On A Shoelace

If you don’t want to read all of this I don’t blame you AT ALL. Hit the page down button a few times till you reach the bottom so you can browse the “In Other News” section. There’s always useful updates in there.

For the rest of you… I’m not even sure how to start this entry, considering there is so much to say and so many things that I’m bound to forget! Ah well, from the beginning I guess, a very good place to start.

26th June, 7am.

Getting coffee at my local corner store – an hour before they were due to open, it’s good to know people – I realized that this trip was exactly what I needed. Exams had just finished the night previous, not even 24 hours ago, and I was restless and buzzing with energy. Very unusual, for those who know me, I’m a night person. Also, I hadn’t seen Holmes, my partner in crime, for a while now and I was looking forward to that reunion too.

The plan for the day was simple: drive the 454km (282 miles, for all you Americans and your weirdo measuring system) to Cape Reinga to catch the sunset over the famous lighthouse and see the Pacific Ocean clash with the Tasman Sea at the point where worlds meet. The journey – without stops – clocks in at 7 hours. Considering I was the only driver on this entire roadtrip, and taking into account my over-protective parental unit, stops were in order. We planned for a 9-hour trip all up.

Our first stop found us unexpectedly and caught us by surprise. The thing with this place was, we got into it easily enough, but getting out of it was difficult. Turns out the day we chose to drive our way to the Northern-most part of the North Island of New Zealand, the entire township of Whangarei decided to close off all its roads to it. So we found ourselves trapped in this paradise for half an hour while we looked for an information desk that happened to be hidden in plain sight:

Thinking we had been stopped for a reason, we explored our gorgeous prison, and came across the reason the town was locked off:

The damn balls were killing not only people, but also innocent cars, tents and dogs. Even fire didn’t stand a chance. Don’t ask how, it took many thought processes and almost all the hunting prowess we possessed between us, but we defeated the evil balls from the most boring game in hell, found a road out, and left the town in our rearview mirror. Lucky, too, as the rain had just set in.

We learned early on that the weather was on our side. Any time we were traveling in the right direction, we’d be traveling into good weather. Whenever we made a wrong turn, the rain set in and we were battling the elements. Or, I was. With Dean. Holmes was battling the map book and occasionally the iPod. Good thing traveling up north was as simple as following the huge highway that goes in that direction. Once you hit a certain point there is no way to go BUT the huge highway, so getting lost is harder than getting to where you need to go since getting lost involves doing a three-point turn on roads like these:

By 3:30pm we hit the no reception zone and were cut off from civilization for good. We were still 2 hours from the Cape, the sun was shining, the car was roaring and the hard rock was blasting. It was right then and there that I decided that my life had to include driving on roads like these in order for me to be truly happy. Driving, for me, is the closest thing humans get to freedom, and I was eating, breathing and – eventually – sleeping this vagabond no-roots-down existence from day one. Guess Hunting’s in my blood.

At 5pm I pulled Dean to an almost screeching stop due to a yell from the passenger seat. Turns out the hype was over this view:

which, albeit beautiful, was not worth my baby’s breaks. Either way we stopped and gawped. This was 90 Mile Beach, running close as you can get to, you guessed it, Cape Reinga. The northern-most point of NZ and the place where 2 oceans met face to face. We were nearly there and racing the sun; in 25 minutes it would set and our goal of seeing it would be burned to dust. I’m sure the parental unit would not have approved of the speed I took on the long and winding roads to get to the Cape on time, but it also can’t deny my quite visible alive-and-wellness so I guess that’s a point to cold hard proof of life. Also, we made it. With minutes to spare:

One good thing about traveling in NZ in late autumn (fall, for all you Americans) is that very few tourists come out to enjoy the scenery. Summer is the calling card in NZ, and when summer hits, all go-to destinations on this tiny spit of island are a battleground. Thankfully we’re a backward country and have our autumn during the American summer, so we had the run of the place from the moment we set foot on the path to the moment we returned grinning and windwhipped to Dean an hour later.

We spent about 20 minutes in the car trying to get over the oxygen overload and weighing up the pros and cons of driving the 2 hours back to reception. Considering it was about half past six at the time and growing darker by the second, we decided that the safest and closest option would be to camp out by the Cape, in a designated camping ground down 3km of winding gravel roads. We were right at the base of the mountain on which the lighthouse stood and the water was only a few meters in front of us. It was amazing! Once the darkness set in fully all you could see were stars, and all you could hear was the roaring ocean.

