Adventure #86: Coram, Montana

I'd be lying if I denied that a solid 60% of touring is a flimsy excuse to visit beautiful places but not have to pay for anything. One day in Glacier National Park in Coram, Montana. The next in a vineyard in Yakima, Washington. Then the next in a faux Bavarian village in northern Washington because that's a thing apparently. Whatever. Why not? The last few days of driving have been long. I've covered nearly 1600 miles in 4 days and any time for myself has been stolen from sleep time. But I've tried to spare a few minutes here and there to appreciate nature because at heart I'm a dirty hippie. This is Pen Pen protesting socialism by posting a bumper sticker in a government funded free for all to use national park; yeah that'll show 'em!

The math said I'd have an hour to go hiking if I didn't hit traffic (don't worry, I hit traffic. But that's like 4 hours after this story ends...) So with no plan beyond a general acknowledgment that there are tons of signs with the little hiking guy icon in the area, I set off to Yakima. 5 minutes in, I pulled off and followed signs for an “experimental forest.” That's my kind of forest. Pushing boundaries! Épater la bourgeoisie! This is Pen Pen and the John Cage of forests.

Like Oblio and the Pointless Forest, I didn't see much that was experimental. But then, so sayeth the Rockman “You see what you wanna see, and you hear what you wanna hear. You dig?” Some evidence of attempts to grow certain kinds of trees in certain kinds of soil. That's cool, I guess. But I wanted mutant half-cow half-daisies! 40 foot tall mushrooms! Mosquiotos capable of speaking Italian! But it was beautiful, and totally worth the fact that it caused me to be nearly late to my show in Yakima. Even if it wasn't going to totally make people like rethink how they conceptualize art and stuff, man. This is Pen Pen performing his experimental Concerto for Mountain, Tree, and Sunshine in F# Minor.

I'm excited to get to the West Coast where the distance between cities is a lot smaller. I'll have more time to go exploring and not just feel like I'm behind all the time. I sold out of A Life in Transit 3 days ago and haven't had time to package new ones. Good problems, I suppose, but why bother being in one of the most beautiful places on Earth if you're only watching it fly by at 80 miles an hour. This is Pen Pen experimenting with some berries that he hopes are raspberries because they're delicious but making his throat feel kind of diagonal?

Santa Claus vulture pineapple the semi-sweet albatross tunnel vision transcending the salivating peat moss of Gothic architecture. We are more than the anti-coagulant spin cycle of yesterday. Repent! Repent? Rejoice a single peanut brittle necktie. For now is the now we have the are will be the exceptional rut of malfeasance washing up out or over the tarnished reputations of linseed oil salesmen and dirt roads forever. This is Pen Pen waking up several hours later naked in a field next to a burned out campfire smelling distinctly of apple cider vinegar.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share it with your friends. It's experimental, man.