Lappy (I’ve decided his real name is Frank, and Lappy is his nickname) has gone on sabbatical to the repair facility of the local Best Buy. I’m hoping all they need to do is saunter the AC adapter back in to place. He’s very old, in electronics years, and I think a new motherboard would constitute extreme measures.

I broke down and washed my car, too. There’s a hand wash here where Mexican men swarm your car like oompa-loompas with towels. They wash, dry, wax, vacuum, five or six of them at once, attacking dirt like an army. A clean army.

It’s weird coming back here, where I grew up. Instantly at home but still a stranger. I remember these streets, these people, these places. There, I used to skateboard. There’s the church parking lot where Serenity and I first smoked a stolen cigarette from my Grandmother. That’s the park where Kim and Blake and I used to drink Slippery Nipples. There’s the theater where I first saw Trainspotting, now owned by Francis Ford Coppola, now closed. The video store where I first worked. All of these things are the same, but different, as though seen in a harder, brighter light.

I remember this place, but I’m not sure this is where I belong. And people who have known me since I was in diapers keep mistaking me for my sister. Ten years age difference, and we could pass for twins. Of course, they expect to see her; she lives here. No one expects to see me, having moved away 16 years ago.

I’m sitting in the same restaurant where my father first introduced me to his girlfriend, a full year before I would leave with him for Mississippi. From there would follow Ohio, then Tennessee, then Pittsburgh, PA.

Tuesday was my birthday. I am 29 years old. I’ve been unemployed for two straight weeks. I have driven 3,750 miles.

I treated myself to cinnamon French toast in a small coffee shop in Monterey, down near the famed Cannery Row. I then fully intended to go have a walk around the aquarium, but I was distracted by the Spirit of Monterey Wax Museum, which includes a narration by “John Steinbeck.” It was far too cheesy to just walk on past. I mean, the aquarium would have been predictable.

Just as I had expected, it’s goofy and confusing, and I have my doubts that this is really John Steinbeck talking on the speakers. He’s telling us about the history of Monterey, right up through the Cannery Row period, for which he himself is famous. Now a days, Cannery Row has been turned in to an upscale shopping and wine tasting area. A tourist trap.

I wonder what Hemingway, Kerouac, and Steinbeck would think of what has become of their legacies.

When I head back out on the road, the entire Monterey Peninsula is soaking in a low lying fog. It’s beautiful and annoying at the same time.

I drive in to Santa Cruz, and at Corey’s request, I stop at Mystery Spot. It’s a place where GRAVITY! WORKS! DIFFERENT! I don’t care how they do it, if it’s all optical illusions or what, but it’s awesome. Trippy, even. I felt dizzy and heavy. I leave with a headache, but it’s worth it.

The Half Moon Bay Brewing Company is my next stop, for lunch. It’s pretty good, and I can see the water from my table.

I hit San Francisco in no time, cross the Golden Gate Bridge, and jump off of 1 on to 101 to head for Napa. The 101, much like it did in Los Angeles, resembles a parking lot. It takes me a while to get to the exit for Sonoma, where I take the scenic route in to Napa.

I spent some time growing up in Napa, and I still have family and friends here. In fact, my sister graduates from Napa Valley College on Friday, and we spend the next three days preparing the house and the backyard for the party to follow. I am put to work in the Great Leisure Fields, hauling bark, pulling weeds, planting things. It’s good, exhausting work, the likes of which I haven’t done in a goodly time. It also helps that there’s motivation to get it all done, in the form of cousins and a deadline.

Hilary graduates with five AA degrees, and will start nursing school in the fall. She’s 18. I cried when she accepted her diploma. I cried from behind my camera lens.

I also catch up with Blake, who was my best childhood friend. We’ve known each other since we were 12, and his birthday is a week after mine. He came to Hilary’s graduation party, and in a bit of a funk, declared that he wanted to rip the carpets out of his house. So that’s what we did. We left the backyard shindig, drove to his house, drank wine and ripped out carpeting until 3 in the morning. Extreme Home Makeover: Drunky Edition.

I will spend a month or so here in Napa, reconnecting with my past, and trying to figure out where my future lies.

In Napa. Update tomorrow.

The entrance to California Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, is right here, at the end of Route 66, at Lincoln and Olympic, in Santa Monica. While not the beginning of PCH (it starts much farther south, in San Diego), this is fortuitous.

This is too easy.

I jump on the Pacific Coast Highway headed north, and see the Santa Monica Pier in my rear view mirror. I drive through Santa Monica and in to Malibu, stopping at the first lodging I see, the Malibu Motel. My legs are quaking a little but, and I feel swimmy. Too much driving.

