The Grande Tork Trek

Very few miles or somethin.

Well everyone, it's my b-day. And by b-day, I mean my BLOG DAY! SWEET!

So we all head on over to our family favorite breakfast establishment - IHOP (spurred from our poor experience at their lifetime rival, Perkins). But whats this?


My routine arrival has been disturbed by the appearance of this mysterious letter! I open it.


Ahh, it all makes sense now. I can deal with this.


Lookin cool in my new shades.


And shirt.


And FLEECE SHORTS.


And with a nice card.


I am drinking this, by the way. After breakfast we all head over to Dad's cycling meeting spot. He claims its a luxury service with hundreds of attendants available to his every whi- WAIT, what's that?


It appears Arizona isn't the only state with a Tent City. Conditions of life are unbearable.


Unruly inmates are thrown into solitary.


Even simple playground equipment is crazed and demonic.


The officers mock the prisoners with promises of food and decadence.


Inmates stand for hours for basic necessities


All while sheriff Joe Arpio keeps a close eye on everyone. We are sad to leave Dad in such a sorry place. yet it is of his own choosing. We set out again in search of shelter.


Our place is close by, and has an incredible view of the river.


For some reason, it is a suite, which of course upon hearing we all exclaim "sweet!".


Nell feels the room is a little blemished. We scoot off over to the city center to check out the festivities for the night.


Find this guy along the way, yet again for my girlfriend.


This excites dad enough to go run off with some floozies. Nell has other plans.


Gorge seems to be the word of the day.


I practice a much more civilized method of eating. But listen! The bands are starting!


First act is some four piece from Hollywood. Not terrible, not great. Solid opener, I suppose. The second act, however, has many elements of discussion. As soon as the first band ends, 40 people fill the stage. It's Rockestra, a local Sioux City orchestral rock group! Cool, I think. This really could be interesting!


The first character we meet is Perma-concerned sax man dead center here.


Kerry King tunes up his axe.


Fedora Boy says goodbye to his mother.


And they start! Wooooo!


...And they are a cover band! "We built Sioux City". Nell is not impressed.


Little Fedora Boy doesn't seem to be very enthused about the performance, nor is he playing too much, leaving the good bits to KK.


And the metal monster never fails to satisfy. Nearing the end of their set, the crowd gets antsy for Smash Mouth. And soon enough...!


Not quite. We actually got something more like this:


We wait about 30 min, watching the crowd get angrier and drunker. Nell and I have finally had enough so we scoot out of there, never hearing a note of Smash Mouth. Too late, boys, couldn't save us from that hell hole! We head to Chillies of all places to get soup and salad. Mom and dad join us briefly and we say goodbye to our father, ready to set sail on his ride. Sleep has come to us all.