Micha goes USA

last days in california... bye bye america!

2011-05-06T23:42:00.000-07:00

My last days in america were a lot of fun. Spending time in the city with my friends, going to bars, listening to music and having a blast in San Francisco. And I also went out of the city - awesome nature is really close. There is just a lot to do and to experience in california. I was sad when I left, but the good news is, I'm going back soon. Very soon. :-)

this blog ends here and I hope you enjoyed my pictures and my stories!

You can keep on reading about what's happening with my music and my art on my website www.micha-schellhaas.com - a lot is going to happen this year!

thanks for reading!

in San Francisco, close to sunset

on the bus in San Fran

beautiful nature just a couple of miles over at the other side of the golden gate bridge

downtown

the Diamondway Buddhism retreat land in California

the whale rock

my flight home.

San Francisco

2011-04-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

San Francisco. Well, what to say. First I was feeling so filled up with impressions from the last 2 months that I didn't really know where to put new ones. But then after 2 days the city got a hold of me: fantastic friends, inspiring moments all day long, a really awesome city, good food, beach, sun, clouds, rain, sun again, music,... !!!
So I guess I'm doing really fine here. Today I will do the camera work for a short interview with a local film maker, and I might write some music for one of his short films. That's gonna be pretty exiting, we will go around the city for some nice shots. And then I have just a couple more days left here in california...

the streets on san francisco

friends of mine live across the golden gate bridge. this is the view from their living room (!)

driving across the golden gate bridge

yes.

downtown

a shot I took walking across the city...

Alright, that's all for now. I'm gonna post again from here, so stay tuned and visit me at my brand new facebook page

The city of angels

2011-04-20T18:45:00.001-07:00

My time in the city of angels was fantastic. The beach, the clubs, the people and the city itself has their own vibe and energy. I was staying with my friend Vikki in venice beach - could it be any better? :-)

This time no recordings, but I was really getting into shooting more video footage. I went down to the boardwalk a couple of days and shot the skaters, bikers, the basketball players and the acrobats... Enough footage for one or two nice slomotion music videos! When I get back home I will have some solid weeks of writing, editing and mixing ahead. I think I'm gonna lock myself up in the studio for about a month or two ;-)
But check out my pics from my L.A. adventure...

the beach

going dancing in venice beach. This awesome band plays every tuesday at the Brig down on Abbot Kinney. Those guys are amazing - propably the best live improv funk band I have heard. They sound like a record - like a GOOOD record!

after dancing you are hungry. Those tater tots were hitting the spot...

down on the street...

the skate park at the beach. I got some amazing skate video footage here

basketball

cool motel sign in Culver City. I went there to buy some ND filters for my cam. Oh yeah!

Hollywood sign is behind me. In front hills and downtown behind it

driving out on 101 for a beach day in Malibu. Fantastic houses all along the way

the beach in Malibu !

home by the sea

driving on 101 (PCH)

two dogs enjoying PCH

classic beach picture. Old VW with surf plank and wetsuit and in front a new shiny black SUV

yes, I do like muscle cars

venice beach at night

on my last night my friends too me up here to a very nice japanese restaurant
we had this mindblowing view and the full moon above it...

angels :-)

Albuquerque

2011-04-12T12:44:00.001-07:00

The last week I was kickin' it in Albuquerque. And, Albuquerque is kickin' indeed. I drove the 12 hour drive from Texas to New Mexico in less than 10 hours with my buddy Kent, and spent 9 magical days out there in the desert. We recorded with Shawn Loudermilk, I met amazing new people and reunited with old friends. It's pretty IN to be LOCAL in Albuquerque, but that being said, I'll let the story speak for itself...

on our way through the destert

Kent and me stopped in the desert to pull a blown truck tire from the street. Kent is about the best travel buddy you can imagine :-)

recording with Shawn in the Albuquerque Buddhist Center
(you can check out the production on www.micha-schellhaas.com - the music will be mixed and online end of may)

First evening diving into the local scene. My friend Carrie (picture) had an art show in a prestigious local space. She is making awesome stuff...

another art show

Creamland

On route 66. Probably my best car shot so far...

...!

same lady. no words.

awesome ride

On my second evening in Albuquerque I met Ashley. We clicked right away and she was telling me about her beatboxing. When she freestyled for me that night I fell in love with her beatboxing instantly. We met a couple more times, had a great time hanging out and I shot some videos for her. This is the first one. Looks like I catched her right on time, only 2 days later she went to meet a band in NYC, and now she will not come back to Albuquerque, but stay in NYC and make a living as professional beatboxer. Wow!!! Go Ashley...

Ashely "SAY WUT?!" freestyle Beatbox session. Part I

that's the set for one of the other videos I did with her...

on my way to L.A.

And now, I am in L.A.! Just about to head down to the beach. Hmmm.... :)
The next post will be a californian one...

2011-04-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

My last days in Austin have been pretty colorful. I have been making new friends, taking pictures of the band NEW SAND, recorded with Kent and GidiSunshine out in the barn in San Marcos and not to forget the video I shot with Sarah for our AUDECY project. I will post some screenshots soon, but ze edit will has to wait until I am back in Europe.
Right now I am in New Mexico, recording and playing Shawn Loudermilk, and I met an awesome young beatbox lady. But more of that soon, check out some pictures from my last day's in the live music capitol of the world!

Fotoshoot with NEW SAND. We took some random items out of the magic barn to spice up the pictures...

That's my friend Gidi from Ghana. We were recording in the barn (yes, I spent a lot of time out there) on their GIDISUNSHINE project. He is a fantastic musician and great guy, and plays all the traditional instruments en styles and can combine it really nice with the singer songwriter vibe we had going on...

me playing guitar in the barn

Gidi outside, just before he would play in an african dance class

check out the Austin Dance Collective!

bye Austin! see you soon again....

SXSW part 2

2011-03-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, the festival is over now and we all had a great time. Everybody is in recovering mode now, and I kicked my own behind to write this post tonight ;-) Tomorrow we are going to start the shooting of the new AUDECY video. We got a very nice set and I am pretty exited about it. But first, more from SXSW!

The highlight for me was my own street gig, we set up our gear on the street, got power from a lebanese food place and rocked out!

I was wandering around and shooting pictures of bands that I liked, so I'm just gonna post some here, you can get and idea about how busy it was, how many bands and how many people. I have seen really great stuff on the festival. Wow! Music lovers from everywhere, this would blow your mind...

a band setting up

street scene on W 6th, the heart of the festival

girl playing fussball (that's how they call it here, germans, FYI)

hard rockin' dudes

very cool street drums/rap show

I think he just told her to get 2 boyfriends ;-)

the guys from HEYPENNY were really kickin' it !!!

HEYPENNY

cool band from Albany playing behind the food trailers (the ones with the amazing chicken waffles)

he's doing it right: professional DSLR shoulder rig with pull focus on the handle... oh yeah!

That's all for now, more SXSW aftermath and a report from our upcoming video shoot soon! Let me know if you like the blog, comments are always welcome! See y'all later!

SXSW Festival

2011-03-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

Hey folks!
At the moment it's South By Southwest time here in Austin! The whole city is packed with bands for one week. Last year they had about 1000 official shows scheduled, and at least as many unofficial shows. Meaning, every bar, bakery, club, every possible bandstand has a couple of bands a day. Pretty exiting! I am following my friends from THREE LEAF
to their shows, I shot a lot of pictures and we are working on a live video. Tomorrow I'm planning to play a rebel street gig, we gonna set up a mini drumset, guitar and bass amp right in the middle of it and rock out - let's see what comes of that!

Kent from THREE LEAF

scenery down on E 6th. Close to the food trailers where they have the amazing chicken waffles

somewhere on the street

a solo performer after one of the Three Leaf Shows

This girl is GOOD! She was playing in a trio with double bass and drums. Check her out at:
http://www.kellymcfarling.com

Texas music

2011-03-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

Howdy!

Texas is great, and so is music here. First, check out the video I shot with Sarah the day we were working on the AUDECY vocals:

Then on my last night in Dallas I was sitting in with a local jazz band. Really fun gig! It was nice to rip Steve's strat and little Fender tube amp to bebop tunes. I got two comments on my tone: First "you sound a little harsh there" Second: "man, you got some SCO goin' on...!"
I liked the second much better ;-) As I said it was fun and I got a lot of great feedback on my playing that night.

Then the next morning I took the bus to Austin, but not before Steve took me to the place downtown president Kennedy was shot. This is the office building where the sniper sat:

And now here in Austin the South by Southwest music festival is going on, that means music, party and great time for the next 10 days :) My friends from THREE LEAF had there first show for the festival on saturday. Really sweet gig! I will sit in with some bands aswell during the festival!

Three Leaf playing a show in south Austin

Dallas Texas !!!

2011-03-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Texas sky!

Hey there!

