Go West, Young Men
(listening to: Strutter '78, Kiss)
I must start by saying that I am an idiot. If it weren't for Jeff, I never would have made it to California, and if it weren't for Brandy and Rebekah and Mac and Sam, Jeff and I might not have ever left Jackson at all, let alone only 10 hours behind schedule. So, thanks to all.
Day One
That said, we finally did head out of Jackson a little before 10:00 p.m., CST, on Tuesday, July 26, after an astounding 14 hours of moving furniture on what not-so-ironically turned out to be the hottest day of the year for Central Mississippi. Good times. So, we picked up a nice healthy dinner at Wendy's and hit the road, whereupon Jeff asked me if I had any special "leaving town" songs I wanted to play on the way out. I immediately played "Leaving Town" by Dexter Freebish. Then I played "California" by Phantom Planet, better known as the theme song from The O.C. I then asked Jeff if he had any special "leaving town" songs he wanted to play (even though he has never lived in Jackson nor spent more than 3 days at a time there), and he immediately played a Pearl Jam song that I can't remember. Jeff loves Pearl Jam. We then got much less philosophical with our music choices for the time being and put the iPod on shuffle, letting the hands of fate attempt to satisfy our musical appetites, and, for the most part, succeed.
We got to Ross's place in Arlington around 4:30 a.m., CST, on Wednesday, July 27. Ross was, predictably, wide awake, and we were shown to our respective couches. I'm pretty sure I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. We were awakened around noon to pizza and diet cokes, and we ended up hitting the road around 1:45. The trip odometer looked like this:
Day Two
This was definitely the strangest day of driving I've ever been involved with. Most of the day was rainy and misty, not in a dangerous way, but in a way that seemed very atypical of West Texas, but thankfully knocked out the possibility of my car overheating and stranding us somewhere in the desert. Speaking of West Texas, I think we were actually in Texas for like 37 hours between Dallas and El Paso. Is that possible?? Good Lord, that is a big-ass expanse of nothingness. The iPod Gods were handling our music selection, which seemed to be fine, although I can't really remember anyof what we listened to that day at all. Also, I wasn't really feeling too sporty, as I had picked up a little of the itis somewhere along the way and spent the better part of the afternoon/evening sneezing and making really weird noises that old Jews make with their throats.
By the time we got to El Paso we decided 2 things: we needed dinner (it was close to 11:00, I think), and we needed to keep driving all the way to Tuscon. Both were doable, as we found a truck stop with a Wendy's (spicy chicken combo #2 for this trip) just outside of Las Cruces, and then we cruised through the rest of New Mexico, and by the time we got to Tuscon and found our Motel 6 (neither of us had ever stayed in a Motel 6 before, so we figured, what the hell, let's through caution to the wind), it was close to 2:00 a.m., PST, which meant that we had driven close to 14 hours, covering 1,000 miles and crossed 2 time zones.
As soon as we got to the hotel room, we took turns abusing the bathroom. Between last weekend at the Isle of Capri in Biloxi and this Motel 6 in Tuscon, I'm surprised the feds weren't after us on some sort of 5 state spree of felonious assault on hotel/restaurant bathrooms. We were like Billy Joe and Bobby Sue in Steve Miller's "Take the Money and Run," only different. I guess that's what happens when you ingest a steady diet of Wendy's, Coca-Cola products, and beef jerky.
Speaking of beef jerky - don't all good stories start that way?? - Jeff and I were at odds as to which brand of jerky to purchase, somewhere probably close to either Midland or Odessa, so we decided to each buy a different brand and have an impromptu taste test, which we spontaneously and immaturely dubbed "The Jerk-Off." We opened our respective bags and tasted our own brand first, me with my Jim Beam brand beef jerky (really, does it get any better than that?? ever??) and Jeff with his Pemmican brand. We were both initially impressed with our own choices, and then it came time for the old switcheroo. Wow, was I undermatched. Jeff's Pemmican Jerky was the clear-cut winner, hands down, but at least I still had a bag of Jim Beam Beef Jerky. And sometimes, that's all that matters.