We prepared the sleeping bags, lowered the front seats down, and curled up for our first night on the road. Lights out approx 10pm.

27th June, 3am.

During the night I had nightmares. And not nightmares that most people would find scary, like a tidal wave hitting or the mountain collapsing or the Loch Ness monster swimming to our shores to say hello, no. I had nightmares about my mother calling the coastguard, the NZ Army, Airforce and Navy to come find me since I hadn’t been in touch with her since 12 hours previous. Believe me when I say I wouldn’t have put it past her. Either way, the night was sleepless for me. Every time I turned over I woke up and thought about the lack of reception. Every shadow outside the foggy car window was the police force letting me know I was arrested for being a bad daughter. At 3am I couldn’t take it anymore. I shook Holmes awake – or, the closest she would get to it at the time – and announced that she could sleep on if she so chose, but I was going to drive our asses back to civilization. I took her mumbled grunt as a sign of understanding, plugged my headphones in and set the car to drive.

The nearest reception point was Awanui, a small town some two hours from the Cape. With grim determination, I began to drive. Now, I’m terrified of the dark in Auckland city, and anyone who’s lived – or does live – in a big city knows that city-dark and country-dark are as similar as chalk and cheese. Driving the same winding roads I had driven the previous day in pitch black silence was an experience to say the least. At one point I realized that had I had the courage to turn off my headlights, I would be simulating flight. And not in the sense that I would be toppling off the side of a mountain (highly likely, hence my headlights remained on) but because I was surrounded by nothing but darkness and stars.

The two hours saw my terror of the dark evolve to general wariness of it, to awe of it, to sheer down-on-one-knee-proposing love for it. Muse’s Exogenesis pt 1 and Rob Dougan’s Clubbed to Death will never sound the same after having the accompanying star backdrop of that return to civilization. It was truly indescribable; a feeling that I will carry with me to the grave.

By the time we reached Awanui, Holmes was calmly burrowed under her sleeping bag making quiet snoring noises once in a while, and Dean was happily humming along the main highway, now knee-deep in reception. Turns out my mother hadn’t attempted to call the coastguard and the rest of the national defense force, and my 5-message long txt to her was quite unnecessary. A relief, on one hand, and quite an annoyance on the other. I was stuck in the middle of civilized nowhere with half a tank of gas and no hope for an open petrol station – or cafe – for at least 2 more hours. I drove on.

By 7am I had had enough of driving in silence, so I poked Holmes awake and announced that she had to navigate. Turns out that was a good move since I’d taken a huge loop and was happily heading back up north again. By the time she had rubbed her eyes enough to actually see through them, the world had entered a state of silent, beautiful, freezing fog:

It was thick enough to allow vision of maybe a meter in front of the car, and continued on for about an hour. The sun began to rise and I called a time out. We found a small cafe on the side of the road that had just opened up, parked Dean by the door and attempted to communicate our need for coffee in muddled sleep-deprived voices. Turned out the staff spoke fluent exhaustion, and brought us both our coffees and a big breakfast to share. It was wonderful, considering it was 2 degrees outside (35.6 for Americans) and we had this as the backdrop for our meal:

Afterward we returned to the car, blasted the heating, amped the music and continued our journey back to Auckland city, our first stopover on the journey down to Matamata. For those unaware, or not geeky enough to know, Matamata is the backdrop for Hobbiton. More than that, it IS Hobbiton. Peter Jackson, having found a perfect hill with a tree on it in a small rural farm out in bumfuck nowhere decided it was the epitome of Hobbiton and set up camp some twelve years ago now to film the opening to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since then, it’s been a tourist hotspot. As we approached Matamata we found that the weather was grey and grimy. Obviously not a good sign since it’s been our metaphorical correctness-monitor since we left off the day before and we knew for a fact we had to stop there for the night.