I've been in the states for about a week now, working with my friend Steve Satterwhite in his awesome Planet Satterwhite Studio in his house in Dallas. Flight was good, and I am happy to be back in the US !!!

I played on some tracks for his new record, and it's pretty swingin' - swinging the cowboy way, so get ready for the release in april/may! His latest record shows up internationally in all the western swing/americana charts so I'm really looking forward to see how this new record will go. Have a look in the studio:

Also while being at Steve's my friend Sarah was coming over to the studio. Last year we made this cool music project AUDECY (check it out on my website micha-schellhaas.com), and now we decided to re record the first track of our EP (as a start) and make a video to it! The work in the studio turned out great and a short video from our day recording will be online TOMORROW! So come back and check it out...

Sarah @ studio Planet Satterwhite

The day after tomorrow I will head on to Austin, hanging around at the South by Southwest festival and reunit with old friends :-) So far my time here has been fabulous and I am looking forward to the rest of my trip. Ah, and for tomorrow evening I was asked if I want to sit in with a local jazz band. Hell yeah!

6 hours to takeoff

2011-02-27T16:45:00.000-08:00

It's middle of the night and I have to get up in about 3 hours (haha I just realize that) to go to the airport. My flight leaves early...
Looking forwar to write this blog again, and this time it's gonna be even more a photo blog than last time, since I bought this awesome Canon 55oD camera!

The last weeks I have been very busy in the studio, and I am looking forward to work with Ssssssteve in Dallas from tomorrow on! Oh boy, that's like literally at the other side of the world, hehe. Well, I guess I'll need a couple of days anyways to get rif of the jetlag...

Anyhow, check out this pic from last week, a late night mixing session in my very own TRINIX STUDIO!

going back once again...

2011-02-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hey folks,

so, long time no post. During my last visit I didn't blog, but this time it's time for some documantation again :-)
On my first 3 months road trip (which really was the time of my life) I fell in love with Texas and especially Austin, and I have spend 6 months in total over there since then.

From playing and recording music, jamming with lots of people, a trip to the hill country, driving across the desert to california, loosing money in Las Vegas - again, a perfect time.
You can listen to some of the music I brought back on my website www.micha-schellhaas.com, the AUDECY project I did in Austin/TX, and the SHAWN LOUDERMILK recordings we did in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Before my first trip I never had thought that I will have that much fantastic experiences in the US.

For this time, there's a lot on the program too. Again, travelling - this time probably by bus. I wanted to check out the Greyhound's anyway someday :-)
Recording in Dallas and New Mexico, writing and playing in Austin/TX, chilling in L.A. and going to jam sessions in San Francisco - that's the plan...

The trip has already started in my head, only 4 weeks to takeoff now...

looking forward to go back to the US! and to pst some cool stories and pictures...!
Greetings fom the Geneva airport (and yes, I am flying a lot lately)...

I'm coming back !

2009-08-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right. I'm going back to america ! In 15 days I will be on the plane across the big ocean and spend again 3 months in the states. This time no 12,000 miles cross country trip - I will stay put most of the time in Austin/Texas, one of my favorite places from my last trip. The plan is to get to know the music scene there, try to find people to jam and record with and hopefully play some gigs. And of course, learn more about america (I think driving a pickup truck might be a pretty good start, huh ;) I want to meet new people and make new friends, and of course spend time with the wonderful people I met on my last trip :)
I am really looking forward to be with my friends in Austin, last year we had such a FANTASTIC time... !

Amsterdam

But what happend since I returned from my trip last year ? Actually, not veeery much! Most of my music projects encounterd some obstacles, so I still don't have a cd with my band (but I have lots of new music written, so that's cool! and we made a pretty nice demo recording) but I did had a good time here in Amsterdam. Earlier this year I played a gig which took me two times 2 weeks to the french alpes - there I learned how to ski and I tell you, it's super fun ! I moved places 3 times since I came back (an old habit, moving is one of my favorite hobbys. NOT) and I spended quite some time in germany aswell this year. Hm, if I think of it this way there was actually a lot going on, haha!

Flower market in A'dam

Anyhow, I've been living towards this trip for the last 2 months, selling or giving away most of my stuff (it feels pretty good to get lighter), write tons of emails, organize my stay and my absence here and practising some blues guitar ;)
All in all I have a feeling that this time there could be some real change coming along with this trip - but let's go there first and see what happens! (Anybody got a greencard to give away ;) ?

Well well, this is gonna be an interesting time for sure. I decided to continue writing on this blog for all the people who are interested. There won't be as many posts and pictures as last time when I was travelling so much that I had a different story to tell almost every day - but I will travel around a bit for sure, and Austin might hold some pretty intersting storys aswell, I'm pretty sure about that! hehe. So keep in coming back and please leave me some comments !

And the pictures are some impressions from Amsterdam, this beautiful town in Europe where I lived for the last 3 years and I am once again about to leave to try my luck across the big ocean!

the last post

2008-10-18T01:17:00.000-07:00

so, this will be the last post on this blog. The trip is over, I am back in Amsterdam and do what people do here ;)
America has left a deep impression on me and the plan is to go back to the US in 2009. I am not sure yet when exactely and for how long, but I will figure that out. Again, thank y'all for visiting this blog and if you want check out my new website/blog about me and my music go to: www.micha-schellhaas.com
Ah, one last detail that might be interesting. On my way from Connecticut to the south, the desert, California, the rocky mountains and back to Connectiut I drove 19.000 km. That's 12.000 miles. phew! ;)

see you soon!

Flashback: L.A./Venice Beach

2008-09-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

So folks. I am back in Amsterdam since beginning of this week. And already the speed of the city has gotten to me... I have to find a place, make 2983 phonecalls and write even more emails, organize rehearsals and I also played my first gig this weekend. BUT I have a good feeling about all of this, I took lots of motivation and inspiration from my trip and I will try as good as I can to continue with this good energy (hehe, it's gonna be hard though when the rainy days come ;) There is a lot to do in the rest of this year, I decided to try singing in my rock band, so that we can finally start recording and putting an album together. Well, if it doesn't work I at least ruin my own music and not someone elses, hehe! But I will write about all of this, maybe here, maybe I will start another blog (because this is a travel blog, right) or get my website back up again finally...

ANYWAY, here are the pictures from Los Angeles! Remember, after L.A. I couldn't get my hands on a mac computer to access my Ipod and to upload these pictures... Well, here we go!

I stayed one week in Venice Beach/L.A. with Vikki. She was really great and took me out to lots of cool places and partys! Most of L.A. though is rather,... hmmm,... how to say... boring! It just goes on forever in the style you see in the pic above. BUT, if you are in the right company and you hit the good spots, it rocks!!! ;)

goin' crazy in Venice Beach

the pier at night

Venice Beach!

what I didn't knew, those palmtrees are actually an import... If humans would leave california untouched, it would actually be destert. But thanks to us L.A. has those cool palmtrees which follow the sun during the day with their crowns. Cool!

looking down from Hollywood Boulevard into the city

well, and this was funny (NOT). I did not see the sign that you are not allowed to park on the street from 2-6 pm or something like that. I went to check out a guitar shop, and after 10 minutes my car was already pulled up by this truck. They are fast there! Luckyly they accept credit card and for 150 dollar turtle got off the hook again, haha!
What totally helped me to overcome this oh so unuseful waste of money was that a few minutes later I played an 1964 Fender Stratocaster in the "Guitar Center Vintage Shop", which was in perfect condition and was defnetly one (if not THE) best guitar I ever touched. Problem: the beauty was 80.000 dollar. Gulp. Well, lucky me, there was another one which was slightly banged up, but same year and sounded EVEN BETTER to me. And it was only 64.000 dollar (yes, sixtyfourthousand). I will start saving tomorrow. Wanna donate? Ev'ry dollar is welcome ;)

and in the small back streets of Venice Beach you find those beautiful jewels of houses...
they are unpayable of course for people like you and me, hehe

on Abbot Kinney in Venice, one of the main streets

next to Vikki's house

on the beach at night...

... and during the day!

this wall is especially for graffitty artists. With permission you can spray here. Which is nice, the motive changes every few days!

buy your slippers and hats here

just outside (north) of L.A.

californian sunset

I could totally live there!

of course, there was one more thing to do...

... to see this!

the streets of L.A. at night

I am not done here yet,... there will still be more! So keep checking back!
By the way, thank you all for coming here and reading my stories. It was so nice to see that people checked every day! It really helped me to go on with the blog, and when I was somewhere alone I was thinking about that I am gonna post the pictures I took, and that like this I can share my travel with all of you - plus, I never felt really "alone" :-)

that's all for now, see you later!

Bye Bye America!

