The Land of Milk and Honey

As we drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, we take Pacific Highway up the coast, Highway 1. People have only told me good things about the ride, and it's sure worth the drive!
What a coastline!
You drive on tiny windy roads, pass beautiful view points and see the fog blanket unfold itself throughout the day. This is a must see for any person traveling up the west coast.
On our way we pass many villages that have a spanish feel to it, San Simeon with the big and strange Hirst Castle, Big Sur, and the beautiful Carmel-by-the-sea, a little town that seems to be painted on the setting canvas; it feels spanish, italian and french at the same time, with a little touch of Californian spirit. Beautiful organic roads lead you towards small cafés, restaurants and shops, that are well hidden between long, leafy trees.


After Carmel we stop by Monterey, a place you sixties music addicts LOVE I'm sure - in 1967, this was the place where the famous Monterey Festival took place. Standing on the stage, I felt like Janis Joplin, without the bottle of Southern Comfort maybe ;), singing my soul out - watching these people relishing and flowers whirling down the sky...
Of course, I would be on the first row to see Jimi Hendrix burn his guitar on stage, after he played on it with his teeth and blew everybody away with his raw, rocking performance and beautiful appearance ;). After that, I would go and dance on hypnotic drums, with a scarf lashed up on my head, tight like a string, while I would chant with the songs of Jefferson Airplane.... this must be california dreamin'...

The City of Angels *

Thanks to Stephen Harlow, we have found a great place to stay in Venice Beach, CA. We crashed at the studio of an Artist, Cameron Gray. His work can be found here.


For me to be able to stay here in Venice, is very special. Jim Morrison lived here on a rooftop, wrote poetry, and met Ray Manzarek on the beach. Places that I've read so much about, are now in walking distance. Very weird. We also visited his house (picture) in Laurel Canyon.


Living at this place and seeing all these things is very inspiring to me; I started writing again, after some years of holding back and muddling along, I find it very easy to put words on paper again; ink in the little red book, that I got from my father. Yesterday I just went to Venice Beach, sat in the sand, head in the wind, looking out over the ocean. If there is one thing I have learned on this trip, it's that you walk into yourself a couple of times; you are confronted with what you want, what you need, the important things in life, and life itself. This may all sound very heavy and philosophical, but it's actually a beautiful thing; very hard to describe.




Los Angeles is to me not the busy, driven, crowded city without feelings that some people might describe it to be. It is spread out, it has a lot of life going on, and a lot of cars with many lanes - and - musically it has a lot to offer. We met Chris Darrow from Kaleidoscope, who has the most amusing Juke Box ever, and also Canned Heat, an encounter that's slightly difficult to forget. There are some other people we met too, but I guess you will have to see that on the show... I would like to express my thanks to David Carr, who has made some miracles happen for us here in LA.

Everything in LA, all the Doors-stuff (I am a huge fan) has made me kind of emotional. I can't really put it into words, it's like a very intense feeling. Everything I ever read and dreamed of is coming to life in this wonderful journey, it's hard to apprehend - it feels so .. intense. Passionate. It's like a whirl, caused by all these people that I've got the chance to meet, talk to, look in the eyes.. People that have shared stories you can't read in books, gave me things I will never come across again, memories that will be captured for sure. L.A. was very important in the sixties, and you can feel the vibe is still here. What a trip.

Joshua Trees at Dawn

Joshua Trees, Joshua Trees, Joshua Trees, Joshua Trees. It's not a cactus, it's a tree.

We keep driving in this beautiful region that inspires so many people; in the sixties this was the hangout place of many many musicians; Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones and Gram Parsons of the Byrds used to smoke joints here and drink, while they were searching the sky- and starlight for UFO's. I decided to camp here for the night and do exactly the same thing. Sleeping in the open sky is not new to me, we did it the night before at the banks of the Colorado River in Needles, but this time we were in the desert, no water, no electricity, only sand, grass, rocks and.. Joshua Trees. It scared me at first, as deserts make you think of creepy creepers as Scorpions, Snakes and other crawly sneekers.
But it was actually a wonderful night; didn't get much sleep though, because of the lack of electric light in the area, the stars where amazing. I could imagine the earth as one little dustparticle in this giant universe with milkyways, supernova's, stars and suns, planets and.. UFO'S. It's just so hard to close your eyes, when you are impressed every time you open them.

Waking up with the sun is in a way reassuring, it comforts you. The warmth embraces you like a campfire on a hot summer night, you wake up with the odd sight of the arm of a Joshua Tree right in front of your face. Strange, but funny. Then you realize where you are, suddenly. I'm in the desert. I'm in this beautiful piece of art, where I happened to stumble in, this wonderful scope of nature that inspires you in every way. California here we come.

Arresting Framework in Arizona

In Arizona the arresting framework, the very skeleton of the earth, is exposed. That's what makes the scenery so compelling and so meaningful, according to Josef Muench, a Southwestern photographer. I would have to agree with him. As a tourist, you can gorge yourself in many attractions; Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Meteor Crater.

It brings nature back to it's base; raw and pure.

Arizona has it all: some beautiful forests like those near Flagstaff, mountains, canyon lands, and high desert. Everything you see is honest and genuine, from the wrecked cars, old horse barns, stone ruins and giant cactusses to the beautiful rockformations, wide landscapes and Arizona sunsets. It's like time has stood still here.

I almost feel as if my writings about the southwestern nature must be pretty boring, as everythings sounds awesome and beautiful, but it simply is. Each state we visit has its own aspects, and it's great to see the landscape change and develop, while you're driving down Route 66.

