C3Q Dispatch- Sept 23, 2026

REBEL RODDER (RR) ROAD DISPATCH #1: “Blue Skies & An Empire State Of Mind”

DAY ONE: Wednesday, September 23, 2026 / Departure Time—4:33 pm

STATE #1: Albany, New York / Empire State Plaza / First Posting—7:56 pm (1/1)

This is the day! After a two year-delay, the day has finally come. Originally scheduled for April 8, 2024, during the second “Great American Solar Eclipse,” which the “Path of Totality” ran through Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse just north of my Central New York rural home of Virgil in Cortland County. However, the Chrysler Corporation backed out of the production of their previously advertised 2024 Dodge Challenger EV muscle car (for whatever reason), which was the initial reason for the second “Cross Country Challenger Quest (C3Q),” to do the ultimate “shakedown run” to test its long range capabilities in a titanic transcontinental trek to all 48-contiguous states of America. I had hoped that the delays were due to the 2020 pandemic and the subsequent workers’ strike a few years later. I even called my local Dodge dealership to be placed on their waiting list, but it was never built. Pity. Especially considering it was going to outperform any and all internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. So, was it Trump and his administration’s adamant adversarial position against anything and everything green energy? Possibly. But considering oil and gas prices have been on the rise since the start of the Iran War, it just might time to return to their original plans and the national petition drive campaign I am launching will perhaps be the populist push they need to resurrect the Dodge EV Challenger.

Nevertheless, I proceeded for different reasons, which are described on the “Afterword” in my newly released coffee table art book “THE REBEL RODDER: A Race Against The Descending Sun Of Democracy Through A Cross Country Challenger Quest (C3Q) To Set A New Street Art World Record,” on sale now for $65 on my website at (TheRebelRodder.com). Coincidently, this year marks the 10^th Anniversary of that first epic excursion. And you can read the book to learn how it all began….

Today begins with unusually clear and cloudless blue September skies (an oddity that would continue throughout this entire first full day of fall in upstate New York). We left our home in Virgil, NY at approximately 4:33 pm but not before saying our goodbyes to our good neighbor, Tom Walden, who vouched to be so kind to keep an eye on our home while we were gone and wished us to have “happy and safe travels.” Shortly thereafter we travelled onto Route 13 heading north towards I-81 to Syracuse before heading East on I-90. On we drove with two large (3’ x 5’) flags—first one is a red/white/black “1776 We The People” and the second was (also r/w/b) a custom made one that reads: “ZXC/The Rebel Rodder/The Cross Country Challenger Quest 2 (C3Q II).” As we drove through our small Cortland city of about 50,000 people, we got some perplexed mixed reactions, while also smiles and thumbs up of approval, perhaps a taste of things to come.

After about two-and-half hours of driving averaging a speed of 75 mph we reached Albany, the state capitol of New York around 7:00 pm. We got some curious and enamored pedestrians coming up close to my nitrous equipped, phantom black, white and red pinstriped 2010 Dodge 6.1 Challenger SRT8. We took advantage of their attraction and asked to get their full name, signature and contact information for our Guinness World Record (GWR) witness log. (Along with receipts, media and visual documentation, we are required to get at least two contacts per state to be able to verify our whereabouts).

After giving them our business cards and talking to a few people who expressed great awe and admiration for our audacious adventure, we proceeded as planned to the underground concourse underneath “The Empire State Plaza,” with the intention to do a “Banskyesque” posting by spray-pasting my black-red-and-white “ZXC Insignia Poster” (which you can read about its origins in volume one of “THE LAST TOME: A Sextet Synthology—The S3K Project (The Integral Art Trilogy),” which will be released in 17 daily installments over the next 17 days along with volume II—Project S3K (The Integral Activist Trilogy),” for a combined 5,500 pages—making it one of the largest titanic treatise ever compiled in modern artistic and intellectual history. But I digress.

So our initial plans to spray-paste my insignia poster next to an official modern work art in the concourse exhibit hall of famous paintings and sculptures like the “notorious” UK street artist, “Banksy” did at an art museum, were quickly thwarted as we witnessed multiple police and security officers patrolling the grounds and manning security cameras. No way, I thought to myself, was I going to start my titanic trek with a night in jail and jeopardize the overall mission before I even really got started. So we moved on and walked up to the outside plaza where we knew a gigantic “Egg” auditorium lay awaiting us. When got there, only small amount of tourists and their buses were present. No cops, no security (at least what could be casually seen). Perfect. Now I scanned the night landscape for my first spray-pasting, which is what I refer to using spray-adhesive aerosol cans instead of the more messy and cumbersome wheat pasting that street artist like Shepard Fairey use.

The key is to find a good surface area to paste and an eye-catching background. Plan B was to use “The Egg” as such a striking backdrop but there was nothing to post on to allow for such a photographic and video scene. Instead, I found a metal trash container with the four “monolith-like-towers” illuminating the night sky. I cleaned the surface area with a red rag and spray-pasted before preparing the posters themselves as my partner and wife, Zoraya, video and photographed me in action for perhaps a future documentary and second street art coffee table book tentatively called “The Second Race Against The Descending Suns.”

Success! We did it without interference or capture. We would now proceed to celebrate our first pasting by grabbing a late dinner at “Oaxaquena Triui” Mexican restaurant where we would also get our first receipt and two witness log participants. A good night and ahead of schedule of our first posting night 10 years ago on August 12, 2016. Next stop: Bennington, Vermont.

We arrived and checked in at the “New Englander Inn” on 220 Northside Dr., 05201, at approximately 11:30 pm. We paid a total of $107.91 for the night but not before having a long but very interesting and “controversial” conversation that he asked to be left out of this entry for fear of federal law enforcement retaliation, but suffice it to say it was very intriguing. In addition, he was so nice and accommodating that he not only gave us a hotel discount and signed our witness log but also gave me a vanilla envelop that I requested to store my receipts. In search for a full, two-sided-page flyers of both the book and the project I surprisingly found some 8 x 10 color photos of my Challenger during the first car quest and gave him a signed autographed copy. He was ecstatically pleased and said he was going to frame—celebrity treatment before becoming famous. I can get used to this. LOL.