2008-09-03T01:05:00.000-07:00

Alright, I am back in germany! Totally tired, because I travelled without sleeping and had again a full day in germany... That makes 24 hours nonstop, hehe ;)
But now things settle down and I have lots to do and to organize for the next few months here in europe. I will stay 10 more days in germany and then go back to Amsterdam, to pick up all my activity there. But first, check out my very last days in AMERICA...

from Connecticut I took the train back to New York City... a very nice 2 hours ride

rollin' rollin' rollin' ...

and I found my way to Brookly, where I would stay in the "Dharmatory" for the next 2 nights

Manhattan stays impressive, altough I have a different view on things, now after my trip. I think for my personally it would be a bit to hectic to live here, but it's surely fun to visit !!!

and Chinatown again

at the left side: Jon and Sam

the next day I met Jon who studies at the New School in Manhattan. He is a killing piano player and plays with quite some names in the city. We jammed a bit in the school, had some very interesting talks and then went for a coffee in this cool place. There we met Sam, a very charming girl from Montana :) (countryside girls rock!)

on Marcin's rooftop in Brooklyn, the day of my departure. It was a loooong day: waking up in Brooklyn, packing my stuff, taking the sub to Manhattan, discovering my VISA card was broken (I don't know folks, the damn thing wouldn't give me any money anymore! what's that! and I was about to pay my Kansas speeding ticket... eehhh. I suspect that the card is broken and that I have to get it fixed. Do you know somebody who can repair credit cards ?! ;) HEHE.
Well, then when I left from Penn station the train lost power in the tunnel and they had to drag us back to Manhattan and we had to take another train. I was super late for my flight but I made it. Phew!

flying high !

My dad picked me up in Frankfurt and we went straight to a german VOLKSFEST where I had original LEBERKNÖDEL and live music. It's diffrent than Texas for sure, HAHA! (Did you see "Schulze gets the Blues" ? After being up for 24 hours I finally got to bed... and I was dreaming about... AMERICA!

That's not the end of this blog yet, folks!
Come back and see more aftershock posts and pictures soon!

Driving Back East -- Part II

2008-08-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

Ok folks, I did it !!! I am back to where I started... At the moment I stay with Tasso and Carlinde in Connecticut , but thursday I will visit New York City again, for the last 3 days of my stay. But first check out what happend on my way from Colorado back to the East Coast...

Driving staight east from colorado you enter the great plains... I had a 26 hour drive ahead of me, which I pulled of pretty much staight, with only a few naps in the car. By the way, the dentist in Colorado Springs gave me a root canal, and everything seemed to be fine at first, but yesterday the tooth (or better, the nerve or whats left of it) started to give word again. Grrrr. This gets annoying. Anyway I am pretty fine and in a good mood, and I will have it fixed again if it needs to back in europe.

open sky all around... the landscape was fantastic!

but after a while, well. As you see there was not much to see, hehe ;)

driving towards the rising sun

at about 1.30 am I pulled over to a rest area. I made myself as comfortable as possible and got some sleep. At 4.30 a good friend from Nashville called me and we were talking on the phone for quite a bit. It was super fun and I was awake again. So I continued driving and I saw this beautiful sunRISE...

I passed a few citys, this is Kansas City if I remember it right. The drive was great but also veeeeery long I tell you. Well, 2600 km is a serious distance!

one of Rob's Z's

Well, but I made it and at the end of the 2nd day I was back in West Virginia at Rob's and Linda's house! We had a good time talking about lots of things, playing guitar (watch this: http://www.youtube.com/v/oRtXRusvWtc me playing Rob's 1957 Gibson 175. WOW what a guitar... !!!!!) and I took the Gibson 345 I saw on my first visit. I will enjoy this Instrument a lot !!! We also took a ride in one of Rob's Z's!

After spending a day in West Virginia I drove off again the next morning towards upstate New York. I wanted to visit another Buddhist Retreat place there. But on my way I crossed some interesting parts of Pennsylvania... First the battlefield in Gettysburg. That's where the last battle in the civil war was fought...

and today they preserve the battlefield and turned it into a huge memorial area

and then I entered the amish country. They live without machines and electricity...

amish farms

next day I spended at Khenchen Rinpoches house. A very nice place were you have the chance to take some time off and meditate. And if you have questions there is Rinpoche to answer them!

prayer flags

the last drive

and in the evening I would start my last long drive, back to Connecticut to Tasso's and Carlinde's place. After 2 1/2 hours I was there. I knew there was meditation weekend so there were people at the house, but the surprise was that Tass and Carlinde just got MARRIED that day!!! Wow, what reunion! We were so happy and had a great party... (one of the highlights: I remember in the middle of the night we started running around the table making monkey noises.... ahem. we did quite some rounds actually, hehe)

Tass and Carlinde... I didn't catch them in there wedding outfits, but let me tell you they both looked awesome !!! (well, they still do in their normal clothes, haha)

I will post more news from back in NYC, so check back for my final reports !!!

The Buddhist Retreat Center in Colorado

2008-08-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

For a long time there was a search going on for a suitable piece of land to have a north american Diamondway retreat center. Now the land is found and the work will start there in spring!
I tell you, this is really a good place... I went up there together with Jesper, Charlie and 3 other sangha members (plus kids of course!) from Colorado. You have to drive for 2 1/2 hours from Colorado Springs to reach this beautiful and remote piece of land. But see for yourself:

there is one cabin standing there now. It needs some work and upgrades, but it´s a good start!

standing on the porch you have this amazing view

the property came with 2 heavy machines. fun fun fun... !

many things need to be discussed... the water supply, the septic system and so on

we had a cloudy and rainy day up there, but nevertheless lots of fun exploring the huge property

from the land you look upon a great plaine which was formaly a lakebed. On the other side you see enourmous mountains, they are as huge as the mont blanc...

and this was supermega fun: there are also 3 ATV´s that belong to the property!!! we had such a blast driving them around!

Jenny is having fun! ATVing kicks ass!!!

the cabin again

and the beautiful view upon the mountains

that´s the closest town: Salida. Very nice old downtown area. Also a good place for Kanuing and Rafting. By the way you can do incredible hikes and climbs around here too!

the local bar. This place is gonna like us, hehe ;)

(and we will like this place back)

to complete the all American mountain experience there was a car show going on in Salida on sunday. Pretty cool! ;)

So, this morning I had my root canal done. Phew, it was about time. It´s still gonna hurt a bit for the next days, but that´ll be healing pain and it´s gonna be allright. My next move is to drive back to Rob´s place in West Virginia. Is pretty much a 24 hour drive, so I will drive as much as I can tomorrow, sleep in the car and then drive the rest! Check back for more news!

Driving Back East -- Part I

2008-08-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

Tuesday I left San Francisco. I wanted to spend a day at lake Tahoe, but the tooth story had cost me one day, so I had to drive straight through to Salt Lake City in one go. All the people in San Fran have been so nice, just as everybody I met during my trip has been super nice ! I consider myself very lucky that I have the opportunity to do all this and that I could make so many new friends!!!
Right now I am in Colorado Springs and I just had a great weekend with the sangha here, we went up to see the land that is going to be the North American Diamondway Buddhist Retreat Center. My tooth keeps on bugging me, I have a headache all the time and my jaw and face feels very funny. I have painkillers to make it easier, but you also get very sleepy and overall that´s not a condition I want to spend the rest of my trip with. So tomorrow morning I got another dentist appointment and hopefully he will have the time to treat me tomorrow. I am not looking forward to get a root canal at all, but if that´s going to make my trip better, please drill some! ;)
But first check out what has happend on the 3 days on the road to Colorado springs! I had an awesome time nevertheless all the tooth worries:

the mountains in California! You have to cross them on your way east and they are very beautiful... I heard lake Tahoe would be really amazing, and I think that lake right here can give you an idea of the landscape up there

after you pass Rhino you enter the desert again, with mountains to your right and left. I had almost forgotten how great that feeling is driving with an amazing view like that. It certainly felt super good to be on the road again and experience such a wide open landscape... wow!

Good music in your car, no thoughts in your head and you could just go forever!

I stopped at this place to get some gas. Do you see the nice grassy hills there?

and as the sun was setting I still had about 250 miles to drive to Salt Lake City. The sunset was nice! And just before Salt Lake City, you cross the salt lake on a kind of dam and man, the lake smells pretty strong, hehe! I couldn´t see a thing but you´ll certainly know when you get to the lake :)
In Salt Lake City Diana picked me up at a gas station close to her house. We stayed up pretty late and had some booze and talked about a lot of stuff. It was so nice! She would show me around the next day and we did some cool stuff together...