Anyway, we crashed and slept until about 10 or so, and when we got back in the car, we realized that our trusty trip odometer only goes to 999.9 miles, and then resets to zero, so the trip odometer the next morning looked like this, but you're going to have to add 1,000 miles to the running total:
Day Three
This was a fun one. After waking up, we decided to hit Waffle House for breakfast. As this was going to be my last Waffle House experience for quite some time, I took full advantage (with little to no regard for the poor unsuspecting victim somewhere up the road). Since this was our last day of driving, we decided to make it a "by request" iPod day rather than a "shuffle up and leave it to fate to decide" day. I kicked things off with Wilco's "Hotel Arizona," for obvious reasons, then we picked up some medicine for the itis at Walgreen's and got the Hell out of Dodge. Twenty minutes later, for reasons that will go unstated here, I needed to stop. I told Jeff to keep his eyes peeled for a Cracker Barrell, because "it's the only bathroom I know I can trust." Eight miles up the road, we found one, and shortly thereafter, I was right as rain.
We drove on and hit Phoenix about 30 minutes later, and we started to argue about where the Phoenix Suns played their home games. Neither of us had any real idea, which was strange, because we're both pretty big basketball fans. Turns out it's America West Arena, but I only know that because I just Googled it. Phoenix seemed boring, and we weren't hungry, as we had just filled our bellies with eggs and hash browns about 60 miles back, so we had no real reason to stop.
We did stop for an extended lunch break at the next town we saw, which was Avondale, which was something like 15 miles past Phoenix. It's amazing what the fear of being hungry in the unknown desert will do to your ability to pack even more food in like a squirrel stocking up for the very, very hot winter. After a quick (and I mean quick) burger and lots of fries at Red Robin, we decided to rest up at Borders for a little while. If nothing else, it would give us a chance to wreak a little more havoc on some innocent porcelain. While there, I started reading Chuck Klosterman's "Killing Yourself To Live," which I have since finished and would recommend to ANYONE who likes music even a little bit, and likes to read excellent writing.
Anyway, back on the road in Arizona, and we began to notice signs that said:
May exist? Have they not been proven to exist? We were pretty sure we'd seen them on this drive. Is there some sort of X-Files type of division of the FBI dedicated to proving the existence of dust storms?? Anyway, once inside California, we started seeing signs that said:
I knew it! They do exist!! Someone in California should tell the folks in Arizona. The truth is out there.
The rest of the drive was pretty anticlimactic, as we were still a good couple of hours away from our destination, yet the desert scenery in Arizona was much prettier and more majestic than in California. One thing California sure does have, though, is an abundance of windmills. This must be where Miguel de Cervantes smoked his first hit of the old left-handed cigarette. It was like some sort of alien race of windmills, marching over mountains and through valleys in perfect formation. Weird, man.
Musically, Day Three was a good one. After lunch, we got back on track with our iPod selection and played a little Doors, which seemed like the right thing to listen to while cruising through the desert. Once we got into California, The Best of The Doors winded down JUST IN TIME, as we pulled off the interstate into Josuha Tree National Park. We got some great pictures that I'll post shortly. Of course, it almost goes without saying that we immediately played U2's Joshua Tree album in its entirety. Next we needed a little California attitude, so we listened to N.W.A.'s Greatest Hits (which might sound like a bit of an oxymoron), and before we knew it, we were still like 2 hours from LA. Dammit, this was a long drive.
Anyway, long story short, we made it to LA around 9:30 p.m., PST on Thursday, July 28, and because (as I mentioned before) I'm an idiot, I forgot to get a final picture of the trip odometer, but I imagine we were right around 1,900 miles on the drive.
Just to reiterate, without Jeff, none of this would have been remotely possible, and I'd probably still be somewhere in West Texas, waiting for my transmission to be replaced and trying not to get shot.
I am going to take a nap. This was almost as exhausting to write as it was to live.
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