I've traveled the globe and collected stories all along the way. That was one of the more productive trips for story generation. I keep getting asked to put them into a book, but I'm not sure I can have such published while I'm still alive. Frankly, nobody is innocent in these stories, nobody. In that episode, some six months too, I drove around the country blitzed out of my gourd. I'm astonished that I never got an OUI, arrested for something else, or even had issues scoring illegal drugs. I was, quite literally, shitfaced for the entire trip. Not one single day was sober. Many nights, I didn't even make it to a hotel. I just slept in the Honda. I was simply too intoxicated to even drive, or was passing out behind the wheel. This is not something I'm particularly proud of - just ensuring that you see the truth and not some glorified bullshit that's different than reality. Shit, on the first night (somewhere in Vermont - I'm not actually sure what town it was in), I couldn't figure out how to get across to the other sign and take the route I was on. So, I drove right straight across the village green. In my defense, it had an asphalt walking path that looked like it was a one-way street and I didn't realize it was a walkway through the park. The cop immediately pulled me over (I'm still not sure where he came from) and I spent too long getting my registration and insurance. As it was raining, and I explained that I couldn't really see the road and thought that was the road (and I had out-of-state plates which probably had something to do with it), he let me go on my merry way. Between that and somewhere in Northern New York (not to be mistaken for Upstate New York, as they're entirely different places with entirely different views of each other and the State of New York in general), I don't remember a damned thing. I literally don't know how I got from there to there. I woke up in a bank parking lot, in some East Bumfuck, New York. I got out, pissed, and then realized I'd just pissed in front of the camera and that's when I realized that I was in a bank parking lot. How I'm not still in jail, I have no idea. I figured that the cops were going to be there any minute, so I downed the rest of my bottle of vodka and snorted a couple of lines of coke as well as a fat line of heroin so that I'd not be sick. I did all that right in the bank parking lot - and probably on camera for that too. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had a great time. It was one of the best trips of my life. Somewhere, I still have the phone that I took with me - and that has all the pictures of my kidnapped pumpkin who was dressed like a pirate, had little plastic swords taped to his sides, had a face (complete with eye patch) drawn on him, and was wearing a bandanna. Said friend with the brown thumb actually quite enjoys the stories of my grand adventure with his pumpkin. It's tempting to try to replicate it by stealing another pumpkin and taking another grand tour of Americana, but I'm convinced it wouldn't be the same. I'm convinced it would be a facsimile of the original. It would be like the difference between a photograph of the Grand Canyon and actually visiting the Grand Canyon. (By the way, Pumpkin and I actually *did* visit the Grand Canyon - but that's a story for another time.)