Premature evacuation, part one.
When I'd met Alyssa, she was already planning on not renewing her lease in Albany and to instead try living out of her car, or at least that was what she told me. I too was deciding to no longer live and pay rent in the basement I'd been in for a while. Alyssa and I had really made a name for ourselves in the city as the couple who was everywhere, at shows, events, and especially putting on our own activist and community events. We'd also finally established our relationship as an official and monogamous one back in May when after six months of avoiding it I'd asked her to be my girlfriend.
For a long time before that, whenever she'd ask me to go travel with her, I'd tell her that traveling was a really intimate thing to me and that I wasn't ready to do it with someone else yet. I was still very much not ready, but after over a year of really getting my shit together and building such a sustainable and fulfilling life for myself in Albany as a full-time activist and organizer, I thought it'd be really nice to go on a big adventure again. Our departure date was organized around an iamamiwhoami show Brooklyn.
637 miles.
DAY ONE
Tuesday, August 28th
After running a buncha errands from 10-2:30, we got to NYC around 5 and met up with Tia at an awesome little cooperative anarcha-feminist bookstore called Bluestockings I hadn’t been to in a while. We caught up a bit, I bought a new book about sharing as an alternative to capitalism, and introduced her to Alyssa for the first time, which for me was a big deal because Tia was my family. On the way to Screamers, we saw a mural that said “We Love You, Alyssa”.
I didn't know any other people who knew who ionnalee (or iamamiwhoami) was, but they were a Swedish electro-pop audio visual project that I’d been in love with for a long time after Tia introduced me to them way back when we still lived together on Moyston in Schenectady seven or eight years earlier. That night, we both got to see her live for the first time. I'd gotten her a ticket as a surprise and belated birthday present. It was perfect and magical to finally see her together, even though I could tell Alyssa’s naturally grouchy predisposition towards most music left her unimpressed. I also hadn't seen Tia in over a year--the longest amount of time we’d spent apart. It was so nice to be reunited and in that way. Ionna was mesmerizing to watch perform. We drove to Philly from there and slept on the foldout couch bed in Tia's living room.
Our first trip together would be made a whole lot easier to navigate with this magnetic phone prop we'd found in a dumpster!
Bluestocking! We bought this sticker for the car.
Screamers slices are some of the best pizzas in the country, and would officially become Alyssa's favorite pizza in America.
IONNALEE (aka Jonna Lee, aka iamamiwhoami), the sorta pop star that could only ever exist in Sweden and an absolute artistic queen.
Snuggles and Ebo!
DAY TWO
Wednesday, August 29th
We slept in at Tia’s until after noon the next day and then stopped at Grindcore House, Philly’s vegan cafe, so Alyssa could get iced coffee. We found an especially well-written zine about shoplifting there that we both loved.
From there, we went to the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and spent over two hours exploring, reading nearly every placard there. They had an exhibit on mourning wreaths and funerary art made from the deceased’s hair, which was a common practice and artform in the 1800s. This was the fifth or sixth time I’d been there and it never ceased to fascinate me. My favorite parts were probably the giant preserved colon, the drawers of foreign objects removed from people’s stomachs by the man who revolutionized medical tools for removing internal obstructions, and the wall of skulls. Outside, we took a short stroll around the medicinal plant garden, where several species were actually poisonous.
We went to South Street and stopped at Vegan Tree for smoothie-style bubble teas, browsed the anarchist bookstore Wooden Shoe, and visited Tia at work at Atomic City Comics. I was trying to give Alyssa the full Philly tour. She got a ticket from the notoriously ruthless scumbags at Philadelphia Parking Authority because we got to the car five minutes late, which I guess was an essential part of that tour. The three of us went and cooled down at Logan Square, still my absolute favorite place to chill out in the city.
We got dinner at Wiz Kid, where Alyssa ate her first Philly cheesesteak in Philly. Tia and I decided Wiz Kid was the best representative of vegan cheesesteak in the city. Their cheese sauce was somehow made from rutabaga. We also got cheesy fries and the KFT, which was "Korean fried tempeh", radish kimchee, sriracha thousand island, and tomato. We ended up getting a second one of those because it was so goddamn good. Afterwards, we all went back to Tia’s and hung out with the cats.
Always loved Grindcore House letting everyone know very clearly that they do not serve cow's milk.
Obligatory xvx kid selfie in the Grindcore House bathroom mirror.
Read this awesome zine on shoplifting (even from smaller, mom-and-pop stores) here!
Old 1800s funerary artwork featuring decorations made from the hair of the deceased.
A happy Alyssa with some smoothie bubble tea. I always got the strawberry flavor.
A cute notebook at Wooden Shoe.
A nice sunset spent at Logan Square.
A giant, pink preying mantis outside the science museum.
Dinner at Wiz Kid!
DAY THREE
Thursday, August 30th
Alyssa got to answer some follow-up questions for the Times Union article being written about us when we woke up. It was another oppressively hot day out, but apparently the last dry one for the next week, so we made sure to spend the whole day outside.
We had brunch at the cute little vegan diner, The Tasty. We got the Monte Cristo (cheese and ham sandwiched between French toast), Bayou biscuits and gravy (smoky, spicy, slightly sweet gravy made with sausage and onion), two big buckwheat blueberry pancakes, and a Dirty Jersey (pork, tofu egg, and cheese on a Kaiser roll)! Worth breaking our fruit-until-dinner diet, for sure. Since we had a decent free parking spot and it was potentially the last nice day for a while, we decided to walk everywhere for the next couple of hours. We stopped at the vegan doughnut shop, Dottie's, and got a half-dozen: cinnamon bun, Boston cream, vanilla glaze, chocolate, pistachio matcha, and toasted coconut!
