All Maps Welcome....
Houston San Antonio Fort Stockton El Paso Las Cruces Tucson Pheonix Blythe Palm Springs Los Angeles Bakersfield San Jose, goodbye. I'm back in the Bay Area. The sunset happened the exact moment I passed across the border between Arizona and California. It dipped just underneath a desert mountain in the distance, as my car passed over the Colorado River. My car was half in Arizona, half in California. I was sitting in the middle of my car. I don't know where I was, really. I was in between. Usually when you cross a border, one side doesn't look much different from the other. Borders are arbitrary, imaginary boundries... like estuaries. But when the borders between night and day, sky and earth, light and dark, hinge on their joints at the exact moment you cross the Colorado River, it makes the change seem real. At that moment, I really did cross a border; a real border, not an arbitrary one. But still, I didn't fit wholly on one side more than the other, as if I still couldn't be captured, real borders or not.
I'm back in California again. The roads are familiar here, and I don't need a map to get around, so it's ironic. Really, I could go anywhere from here. Thus, all maps are welcome, my friends. All maps are welcome.
Other notables from the trip include a brief stint stuck in Palm Springs, because my car wasn't running well so I stopped to get it worked on. I drank a smoothie while I waited. It was about 98 degrees outside, and I got a little sunburnt. I saw three dead armadillos, one dead coyote, and a dead hawk of some sort. The rest of the roadkill on the trip wasn't very identifiable flying by at 80 mph. There are also a bunch of dead insect parts which are not native to California, yet arrived here nonetheless, via the windshield and front grill of my car. There was a thunderstorm in West Texas, and I opened up my sunroof as I drove through the rain. Most of it doesn't fall into the car, if you're moving fast enough... the air passing by acts like a wind shield. Unfortunately, there were no signs of funnel clouds. The first day of my trip was 11 hours on the road, and I still hadn't gotten out of Texas. The next day I spent time driving through four different states-- Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. Despite this, time seemed to move much slower on the second day. Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown make for good road music through the Southwest. My car crossed the 100,000 mile mark almost the exact moment I arrived at my destination here in California. It currently has 100,001. Miraculously, I encountered almost no traffic at all in L.A.. I snuck past all the traffic by shortcutting between the 10 and 5 on the 210. It was genius. Also, I got all nostalgic driving through Pheonix and felt like darting up to Flagstaff, but I didn't. When I arrived at my destination, the CD I ordered had arrived too-- Tom McRae's new album, All Maps Welcome.
Anyway, I'm back in California now. But I still don't recognize the borders, and I was never one for drawing between the lines. Place a magnet on my compass and watch it spin around haphazardly. Once again, all maps are open. And all maps are welcome.
I'm back in California again. The roads are familiar here, and I don't need a map to get around, so it's ironic. Really, I could go anywhere from here. Thus, all maps are welcome, my friends. All maps are welcome.
Other notables from the trip include a brief stint stuck in Palm Springs, because my car wasn't running well so I stopped to get it worked on. I drank a smoothie while I waited. It was about 98 degrees outside, and I got a little sunburnt. I saw three dead armadillos, one dead coyote, and a dead hawk of some sort. The rest of the roadkill on the trip wasn't very identifiable flying by at 80 mph. There are also a bunch of dead insect parts which are not native to California, yet arrived here nonetheless, via the windshield and front grill of my car. There was a thunderstorm in West Texas, and I opened up my sunroof as I drove through the rain. Most of it doesn't fall into the car, if you're moving fast enough... the air passing by acts like a wind shield. Unfortunately, there were no signs of funnel clouds. The first day of my trip was 11 hours on the road, and I still hadn't gotten out of Texas. The next day I spent time driving through four different states-- Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. Despite this, time seemed to move much slower on the second day. Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown make for good road music through the Southwest. My car crossed the 100,000 mile mark almost the exact moment I arrived at my destination here in California. It currently has 100,001. Miraculously, I encountered almost no traffic at all in L.A.. I snuck past all the traffic by shortcutting between the 10 and 5 on the 210. It was genius. Also, I got all nostalgic driving through Pheonix and felt like darting up to Flagstaff, but I didn't. When I arrived at my destination, the CD I ordered had arrived too-- Tom McRae's new album, All Maps Welcome.
Anyway, I'm back in California now. But I still don't recognize the borders, and I was never one for drawing between the lines. Place a magnet on my compass and watch it spin around haphazardly. Once again, all maps are open. And all maps are welcome.