Turns out the weather never lies: all tours of Hobbiton were in the months surrounding June and July, and there was no way to get on the property otherwise. We decided to splash out on a cabin in a nearby trailer park instead of spending money on touristy things we wouldn’t get to see anyway. The weather cleared up after that. Holmes insisted that we get a cabin for two reasons: one being that I have grown used to daily showers and I missed the feeling of warm water on my skin, and the other being that I had been awake for 14 hours now and I was slowly starting to lose it. I agreed after being convinced that if I didn’t get the proper sleep I needed I would crash Dean and never be able to drive him again. My love for my car won out over my love for myself, it seems. We got a very cheap, very simple room with a view that was worth the $50

Due to this being anything but tourist season, our 6-bunk cabin was occupied by only us. We pulled the mattresses to the floor, pulled out Homes’ computer and hard drive and watched Prince of Persia before deciding showers were in order. Discovering that we had both neglected to bring towels, we McGuyvered some sheets to serve our purposes and went to sleep clean, warm and on actual mattresses. Lights out approx 8pm.

28th June, 8am

Today: the trek to Napier, the Art Deco capital of NZ. To be honest there was no specific reason why we were off to Napier for more than a rest stop. I’d been there before with Q and although the place was lovely, it wasn’t really my thing. Plus the amazing old car show and 30s dress-up festival wasn’t until later in the year. I had friends who lived there but both were elsewhere at the time, so we headed to Napier armed with more maps than we could carry and a book filled with good spots to park Dean in when he got tired.

In Napier we parked, marveled at the old-school parking meters that only allowed for one hour stops and began to walk. Napier is probably the best city for walking because the idea is to see the buildings. For anyone interested in art deco and art neuvo, Napier is the place to go. For us, we headed to the shoreline to find driftwood. Or, at least, I did. Holmes found the benches surrounding the shoreline to be much more exciting and began to sing loud melodious renditions of Sound of Music while trying – and failing – to jump from bench to bench. Eventually, though, I did get her to the beach, and that’s where the fun began.

Napier beach is a pebble beach, meaning it has no sand whatsoever and is not usually the best place to go swimming:

but in all other aspects it is perfect. We spent about 45 minutes bouncing like maniacal idiots around one particular driftwood log that I claimed “looked pretty” and that Holmes decided she wanted to jump off of. We were both right, so we took “nice” photos by the log and then jumped off it a few times, scaring the locals and making them blink at us in confusion.

Deciding that Napier wasn’t really our kinda town, we returned to Dean, ignored the flashing and blinking parking meter that told us we had been parked 10 minutes over our hour, and set out to a nice-looking well-reviewed motorcamp out towards Hastings-way, a little further south. Because we are who we are, and because the weather decided to play nice for a few hours, we got lost and didn’t realize it till we hit a dead end street out quite far past reception and a little more west than we wanted to go. The locals weren’t much help:

But eventually we found our way back to the main road we were meant to be on before and continued on our way. We came across a rather nice motor home at the curve of the road, parked and got out. Turns out that not only was the weather on our side, but the days of the week were as well. Apparently this was the only motor home in the entire island that took a day off on Tuesdays. Office was shut, we had no way of getting information or even attempting a booking, and having decided that it was too early in the day to give up (around 3pm) we chose to follow the road for as long as it took to get us anywhere.

Thanks to a helpful Tuesday, we came across our home for the night within 20 minutes:

We were right on the edge of the map, so much so that had we driven much further, we would have smacked into rocks before disappearing to a place where there be only dragons. A much more exciting – and less known – method of getting to Platform 9 3/4, but as it was, we ended up right here:

As the day was young – and the closest supermarket was a few hours away – we decided we’d explore our new home. The first thing we found was a rather frightening warning:

but having decided that we could possibly out-walk the children should they attempt to follow us, we continued on our way. The motor home was a lot bigger than it had appeared when we first drove in. It continued to hug the coast till it hit the cliffs, and housed upwards of 20 year-round residents in their decked out and pimped campers. Every so often we would stumble on a tent or some fishing gear, but otherwise we were left with the most exquisite view since Cape Reinga:

I went a little camera crazy and may or may not have used up the batteries with this place but personally I think it was worth it. By the time we returned to the car, it was no longer 3:30pm but nearing 6pm, so we blacked out the windows from the overhead streetlamp and snuggled down to watch another movie on Holmes’ laptop. Sadly it decided to crash just before the major fight scene and rather exciting climax, so we grumbled a while before finding a comfortable angle to rest in. Thankfully this place had reception, so I didn’t have nightmares about being hunted down by the army again. By about 9pm, we were out like lights, listening to the ocean lulling us to sleep 2m away. By about 1am it began to rain heavily.