We stopped here and there. I bought some graffiti utensils from Mutt Airbrush and Art Supply and then we explored Philly AIDS Thrift, the wacky thrift store whose profits go toward AIDS. Philly’s radical street art was such a breath of fresh air. As I took a photo of this poster that said "STOP BUILDING UGLY CONDOS!" that had been posted right outside a newly constructed ugly condo, a young guy on a bike rode by and said, "These condos are beautiful." I wanted to believe he just had a great and dry sense of humor, but I could not say for sure.
Back at the car, we drove to a Walmart so I could rack some spraypaint, only to be forced to actually pay for it. Being in a city so covered in graffiti, they kept their paint behind locked glass and required you check out right then and there after an employee unlocked and got it for you. I felt so dirty and guilty actually giving money to a Walmart, but we swallowed our pride and then headed to Graffiti Pier. Graffiti Pier overlooked the Delaware River between Philly and Jersey, and had been abandoned since 1991. It slowly became one of the city’s many hidden gems. People came there to hang out, do photography, shoot music videos, party, do graffiti, or just enjoy the view. A few months prior, after almost 30 years, the city finally decided to try and put a lock on it, blaming an "uptick in criminal activity", despite the fact that any crime that could happen there could literally happen anywhere in the city, and that criminals would probably not be deterred by No Trespassing signs and locks. Of course, we ignored the fence and signs and entered, anyway. While it was a bummer to see it so underpopulated, and that one of the railroad spikes in the tree that allowed you to climb up to the top of the derelict tracks had been cleanly cut off so it’d be impossible, it was still cool to explore again. No matter what, it’ll always be a rotating graffiti art museum. Fuck the state and the police for trying to drain the magic from a part of the city that had for so long been a positive place for relaxation, creativity, and fun for both locals and visitors.
I desperately wanted some Zevia, so we got some at Whole Foods, and made up for our first half of the day’s junk food by buying a buncha fruit from Target for dinner. Our legs and feet were blackened by layers of dirt and bug spray, and sore, so we spent the end of our evening back at Logan Square, eating grapes and watermelon, and cooling down while also kinda cleaning ourselves off. Meanwhile, a man was in just his boxers, fully bathing in the fountain and heavily lathering up with soap. He put especially close and rigorous attention on his balls and ass.
So much food at The Tasty!
Philly AIDS Thrift!
Dottie's!
Graffiti Pier!
Fruit dinner and pigeon bath at Logan Square.
A bizarre sculpture nearby.
Tia had self-released a great short comic about a girl who develops a weird facial deformity. Seeing her art come into its own over the last eight years had been awesome. Buy one here!
DAY FOUR
Friday, August 31st
It wasn’t the most exciting day, but they couldn’t all be winners, and a boring day in Philadelphia was in many ways still better than a fun day in Albany. For example, no days in Albany started at a vegan cafe with a huge cheese danish.
It was set to storm all day long, so we knew we wouldn’t be able to explore much, settling on the typically 75-minute ride to Bethlehem to the world-renowned Vegan Treats, the best vegan bakery in America and a landmark Alyssa had never had the pleasure of experiencing herself. That drive wound up being around two and a half hours long due to continual and inexplicable traffic jams, some backing us up for up to twenty minutes. We listened to a podcast about modern composer Nico Muhly, who Alyssa loved, and a lot of Son Lux. The trip was worth it, though, and we ended up buying four cakes (cookie dough, peanut butter tandy, toasted coconut, and carrot), a chocolate sprinkle canoli, and a mini cheesecake bite. Eating baked goods on empty stomachs was very stupid of us, though.
The ride back was in the rain and took ninety minutes. It looked like we were headed toward the apocalypse. We went straight to New Harmony, the vegan Chinese restaurant, and ate a real meal. Their extensive menu and cheap variety of appetizers had us getting quite a bit: shared appetizers of a burger, a beef bun, sesame beef in cummy mayo sauce, scallion pancakes, hot and sour soup; for entrees, I got the sweet ginger chicken and she got hunan beef. Since virtually no Chinese takeout lo mein was vegan, I made sure to get an order to go. We each got a complimentary scoop of pistachio ice cream.
Our tummies ready to burst, we went back to Tia’s and just hung around, Tia and I exchanging music suggestions. I missed having her eclectic taste in music, art, and film in my daily life. Tomorrow would be our last day and night in Philly before we started heading west across Pennsylvania.
There was a lot of sloppy punk anarchist graffiti around Tia's house. It made me feel safe.
A very happy Alyssa with a cheese danish as big as her face.
Vegan Treats!
New Harmony!
DAY FIVE
Saturday, September 1st
Entire streets were closed off the next day so annoying college freshmen could march around the city in matching outfits, many already heavily intoxicated and half-naked. It hurt my soul and made driving around very difficult. We fully intended on going to the animatronic bug exhibit at the museum, but when we were told we had to pay for the special exhibit plus full museum admission, which amounted to almost $30 each, we turned around and left. It always amazed me how expensive intellectually and culturally enriching things were made.
We wanted to walk around a lot since the weather was surprisingly perfect, so we walked a mile to Rittenhouse Square after getting chocolate shakes to-go from HipCityVeg. We admired dogs and statues, and cringed over how obnoxious people were being. Another mile or so away at Washington Square, we sat by the fountain and I dipped my feet in to cool down before snatching up $8 worth of wishes. A very cute and smiley man approached us and performed some classic magic tricks with the classic metal rings, rubber bands, and playing cards. As a big fan of magic, sleight of hand, and especially card tricks, I was actually pretty impressed. We of course gave him a couple bucks.
