sweet dee rupee: "I've been a miner for a heart of gold."

On the road, next to the road, over the road, chickens, bears and tumbleweeds crossing the road: it’s so strange to be off the road! Waking up in the same bed each morning (well, semi-consistently, I am still currently nomadic, for the record), making my own coffee and breakfast in the morning, hanging out with people besides my dad (and the occasional friend living in the West), cooking dinner with friends: these are all activities that I missed yet seemed strange to return to after three weeks on the run.

The last week really zoomed by, and was a week we traveled many, many miles each day, taking little-to-no time to lollygag. We definitely tried a few times, including trying to track down the Hoover Dam on a dusty back road (to no avail) or attempting to catch a glimpse of the glorious Grand Canyon (also to no avail, were cock-blocked by the snow). Who would have known that it would be snowing in Arizona in early November?! (“The snow sure is pretty…pretty damn early for the season!!!)

Also, while driving through the snow-capped, northern Arizona countryside we thought we could take a short-cut back to the freeway to get to Flagstaff, but the road was rough and covered with snow. When Dad took a glance at it and thought about turning he said “I don’t think so, Tim!” Oh, joy! We really had been watching entirely too much TV at night (“Yeeeeeap!”)

The following day, after several busts in northeastern Arizona, we were hoping for a jack-pot in northwestern Arizona, thus we cruised through the Petrified Forest National Park (not to be confused with a National Forest, as there are random, pretty geode-like stump/rocks everywhere, not a tree born within the last 10 centuries in sight!) and the Painted Desert. Both were esthetically beautiful, but after the Badlands and Death Valley, it all starts to look the same. Sigh.

On the same day, on our way into New Mexico, we also got stuck in the worst (and only) horrible traffic jam of the trip: we sat on a service drive for close to two hours, moving a mere eight miles. An impatient, caged young beast I was turning into, as I declared “there better be dead bodies all over the freeway to close it down like this!” We still don’t know what happened there that day, except to know the travels of thousands of people were slowed down for hundreds of minutes.

To pass the time during these long, drug-out, driving days confined to the small cab of a truck, and to avoid losing my mind (which ensued eventually), I started joking that aliens and spaceshisp were everywhere. You probably had to be there, and we didn’t come close to Roswell, but it just seemed fitting. No longer would Dad be pulled over by airplanes, but now spaceships were involved in the monitoring of high-speeds in the desert. New Mexico is definitely very boring to drive through, as is northern Texas (the Panhandle), it’s just so damn flat, with not even cornfields to line the sides of the road! I saw an honest-to-God tumbleweed cross the road in Texas. My boredom got the best of me a few of the days and I ended up getting a bit stir crazy, to the point of flinging myself around that tiny little cabin and biting the OS bar. More than once did Dad have to exclaim “Stop biting my truck!!!” Whew. Once again, read: caged animal. I have more excess energy than a puppy and I need to move to stay sane…

Finally, we made it to Chicago, at 10am on Friday morning. The day was a whirlwind of shopping, friends, an early birthday party and plenty of beer. Too much, even. I’m still recovering, I might need to take it easy the next year or so, haha. I spent my actual birthday raking leaves and inhaling the scent of fall, listening to good music (oh, Neil Young), brunching with a dear friend, and cooking an amazing dinner (by cooking I mean watching, mostly and preparing the easiest dish of the feast) with the loveliest of lovelies (the fabulous Emily & Adrienne Smith and the fantastic Misha Stone). There was laughing, drinking, cooking and eating a-plenty! We even had a chance to wind down the evening with my favorite birthday movie (16 Candles), which my birthday doesn’t ever seem right without.

The following week was another blur of faces, drinks, Honky Tonks, live music, recorded music, beer, jukeboxes, tacos, burritos, bars, couches, bestie-reunions (Pocket-o Pequito and Rockin’ Richie!) and True Blood. Wayyy too much True Blood, actually, both written and recorded, haha. Shameless laziness and recovery left a little too much idle time available for these avenues of wasting time (setting it on fire). It’s obviously why I’ve had zero time to blog the past week since the return of our adventures!

As for now, I’m at Holiday Stop #1 (Momma Susan & Poppa Ken’s Palace = Aristides Estates) and I’ll be here until the 29^th. On Wednesday, family members from Michigan will head on down to start cooking, eating, drinking and merry-making for Thanksgiving, which will hopefully still be a blast, sans the wonderful Aunt Stacy & UK (who I’ll meet in St. Louis in two weeks to make up for their absence). So, Happy Thanksgiving and much love to all!!! <3