I’m here in Mobile awaiting the official beginning of L6. The boys are all up in the air right now. When I logged in to brothersbikeride.com I found a draft of a post I never finished from L5. The photos had already been captioned, so I figure I might as well publish it to get everyone back in the BBR spirit.

Here’s what I remember about this day:

• It rained a ton, which you’ll see in some of the later photos, and Silvester and I performed a rescue.
• There were about fifty ladybugs on the ceiling of my bedroom at the plantation.
• I worked really hard on a project to meet a deadline imposed as a power play by a client who knew I was on vacation. I fall into this trap again and again (though most clients aren’t as mean-spirited). It is never worth it. People can almost always wait a week.

I regret that work got in the way of my enjoyment of Leg 5, and I apologize for not entertaining you with my affable wit for the last half of that trip. There’s so much I wanted to tell you, so many song references I never got to use. I’ll be better this time. For now, let’s rewind to March 1, 2015, which started in a smelly Best Western in Ville Platte, Louisiana and ended at the Butler Plantation in Poplarville, Mississippi:

I love that someone manufactured this sign; I find the ETC. both humorous and poignant

Messing around on the grounds of the Best Western while I waited for the guys

They’re ready for the open road. And the sky is ready to open up on them.

This bridge kept going and going, and then it went some more. I think it was four miles long. I said, “Oh, my god” out loud a few times, thinking about what it must have been like to be on this on a bike.

View from Silvester’s pit stop

Crossing the Mississippi on the lovely John James Audubon bridge

Silvester among the majestic trees at Butler Plantation

’70s-style kitchen in Tim, Matt, and Mark’s building

Heavy rain from right before I went out to pick up the guys

Day 4 was a Saturday. I hadn’t slept well because my room was opposite a Wal-Mart, and the bright lights from its parking lot filtered in through a crack in the blackout curtains of my room. I woke up early from a dream in which David Letterman had invited me to see a taping of his show. We were in a restaurant with a red and white checkered table cloth. He said he’d get me a good discount on the tickets. There was more to it, but it was mostly about my imagined sense of 1980s New York at night. The dream felt kind of like this:

I can hear Tim saying, “What the hell was that?” Or maybe “what the f*@% was that,” but that’s tomorrow’s entry.

A truck pulls in for an early-morning delivery

Anyway, Wal-Mart. I have very mixed feelings about Wal-Mart. In each new town, it’s always a relief to find one because I know our basic needs will be met. Bananas, bandanas, band-aids, beer, things that don’t start with B: we have bought all of these in Wal-Marts throughout the south. And as I’ve mentioned before, there is a definite comfort imbued by well-known brands when you’re in a foreign city. In fact, the bikers are taking a somewhat unusual route this leg because I’m wary of staying in non-chain motels.

But… oh, you can guess the rest of my snobby, liberal, city-dweller feelings. Blah blah homogenization loss of character minimum wage red states poverty disenfranchisement infrastructure education opportunities. Hillary ’16.

Another cold one! Mark does not look happy about it.

The guys headed out on another long, unpleasant ride. I worked for a couple hours in the Best Western, then started for Ville Platte.

I was expecting it to be the Louisiana equivalent of Brawley. (I’m linking to some greatest hits here, Steve.) But it actually wasn’t so bad. Right before I got to the next Best Western I saw this place:

The logo uses Cooper Black, a font not seen in the wild very often these days

My thought, obviously, was, “I have to see what this is.” My theory was that it was a Wal-Mart competitor and that I’d be able to pick up some snacks.

But Dirt Cheap is actually more like a Goodwill, without the good will, and without any standards at all.

A tantalizing display of things that are 60% off

So, just imagine aisles and aisles that look like this, each with its own uniquely random crap. Here’s another example:

Perhaps you would like old toothpaste, some plastic bottles, a bra, or some other stuff

While it does not seem to have a Wikipedia entry, here is some background from the About page of its website:

The first Dirt Cheap store opened in 1998, in Petal, Mississippi, and has since grown into 57 stores and counting. Today, Dirt Cheap is a standalone company purchasing its own merchandise and exhibiting its own unique selling strategies.

Indeed!

I felt a little bad taking pictures and tried not to be too obvious. People were actually shopping in here, though the aisles of miscellany were generally empty of anyone. Most shoppers focused on the racks of clothing, which were arranged in a somewhat more civilized manner.

I left soon after getting the general idea, the refrain of AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” cycling through my head — actually I was saying it out loud over and over under my breath — and went to, yes, Wal-Mart for the snacks I’d set my sights on.

Then, because it was still a little before check-in time, I headed to the state’s pride and joy, Popeyes® Louisiana Chicken. There were kissing cop cars in the lot, and I immediately got nervous, because Silvester’s registration, like my many bottles of seltzer, expired long ago — in fact more than a year ago. (You gotta feel for Silvester; he hasn’t been given the love he deserves.) Starting in Arizona, with a few exceptions, we’ve been traveling through essentially lawless lands. But in Louisiana, the landscape shifted. There are cops. And I have no idea what will happen if I get pulled over in a rental car with expired tags. Maybe I’ll find out tomorrow!

So I pulled into a spot out of sight for the police cars, providing I left before they did, because I was right next to the only exit. I hurried in and placed my order.

Wouldn’t you have been less obvious if you’d gone through the drive-thru?
Sort of! I would have had to drive right past the cop cars in order to get in line. Like I would have been two feet away from them.

But the whole process would have been faster.
That’s true.

Did you really think the cops were in their cars and not inside, enjoying a leisurely meal of Popeyes unpossessive chicken?
Yes. I mean, I couldn’t tell!

Did you park at a weird angle that made it look like the driver of the minivan was a nervous person and/or scofflaw?
Yes.

There was no one in line, so my three-piece chicken tender meal was put together instantly. I decided to eat it in the car so that if the cops spotted Silvester’s tags I’d be there, ready to cooperate and play dumb. On my way outside, I saw two policemen in a booth in a relaxed posture, laughing over their chicken and ice teas. I had nothing to worry about, probably. But I decided it was too late to turn back.

I took another photo with the sauce in the proper orientation, but my phone didn’t save it so you get this

I set the box awkwardly on my lap and dug in. I consider myself a chicken tender expert due to vast baseball park experience, and these were not nearly as good as I’d hoped. But the fries were great, and, spoiler alert, held up well in the fridge overnight, which fries never do. I don’t know if that means they aren’t real fries or real food or what and I don’t care. I did not eat the biscuit because I’m trying not to over-calorize.

