IML - 20 (International Mr. Leather) ROAD TRIP Spring 98 PART    I: West Coast To Chicago and IML-20 PART   II: In Chicago at IML-20 More Miles in Leather - IML & BEYOND PART III: IML to Michigan      (second eight days) PART IV: Michigan To California (final eight days) ENJOY!... It’s Memorial Day Morning. We’re going for a boat ride on the Chicago River and out into Lake Michigan. Then we’re packing for the rest of our trip. Tomorrow morning we go to the Indiana Dunes and to the RV Heritage Museum in Elkhart. Onward from there to visit my hip niece in Kalamazoo. She’s attending Western Michigan University where both my mothera nd I attended. This weekend we’ll be in Detroit to party and visit my 98 year old mom. Then, the third leg of the trip will be absolutely beautiful. Upper Michigan and on to Minneapolis to visit a friend from Nigeria whom we stayed with last summer. When we leave there it’ll be a long drive across the Northern part of our country and into Yellowstone National Park. From there we’ll go to Boise and down through way-north California to look some more for our next home base. Gotta find a lake somewhere so we can enjoy our boat that’s coming. We’ll be in Guerneville perhaps on the 11th.. (We’ll also be in San Francisco, probably on Tuesday, June 16th.) Our trip here was not uneventful to say the least. Flying across Nebraska last Tuesday night I was asleep in the back of the van while rodtney took his shift behind the wheel. He was going about 75 mph. It was really dark except for the lightning all across the sky. We’d had wind gusts of 60 to 75 mph all evening long. All of the sudden, B A M ! ! ! - I jumped up to look out expecting to see that the hood had blown up or some such thing - that’s what it sounded like. There was a scraping noise coming from the right front wheel. rodt had the flashers on and was pulling over. he says, he thinks it was a deer. So I jumped out and went around front to see what happened. Woah, our van, who is ‘Betsy Van Dodge’ has what is known as a ‘spotting hitch’ on the front. We use it to back our trailer into tight spaces. Anyway, hanging from the hitch was the right front leg of a deer - swinging back and forth in the wind. Not exactly a pretty sight. Of course the deer was long gone. At 100 feet a second, whatever rodtney saw was already past, actually. The van is really crunched. The passenger door won’t open at all. We had to take the wheel off and jack the fender back out of the way so we could steer. This is not a happy thing. It may not be repairable. The wind almost blows the wheel away and us with it. But, oh well, we’re OK. We just kept on going and arrived in Chicago as planned, on Wednesday night but with not a lot of sleep. We left the Russian River very early on Monday after packing the day before. Our first stop was rodtney’s parent’s home in Sacramento - about a hundred miles east. It was 11:11 when we left out to go to the tire store for a couple of snow tires we thought it would be good to have on the van. That took over an hour and the next stop was the RV recycler. We were looking for a porta-potty so we could ‘go’ on the road. From there we had to find a butane company to look for a hose for our two burner gas stove which we had purchased at the Sabastapol flea market yesterday. This way we can actually cook as we drive. We are carrying enough food for the trip which we’ve been collecting for months. There are two ice chests and plenty of drinks. So we’re pretty much self-contained. All we have to do is stop every two or three hours for gas, to change drivers and to check out the fluids and such. Our van is 20 years old with 150,000 miles - but I keep it going with trips to the junk yard and plenty of weekend effort. Everything’s working just fine - except for one thing. The transmission has begun to leak and by the time we reached Chicago we’re putting in a quart every two hundred miles or so. And this is a tricky thing because the engine is buried under a cover inside the van. Usually it's necessary to remove the cover to get to service the trans; but ah-ha! I found a way to crawl under and reach the filler tube from underneath. There is so much stuff piled inside that it would be a nightmare to remove the hatch every day or more. When we get to Kalamazoo on Tuesday, we’ll be able to have it fixed hopefully. IML-20 - CHICAGO Now to our Chicago experience... "International Mr Leather - Twenty", has been a great experience in every way. Beginning with our hosts, Kelly and Jim. We’re in a private home - up in the loft. We had met Kelly on the nternet after he read an essay I wrote on Diversity. About fifteen minutes after our arrival he let us know that he was blind. Up until then we had no idea. It’s been an enlightening perspective for me especially. Kelly is an incredible guy who is very much an activist for the rights of the handicapped. He works for the Prosecutor’s office helping victims of crimes. And he’s been an amazing tour guide leading the way around the city on the ‘L’ and the subway. (We just parked the van and haven’t used it at all.) The Congress Hotel, where IML is being held, is about twenty minutes away on Michigan Avenue overlooking Lake Michigan in the heart of the Loop ("Loop" is where the trains turn about). About 6,000 LeatherAti are in attendance - and we’ve had reunions with friends from all over the country. We’ve met a whole slew of new people too. Loads of networking. And we’ve felt the effects of gallons and gallons of testerone. Being a married couple, we aren’t quite as ambitious about meeting people as some - but then again, being so relaxed, we perhaps meet as many or more - just different ones - or on a somewhat different level. Whatever it is, it’s just great. There are women too; both lesbian and heterosexual. In the Leather World, it really doesn’t matter. It’s all ‘family’. Thursday we chilled except that we went to the hotel to check it out and to get our press passes which were in perfect order. Yeah! We ran into friend after friend including Master Joe’s ‘Piggy’ from L.A. who works for the Leather Journal and our neighbor Bruce who lives down the road from us at the River. Anyway, the plan was to make ready for the non-stop weekend - which it has been for sure. Friday we began by shopping in the leather bizarre in the hotel. Almost a whole floor plus a mezzanine of stuff from toys, to video, to fashion, to travel. "Leather is more than a look, it’s a lifestyle" - especially for us. Somehow we’re right up there with the echelon - quite a fete for rodtney especially since he’s new to the ‘scene’ since hooking up with his "Master/Daddy/Friend & Lover ROSS, For Life", as he has announced in front of many-a-witness. Shopping with our friend Kelly was also an ‘eye opener’ for us. We helped him ‘see’ all the leather toys and stuff. His cane results in the wonderful receptivity that the Leather Community is known for - and he mentioned that also. Actually we ran into one other blind person at IML as well. He (formerly she) uses a dog however. ‘Andrew’ recently underwent a sex change operation. His male slave has been with her (now him), for 30 years! My only question is, does that make him instantly gay by the operation - or was it that way from the beginning except for the transition? Gender bending is the way of the world these days. This is just one example of how interesting and diverse the LeatherFetish community really is. - m o r e -