Tonight's hotel

So here's where I'm staying. Pulled into Gallup, NM thinking I could get a room, rest a bit and then get into Phoenix. Nope. There's a rodeo in town and all the rooms are booked. Thankfully this one had some vacancies...not sure why. Ah...tis a grand place. I took the plastic wrap from the box housing my whole wheat cheese and crackers to put over the TV remote. It's sticky. Funny though, it's not the worst place I've ever stayed.

Interview went well today. Will try to fill in and update tomorrow. Pretty tired, gotta another interview in Phoenix tomorrow. Drove down I-25, and I saw a big smoke plume from the wild fires near Los Alamos. It's crazy, huge, expansive, whatever grand term you can think of. Kinda sad. Finally, get ready for mass nuclear hysteria. There were lots of advertisements on the radio for iodine packs, to prepare for nuclear leaks.

Amarillo

Yesterday was a lot of driving. Thought maybe I'd try to get to New Mexico, but realized it'd be better to crash in Amarillo where I'd be a couple hours away from my next interview. Man though, was I beat, and tired. The road does it to you. Especially when most of the roads are straight. I keep thinking my GPS is broken because it's always showing one long purple line of road.

Started in Kansas yesterday, and drove south. Kansas grew on me as I traveled. The south of Kansas, was actually less of a straight line. Lots of rolling hills, nice curves. It's very green at this time of year, and there were huge swaths of cattle land filled with cows. On the road I passed the National Teachers Hall of Fame. Not the last museum/hall of fame I'd see. That was not the last interesting museum I'd see. Once I hit Oklahoma, I saw the national wrestling hall of fame, and the national cowboy hall of fame, and once I went through Amarillo, I passed the quarter horse hall of fame/museum. Place looked really nice. It looked new. I'm not sure if it's new, it sure looks like it. Either way, people must really like quarter horses because they put a load of scratch into this place.

From Oklahoma City on, this is a drive I am used to from my days traveling back to Dayton from ASU. Oklahoma gets a bad wrap. The east of OK is gorgeous: Rolling hills, streams, green, amber waves, the whole nine yards. Tulsa is there, and Tulsa is a great city too. Lots to do, doesn't have the metropolitan congestion though, and I'm sure if I lived there there would be plenty to do around town, and then a quick ride out of the city would have me golfing shortly thereafter. Even after Tulsa, west of OK City, the countryside still has a charm that makes me look sharp for tumbleweeds. It feels old west. Not a fan of OK City though. I guess I'm less a fan of their drivers. The many times I've passed through OK city, it has never failed to yield drivers who can't seem to tell that there are other drivers on the highway. There's an ethos in their driving that reminds me of something you'd see on the track at Talladega. Once beyond OK City, driving gets better, and the scenery is back to fields high with grass or wheat, and lots of rolled hay bails.

I thought Amarillo had changed a bit. On previous drives, this stretch from OK City to Albuquerque was what I considered a dead radio area. There were no sports stations, and forget picking up NPR. But as a testimony for the great hegemony that is ESPN, it is impossible not to pick up an affiliate of the mother ship. However, traveling along the panhandle of Texas,I picked up an NPR station. I was thrilled. Yet, right before entering Amarillo, I switched back to ESPN. They went to commercial, I flipped back to NPR, and its signal in Amarillo had been taken over by a Christian rock station. Silly me for believing informative public broadcasting might take root in this area.

The radio is fun to track the stories of local talk show. It's all conservative talk. I hear El Rushbo and Hannity. One tactic I notice they pull a lot is when people call in and want to disagree, immediately they ask a question that is very leading, and the person is automatically on the defensive and not allowed to make their point until they answer the unanswerable question: "Why do you want to punish rich people for being rich? Why are you a socialist? Why do you spread so much hatred?" I think they likely have a list of these fallacious questions that the jump to right away.

The most abhorrent thing I heard was a station in Kansas, don't remember the station, I had it for five minutes and it was gone. The host and her call-in guest talked about closing women's health clinics that they presume offer abortions. The man mentioned the killing of Dr. George Tiller as a blessing and sending a strong message that Kansas will not tolerate doctors who kill babies. The host agreed saying it was a blessed event. I couldn't believe I was hearing it, and was stunned. Then a call came in, I pulled over, answered it, and by the time I was done the station was out of range.

