* Id: Kokomo * Revision: 4 * State: approved * * Log: * Revision 1 1998/10/23 Christophe de Dinechin * Initial submitted version. * * Checked-out 1999/05/14 Alex McLintock * * Checked-in with * Revision 2 1999/06/27 Alex McLintock * Edited. * * Revision 3 1999/09/27 Alex McLintock * Further editing. * * Revision 4 1999/09/27 Mark Seaborn * Corrected the formatting. * * Checked-out 1999/12/19 Mark Seaborn %t Kokomo, Indiana, USA, Earth %d 19981015 %a Christophe de Dinechin (ddd@cup.hp.com) %s You Won't Have Heard Of It, It's Not Eerie %n 6R author approved %e Summary ------- An amazingly low number of books have been written on Kokomo. By some remarkable coincidence, this happens to almost exactly match, with a somewhat pathetic precision, the total amount of interest that this city represents for the rest of the Universe. There is only one reasonable advice to give to the hitchhiker who would plan to stop in Kokomo: forget it. Directions ---------- These directions are given from Rachel, just a few nanoparsecs away from Area 51. Area 51 is probably a good place to start with, if you want to land your flying saucer after a long and boring trip in hyperspace. One of the reasons is that Area 51 is, as of today, one of the rare places on Earth where the sight of a real flying saucer does not cause the immediate apparition of ufologists, cameramen, journalists, special-effect specialists, sci-fi writers, psychiatrics, exobiologists, circle-in-corn-fieldologists, parapsychoscientologists, Roswell-creatures stunt doubles, car insurance brokers and cheap hot-dogs shops. Note that this is mostly because Area 51 is a restricted area. So you should not land there, unless you feel your flying saucer is lacking these nice air vents created by the impact of high-speed projectiles. However, you may land in Rachel, since this is the usual rendezvous for the above ufologists, cameramen, journalists, special-effect specialists, sci-fi writers, psychiatrics, exobiologists, circle-in-corn-fieldologists, parapsychoscientologists, Roswell-creatures stunt doubles, car insurance brokers and cheap hot-dogs shops, and nobody there believes in UFOs anymore. From: Rachel, Nevada To: Kokomo, Indiana Estimated Distance: 1984.5 miles Estimated Time: 2715 mins 1) Start out going East on SR-375 towards TEMPIUTE RD. (39.1 miles) 2) SR-375 becomes SR-318. (0.6 miles) 3) Turn RIGHT onto US-93. (54.7 miles) 4) Turn LEFT onto SR-168. (23.8 miles) 5) Take the I-15 SOUTH ramp. (0.3 miles) 6) Merge onto I-15 S. (14.6 miles) 7) Take the NV-169 EAST exit (0.3 miles) 8) Turn LEFT onto SR-169. (0.1 miles) 9) Turn LEFT to take the I-15 NORTH ramp. (0.1 miles) 10) Merge onto I-15 N. (209.7 miles) 11) Take the I-70 EAST exit (0.6 miles) 12) Merge onto I-70 E. (142.2 miles) 13) Turn SLIGHT LEFT at the intersection of REST AREA ACC to stay on I-70 E. (358.7 miles) 14) Turn SLIGHT RIGHT at the intersection of I-76 E to stay on I-70 E. (545.3 miles) 15) Take the I-70 EAST/KANSAS TURNPIKE exit on left towards LAWRENCE/KANSAS CITY. (0.3 miles) 16) Merge onto I-70 TOLL E. (35.5 miles) 17) I-70 TOLL E becomes I-70 E. (20.2 miles) 18) Take the I-670 exit on left. (4.1 miles) 19) Merge onto I-70 E. (228.9 miles) 20) Take the I-270 exit (0.2 miles) 21) Take the I-270 NORTH exit on left towards CHICAGO. (0.9 miles) 22) Merge onto I-270 N. (29.7 miles) 23) Turn SLIGHT LEFT onto I-70 E. (213.3 miles) 24) Take the I-74 WEST/I-465 NORTH exit (0.3 miles) 25) Merge onto I-465 N. (14.9 miles) 26) Take the exit. (0.2 miles) 27) Take the I-465 EAST/US-52 EAST exit. (0.2 miles) 28) Merge onto I-465 E. (5.3 miles) 29) Take the US-31/MERIDIAN ST. exit (0.4 miles) 30) Keep LEFT at the fork in the ramp. (0.1 miles) 31) Turn SLIGHT LEFT onto US-31 N. (36.4 miles) 32) Turn LEFT onto E ALTO RD. (0.1 miles) 33) Turn RIGHT onto S LAFOUNTAIN ST. (0.8 miles) 34) S LAFOUNTAIN ST becomes S WASHINGTON ST. (1.8 miles) 35) Turn RIGHT onto W MARKLAND AVE. (0.0 miles) 36) Turn LEFT onto S WASHINGTON ST. (0.7 miles) You will know that you arrived if the only remarkable thing in the surrounding landscape is some huge red and white gas tank about the same size as the Empire State Building. Actually, it is not that big, but the rest of the landscape is so flat that in comparison, the Empire State Building seems almost invisible. And the Empire State Building is not painted in red and white, as if jet pilots would otherwise think this big thing is someone else's problem. Centers Of Interest ------------------- The creatures of Kokomo have created a unique model of the Universe, in which there are only two entities from which everything else derives: the Car and the Corn. Luckily, the Car and Corn model correctly describes their region of the Galaxy. Huge factories busily assemble car components that will soon be destroyed in gigantic stock-car races at the nearby Indianapolis circuit. The rest of the ground, that is the surface which does not contain car factories or car destruction areas, is occupied by growing cereals, such as corn. Cereals are so ubiquitous that, except in the vicinity of the Indianapolis circuit, their smell disputes it even to car exhaust fumes. Before visiting Kokomo, you would probably not even notice that cereals smell. After visiting Kokomo, you will wish they would not. Beyond watching car stock-piling at Indianapolis, the major occupation in Kokomo is watching corn grow. The third local occupation, when not watching cars self-destruct in vain attempts to escape a desperately boring oval circuit, and watching corn grow, is watching rain fall. It is amazing how much water can fall in Kokomo. When it does not rain, you generally regret it, because the average temperature is slightly above what the normal hitchhiker would be willing to tolerate. When it rains, don't bother trying to protect you the usual way: the air gets so humid that your own clothes will wet you, dripping from the inside. Otherwise, the only funny place in Kokomo is some sort of farm on the road to Indianapolis, where