Day Three: Texas just goes on and on and on. By the third day of Texas, I was ready to see something besides Texas. It was a zillon degrees in the middle of nowhere, West Texas, when we decided to let the truck run out of gas. The handy thing about having a cell phone is that there are no cells in nowhere, West Texas. We got the truck to roll about 3 miles on empty before we disembarked to head for a nearby gas station on foot. I hadn’t gotten five feet before I saw the carcass of a deer on the side of the road, completely desiccated, its head and cloudy eye tilted searchingly toward the hazy sky, as if to say Help Me God Why? I tried not to think about that or the blistering heat. Shazzam! Within two minutes, we were within sight of the station. And with that, we cheated death. So screw you, deer. Stupid spiritual guide.

After what seemed like a thousand miles of staring at discredited landscape painting while the sun went down, and the silhouettes of oil pumps and their pendulous motion in an otherwise barren land, we finally made it to New Mexico.

Day Four: We woke up in Roswell. It was not as sad and hopeless as I thought it would be. Rather, it has turned this whole alien obsession into a hip and kitschy strip. Silver flying saucers sticking out the sides of buildings, UFO marquees; even the streetlights had alien heads for globes. I had the best cup of coffee in the southwest in a starbucks type cafe. And alien souveniers galore. Knowing how much Lickety loves aliens, fetuses, and especially putty, I was joyful to find the three combined! Hurray for Roswell!

We left around midday and headed for Phoenix. I met up with my dad along the way and we had dinner at this spiffy mexican joint where I picked up margarita glasses as big as my head, in the shape of a sombrero-ed hombre y mujer. My dad showed me around Phoenix a bit and we sat at this beautiful old church sharing a smoke before I had to hit the road. Thanks Dad!

By the time we got to Blythe, California, I was delirious. Wacky mexican polka on the radio pervaded my half sleeping consciousness the whole way.

-xo