But first she had to go to work and until she was back I took a drive up to the mountains. They pretty much start right at the edge of the city

so within 20 minutes you are in the mountains!

and up there it´s fantastic. Another world right in front of your door!

look at this! wonderful! Then I drove down the other side and this was actually not so nice. Ski slopes all over, ski huts, hotels and apres ski bars. Not much forest left there and they were still building new stuff all over the place. Basically a pretty much destroyed landscape. But you know, that´s the way to get the dollars out of the mountains, right? I am sure skiing and snowboarding is fun but I feel more that just a little irritated when I see something like that...

later the day Diana took me on a tour downtown Salt Lake City

Mormones used to be the biggest part of the population. That´s their main temple downtown. I didn´t knew much about their religion at first. It turned out that the man have usually 8 wifes. One main one and 7 others. Not to bad, my first thought ;)
But then Diana told me some more and it´s actually a pretty funny religion, some twisted side branch of christianity, with lots of strange dogmas and beliefs. Somehow they are the chosen one´s if I got that right. ahhhh... ok, whatever! ;)

we climbed up a hill to watch the sunset from there. Pretty adventurous climbing by the way! We could overlook the whole valley. That´s Salt Lakes captiol!

and when it gets dark the whole valley lights up... It looks just like a sea of lights...
but we had to find our way down there and couldn´t wait until complete darkness

we went to shoot some pool and had some drinks afterwards!

next morning I was on the road again, this time towards Colorado Springs! I had to drive through the mountains on interesting an curvy roads

around Price there are those cool rocks. I think Price Canyon is pretty famous, I wonder if that is what I came through. Looked fantastic for sure!

and again, open plains and mountains to the side, cant´t get enough of that!

I knew I was short on time because I had still 6 hours to go to Colorado Springs and it was already early afternoon. But Arches National park was on my way and I had to go and see it. And it turned out to be so fantastic that this is defnetly a place where I have to come back to with more time. But another adventure would await me here which I hadn´t expected at all !!!

that´s in Arches National Park. Amazing rock formations...

and just as I was driving there for maybe 20 minutes, the engine on my Ford started acting funny... First I noticed some uneven running and soft noises when I slowed down. It got worse and it wouldn´t accelerate so good any more. hmmm....

this is the Delicate Arch! It´s pretty huge!!! I only saw it from far away, I was worried about the car and running out of time. Shortly after that the yellow engine sign on the dashboard lit up. Aha, I thought. Real trouble! I looked it up in the manual and it said it´s most likely that the engine is missfiring and you should get service immediately. Sure, I only was out in the desert, there´s plenty of car service around here! Hehe. But I could still drive and actually I could take TURTLE on its last offroad desert trip...

another arch on my way out. So impressive! I have to come back for sure. The best would be a bike trip in fall or autumn when it´s not to hot. Combined with camping and hiking. Should be pretty awesome. Anybody interested?

and my TOM TOM was leading me out of the park on this dust road which had a lot of turns, bumps and loose sand. A feast for any daring 4wheel driver!!! You can do funny hops and slides and you can pick up quite some speed on the straight parts. It would be Ford TRUTLEs last adventure, at least with me behind the wheel

more crazy rocks on my way out

the dust road dropped me off pretty close to the highway and I had about 80 miles to go to Grand Junction/Colorado. The engine was running more and more unsteady. I looked up the closest AVIS dealer with my TOM TOM and could find one at the local airport. PHEW !!!!!!!
I already had prepared myself be stuck out on the highway. I just could make it there, and as I had to restart the engine to park the car at the AVIS lot, it was running super funny. No way I could have driven much more. I don´t think it´s a big deal, most likely just dirty spark plugs. But I didn´t have any tools for that anyway...
I was surprised how easy it was to exchange the car at the AVIS office for another one. They didn´t even look at it... Lucky me !!! ;)

But here we go: I left my Ford Escape behind that drove me 8000 miles in the last 7 weeks. And I asked for the smallest car they had, which was a funky grey Ford Focus! Its right next to TURTLE in the picture above...

bye bye Turtle!

and hello cutie! I think I´ll call this one SPEEDY ;)

on the road again in Colorado

SPEEDY is doing an awesome job and I just love her fuel efficiency!
(see, the TURTLE was a big 4wheel drive guy. SPEEDY is a nice little lady, hehe)

At 11.30 pm I arrived in Colorado springs. More from here soon! I have to go to bed now, for tomorrow I will have my first ever root canal. Yeeeahhhh! (think positive think positive) Let´s hope the dentist can treat me tomorrow, he wants to check on the situation first. I say let´s drill buddy!

2008-08-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

hoi! just to let you know, I am fine and on the road again. Today I am in Salt Lake City and I will be in Colorado tomorrow. More pics soon !

2008-08-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

ok, I went to the dentist today because I still had the strong feeling I should go. Well at first it didn't look so bad, just a little piece of the tooth was fallen off. But it was one which already had a filling, and as the doctor started working on it (after it took 3 injections to numb me haha), the filling came out by itself, and it revealed a hole in the tooth which goes till down to the nerve.
Hm.
SO, he fixed it for now, but if it still hurts tomorrow I will have to get a root canal (WURZELBEHANDLUNG) right here and now. Otherwise I have to get it when I am back in Europe, anyhow there's no way around it...
This one consult was quite pricey already and I hope my dutch ensurance is covering all of that. But its better than being somewhere out in the salt desert or the mountains and then the tooth would fall apart, right?
Let's see what happens tomorrow...

PCH to San Francisco

2008-08-06T10:36:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I drove up from L.A. to San Francisco. I have lots of cool shots from Venice Beach, Bel Air and Hollywood plus some good stories (one is that my car was almost towed... !!!) but the pictures are on my Ipod... I would need an apple computer to access them, and since I am with a windows laptop here I need to brake with my tradition of continuous trip coverage and tell the Venice Beach story another time...
But here we go: after a fantastic week in L.A. (partys, swimming, biking) I took 2 days to travel the pacific coast highway (PCH) north to San Francisco

a side street leading to a private property. Corinna (a german girl which I met in L.A.) and me wanted to go to the beach which looked so beautiful from up on the road. But some rich guy had his ranch there... but at last we got some good shots like this one out of it

Pismo beach! A nice little town and a good place to relax

a cool surf shop in Pismo beach

pacific sunset

views like this were breathtaking

eeehhhh ... ! ;)

PCH!

In the afternoon of the 2nd day I reached San Francisco...

the Golden Gate Bridge!

you see a lot of victorian architecture around like here on Fillmore street

and of course, the famous up and downhill streets! You see the San Francisco bay in the background... This shot was taken from the Pacific Hights, that's where I stay with Morgan

for some reason there is always a cloud of fog on top of the city. I heard it's very common this time of the year. Which is funny, because if you leave the city, within a 20 min drive you are in the nicest sunniest californian weather again!

like here. Those are the house boats in Sausalito which is just across the Golden Gate. And it's nice and sunny there!

not a bad place to live at all

this is the view from Morgan's appartment. super nice!

Stephen and Karolina took me out to the Mission (a mexican neighborhood here in San Francisco). We had good mexican dinner and Karolina showed us this back road wich has graffitty on every wall and on every garage door:

and that's San Francisco painted on the wall!

I'll try to post more pics from here and to deliver the story from Venice soon! So keep checking back here!

2 days of wonders

2008-07-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

When I left Vegas I was driving towards Death Valley. Its funny, once you get out of the city you are in complete destert again, it's so odd that they put a city right in the middle of it!
Anyway, after all the blinking lights and the busyness of Vegas it felt good to be in the nature again. Of course there are lots of people doing the same thing as I did and so the roads are not empty but you see a bunch of cars every once in a while. That 's good because if your car is dying from overheating you'll have a nice old couple in an RV helping you out soon, but on the other hand that's not quite "wild west" you know :)
But it was a beautiful drive and you don't lack solitary moments on dester roads at all, don't get me wrong, hehe! ok, here we go:

when you enter Death Valley you see bizarre white rock fromations

and I took this picture from "Zabriski point", an outlook point at the beginning of death valley

this is down in the Valley. When I was stepping out of the car it was HOT. It was ridiculous. And in the middle there was a camping site. I tought this was a bad joke ;) It was defenetly the hottest place I have ever been in my life

the wind blows trough the valley and you get sand dunes! like in the sahara...
(click to enlarge)

a yellow car

I spended half a day driving through death valley and to get out of it. I wanted to hit the Sequoia national park in califoria in the evening, so I crossed over the mountains and as the sun was setting I felt like being in a mountain wonderland... So beautiful!

before going down the mountains I had about 2 hours more of the wonderland drive...

going down towards Sequoia national park. I wanted to find a camp site to park my car, but everything I could find was booked out. So I kept driving till it was dark and I could find a nice spot finally. So I parked my car and go some sleep! (this picture is not that spot, this is from ealier that day)

In the morining I saw that this river was closeby!

so what I heard about Sequoia was that there are big redwood trees...

and here they are!

big trees! really fantastic. A ranger lady told me that they are 1500 years old and that I didn't even hit the groove with he biggest ones in the park! Well, they were big enough for me !

me, rockin' out with a redwood

then, my little TOM TOM sended me 20 miles on this dust road to descent a mountain. It was supposed to be the "fastest way to L.A." Hehe, it was funny though. Thanks to the 4 wind again!

then he scenery changed again completely, before coming to bakersfield you drive through those hills

wow! what a drive. Before Bakersfield you see oil fields in those hills also. Then the drive to L.A. was rather eventless. But I finally could get in touch with Vikki from the LA sangha who hosted me the the I was in the city

entering L.A.

