The Phallic Road Trip

Now that we have reached the 32nd day of the trip and I have still not shaved, I can now draw some deeper conclusions on what life is like as a blond-bearded man.

While it has been a struggle, it has come with some unique benefits and disadvantages. I have summed up what life is like with blond beard in a few bullet points:

1. Opening line with the ladies. A blond beard is quite the conversation piece. It’s fairly unique (mostly cause it looks ridiculous and us blonds are not reproducing) and is something to talk about. I have talked to numerous ladies about the beard and have mixed reviews. One response, “Well I really couldn’t see it until I got close to you.” Couple approaches to that quote. Number one, as long as she is using that only in reference to my beard and not something else, not so bad. Number two, it gets the ladies to get closer to me (hello, hello).

2. Don’t get carded. I have not been carded as much inside bars or restaurants since growing the beard. Apparently people (intelligent ones) realize that a man with a blond beard must be at least 21 for it may have taken him 21 years to grow a visible one. Regardless, less pulling out (that’s what she said) of my ID.

3. Little kids don’t approach me. This is another one that goes both ways, I call it “the Phil.” One way it’s good is that I don’t have little kids come up and bother me. The other way is that I kind of look like a creepy drifter that kids could identify as “stranger danger.”

4. Shows dedication and commitment. Whether they like it or not (and most don’t) the blond beard shows that I am dedicated to something — that I can put up with constant teasing and taunting and still hang in there. I call this the “marriage material” value.

So in summary, I am going to ride my blond bearded wave until next week when I return to Chicago and show my family my beard masterpiece. Once that is done, I will ultimately re-enter normal society and shave. This experience has added to the respect I already had for the blond-bearded man.

Maybe I will give it another shot once I am older and don’t care what I look like.

Hello ladies and gents, friends and family, creepy pedophile dudes that read our blog and are terribly disappointed:

Now that we have reached Day 18, I think it’s a good time for a brief summary of some things that I have realized since we have started our journey.

Number 1: There is absolutely nothing in the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. Outside of a few large cities (probably the capital) there is very little civilization in these states. You know your state has nothing in it when there are advertisements for a drug store 123 miles away.

Number 2: Canada gets a bad rap. Having been to Canada two other times prior to this trip and enjoying it, I was not surprised that on my third trip, I liked it even more. Calgary is awesome. It is about an hour away from Banff (also awesome) and yet still has everything you’d expect and like about a big city. First plus, the women: Canadian women were very nice and very blonde. Maybe not a plus for everyone, but one for me. Another plus is their love of hockey. A major con, however, is little or no knowledge of baseball. They have adopted our poor eating habits with our fast food chains; it’s about time they get baseball. Also, British Columbia is absolutely stunning and worth a trip for those that are into mountains and all that other outdoorsy stuff.

Number 3: Northern California is scary. The redwood forest was really cool. The drifters that inhabit the town outside of the forest, not so much. I think Arnold needs to redraw the state line.

Number 4: In-N-Out burger is damn good. I’ve always wanted to try it and it definitely delivered. I will probably make us go there many times throughout our stay in California.

Number 5: Blond beard = not attractive. Yes, I have not shaved, and also yes, I look like a complete clown. I am hoping that it will be very sunny in California so that it (and me in general) will be hard to see in the light.

Quote of the day:

Me (reading billboard on the side of the road in Nor Cal): Jesus loves you, Bruer.

John: That’s nice of him.

For those of you concerned about 10-year-old Phallus-gate, I have an update on the situation.

As of today, phallicroadtrip.com appears as the third search result to the phrase ‘phallus 10 year old.’

No, we are not proud; but I predicted this would happen.

Who could possibly be ahead of us? The BBC. Sick bastards.

To their credit, the linked site has the title “Ancient phallus unearthed in cave.” Seems legit.

While Phil did a commendable job of summing up our two-day stay in Calgary, I thought I should expand on our stay in a little more depth.

It all started on Monday when Phil’s friend Will took us to Earl’s, an upscale bar/restaurant in Calgary, for a few drinks. Will’s friend, Brian, was bartending and proceeded to hook us up with four rounds of drinks and appetizers while we discussed hockey and American sports.

From there, we left to go to Narah, a hookah bar where Will and his friend, Rahim, work. We smoked for a good hour or so and then went to an Irish Pub for a final round of Canadian schooners — basically three pints in one huge glass. It was a fun night that gave us only a brief introduction to the glory that would come the following day.

On Tuesday, Will decided to take us to Melrose’s, a bar located on the Red Mile — the one mile stretch of road that leads to the Calgary Flames arena — to start our evening.

While enjoying our Canadian beer, our cute waitress walked into an uncomfortable conversation. I was asking our friend Andrea’s opinion on my blond beard; she was basically telling me that she could barely see it and that it was ultimately not that cool. My response, that was heard by the waitress as she approached the table was, “I am just going to shave it cause it itches really bad.”

She giggled, having taken the comment out of context, causing me to get embarrassed. Though I tried to explain the beard, she was not having it, leading the two of us to mess with each other each time she approached the table.

When we closed our tab, she came to the table and told us that she had bought two of my three beers to make up for her teasing, writing “Cheers Melissa” on the bottom of the bill that she gave to me. What I took as a nice gesture ended with John writing, “Call me tomorrow night, we are going to Cowboys,” and then putting my phone number on the bottom.

After handing over the bill, I left the bar embarrassed by the whole ordeal. Knowing this, Will decided to go back into the bar by himself and talk to the waitress some more about going out the next night.

From Melrose’s, we went to another bar, Captain Jack’s, for dinner and to watch the NBA Finals, where I continued to get ridiculed by the group. Rahim met us near the end of the meal, continuing with us to Ciali’s for more beer, followed by a nightclub called Tequila.