they have all strange sorts of animals, like kangaroos, lamas, camels, and so on. Apparently, this is not a zoo. These animals seem to be there waiting to be eaten, but this is just a wild and totally uninformed guess. Anyway, this is probably useful information to the lost hitchhiker, who might find here a proper means of transportation. Of course, this applies best to hitchhikers of a species small enough to hide in a kangaroo's pocket. Where To Go ----------- Finding a hotel in Kokomo is not necessarily difficult. The real problem is surviving it. Fortunately, the presence of the large car factories draw a few foreigners on business trip in Kokomo. Hotels tend to know intuitively that corporate travelers will often pay an unreasonable amount of money for low-quality lodging. This, combined with a healthy lack of competition, ensures that all two hotels of Kokomo will be too expensive for the average hitchhiker. Take this as a rather fortunate event, since not staying in these hotels will significantly increase your survival chances. If you insist on using the hotels, here are a few tips from a survivor. Upon arrival, have your Guide handy. Showing it will not give you any discount, but at least, you will have something to read while waiting for someone to take care of you. Start reading from letter A, and you will probably be reading the article on Zygomatics for the second time before the person at the counter finally gives up his or her attempt to discourage you from waiting. From experience, a huge pile of luggage does not help to reduce the waiting time. If you stay long enough you will have mushrooms growing on every available surface. Mushrooms tend to be extremely prolific in the humid atmosphere of Kokomo. On the other hand, watching guests move their heavy luggage around is one of the rare distractions for hotel staff in Kokomo, so don't expect them to help you and reduce their fun. One of the hotels in Kokomo made an interesting innovation by locating the guest rooms in the basement, with a tiny window that gives you a perfect view of the exhausts of parked cars. You will soon discover that this window does not open, since the most normal reaction of an oxygen-breathing being when entering an hotel room in Kokomo is to grasp for fresh air. This is essentially because "Non smoking room" has a different meaning there. It means that there is no longer enough oxygen left from previous smokers to allow you to light up an additional cigarette, so the room is temporarily tagged "Non smoking". The ominous air conditioning device is of little use, because its fan consumes all available electrical power solely for the production of noise. My personal first reaction was to jump to the floor and crawl for cover under the bed, until I realized it was not an earthquake but the way this remarkable device encouraged me to save electricity and accept the local temperature as a immutable fact. An alternate solution for the sensitive nose is to ask to the counter if you could have an ambient smell for your non-smoking room other than "Cigarette by Marlboro". Most other hotels where I tried that immediately crumble in apologies and offer you another room, and then give you a courtesy drink to accept waiting while fourteen employees move your belongings from one room to the next. In Kokomo, after you insist a lot, you get an annoyed someone might say "OK, OK, we will do something. Just wait in your room". Exactly one hour later, long after your brain gave up fighting against nicotine and happily started creating nice-looking hallucinations for your enlightenment, someone enters your room using their pass (why bother knocking?), stares at you saying "Oh, you're here" in a tone that leaves no doubt about the total lack of sympathy, and then starts spraying around a rather toxic chemical, which makes you regret the cold tobacco perfume. Then, the employee says "You should not stay there, it will be unpleasant for an hour or two", and disappears. Since you have no choice, you decide to try the swimming pool (closed for repair -- but the sign indicating this has been there for so long that it would need repair itself), the restaurant (there is none), the fitness center (under construction), the bar (the TV is broken, or maybe it is just that you can't receive TV from there, but the local beverages make up for interesting chemical analysis experiments; just don't try to drink them). So you end up on the parking lot, watching the rain fall. When you re-enter your room two hours later, you can discover that the chemical and tobacco have blended together almost perfectly, ensuring you a very unpleasant night trying not to breathe. Food ---- The local cuisine consists mostly of hot-fried grease served on dirty plates. There is no notion of "wine". When you ask for wine, you get a sparkling bubbling liquid, reportedly made from various other southern-European beverages, which tastes like nothing else. However, this liquid is quite necessary to help you digest -- or, more accurately, dissolve -- the local food. Most digestive systems will not be strong enough, and might try to escape your body without this assistance. As said before, the hotels don't have restaurants. In addition, restaurants in Kokomo are not located near the hotels, but rather just far enough away that you will be soaked by rain if you walk there, and just close enough that the time it takes to start your car (it takes a while when there is more water than oxygen in the air) will be considerable compared to the time it takes to drive there. Restaurants in Kokomo close at 9:00 PM. There is an immutable fact; argument serves no purpose. If you traveled across half the Galaxy, then half the planet, and stop in Kokomo at 9:05 PM, you are out of luck. You won't have anything to eat until the next day, no matter how much you plead or beg (bribes are likewise ineffective). Or you could wait until it rains again, and mushrooms start growing on your luggage. %e *EOA*