29th June, 7am

We woke to rain and decided that the weather really didn’t want us here anymore. We flailed around getting everything together, drove to the bathrooms – the ultimate lazy-ass thing to do – and then headed out. Today, our goal was Wellington. The weather cleared up as we drove further inland, and greeted us with fog again. Maybe it was nature’s way of giving us a hug that we felt to the bone. Either way, we drove on, happy to be on the road again.

Now, I won’t pretend to remember how, because the genesis of most conversations and goings on between Holmes and I are untraceable, but somehow we ended up driving right out of the New Zealand countryside and into Limbo. Chances are we had been far too engrossed in conversation comparing the merits of Johnny Cash to nothing, since Johnny Cash is the Chuck Norris of music, but we found ourselves facing an endless landscape of sand, sky and ocean. And nothing else.

The best way to describe Limbo, I think, is to imagine that you’re listening to the slow opening of the second half of Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond from the Wish You Were Here LP. The slow buildup or the pulsing drumbeat, the unbelievable freedom of the electric guitar… if I’m honest I truly felt like I was in the middle of a pipe dream in a Pink Floyd album cover. It was indescribable and completely and utterly nuts. There was a rainbow that wouldn’t disappear…

…endless sands that ran and weaved and covered our footsteps the further into Limbo we got…

…and after a while, debris from previous imaginations that had entered Limbo and built there for years and years on end.

We found remnants of cows and decided that we might as well take trophies with us when we returned to the real world – which we did 30 minutes later, or thereabouts in real-time – and must’ve looked like cannibals with doggie bags on our way back to Dean. Dean wasn’t impressed with the cow bones, but couldn’t do more than get my keys stuck for a few minutes and cause me annoyance. Either way he made his point of view known. The bones now live safely in my room on top of the highest bookshelf where my tiny destructor-dog or Dean can’t reach them. We left Limbo alive and well, our insanity having saved us an inception, and continued our journey to the Windy City.

We arrived to rain and grayness and general yeuck, unpacked, had a minor spat over who got the first shower – I won – and settled down for our first night in Wellywood. Sleep hit around 11pm and was very much welcomed.

30th June, 8:30am

Wellington was cold. Very cold. So we donned our winter coats and headed out to find the hiding place of many a famous visitor to New Zealand: Fidel’s Cafe.

Now, I’ve been to Wellington once before, and I loved it then. I remembered it being a city that you could walk anywhere in, where everything was close and where Cuba Street was the shining glory of all things amazing. It’s funny how some things never change. The giant spider that had stood around looking metally and menacing now looked nicer with hand-woven woolen socks on each foot:

and the capital proved itself better than Auckland on pretty much every turn, crossing and sidewalk by being more artistic:

Eventually, though, we arrived at Fidel’s and I ordered something delicious as I sent Holmes to the “back room” to get a table. She frowned a little and flailed at me that “out back will be cold and slimy” since it looked like it was leading outside, but I waved her on. Fidel’s is a place that you explore and get to know, and once you know it, you gravitate towards certain areas that feel more you. Incidentally, the place that felt most “me” was the “revolution room”:

There was a time when Fidel’s was favoured by the cast of the Lord of the Rings trilogy when it was still being filmed. Now that The Hobbit is on-and-off-and-on-and-bloody-off-again, one would assume the cast would gravitate towards that place again. Old habits dying hard and all that. Sadly we caught the Windy City at a time of cinematic turmoil; the main actor – so, the Hobbit himself – was off in Cardiff filming the second season of the BBC show Sherlock. Not that I’m complaining, but if the main character is away from shooting, something’s rotten in Denmark. Or Wellington. Whatever. Rotten in a big area populated by people.

I have to say that as much as I was disappointed, I wasn’t particularly surprised that we didn’t meet – and couldn’t have met – anyone exciting. Meeting Lee Pace is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I’m sure I’ll get to have one day, but it was not that day. Sadly. Tearfully agonizingly heart-ripped-from-chest sadly but there you have it. We were actorless and a little cold, so we left Fidel’s after a delicious meal of tea, coffee, cheese scone and raspberry/white chocolate muffin in search of hats with ears.