This was my view as I ate lunch and has inspired Day 4’s band name: Bunkie 22. Bunkie 22 would be an annoying ’90s band in the vein of 311 or Blink-182.

The pinky orange “Sweet Heat” sauce got all over my bleached chambray shirt, and in my nervousness I’d neglected to take napkins, and in my vainness I’d neglected to take photos. I just let it set on in to the fabric, telling myself I’d be able to deal with it soon when I got to the hotel. This was difficult for me. Five minutes later I pulled in to our next Best Western, covered the seven or so splotches with my sweater, and checked in. Once in the room, I immediately changed into a t-shirt (because it was like 65 degrees, a temperature my skin thought it might never feel again). Bar soap took the stains right out.

The Best Western in Ville Platte seemed like it might have been furnished by Dirt Cheap, but it wasn’t all that bad, except for an overly strong smell of commercial grade soap. I’m more sensitive to smell than I thought; it really has the power to disrupt my experience of a place. And later the new manager kept asking me if everything was okay, and I kind of wanted to give him all my notes, i.e., you need to get all new furniture and linens and you need get this weird smell out, but I mostly wanted him to stop asking, so I just said yes over and over and smiled falsely and agreed to write a positive review on TripAdvisor which I can’t in good faith write.

Dad and Tim went to church late and were back about half an hour later. We walked across the parking lot to El Charro for dinner. It was decent! I had steak tacos.

This place made some effort with their decor and I appreciated it.

Our lonely Best Western. By morning the parking lot was almost full. I am pleased with this photo.

Back in my room, Dad and Mark blogged while I helped Tim map out the route for the next day. Tim asked if we could turn on the Weather Channel and the TV was tuned to AMC, and AMC was playing Jaws, so we watched that. Then the guys went to bed and Jaws 2 came on and boy, it’s not very good.

Best Western hallway in the Kubrick style

Hotel Art of the Day

“Modern” “abstract art”
24″x18″
Best Western, DeRidder, LA

Hotel Art Score

4/10. I don’t know. The best thing I can say about it, to tie things back to the ’80s, is that those raised boxes remind me very slightly of the abstract shapes in some music videos from my childhood. But it’s not bringing anything to the table as art, and it didn’t have anything to do with the room’s bland decor, so looking at it just made me feel cranky. But it’s not completely terrible. I just don’t like it.

Art Art Score

2/10. I just don’t like it.

I’m a day behind. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Lumberton, Texas, a little after sunrise

At the start of another cold day

I worked for about five hours on Friday but didn’t finish the thing I’d really wanted to finish, so I left the hotel in a BAD MOOD.

On my way out of town I had to make a hairy left turn onto a busy street. After waiting a while I finally saw an opening and started creeping into the lane of oncoming traffic; I just needed the traffic on my right to pass, and in seconds it would. But suddenly a car coming from the right turned left onto my street, taking my turning window. Meanwhile, a semi truck was bearing down on me from my left, and I didn’t have time to accelerate quickly enough to clear it. So I backed up to avoid death. But it was scary and did not improve my mood!

The drive was neither here nor there for me; it was too crowded to achieve the sense of oneness with the world I’ve found on previous trips, and I was pretty distracted thinking about work. I contemplated moving to my parents’ shore house for the next six weeks so that I would be forced to work all the time and wouldn’t have to engage with the things and people I care about. And somehow having and then discarding that thought freed me. Also Spotify (or God) kept playing jazz as if it knew my brain needed to break out of its overly trodden stress grooves.

I’ve been listening to a mix Andy made from Tom Moon’s 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die on shuffle on drives going back to L3, I think. It’s incredibly diverse and about 93% awesome. (If you want in, let me know and I’ll share it with you.) After listening to it semi-regularly for more than two years, I still encounter tracks I’ve never heard before. But whenever you’re with people and try to turn them on to it, it plays stuff that makes you look weird for liking it. There should be a term for that phenomenon, as well as for the phenomenon of your computer slowing way down whenever you want to show someone something on it.

I happened to catch the guys right at the border

Dad is enjoying his fruitcake

Let’s pause for a moment to marvel at the great state of Texas. We crossed into El Paso on the last day of L2 and spent the next two legs exclusively in Texas. It is pretty much its own country, and like most countries its people and culture are varied. Despite spending 19 days in it, we barely brushed its expanse.

It was a short drive to DeRidder after crossing the Louisiana border, and I pulled into the parking lot of the first grocery store I saw to replenish our beer supply. A clerk saw me wandering around like a clueless dope and asked if she could help. I said I was looking for six-packs and she told me they weren’t in this building but in the brown one just outside. Okay.

But first I decided to buy some seltzer, because I had found good, unexpired seltzer in nice glass bottles. All previous bottles I’ve had on this trip have gone flat after one sip, and I realized it was because they were all expired. (My bottle from Day 2 expired in November 2013.) Anyway, the checkout girl at Brookshire’s was frazzled and gave me change of $11 instead of $16, and it was kind of an ordeal to get that $5, but not one worth describing. And yet I’ve spent three sentences almost describing it, so why stop now? But I am.

The brown building was a tobacco and liquor store. There were maybe eight kinds of beer available. That is not a lot of kinds. It seems that in Louisiana liquor laws are determined by municipalities rather than by the state. In New Orleans, for instance, you can drink pretty openly wherever you go, but in this part of the state they seem really uptight about it. Anyway, I picked up a sixer of Fat Tire Amber Ale.

When I saw Wal-Mart next to our Best Western, though, I stopped in, thinking they might have beer with hops, and thinking also that somehow Wal-Mart would have found a way around the separate tobacco/liquor store requirement. Yes and yes. I stood for a while in the busy self-checkout line only to learn after trying to scan my beer that you can’t self-check alcohol.

The guys arrived at our Best Western around 5 p.m. again, totally beat by another long, cold day. I asked Mark what the best part of the day and the worst part of the day were. “This is the best part,” he said. “Everything else was the worst part. Today sucked.”

Dad wanted pizza for dinner, so we ordered from Domino’s and blogged quietly in my room while we waited. The pizza arrived and tasted good. Tim read to us from Crossing the Borderlands. It was a nice night.

