Save me, I want a life...

Leaving santa fe, there’s really not much to say about it. It’s just a drive. A bad mood takes away from the view of the mountains rising around the city. On a nice Sunday morning, there aren’t many people traveling the roads. The silence of the road, the city, the crisp, cold morning. Makes me feel a little better. Eins takes the backseat gladly, and begins her daily ritual of being sleepy and bored. The sky’s a bit clouded over, but sadly any hope the desert has for rain just isn’t going to happen. We push onwards, past red rocks, super blitzing, and the dense church traffic that popped up later on.



I get the sensation that a drunk linebacker is gonna bum rush my car…



It’s amazing how much better things look in life when you’re on your way down.



Flagstaff begins to draw closer. The end of the world. “Come on baby, light my fire!”
We pull and we push and we come to a fork in the road. On onwards towards LA and my stop for the night. The other towards Phoenix, my old destination, my old future. Yeah, the one I kinda screwed up? I pass by the exit, jaw clenched and knuckles white. Things are already kinda bumming as is. A night of rest will make things all better.

Eighteen degrees…at seven o’clock.
Eighteen degrees. Eins won’t leave my sleeping bag, not that I want her to, but that last walk was a pain to get in. At least I had a plugin and wireless. Knocked out a book in a single evening too. How lucky eh’?

Rise to the fresh morning. What time is it? One clock says 5, the other 6. Let’s split it and call it 5:30. Let’s just call it time to go back to sleep.

Rise to a semi-fresh morning. What time is it now? 6:30. Time for…ah screw it. Back to sleep we go.



Rise to a stale morning, cold as hell, at 7. The tent is a pain to put up with hands threatening to snap into nice little fragments. Maybe one will lodge in my skull. Packed up, ready to go, put the faintest thought of Phoenix behind me as I head north, to one hell of a big, beautiful hole.



Once I get Photoshop handy again, I’ll post some panoramas, since things are usually better when you can let eyes wander a looooooooong way. You can’t tell in these pictures, but it was lightly snowing. For being a big ass hole, this place has some altitude.



Also, I got this nifty national parks pass. Most parks as I understand have a $25 fee per person. This pass was $50, and I had a few more parks on my list, so figured I might as well make a lil investment.



Miles away from anywhere on the way back from the Grand Canyon. This guy has some persistence about him. To each his own I suppose.

Vroom, vroom.


Whooo! California checkpoint. I pull over and pullout my papers. They ask me where I’m from, if I have any fruits or vegetables, and if Eins is the only dog I have. Arkansas, no, and yes. I hear one of the ladies at the checkpoint let out an “awwwwww” and the man tells me to go along. Damn Eins, you’re so cute they can’t stand the sight of you. Either way, complications have been adverted.



We were on the edge of the desert, somewhere outside Barstow, when the drugs began to take hold.



Get in!



Enthusiasm!



Enthusiasm!



Kelso, the town with two miles and doesn’t give a crap. Oh I slay me.

A mostly uneventful night in Barstow, aside from me getting a beautiful self guided tour of the city. California drivers don’t dick around, and it’s kinda refreshing. When I got into my first crowded situation, I gripped the wheel, downshifted, and repeated my crazy driver mantra.

“Be like Mike, be like Mike, be like Mike”. Brake only when absolutely needed. Check. Never leave fourth gear. Check. Lose all fear of death. Check. Gas depressed all the way. Check. I think I did a pretty good job, considering that when I stopped at the hotel Eins had a death-chomp on the Oh Shit! Handle.



Guinness, it’s for the soul!