We had dinner at an authentic Mexican burrito/taco place in West Philly called Honest Tom's which had converted to fully plant-based about a year before. I got the "Chickpotle" burrito, which contained beans, rice, arugula, creme, guacamole, and "free range" chickpeas and potatoes in adobo. It was a perfect burrito; the kind of burrito Alyssa and I are always desperately craving in Albany but could never find. We still had some space in our stomachs, so we stopped by the new Blackbird Pizzeria location and split an order of spicy sweet seitan wings with cucumber dip. The new spot was so much more comfortable than the original one.
Since it was our last night in Philly, I took advantage of the opportunity to shower. There was no way to know when the next one would come along.
Philly's radical graffiti was a particular flavor of totally fed-the-fuck-up.
The malted chocolate shakes from HipCityVeg were always a must!
Rittenhouse Square!
A big ol' burrito from Honest Tom's, followed by wings at Blackbird!
DAY SIX
Sunday, September 2nd
When we woke up, the car battery had finally died. We knew it was a possibility since a transmission failure a few weeks back, but Alyssa had kept putting off getting a new battery. Thankfully, she had AAA, who came and changed the thing for us. During conversation with the guy who showed up, most of which was too formal and boring to recall, he did say to us, "The new racism is the rich and the poor."
It really resonated with me, and was a profound bit of wisdom coming from a AAA roadside provider. Somehow, he also wound up sharing that he had been a full-time criminal for many years, guilty of stick-ups and shooting a few people, had spent eight years in prison at one point, and shared a long story about the last time he'd been shot, even going as far as showing us the scar down his wrist where the bullet had passed through his arm. He said after being hit with four bullets, he was just angry that his new outfit had been fucked up. He made an otherwise inconvenient hour a lot less daunting.
From there, we paid for gas for what we hoped would be the last time, bought one apple, one orange, and one banana for each of us, and headed out of Philly.
Our first stop was Centralia, the ghost town with an eternal subterranean mine fire that much of the Silent Hill story was inspired by. Mostly condemned in 1992, the fire that began to travel through the mines was likely started in one way or another by the burning of trash. The consequences of these underground fires wasn’t taken seriously until a 12-year old boy fell into a sinkhole that opened up in his backyard in 1981, emitting a plume of smoke containing lethal levels of carbon monoxide. There were now about seven residents left who had fought to live out the rest of their lives there.
This one mile-long stretch of closed road was now covered in graffiti by the hundreds of people who came to take a stroll along its path every day--most of it was pretty innocent, though there were of course plenty of dicks--and it was cracked and wavy from the pressure of the fire underneath. Lots of assholes on dirt bikes and ATVs were using it to go vroom-vroom real fast and do wheelies in total disregard of everyone trying to walk, but most people just didn’t get out of the way. We watched a father help his tiny child spraypaint on the road. It was my second time here, and Alyssa’s first, and I was glad I got to see it better than last time. Centralia was a great example of state disregard for humanity in the name of prioritizing capital, as well as the consequences of unsustainable practices in municipal trash disposal.
Our second stop was coincidentally yet another abandoned stretch of road, this one a turnpike that spanned 13 miles and had been abandoned since 1968 when a new overpass rendered it obsolete. It had since become a makeshift rail trail of sorts, though you absolutely needed a light source to go through the two tunnels. It was also heavily used in the film The Road.
We walked about a mile, first along a dirt road until the remains of the paved one picked up. The guard rail, shoulder lines, and rumble strips were all perfectly visible. The other lane was slowly being reclaimed by nature’s perseverance. We admired the graffiti at the entrance to the tunnel and then walked through it to the other side. The light at the end of the tunnel was in sight, but was deceptive in how close it looked. Alyssa pointed out how bleak of a metaphor that was. The stale air was cold, and without cellphone flashlight it was pitch black. A girl at the other end sang creepily but beautifully and enjoyed the natural reverberation of the tunnel’s acoustics. Lots of dicks and other juvenile graffiti marked most of the walls, and water lightly rained down here and there. It was an incredibly eerie place to explore. Unfortunately, the sun was down by the time we returned to our car, so we couldn’t check out the second, much longer tunnel.
We walked several miles that day, each of us powered by only one banana, one apple, and one orange each. Thankfully by sundown there was a Subway like five minutes away in Breezewood. We hooked it the fuck up with mad veggies, extra pickles, barbecue chip crumbs, and thousand island dressing.
The gaslight was on, but Alyssa had a leftover Shell gift card from her mama that we were able to fill back up with. We drove through some spooky backroads to Mount Pleasant so we could check out a UFO shop when we woke up the next day and spent the night at a Walmart Supercenter. We saw a Confederate flag shirt and license plate within a single moment upon getting out of the car. The crickets and cicada were very loud.
Hahaha.
Centralia!
The abandoned Pennsylvania turnpike.
(American pokeweed)
A tolerable meal at Subway.
♥
DAY SEVEN
Monday, September 3rd
It was our first full week away from Albany! We woke up to the sun cooking us alive in the Walmart parking lot. Neither of us had gotten enough sleep, but when you’re living in a car, the sun oftentimes makes these decisions for you. As we started clearing out, an old couple returning to their car asked me questions about our travels. They were really pleasant. Inside, we got some grapes, bananas, and a mango.