As we drive up from Kingman to Oatman, we get a wonderful drive in the mountains of Arizona. Oatman is a small town, has a very goldrush/cowboy/saloon-kind of feeling to it (they still dig for gold), and is packed with mules. Everywhere you look, a mule is coming your way, and when they stop, they don't want to move anymore, because that's what mules do.. The babymules have stickers on their head, with a carrot that is lined through; "they are too young to eat carrots", we hear later on the day. We continue our trip with Mike, a young guy we picked up in our car (he was hitchhiking near Flagstaff and is an anarchist, so he tells us), after he plays a little banjo. (he has only 3 strings anymore, out of 5, because he used the other two to go fishing)

We drive up to Needles, California, and put up our tent next to the Colorado River. I slept outside, because I wanted to enjoy the stars, as the lack of light caused a major increase of visible stars, something we are not used to see in Belgium... Hmm.

Stars in New Mexico

The sight I encounter when I drive over the New Mexican border, is breathtaking. It deserves a standing ovation... The Staked Plains were the territory of Comanche warriors, where they were hunting herds of buffalo...

You can see endlessly far, eternal red dusty plains with little orbed green bushes that seem to be drawn on this canvas with a pencil. The landscape is delineated with flattened red mountains, that smoothly flow into the plains.

I try to keep my eyes on the road but it's really hard not to get distracted by the landscape that overtakes you.

After putting up the tent, I lie in the grass, limbs stretched, while I watch the last of the fiery sun melt on the horizon. This spacious, widespread, extended feeling is undescribable. It gives me a freedom I never felt before, or maybe once, visiting California some years ago. *Magnificent*, in every sense of the word.

As the night falls gracious on flattened, wide mountains, I suddenly realise that I'm still sitting on the exact same spot, watching all this beauty.

Stars appear and it's really hard to put this into words... but it just blew me away. It was like a little box of sparkles that where disseminated carefully on this wonderful, bowing black surface. I even saw the milky way.....*

We arrive in Santa Fe and this town has a very mexican feeling, the contrast with Texas could not have been any bigger. After that follows an amazing mountain drive to Taos, finished with a very odd and scary feeling when we get back... We finished the day with a lightning-fest and showers that could wash your clothes away... Something happened in those mountains, and it scares the shit out of me. It left me speechless.

"For greatness of beauty

I have never experienced anything like New Mexico."

- D. H. Lawrence

Texas & Cowboys

"The country's so flat, you can see for two days" - and that's no lie - it IS flat. I've seen more cows here on one piece of land than I saw in my whole life, and even some buffalo's hiding in the shade.

The Route 66 in TX spans the Texas Panhandle like an endless airport runway. You see cars disapearing into infinity as you pull over to pour some gass. We're in the high plains, and although the road is pretty boring and straight on, we see the faces of some nice little towns along the way. The Panhandle is the land of giants, the haven of cowboys, oil-field roughnecks, and self-made millionaires.

In the mid- to late 1800s, trail riders pushed big herds of cows through the Panhandle, in search of the promised land their Mexican Compadres had told them about - a place with sweet water and high grass. The Palo Duro Canyon gave them this promised paradise, so cattle barons claimed the land, drove out the indians, killed off the buffalo, and raised enough beefsteak to feed the nation. Great.

In my mind this was the picture I had of Texas, and at first sight, it's pretty much right.

We meet cattlemen with big hats, high boots, and high jeans with their dusty shirts stuffed in. We see a lot of beef - both dead and alive - and the grasslands are huuuuuge.

The swampy Missouri heat is replaced by a more tolerable, dry heat.

After we saw the Cadillac Ranch in Armadillo, we got to meet some great people, who completely altered the vision I had in mind of Texan people. They ride a crazy double-high bike, have hairless skin-cats, smoke pot, make 'smores' by a camp fire and sing the most beautiful local songs, completed by high worn socks and twinkling eyes. It was an amazing night.

Oklahoma and the Tulsa Sound

We pass farms, fields and creeks. I roll down my window and feel a hot breeze fill the car. I thought St.Louis was hot, but here I feel like a bun in a big oven, left behind in a giant field of grass, without a tree to shadow me. I get some cover in Disney, near a lake.
It's hard to believe that in the 30s, this land was choking in dust storms, together with some parts of Kansas, Texas and New Mexico. The land was a desert of sand and pale dirt. Steinbeck described the 'Okies' trip to California, the land of milk and honey, in his book, The Grapes of Wrath. The Dust Bowl lasted for years...

Nowadays, Oklahoma is covered in big green plaines of tender grass, trees and lakes. I seek refreshment under some maple trees but can't resist to move to the sound of the guitar of Little Joe McLerran, a young man that is - according to musician Mike Peace - 'a 80-year old black man stuck in the body of a 26-year old white boy.'
Tulsa is the home of many great musicians, and we got a taste of the 'Tulsa Sound' - a very diverse musical blend that's so special because not one song is ever played the same.
The city has also been called 'The Buckle of the Bible Belt', as it is the start of a very conservative area that extends all the way to Texas. Although I must say times are changing, we met some very non-conservative people, almost in an European sort of way ;-)
I wonder if playing the harmonica encourages this new mentality...

"Many months have come and gone
Since I wandered from my home
In the Oklahoma Hills where I was born
Though a page of life has turned
And a lesson I have learned
Yet I feel like in those hills I still belong"
- Woody Guthrie