You have three blue-sky days...

Nothing good ever happens in Gary. Take my word for it.

 

That's cause every good thing happens in the Haute.

 

Either four days of just driving around S. Dakota and Wyoming, or four days in NYC.


Actually saw the worlds largest ball of twine this summer, in Cawker City, Kansas.

 

Forget all that, go to New York like rallen suggests And Moddy will kick your ass if you go to New York and don't see a Broadway show. I learned the hard way :-X

 

I have a Shiner-induced hangover today. That Austin itinerary sounds awesome. Strange to see anyone's three days include Odessa, the festering cloaca of the Southwest. But if you want to check out the Permian mystique, I guess so. I'd rather go see the Odessa Jackalopes play hockey at the old county colisuem. That's lotsa fun.

I'll take New Mexico and Arizona for my three days. Start the day in the freaky victorian town of Bisbee, Ariz., and get wired on coffee. Head up to the Saguaro National Park and play in the mountains all day, then roll on down to Tucson late in the evening...have a few beers and enjoy the nightlife at the old Hotel Congress.
http://www.hotelcongress.com/

Day two, up to the remote mountain regions in west-central NM. Just as beautiful as more heavily-touristed places, but often nearly empty of humanity. When I lived in Albucracky, my girlfriend and I liked to camp in the Magdalena range and we'd often have an entire mountainside to ourselves. Great hike and bike opportunities.
http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/cibola/districts/magdalena.shtml

Day three, swing up through Albuquerque and have some city fun. Plenty of places to get some damn good green chile...and the National Hispanic Cultural Center is my favorite museum in the US. http://www.nhccnm.org/
Late in the afternoon, drive up to the beautiful Chama Valley through Georgia O'Keefe's old stomping grounds. Arrive at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert by sunset, in time for vespers. http://www.christdesert.org/ Get a quiet guest room. Crank the space-heater. Get all comfy with a Mexican blanket, a cup of te de manzanilla and a Thomas Merton book. Sleep.

 

Yeah. Mindful that Jones wants a story, I thought about picking some hippie enclaves -- they're about to be sprung from eight years of Bush. Bisbee, Burlington, Ithaca, Eureka. I like Flagstaff probably best, a little more to do.

So we were in Flagstaff a few years ago and my favorite band, Hot Tuna (guitarist and bassist from Jefferson Airplane), was playing at the 700-seat old movie theater downtown. We go to the theater, pick up the tix I bought online, check in at the hotel. Hit the button for the elevator, door opens, there stands the guitarist. "Jorma?" I say. "Yes?" he says. "We just picked up our tickets at the theater and they said your show has sold out," I say. "Oh I doubt that," he says. "No, really," I say. "No shit?" he says. So I relate this story to a woman sitting next to us at the show and she says, "You have to understand, there are a lot of hippies in Flagstaff. A lot of hippies."

 

There are many different types of hippies. I presuming you mean honest-to-goodness, baby boomer hippies from back in the day. Bisbee's got em. Now the hippies my generation and younger, they tend to be more washed and less into dropping out. Trust-fund hippies with Subaru Outbacks and Birkenstocks. Trustifarians. They tend to congregate in places like Austin, Boulder, Madison, Cambridge, Santa Fe, Charlottesville and of course Berkeley. Places where the cost of living's a bit high. Bisbee's a place for the real earth-freaks, not the merely crunchy.

No one's mentioned Asheville and environs yet...

 

Day One: Fly-fishing in Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP with dinner at Jackson Lake Lodge.
Day Two: 36 holes at Pebble Beach followed by dinner in Carmel.
Day Three: A baseball game at AT&T Field, a stroll through Golden Gate Park and dinner at the Hyde Street Grill.

 

Yes, interesting clash of subcultures. There's a message board for hippies, and a sub-section of the message board is only for "old hippies" -- supposedly you have to be 40 to join:

http://www.hipforums.com/modules.php?name=Groups&gid=31

 

Jones, did you just take out American citizenship?

Can't we include Canada in this little fantasy?

 

We can include Canada, sure. I've wrestled exactly two Canadian-themed stories into Esquire (plus a record review of a Canadian band), but if it's good, might be worth the shot.

I've always wanted to go to Dawson City.

Bisbee looks really, really pretty, by the way.