Our first order of business was to visit the Kecksburg UFO shop. On December 9th, 1965, an unidentified flying object flew across the night sky and was seen by people across several states and into Canada. It apparently was shaped like an acorn. Some residents of Kecksburg claimed to have seen and/or heard it crashing in the woods nearby. The town instantly became a UFO and conspiracy theory hot spot. Fast forward to 1990, when my favorite spooky show from childhood, Unsolved Mysteries, visited town to do a story on the incident. When they were done filming, they left behind their big, acorn-shaped replica of the UFO. It had stood proud in their town ever since. The volunteer firefighters there used the minor UFO fame to help fund their fire station, as well as other corners of their community, all while trying to avoid becoming a haven for weirdos. We got to see the notorious made-for-TV UFO replica up close, but the UFO shop, which was inside the volunteer firefighter station along with a club and bar, was unfortunately seemingly closed, perhaps because of Labor Day.
So we hopped back in the car and drove the hour to Pittsburgh. Now, I’d been to Pittsburgh a few times before, but never got a real chance to explore. I felt like I still hadn’t become acquainted with it the way I usually did with everywhere I visited. The first time, I was hitchhiking, and long before I had an iPhone or really any other way of finding out what to do and where to go in an unfamiliar city; the second time, I was doing animal rights outreach at a huge environmental conference. This time around, I was gonna see every corner of it.
Upon entering, I immediately became anxious that it was gonna be one of those big types of cities that made me feel like I was trapped in a concrete maze full of exhaust fumes, but after finding out street parking was free due to Labor Day and beginning to walk around a little, it turned out to be one of the nicest cities I’d ever been to. We first stopped at a Starbucks to loiter and figure out our itinerary for the day. We figured we’d see as much as we could on foot first. The sun was blinding and scalding, so we walked in the shade any chance we got on our way to the Snoopy doghouse electrical box, and then to Point State Park. We sat by the river at first, just admiring the sparkle of the ripples and the muted yellow bridge overhead. The fountain there was magnificent, so we spent some time there dipping our feet in, and me my legs in.
We went the wrong way over the bridge, so we immediately had to turn around and walk back over it, and then over another one. The view was nice, though. It was important that I see the nightmarishly lumpy bronze memorial to Pittsburgh’s own patron saint, Mr. Rogers. It looked even more horrifying up close. We sat down at another little pocket of a park with a man-made stream that children were swimming and playing in. We were oily from a mixture of sweat and sunscreen, hungry from walking a couple miles on nothing but small portions of fruit and water, and beyond exhausted. But we kept going.
Randyland was an eccentric and colorful outdoor art project created by persistent do-gooder and jolly outsider artist Randy Gilson, who had been contributing to his community in multiple ways since the '80s. He dabbled in guerrilla gardening, dumpster diving, and upcycling anything he could to give back to his surrounding neighborhoods, most of which were low-income and dilapidated, and to continue adding to the home he bought with a credit card for $10,000. He himself grew up in poverty, homeless on and off. His story and altruistic DIY actions reminded me a lot of what my friends and I had been attempting in Albany. It was impossible to miss once you saw it. Multicolored, fluorescent, and ornate with knick-knacks of all kinds, it was blinding in comparison to the average or abandoned homes around it. People were just hanging around in the back as more curious visitors continued to appear. We left feeling very tickled.
We still had so many daylight hours left, so we went hunting some roadside attractions. First, the country’s steepest street, inclined at a 37% grade. While short in length, walking up it was definitely a challenge. If one of us tripped and fell, nothing would have stopped us from helplessly rolling down it. From the top, I felt like I was on top of a building, overlooking the house I’d just parked across from. The sidewalk was a staircase.
Next was the inexplicable Mr. Rogers dinosaur sculpture outside of a seemingly vacant commercial building. He was quite cute. We saw Dippy the brontosaurus because I would always love dinos no matter how old I got. He stood large and triumphant outside an expensive museum that had live animal shows, with a scarf around his long neck. The one thing I loved about these ridiculous albeit fascinating roadside attractions was that hunting them down wound up gradually taking us all over an entire city, showing parts of it we’d otherwise probably never would have seen. Pittsburgh was really fucking big, we discovered, and we saw just about every side of it. We ended the day by driving up to Elliot Overlook Park, which provided us with the best view of the whole city possible, all while the sun set behind us. We both had become very fond of Pittsburgh.
We found the most delightful punk vegan spot for dinner, Onion Maiden. We got a little bit of everything because everything sounded so delicious and interesting: nacho tots topped in cashew cheese sauce, lentil chili, and jalapeños; a deviled egg; a "Trooper" dawg topped in cashew cheese and lentil chili; "Bunn O)))" buns filled with enoki mushrooms, cucumber, hoisin sauce, and Korean mayo; a butterscotch glazed doughnut and a chocolate sprinkled doughnut; and a "Blue Moon" cheesecake topped in blueberry and lemon with a coconut cashew walnut crust. Despite being punk as fuck, this place managed to create an environment welcoming to anyone, and served us dishes that were more unique and sophisticated than what anyone would expect. The anarchistic attitude that it still maintained made me feel right at home.
We got Zevias from Whole Foods and then spent way too long in a shitty laundromat cleaning clothes with the money I found in that fountain. I accidentally took them out of the wash and put them in another washer machine thinking it was a dryer--by the time I’d closed the door, it was too late, and we had to wait another half hour to put them in to dry. We showered at a Planet Fitness before finding our Walmart Supercenter for the night. It was still really fucking warm and I just wanted to cuddle with an air conditioner.
The Kecksberg Unsolved Mysteries acorn UFO!
(Saucer magnolia)
The Snoopy electrical box!
Point State Park and its impressive fountain.
The creepy melting Mr. Rogers.
A quaint little public pool.
Randyland!
