rough it

Okay I'm in Houston and Rebecca is helping me figure out what, exactly, to write here.

Like, I'm a week behind or so, and what should be included?

Rebecca says that I should absolutely include the name of the muffler repair shop in El Centro, CA: Desert Muffler, motto, "No Muff Too Tuff." The man, Freddy, said to go to the restaurant two blocks down and he would call me there. I did, and he did, after I ordered a footlong breakfast burrito (chorizo, cheese, potatoes).

The muffler is fine, everyone, have a little faith. It was rusted from when my uncle owned the car and lived in Boston and the salt splashed up and ate it away.


I walked to the library, didn't update this blog. I think I just enjoyed being on the internet.


The ultimate irony is that El Centro, California, is the center of nothing at all. Not cultural or geographical.

I drove through Imperial Sands something or other, where they filmed the desert scenes of the original Star Wars pictures. This reminded me of Wylie's friend Charlie, who is a big Star Wars fan. We stayed at his house in Georgia, once, and we stayed in the Star Wars room. I have my own memories of Star Wars but Charlie came up. Wondered, Has he ever visited Imperial Sands? He should. Look at where the tall dunes meet the sky and expect C3PO and R2D2 to beep beep over the hills.




I spent the night near some petroglyphs in Arizona. I was supposed to pay $8 but I didn't, and I was paranoid. The wind was so incredibly strong that I couldn't pitch my pathetic childrens' tent. I slept in my car and that was okay, not great. I don't do well sleeping on a hard surface, though I wish I could. This night also marked the first occasion where I misplaced my keys in a serious way.

They were in my bra, in the end. But I was worried. I thought I had an extra, but I tried it out and it was for another car, my parents' Accord. So, shit.

Other times I have misplaced my keys:

-In the desert at White Sands National Monument. I found them on a hill where I attempted a sand-angel.
-In the trash in San Antonio KOA. I accidentally put them with a head of lettuce I was disposing.


You have to understand that this is pretty good for me. I lose things all the time, and I'm in the habit of checking for keys, wallet, phone each time I change locations. But still it's not enough. Well. I do okay. The key to life is just knowing your own limitations. One of mine is this: sometimes I put my keys in my bra for safekeeping and then completely forget about it.

I tried to cook the cactus at the painted rocks. But the wind was so strong that when I poured the gasoline into the cooker, the gasoline flew all over the cactus. Lucky that it didn't spill onto me, I guess. But it ruined my cactus!

There was a bathroom nearby but I tried to rough it behind a rock. I really wanted to. But the only place that provided enough cover from the two other RVs was located adjacent to a hole in the ground that looked like it might house a brown recluse spider. No roughing it.

Texas loves you

I vowed that I would not spend another night in a hotel. I would find cheaper accommodations, and since I wasn't willing to do anything lower quality than the Rusty Skeez-pile Motel in GA, I would camp.

The first failed camp attempt I learned: never go looking for a campsite with anything less than a full tank of gas. The second failed attempt, I learned: never go looking for a campsite later than 5 pm.

I'm not a moron, usually. But I think I so desperately wanted this trip to be as un-planned as possible. And I learned the price for spontaneity is $95 a night.

I aimed for Texas.

Texas is like the threatening, mysterious friend of your parents. You can't predict him. Is he going to be cool and let you play king of the mountain in the basement? Or is he going to yell at you if you knock over a glass and threaten to hit you with his belt?

East Texas, is, not surprisingly, a lot like west Louisiana. But then it slowly gets drier and lighter in color, slowly fading. The trees are replaced with stubborn-looking shrubs. It was exciting. I have been to Houston once, and that is my only experience with Texas.

I approached Dallas out of necessity. It was too long to go around it. I had heard things about Dallas--that it was not cool, that it was horrible. This is almost exactly what I picture when I think of Dallas:



The criss-crossing overpasses were nothing compared to the evil that lay in store. I noticed that the sky was beginning to look like an egg carton. From what I remembered from Earth Science, this was very bad. Clouds are usually flat on the underside.



It was seriously Biblical. The sky was sort of green, too. I turned on the radio to hear if there were tornado warnings. No, but they warned of hail.

HAIL. HAIL YES. I drove through a maelstrom. Wind, torrential rain. Traffic was stopped so I could do nothing but sit in my car and think about animals being pelted with pea-sized hail.

The hail stopped, but the rain continued for another hour. And here's the best part of travelling. You just leave when it gets bad. Raining? Drive past the rain. When I finally saw the sun peeking through the clouds, I felt a renewed sense of freedom and promise. I celebrated by going to Dairy Queen.

Turned north at Abeline, drove up and through small towns where people looked at me as I drove by. I don't rememeber what I was thinknig when I took this pic. Probably something like, "Wow that looks just like what I thought the West would look like!"



Same here.



I did pass this sign.



I found the campsite fairly easily. The book said it was free, but there was a self-serve permit station, and it cost $6 to camp. You filled out the date and your license plate on an envelope and filled it with money. Probably no one in the area does this. Probably I am the only one. But I filled the envelope with quarters, because I'm a good person. And also I was imagining the ranger opening an envelope full of quarters.

They had four campsites on White River Lake. I picked the one farthest away from the road, so I wouldn't be bothered, and so no one would see me try and assemble my tent. My $20 children's tent from Walmart. I have to sleep in it diagonally.

One small lack of forethought: Lakes are filled with mosquitos. I wore my hoodie, jeans, and shoes, though it was like 70 degrees. Even still a few found their way inside.

I set up my little stove. I made my little Lipton side Fettucine Alfredo (not bad). I did some puzzles, and I tried to sleep. But did you know that ducks make sounds like braying donkeys? Maybe a mating thing.

The site was awesome, but I couldn't find a good angle. So the next morning I decided to take a video. I plan on uploading it, but I'm currently having trouble.

And one last thing. The roads were mostly empty. But when I passed a truck (always a truck), I noticed that the driver lifted up his or her finger from the steering wheel, the way you might do to say "Thank you for letting me go" or "hey there, I have the right of way, as indicated by this yield sign, which I point at for your convenience." Except every truck on the road did it to me. Finally I realized they were saying hi. What on earth. I did it back a few times.