After dinner Dad and I walked over to Wal-Mart for more mini wine bottles. We stood in the line of a young lady, and she told us in a very teenager-y way that she couldn’t check us out but would call someone over. She called us “you fantastic people” twice and pronounced receipt “reh-seh-pit” on purpose. She looked mildly like perpetual teenager Kristen Stewart and had a streak of green in her hair.

In conclusion, I learned a lot about how to purchase alcohol in this part of Louisiana.

Just before bed I watched some of Burlesque (2010) on Bravo (starring Cher, Christina Aguilera, Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci, and Alan Cumming). It was strange and I don’t recommend it. The director of photography would try to enliven scenes by using fog or unusual saturation when it had nothing to do with the action, and it just made the production look cheap. Also Christina can’t really act. But she sure can sing! And she has big boobs.

Hotel Art of the Day

Scribbled circle on colored squares
Digital, 20″x20″
La Quinta, Lumberton, TX

Hotel Art Score

6/10. When I first saw this and its companion, which is similar but has squares of different colors and a scribble that resembles a scary face, I thought, “Oh, brother.”

But then it grew on me. Maybe it was because everything else about the room was so inviting, but I ended up feeling warmly toward it. I am able to see it as a statement about the potential for harmonious co-existence of chaos and order.

Art Art Score

3/10. I think that I’m imposing that meaning on it and it’s actually just some cynical hotel art meant to tie in the room colors but add some visual panache. But I’ve thought more about this than usual.

Thank you to all who voted! (Sorry you missed the poll, Laura, but good name!)

Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Silvester. He has trouble shifting into second gear and I think his front driver’s side tire is going flat, but he’s been a reliable companion so far.

Hi

What’s there to say about Day 2? 

• I had a couple of productive conference calls in the morning.
• I picked up an auxiliary cable at Wal-Mart because my new bluetooth thingy doesn’t work. But the cable isn’t so great; it sometimes works and sometimes is all fuzzy-sounding.
• I went to a Barnes & Noble and bought The Martian for Tim and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold for myself. Let’s ignore that there is a crushed bike on the cover of the Le Carré.
• I saw two baby donkeys. They looked like the below but were a little bigger. They were the equivalent of teen donkeys, maybe.

That face!

Why didn’t you stop to take a picture of the donkeys? I don’t like it when you use other people’s photos, it seems like you’re lying.

I know, sorry. The roads were pretty crowded and the timing just didn’t feel right.

What was your dinner like?

We ate at a sad-looking but packed Italian place in a strip mall that had carpeted floors, fluorescent lights, and no liquor license. The food was pretty good, though! But not good enough for me to ever want to eat there again! Because atmosphere is at least fifty percent of my enjoyment of a restaurant! And I want to drink wine with pasta! And I will never be in Lumberton again!

Why aren’t you being more interesting?

Shut up! I’m using exclamation points, isn’t that good enough? Also I already told you, I have too much work.

But aren’t you going to regret not recording your days in minute detail?

Probably. I’m going to do my best and that will mean whatever it means.

What else happened yesterday that took time away from your blogging window?

This white/gold vs. blue/black thing. Everyone is already sick of it and so am I! But I spent at least an hour trying to see it both ways and discussing it online with Chris and Andy. I experienced something of an existential crisis prior to being able to see it as blue and black because I take seriously my ability to perceive color accurately. It seemed like something was wrong with my brain, and that upset me. But then I grew magical dual-sensing abilities and got over it and went to sleep. Wired has a nice analysis, if you’re interested.

How was your room at the La Quinta? 

It had good feng shui and felt very cozy. Its branding was much classier than that of our last La Quinta, and it had high ceilings, a carpet with an inoffensive pattern, and a pleasing dusty orange accent wall behind the bed. The art was a good size for the room and had nice frames. And the bed was comfortable. Nice job, guys. (Art to come in tomorrow’s post.)

How does one pronounce La Quinta?

La Keenta. Not La Kinta, Sullivan bros.

Did you come up with any band names today?

I did, thank you for asking! Today’s band name is Safe Mode. I came up with it when my phone got stuck on its boot screen and I kept pressing things and eventually it started in safe mode. It’s still not back to normal. This is a bad month for me and technology.

I’m bored. Can we look at photos now?

Fine.

The lavish pool at the Holiday Inn Express. It had a 1960s Catskills quality.

Bundled up against the cold. The guys tore off as soon as I took this; they wanted to get it done. It took them nine hours.

The view from Silvester’s parking spot. I thought it was a little pretty and a little ugly and I hadn’t taken many photos. The building at left is a Wal-Mart.

Today’s lunch. So when I saw this concept of wrap “bites” in the airport, I thought it was stupid and funny, yet appealing — it’s like having appetizers for lunch! But I guess it’s actually a standard thing now(?). Maybe if I’d worked in an office in the past few years roll-up lunches would seem normal to me.

Dad walked into the frame of this photo of a guy wearing a jumpsuit at the last second. I thought at first that the jumpsuit was some kind of fashion statement, but it’s just his uniform. The photo still amuses me.

Hotel Art of the Day

A winding path
Holiday Inn Express, Lumberton, TX
Watercolor? / 32″x24″

Hotel Art Score

8/10. The style reminds me of something I’ve seen in indie animations; it feels fluffy, its slight blurriness giving it a sense of motion. It’s nearing the edge of being too colorful but doesn’t fall off the cliff. For a hotel painting it’s delightful. I feel like it’s inviting me in to that far-away farmhouse and I’m effectively invited in to my hotel bed.

Art Art Score

6/10. It’s a little precious, but it’s real art. The style of the clouds feels incongruous; I keep being drawn to the sky when it’s not what I want to focus on.

Hello, and welcome to the fifth edition of the Brothers Bike Ride, or the Brothers’ Bike Ride. Moby Dick, Moby-Dick, potato, potahto, tortilla, tour-till-ah.

This may also become known as the Beth Has Too Much Work So She Can’t Really Blog edition.

Calm down, it’s okay. We’ll get through this together, somehow. Maybe with little airport bottles of wine from Kroger and lazier prose. See below.

The northeast has been holy-#$%* cold this winter. Yesterday morning it was seven degrees as I stood waiting for my overly solicitous Uber driver. It’s gotten to the point where anything over 25 feels warm. “Oh, it’s nice out, it’s just below freezing,” is a sentence I’ve said in seriousness many times this month.

The cold, gritty streets of New York City, on the way to La Guardia

So I was looking forward to 45-degree Texas weather. But you know what, it feels really cold here, too! It’s a different, wetter cold. “It gets into your bones,” the clerk at the grocery store told me earlier today, and he is right.

