun and rain and snow and ice, met and hung out with total strangers, briefly became mayors of a tiny hot spring town, almost died a few times, and were nearly arrested on day one when crossing the Nevada border into Utah. I got a LOT to WRITE ABOUT when I get back . . . but for now I will sleep the sleep of little angels, and dream of an angel too.

:,)

☆彡

Yesterday McCune and Harrison and I got breakfast at the hotel restaurant in Livingston, Montana and then drove to White Sulphur Springs about two hours away . . . we were headed for the hotel there where you can pay $20 and use the sulphur hot springs all day. It was cold as hell when we got UNROBED and TOOK A DIP, but were soon molten hot up to our necks just floating around in that stuff. I felt all pain leave my body. And after about an hour in the second-hottest hot spring, it began to snow hard and did not let up for the rest of the night.

White Sulphur Springs is a very small town . . . I did not see a single stoplight. On the little main street, there are only a handful of bars and restaurants. We chose one that had a wood stove . . . and afterwards, the snow still coming down, we walked half a block down the sidewalk to Lane Bar. There were only two people in the whole place and the pool tables were free, so we decided to Hang Out there all night. Harrison and McCune shotgunned beers and played pool while I talked to Callan on the phone for about two hours. Now that I have decided I am a full-time Weedman (pronounced “weedmin”) and experience only the bad effects of alcohol, I ordered a soda water with bitters like a dork, and which the bartender gave me for free. That’s my favorite price for anything. She said, at one point, “I can tell you guys aren’t from around here.” To which I said: “We sure aren’t!” I mean, listen, I wouldn’t be surprised if this place had a population of five hundred, which means we were in the presence of 0.6% of the people there.

At last call we walked to a Town Pump convenience store and got coffee and donuts and headed back to our weird and sort-of creepy AirBnB at the top of the hill. Back inside we CRANKED the HEAT. Harrison disappeared to call his girlfriend, and McCune ingested what appeared to be a heroic dose of psilocybin mushrooms. He and I watched LAWRENCE OF ARABIA until four in the morning.

McCune went into his creepy room and got beneath his garish creepy bedspread. I stepped outside and took this picture of our high vantage point from the backyard, the Town Pump illuminated in the utterly quiet town down below, then headed upstairs to the A-frame attic where I fell asleep and dreamed about a person I want to see so badly I’m losing my mind.

Swerve me?? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush!! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!!!

nevada

it’s a place where you can touch the truth of the universe

going there may bring sorrow

At sundown in East Hollywood I drove from Los Angeles to Vallejo in six hours, give or take . . . and bleary-eyed, during that long dark drive, I was blessed with phone calls from friends all over the world to keep me company. Wow! I’m so lucky. And now I shall sleep while I still can . . . the Hesh Van leaves for Salt Lake City in about five hours, and they expect me in it. Why? Because they’re gonna need me on the dark road.

TILL THEN . . .

☆彡

went on a walk down hollywood boulevard to buy stamps . . . ended up at the auxiliary church of scientology building and later met that redheaded girl from riverdale at a coffeeshop in virgil village. just another day in the dark paradise of los angeles for world-famous celebrity “hollywood” ryan starsailor . . .