The room at the Malibu Motel is well appointed. It looks like so many beach houses you see in movies – low bed; teak wood floors; windows on every wall to create a terrific air flow; a bathroom made out of granite tiles with a glass encased shower. The motel itself slopes, so while I am on the first floor, I have a balcony overlooking the highway. Across the way I can hear the ocean waves crash in to the beach in the pitch darkness.

It is the first motel I have ever stayed in that has a real key. Not a key card. A real, honest to God key, with a key chain and everything.

It’s freezing in here. All the windows were open when I came in, and I set about closing them. The duvet has a feeling of moisture to it, like it’s been soaking in the slight drizzle from outside. I also notice a fine layer of dust on the bedside table, like this room has been empty for quite some time.

I wake up to a lack of sunshine, despite the open blinds and many windows. It’s raining. Well, it’s drizzling. It doesn’t really rain here, not like it does everywhere else. Like so many things in LA, rain just, like, is, man.

The room is also not exactly peaceful in the morning, what with being situated on the main beach thoroughfare.

On the road and out of Malibu. The skies are a foggy, grayish white. It’s hard to see where the sky ends and the ocean begins. As I pass more inland, I see migrants picking fresh strawberries. It’s a wonderful, cool 65 degrees along the coast, which is a welcome change from the beating, bleating sun of yesterday. The air smells of citrus and eucalyptus.

I’ve gone from open desert to congested metropolis to coastal roads in a single day.

I stop at Old Juan’s Cantina in Pismo Beach for lunch. The salsa is terrific.

An hour back on the road, and I stop at Hearst Castle. Why? Why not? I mean, would you just keep driving by the mansion handcrafted by an ego maniac and filled with tons of art and artifacts sold off by the various European Empires after the end of World War I in a desperate attempt to rebuild their crumbled economies? Would you?

I really had no idea what to expect at Hearst Castle, aside from the few scenes “depicting” it in Citizen Kane. In fact, it’s more Citizen Kane than William Randolph Hearst that makes me stop.

There’s a visitors center that more closely resembles a mall. Shops, shops, coffee shops, a cafeteria. And it’s undergoing some massive renovation, because more than half the people in here are construction workers with those indoor platform crane thingies they love to use.

They offer five different and unique tours. I take the first one, called The Experience Tour. It’s designed to give you a general idea of what Hearst Castle is all about. Other tours will focus on the differing styles inherent in the building (it underwent continuous construction from 1919 to 1948), different rooms, different buildings, etc..

Jaunty music plays as you sit on to a tour bus for a rambling five mile trek up the mountain to the castle. There are voice over’s explaining things like the extensive animal collection Mr. Hearst had here, which I had always thought was simply an exaggeration of Orson Wells’ mind.

We’re greeted at the entrance by Beverly, who will be our tour guide. There’s actually two guides; Beverly will be leading and giving the talk, and a man will follow behind, making sure we don’t get lost from the group, and repeatedly tell the younger members of our group to stop touching things. I think his job has to be incredibly boring.

You enter up the grand archway, see the view, and then to the outdoor pool; up to the gardens, and in to one of the smaller guest houses; through the guest house, around the side, and in to the main house; outside to the tennis courts and the bath house. That’s a fast description: The truth is, it really is far more fascinating. They had electricity built in to the entire complex back in 1919, including the outdoor areas. Each room is done in its own classical style, with actual artifacts from the period. Statues liter the grounds, some created for Hearst, some originals – there’s an Egyptian statue outside the main house that is 3,500 years old; there’s a statue inside the main house that was a gift from Napoleon to his brother. It’s true what I said before: After World War I, the old empires of Europe – think Britain, France, Germany – as well as Egypt, Persia, and Babylon (and things lifted by Europe from Egypt, Persia, and Babylon) were sold at auction to wealthy Americans to help rebuild the war-torn cities. Priceless artifacts that should have been in museums or never looted in the first place were sold to private collectors, cut up, shipped overseas, and re-assembled using concrete. Doors over 500 years old. A 2000 year old tile floor from Iran. Ancient sarcophagi used as planters! It goes on and on.

The tiles in the bath house are actually inlaid with gold.

Hearst was forced to leave his San Simian retreat when his health began failing him, in 1948. He told the construction workers to hold off on the work until he got back. He never did get back, so part of the main house perpetually looks unfinished, and will remain that way.

On the bus ride back down, it occurs to me that Citizen Kane was spot on. No wonder he tried to have it buried.

I spend a total of two hours at Hearst Castle, although I am now dying to go back and do the other tours, and see what lies on the upstairs levels of the main house, especially Hearst’s private quarters, the “Gothic Room.”