At the airport, I had a conversation about my clogs with a lady in the restroom (Her: “I haven’t seen clogs in a while” / Me: “I think they’re coming back” / chatter about virtues of clogs), bought lunch for the plane which I couldn’t resist eating while I waited, then hustled to make it to a gate change in a lamer part of the airport.

I am only going to eat lunch that comes in little rolled-up pieces on this trip. This was a very OTG experience.

Band name I came up with on the flight: Airplane Mode.

I deplaned in Houston at the same gate from which I’d flown home in October, and it felt like I was moving back through time, undoing my steps. It’s stranger to visit a place just twice instead of just once; you only begin to penetrate whatever facade it struck you with the first time, so it leaves you in limbo, the romance lost but the deeper knowledge ungained.

Still, we did Navasota so much better the second time around, staying at the pretty nice Comfort Inn with its chocolate chip cookies and having dinner at La Casita, the one good restaurant in town.

La Casita, Navasota, TX

After dinner, Dad put his bike together faster than ever because he was relaxed, and everything is easy when you’re relaxed.

We got an early start on Wednesday, leaving at 6:30 to pick up Tim and Mark in Houston. It rained for most of what turned out to be almost four hours of driving. But Tim confidently told us that the rain would be gone by noon, and it was.

Departing for Conroe under sunny skies. Tim points out our Nevada license plate.

I got to Conroe, a pleasant little town, a little after 1, and went to the grocery store to pick up snacks for the guys and lunch for myself.

You thought I was kidding about the little rolled-up pieces.

I don’t recommend making meal choices for the sake of a weak punchline.

The guys arrived just before 3, warmed up with showers (or a bath, in Mark’s case) and came to my room for snacks. Tim and I planned tomorrow’s route, then we all walked across the street for an early dinner to the Texas Roadhouse, which was bizarrely packed at 4:30 on a Wednesday.

WHERE’S THE BEEF?

Dad and I took an after-dinner detour to the Kroger to pick up a seltzer, some chocolates, and heck, why not, a four-pack of tiny bottles of Woodbridge Cabernet. Then we each retired to our rooms to write. And here I am, my mini-bottle long ago finished.

Taking Care of Business: Name This Minivan

This year’s minivan is silver. He’s been through a lot, with over 61,000 miles and some dents to his side. He is male; I’m feeling that pretty strongly. Write in other names as you like, please.

Voting will close some time tomorrow night.

Hotel Art of the Day

Three Fronds
Digital print, 15″x15″
Comfort Inn & Suites bathroom, Navasota

Hotel Art Score

5/10. It’s pretty bland, but I find those two tips touching each other humorous. The unusual composition is the best part; the fronds themselves aren’t that fun to look at. I think this might have been made in Adobe Illustrator.

The piece is part of a leafy branding campaign by Comfort Inn, echoed in the shower curtain and other art and maybe in the linens, I can’t remember. It’s not a bad direction to go — it’s certainly less offensive than La Quinta’s weird circles. Leaves have soothing shapes.

Art Art Score

3/10. I was going to give it a 2 but it gets an extra point for having a personality behind it.

Despite an overly soft mattress, and despite sharing a room with a dad who snores, I woke up on Thursday from my best night’s sleep of the trip. I know this because my Sleep Cycle app awarded me 93% sleep quality.

Breakfast at The Round Top Inn is usually served at 9 a.m. (and usually not served on weekdays, I later learned. Maybe they did it for us because so much of the town was closed.) Anyway, 9 was too late for the bikers, who were usually heading out around then, so Tim, the most “ask-y” of us in Ask vs. Guess culture theory, asked the innkeeper — who also happened to be the cook — if we could push it back to 8. The answer was yes.

It was a delicious, filling, sugary feast of French toast, fruit, and bacon. I cleaned my plate as usual.

Probably about 1,500 calories, but who’s counting

Another cute building at The Round Top Inn

Last day, woo!

I didn’t stay at the inn much longer after the guys left. I heard the innkeeper cleaning Mark and Tim’s room next door, and, being a guesser (albeit one who’s trying to become more of an asker), guessed she’d want me to go soon so she could get that part of her day over with.

So I decided to drive to Navasota at a leisurely pace and stop for any and all photo ops. Here are a few selections:

True or False: There is a person in this picture

The bikers had laborethed all week and would soon enter into rest

Hey, a train

Hey, a painted building

I turned onto a side street to take the Independence Day photo, and I’m pretty sure that the guys passed me en photographiant, because I ran into them right after this picture was taken. Ginger and I pulled off to the side of the road as usual, but this time I felt the car — and myself — tilt pretty severely in the grass before settling onto flat ground.

The guys were all in good spirits but were concerned about whether I’d be able to make it back up onto the road. I, perhaps somewhat in denial, didn’t think I’d have trouble at all. “It’s steeper than you think,” Mark said, and the others agreed. Tim scoped out a spot a few yards away and advised me to build up speed and then pull up onto the road just before a signpost. But that seemed risky to me, because there wouldn’t be much of a chance to look for traffic, and in my nervousness I might hit the sign.

So I went with my own plan, which was to turn a little bit to the right and swing Ginger around so her tires would face the hill. This was risky in a different way, because I’d have to swing back into my lane to avoid oncoming traffic as soon as I got on the road. I didn’t think of that until later, though.

I got Ginger into position, looked both ways to make sure all was clear, and gunned it. The front tires cleared the hill easily. The back ones, to my surprise, spun on the edge. My heart lurched in a brief moment of oh shit, but I didn’t let my foot off the gas, and within a few seconds I was back up on the blacktop, the air misty and perfumed with burnt rubber. No cars were coming, so I stopped and rolled down my window and gave the guys a thumbs up.

I will forever lament that there is no video of this, my finest minivan moment.

Of course, after my triumph I started experiencing phantom car problems. Does something feel off? Did I hurt you, Ginger? But no, Ginger was fine, everything was groovy again. And within a half hour or so I’d made it to Navasota.

Brief aside: L4 was supposed to take place in March of this year, but we pushed it back after Tim started having eye problems. When I was canceling our reservations for The Best Western back in January, their confirmation screen delighted me with its great example of poor user interface design:

Wait…

Best Western, Navasota, TX

The Navasota Best Western looks like it was probably moderately nice in 1972. And it was okay in 2014, I guess, though my bathroom floor was dirty and the pillows were too puffy. And apparently Tim’s and Mark’s toilets were installed at an angle. Our other option was a Comfort Inn, and I suspect it was of similar quality.