Long story short: I’ve always wanted one, but Q always thought they looked stupid. So I never got one. Funny thing was that in Wellington we stood out like two very sore frozen thumbs because we DIDN’T have hats with ears. Everyone on the street had a hat with ears on it and kinda looked at us funny for being hatless. We meandered our way around a few stores before chancing on a sale in Jay Jays. Now, neither Holmes nor I shop like girls. Girls go to stores and take their time, they look for pretty things and try them on, ask their significant others or girlfriends if their butts look big in one item of clothing or another… not us. We shop like guys: walk into store, see shirt, blink at shirt, buy shirt.

So while exploring the beauty of the sale rack, Holmes came across a rather unusual thing: a hat with ears, that had ears of its own:

so without a second thought, she bought it, and we left the store 5 t-shirts and one fuzzy hat richer and a few twenties poorer. The weather wasn’t being nice to us today at all, so we stopped at a nearby dairy for some snackage before beginning the uphill walk to our home for the day. We planned a lovely afternoon of slubbing, eating bad food and watching movies. Alas, the day had other plans. Upon entering the dairy, I beheld the most beautiful ear-hat I had ever seen in my life. Holmes agreed it was perfect and snagged it from my hands so that she could buy it for me. And then I had an ear-hat:

Once we got to our humble room and had a very halfhearted scuffle over who got first shower – Holmes won, but it wasn’t really a battle – I began to look through the endless pile of tour books that had populated the bed overnight. In one in particular I came across an ad for a church I had visited in Wellington before called Old St. Paul’s, and a small photo of a place called Cape Palliser. Figuring that we had been to two Capes already on this trip we would most certainly need a third, I bookmarked it, and proposed the following idea to the much more contented-looking and cleaner Holmes as she re-entered the room:

Go explore Old St. Paul’s today and then get dinner out to pretend like we’re actually young adults in a big city all by our selves for the first time ever, and then leave extra early the next morning to cover both Miramar and Palliser in one day.

Holmes pondered this and agreed that Old St. Paul’s was in order, and she would think about the rest. So we woke Dean from his almost-two-day-long nap and drove to the other side of Wellington city to see a church that I had rather fond memories of. Turns out, like with the rest of Wellington, my memories of this place served me very well:

We spent over an hour in the church, just breathing and exploring and looking and taking millions of photos. It’s a truly spectacular place that I will most likely visit every time I got to Wellington. After we recharged our spiritual batteries, we decided to check out a few more churches in the local area. In probably one of the weirdest turns of events on the whole roadtrip, we aimed for a church and hit Parliament instead. Woops.

The day ended well with a delicious and thoroughly filling Italian dinner at a very affordable restaurant on the main street. It was dark, late, and very VERY wet by the time we got home. Another movie kept us up till about midnight before we crashed at 12:30, no plans confirmed and neither of us caring.

1st July, 7am

Today started with silence. We both stared aimlessly at either a map or a guidebook before coming to an almost unspoken agreement that visiting Miramar and Weta would be more money than the experience was worth. Deciding that there really was no point in spending the equivalent of two nights worth of trailer park camping on the two of us going to visit a set that wasn’t active, we agreed that Palliser was the best option for the day, and set off.

Palliser lighthouse is located at the southern-most point of the north island of New Zealand. It’s a place that makes the 101-Must-Do-Things-For-Kiwis and would complete our entire journey if we were to visit both the northern-most lighthouse of the island and the southern-most one. Apparently, on a clear day, you can see the south island from its summit. We drove for a few hours through winding mountainous roads where handy roadworks were being done – can’t escape em no matter how far from Auckland you are, it seems – before hitting a flat patch as we approached the Cape.

The first thing we realized was that the animals run the place. We were stopped and almost strip searched by a group of very unnerving sheep who just stood there and stared at us with their beady x-ray eyes till we were thoroughly creeped out and till they got bored and left the road. Seriously? Black Sheep makes so much more sense now. After driving a while longer we encountered the ocean. This was nothing like the ocean near Cape Reinga, this was a wild beast with a beating heart and a mind of its own:

it also seemed to like eating up bridges and making us drive over the carcasses…

We decided to pull over to give Dean a break from driving over gravel roads and dead bridges. We found a lovely spot with a great view of the ocean and began to explore. I was on my way to getting a perfectly framed shot of the wild waves when Holmes cleared her throat behind me and calmly announced: “Bandit, there’s a seal next to you.”