(Quail grass/silver cock's comb)
The steepest street in the continental United States!
Some dinos.
Elliot Overlook Park providing us with the perfect view of the city at sunset!
Onion Maiden!
A nice pigeon mural around the corner from the Whole Foods.
A big katydid!
For a long time before that, whenever she'd ask me to go travel with her, I'd tell her that traveling was a really intimate thing to me and that I wasn't ready to do it with someone else yet. I was still very much not ready, but after over a year of really getting my shit together and building such a sustainable and fulfilling life for myself in Albany as a full-time activist and organizer, I thought it'd be really nice to go on a big adventure again. Our departure date was organized around an iamamiwhoami show Brooklyn.
637 miles.
DAY ONE
Tuesday, August 28th
After running a buncha errands from 10-2:30, we got to NYC around 5 and met up with Tia at an awesome little cooperative anarcha-feminist bookstore called Bluestockings I hadn’t been to in a while. We caught up a bit, I bought a new book about sharing as an alternative to capitalism, and introduced her to Alyssa for the first time, which for me was a big deal because Tia was my family. On the way to Screamers, we saw a mural that said “We Love You, Alyssa”.
I didn't know any other people who knew who ionnalee (or iamamiwhoami) was, but they were a Swedish electro-pop audio visual project that I’d been in love with for a long time after Tia introduced me to them way back when we still lived together on Moyston in Schenectady seven or eight years earlier. That night, we both got to see her live for the first time. I'd gotten her a ticket as a surprise and belated birthday present. It was perfect and magical to finally see her together, even though I could tell Alyssa’s naturally grouchy predisposition towards most music left her unimpressed. I also hadn't seen Tia in over a year--the longest amount of time we’d spent apart. It was so nice to be reunited and in that way. Ionna was mesmerizing to watch perform. We drove to Philly from there and slept on the foldout couch bed in Tia's living room.
Our first trip together would be made a whole lot easier to navigate with this magnetic phone prop we'd found in a dumpster!
Bluestocking! We bought this sticker for the car.
Screamers slices are some of the best pizzas in the country, and would officially become Alyssa's favorite pizza in America.
IONNALEE (aka Jonna Lee, aka iamamiwhoami), the sorta pop star that could only ever exist in Sweden and an absolute artistic queen.
Snuggles and Ebo!
DAY TWO
Wednesday, August 29th
We slept in at Tia’s until after noon the next day and then stopped at Grindcore House, Philly’s vegan cafe, so Alyssa could get iced coffee. We found an especially well-written zine about shoplifting there that we both loved.
From there, we went to the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and spent over two hours exploring, reading nearly every placard there. They had an exhibit on mourning wreaths and funerary art made from the deceased’s hair, which was a common practice and artform in the 1800s. This was the fifth or sixth time I’d been there and it never ceased to fascinate me. My favorite parts were probably the giant preserved colon, the drawers of foreign objects removed from people’s stomachs by the man who revolutionized medical tools for removing internal obstructions, and the wall of skulls. Outside, we took a short stroll around the medicinal plant garden, where several species were actually poisonous.
We went to South Street and stopped at Vegan Tree for smoothie-style bubble teas, browsed the anarchist bookstore Wooden Shoe, and visited Tia at work at Atomic City Comics. I was trying to give Alyssa the full Philly tour. She got a ticket from the notoriously ruthless scumbags at Philadelphia Parking Authority because we got to the car five minutes late, which I guess was an essential part of that tour. The three of us went and cooled down at Logan Square, still my absolute favorite place to chill out in the city.
We got dinner at Wiz Kid, where Alyssa ate her first Philly cheesesteak in Philly. Tia and I decided Wiz Kid was the best representative of vegan cheesesteak in the city. Their cheese sauce was somehow made from rutabaga. We also got cheesy fries and the KFT, which was "Korean fried tempeh", radish kimchee, sriracha thousand island, and tomato. We ended up getting a second one of those because it was so goddamn good. Afterwards, we all went back to Tia’s and hung out with the cats.
Always loved Grindcore House letting everyone know very clearly that they do not serve cow's milk.
Obligatory xvx kid selfie in the Grindcore House bathroom mirror.
Read this awesome zine on shoplifting (even from smaller, mom-and-pop stores) here!
Old 1800s funerary artwork featuring decorations made from the hair of the deceased.
A happy Alyssa with some smoothie bubble tea. I always got the strawberry flavor.
A cute notebook at Wooden Shoe.
A nice sunset spent at Logan Square.
A giant, pink preying mantis outside the science museum.
Dinner at Wiz Kid!
DAY THREE
Thursday, August 30th
Alyssa got to answer some follow-up questions for the Times Union article being written about us when we woke up. It was another oppressively hot day out, but apparently the last dry one for the next week, so we made sure to spend the whole day outside.
We had brunch at the cute little vegan diner, The Tasty. We got the Monte Cristo (cheese and ham sandwiched between French toast), Bayou biscuits and gravy (smoky, spicy, slightly sweet gravy made with sausage and onion), two big buckwheat blueberry pancakes, and a Dirty Jersey (pork, tofu egg, and cheese on a Kaiser roll)! Worth breaking our fruit-until-dinner diet, for sure. Since we had a decent free parking spot and it was potentially the last nice day for a while, we decided to walk everywhere for the next couple of hours. We stopped at the vegan doughnut shop, Dottie's, and got a half-dozen: cinnamon bun, Boston cream, vanilla glaze, chocolate, pistachio matcha, and toasted coconut!