I checked in, then headed out to pick up beer when the GPS app showed the bikers nearing town. I caught them just as I was pulling into Walmart.

Walmart, Navasota, TX

This was nothing like most Walmarts; it reminded me of a run-down Clover, a beloved discount store from my youth. The inside was cramped and dingy and looked as the outside suggests: a slightly disturbing 1988 alternate reality. Everything just felt a little wrong in there. There was no refrigerated beer, so I picked up a warm six-pack.

The guys had not followed my laboriously pecked out Google bike instructions and so had to approach the hotel from the wrong direction (meaning bike into oncoming traffic) rather than add three miles to their trip. The thought of this gave me some heart palpitations on my drive back. Thankfully the distance they had to cover going the wrong way was only a couple hundred yards.

We hung out at the pool for a bit, and Brian accidentally swam a lap with his Fitbit on (typical!). But he was lucky that day; it came back to life after the hot sun dried it out.

No Fitbits were harmed in the making of this picture

After the pool we all rested or worked or whatever for a couple of hours. I researched the three restaurant options in Navasota and decided on the barbecue joint, because we had not yet enjoyed barbecue on this leg.

And alas, we were still not to enjoy barbecue on this leg, because the place was lousy. I didn’t ride through the center of Navasota as the guys had, so my impressions have fewer data points, but my sense of this city is that it’s pretty poor. Having just skimmed the Wikipedia entry for it, it seems like it does have some charms, though, so maybe I missed something in my restaurant research efforts. Anyway, nobody likes to have a crappy dinner, least of all the SAG lady, so our last day unfortunately ended on a less than perfect note.

Birds on wires

Back in my room, I was hoping to watch some postseason baseball, but the games had been played earlier in the day, so I turned on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and half-watched it while I packed. He happened to be in New York City, and I naturally reflected on how different Navasota is from New York, and isn’t it weird that I’m here but watching a show about home, and I can’t wait to sleep in my bed again. But I also learned an obvious yet valuable tip: when in New York and in search of a bathroom, go into a bar and order a beer. Then you get a bathroom and a beer. Last weekend, after a long and quickly-turning-desperate search for a restroom in lower Manhattan, this advice flashed into my head, and within five minutes my problem was solved. Thanks, Anthony.

And most of all, thanks, Tim, Brian (Dad), and Mark for another experience that I will remember forever.

And, of course, thank you, Ginger, for your reliability and fortitude!

Hotel Art of the Day

We have an unusual piece today: a very damaged but likely real work of art by artist Maurice Utrillo.

Winter Scene by Maurice Utrillo, probably 1920s-30s
Watercolor, ~20″x16″
Round Top Inn, Round Top, TX

In searching for information about this I found this listing from 2005 from a site selling a reproduction of the piece (photo below). It’s quite a good reproduction, too, as far as I can tell. What a shame that the version at the inn was not better preserved.

Reproduction of Winter Scene

Now, is it possible that the inn’s version is also a reproduction? I suppose so. But I suspect that the owners, at least, believe it’s the real thing, because otherwise why hang something in such poor condition?

Scores will be based solely on the version I saw in person.

Hotel Art Score

6/10. The fact that it’s damaged adds some romance to it; it’s clearly quite old, and has been around — who knows what sort of life it’s had? And it appears to be a cozy street scene. It certainly looks French. So it’s ticked off a number of B&B art boxes. But it is really in quite bad shape, which makes it somewhat unpleasant to look at. It’s difficult to experience any real feelings about it through those water stains. And in a certain frame of mind, late at night in your dim, remote Texas bedroom with no cell signal, it might just seem spooky and sinister.

Art Art Score

6/10. It’s clear, even through the stains, that there’s real technique and confidence at play here. The composition, with its curving, inviting street and roofs of different heights, is pleasing, and it’s easy to imagine that this was an accurate depiction of a day in France long ago. But the color, which is crucial to understanding its festivity and warmth, is gone. So much has been lost, and it makes me a little sad.

But I don’t want to end with an expression of sadness, so here’s the art from the Best Western. It’s a bad photo but you don’t care:

Bouquet on scrap paper background
Mixed Media, ~14″x18″
Best Western, Navasota, TX

Hotel Art Score

5/10. This seems like an older version of the mass-produced art chain hotels have now. It seems like it might have come from the same alternate reality as the Navasota Walmart. The funniest part about this is that the words in the background scraps are not at all legible. You’d think they’d be little bits of wisdom, like, “love is where your story begins,” or maybe snippets of Robert Frost poems, but they could be obituaries for all I know.

Art Art Score

2/10. Why am I giving it a 2 and not a 1? Because a I promised a happy ending. And the flowers in the foreground are nicely executed.

Are you familiar with GeoGuessr? It’s a game that drops you in the Google street map view of a random place, and you have to guess where you are using any clues at your disposal — types of cars, vegetation, architecture, signage. Once it put me in Australia and I thought I was in Florida. But once it put me in New Mexico and my guess was very accurate thanks to my having been there in L2.

There have been times during this trip when my surroundings have felt very comfortable, when it’s as if I’m on a drive through a familiarly rural part of Pennsylvania. If GeoGuessr plopped me onto a two-lane road in central Texas I might think I was in Bucks County, at least for a few seconds. But there are definite differences in the roads and surroundings. The distance between double yellow lines is wider, for instance, and I always want to push them a few pixels together because I have trained myself to think in terms of screens. (You can see the yellow lines on the guys’ recent entries.) There are also way more buffalo.

Relatedly, I have felt very safe throughout this leg. On each of these trips I think about what I would do if the car broke down on a deserted road and I didn’t have a cell signal. The answer would pretty much always have to be wait for someone to drive past and try to flag them down, though I’d also pop the hood and check levels of fluids because that’s the only thing I know how to do. And then maybe I’d bang my head on the steering wheel because it worked for Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. But whereas at times on L2 and L3 I felt vaguely unsettled at the hypothetical idea of having to rely on the help of a stranger, this time I never felt like the potential stranger could be a psycho just waiting to run across a helpless lady on the side of the road.