I drive on again, now in Big Sur, where Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller sought refuge. It’s stunning in its beauty. It’s the kind of place that, if I were going to sit down in isolation and write a novel or twelve, I might choose. I keep getting distracted by the beauty, in fact, and it’s making driving difficult. This is the part of the Pacific Coast Highway that rolls along at 20MPH hairpin turns. I’m constantly stopping at turn-outs to let people pass me. In fact, the road curves so much that after an hour I begin to get dizzy.

Finally at the bottom of the twisty-tie, I stop at the Big Sur Lodge in Pfeiffer State Park for dinner. I order the penne with chicken in a roasted red pepper pesto cream sauce, which, secretly, is exactly what I was hoping the pasta of the day would be. I also order a glass of the Scheid Vinyards Pino Noir. The pasta was OK, but not as good as Josh and I have made at home. The wine, on the other hand, is divine.

I head back out through much less twisty roads, thankfully. I pass through Carmel, which I believe Clint Eastwood was once mayor of. I consider stalking him.

I realize I have not seen any commercial vehicles on this road. I didn’t realize you could do that, just make a road so difficult to navigate that truckers wouldn’t try. I saw plenty of them on 66 when they shouldn’t have been, when it wasn’t paved, when it was narrow. But here? Even Sparky the Trucker won’t come here.

I decide to stop for the night in Monterey. Despite having grown up just a couple hours north of here, I can’t recall if I have ever been to this town. I know I’ve heard of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but have I ever been there? School trip? Perhaps I should stop there tomorrow, and see if I can find my former self anywhere.

I come to rest at the El Castell Motel on Freemont. Clint Eastwood is nowhere in sight.

(All of the picture for this leg of the trip will be at http://chesh.net/gallery/California.)

It takes me less than an hour to get to California, shooting straight down I-40, crossing the Colorado River. The first sign I see, upon entering the Golden State, says “Rest Area – 44 Miles Ahead. Closed.”

That doesn’t bode well, out here in the desert.

I pull off on the second exit to catch Route 66. The first town I hit is Needles, CA, and though I’ve only used a quarter of a tank, I stop to top it off. Gas is up to $3.99 a gallon – a fact that pisses me off even more when I get to the other end of Needles, near the Interstate, and see it for $3.78.

I purchase some soda for what I hope to be a quick jaunt through the desert. At 11AM, I note that the landscape is covered in a pretty haze that, were I not so far out from a major city, I might have mistaken for smog. The Santa Fe Railway trains will be my only constant companions on this leg of the tip, criss-crossing along three separate lines, all hauling freight. I see one carrying endless rows of UPS truck beds. I wonder if this is due to the price of gas, or if it’s how they normally transport UPS freight.

The desert is brown. There are occasional dots of green, plants still clinging to life, a blue-ish grey here and there, but mostly, brown. Rocky. And not a pretty brown – this is not the wind swept, brush stroked desert you see in the movies. This is ugly. This is harsh. This is lonely.

Once in a while, I’ll pass a trailer park, a long forgotten outpost, surrounded by palm trees and lush fronds.

Off to the left is a huge, pitch black mountain. The rocks and landscape surrounding it are of the same black rock, as though something spewed forth from the bowls of Hell a long, long time ago.

I begin to understand why people go crazy in the desert. It’s hot; the temperature will reach 100 today. It’s vast, expansive, dry, lonely, ugly, and isolating. What I had hoped would be a swift jaunt has instead become a two hour trek through the harshest landscape I have ever seen.

And then, near Ludlow, CA, as Route 66 arcs back toward I-40; there, rising out of the distance like a mirage, I see it: A Dairy Queen. I stop, fall to my knees, raising my hands to heaven, and ask for a pineapple shake.

Again I find Route 66, The Mother Road, reduced to barely paved stretches that make my feet tingle from the bouncing. I actually move Lappy to my lap, while driving, so that he can get some much needed power; the road is bouncing him around so much that his power cable can’t stay anchored. The wind blows in to the car windows with staccato precision and reverberates in my ears.

I see little piles of dust collect and rise up in to the air, as though they wish they could become something stronger, like a Voltron made of dirt.

My first and only roadside attraction for the day: I turn off of Route 66 for seven miles to go to the Calico Ghost Town. It’s an old silver mining town that they’ve converted in to a tourist attraction. The sign at the entrance says “Enjoy Music and Gunfights!” I intend to stay until I have seen at least one of these two things.

The town itself still has a few remaining buildings from the 1880’s, when it was started. The rest have been created to look that old. They’ve done a good job of making everything look authentic.

Look authentic. But all the buildings have air conditioning. And then I notice that the people who work here, dressed up in their hoop skirts and cowboy hats, a disturbing number of them are talking on their cell phones. This completely, utterly, and truly ruins the illusion.

Say what you will about Walt Disney, but that man understood illusion. He understood themeing. And to make something look authentic, no one outside of Tomorrowland can have cell phones. To make it look real, to suck the customer in to the fantasy, you can’t have the 1902 cowboy/sheriff walking round talking on a brand new Motorola.

