white as frozen custard

First off, I'm back in Maryland, so this is all a look over my right shoulder. And I'm alive, so you can rest easy. I added pictures to things that needed pictures, starting with Los Angeles Is Cool. And I also added text here and there, so things aren't exactly the same. I'm not saying you need to reread everything, but, you know. If there's a photo it probably jogged my memory and I wrote something alongside it.

Where did I leave off? Oh, Las Cruces, banana splits in the hotel room.

The next morning I drove north. Here's the road there. They tested missiles and bombs and the like in the area.






I went to White Sands National Monument. Maybe not a surprise, but the sands are blinding, cream of wheat, Irish skin, when-doves-cry WHITE.

And as soft as a kitten. By this point my digital camera was no longer working. Sand in the lens, we figured. I bought some disposable cameras, made a promise to myself to not be stingy with film. Even still, it's a colossal disappointment.

Mostly because CVS tried their best to guess what I'm thinking. What a popular sport around these parts. So they made the white sands into yellow sands. I tried to fix the colors, but I don't own photoshop, and I have very few skills to speak of, so I did my best. As a result the white sands are a few different shades of white. Better photos can be found at the wikipedia article on the place.



Looks like I'm having fun! And that none of my clothes fit quite right?

I rented a sled from the gift shop. Actually, I bought one for $15, and if you keep your receipt they let you return it for $5. It's a ripoff, but you're helpless, because when in your life are you ever going to sled down white sand dunes?

The park is small but the hills make it feel spacious. Even when it was full of people, there was no problem finding an isolated hill to go down. I started small, on a little hill, but quickly learned that the steep hills were nothing to be afraid of. Steeper the better.

Walking through the dunes is tiring. When I was trekking up another hill, wondering whether my lack of breath was an accurate reflection of my health, a man on a motorcycle, about 50 yards away, asked me to pretend I was sledding so he could take a picture. Never mind that I was not really on top of a hill. I complied. Then he waved and drove away.

I continued. Imagine using a stairmaster in the desert--except the stairmaster is made out of soft, depthless sand. I got tired very quickly. I lay down to make a sand angel. I went down the dunes about 3 times. Seriously, that was all I could manage.

Later I went back to my car and discovered that my keys weren't in my pocket. So, awesome, they were somewhere in the desert. I was sure they were already five feet under the sand, buried by the wind. I calmly retraced my steps and they were in the spot where I collapsed and made a sand angel.

Not everyone rented a sled. One family just told the kids to rough it.



That little boy with his legs curled up in the air? I felt so bad for him. So when he came back up the hill I said, "You can borrow my sled if you take a picture of me when you're at the bottom. Deal?" He nodded in the way I imagine little boys do when talking to strange older women.



I wrote some postcards in the car. Then drove to nearby Alamogordo, where I could not find any atomic glass, though it was the only thing my dad asked me to bring back. I did get another banana split, though, from the same local chain that made the previous night's split. And I got my oil changed. While I waited I took a walk and did some word puzzles on a bench. A man asked me what I was doing and I told him the truth. It didn't seem to please him and he walked away, shaking his head.

What I should have done was waited inside the auto place, because they were showing Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I already watched a Harrison Ford movie earlier on the trip. I should have continued the trend.

I have no idea why I took this picture, but here it is:



Maybe it just seemed nice, somehow, that sad little American flag. The road out of Alamogordo, headed east, started in an environment that was the New Mexico I was used to. But then I climbed higher and higher through the mountains and trees started appearing. I went through lonely towns.

Near Elk, NM, I saw a lump on the side of the road and thought it was a hobo at first. But then it moved and ran across the road and I saw it was an elk! I didn't get a picture because I was too focused on not hitting it.

Then the land flattened out. I still felt like I was high up, somehow. I got that feeling sometimes in the West--I would be on a very flat space and still I was certain that I was on top of a plateau and that at any minute I would get to the edge and see a steep road leading down, towards the rest of the world below. Never happened. I did see a beautiful sunset that night, though. I felt at peace.



Here's a failed attempt to take a picture of a group of cows, to prove that they really do look like bears, sometimes.



Now that I'm back a handful of people have asked me, in some variation, if I found myself, or if I searched the entirety of my soul. I'm not really sure that I wanted to explore my soul on this trip. It's hard to say what I wanted. In my head the trip made such perfect sense that I often got frustrated with my inability to explain it to other people.

Here's another attempt. I just had the feeling that something more was out there. I wasn't looking for the meaning of life, or looking for something to give shape to my life. I just wanted to see what I already suspected was out there. It was as if I had already visited it all, but so long ago I barely remembered it, and I wanted to revisit and see things that would trigger long lost memories. If that makes a scrap of sense.

The East is very crowded and you go from one shopping plaza to another. Sometimes you go through little forests, and that's a nice feeling. But I imagined that the West was full of these big, open spaces that would take my breath away and replace it with an awesome peace. I was right. Seeing things was great, monuments and mountains and towns, but the spaces left the biggest impression on me.