Destination: Round Top, TX

Realizing my lunch options in Round Top might be limited, I decided to pick something up in Bastrop, which had a bunch of fast food chains near its cluster of hotels. Is there a name for the part of a small town where all the hotels are? Hotel Plaza? Hotel Park? I wasn’t going to go back to Schlotzsky’s and satisfy charm robot. After driving in a six-mile loop I opted for Taco Bell because I’d eaten a lot at the Hampton Inn breakfast (a muffin, an omelet, a banana, and something else I think) and wanted to eat light. I have trouble not eating all of the food in front of me so the best thing is always to put less food on my lap.

I went through the drive-thru and ordered a chicken taco. The guy taking my order asked what kind of sauce I wanted. “I never go here so I don’t know what my options are,” I said, annoyed at being the person who tries to explain things about myself to waiters. There was mild, hot, and fire; I chose hot. The taco was a 5/10.

Coulda been worse

Here are a bunch of photos I took while driving:

Road sign for munchkins — there was another one at this height a little before it

Hard to see, but this water tower has a happy face on it. I passed a couple of these and they lifted my mood, because they are cute and seem beneficent

What?

Not Pennsylvania

The trees in this field were in small groups, as if at a cocktail party

I arrived at our B&B exactly at 3, having learned from past mistakes. The Round Top Inn is a former cigar factory and is quite lovely inside and out. Round Top (pop. 90 as of 2010) is an interesting little town — it looks like a haven for artists, though much of it was closed when we were there. We’d missed their big yearly event, a week-long antique fair, by just a few days, and the owner of the inn told me she was still recovering from it.

The following may or may not be a reenactment:

Tim reads a lengthy but interesting installment of Crossing the Borderlands at the Round Top Inn

Building at the Round Top Inn

Utensil fiesta, and our first and last Mexican meal of L4

The cowboys had mustaches, too

The brothers walking back to the inn after dinner

From the Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Round Top

Hotel Art of the Day

Flowers on a textured background
Digital print, 16″x16″
Hampton Inn, Bastrop

Hotel Art Score

6/10. It’s completely inoffensive and just fine for hotel art. Its objective is to make you feel cheery, to remind you of actual flowers and the nice feelings nature can give you. It’s inspiring very neutral feelings in me but certainly not bad ones.

Art Art Score

3/10. It’s completely inoffensive. There is no soul. But hotel art doesn’t really need soul.

There is not a lot to say about Day 5, which began in Kyle and ended in Bastrop. But I’ve been feeling guilty this whole trip for not giving a cosmic shout-out to Jan Hooks, who died on October 9, with a clip of her tour of the Alamo in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. We’ve been close to San Antonio for most of the trip, and Big Adventure is, after all, about the love of a bicycle. So here we are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYfjq3ZYZbA

I also want to give a shout-out to Tim, who has been writing out directions for me every morning. They were especially handy on day 3 (Bandera to Blanco) and day 5.

I like to compare the Sullivan siblings’ handwriting. Tim’s is the most like his mom’s, I think, though I don’t have samples of Ted’s, Denise’s or Kevin’s. Their scripts all look like they come from the same family, whereas mine and Chris’s bear no similarities.

Sunrise in Kyle

Rerouting, rerouting

See no evil, hear no evil, and Brian

The ride was fairly short, and I figured the riders would want lunch when they were done, so when I got to Bastrop I stopped at a Schlotzsky’s Deli for turkey sandwiches.

The guy behind the Schlotzsky’s register was like a charm robot. He was tanned, muscled, and buzz-cutted, and he talked quickly, clearly priding himself on his ability to work efficiently and make people smile at the same time. Snippet: “What’s that name again? You can tell me your name six times and I’ll forget it but I never forget the face of anyone I’ve met. Now are you gonna share that with a friend, should we upgrade to medium for a dollar?” He was training another cashier as she looked up at him with a dreamy smile and stars in her eyes. “Anything over $24.99, they use a credit card, they have to sign. $24.99 and under, no need to sign.” Swoon. As I was walking out, he said, “Thanks again ma’am hope to see you again real soon,” and I thought, “You really won’t, you won’t see me ever again in your life.” And now my face is seared into your memory. Sorry!

Greasy, delicious sustenance

After I checked in to the Hampton Inn in Bastrop, I promptly locked myself out by leaving my key cards in my room for the third time this trip. I’m not sure whether that has to do with being more distracted or more relaxed. Whatever the cause, people were always nice about it.

The guys arrived a little after two and spent a long time in the hot tub ribbing each other and telling family stories. I’ve probably already said this, but family stories are one of the best things about these trips for me. This was the day that they were officially halfway done with the journey across the country. They had definitely earned their marathon hot tub session.

Everyone thought the pool would be outside

Tim, an important lawyer, takes a call in the hot tub

We drove into quaint downtown Bastrop (pronounced with a short “a”) and had a very nice dinner there. I wish there’d been more time to explore this place.

Historical marker!

Baxters Fine Dining, which began life as abattoir

Fancy feast: Blackened redfish with chile mashed yams, zucchini and tomatoes

Hotel Art of the Day

Sorry for the glare once again. I do my best, I really do.

Textured collage
Mixed media, 16″x16″
La Quinta Inn and Suites, Kyle, TX

Hotel Art Score

4/10. What you unfortunately can’t tell from the photo is that the off-white slips of paper appear to be stock market listings from a newspaper. Why? Why not, I guess. But seriously, why. We’ve got starbursts and circles and dots, all indicators of playfulness, and we’re going to overlay them on the stocks page. Maybe it’s to indicate that when in La Quinta, work is fun. The stock market? Just a game! Splash blop bloop. Wait, but it is a game, isn’t it? Everything is, when you get down to it. So I guess actually this is pretty existential.

It’s interesting to note, too, that all of the art in the rooms features open circles, which correspond to the bedspread design. So this piece was commissioned specifically for La Quinta. That’s more branding unification than I’m used to. Nice job, La Quinta?

Art Art Score

1/10.

The Blanco Best Western is an unusual property. Its reviews on TripAdvisor are remarkably positive — a 4.9 rating and comments like “best Best Western ever!” and “Greatest hotel!” — so I was excited to stay there. It certainly had the most expensive and ornate loveseats of any Best Western I’ve known.

The loveseat: a solid piece of furniture

And it had a robust collection of Southwestern art in the elevator, halls, and rooms. Some of the paintings in the first-floor hallway had rotating colored LEDs shining on them, adding a gratuitous but appreciated oomph (sadly not captured on camera).

Herding in a thunderstorm

Intimate moonlit cowboy chat

And there were two TVs in my room, one facing the bed and another in the office area. And it had a nice garden outside.