Without much of a crowd around on a slow Tuesday night, we had another beer and some shots, before making our way to the dance floor. After seeing Phil’s not-so-great moves, I jumped on stage and joined him.

Following a few minutes of awkward dancing, we left the bar and headed back to Narah for some more hookah, making friends with the other employees and customers at the bar. I even got a new nickname from Rahim — Rico Swedish — resulting from continued ridicule about Melissa from Melrose’s.

Though it was nearing one in the morning — with last call at two — Rahim decided that it was necessary to take the Americans to a Canadian strip club. We piled into the back of his Civic, and headed to “The French Maid,” a strip club in downtown Calgary.

Rahim led us to the far part of the club and immediately started buying us drinks and explaining Canadian strip clubs etiquette: apparently, we found out, it’s commonplace for the customers to toss loonies — Canadian dollar coins — at certain … uhm, parts … of the dancers. What sounded like complete smoke as we entered the club became a shocking reality a few minutes later. Rahim followed suit with the other customers and got a stack of thirty loonies, showing off his skills by winning a stripper’s poster with his accurate shots.

We stayed till last call, with Rahim scoring multiple posters — even one autographed for some other dude named Mike, that he gave to John. Outside, we ran into Rahim’s acquaintance, Bubbles — yes, a Canadian guy named Bubbles. After meeting Bubbles, we decided to drive back to Will’s house for a final round of beer and hookah, passing out at around four in the morning.

In summary: we spent Tuesday afternoon/night bouncing between 7 bars, having around a dozen rounds of beers and shots; got called Rico Swedish; used my blond beard to flirt with a waitress; watched Phil make a clown out of himself on the dance floor; fit over 700 pounds into the back of a Honda Civic; met a dude named Bubbles; saw Canadian prostitutes — and, most importantly, had an amazing time in Calgary.

As for my bartender friend, Melissa: we invited her to go out tonight, but we ended up leaving Calgary earlier this afternoon to begin making our way to Vancouver.

Life goes on.

As a part of our blog’s administrative tools, we have access to statistics tracking visits to our site. Along with showing us the number of visitors, the page tracks where visitors come from. If, for instance, you clicked on a link to us from another web page (like one of our Facebook profiles), a referral will appear in our list. This really isn’t that interesting for us because we’re the ones who have put the links up to our page in the first place. Instead, we focus on the section labeled “Search Engine Terms.” This gives us a list of what people searched for to reach our site.

So far, these have fallen into four categories:

We have had specific ones like: “phallic road trip” (5 times), “phallicroadtrip.com” (2 times) and “phallic road” (1 time). These are most likely from people who know that they want to end up at this page. If you are searching for “phallic road” and are looking for porn something else, there are many search terms that would yield better results. The search term “west phalic” (sic) may also be along those lines, but I don’t know how.

Two of the terms relate to our blog and would come from random people: “russell branyan 465-foot home run brewer” and “road trip southern california to minneapolis” (each 1 time). We witnessed that 465-foot homer in Milwaukee and our road trip does include SoCal and Minneapolis. This is probably not the best site for information on either topic, but at least we’re in the same ballpark.

The third category gets strange. It’s the WTF? category. On June 5th, we received a visit to our site from someone searching “did jimmy buffet die on tuesday june 3,2008”. The answer is no in case you were worried. (I know I was. I don’t think I could imagine what kind of world we would have without the music of Jimmy Buffet. He single-handedly fostered my love for margaritas AND cheeseburgers. Musical genius.) Sarcasm aside, he is alive and will be performing at Madison Square Garden on Thursday. Why did Google refer this poor soul to our blog? Because Phil mentioned hearing Jimmy Buffet at the Mall of America in the post “Fargo Bound” dated June 3rd, 2008.

There is only one way to describe the last category: disturbing. Yesterday, we received a visit to our site from the search term “phallus 10 year old.” I am not making this up. Of course, our site has nothing to do with this. We weren’t even on the first… or the second… or the third… page of search results from Google. That’s right, we were on the top of the fourth (!) page with the listing shown below:

The referenced post is Justin’s on the Clean Plate Club which he joined as a “young, but husky 10 year-old boy.” This whole ordeal has left him feeling violated. Unfortunately, this post will probably move our site higher in the search results for “phallus 10 year old.” At least next time, the perverts will read this first.

UPDATE: Just received a hit from the search term “phallic food.” So add another one to the WTF? category. We like the whole phallic road trip thing, but we don’t eat that way.

As we journey through Yellowstone and Grand Teton, I think it’s important to address another glaring issue with our road trip: facial hair.

In particular, the blond beard.

Phil, John, and I are currently attempting to grow “Road Trip Beards” as we traverse the country and I am once again faced with what many deem an impossible task: to have blond facial hair and not look like a complete clown.

This will be my second attempt at a blond beard, after an unsuccessful attempt last year. Commonalities heard throughout that first two-week facial hair affair included: “What is that on your face?” or “Seriously, you need to shave that.” While I tried my best to endure the blond man’s beard struggle, I ultimately decided to shave it off. The entire ordeal left me questioning, why? Why, if blonds supposedly have more fun do they lack the ability to rock the goat or a fumanchu? I have come up with the conclusion that a blond beard, like a yeti or Sasquatch, could be a mere myth. Can a truly blond man successfully have facial hair?

While John, Phil, and I have considered this trip a mere vacation after graduation, to me it’s also a personal journey to answer some important life questions as I enter the real world. I will continue to grow facial hair throughout the next few weeks and will keep you posted.

Oh, and convince John and Phil to keep their facial hair — especially a handlebar mustache for Bruer.