HOW I SPENT MY SPRING VACATION

When I left the house I wasn't ready to leave. There was a sense that I was leaving something behind. Real or imagined. Tangible (the toenail clippers) or intangible (I don't know, I am pretty sure why I phrased the sentence that way). I was risking something. I don't know what. Maybe someone drops by the house; someone calls and wants to do something. Maybe I am abandoning something. Or a busload of college girls breakdown outside and need help a place to stay for the spring. Maybe that happens. I'm only gone for two weeks. It will still be there when I get back. The other thing. Not the college girls.

I stopped at Peet's and took a few quick pictures to tide me over until I return. Those poor people. They will suffer without my sarcasm and wit. I think at least one tear was shed. Or maybe it was the shot of steam and cinnamon in the eye.

A swift patrol through daytime idiot traffic on I-80 found my arrival at the Apple store in the Arden Fair Mall. Ah, capitalism - failed by overworked, underappreciated, unkempt employees who could not care less about your needs. From Peet's to Apple; night and day.

It took a few seconds for a decision followed by a marathon wait in a non-existent line. Serves me right for thinking other people in the store had a clue. 15 minute wait for a 45 second transaction. The only cool part was the actual transaction. A card swipe and a receipt. No plugging in or signing anything. Two days later I received an email from Apple thanking me for my purchase. I'm not really worried about my identity being stolen or my credit rating wrecked. Easily fixed.

Once back on the road I made a conscious decision to get a sense of the temperature inside the car and outside the car. For a long trip you want to make sure that you're not sacrificing sweat down your back for being a little colder with the AC on or having the dust and debris of a major highway in your nose while cracking the moon roof. The temperature was fine.

I stopped in Stockton as my truck driver bladder was not ready for the trip. I wandered into a Subway thinking that food might make me stop "zoning out". One of the downfalls of re-tooling your eating habits is when you do something off your normal routine. Not eating for an extended period of time prior to a road trip has its own advantages. But your blood sugar level causes issues with concentration. That and sleeping about minutes the night before.

South of Stockton I found myself with either three choices of driving lanes; in the far right lane behind small pickups going 45-50 mph, the middle lane behind tractor-trailers at 60 mph or the far left lane at 80 mph. Now, call me an old man who shakes his cranky fist at the world...but...I do not mind driving that fast. It's the other drivers who drive that fast that bother me. I usually like to hover 5-10 mph over the speed limit or keep up with the flow of traffic. 15-20 mph over the speed limit when cars are less than two lengths behind you is more than a little worrisome. Make it an SUV behind you at 85 mph and you realize, "hey, I haven't even seen Rome at sunset, yet."

South of Stockton I-5 is the New American Autobahn. You have a choice when the road becomes two lanes. You can either die a slow horrible death or die a fast horrible death. Of course you choose that later and end up paranoid that 90 mph is going to be a hefty ticket. Oddly, not a single CHP car in sight and everybody else seems to have an infinite number of points left on their driving record. I guess that's why the organ donor societies encourage car insurance companies to give policies to bad drivers.

I was not taking the normal route to Phoenix as Kerry and I have done in the past. Kerry is suffering in New Jersey and this was a solo journey. I was stopping in Apple Valley to visit a friend for her birthday. Plus, it was about halfway between Sacramento and Phoenix. I hate breaking up long distance driving. I prefer driving and driving and driving until I know my body is done. That's how you can drive from Sacramento to Wilkes-Barre, PA in 42 hours.

The route to Apple Valley takes you from I-5 at Bakersfield on a sharp left away from a full frontal assault on the Grapevine. Instead, you take 58. This is a wonderful adventure on a thin strip of highway until you get to the foothills. Then, two lanes of 80 mph fun up, around and through the mountain pass. Fresh with snow. You would think that white stuff would make people think twice before hitting a curve at 70 mph. Then again, most don't know you need to accelerate into and out of a turn. So I can hit turns at 82 mph and come out at 82 mph.

58 is not a fair memory for Kerry and me. Six years ago I flew to Las Vegas, rented a Ryder truck and picked Kerry and her stuff up in Lake Havasu, AZ. 58 became the second level of hell. About two hours in to the journey - 45 miles or so from Barstow, the truck decided that it didn't want to accelerate any more. After pulling over to the side of the road it was determined that that big cylinder thing that should connect the front axle and the rear axle should probably still be connected from the front axle to the rear axle.

Three hours of trying to get ANYONE to stop was futile and this was before cell phones had any range. So. Stupidly. Remembering everything that I've heard about being stranded - STAY PUT, SOMEONE WILL FIND YOU. Finally I decided to jog the three miles to a call box thingy. That, by the way, was the last time I did any jogging before this year.

After 15 minutes two tow trucks arrived. That's fun to type; two tow. One driver was the requisite asshole, the other the really nice guy who probably wouldn't charge you a dime but he's got these three mouths to feed and he wants them to have the chance at a decent education he and his common-law wife never had...

58 is not a fond memory.

Eventually I made it to Apple Valley. It's actually part of the old route 66. I am convinced that the area is mobbed up or otherwise involved in some shady accounting practice. Every 15 feet is a real estate business. In between is an insurance business. Two easiest ways to launder money - land and insurance. Sounds like a bad movie script (currently in production - copyright pending).

The birthday was low key, but fun. Lots of conversation and laughter. And a talking bird that mimicked the meowing cat that wanted out.

Around 4:00 am I started to lose it and the couch called. I answered for a few hours. The next morning I was out the door in five minutes after waking up. Bad habit of mine. This is part of the reason I get paranoid about leaving things behind. It's probably a lot of the rules of manners and etiquette I try to observe. Left those.

A quick shot through the motor cross valley of Southern California; Hesperia, Redlands, Banning, then onto I-10 through Palm Springs and into the desert. Again, 80-90 mph for most of the morning. At some point I stopped at one of the lovely truck stops and grabbed orange juice and some sort of Power Bar. And an apple. And a banana. I disgust myself.

A few hours later I found myself at the outskirts of Phoenix. Once just inside the city boundary, traffic slowed to a stop and I had to turn on the A/C. Phoenix is one big traffic jam at any time. This was a Saturday. Phoenix is also going through major reconstruction of its mass transit system. Roads are literally ripped up all over the city along with the regularly scheduled construction involving water mains and whatever it is that the are digging for down there.

It is a nightmare. Later, I'll get to all those things you should avoid in Phoenix while trying to drive about.

. . . Continue to Part II . . .