We stopped here and there. I bought some graffiti utensils from Mutt Airbrush and Art Supply and then we explored Philly AIDS Thrift, the wacky thrift store whose profits go toward AIDS. Philly’s radical street art was such a breath of fresh air. As I took a photo of this poster that said "STOP BUILDING UGLY CONDOS!" that had been posted right outside a newly constructed ugly condo, a young guy on a bike rode by and said, "These condos are beautiful." I wanted to believe he just had a great and dry sense of humor, but I could not say for sure.
Back at the car, we drove to a Walmart so I could rack some spraypaint, only to be forced to actually pay for it. Being in a city so covered in graffiti, they kept their paint behind locked glass and required you check out right then and there after an employee unlocked and got it for you. I felt so dirty and guilty actually giving money to a Walmart, but we swallowed our pride and then headed to Graffiti Pier. Graffiti Pier overlooked the Delaware River between Philly and Jersey, and had been abandoned since 1991. It slowly became one of the city’s many hidden gems. People came there to hang out, do photography, shoot music videos, party, do graffiti, or just enjoy the view. A few months prior, after almost 30 years, the city finally decided to try and put a lock on it, blaming an "uptick in criminal activity", despite the fact that any crime that could happen there could literally happen anywhere in the city, and that criminals would probably not be deterred by No Trespassing signs and locks. Of course, we ignored the fence and signs and entered, anyway. While it was a bummer to see it so underpopulated, and that one of the railroad spikes in the tree that allowed you to climb up to the top of the derelict tracks had been cleanly cut off so it’d be impossible, it was still cool to explore again. No matter what, it’ll always be a rotating graffiti art museum. Fuck the state and the police for trying to drain the magic from a part of the city that had for so long been a positive place for relaxation, creativity, and fun for both locals and visitors.
I desperately wanted some Zevia, so we got some at Whole Foods, and made up for our first half of the day’s junk food by buying a buncha fruit from Target for dinner. Our legs and feet were blackened by layers of dirt and bug spray, and sore, so we spent the end of our evening back at Logan Square, eating grapes and watermelon, and cooling down while also kinda cleaning ourselves off. Meanwhile, a man was in just his boxers, fully bathing in the fountain and heavily lathering up with soap. He put especially close and rigorous attention on his balls and ass.
So much food at The Tasty!
Philly AIDS Thrift!
Dottie's!
Graffiti Pier!
Fruit dinner and pigeon bath at Logan Square.
A bizarre sculpture nearby.
Tia had self-released a great short comic about a girl who develops a weird facial deformity. Seeing her art come into its own over the last eight years had been awesome. Buy one here!
DAY FOUR
Friday, August 31st
It wasn’t the most exciting day, but they couldn’t all be winners, and a boring day in Philadelphia was in many ways still better than a fun day in Albany. For example, no days in Albany started at a vegan cafe with a huge cheese danish.
It was set to storm all day long, so we knew we wouldn’t be able to explore much, settling on the typically 75-minute ride to Bethlehem to the world-renowned Vegan Treats, the best vegan bakery in America and a landmark Alyssa had never had the pleasure of experiencing herself. That drive wound up being around two and a half hours long due to continual and inexplicable traffic jams, some backing us up for up to twenty minutes. We listened to a podcast about modern composer Nico Muhly, who Alyssa loved, and a lot of Son Lux. The trip was worth it, though, and we ended up buying four cakes (cookie dough, peanut butter tandy, toasted coconut, and carrot), a chocolate sprinkle canoli, and a mini cheesecake bite. Eating baked goods on empty stomachs was very stupid of us, though.
The ride back was in the rain and took ninety minutes. It looked like we were headed toward the apocalypse. We went straight to New Harmony, the vegan Chinese restaurant, and ate a real meal. Their extensive menu and cheap variety of appetizers had us getting quite a bit: shared appetizers of a burger, a beef bun, sesame beef in cummy mayo sauce, scallion pancakes, hot and sour soup; for entrees, I got the sweet ginger chicken and she got hunan beef. Since virtually no Chinese takeout lo mein was vegan, I made sure to get an order to go. We each got a complimentary scoop of pistachio ice cream.
Our tummies ready to burst, we went back to Tia’s and just hung around, Tia and I exchanging music suggestions. I missed having her eclectic taste in music, art, and film in my daily life. Tomorrow would be our last day and night in Philly before we started heading west across Pennsylvania.
There was a lot of sloppy punk anarchist graffiti around Tia's house. It made me feel safe.
A very happy Alyssa with a cheese danish as big as her face.
Vegan Treats!
New Harmony!
DAY FIVE
Saturday, September 1st
Entire streets were closed off the next day so annoying college freshmen could march around the city in matching outfits, many already heavily intoxicated and half-naked. It hurt my soul and made driving around very difficult. We fully intended on going to the animatronic bug exhibit at the museum, but when we were told we had to pay for the special exhibit plus full museum admission, which amounted to almost $30 each, we turned around and left. It always amazed me how expensive intellectually and culturally enriching things were made.
We wanted to walk around a lot since the weather was surprisingly perfect, so we walked a mile to Rittenhouse Square after getting chocolate shakes to-go from HipCityVeg. We admired dogs and statues, and cringed over how obnoxious people were being. Another mile or so away at Washington Square, we sat by the fountain and I dipped my feet in to cool down before snatching up $8 worth of wishes. A very cute and smiley man approached us and performed some classic magic tricks with the classic metal rings, rubber bands, and playing cards. As a big fan of magic, sleight of hand, and especially card tricks, I was actually pretty impressed. We of course gave him a couple bucks.