I slept in Carlsbad, which is probably a great town if you want to go to the caverns. Otherwise, it's sort of a wasteland. I went to walmart for dinner, and bought three of my favorite items, to make up for the sort of lame motel I stayed in: Stouffers mac and cheese, a mango, and Little Debbie strawberry shortcake rolls. The latter are artificial and superdelicious, but I did once eat so many that it did prompt me to become a vegan for two weeks, a trial-run thing that I hoped would flush out my system of whatever is in those devilish little rolls.

bad snow

Oh reader, so much has happened. I have left you in the dark on purpose while I decided what to write about. First.

When I woke up in Gallup, NM, in a Walmart parking lot, my car was covered in snow. At first I thought this was great because I could change clothes in privacy. But then I tried to drive on the roads and it was nasty, a solid sheet of ice. We crawled along the freeway at 20 mph. It wasn't slow enough, and I slid around, spinning three times before gently bumping into a guardrail. I sat in shock as an SUV drove past me. The driver looked at me, a blonde woman, and I looked back at her. We said with our faces,

"I just spun around three times."
"I know."
"It was so scary."
"Should I pull over?"
"I don't think you need to."
"I would probably just crash into you if I tried to brake."
"Yeah I understand."
"Okay, little girl with the Maryland plates. Good luck."

I got out and my car is a miracle beast. Some scratches, a new shape to my license plate, the front bumper a little lower than before. I got back in and drove away.

I thought, no need to tell anyone, because they would just worry, and I probably called that. I drove west, determined to reach Los Angeles by evening.

I stopped in Flagstaff, which is one of my favorite towns thus far. Everyone was so incredibly friendly. And of course it's beautiful there. But it's beautiful everywhere out here. Even dump towns have mountains as backdrops. I wish I could have stayed longer in Flagstaff, or Arizona in general. The German had yelled at me for driving with such purpose, not seeing the Grand Canyon or anything except the road to Los Angeles. It's true, I should have stopped and seen something. But I figured I could always see the G.C. when I'm older and have a family and I take my children on a miserable car trip, if cars are still around.

As I neared the California border I went south, taking the road to Lake Havasu, which is just about the weirdest town around. Here Arizona looks a lot like how I imagined CA would look, and I kept thinking I was there. The town is on a bright blue lake, the color of what-the-hell. Everyone there is a bad driver, reckless and entitled, which worked out all right for me as it gave me practice for California. Lake Havasu also has something called London Bridge, which as far as I could tell is a fake London Bridge going through town.

I drove through Parker, AZ, where I picked up some jerky for Adam. I got three kinds: sweet & hot, teryaki, and teryaky. I called him to say I was in Parker AZ, right near the border, and would be there soon, and he let me down quickly by saying it'd be another four hours or so. I called him from a scenic overlook, near the Havasu dam or something or other. picture here.

At the California border the agriculture police took away my macintosh apples (fruit, not computers) and then I drove through a giant cloud of bats, so yeah, welcome to California.

The sun set and I tried to get a photo but the camera insisted on focusing on the salt on my windshield. I drove over a hill and suddenly a glittering--no, really, it was glittering--city lay before me. Los Angeles! The city of angels. Actually it was some other town but it looks good. And this kept happening. I'd go up through some dark winding hills, and then at the peak the view of a city, feverish, plugged in. My jaw would drop, I'd claim, "Los Angeles! The city of angels." And then I'd see a sign that said, "Bumdiddly Fark City Limits."

The driving got more aggressive, slowly. I didn't notice it at first. The car was doing fine but I noticed that at high speeds, the steering felt off somehow. Or the car just didn't feel the same. No noises, no smells. I had concerns but I kept them to myself, which worked out fine, because I was alone.

Adam is a frequent commenter to the blog and my host in Los Angeles. He lives in the city, proper, and gave me directions to his gated community. I felt safe and secure. When he met me on the street I practically fell out of my car: After one near-death-ish experience and 14 hours of driving, 3 hours of which were in the greater LA area, I was ready to take a good shower and collapse on the floor, all the while mumbling gibberish. He let me do so, and I even borrowed his conditioner, which was coconut, the standard of excellence in hair care scents.

Also, I passed through a town, can't remember the name, and it was the Flagstone capital of the world. And as for the most frightening thing on the road, the winner that day went to the road itself, for covering itself in ice and bullying me around.

green chile

The first order of business in Taos was to call the German's friend back in Germany and sing happy birthday to her, in German.

After some tacos, we eventually found the tire houses. They are called Earthships, and they are also made of cans, and they're not a bad idea, not in the least. They are self-sufficient little things, using rainwater, solar power, love.

Here is a picture of the Brit in the control room of an Earthship.



And here is a streetname in an Earthship village.



Downtown Taos is a cute little place, and they sell pink cowboy hats, as well as jerky. Also they have this little duck you can ride.



My car was still parked at the hostel in Santa Fe, so we went to get it. The Brit and I argued about the various pronunciations of things. Such as patronizing.

We made plans to go eat at the Bobcat Bite, which has famed green chile cheeseburgers. And I had been talking about them, nonstop. Brit and German tried to get me to go to Roswell with them but I said, no no no.