But I am glad to be out of the car and walking amongst Japanese Tourists. I walk up the slope to the top of the town, where, through the miracle of future advances in refrigeration, I enjoy an ice cold beer.

I walk back down the slope and stop at Mystery Shack! The guide tells a story about Miner Bob, who lost his legs, and so he devised a scheme where he would bet his friends for money. Basically, the whole shack is built at an absurd angle, to make optical illusions like water running uphill and it being harder to walk down than up. In one room, our guide, I’ll call him “Dingus,” showed us Miner Bob’s handless ladder, where “he could climb up without using his hands!”

Dingus demonstrates this amazing feat.

“I thought you’d said he’d lost his legs,” I say.

“Oh, well, this is before he lost his legs,” Dingus replies.

“But you said he built the shack after he lost his legs.”

“Just go with it.” He gives a sheepish smile, so I give up on pressing the point that his story has a gaping plot hole the size of the Star Wars Cantina.

Walking back down the center of town, I hear a call up ahead for a shoot out. Yes! This is what I came to see. But rather than just starting the show, our players, the Sheriff and the Bank Robber, give us some safety tips. They’re using real guns, they warn us. They have blanks, but they can still hurt, and to demonstrate this, they shoot an aluminum can at close range, blowing it up. Don’t step inside the roped off area, they tell us.

I guess this makes sense, what with it being guns and all, but again, this is out of character and ruining the themeing. People instinctively – well, people who aren’t stupid – won’t run inside a roped off area where two people are pretend shooting at each other. Get on with the show, you Nanny State Cowboys.

And they do. They have a script. They fight. They shoot at each other. Everyone roots for the sheriff, so, in a moment of silenced attention, I shout out “Go, Bad Guy, Go!”

The desert is making me mean.

After the gun fight at The Cry Baby Corral, I take a tour through the Maggie Mine. It was a real mine once, and now you can walk through it, and see the scenes they’ve set up for you. It’s neat, and cooler than outside, and my camera flash keeps blinding me in the dark.

On my way back out of town, I purchase two bottles of water to get me through the rest of the desert. Back on the road, but not yet on Route 66, I watch an entire caravan of vehicles carrying other vehicles pull out of a Marine Base to my left, while two Jarheads stand on the side and direct traffic. It’s actually pretty cool; the vehicles and their uniforms are camouflaged to match the desert, and it’s such a good illusion that I had no idea what I was looking at, at first.

Does this desert ever end? I seriously begin to wonder. And then I get a spontaneous nose bleed. From the desert. Apparently the desert likes me about as much as I like it.

Eventually, I hit civilization, in the form of San Bernadino. It quickly routes me on to I-15. Where I sit. In traffic. I sit in traffic on I-15 in San Bernadino, CA, for an hour and five minutes, to go a total of four exits, a grand total of five miles.

And then I remember the number one thing I hate about Los Angeles.

I just drive past the Wigwam Motel in Rialto, CA. It’s too early to stop.

This stretch of 66 has been renamed Foothills Boulevard. It will run me basically from Rialto straight through Pasadena. It has 20,000 stop lights, and I hit practically every single one of them.

At 8:30, I am ready to stop driving. But I am so close to the end of Route 66 I can taste it! I push on.

In Pasadena, I am directed to get on the freeway to Santa Monica Boulevard. This is not as easy as it sounds. Los Angeles has the worst freeway system known to man. The entire thing is a joke dreamed up by a demented Frenchman, I am certain. It starts out as two lanes and then becomes six and then becomes three and then becomes one and Where Am I?

I miss Santa Monica, of course. I take Le Brea, instead, backtrack to Santa Monica, and turn the wrong way. In this way, I lose half an hour driving toward Sunset instead of Beverly Hills. I turn around. Again.

I follow Santa Monica Boulevard through West Hollywood. Through Beverly Hills. In to Santa Monica. And then, on Lincoln street, I turn left.

I get butterflies in my tummy.

Route 66 ends here, at the corner of Lincoln and Olympic. There is no marker. There is, however, an orthodontist office, in a building that has the unmistakable shape of having been a diner in a past life. I know this is the end of Route 66 only because my directions tell me so.

I had chosen Route 66 in search of kitchy Americana, the by-gone yesteryear feel of the open road and roadside attractions and Grandma’s Home Cookin’ Diner. I wanted what the songs and the pictures, the television and the books, had told me what was to be found there. Instead, what I found was a depressing amount of rural decay. It’s one thing not to repaint the Gemini Giant every year, but it’s quite another to allow entire towns to dry up when progress marches past them on a different road. And, well traveled anymore or not, it’s an utter travesty to have Iconic Route 66 lie in such horrible states of disrepair. It seems a terrific irony to me that in downtown Pittsburgh there’s a historical marker on a parking garage, noting that there used to be a school house here, but that no one seems to be able to keep Route 66 properly marked or paved.