Food is still good in the cooler, keeps costs down. As people find out I'm writing for U-Haul they're asking me to get them discounts. Some from people I've not heard from in a long, long time. Suddenly they want a favor. Sorry, can't land any discounts. And it's not a card I like pulling. I've rented my fair share of U-Hauls, even had a storage space with them, but I never tried angling for discounts.

All right, gotta hit the road. Into Phoenix tomorrow. Not sure where I'll be tonight. I have an interview at 5 PM in Las Vegas, NM. That will likely last two hours, and then it is a long, long drive into Phoenix, a little less longer to Flagstaff. The nice thing is that by tomorrow, I'll have lots two hours, as Phoenix is now on the same time as the Pacific coast. So if I make it to Flag tonight, it will be between 10 and 12.

Hopefully can land a cord for the camera tonight or tomorrow. Then I'll have pictures.

Luke

A note on road burn

I realized after I said it that I should define road burn. It's a term I got from Rollins in his book _Get in the Van_. It's something we all feel from being on the road. For some it's three days, for others three months or more. Last year I suffered from it. It did 3.5 weeks in Florida and then bolted up to NJ for Summer Scholars, and I was doing great. Loved the Bohemic life. When Summer Scholars ended, I moved to DeKalb to start at NIU, but I had no apartment. So for the next 2.5 weeks, I moved from hotel to hotel, waiting to be approved for my apartment. I was still doing well. Liked life. The breaking point came when I had to move out of my apartment for an asbestos scare. I lived four days in a motel, during homecoming weekend, and I just wanted to be back in my bed. So, I'm a long way off from road burn, but I am acutely aware of it, and will be sure not to fall victim to it.

10-4 good buddy. Checking in here from Topeka, KS. What a day. I went through two states I've never visited before, and was duly impressed by one, and meh, about the other. On the other hand I was totally stood up for an interview, but that's not the first time such things have happened. I'm rolling on to New Mexico from here tomorrow. Then onto Phoenix.

Where to start? I'm no where close to road burn yet, which is good. I'm really pumped to be back on the road. What's a summer without crossing into every state of this great nation? I've been doing it a lot summer to summer. While all of this sounds glamorous there are endless cluster bombs to deal with. Still in the end, it's like no life I'd rather live.

The first thought on my mind is my parents. We traveled a lot as I was growing up. Our family lived in Wisconsin and we lived in Ohio, so there were multiple twelve plus hour drives to see the family. That sounds bad, but as kids, we dealt. We had walkmans, and lots of books. When we got bored, we'd stare out the windows as dad pumped NPR throughout the family van. What I thought of today, and last night were: showers and packing. As I packed, I meticulously rolled reach article of clothing. It's a trick I learned from Dad to conserve space in a bag. Laugh if you wish but all my boxers are tightly rolled and that added space for the copious research material. And showers...? Well, my dad gave me an article (darn near ten years ago) the Air Force published for those travelling. It pointed out that new locations mean new pollen. Get it off you as soon as you can. I've been cursed with awful allergies, and the first thing I do when I arrive somewhere new is shower. It doesn't guarantee no allergies but it helps.

And then I saw another great moment that made me again recall my parents. I went to the hotel pool (more on that in a bit). There was a family of four splashing around. I just wanted to soak in the hot tub because God knows my joints are dying for a spa. So the family splashing around was adorable. It was clear one girl could swim better than that other. The youngest one loved jumping into her father's arms. It was always, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, catch me!" And he would. It reminded me of time when my family went on vacation to Doore County, WI. The hotel we stayed at had an indoor pool, and my parents convinced me to get on the diving board. Which, I did, and then froze. I must have been four or five. I would not jump because I could not touch the bottom. My mom said, "Dad can't touch the bottom." And at that point, my dad didn't cease to be Superman. He was Superman. The man defied the deep, and I jumped, but only because my mom said it was safe. After that I've never been scared of water.