It wasn’t the best Best Western ever, though, because breakfast was horrible: half-frozen tater tots, instant scrambled eggs (which weren’t replenished when they ran out, maybe to the benefit of future guests), and even worse, instant coffee. How is instant coffee still a thing? Isn’t making coffee one of the simplest tasks man can attempt? The internet likes to tell you you’re doing everything wrong, but as far as I can tell it hasn’t tried to tell you that you’re making coffee wrong, because you aren’t. You’re just making coffee and it’s coming out fine. You are, however, drinking it wrong. See below. This video is an annoying Buzzfeed production but it actually has some good tips. I recognize that posting it makes me complicit in the propagation of our detestable internet culture and I am sorry:

Here, watch this to cleanse your palate. You’ll never look at a Twinkie the same way again:

In conclusion, if you’re a hotel owner, don’t scrimp on coffee. I know it’s cheaper, but your savings are not worth the bad taste in everyone’s mouths.

A storm struck right as the guys were prepping to take off, so they hung out in the lobby for half an hour and waited for it to pass.

Not really in the mood to pose

Their ride was wind assisted and therefore speedy. My drive was short and entirely forgettable; it’s two days later and I have already forgotten it. The bikers actually beat me to the La Quinta in Kyle by a few minutes, all of us arriving a little after noon.

Mark and Tim didn’t invite Brian to the hot tub because they knew he would just be bugging them to hurry up to leave for the LBJ Library. After the secret hot tub session everyone convened in my room and we decided on pizza for lunch. I thought we were going to try a local place, but the guys had passed a CiCi’s, a buffet-style franchise with which you might be familiar, on the way in, so that’s where we ended up.

It looked like this this photo from the Cici’s website, but less appealing

Notes from CiCi’s, Kyle, TX, 10/13/14:

• The all-you-can-eat buffet is $5.60.
• The pizza tastes like high-quality cafeteria food. If you were in high school and they served this on pizza day, you would look forward to it all week.
• The place felt a little unclean, but not enough to make me not want to eat.
• They had on a Sirius ’80s station and it was playing good stuff.
• There was an opinionated teenage girl sitting behind us. Here is a sample of her conversation, typed on my phone in real time: “The music I listen to? They don’t want it played on the radio because the bands don’t want white trash to listen to their music. They don’t want people like Valerie to go to their concerts. It’s not racist. It’s not racist.” Then she listed the inferior music that does get played on the radio with a sneer and a laugh: “Nicki Minaj, heh!” She also shared her thoughts on abortion: “If you want to take care of it for eighteen years when it comes out of her, be my guest.” And I learned that she once thought she was pregnant because her period app mispredicted her start date by two days. Oh, apps! It seemed like she was the only person talking in a group of three. On my way back from the restroom I satisfied my curiosity about the rest of the group: one of them was clearly her mother, and the other I supposed was her boyfriend, who was getting through it by staring blankly to his left. Poor everyone.

Next up: the LBJ Library and Museum!

The brutalist building seems to suit LBJ’s personality — which is not to say he was brutal, just forceful

Its feature exhibit was on sixty influential people from the 1960s. I thought the museum did a nice job profiling people you (or at least I) might not already know much about, like David Ogilvy and Berry Gordy, along with more well-known names like Charles Schulz and Kurt Vonnegut.

One neat interactive feature was a free jukebox with a selection of influential recordings, again with a nice mix of popular and lesser known.

(from the LBJ Library website)

I waited till it was free and walked up to take a look at the songs, planning to choose a crowd-pleaser for the guys. I noted they had an obscure Led Zeppelin track on there, which pleased me. But before I had a chance to pick my song, a guy, 40ish, came over and stood next to me. He asked how to do it and I explained it to him: “I think you pick a letter and then you pick a number.” You know, like on every jukebox you’ve ever seen. I should have said, “Um, I was about to pick something,” but when I feel uncomfortable I usually try to make the situation end in as quick and conflict-free a way as possible. I’m working on this.

He pushed a letter and hesitated. “Okay, now you pick a number.” He put on Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” — a fine choice, but I wasn’t about to say so after he usurped my turn — and kept standing there, so I walked away. I have no idea if it was an idiotic attempt to hit on someone in a museum or if he was just clueless. Maybe standard jukebox etiquette doesn’t apply in a presidential library.

Doofus aside, I enjoyed the museum a lot. I particularly liked listening to LBJ’s phone conversations and could probably have spent a few hours doing that. I listened to one he had with Jackie Kennedy just a couple of weeks after JFK’s death in which he tells her that she should visit whenever she wants, and she must still be in shock because she’s breathless and coquettish and giggly the entire conversation. It was fascinating.

I also learned that he founded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

LBJ’s “I will not seek another term” speech — I enjoy thinking about what the tech on the floor is thinking

Teleprompter page from the speech

Replica of Lady Bird Johnson’s office. She would sort her files by making piles on the floor. I do this, too.

After the museum, we ate a quick but delightful meal at the nearby Salty Sow, then drove back to Kyle in rush hour traffic. I used the Waze app (which I downloaded after Laura recommended it on her blog — thanks!) and while it couldn’t do much for us that day, it is a cool tool.

The Salty Sow, a top-notch dining establishment

Back at the room, I performed blog assistant duties and half-watched “Dancing With the Stars.” Carlton is pretty good, huh?

Hotel Art of the Day

Cows on a mission
Color photograph, ~14″x10″
Best Western, Blanco, TX

Sorry about the poor quality, it was tough to get a good, non-glarey shot of this.

Hotel Art Score

7/10. This is like if Michael Bay were a cow and made a movie about other cows. It made me smile every time I saw it.

Art Art Score

3/10. Same goes for Armageddon while we’re at it.

When you stay at hotels, do you use the little shampoos and soaps they give you? My new policy is to use hotel soaps only if they seem especially good. The hands-down best hotel beauty products I’ve encountered were at Le Château Frontenac in Quebec City. They use Rose 31, a scent by Le Labo, and I became so enamored that I’ve started ordering Rose 31 laundry detergent so that my clothes can smell like it. An indulgence, yes, but I’ve come to believe in the positive influence of good scents on my sense of the worldence.

