Road Trip and First Impressions of Montréal

Okay, here goes:

SF to Reno

Not bad. Short drive (4-5 hours). Once we got out of the city the cats were fine. Once we got to Reno I played video blackjack at a grocery store (you can do that there). I started with a dollar, got up to $1.40, went down to 80 cents, and then made it back up to a dollar. I cashed out at that point and the attendant who brought me my earnings, an grim older lady who'd been reading a romance novel, had such a look of disgust on her face that I didn't gamble anywhere else in Nevada.

Reno to Salt Lake City

Only two things I need to mention about Salt Lake City. One of them is that most of the beer there is only 3.2% alcohol (it's the opposite here in Québec, but we'll get to that). We found a couple that were 4%, one of which, I shit you not, was called "Polygamy Porter". The tagline was "Why have just one?"

Salt Lake City to Jackson, WY

Jackson is set just south of the Grand Tetons (which is French for "big tits") and is filled with ski bums, cowboys, and a small artist community. It's gorgeous there, but a little too wholesome and homogenized for my taste.

Rapid City, SD

We stopped in Rapid City to see Kendra's Uncle Denny and Aunt Pam. Rapid is right by Mt. Rushmore, which was the biggest piece of shit tourist trap I've been to in a long time. The monument itself is impressive, however it costs $8 just to park near it. Kendra and I decided that money would be better spent on beer in the small town that's crept up in the shadow of Mt. Rushmore. I forget the name of it but all of the hotels there have names like "Presidential Suites" or "The White House Motel". Everywhere we went the help was rude and shitty, but I guess I would be too after being shit on every day by the basest examples of bovine America. Seriously, what kind of asshole packs up their family for a week-long visit to Mt. Rushmore?

The Mall of America, MN

I guess this is the biggest mall in America or something. I think a lot of people get duped into going to this thing the same way I did, thinking it's a national monument or something, but when you get there you realize that it's just a huge fucking mall with an amusement park in the middle of it and there's no fucking way your girlfriend is going to let you run away now. We went to the Rainforest Café and got drunk right away. Then things were okay, almost fun, in a Fear and Loathing kind of way. The alcohol was expensive, but we did get a blinking souvenir glass. Plastic. Big cheap-looking seams down the middle of it. Lettering already wearing off. Like my love for America after spending a few drunken hours with its mall.