We had dinner at an authentic Mexican burrito/taco place in West Philly called Honest Tom's which had converted to fully plant-based about a year before. I got the "Chickpotle" burrito, which contained beans, rice, arugula, creme, guacamole, and "free range" chickpeas and potatoes in adobo. It was a perfect burrito; the kind of burrito Alyssa and I are always desperately craving in Albany but could never find. We still had some space in our stomachs, so we stopped by the new Blackbird Pizzeria location and split an order of spicy sweet seitan wings with cucumber dip. The new spot was so much more comfortable than the original one.
Since it was our last night in Philly, I took advantage of the opportunity to shower. There was no way to know when the next one would come along.
Philly's radical graffiti was a particular flavor of totally fed-the-fuck-up.
The malted chocolate shakes from HipCityVeg were always a must!
Rittenhouse Square!
A big ol' burrito from Honest Tom's, followed by wings at Blackbird!
DAY SIX
Sunday, September 2nd
When we woke up, the car battery had finally died. We knew it was a possibility since a transmission failure a few weeks back, but Alyssa had kept putting off getting a new battery. Thankfully, she had AAA, who came and changed the thing for us. During conversation with the guy who showed up, most of which was too formal and boring to recall, he did say to us, "The new racism is the rich and the poor."
It really resonated with me, and was a profound bit of wisdom coming from a AAA roadside provider. Somehow, he also wound up sharing that he had been a full-time criminal for many years, guilty of stick-ups and shooting a few people, had spent eight years in prison at one point, and shared a long story about the last time he'd been shot, even going as far as showing us the scar down his wrist where the bullet had passed through his arm. He said after being hit with four bullets, he was just angry that his new outfit had been fucked up. He made an otherwise inconvenient hour a lot less daunting.
From there, we paid for gas for what we hoped would be the last time, bought one apple, one orange, and one banana for each of us, and headed out of Philly.
Our first stop was Centralia, the ghost town with an eternal subterranean mine fire that much of the Silent Hill story was inspired by. Mostly condemned in 1992, the fire that began to travel through the mines was likely started in one way or another by the burning of trash. The consequences of these underground fires wasn’t taken seriously until a 12-year old boy fell into a sinkhole that opened up in his backyard in 1981, emitting a plume of smoke containing lethal levels of carbon monoxide. There were now about seven residents left who had fought to live out the rest of their lives there.
This one mile-long stretch of closed road was now covered in graffiti by the hundreds of people who came to take a stroll along its path every day--most of it was pretty innocent, though there were of course plenty of dicks--and it was cracked and wavy from the pressure of the fire underneath. Lots of assholes on dirt bikes and ATVs were using it to go vroom-vroom real fast and do wheelies in total disregard of everyone trying to walk, but most people just didn’t get out of the way. We watched a father help his tiny child spraypaint on the road. It was my second time here, and Alyssa’s first, and I was glad I got to see it better than last time. Centralia was a great example of state disregard for humanity in the name of prioritizing capital, as well as the consequences of unsustainable practices in municipal trash disposal.
Our second stop was coincidentally yet another abandoned stretch of road, this one a turnpike that spanned 13 miles and had been abandoned since 1968 when a new overpass rendered it obsolete. It had since become a makeshift rail trail of sorts, though you absolutely needed a light source to go through the two tunnels. It was also heavily used in the film The Road.
We walked about a mile, first along a dirt road until the remains of the paved one picked up. The guard rail, shoulder lines, and rumble strips were all perfectly visible. The other lane was slowly being reclaimed by nature’s perseverance. We admired the graffiti at the entrance to the tunnel and then walked through it to the other side. The light at the end of the tunnel was in sight, but was deceptive in how close it looked. Alyssa pointed out how bleak of a metaphor that was. The stale air was cold, and without cellphone flashlight it was pitch black. A girl at the other end sang creepily but beautifully and enjoyed the natural reverberation of the tunnel’s acoustics. Lots of dicks and other juvenile graffiti marked most of the walls, and water lightly rained down here and there. It was an incredibly eerie place to explore. Unfortunately, the sun was down by the time we returned to our car, so we couldn’t check out the second, much longer tunnel.
We walked several miles that day, each of us powered by only one banana, one apple, and one orange each. Thankfully by sundown there was a Subway like five minutes away in Breezewood. We hooked it the fuck up with mad veggies, extra pickles, barbecue chip crumbs, and thousand island dressing.
The gaslight was on, but Alyssa had a leftover Shell gift card from her mama that we were able to fill back up with. We drove through some spooky backroads to Mount Pleasant so we could check out a UFO shop when we woke up the next day and spent the night at a Walmart Supercenter. We saw a Confederate flag shirt and license plate within a single moment upon getting out of the car. The crickets and cicada were very loud.
Hahaha.
Centralia!
The abandoned Pennsylvania turnpike.
(American pokeweed)
A tolerable meal at Subway.
♥
DAY SEVEN
Monday, September 3rd
It was our first full week away from Albany! We woke up to the sun cooking us alive in the Walmart parking lot. Neither of us had gotten enough sleep, but when you’re living in a car, the sun oftentimes makes these decisions for you. As we started clearing out, an old couple returning to their car asked me questions about our travels. They were really pleasant. Inside, we got some grapes, bananas, and a mango.
Our first order of business was to visit the Kecksburg UFO shop. On December 9th, 1965, an unidentified flying object flew across the night sky and was seen by people across several states and into Canada. It apparently was shaped like an acorn. Some residents of Kecksburg claimed to have seen and/or heard it crashing in the woods nearby. The town instantly became a UFO and conspiracy theory hot spot. Fast forward to 1990, when my favorite spooky show from childhood, Unsolved Mysteries, visited town to do a story on the incident. When they were done filming, they left behind their big, acorn-shaped replica of the UFO. It had stood proud in their town ever since. The volunteer firefighters there used the minor UFO fame to help fund their fire station, as well as other corners of their community, all while trying to avoid becoming a haven for weirdos. We got to see the notorious made-for-TV UFO replica up close, but the UFO shop, which was inside the volunteer firefighter station along with a club and bar, was unfortunately seemingly closed, perhaps because of Labor Day.
