Hey there,

After laying out a thorough itinerary for our trip back to Texas, Rob and I
packed up the truck and embarked on our journey.

The traffic out of LA was horrendous. It took us several hours to get out
of the city due to the ridiculous amount of outbound traffic in the middle
of the afternoon. By the time we got moving again, the sun was going down.
When we finally got to our first stop, Joshua Tree National Park, it was
dark and freezing.

Happily, there is no admission fee when you visit a national park in the
middle of the night, so we drove in and parked along the road. We got out
of the truck and tried our best to enjoy the moonlit scenery. Even at
night, the place was strangely beautiful. I never got to see the famous U2
Joshua tree since 1) there are thousands of Joshua trees in Joshua Tree
National Park, 2) it was pitch black outside, 3) supposedly, it's not even
in Joshua Tree National Park but in Death Valley, and 4) it is supposedly
dead. Joshua trees are funky-looking - imagine Chewbacca holding a couple
of pineapples over his head.

We rolled into Phoenix late that night and stayed with Tami, one of Rob's
cousins. Early the next morning, we dragged ourselves out, got back into
the truck, and started the drive up to northern Arizona. As the altitude
increased, desolate scrubland, fields of saguaro cactus, and flat-topped
mesas became covered with patches of snow and frozen ponds.

After passing through Flagstaff and crossing various sections of Route 66,
we drove to the Barringer Crater, a huge hole in northern Arizona made
famous by the movie Starman. As we were driving in, I wondered what it
would have been like to sit in a deck chair, wearing sunglasses and sipping
a margarita and watching a chunk of iron the size of a shopping center fall
from the sky at 40,000 mph and strike the desert in front of me. Rob said
that it would have meant certain death, but at that point we were far enough
away from the crater that I wasn't so sure.

The crater itself was impressive but a bit smaller than I thought it would
be. A quick stroll through the Barringer Museum explored the interesting
geology of the area and revealed that, at the point of impact, all life,
including vegetation, ceased to exist for several kilometers in every
direction. Glad I wasn't there.

The sun was setting, so we rushed up to the Grand Canyon. When we got
there, the sky was just starting to change color. The views were fantastic,
exactly how I expected them to be. We sped along the South Rim to take in
as much as we could before it got dark. The colors of the sky and canyon
were different at each stop. By the time we left, it was pitch black. We
couldn't have timed it better. As we left, Rob and I agreed that the Grand
Canyon would also make a great bungy site.

We returned to Tami's house, chatted with her a bit, watched Jej disembowel
a teddy bear, and then went to sleep.

The next day, I met up with Jon, another old high school friend. We hadn't
seen each other in years, and it was great to catch up with him. From
there, we headed to the Pima Air and Space Museum, just outside of Tucson.
Rob was very disappointed to learn that they do not conduct tours of the
airplane graveyard on Saturdays.

As the sun was setting, we drove into Tombstone, the historical town in
Arizona where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday had their famous shoot-out in
front of the OK Corral and the subject of a well-made movie. I have to
admit that the bright neon Best Western and Chevron signs at the entrance of
town almost ruined it for me. Thankfully, the main road through Tombstone
has a more historical feel, complete with traditionally dressed cowboys,
old-style saloons, souvenir shops, and several who-shot-who-at-this-location
signs.

Then we hit the road again. Along the side of the road, we had been seeing
huge billboards which asked "What Is The Thing?" I was getting curious. It
was at a gas station in the middle of Arizona that I was able to find out.
Huge signs pointed to a door in the back of the gas station, and I paid $1
to go inside. A truck driver who had been standing there bought a ticket
and followed me in, saying that he was also curious but didn't want to go in
alone. His name was Levell. Together, we walked through an exhibit of
antiques and paintings before we got to "The Thing", a mummified corpse of
what seemed to be a Vietnamese woman. Very eerie.

We continued driving. By this time, I was getting sick of each of the
twelve CDs that Rob had in his CD changer. It was somewhere in New Mexico
that I decided that I hated Fatboy Slim.

That night, we decided against driving to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
as originally planned. Instead, we drove to Las Cruces. Rob insisted that
we stay at a Motel 6. During his travels, Rob has developed a particular
fondness for Motel 6. He has to be one of their most loyal customers. By
skipping Truth or Consequences, we managed to avoid a huge propane gas
explosion which devastated the town.

Early the next morning, we woke up and hit the road once again. Our drive
through New Mexico included a stop at the White Sands Missile Base and its
adjoining museum, where we saw an interesting exhibit on Trinity, the
world's first atomic bomb. After driving though a field of missile targets,
we stopped at White Sands National Monument, a huge field of rolling, white
sand dunes against a backdrop of purple mountains. We let Jej out to play,
and he had the time of his life.

We drove up into the snowy mountains of New Mexico, through Billy the Kid
country, and past lots of historical markers describing famous battles and
murders.

I was expecting our next stop, Roswell, to be one of the highlights of my
trip. The New Mexico town was the site of a famous and controversial 1947
UFO crash landing. We got in late at night, so we went straight to Motel 6.
The place was awesome. Needing a night to relax, we found the indoor spa,
ordered in some pizza, and watched the Simpsons (I saw the episode where
they discover a crayon in Homer's brain) before drifting off to sleep.

The next morning, we discovered that Roswell is a decent-sized town. We
drove around a bit and found a few UFO souvenir shops. One of the
shop-owners initiated a conversation with me and Rob about UFO sightings.
After I told him my story (I have seen one), he told me his and then listed
the most common types of sightings. He told us a bit about alien abductions
and that aliens have been known to mutilate cattle, describing exactly how
they do it. When he started talking about esophagus snippings and anal
corings, I knew it was time to go. In the nearby UFO Museum & Research
Center, photos and documents tell the story of the 1947 Roswell UFO crash
and several other alien encounters. The exhibits were entertaining, but the
people who worked there were kinda weird.

From there, we drove south to Carlsbad Caverns. It was getting late, and we
didn't have much time. We took an elevator down 74 storeys and quickly
spelunked our way through the cavern. Spacious and elaborate, but
uncreatively lit. Somehow, I was expecting more.

We hit the road. A few minutes later, we hit the Texas border.

A while ago, I saw an episode of Unsolved Mysteries which featured the small
town of Marfa, Texas. Since the 1800's, Marfa has been the location of
unexplained "mystery lights" which flicker in the desert every night.
Intrigued, Rob and I decided to stop there and check them out.

We got into Marfa and drove out to the viewing area just as the sun was
setting. It was getting cold, and a few other people had gathered to see
the lights. In the distance, we could indeed see some flickering white
lights. And there was at least one woman there who was a believer that they
were something supernatural and unexplainable. But Rob and I were skeptical
from the start. All of the lights were white, making a consistent line from
left to right. We thought they looked like car headlights on a distant
highway. A quick look at a map supports our theory.

There was no Motel 6 in Marfa, so we decided to drive to nearby Fort
Stockton. And that is where I am now.

The last few days have been grueling, and our schedule hasn't afforded us
much sleep. But things have gone like clockwork, and our timing has been
impeccable. I've seen a lot of my own country, and I've had a great time.

Tomorrow, I go home.

No Regrets.

Jeff