Vikki took me out that same night to the Getty museum. There was live concerts there and a hughe crowd. And the museum is build beautifully, white italian marmor all around

and you can overlook the city from here. And that after waking up by the river, the big trees and the hills... all in the same day !!! pretty awesome day

Venice beach lifeguards! you can do quiete some babe- eh - baywatching here ;)

more from L.A. soon. This is party city! (I've been out every evening) stay tuned!

Viva Las Vegas!!

2008-07-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Ok folks, here we go. Vegas! I stayed with Richard who is a musician and guitarist/musical director of the Blue Man Show. So I got to see the show. Awesome!

I arrived from my trip through he canyons and really needed a shower and some rest at Richard's place before I went out to explore Vegas...

ok, this picture I took on my LAST day, but I thought it's cool to have it at the beginning of this post :)

first night I went down to Freeman street, that's where it all startet. Here you see all the famous old casinos like the 4 Queens. They converted the street to a walking only area and put a fancy arched roof over the street so that old school gamblers don't get wet and that they can have video clips projected on it!

inside an old casino on freeman. I went to the casinos restaurant and got myself a burger with fries ;)

the Riviera

then I found my way to the strip. That's where all the light and the big new casinos are...

it's all about money!

that's the LUXOR casino at the end of the strip. You can see that beam of light from the pyramid from everywhere in the city...

... and that's the Luxor's lobby

and this was really breathtaking when I saw it the first time. This picture is taken INSIDE, folks. The builded a small venice inside the casino/hotel "THE VENETIAN". And it looks damn real too, hehe

the Vegas airport is directly next to the strip. I heard that one casino even has it's own landing strip so that the high rollers in their private jets can step out of the plane and be at the playing table within minutes.

yes, that's PARIS!

o la la !

slot machines

I lost $6 on one of those. Then I decided to end my gambling career right there!

and there are still building new and bigger buildings! They blast up old casinos to make space for new ones. It's funny, it so obvious that people come here to loose their money, not to win... That's why they can build more and bigger casinos where people can loose more money!!! grrrr... (ok ok I might be still a bit pissed about the 6 bucks and the slot machine, haha)

are you ready to play?

yeah, and if they don't have their own landing strip, they can pick you up in one of those

leaving Las Vegas!

As a souvenir I collected 25 $1 chips from different casinos. I stole this idea from a friend of mine but it's by far the coolest thing to do in the city... you get to check out all the places and you get better and better walking up to the cashier (where the guy in front of you just cashed in 5000 dollars) and you say with a straight poker face: "One 1$ chip please. And wish me luck honey" HAHA

In the Desert...

2008-07-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

From Albuquerque I drove further west, towards arizona. I knew I had 2 days to reach Las Vegas, but in the end it would take me even 3 days. But this drive took me to some of the most wonderful places I have seen so far on my trip... My first stop was "sky city", and native indian town located on top of a massive rock formation. You had to leave the highway I40 and you enter indian territory...

a few miles before sky city, you look down into a valley, and you see the wonderful rocks the city is build on:

you cannot see it clearly in the small picture, but click on it and it will enlarge, and look closer on top of the rocks... hmmm, ok its still hard to see ;)
but the view out on the valley with its bizarre rocks was truly breathtaking. The pics can only give you a glimpse of it

but here you have sky city on top of the rocks. It was to late in the day to get in, so I just drove by and turned deeper into the indian reservation. There were huge sings in the beginning that taking pictures is only allowed with a special permit, so I felt a little uneasy. I think it's no fun to have some angry manitus on your heels, he ;)

this and the next days there were dark rain clouds hanging in the sky, and sometimes it would have strong wind and rain. The heavy weather came from the east, so I would stay always just a bit ahead of it. The setting sun and the clouds produced a wonderful play of lights and shadows in the desert

like this...

when I was out on highway I40 again I picked up some speed and headed towards arizona

I drove on until I entered Arizona and spended the night on a rest area along the highway. It was already dark when I pulled over, and in the next morning I saw the moon hanging above some red rocks

Arizona had some of the most amazing views. Soon I left I40 again to turn north into the Apache Indian Reservation. The people out here live in small trailors in the desert, sometimes together in groups, sometimes alone. But absolutely unromantic, always with a bunch of trash and rusty cars around, ans some of those trailors seemed to be left empty for years. Nevertheless, the landscape I would see the next 2 days was very diverse and always changing ...

In the early afternoon I reached Canyon de Chelly National Monument

and after resting a while I drove on towards Monument Valley, and saw some beautiful sights along the way

If I would be an indian, I would totally see my manitu lying there takin' a nap in the desert. What do you see in the picture?

crazy rocks. Looks like straight out of a Giger painting

and then...

Monument Valley!

the rain is coming!

on my way towards the Grand Canyon I saw a sign "Dinosaur tracks" along the road. And yes, next to some stands selling Indian jewelery (by the way you see them here on EVERYWHERE. and their stuff is not even nice...) I saw DINOSAUR TRACKS fossilized in the rocks. Try to walk in those footsteps ;)

this is the Colorado River Canyon shortly before Grand Canyon. As the sun was setting and I had some amazing views:

The night I spended in the car on a campsite next to the Grand Canyon. In the morning I went to the rim and I did some hiking with 2 guys I met the evening before on the campsite. All we could say was: "wow, that truly is a big hole in the ground!"

we hiked down about 1 1/2 hours before we took some rest and went up again

the Grand Canyon is an amazing experience. But I had to move on and so I drove down through the forrest and into the destert again. Then I left the highway to continue on the historical route 66, which is a bit of a detour but it turned out to be totally worth it. Empty highway, blue sky and a beautiful landscape. Music of choice: AC/DC ;)

historical route 66

more route 66

after driving the whole day I saw some more Canyon in the distance towards my right. In the next small indian town I left the highway, and followed my intuition to a dust road leading towards this:

I kept on driving, and yes, my Ford can race dust roads quite a bit, hehe! The whole time I was not sure weather to go on or to turn and go back to find a Motel. But I continued, and had to cross some small streams too. I would have had no chance without a 4 wind. In the end I had to pass very small passages and for a moment I was not sure if that is still a road. But then, I reached it's end:

my Ford "Trutle" with glowing mountains in the background

and I reached the Colorado River! Amazing! So I drove all the way down into west Grand Canyon basically. I spended the night there... There was a small fireplace and some boats too. It was very exiting and beautiful, especially when the moon came out and shined its light into the Canyon. I didnt sleep very well though, it was super hot down there and lots of strange noises around, uhhh...
But I made it and it was cool. Next morning a ranger lady came and charged me 26.70 dollar for camping in indian territory. Shortly after that 3 trucks with more boats arrived and 2 busses with rafters, haha. But in the night I was convinced I had found a pretty lonely and secret spot...

next day I drove on towards Las Vegas

the Hoover DAMN!

and then finally Vegas! But that story will be told another time. I have to go out now to see the Blue Man Group! ;) bye bye!

New Mexico

2008-07-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

Hello my friends! The last 4 days I've been hangin' out in Albuquerque/New Mexico! The town is very relaxed and compared to all other cities so far the most colorful... I am really into all the indian art you can see here and I bought a very cool Hopi handmade ring. Tomorrow I will leave and I will take 2 or 3 days to work my way towards Las Vegas! ;) First stop will be an Indian Pueblo, but check out some of Albuquerque first:

that's the indian art/gift shop where I bought my ring

the historic route 66 runs through the heart of Albuquerque and that's defnetly the most charming part of town. I spended most of my time around this area. There are a lot of cool motel signs around.

this style of houses have their inspiration from the indian pueblos. I liked them a lot when I saw them the first time

hehe, and in this copy shop on historic route 66 I had to sit quite a bit to receive the fax which expands my car contract for another 30 days

and here I once again was tempted to spend some money. You can get your handmade cowboy boots there. You can choose the colors, the material, the motives and everything. They measure your foot to make sure it'll fit right. And the boots would be only 450 dollar... grrrr...

more historic route 66

and another cool motel sign

yersterday evening Shawn and me were out in the city. The sunset was sooo beautiful!

nice !

I met Carrie here, she's a graffitty artist. Carrie, Chris and me were hanging out the other night and had lots of fun walking to Wal Mart at 3.30 am to get smokes. But look at that super hot green girl on that wall. sweet!

that's Shawn. I stayed with him and Kathleen at their house which is the diamondway buddhist center in Albuquerque. Shawn plays guitar and sings and we had some cool jams. We set up a myspace profile for him,
check it out at: myspace.com/shawnloudermilk

Gimme a "T" for Texas!