In the end, instead of getting my kicks, I got a hard dose of devastation, everywhere around me seeing the crumbling ghosts of a happier time, when towns and people flourished, only to be forgotten by the biggest public works undertaking in the history of this nation. And now, those that remain don’t even have the energy to knock those last few buildings down.

(pics updated; starting on page 19)

Somewhere, in Arizona…

When we last left our intrepid reporter, she was in the clutches of Dr. Evil!

Or maybe just in Holbrook, AZ. Sara sent me a text message this morning alerting me that I was near-ish the Grand Canyon. So for the first time, really, on this trip, I look ahead, and sure enough, I’ll be near the Grand Canyon when I hit Williams, AZ.

Almost all of the driving today will be done on the mindless Interstate.

First stop: Meteor Crater. Man is this thing cool. As the guy in line ahead of me said, “I just had to stop and see this big hole in the ground.”

There’s an AM radio station giving information – actually it’s more like an advertisement. “EXPERIENCE! The impact! Meteor Crater. The world’s FIRST PROVEN IMPACT SITE on our planet. Oh and also we have a Subway restaurant.”

I miss the hour long walking tour around the crater, but hike enough of the observation decks in this blaring Arizona heat that I am satisfied with my visit. I also strolled through the rather well done museum, and learned, you know, stuff.

The crater is five miles from the Interstate, and all of the land around it is cattle farms. Cows stroll lazily back and forth across the road here. These cows hit the cow lottery. So much better than being cooped up.

Back on the Interstate toward Flagstaff, which still has a stretch of 66 running through it. It seems like a lot of where 66 should be, in the wilderness, is now private road, so all that remains are little dots of it here and there. I follow it through Flagstaff and decide not to veer off toward Sedona, but keep heading for the Canyon.

Tori Amos’ new album is really good driving music.

I have to divert 55 miles off of 66 (I-40) on 64 to get to the Canyon. Heading on 64 toward the Canyon, I see a giant billboard for McDonald’s, 48 miles ahead, at the Canyon! Like there’s no place on Earth McDonald’s doesn’t have its sticky little fingers.

It costs $25 to get in to the Grand Canyon. My first thought, upon arrival, is that I have been lied to. There’s supposed to be a canyon, a grand one, at that, and all I see is forest. Stupid forest. Where the canyon at?

Ahead I see throngs of people and a crush of cars. A parking lot. There better be a canyon.

My God.

I jumped my camera up to its big boy lens for this, and even at 300mm I can’t capture how utterly gorgeous it is. I walk along the rim, taking pictures here and there, marveling more than anything. They have free shuttle buses here, just like in Disney World, to take you around the park. I jump on and let someone else do the driving for a while. It takes you to various lodges, with different views off the southern rim. I get off at each one.

I spend several hours up here and I feel like I barely saw it. I need to come back. I absolutely have to take the mule ride down in to the canyon. And I wonder how much the airplane tours are.

Maybe I’ll become a park ranger. But then I would be afraid of bears always taking my picnic basket.

A small Asian man comments on my camera, and asks if I am a photographer. He tells me it’s a very good camera. I understand this to be a great compliment from his people.

Having lost a good amount of time at The Grand Canyon, I stay on the road a bit longer than normal. In Seligman, I pass The Romney Motel. I assume that’s where he keeps his other wives.

From Seligman, through Chino, Pica, Deer Lodge, Hyde Park, Nelson, Peach Springs, Truxton, Cozier, Valentine, all the way to Kingman, AZ, Route 66 is back. It’s two lanes of up and down, well paved, driving. It’s also dark outside, the sun finally setting sometime around Peach Springs. I reach Kingman at 8:30, and I want to go for another hour, but I’m going to hit the open desert very soon. I have no idea where the next real town will be, so I stop here, get a room, do some laundry, upload some pictures. I try to figure out how hard the Pacific Coast Highway will be to find, but actually, it looks straight and direct and well marked. It’s on my maps, and everything!

And maybe it was just the time I spent outside, in the sun, hiking around, but I’m exhausted, and head to bed for my usual 4AM wake up, followed by catnapping until 8AM.

Route 66 runs right through the heart of downtown Albuquerque for several long miles. It really is a beautiful city, perhaps the prettiest major city I’ve passed through so far.

As the road curves along the interstate through New Mexico, I suddenly see a… a herd? A gaggle? A bale? An ARMY of bikers, stretching maybe three miles long, all headed East on Interstate 40. It’s breathtaking, in a way, to see them move down the highway like this, a technological wolf-pack.

