Phoenix, AZ

miles today: 495.7
miles total: 720.5
states driven through: CA and AZ
Greetings from Phoenix, Arizona!!
It’s approximently 10:13pm and I’ve been sitting in my hotel room for about an hour ircing. Stupid Slip.Net only listed the ISDN access numbers for Phoenix NOT analog lines. I had to dial into SF, wait 10 minutes (literally) for PSI Net’s webpage to load, grab a listing of a few more numbers locally and dial back in. I have this strange feeling that even though the call was local, I’m going to be charged for it. Oh well 🙂
Depending on how you look at it, I’m either ahead of schedule or behind schedule. First off, I didn’t leave SF till almost 4pm Friday evening. I was to drive to San Diego last night and then start the massive haul this morning, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it into SD till late and I was concerned about my health. I got as far as Bakersfield last night (224 miles from Oakland) and wrote for about four hours watching cheesy movies on the tee-vee. I didn’t fall asleep until late and woke up a few hours later at 5am, rarin’ to go. By the time I did get up and get my shit together, ate and left, it was almost noon. I was on the road today for about 8 hours and finally started screaming “HELLALUIAH!” when I crossed over into AZ. I even called Shelly when I did that because I was just soo happy to be out of that fucking state.
I’m surprised that I’m tired — I mean, honestly, I don’t see how sitting on your ass for extended amounts of time can be tiring — the energy I felt when I was cruising towards Phoenix made me want to almost drive to Tucson (another 100 miles). In a way, I’m glad I didn’t, because once I got into the hotel room and threw my shit around, I was yawning left and right.
So far, the drive has been fine. I’m not bored out my head like I thought I was (though I already can see that I’m being bored with my 96 packed CDs). I hit major traffic getting out of Oakland (by the 580/680 exchange) and it took me nearly an hour to move 10 miles. I was so stressing last night that my head was pounding to the point where I had to (literally) start talking to myself to voice my problems. But today was a lot better and I’m hoping tomorrow is yet still better. 🙂
I’ve stopped about every 2 hours (per doctors orders) to walk, write and get some fresh air. I’ve been doing a lot of writing and wrote quite a bit last night. What I am going to do on this trip is give moments of clarity when they come forth. I mean, driving 200 miles in Arizona desert territory isn’t exactly Pulitzer prize winning stuff, but my thoughts along the trip will be. 🙂 And if I stop at one more Dennys, I’m going to scream!
* * * * * * *
100 miles into the trip
I was bopping along to something in my cd player and a smile played upon my lips — I felt giddy with excitement — I started shivering in anticipation. This IS a grand adventure. How many people can say they’ve driven cross country — alone? I looked at the speedometer. I had driven 16 miles from “home”.
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“You are a Californian as I am a Texan” – Jaffo
“And Olive Garden is high falutin dining.” -me
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Somewhere, back there, in the open fields along I-5, I saw a very young calf running along with its mother. I glanced quickly at the car ahead of me and the car behind me and noticed that they too were watching my future pair of shoes gallop clumsily along.
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“The energy created during sexual intercourse is roughly the equivilant to climbing two flights of stairs. Get ready to walk up the Empire State Building.” — Durex Condom ad in this weeks Rolling Stone.
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343.8 miles into the trip
I’m somewhere near Palm Springs. Sometimes I have the intelligence of a dork: blank pants + black car + driving across the South Western US == hot and sweaty Lisa.
On the way from Bakersfield to LA, I started bopping around to Sarah McLachlan. “one does not listen to Sarah when one drives through LA,” I think to myself, “one listens to NIN!” And I threw in The Fragile and cranked “StarFuckers, INC” appropriately.
Sometimes my own naivety amazes me. Upon seeing the Welcome to LA sign, it was like I expected all my favorite stars to be hanging out on I-5 just waving at me as I sped across. I had half a mind to drive to Beverly Hills (90210 baybee!) but didn’t. Somewhere near San Beradino, I started playing car tag with two cute guys in an electric blue Del Sol. It was fun crisscrossing the five lane highway for about 10 miles. They left me a few miles to go to a rest stop.
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6:15 pm
I’m still in fucking California! Blyth California! Goddamnit, am I ever getting out of this state?
6:20 pm
Lisa calls Shelly to tell her that she is now safely in the state of Arizona.
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And now it is late and I am getting more tired as I type. I have mapped out my plan tomorrow and it looks like, if I get up earlier than noon that is, that I will be in Abilene, Texas. Woofuckingwoo. I had hoped to get to Dallas, but Dallas is 1100 miles from Phoenix — uh no Dallas for Lisa. I will be getting into Atlanta on Tuesday as presumed, I just don’t know WHEN!
The one thing that amazed the hell out of me, was that since it started getting dark at about 6:30, my whole trip into AZ was in darkness. The cool thing was that speed limit is 75 in AZ (which means one can do 80 safely *g*) and I did 256 miles in four hours (seeing as I had called shelly to tell her how far I was from phoenix at 4:15,called her at 6:15 when I crossed the border and rolled in at 8:15pm ish into the hotel. The drive tomorrow is going to be from Phoenix to Abilene,TX and that is about 800 miles. Wooha.
But anyway, the sky was pitch black and since there is literally no light pollution (small “towns” between Blyth and Phoenix), the stars were so close, it looked like I could almost reach up and touch them.
x0x0x0x,
Lisa