2008-07-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

Tell you what, Texas is cool. Everybody drives big trucks and eats BBQ all day long. Or Tex-Mex food, which is also quite something. I stayed for one week at the buddhist center in Austin and I had a fantastic time. The sangha is great and I got to do so much fun stuff, it was almost unreal. Vicky, who lives in the center, took me out to see music (including a jam session at antone's where I could play a bit) and the city. We did more cool stuff, you will see the pics below. In the weekend the we had a lecture with Sergio and an execllent Kagyu-style party afterwards. People kept on bringing instruments, and in the end we were jamming with 3 guitars, a banjo and and acoustic bass... wow!!!
but check out what else happend last week:

this is downtown Austin

at the buddhist center they built a new porch. We digged the trenches for the concrete into solid texas rock... hard but fun work! (that's me diggin' Texas there, haha)

that's the gang from the Austin center. They took me out to have some real Texan BBQ. Thanks so much guys!

and this was the best surprise ever: Vicky's dag gave us his 1800 cc turbo charged Honda for the last 2 days I was in Austin... can it get any better?!? I mean seriously... come on! PURE AWESOMNESS PERIOD

and that's Vicky

we drove downtow to check out some stores and to see...

... the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue! For those who don't know it yet, Stevie was probably the main reason (along with Eddie van Halen) for me to get serious with guitar playing. And here I was at his statue, hehe. Austin's cool. By the way, for music Austin is just great. Many clubs with regular good live music, 2 huge festivals per year... the call it "world's live music capitol". And I think there's defnetly something to it. Music is really alive here. So far this would be my #1 choice

then in the evening of my last day we took the Honda and drove out to the lake to watch the sunset and to have dinner...

I had a hard time leaving Austin because it was just too cool. But I have to move on and so I packed my bags and started to drive west through Texas. Here is some stuff I saw along the way:

this drive was for sure the most beautiful so far... the landscape would slowly change from more flat to hills and then mountains... I stopped often along the way to take in the view and to shoot some pictures. But see for yourself, I will not comment every picture with "that's a mountain" or "that's a cactus" hihi.
It was really breathtaking (well, New Mexico also mad my jaw drop a good deal!!! but that's later), and the pictures can only give a small idea of the openess and the space you experience driving down there...

In the evening then I reached El Paso. From what I could see it's not a very exiting city, so I just passed it and...

I stopped for the night at a "Super 8 Motel" just outside El Paso. It was more expansive than I thought but a nice room. I have to cut down on my food if I continue spending money like that! ;)

next morning I resumed driving and entered New Mexico. You see beautiful mountains everywhere...

and about 100 miles before Albuquerque, I took off into the mountains on the smaller roads.

that's the real thing right there. Pure wild west...

and then in the evening I arrived at Albuquerque. I got a nice welcome at Sean's house and tomorrow I am going to check out the city. But I have to go to bed now ;) it was a long day of driving... more soon !

pictures, pictures...

2008-07-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

Ok folks, I'm back with lots of pictures for you. Right now I am hanging out in Austin/Texas, but have a look what has happend on my way from Nashville to Memphis, Clarksdale/Mississippi and then finally New Orleans...

In Memphis I stopped at Graceland (you know, Elvis's house). In the area there is not much around exept car dealers and McDonalds... You can take a tour for an ridicoulous amount of money, but I didn't... Also If you park your car in front of Graceland you'll have to pay 10 dollars, and if you walk 30m more you can park for free... So, this is the door to Graceland!

A friend of mine gave me the advise to head for Clarksdale/Mississippi, the "Home of the Blues". I was leaving the interstate shortly after Memphis to find my way on the backroads towards Clarksdale...

And this is where I first saw the Mississippi river. The bridge to Helena/Arkansas

This is Clarksdale! There is not much in this small town but you would see old blues clubs, some still running, some broken for years all around...

the rail in Clarksdale ... I guess that's where the bluescats have their "chu chu" sounds from ;)

and this is the famous club "Ground Zero"... I guess most of the visitors today are tourists but I got a real authentic blues feeling there

and that's inside the club. That bluesman was playing a very cool show. Later he was with a whole band and I got to talk with them a bit. And guess what, they'll let me join for the last 3 songs! awesome!

After spending the night in Clarsdale's "Midtown Motel" (which is 2 streets away from "downtown Clarksdale", hihi) I head breakfast at 'Rest Haven'

ah, and this was a very cool sight along the way. Down here in the south you see a lot of trees grown over with, eeehh... (here's is where I don't know the word, but it's something close to germans "Efeu"), and at this spot there was a whole small hill all grown over with that stuff. It looked like staight out of a fairy tale.

. Then I arrived in New Orleans... I was a little shocked by the condition of the city... but this is one of the nice old (and restored houses) downtown in the french quarter

a streetcar! 1.25 dollars and you can get a ride downtown

the french quater is restored, but outside of that at least half of the houses are empty and destroyed. Also half of the people that used to live in this city moved away after hurricane Katrina. Most of the schools are still closed and you see homeless people everywhere...

more nice arichtecture in the french quarter

I saw this old Buick (I think it from the 50's) while driving through the habour part of New Orleans. He had 2 flat tires, but I hope someone is gonna come back and take care of this old beauty.

This is the hostel I was staying in during my time in New Orleans. I met so many nice people and it was a really cool place! I have to come back here.

Now this was really something! After all the "commercial" music I have seen on Bourbon street I was finally able to catch some New Orleans style music out on Frenchman street. This brass band was playing and it was really awesome. You got a glimpse how the old marching bands must have sounded like.

Out close to the mexican gulf (I saw this on my way to the swamp tour) people rebuild there houses high up to be safe from floodings. Even more so after the hurricane Katrina, which left none of those houses standing...

Then I went on the swamp tour. The bus picked us up at the hostel and we had about an hour drive out to the swamps. We sat in an open boat with about 8 people and "captain Ted". And, we saw some alligators! This one came pretty close, it was so cool! Ted fed them with marshmallows, because they have no taste to the gator. He explained that if you would give them meat, they would start to think like... "hey, that's good. were did it come from? that boat over there? hmmmm.... lets see what's inside and how that tastes!" hehe. and we don't wan't that, right?

from the river we took a side branch to get deeper into the swamp. By the way, I was bitten by at least 12223899 moskitos that day

if you process this white stuff hanging from the trees you get a very strong and resistant dark brow fiber. Henry Ford used it to fill his car seats with that back in the 50's

in this very swamp some scenes from "Interview with a vampire" were shot

in those trees lives a special kind of bee. You can get to the honey by smoking the bees out of the tree...

Houston, we have NO problem! ;)
(I passed through Houston on the highway on my way to Austin)

and as the sun went down I had just a couple more miles to Austin/Texas!

Delta Blues

2008-07-03T20:58:00.001-07:00

I just arrived at a very cool hostel in New Orleans... !
The city has as far as I can now still absolutely not recovered from the hurricane hit soma time back... You see lots of empty and half destroyed houses around, even here in midtown where I am staying.
Yesterday I stayed at a motel in Clarksdale/Mississipi, the "home of the blues". I went to see a blues band playing and I could jam along the last 3 tunes. It was pretty cool!
Unfortunately I cant upload any new pictures right now, so it might take a few more days to upload them. But I took some really cool shots and I have more stories to tell along with the pictures! So keep checking back and thank you all again for your comments!!!

NASHVILLE !!!

2008-06-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

Hey! What's up!
Since two days I am in Nashville and I must say, I LIKE IT A LOT !!! It's fantastic, there is so much music around and the people are very relaxed and open. I stay with Steven who lives close to downtown and in the evenings we go out and see some music. Yesterday we were seeing a band were the musicians are friends with steven, and they asked me to join in for 2 songs. It was just awesome! :)
There is a lot of country music, rock'n roll, singer/songwriter and other styles around. Tons of brilliant guitarplayers and I heard that 30.000 songwriters live in this town!
On Broadway every bar has live music, and you can see everything from old country to rockabilly. And, it's free! You just have to give some tip when they pass around the tip jar once in an hour or so. And all that you hear is very high quality, nothing like the horrible commercial clean licked country music you hear on the radio, to see it life here it' really fantastic!

But first some more pictures from Atlanta and from my way to Nashville...

the highway close to Klauses house with the Atlanta skyline in the background

ok, my first dirty deed here in the states: I could not leave this Les Paul hanging' in the shop looking so lonely amongst all those other guitars... And since Klaus will go to Germany in a couple of days he can take this babe with him so that I don't have to drag her all the way to the desert!

on my way from Atlanta to Nashville I took a detour and hit Alabama! I drove through the back roads to see some of the countryside... This is how the people live there.

a small supermarket along the road

then my first night in Nashville. Rene (left) and Steven (right) took me out to broadway to see some music. I was happy as f*ck!!!! ;)))

this is "Roberts" where we saw 2 amazing bands and had some PBR's. They also sell cowboy boots (you see them lined up at the wall) and I must say, I was tempted to buy some. But then I decided to wait until Texas, hehe!

out on Broadway I saw this fantastic car...