I’m just following along on a frontage road next to I-40, and frankly, it’s a little dull. Look that way, see desert. Look the other way, see semi trucks. Not that the terrain isn’t pretty, but… it’s been pretty and the same for a while. It needs to liven up.

Off to the west I can see a gathering storm up ahead. Grey clouds blanket an open sky and seem to touch mesa’s, and I can see crackles of lightening that reverberate my radio more than an hour out from the storm. The clouds seem to fall and touch the sky like black cotton candy being wrenched in a child’s hand.

I pass through the town where Ernest Hemingway is thought to have written The Old Man and The Sea. Hemingway’s ghost is totally stalking me.

The San Esteban Del Rey Mission is supposed to the east here of Sky City, but I can’t find the road to turn on to go to it. Instead, I detour in Grants to the Bandera Volcano and Ice Cave. It’s 25 miles to the west. This side trip will take me directly toward the storm I mentioned previously. Gilyan has asked me chase after every storm front I see, half for science, and half because she wishes me dead. So this is for you, Gillybean.

The temperature begins to drop rapidly on this road. I’m not sure if it’s the elevation, or the storm lingering overhead, taunting me. Regardless, it was 72 down on Route 66, and it’s 56 when I reach the parking lot of the Bandera Volcano.

There’s a small shack here that doubles as a tourist center and café. I look around briefly and ask what it is I am supposed to do. I am presented with a map. Much like Frodo, I am to climb the summit, and throw a ring in, or something. It’s half a mile up to the top of the volcano. I swap out my sandals for real shoes, grab a sweater and a jacket, my trusty camera, and head out.

It smells wonderful up here. It smells of pine and rain and age, and as I begin to notice the smell, and the trail leveling off, I begin to breathe easier. I take off my sweater, as it’s too warm for this hike, though I keep my jacket on. Off to the left I see the lava rock, now interspersed with trees. The brochure I got at the shack tells me that the ground is filled with iron, making the trees giant signs for lightening strikes. This is terrific, since I can clearly hear thunder on the next mountain over.

I reach the top of the crater, and I’m able to look 800 feet down, in to what was once a teeming entrance way in the bowls of Hell. Now, it’s just rock, covered by lightening-sore trees. It’s beautiful, though.

I am at an elevation of over 8000 feet.

Half a mile back down (and it’s always easier going down) and back to the shack. I drop my jacket off in the car and begin the quarter mile trek to the ice cave, in the opposite direction. The hike isn’t as steep in this way, until you reach the stairs. Yes, stairs. You have to climb down (and then back up) three flights of extremely steep, terribly uneven, wooden stairs to reach the ice cave.

No one is really sure why the ice cave is there, but the ice is 3,400 years old. Water still runs through it, under the twenty feet of solid ice straight down. The cave was created by a lava flow, and the cave itself is wonderful for keeping the water under 31 degrees year round. The green tint is caused by an arctic algae, which is odd to have this far south. I’m glad I stopped; I’ve never seen anything like it.

I back track to 66 again, and I’m on my way. I stop in Gallup, New Mexico, for gas, which is now up to $3.49 a gallon. This is madness, MADNESS I SAY.

In Gallup, I see a store called Zuni Fetishes Direct. I’m oddly intrigued, but scared. What sort of fetishes can they get for you? “Hi, I’d like a midget amputee transsexual, and can you get me the wholesale price on that? And a fur suit?” And then I look up the actual definition, instead of the colloquial internet meaning, for the word “fetish,” and it makes a bit more sense:

” an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency.”

See, now it’s all those freaks with leather that don’t make any sense. Again.

I hit the Arizona border. 66 has followed I-40 almost the entire way through New Mexico, and it still it. I’ve noticed that every exit from the interstate has a Native American souvenir shop. I’ve stopped at a few, and have offered to trade beads for blankets, but they keep yelling after me and chasing me away with brooms.

Ingrates.

It appears my sunburned arm has developed a rash of some sort. It itches like crazy. Luckily, I’ve been taking the lotion from every hotel room I stop in, so I pull over and dig one of the bottles out of my bag, hoping this won’t make it worse.

At 5pm, I hit the Petrified National Forest and Painted Desert. And, of course, it begins to pour down rain. I stop at the visitor’s center for a brochure, and the ranger there tells me not to worry, that the desert is actually prettier in the rain.

She’s right. It’s gorgeous. It’s unlike anything I have ever imagined. I try to get out of my car, shielding my camera with an umbrella, but the insane wind and slant of the rain makes this a futile exercise. So I drive the whole thing going 5 miles an hour, rolling down the windows to take pictures. And the pictures, proud as I am of them, can not do it justice. It’s just… it just is.

It’s twenty eight miles long, so it takes me a while. Which is OK, because at the end of it, I realize I’m on West Coast time now, and I’ve kind of gained an hour.