Anyway, some Best Western on L2 gave us such a huge bar of soap that I couldn’t bring myself to leave it behind. So I’ve been toting it around in a baggie and watching it shrink slowly with use, inordinately proud that I am not wasting plastic and soap. I’m sure most frequent travelers bring their own soap because it’s simple and logical, but to me it is a brilliant new idea I came up with, so I wanted to brag about it. Think about all the soap that’s thrown away in a given day in the world’s hotels. Now think about how you can change it.

I woke up just before 6 and worked for a spell, joining the guys in the breakfast room at 7:30. Sharon made an excellent meal of scrambled eggs, bacon, a fruit salad, a maple cake, and probably other stuff I’m forgetting. I should have taken a picture of the spread; it was one of the best breakfasts we’ve had on all of the trips combined. (And breakfasts this time around have been particularly lousy.)

Warm breakfast room at the Diamond H B&B

Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine in the Diamond H garage. If it had been plugged in I would have kicked everyone’s ass at Galaga, especially because they’ve probably never played it before.

I did not envy them this morning (not that I ever do, really)

Symbols and portents will start appearing everywhere if you’re looking for them. The guys started off a little after 8, riding into a misty, chilly morning. Right after they left, as I was walking up the staircase back to my room (see above photo for stairs), I heard a loud sound and turned around to see a cat falling violently out of a tree (see above photo for tree). Its body was all twisted up as it fell, but it landed on its feet and trotted around the building. Jim was outside at the time and I yelled over to him, “Your cat just fell out of that tree, but I think he’s okay.” I’m not sure if he heard me right because he didn’t say anything, just looked at me, and I continued back up the stairs.

I wondered if it meant anything, because it seemed like it should. The obvious: One of the riders will fall but will be okay, or the less obvious, more celestial: Earthly disturbances may occur yet the universe will remain whole. But something told me this didn’t mean anything; it was just a cat falling out of a tree. That a witnessed act of nature might be only itself seems symbolic, too, though, doesn’t it? I can’t escape!

Looking out at the road from the Diamond H. #NOFILTERYOUGUYS

At 11 I packed up and got ready to head out, thanking Jim for his hospitality and telling him I’d send more New Yorkers his way. “Okay,” he said, sounding not at all enthusiastic about the prospect.

He had told me earlier that morning to stop at Camp Verde on my drive out. “There’s a nice little store there that you have to visit,” he said. “It’s got a lot of Texas souvenirs and it’s real nice. Quality Control” — meaning his wife Sharon — “loves it.”

From Wikipedia:

The camp was the headquarters for U.S. Camel Corps, which experimented with using dromedaries as pack animals in the southwestern United States. The Army imported camels in 1856 and 1857, using them with some success in extended surveys in the Southwest. The camels did not get along with the Army’s horses and mules, which would bolt out of fear when they smelled a camel. The soldiers found the camels difficult to handle and they detested the smell of the animals.

Camp Verde bore no sign of its previous association with the U.S. Camel Corps other than an attractive sculpture, but the restaurant and store were quite nice in a Pottery Barn kind of way and suggested affluence in the areas nearby.

Remember the camels

Mugs with Texas ‘tude. I took the time to make the labels face forward so I feel obligated to myself to include this. The last one reads “LIFE needs more COFFEE & LESS WORKEE”

There was a cool totem pole on the grounds, tucked away near the entrance to the rest room. I am not much of a taker of selfies but thought it could be fun to have a picture of my face next to a dramatic totem pole face. I looked both ways and saw no one coming, so I got my phone out and fixed my hair and started framing the shot so as to flatter both myself and the pole. But it always takes me a while to find a becoming angle, being unpracticed at selfies and being afflicted with the Sullivan nose-to-jaw ratio, and soon enough a maintenance worker appeared on the path, heading my way. I instantly felt like a vain fool and shut down the operation. As I headed back to my car a guy on a bench was smiling at me. He’d seen the whole damn thing.

The Waring General Store was made for road trip photos, and it knows it

The ride to Blanco was fun at first. I listened and sang along to Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk, a reliable record for a scenic drive, expecting to see the guys with each crest of a hill. But I kept not seeing them. I stopped on the side of the road a couple of times and tried to locate them on GPS, but if I had a signal, Dad didn’t, and vice versa. The album ended and I drove in silence, what-ifs bouncing around in my brain. Once the worry bug gets into your system it’s hard to shake. All of you family members reading this don’t need to worry because I am worrying on your behalf and then some.

I made it to the hotel, hoping they were already there and had just neglected to text. There was no sign of them. But we all finally had cell reception — whew — and I could see they were about 25 miles away. I checked in quickly at the Best Western, then headed back out, figuring they’d appreciate another break. It turns out I hadn’t passed them before because they’d been taking smaller roads to avoid traffic.

Map man Tim plotting the rest of the day’s course

Pit stop done, I picked up some snacks at the grocery store then headed back to the Best Western, where colored lights illuminated artwork in the hallways. More on that in the next post.

The guys arrived and did laundry, and we had a good time relaxing in my room while they waited for it to finish. Someone had left half a case of Coors Light in my fridge and Mark availed himself of one. He later asked if I’d taken them with us, and I told him I hadn’t because it would be bad kharma.

Tim read Brian to sleep with the latest installation of Crossing the Borderlands

We headed into town for dinner. Blanco is even smaller than Bandera, and we wondered how any business could sustain itself. The restaurant I’d picked out had closed at 3, so we ended up the Oak Creek Cafe, a little tavern that gives out free pinto beans. The food was so-so — I find it mildly appalling that a restaurant would serve Ore-Ida fries — but their house red was surprisingly good.

Afterward we did a loop around the small town square. It was a pleasant night.

Dad wanted to be in this picture, and he is.

Hotel Art of the Day

Gulls hovering above a dune
~16″x8″
Diamond H B&B, Bandera, TX

Hotel Art Score

8/10. I was charmed to find this very Jersey shore painting in Texas. I’d normally barely notice something like this because I’ve seen dozens like it in beach houses in my lifetime, though usually in a pink or white frame, with a lighter matte. At first glance it looks like a typical beach painting, but is it? It’s more about the gulls than about the ocean; they seem to be circling for food. It’s slightly ominous, and I like that. Maybe this is standard beach subject matter and it just feels original because I’m viewing it in an unexpected setting. I genuinely don’t know right now.

Art Art Score

5/10. It’s a nice painting done by someone with talent. It doesn’t particularly move me, but it’s not maudlin or insincere.

Outtake of the Day

I shot this video. Why did I shoot it in portrait view? How embarrassing. Never again.