I turned my already prepared camera and made a rather undignified noise when I realized I wasn’t actually on zoom, and I had nearly walked into a fucken seal. It made a freakish howling noise, I screamed some more, and then it proceeded to run around in circles, making weird howling noises every so often before retreating to the water. I actually can’t tell you if I found it more hilarious or downright creepy. I was scared it was gonna charge me. Having overcome my shock at nearly walking into a damned seal, I turned to take the photo again. And then I saw them…

freaking…

seals…

EVERYWHERE

I won’t lie, guys, I was still terrified as all hell that seals were just gonna charge me as a colony and eat me and use my skin to keep warm at night. Especially when they all made the creepy howling noise at once and I honestly thought of hauling ass to the car. The seal that ran absently in circles was still around, staring at us, making sure we were far enough away from the pups, and believe me we were far enough away. One of the most exciting and terrifying experiences of my life to date, shit you not. Most likely one of the most entertaining experiences of Holmes’ life to date too considering she laughed a little longer than necessary and kept bringing it up later. Fair call though, I screamed at the seal and he replied, one could’ve assumed we were performing some sort of new-age opera. We even harmonized for one terrifying instant.

After the seal ordeal we returned to Dean and continued onwards to Palliser. The weather wasn’t spectacular but it wasn’t hellish, so we decided that part of it did want us here, even if to laugh at our pain as we beheld the stairs leading up to our final destination:

and then attempted to climb them…

…and stop every few dozen or so to gulp in air and not topple all the way to the car again…

But it was all worth it in the end, for the view:

Palliser was incredible for the fact that you could actually see the earth curve beneath your feet if you stood on the edge of the cliffs like we did. It was at once a humbling feeling and a feeling of unimaginable power. You could scream at the top of Palliser and the world would hear your words. Another unforgettable experience in an already wonderful roadtrip.

On the way back we encountered a sign that made us feel somewhat smug:

Obviously Dean was an extreme car to be able to drive through active slips. A cherry atop a wonderful day, to be sure. We arrived back to Wellington nearabouts 5pm and began packing. The next morning we were to leave base at 4am and we needed as much sleep as we could possibly squeeze into an evening. After watching Megamind and laughing more than strictly necessary (pah, no such thing) we crashed and called it a night some time around 9pm.

2nd July, 4am

Besides being insanely cold, Wellington gave us a lovely sendoff. No rain, no fog, no horrid seals at our door… all was well when we left the Windy City to return to the City of Sails. I won’t bore you with the details of our return home; we didn’t encounter anything exciting or photoworthy, but after 13 hours behind the wheel I was happy to fall face first into my bed at home and conk out for the night around 10pm.

Final statement? One of the best weeks of my life. 3135km traveled (1948 miles) all up. I will never forget it, I want to repeat it, and I’ve decided that at least once a month I have to be on the road to keep my sanity. And now, at 5489 words, I leave you for the night.

If you survived this long… holy shit guys, you should get medals. If you skipped here from the beginning then shame on you. You get no medals. You will be medal-less.

RAOC had its annual meeting today where the admin team and a few lovely stragglers discussed our plans for the future of this project. Once I get some sleep I will post the new updated blog entry up on there, so stay tuned!!

The Hope to Haiti crew returned from Haiti successful, happy and very very tired. More as it happens!

I have no new reviews in The Midnight Screening this week. I was on a roadtrip and the stuff we saw there I have either reviewed or can’t be assed reviewing just now. You can wait a while longer, I’m sure.

“1000+1 Books” has a few more books. This time it actually does. I add to it when I feel like it, since this isn’t a review page, but it’s always a good place to go if you can’t think of your next book to read. For much better (and very informative) reviews, check out Collecting a Library, she never lets me down.

Incidentally, don’t forget to check out the new entries from Jack and Lochinvar too. Show em the support and love they deserve, guys, these blogs are amazing.

This week’s songs are all by Mumford and Sons, because I’m in a Mumford mood:

-+- Dustbowl Dance
-+- Thistle and Weeds
-+- Liar

Stay classy guys, till next Castiel day…

Bandit, exhausted and OUT.

July 7, 2011 | Categories: Ridiculous shit of utter ridiculousness, Zuihitsu Noodle-Soup | Tags: holmes, roadtrip | 22 Comments »