I make it Holbrook, AZ. I had wanted to stay at the Wigwam Motel, where rooms are shaped like Tee-Pee’s, but, alas, it was booked up. There’s another one, in Rialto, CA, so I will aim for there.

Instead, I find a Super 8 for the night. This is the cheapest hotel I’ve stayed at yet ($44), but there are no weird ceiling bubbles or odd smells, so I feel OK with the choice. And also guilty about how much I spent yesterday.

I haven’t even hit Flagstaff yet, and I am not certain I will reach California by tomorrow. It’ll all depend on how closely 66 follows I-40. I kind of preferred it when it didn’t.

After waiting for three and a half hours, sitting in this lobby, very still, so that the pattern on the carpet doesn’t make me dizzier than I am already, I finally get a room.

I took a nap in my well appointed suite and ordered some room service. I then spent the entire day sitting in the complimentary bathrobe and watching episodes of House. This is what I needed.

I do wish I would stop waking up at 7AM. This is silly. For breakfast I had a delicious rosemary chicken, goat cheese and wild mushroom omelet with roasted peppers and bacon. I just want to throw that in here, because it’s really good.

I’ll be back on the road shortly.

I’m still in Albuquerque. I woke up at 7am, and I think that has something to do with the shifting time zones. 7am Mountain Time is 9am Eastern Time. That’s a very respectable morning time in the East. It’s way to early here in the mountains. I bundle up under the blankies and watch some TV.

I had stopped last night at an American Motor Inn that someone has slapped a Best Western sign on. This will turn out to be a bad choice. Worse even than the Extended Stay I stopped at in Texas with the air conditioner that quit in the middle of the night.

Ready to start my day, I get up and take my allergy medicine. My head really hurts, and I’m not breathing so well.

I go to take a shower, and realize there’s already water in the tub. Looking up, I see that the ceiling is bubbling in from a water leak somewhere, which has to be on the roof, since I’m on the top floor, and it’s dripping.

I shower really fast.

Since it’s only 8:30, I decide to partake of the free breakfast at the motel. But once I get down there, and drink some orange juice, my tummy starts to feel funny. When my breakfast arrives, I take one bite and push it away.

My eyes and nose won’t stop running. But I can breathe. Hooray for Claritin.

By the time I get to the car, I’ve added teeth-knocking chills to the list of symptoms.

I call Josh, and he tells me not to drive. He’s really smart. But I don’t want to stay here again. So I head to nearby I-40, and follow it for a few miles, until I see the biggest, prettiest Marriot I’ve ever laid eyes on.

This room is going to cost nearly three times what most of my other stays have cost. However, since I’ve been staying in shit-holes and saving money, I am willing to pay the $200 to have a little luxury. And room service. Room service is suddenly really important to me.

It’s only 9:30, and the room won’t be ready until 1. I head to the restaurant and try that whole eating thing again. I do manage to swallow a handful of bites this time, but now I am also dizzy. Here are my symptoms in list form, for those who are bad at following along. Like me, right now:

After the restaurant, I find a seat near a wall outlet and fire up Lappy. It’ll be a few hours. Thank god for The Internets.

I wonder if the room service will have chicken soup. Or maybe tomato soup, and a grilled cheese sandwich, with the crusts cut off.

My hope is that a day of laying in bed and watching Judge Judy or something – oh man, maybe there’ll be a Deadliest Catch marathon on Discovery, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease – that this’ll blow over, and I won’t have done any serious damage to myself from staying at Death Inn. I’m totally blaming this on that thing growing in the bathroom at the hotel last night. It makes sense. Right?

But this is all a part of the experience. It wouldn’t have been a real drive across the country if I didn’t catch killer-flu-mold-bacteria from a dive motel.

Time is moving really slowly in this lobby. Or maybe it’s just my head.

On the road at 9:30 this morning.

Yesterday, I stopped in Groom, TX, which has a leaning water tower, that they built that way on purpose, to attract visitors. Guess it’s still working. Which makes you wonder why they also built the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere here, at the other end of town. This morning, my first stop is at “Cadillac Ranch,” where some Yahoo buried 10 Cadillac’s (1949 – 1963) nose first in to the ground at the same angle as the Great Pyramid in a wheat field for no real good reason. Now it’s a mecca for Graffiti Artists. I guess in Texas, they have a different kind of fun.

Oh God, I’m in a town called Bushland. Help help help helphelphelp.

I deem Texas to be very, very pretty. You can kind of get a sense of how big it is, as it stretches on as far as the horizon, broken occasionally by little mesa’s. It takes me, between today and yesterday, four and a half hours, total, to get through this state.