Okay, as for the day. Got up early. Walked to Enterprise (which is soooooooooooo much better than Hertz). Got there, and they didn't have the economy car I reserved. At Hertz, they would charge me extra for the upgrade. Enterprise said, the upgrade is free. I picked the Dodge Challenger...it was the car I drove in Vermont. Well, when the lady at the desk asked me about my trip, she saw the car needed an oil change, and they upgraded me to the Ford Fusion no extra cost. Nice car. Good gas mileage.

I took off to Iowa. This was the first time I've been in Iowa. One of the few US states I've not visited. Iowa is cool, subtly. The entire state's Interstate Highways are rolling farmlands, unlike anything I have seen before. The highways are devoid of McDonald's or Burger Kings or Exxons for every ten miles. However, my GPS was a straight purple line for 200 miles. So the drive is not adventurous, but the scenery is unbelievable. I wish I had better words to describe the state, but it is a verdant, fecund land that is unmatched with any state I have been to. It is a land worked and loved by the people.

Then I crossed into Missouri. I'm not a fan of Missouri as I'm not a fan of Lanford Wilson. That is, I see the country and I resist it but I can't help but fall in love with it. That's how I am with Lanford. His writing style and mine are polar opposites, but damn, when he's on, he is on. _Talley's Folly_, _Rhymers of Eldrich_, _Madness of Lady Bright_, _Hot L Baltimore_, and so on: unbelievable plays that I will never, ever be able to match as a writer. Missouri is a state that has pristine beauty only to be spoiled by Kentacohuts every two miles. (Kentacohuts are Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut franchises all in one building.). Outside of that, Missouri is gorgeous, and for what it's worth, Lanford's ethos and pathos in _The Fifth of July_ lands so much more while driving through Missouri.

My first stop was in Bethany, Missouri. I was supposed to meet with a dealer, a U-Haul dealer, there. He was not there. The shop was closed and hour before it was supposed to. Eh. The place has been a U-Haul dealer for 55 years, and this place is a picker's dream. It's not in the best repair. But, man, it was trip down memory lane. The place is a mecca. But I thought of Bethany, and I keep wanting to say Bethany, WV, where I went to soccer camp when I was in high school. And it reaffirms to me the bonds this nation has that I can step into two towns of the same name, different makeups, and be awed by the fact that they share a lot, a charm that says, names are the same, make up is different, but it's still the same country.

I waited for about forty minutes and then hit the road for my hotel in Topeka. This is another state I've not visited. Again, Kansas far surpasses any place I've been in terms of farmland. Just, freaking gorgeous. When I arrived at my hotel, I was a bit nervous. It didn't look like much. I'm in the Ramada downtown. This is ironic because it's less than a mile from the Expo Center which I cite as the location for the final scene in my play _The Sublime Abortion of Man_, now renamed _A Great Fresco of Stupidity_. The neighborhood is suspect. My best neighbors are two blocks down at the Shawnee County Correctional Institute. Side note, when I turned on the TV, there was a COPS episode (or some such TV show) on that was set in Topeka, Kansas. However! The hotel is really awesome and has earned numerous awards from Ramada's national office, and rightfully so. The place is large and in charge. Multiple conventions and weddings are here. Yet it's quiet. It's right off the Interstate so traveling to New Mexico will be easy tomorrow.

As for the drive, I'm trying to live like the Area Field Managers of U-Haul did: Find cheap hotels, and eat out of a cooler. I did this for the first book, and quite liked it. So my cooler today consisted of apples, cheese sticks, nuts, turkey, cheese, wheat bread, and leftover grilled turkey loin from last night. I arrived at the hotel full and feeling no desire to eat crap. I'll keep this going all trip, and try to keep costs low. I think this is in the spirit of what built the company. The Area Field Managers would cover vast tracks of land and do it on what they bought at the grocery. It's a neat life, and clean living, and one I guess we, myself included get too far away from on the road.

Pictures will come soon. I forgot my camera cord, but I'm gonna try to buy one at Best Buy tomorrow.

Out,

Luke

Well, I'm getting ready for my road trip. It will start next week. You can follow me through this blog. At this point I'm not sure how long it will last, it could be two weeks, could be a one month. We'll see.

Each day I will post pictures and do an update from the road. If you're politically sensitive, I can't promise that my political views won't slip in, but I'm honestly going to try to stick to the facts of the trip. It's life on the road, and more importantly about life. Please stay tuned.