7.27.2005

Day 1 - L.A. to Alb. - Part 1

I didn't sleep the night before we left. I wish I could say it was because of nerves, excitement, maybe I'd eaten too much at my going away party and couldn't get comfortable. But the fact of the matter was that I wasn't fully packed yet. Completely unprepared, I still needed to pack up my luggage, clean my room and throw away a lot of shit that I'd accumulated. So I couldn't sleep because I still had things to do. So the night before we left, I pulled an all-nighter to get myself ready to go. It was so boring, really sad and totally unworthy of mentioning again. Suffice it to say, I am extremely happy that the night was over.

Around 4am I called my mother, I knew she'd be up and I was so needing to talk to someone. We talked while I continued throwing a lot of crap away and she was my company until I went to pick up Santiago around 5am. While I was going from my apartment to the dumpster and back again, all I kept thinking about was that I hoped I wasn't killed. Some background information: my apartment was broken into, my car hit, and the sound of helicopters in my neighborhood is a common one. What was so freaky was the silence and the realization that anyone could pop out of the darkened bushes and attack me. So I have to admit that part of my motivation for calling my mom as I started to throw my crap away, was for security reasons. She'd know what happened to me if a psycho came out of the bushes. My biggest threat: a coyote (or rabid dog, whatever they have in the fucking boonies), walking through my parking lot. He was a minor disturbance as I didn't see him again before I left.

I picked up Santi, we packed up the car and we were on our way. I drove first and I was tired. Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrred: is probably a better description. We drove into the sunrise, with the blinding light bordering on dangerous in the way it obscured my vision. Getting out of California took forever and it was really boring. Things got prettier once we hit Arizona. The landscape took on lots of red, burnt orangish undertones, with lots of rocks as well. A change of scenery from the flatlands of Cali. We hit the Grand Canyon around noon, and I'm here to report that it is indeed...a grand canyon. It was a bit fuzzy when we got there, remnants of a nearby fire we believe, but it was still pretty amazing. I didn't realize how big it was, about a 4 hour drive from the South or the North (we were at the Southern part), and you can even see the Colorado River going through it. It's amazing to know that the river is so powerful and timeless in it's destructive capablities.

(What else is timeless in its destructive capabilities is inept drivers on the road. We saw a lot of those on our journey. The least of which were in CA and AZ. I think Texas wins on that front, but that's another story.)

We left around 1:30 and hit the road for NM. I'll get into that tomorrow.

1 Comments :

Anonymous Anonymous said:

i didn't picture you living out in the boonies

:0-)

7/28/2005 6:47 PM  

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