Upon entering New Mexico, I am directed on to an unpaved, gravel road. It stretched for 19 miles, but I have a full tank of gas, so I brave it. It’s remarkable in its beauty, and I eventually get confident enough on the road to get up to 45 miles an hour. It’s only about one car length wide, with some breathing room on either side. I do come across a part that has asphalt, which means that at one point, long forgotten to history, this was a paved road.

New Mexico is gorgeous. The whole state, it just rollicks with beauty. It’s also a lot cooler here, temperature wise, than I had expected. I thought it was supposed to be the dry season?

Tucumcari seems to be more of what I had originally imagined Route 66 to be. The old motels and diners are still here, and they seem to be really proud of their Route 66 heritage. I stop here at the Pow Wow Inn, an original for 66, for lunch. I order the New Mexico Melt, which is a roast beef sandwich with green chili’s and cheese. It’s wonderful.

I’m reading, as I usually am, and the man at the table next to me catches my attention and asks to see my book. I hand it over, and he and his wife strike up a conversation with me. He’s an author, and a creative writing teacher, and Jhonen Vasquez’s art must intrigue him, because he flips through the book slowly. We have a pleasant conversation before my lunch arrives.

In most cases, I am trying to take the pre-1936 alignment. It’s like reading a Choose Your Own Adventure Novel, and always taking the first option presented to you. This has caused me to run down horrible stretches of road, get bounced around like a lotto ball, and it’s starting to make my back hurt. This is all a part of the experience, I tell myself. Suck it up and stop being a baby.

At the Las Vegas split, and I have a choice of the Pre 1937 alignment or the Post 1937 alignment. I choose the Post, and here’s the description why:

“In 2005 there where still open routes through La Bajada Hill, but they’re extremely challenging to drive today (as they where back in 1926-32). It’s the most difficult stretch of road you can encounter on Route 66 today. High clearance 4×4 only. Expect unmaintained roads. Experienced high altitude drivers only. Don’t even think of it in wet weather. Remember even your 4×4 is not built for the same roads as the Ford model T was built for, and the roads are not maintained for many years.”

Higher clearance vehicle? Check. Four wheel drive? Check. Unmaintained roads? Been there, done that. High altitude experienced driver?

I am not an experienced high altitude driver. This is the one and single line that busts my resolve, and I am forced on to I-40 for 70 miles. And I hate the interstate. It makes me really, really sleepy. Thus it is that I stop at Cline’s Corner giant souvenir shop and truck stop, and get some really bad diner coffee.

Gas is now up to $3.59 a gallon. This is appalling.

I get off the interstate at Moriarty. This tickles me to no end. Fans of Sherlock Holmes will understand why. Blissfully, I am back on quiet, two lane roads.

As I pull in to Albuquerque, I catch, from the corner of my eye, a billboard across on the other side of the interstate, which I am mirroring, but not on.

WORLD’S LONGEST SKYTRAM, it says.

I can’t pass that up, I say.

I pull on to Tramway Drive, and follow it for nine miles to the Sandia Peak Tramway. The tram climbs for 2.7 miles at a speed of just under 14 miles an hour, though it feels a Hell of a lot faster going downhill, and when it sways. The top is 10,378 feet up. It’s 43 degrees up here at the top, and 72 down at the base. I wish I had noticed the giant signboard that was screaming in electronic numbers what the temperature up there would be, because then my fool self may have been smart enough to run back to the car for a sweater before I took this ride.

You can ski the other side of the mountain (I had no clue that you could ski in New Mexico), and at the top here, there is a restaurant. I stop in for a coffee. Here, at the High Finance Restaurant, the highest full service restaurant in North America, I meet a man named Terry, from Lancaster, PA. It’s weird to be so far from home, and to meet someone from so close to home. Terry has flown to New Mexico and rented a car to drive to a wedding in Flagstaff, Arizona. He tells me his next stop is a bar in Gallup, NM, and gives me his cell phone number. If I make it to Gallup tonight, or Flagstaff in the next couple of days, I should call him, and meet up for a beer. I quite like this idea, of meeting up with another weary traveler going the same way by another road.

I won’t make it to Gallup tonight, though. It’s nearly 6:30 when I get back to the base of the mountain, and it looks like storms are coming in from the west. I’m right about that, by the way; when I turn on the TV, the news tells me that thunderstorms with large hail are coming. At 9:45, I heard a clap of thunder so loud it makes me jump.

I stop here in Albuquerque for the night. This city is gorgeous. I wonder what the weather is really like, because this is a city I could stay in. The terrain is differentiated and flowing and wonderful.

There are storms raging outside now, pounding rain, flashing lightening and frightening thunder. I love these kinds of storms.

(Oh, there are pictures, but I am not linking them now. Oh no! You’ll have to go check out http://chesh.net/gallery/Route66 for that.)