... and this beautiful lady with her great tattoo. I find this fuckin' awesome!

those guitar players pulled of a really great show. The left one was super amazing and as I later found out, one of the hot-shot newcomers in the Nashville scene

a great bassplayer in one of the next bars. Actually I have tons of more pictures from here but I am sitting in a cafe and I dont have more time... From this last band I also made video and I hope I can upload it one of these days.

The next move is again more south, I will pass Memphis, see the "crossroads" and spend a night in Clarksdale/Mississipi, the home of the blues! It will be during the week so I hope there is something going on then...

Goin' down south

2008-06-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Since 2 days I am in Atlanta, Georgia. But on my way down south from Connecticut I stopped by at Rob's and Linda's place in West Virginia first. Rob is also a "Schellhaas" and he found me on the internet a couple of years ago and we stayed in contact. Rob is also a guitar player and he's actually collecting guitars! I knew about this, but when I came to his house it was just awsome. Rob has almost 300 guitars and among this a great collection of old Gibsons and Gretsch guitars from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Some even date earlier. It was fantastic, I kept on playing and checking guitars for 2 days :)

just some of Rob's guitars...

I really loved this '72 Gibson and I will come back to Rob's place and take this beauty back with me to europe!

that's an veeery old Gibson, I believe from the 50's... I am I right Rob?

that's the house and one of Rob's cars. This one still needs to be fixed, so we took the other one out for a ride through the West Virginia country side... beautiful! check it out:

Then the next day I has a 11 hours ride all the way down to Atlanta. It was a beautiful day and I had some great sights along the way. Cruise control, air condition, good music and not much traffic (exept the last 2 hours close to Altlanta) made me enjoy the ride. There were not much places where I could stop and take pictures, so I took some from out of the car....

first I entered the blue ridge mountains and for some hours you drive through this beautiful area...

some bad ass bikers on the road

When you drive out of the mountain area, it's getting warmer and more humid... Vegetation changes and I realized... yeah, I'm going down south!

Arriving late in Atlanta, my friend Klaus welcomed me at his appartement. We didn't see each other much the last couple of years (since he moved to the states) but that doesn't matter at all and we're having a great time hangin' out!

Next morning Klaus took me for a ride through Atlanta:

the interstates 75/85 go right through the middle of Atlanta

that's downtown

some skyskrapers in buckhead

Atlanta is much more spacey than New York City. But I learned that most american cities are like that, and not as dense as NYC. You find lots of green here in Atlanta and a lot of small strip malls and shopping centers. Very diffrent from european cities, where you would find very old city centers with old houses and nice streets and so on. Here it's all new... But that's allright too and today I was haning out at the pool with Klaus, his roommate Tim and some other people. The pool belongs to the appartment complex (aswell as a gym that we were using in the mornings, a bar and an internet cafe)

the pool!

I will stay here for 2 more days and maybe I can post some more pics. Tomorrow I will explore the city a little more (I heard there are some good guitar stores around, hehe). Then in the middle of the week I will start driving towards Nashville, but this time on the back roads to see some of the countryside!

Ready for the road!

2008-06-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

So guys, I am all set. I had some terrific days out here in Connecticut at Tassos and Carlindes place. We had a very nice meditation weekend with lots of friends and a great party with lots of jokes, jamming (Tasso has 2 guitars. 2 amps and a drumset in his basement and Carlinde plays sax) and good food.

Tasso and Carlinde. Two fantasic friends and exellent company... We drove out to New Haven to have Pizza and Beer. They brew their own beer there, and me as an experienced german beer drinker I can tell you it was pretty good beer :)

the bar...

... and the rough boys ;)

Altough I am a little tired and exhausted the whole time plus my throat starts hurting I am very exited and looking forward to start driving tomorrow. Also I got myself an US mobile phone number. So if you wanna have that number please email me and I'll send it to you. Then I bought a TOMTOM navigation system to bring me to all the places I want. And then the best, the car.

When I was planning the trip back in europe I thought it's gonna be best to buy an used car here and to sell it again when I'm done. But once here, this soon turned out to be difficult and expensive... I would have to fight through a lot of paperwork and I still would not have an reliable car. Renting turned out to be the best option. After some research I found some good deals around and decided to rent the smallest possible car from a nationwide car service in the nearest town. As returning the car back to the pickup location makes it much cheaper than to return it for example at the west coast (and fly back) I decided to really complete the full circle around the US until end of august, and to return the car back to the same dealer in Connecticut.
Today I went to pick up the car and... they had no more of the small cars left! But I made my reservation on the internet for a small car and so I got for the same price an almost new FORD ESCAPE SUV. "Sports Utility Vehicle" HEHE. Big, black and funky. Enough room to sleep in and ready for some dust roads. I was amazed. But see for yourself...

no words.

test drive back home from New Haven. Notice little "Bonnie" in the windshield - she's giving me great directions :)

the Ford in it's whole beauty

that's how the roads look like here

Und jetzt fuer meine Deutschen Leser!
Sorry Leute ich muss leider meine Zweisprachigkeit hier einstellen. Meistens habe ich nur kurz Zeit am Internet und viel zu erledigen (Schlafplaetzte regeln, Route planen, Kontakte aufnehmen) und keine Umlaute, hehe
Ich bin sicher Ihr koennt Euch meine Texte Uebersetzen lassen und Ihr koennt mir auch immer emailen aber ich kriegs nicht hin immer auch in Deitsch zu schreiben. Jetzt aber noch eine wichtige Information, ich habe jetzt auch eine Handy Nummer hier. Mailt mir einfach und ich schreibe sie Euch!
Supervielen dank auch fuer alle Euro Kommentare, sie kommen alle an auch wenn ich nicht immer antworten kann!
Also, morgen geht's los und ich geh' jetzt mal noch ne Runde meditieren, alles Gute und meldet Euch!!!

Thanks for all of your comments, please keep writing that helps me a lot to get greetings and wishes from the "old" and the "new world" hehe. That's it for now, stay tuned!!!

Bye Bye New York!

2008-06-13T10:20:00.001-07:00

It's time to leave NYC.
The last 2 days I stayed in the diamondway buddhist center and made new friends :) we also had a lecture with Lama Ole the 11th. The lecture was great and the party afterwards also ;) I could help setting up the sound system and I was doing the sound during and after the lecture together with a nice lady from New Zeeland.
For the party I also became DJ and I shared the job for most of the party with a polish friend. I always wanted to DJ on a party like this and who would have imagined the first time would be in New York City! haha. But it was a tough job, we were running 3 iPods and one mobile phone to get the tracks we wanted... Did you ever DJ with iPods? pfffff......

Anyway, here are some more pictures I want to share with you:

Canal Street Manhattan. That's were Chinatown is

and that's some of Chinatown/Little Italy!

when you walk the Williamsburg bridge, you get a fantastic view back on Manhattan...

a street in Brooklyn... Its immedialtely more quite here but also more dirty than in Manhattan. But I would prefer to live over here rather than in Manhattan, as Williamsburg for example is a very inspiring and artist friendly area...

this is downtown Manhattan... maybe this short movie can give you an idea of how busy it is here day and night.

And then we left the big apple...
This is one of the last views back on the skyline of NYC while we were driving first to the Airport to drop Lama Ole and then on towards Connecticut. I think this view stays impressive even if you live here your whole life:

And thats the place where I stay now for a couple of days. Quiet, lots of space and lots of green. A good spot to get some rest and to organize the upcoming weeks. First I have to get my hands on a car! :) That's gonna be fun! Right now I am checking the options if I will either buy or lease a car for the time that I am here, and then... slowly I will head towards California... ;)

Heat Wave...

2008-06-10T14:06:00.001-07:00

New York is experiencing an heat wave... Unusual for this time of the year and incredibly HOT.
HOT HOT HOT.
But that doesn't stop me from walking around the whole day and here are some pictures, as promised:

When I step out of the door here and walk 5 meters I'm on Broadway... and I see this:

The Metro station closeby...

Random street scene here on Broadway...

To central park its about an 15 minutes walk away from here. All of a sudden I was standing on an open space surrounded by skyscrapers... ouhhhh!

The New York Subway...

I spended 2 days alone here in the apartement because Lukasz and Ellen were out. The 2nd evening I was having a walk down to Hudson River and watched the sun set over New Yersey...

The next day I did more walking downtown... Amazing. You can see some streets down for some kilometers and it just won't stop...

5th Avenue building

the Chrysler building in the distance...

Ok, and then The Empire state building. First I went in the morning, because Lukasz told me that otherwise you might have to wait for 2 hours to get up (they only open 2 elevators to the public). But then the guy at the ticket desk said that it was "still cloudy up there my boy" and another lady gave me the advise to come back in the evening. So I did. I came back at around 9.30 pm an I really took quite a while until I was up. There was also a strom warning and it was said that the outer deck might be closed but I went anyway.
Once I was up there my mouth dropped open and I deleted all the other plans for that night right away. I stayed up there untl they kicked the last ones of us out at 2 am. It was like straight out of a movie, HAHA. See for yourself:

(by the way you can CLICK TO ENLARGE...)