So we hopped back in the car and drove the hour to Pittsburgh. Now, I’d been to Pittsburgh a few times before, but never got a real chance to explore. I felt like I still hadn’t become acquainted with it the way I usually did with everywhere I visited. The first time, I was hitchhiking, and long before I had an iPhone or really any other way of finding out what to do and where to go in an unfamiliar city; the second time, I was doing animal rights outreach at a huge environmental conference. This time around, I was gonna see every corner of it.
Upon entering, I immediately became anxious that it was gonna be one of those big types of cities that made me feel like I was trapped in a concrete maze full of exhaust fumes, but after finding out street parking was free due to Labor Day and beginning to walk around a little, it turned out to be one of the nicest cities I’d ever been to. We first stopped at a Starbucks to loiter and figure out our itinerary for the day. We figured we’d see as much as we could on foot first. The sun was blinding and scalding, so we walked in the shade any chance we got on our way to the Snoopy doghouse electrical box, and then to Point State Park. We sat by the river at first, just admiring the sparkle of the ripples and the muted yellow bridge overhead. The fountain there was magnificent, so we spent some time there dipping our feet in, and me my legs in.
We went the wrong way over the bridge, so we immediately had to turn around and walk back over it, and then over another one. The view was nice, though. It was important that I see the nightmarishly lumpy bronze memorial to Pittsburgh’s own patron saint, Mr. Rogers. It looked even more horrifying up close. We sat down at another little pocket of a park with a man-made stream that children were swimming and playing in. We were oily from a mixture of sweat and sunscreen, hungry from walking a couple miles on nothing but small portions of fruit and water, and beyond exhausted. But we kept going.
Randyland was an eccentric and colorful outdoor art project created by persistent do-gooder and jolly outsider artist Randy Gilson, who had been contributing to his community in multiple ways since the '80s. He dabbled in guerrilla gardening, dumpster diving, and upcycling anything he could to give back to his surrounding neighborhoods, most of which were low-income and dilapidated, and to continue adding to the home he bought with a credit card for $10,000. He himself grew up in poverty, homeless on and off. His story and altruistic DIY actions reminded me a lot of what my friends and I had been attempting in Albany. It was impossible to miss once you saw it. Multicolored, fluorescent, and ornate with knick-knacks of all kinds, it was blinding in comparison to the average or abandoned homes around it. People were just hanging around in the back as more curious visitors continued to appear. We left feeling very tickled.
We still had so many daylight hours left, so we went hunting some roadside attractions. First, the country’s steepest street, inclined at a 37% grade. While short in length, walking up it was definitely a challenge. If one of us tripped and fell, nothing would have stopped us from helplessly rolling down it. From the top, I felt like I was on top of a building, overlooking the house I’d just parked across from. The sidewalk was a staircase.
Next was the inexplicable Mr. Rogers dinosaur sculpture outside of a seemingly vacant commercial building. He was quite cute. We saw Dippy the brontosaurus because I would always love dinos no matter how old I got. He stood large and triumphant outside an expensive museum that had live animal shows, with a scarf around his long neck. The one thing I loved about these ridiculous albeit fascinating roadside attractions was that hunting them down wound up gradually taking us all over an entire city, showing parts of it we’d otherwise probably never would have seen. Pittsburgh was really fucking big, we discovered, and we saw just about every side of it. We ended the day by driving up to Elliot Overlook Park, which provided us with the best view of the whole city possible, all while the sun set behind us. We both had become very fond of Pittsburgh.
We found the most delightful punk vegan spot for dinner, Onion Maiden. We got a little bit of everything because everything sounded so delicious and interesting: nacho tots topped in cashew cheese sauce, lentil chili, and jalapeños; a deviled egg; a "Trooper" dawg topped in cashew cheese and lentil chili; "Bunn O)))" buns filled with enoki mushrooms, cucumber, hoisin sauce, and Korean mayo; a butterscotch glazed doughnut and a chocolate sprinkled doughnut; and a "Blue Moon" cheesecake topped in blueberry and lemon with a coconut cashew walnut crust. Despite being punk as fuck, this place managed to create an environment welcoming to anyone, and served us dishes that were more unique and sophisticated than what anyone would expect. The anarchistic attitude that it still maintained made me feel right at home.
We got Zevias from Whole Foods and then spent way too long in a shitty laundromat cleaning clothes with the money I found in that fountain. I accidentally took them out of the wash and put them in another washer machine thinking it was a dryer--by the time I’d closed the door, it was too late, and we had to wait another half hour to put them in to dry. We showered at a Planet Fitness before finding our Walmart Supercenter for the night. It was still really fucking warm and I just wanted to cuddle with an air conditioner.
The Kecksberg Unsolved Mysteries acorn UFO!
(Saucer magnolia)
The Snoopy electrical box!
Point State Park and its impressive fountain.
The creepy melting Mr. Rogers.
A quaint little public pool.
Randyland!
(Quail grass/silver cock's comb)
The steepest street in the continental United States!
Some dinos.
Elliot Overlook Park providing us with the perfect view of the city at sunset!
Onion Maiden!
A nice pigeon mural around the corner from the Whole Foods.
A big katydid!