Then the Bobcat Bite was closed and I let out a hearty wail. Another place down the road was open and filled with cars. I did get a green chile cheeseburger there, as well as a PINT of margarita, and they were good. I still might return here to go to the Bobcat Bite. This is how seriously I take food.

We exchanged numbers and I drove west and they drove south. If you are in the Roswell region and you see a Brit and a German traveling, say hello to them.

I slept in my car in a Walmart parking lot. Before you go judging, keep in mind that Walmart encourages RVs and trucks to stay in their lot, and there were at least a dozen RVs there already, so you can just think of it as an RV park, and not a parking lot.

three is the magic number

I had some plans to, what, go west, take my time, turn around in LA. My new friends convinced me to detour to Bandelier and Taos. I did want to see Taos. Here's us outside our hostel, getting ready. Please note the mural.



Look at the road out of Santa Fe.



So in Bandelier, people used to live in caves high up on the wall. And they use ladders. It's neat, right? But did you know that they were in better shape than modern folks? The trails are easy and the views are sort of astounding. I asked The Brit, who has been traveling the national parks for 9 months, if he was jaded at all by these views. He said he wasn't.





Here is a good sign.



Here is a scene from a Robert Frost poem.



Here's a ladder going up high. We climbed a series of these, and I had to take a break. The air was so thin I couldn't quite catch my breath.



At the top the Brit gives us a historic overview of how the native people lived. He gestures thoughtfully.





I did wear my layers of clothing. And we did have a picnic of bread and croissant-type items stolen from the hostel. I introduced the idea of cream cheese and green olives. Cream cheese is called Philadelphia cheese in Europe.



Nearby is a really strange place called Los Alamos, and I'm not sure what they do there, but it involves: 1) the military 2) secrets 3) nuclear things. Lots of anti-war stuff going on.



We went through the checkpoint. The second checkpoint man gave us directions to the Black Hole Surplus Store.



Here they sell everything you could need if you were building a time machine. Motors, cables, chips, sprockets, nuts, bolts, hard hats, ticker tape machines, hot plates, magnets, tubes, coils, appliances, and filing cabinets. Also a nice basket of cassette tapes, 10 for $12. But the man let me have two tapes (an handmade mix called "Country" and The Cars) for fiddy cents. He also gave me a 60's looking timer that doesn't work. It says "NO GOOD" on the top. If all things had such a label.

One man at the store was cool and showed us a magic trick involving a magnet ball and copper tubing. Another guy told us that we, being English, German, and American, would all at one point have been killed as enemies of the state. It was pretty confusing actually. And a woman there told us to go two hours away to see Tinkertown. No one had heard of the rubber tire house.

Oh let me back up. Taos is famous for a few things. It is near a pueblo, it is near a huge gorge, and it is near a rumored land where the homes are made of tires and cans.

The gorge view was, as the book said it would be, mind boggling.



We sang "Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water." Here the Brit and the German are on the bridge, kicking snow at each other.




The Brit wanted a hotel room to watch the Grand Prix (pronounced Graynd Priks) but we never did see it. And the History channel was showing Pearl Harbor, and the German had never heard Josh Harnett's real voice, so that's how I ended up struggling to defend American culture in a Super 8 in Taos, New Mexico.

good snow

When I was driving to Santa Fe, it was snowing, but I didn't believe it. I just refused. I went south to escape the snow.

The hostel there was packed with folks. I sat in the main room while some Americans dressed like lumberjacks played guitar. I wrote in my diary, repeated sentiments expressed here such as I wish I were good at small talk, were the kind of person whom strangers talk to. Later I found myself trapped in a conversation where a worker at the hostel talked AT me and another guest, a Brit, for some forty minutes, and the irony did not escape me.

This hostel required each guest to do a chore in the morning. I swept and mopped the floor in my little bedroom, shared with two other girls. I hadn't met either, really, and I came into the room after both were asleep so I changed in the hallway where I saw TWO large spiders.

I forgot to mention how often I think about brown recluse spiders on this trip.

The next morning my car was covered in four inches of snow. The first true miracle of the trip: I somehow thought to pack mittens, a hat, and an ice scraper. I forgave all my previous lack of forethought.



In the lounge I met other people, all travelers with plans on hold. I met the Brit (the other conversation assault victim) and the German (one of the girls in my room) and we decided to go into Santa Fe together and we did not leave each other's company for the next two days.

Saying goodbye to them was difficult. I like being alone on Da Road, but we all traveled so well together. Good travelmates are sort of like good weather. Don't question it.

In Santa Fe, I did not have the memory card in my camera. So there are no pictures of that. Downtown is full of tourists and wonderfully pretentious art galleries.

The Brit made fun of my converse. They have seen better days, no doubt, but I love them. We went to a thrift store to find me the german some warm clothes. She was wearing a hoodie from one of the guitar-playing Americans, and a heavy Polo jacket, vintage 1996, which she got from some old man. And I got some new shoes.

We made ourselves pasta at the hostel, I made some failed cookies. I talked and talked about getting a green chile cheeseburger.