and so then... we got back together, and decided going insane would be the best way to salvage ourselves.... we were right.
september 8th, 2003... seth and i hopped in our rented tan chevy blazer, and took off for tucson, arizona............. road trip.
day 1.
just outside of albany, ny. it's a little after nine at night. we didn't leave portland until 330 this after oon. we've made realitivly good time.. i'm optimistic. seth's been patient behind the wheel, and sirius is the more wonderful of all of the cats in the world... i think he may like this travelling thing.
seth's play by play of all the towns throughout mass. was a lot of fun. it's almost like it's his home state. and in a way i suppose it is. listening to public radio. it's peacefull out here in the road. albany is much larger than i'd thought. anyway... back to dreaming and watching the road...
day 2. - tuesday.
almost 10 am. we slept at a rest area on the e. side of ithaca last night. we're in buffalo right now going towards niagra falls. i've always wanted to see the falls, and now, i'm about 9 miles away from them!!! we're crossing through north tonawanda, which was kathy bates battle cry in fried geen tomato's. i hear you girl!!! and so we've dubbed the blazer tonawanda... roarrrrrrrrr!!!!! =) new york state has gone on forever and is quite beautiful. i wouldn't mind settling in upstate new york.... "we've got the whole world in our hands." my solopsyst version of the ol' hymn.
almost 10:15 pm. tuesday night
we're outside of cincinnatti. a snyper reported on top of one of the buildings in downtown and everything! just about five, ten minuites into kentucky. rented a hotel room at the cross country inn. it's a smoking room and proven so by the multitude of cigarette burns in the lovely puke green carpet. it's pretty ghetto. i love it. i'm sitting upon the orange chair by the air cooler which smells much like wet underwear watching sirius spaz out at yet another enw surrounding. he's been an amazing sport about it all though. kitty props!
seth sits upon the "ugly couch style" floral covered beds and opens spaghetti o's with a can opener...
PA flew by with not to mention except a few extreem views of lake errie, a moment of mental connectedness with kevin (pa's his home state), and a hesitant eye out for anything amish.... and we were through it and into ohio.
niagra falls was was uber cool! a bit smaller than i had thought, but none the less, super cool. seth and i made our way down to the observation deck elevators on the u.s. side, the city empty and sad, down to the falls where we could see the falls from the bottom up. Also, could see the canadian side. the candian verison of niagra where gambling is certaintly legal, and the sprawling metropolis and large archetectualally brilliant and creative buildings that sat smiling proudly across fromt he empty niagra of the u.s. here's a good argument for legalizing gambling.
buffalo was wonderful and outside of it, by the interstate exit, were a bunch of buffalo statues. corny as hell and we found it all in very good humor. a fort park in upper new york proved an amazing view (and my favorite part of upstate new york) across lake ontario at toronto. in the far distance the skyline looked like it was comming up out of the ocean... brilliant.
ohio was less than thrilling. columbus was about all i can say that made any of it impressive in the least. it smelled lovely, i guess.. the state... waffle houses popping up everywhere, put me in my happy place.
day 3
1:50 am. central time... tulsa.
wow!! all the way from the kentucky side of cincinatti to tulsa, oklahoma! the day started out with me taking seth for his first "trip" at a waffle house. he was okay with it, though not really his style, i'm sure. he was alright. our waitress was cool and let us smoke in the non-smoking section.
we headed off through kentucky on our way to indiana... louisville was beautiful, one of my favorites... the river boats rocked my world.
indiana and southern illinois dragged on and on with many dead corn fields and not much else. the rolling farm lands along the interstate were sadly beautiful. sad to see the brown corn fields, waisted crop. saint louis was great crosing the mississippi and going up into the arch (yes, as big as you think it is!) were up there on my favorites sights so far. the gateway into the west... very fitting. i took seth up the little quad like cars to the top of the arch and giggled at his fear of heights. the views from the top were amazing. the inside of the arch was totally carpetted celling included... a bit tacky... but going through the arch: good karma.
missouri was cool, i thought. strip mall towns that looked like tampa, florida. any part of florida actually. we stopped in joplin and then wound up here in tulsa for the night at a rank (not the good kind) days inn. seth and i haven't fought at all. i think we could drive forever!
the next day we woke up to a terenchel down pour and the threat of flooding. we ate our continental breakfast (cold waffles and bagles and pocketed a bunch of food and headed off to beat the rain...)
oklahoma city came next. big and squalled. both of us admitted it to be a bit dissapointing. i begged seth to stop so we could see the bombing site, since it was september 11, and we should pay homage to our country.
it ended us up in this nasty political argument, and we both vowed never to go to oklahoma city ever again!
texas was next. taken into the state a hostage in a moving vehicle by seth, i was forced to go thru the northern part of the state, into new mexico. we stopped in armarillo. i didn't mind texas, overlooking the greedy oil drilling millionsares, and president bush.
night fell as we were driving thorugh our last miles of the state, and thars came out and the land became flat. seth begain singing, "the stars over texas." and then came the new mexico border and both of us toasted once again and kissed one another and crossed the border (our crossing a border tradition) into the long anticipated last leg of our journey.
we drove about a half-hour into new mexico and decided to camp it out at oasis state park, outside of clovis. our best decision so far. we saw a road-runner, a wild cotton tail bunny, and we set up our tent. ate seths famous mexican salad. it was beautiful. my one reget is staying in hotels at all, and not just camping it out the whole way.
when we woke, we drove down state to roswell. roswell, new mexico.
roswell was a big stop for seth, as it would be for any good alien fearing boy. well, roswell certaintly capitalized on the alien drama. it looked like disney drank some of roswells local "alien micro brew" and vomited aliens... tourist style all over the city.
the steet lamps, i kid you not, were alien heads, and "aliens welcome here" signs were all over the shops in downtown. it was a bit over-the-top. and i think it was a bit of a let-down for seth. we laughed much and moved on through southern mexico.
the desert began and so did the mountains. we were floored by the amazing change of scenery. the beautiful mountins, our first sign of cacti. comming down one of the mountain ranges and into white sands was breath taking, and will remain with me for a long time.
we stopped in white sands for left overs and went to a souvenier shopp. we were really almost "home."
after white sands, we took the speed up and boogied into arizona and tucson were we had to be at the rental office by 5:45 mountain time. we made it with no time to spare. both floored once again by the magnificant mountains surrounding the much bigger than thought, tucson on all sides. the 107 degree weather, the size of the city... the saguaros were overwhelming, and the desert land scape, i have to admit, beautiful.
so we went to the leasing company and got our keys and went to see our apartment for the first time ever. we had already signed the lease, with no turning back, it was time to see what we'd gotten ourselves into.
we were expecting the worst, and positive about that, that we'd work with whatever it was.... we'd have to. overwhelmed were we, once again, when it turned out to be an off-pink triplex adobe. complete with a palm tree outside our bedroom window! the adobe is fasanating and the swamp cooling is efficent as all get up! the inside reminds me much of my apartment i had at palma ceia in tampa. it's beautiful, and we lucked out, no doubt! i'll post pics on my website when i get time.
we drove the city and out to the desert and to the base of the mountains. today we went garage sale-ing... it was our last day with totawanda. we furnished our whole house by this fellow nomadder who was moving on for twenty six dollars. unreal!!! we thanked him profusly and packed all our stuff into the blazer.
i got a chrome floor lamp, a desk, coffee table, chairs, lava lamp, you name it, we got it!!! super funky stuff too! as we carried our stuff out, he waved us out with an "enjoy tucson!" and we certaintly plan too!