Next night I was out looking for music in the East Village. It was a sunday night so there was not so much music around (ha, even NY has it's weekends. Those guys should come and see Amsterdam ;)) but I could still se 2 bands playing. Some pics from this night:

A band unloading their equipment before a gig. Those lucky guys have a COOL BUS :)

This is East Village during the day. With the next two pictures I can show you all where my heart lies... Music, girls and ... motorcycles ;)

Some more Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge!

Financial District... That's where all the money's made! (And of course in the rip-off-a-tourist mobile phone shops. Man, I'm still not over it! HAHA. Especially now that I've heard the new iPhone will come out in a month for half the price I payed for mine. AUTSCH!!!! that hurts)

But this was all for free. The staten Island Ferry with a great view back on Manhattan and on a very special (and very big and greenish) lady:

Tonight I will move to the Buddhist Center and tomorrow Lama Ole is giving a lecture then. Then my time in NYC will be over and I will move with friends to Connecticut...

Thats it for today, bye bye!

First days in NYC

2008-06-08T16:33:00.000-07:00

So Leute, ich bin drueben.
Und auch direkt mittendrin gelanded, ich uebernachte bei Lukasz direkt am Broadway. Jetzt ist diese Strasse ja ziemlich lang, und fuer alle die's genau wissen wollen: Ecke 99th Street...
Hier geht's ab sag ich Euch. Ich sitzte gerade in einem Internet Cafe und kann deshalb leider keine Bilder hochladen aber dass kommt die Tage. Die tollen Blogeintraege mit hochwichtigen selbsfinderischem gedankengut kommen dann auch ;)
Erstmal ist NY teuer. Selbst fuer uns Euro-Laender noch immer teuer. Und ich habe auch direkt am 2. Tag gelernt wie's hier abgeht. Hab ein Handy gekauft und war dumm genug genau in richtung Downtown zu latschen und in einem abzockladen was zu kaufen wo eigentlich fett gross TOURISTENFALLE vorne hinten und innendrin dransteht. Also ich habe mal fett das doppelte bezahlt wie im laden bei mir um die Ecke. Naja, diese Lektion muss man wohl einmal lernen, hehe ;)
Das Stimmungstief isy aber schon wieder vorbei und ich laufe munter durch die Stadt und mache tausend fotos pro Tag, wartets mal ab...
So, meine Zeit laeft hier ab und ich habe keinen bock meine credit-card gleich wieder durch das Ding hier zu ziehen... also, bis bald!

Hey Folks!
How're ya doing? that's what I hear from people all around me the whole time... and they don't even know me ... :0 HAha. That's just one thing that's new and I had to learn around here. But I am very lucky I am located Broadway/99th street and that's just right in the middle of it... Manhattan is expansive, loud, and... amazing. Yesterday I went up the Empire state building. A MUST for the touristst I thought. First, in the morning but I was told that "it's still cloudy up there". ok, so I came back in the evening at around 9.30. I actually wanted to go to some jazz club afterwards, but once i was up there I was totally stunned... I stayed until 2am until they kicked the last of us out, HAHA! I made amazing pictures but right now I am in an internet cafe (actually an icecream store) at broadway and cannot upload pictures, but that will come soon.
Manhatten is fantasic! But also very expansive. And I made the worst beginning travellers misstake there is. I wanted to buy a cell phone and was stupi enough to walk straight downtown next to times square and buy a phone in a store that had 'tourist trap' written all over it. And payed almost twice the normal price... hehe. It's all about money here... now I got that ;)
more stories soon my time is running out here!
Greetz from the big apple!

Start Spreadin' the News...

2008-06-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

So, in 48 hours from now I'll be having dinner in New York! :)
I left Amsterdam this morning after a brilliant party last night where we ended up hanging out on Amsterdam's rooftops ;)

A friend of mine had his final exam yesterday on the Conservaory of Amsterdam and I was playing in his band. After that we celebrated the whole night and after just 3 hours of sleep I could get a ride to Wuppertal (Germany) and from there I moved on to Mannheim where I got picked up by my family.

But that was not the only fantastic party of the last days, last week monday my friend Andi Bauer had his final exam in Groningen, and also there I was fortunate to play with. It was a great concert and Andi played just fantastic! And the afterparty was just burning... the mood and the vibe was so good it was almost unbelievable. We had a band jammin' in the cellar of the student house in Groningen where all of us would stand in and play along from time to time during the party... the rest was dancing like hell and the fun was amazing... and then - police showed up. we had to stop the band but we didn't stop the party at all. Slowly everybody was moving to the kitchen and grabbed some spoons and pans until we ended up jamming the whole kitchen alltogether!!! hehe, that was fun!

check out the vid below: (you can get a glimpse of the fun going on this vid but in reality it was much stronger, super heavy loud and groovin' as hell, haha)

After that we went straight back to the instruments and played again until 4 in the morning :)
Luckily, the police didn't show up again!

So, that's about it! Thursday early in the morning I will step on the plane and the 3 months journey finally beginns!

-----

Jetzt geht's gleich los. In 48 Stunden werde ich mir in New York ein erstes Amerika dinner leisten! :)
Gestern was das Endexamenkonzert von einem guten Freund von mir in Amsterdam. Ich war in seiner Band und wir hatten ein tolles Konzert und eine superfette Party; am Ende saßen wir auf den Dächern von Amsterdam mit einer super Aussicht und klasse Stimmung fast bis zum Morgengrauen...
Nach 3 Stunden Schlaf konnten mich Lukes Kumpel im Auto mitnehmen nach Wuppertal und von dort aus bin ich nach Mannheim weitergefahren und von meiner Familie abgeholt worden.
Letzte Station vor dem Flug nach NYC Donnerstag Morgen...

Aber die Party gestern war nicht die einzige mega Party in den letzten Tagen. Letzte Woche Montag hatte Andi Bauer sein Endexamen Drums in Groningen, wo ich auch mitgespielt habe. Ein supertolles Konzert, alle waren total begeistert und eine Party wie vom andern Stern...
In der Conservatoriumsvilla im Keller haben wir die ganze Nacht gejammt und getanzt mit unglaublichen Grooves von Balkan bis Funk... bis die Polizei kam ;)

Dann, langsam aber sicher sind alle in die Küche abgezogen und Schwups war eine Riesenjamm im Gange mit Pfannen und Löffeln, Mülleimern, Kühlschrank und alles was nicht Niet und Nagelfest war. Wow. Schaut Ech mal das Video oben auf der Seite an (Leider kann das Handyvideo echt nur einen klitze klitze kleien Teil der unglaublichen Stimmung wiedergeben... Aber ich sag Euch, wir haben fast das Haus abgerissen und so hat's sich auch angefühlt;))

Dannach sind wir direkt wieder zurück an die Instrumente und haben weiter gejammt bis 4 oder so - ohne Polizei, hehe :)

Hier ein Bild von Andi's Examen - die Band ALLOPHONIC (and me)

Ok, das isses erstmal, ich mach mich hier langsam fertig und der nächste Eintrag wir dann von drüben kommen!

soon I'll be leaving...

2008-05-23T04:11:00.000-07:00

so, meine Reise rückt immer näher. Ich habe mich übrigens entschieden (auf vielfache Anfrage hin) mein blog in englisch UND in deutsch zu schreiben. Und dasses nich langweilig wird für mich und für Euch schreib ich einfach frei nach Schnauze in zwei Sprachen und mach keine genaue Übersetzung ;) also - dranbleiben! :)

Am 5 juni fliege ich nach NYC und dann geht's los... aber hier erstmal noch ein Foto vom Koniginnendag in Amsterdam... die ganze Stadt war am ausflippen, hehe:

as my travel comes ever closer I am starting to get really exited. Almost all is set, next week I am leaving my room and store my stuff in a storage building. Ah, by the way, I write in german and in english now! So its time to practise you multilanguage ability ;) 5th of june I am going to arrive in NYC and then the journey begins !

and for those who didn't visit my (soon to be empty) room in A'dam here is a view from my window over the backyard!

und für alle die mich noch nicht in meinem alten Zimmer in A'dam besucht haben habe ich hier noch die Aussicht aus meinem Fenster Richtung Hinterhof:

and since posting pics is something I just discovered (and I'm having fun with it) I give you a last impression of my city of choice which I am leaving in a few days:

... Amsterdam in der Nacht...

... the beginning

2008-04-17T15:46:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!

So, my trip to the USA will beginn in just a few weeks. Preparations are running high! :)
Lots of things still to do, like store all my stuff at friends places and the rest in a container, get a credit card, buy the flight tickets and so on. exiting exiting !

I will travel by car starting in New York and first longer stop will be Atlanta...

If you want to keep track on my trip, just keep checkin' back here, I will post pictures and write about what happens along the way.

keep on rockin' !