cultura obscura

It's time for me to come out of the closet.


so, I found something out yesterday, a few things really.

1) you can go to Outback without either trauma or a bloomin onion
2) I am not the only person who is my age or lives where I live who likes chain restaurants...


I had a conversation via chatting on facebook with a friend who told me about Paneras. That sounds too ethnic and real to be a chain...but alas,it is a chain predominant in the midwest that bases themselves around being a bakery..Doesn't that sound more civil than "Hey,mate,have a fair dinkem ale the size of your melbourne lovin skull". Sure.


Truly too I am familiar with bread chains,as my cousin by marriage is one of the heirs to the Boudin Bread Bakery...Sourdough french bread in San Francisco. Hmmmmmm. Ya think they are pretty rich? We never see them,but it is their custom to come to family things,sort of sit at one table,and be the french bread cousins, the upper crust,if you will. Part of the S.F. elite that happen to mingle with the low brow cousins. They provided an interesting contrast to the cousins who would show up at reunions and all pile out of a trailer with their subway sandwiches. I always wanted to have my french bread cousins be all critical of the subway cousins."Ha,you call that bread? We know bread?"
and the trailer park cousins retorting
"Ha, you call what you do living? Any person can travel in a high priced automobile. Try existing 23 to a trailer"
The truth of it is,we don't really fit into any population. Erika and I both have midwestern values and are kinda off the norm. I,at times, become a nomadic wanderer in the cultural wasteland.
Case in point....once every two years we go to Hawaii.
Normal Marin Countyite: Oh,we love the isolated beauty of Kauii. You can feel yourself decompress under the sway of the indigenous palms.
Normal Marin Countyite 2: Oh, you can go to Maui. It is a paradise untouched by human hands.
Us: WAIKIKI,BABY!!!!!! Mai Tais,scathed beauty,rock on...Tiki Mugs,people from Indiana bobbing up and down in the ocean like corks from jug wine. Japanese tourists with weird slogans on their t shirts "America Rock Party Star"..."Cannot Touch This"

The truth is that I am an eclectic traditionalist. I am not way out there, though the you you want me to be is. I do like tourism, It is fun. I like to ride buses to luaus. I like tours. I enjoy Vegas and The Wisconsin Dells.
Now...some of my favorite trashy places...

Flintstones Bedrock City in The Black Hills
Rock City, Georgia(they"ll tell ya Tennessee)
Graceland(Graceland, Memphis Tennessee)
Archie McPhee toystore (Seattle)
The Disney Cruise
The Precious Moments factory in Missouri
The Star Trek Experience Bar(Hilton,Las Vegas)
La Mariana Supper Club,Honolulu
South of The Border(South Carolina)
The Twin Teepees (Seattle)
Route 66 (From Oklahoma City to Flagstaff...highlights, Cadillac Ranch and the gas station that announced "Gas sKips will be persecuted"...and the velvet of Jesus blessing a mack truck
The Black Hills Passion Play
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Branson
Dollywood
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Yellowstone(Not trashy).

ok...here was our honeymoon, by car
Mill Valley to Reno
Reno To Idaho Falls(Long ass drive)
Idaho Falls to Gilette Wyoming( Yellowstone, Cody museum)
Gilette to Custer S.d (Flinstones Park, Devils Tower,Cowboy Supper and Show)
Custer to Soiux City Iowa (Corn Palace, and Jellystone Park)
Sioux City to Kansas City
3 days in Kc
kc to Memphis(Graceland, Charlie Vergos Rendeveouz)
Memphis to Eureka Springs(Passion Play)
Eureka Springs to KC
KC to Oklahoma City(National cowboy hall oof fame)
Ok City to Amarillo(Home of the Big Texan...next blog)
Amarillo to Albuquerque
Albuquerque to Vegas (Englebert, baby)
Vegas to LA
LA home
no idyllic vienna alpine splendour
no machu pichu finding spitual love fest

we called it the beauty and tack tour


And I guess it's where I am destined to end this blog today
in love with the touristy world of chain food
and living in a world where we are forced to hide our tourist trap loving selves.