Ten Things I Found Out Driving Across America

Ten Things I Found Out Driving Across America

I still kinda feel this way. I'm more cotnent to be here in Indiana now, but I still want that drive again. I'd like to do it once a year. Fuck. I'd like to do it once a month. Oh well, a boy can dream...

1.) You can drive for forty thousand miles and not see a goddamn thing. And that's just Kansas.

2.) Annie Oakley smells like a big steaming pile of shit. I'm having a weird confusion of memory here, because I could have sworn it was in eastern Colorado right before I-70 bends to the north, but it's not on the map in Colorado, but IS on the map in western Kansas, but I drove past a sign that said "Oakley" and something to do with Annie Oakley.

Granted, there's not much difference between eastern Colorado and western Kansas. Though the second you cross the state line into Colorado, you are so thankful to be the fuck out of Kansas, you THINK it looks different, even though it probably doesn't.

Anyway, right about the time I saw some sign (or maybe it was a mirage at that point) about Annie Oakley, the smell hit me. I've smelled it before, but seldom this strong. Pig farm. Apparantly a million swine were in Colorado/Kansas/who-the-f uck-cares for a Republican convention. It was EVIL.

3.) It's impossible to describe the Rocky Mountains. Not because they look so cool, but because I never SAW them. I was too busy driving 75 miles an hour through them. I wouldn't have been driving this fast - who in their right mind WOULD in terrain like that for the first time in their lives - but there were SEVENTY FOUR BAZILLION semis on the road at the same time, all of which were driving TOO GODDAMN FAST. Actually, if nobody else was on the road, I might even drive 90 through the mountains, just because I have a death wish. But not THAT much of one. I'd rather die by flying off the road, over a gorge, and into one of those little caves, than be flattened by some asshole delivering string beans to Utah.

4.) Utah looks biblical. Well, my idea of biblical. I'm from Indiana. What the fuck do I know? But driving through eastern Utah, I could imagine hordes of Mormons trekking across this barren yet beautiful landscape, in search of a promised land. You know, right next to a big shitty-looking lake where they could fuck their 27 wives.

Further on into Utah, you get into the forest. Then you get three inches of snow in 25 minutes. I felt safer bouncing off guard rails in the Rockies. I've seen heavy snow. I've never seen snow that could KILL YOU if you stood in it for any length of time. I mean stand in it. Pull the car over, get out of the car, and get hit on the fucking head by A NEVER ENDING SKY-HIGH BLOCK OF OPAQUE WHITE SHIT. THAT was biblical. "And the heavens parted, and God threw a 70,000 foot square block of death onto the people of Utah, and said 'Why didn't *I* think of having that many wives???'"

I got onto I-15 from I-70 in this shitstorm, and found out - much to my surprise, and much more to my cries of "goddamn motherfuckers!" that you had to drive 15 more miles to get to a place to stop at. What the fuck is THAT? Two major interstates meet and there's NO GAS STATION??? Actually, I think there was one to the north. Ahh, I see. If you're heading to holy Salt Lake City, you get a place to scrape the poop out of your pants after driving through Ice Planet Hoth. If you're going to Vegas - capital of sin and debauchery - fuck you, you get to drive in more snow. Finally I stopped. In Beaver. No, not like that. I only wished. In a TOWN called Beaver. Didn't know those god-fearing sin-hating Mormoms knew much about beaver. But then again, I guess they get to have TWENTY-SEVEN of them. Damn religious people. I've gotta come up with a scheme like that.

5.) I want to fuck Southern California. Not the people who live there, the PLACE. (OK, some of the people. God DAMN the beach is a great place to have eyeballs.) I'd like to gather all of Southern California up into one big ball (well, not the fault lines and mud slides) stuff my dick in, and ride, Sally ride. I LOVE Southern Califonia. One of my friends claims that the sun shines differently there than any other place in the world. I believe him. I've felt it. I love Bill Hicks, but I'll take Arizona Bay over anywhere else on earth, thankyouverymuch. OK, I haven't seen enough of the rest of the earth to make that decision. Fuck you, I don't care. I love the desert, I love the mountains, I love the beach and the ocean. I love the incredible green-ness of San Diego. The lack of green-ness of the Mojave. The drive along I-8, entering the desert, driving through those bizarre mountains of boulders, back into the desert and into the Sand Dunes just before you get to Yuma. I felt freedom in California like nowhere else. I felt like I'd been called there, like I belonged there. When I finally stepped into the ocean for the first time in five years - five hours after leaving Vegas - I cried and repeated to myself the first thing in my head. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back.

It was a ridiculous thing to say. How can you say "I'm back" like a homecoming to a place you've spent two weeks in your entire life? But that's how it felt. Like some bastard child who snuck off into the night, returning home to a family that offered no judgement, only love and acceptance. It was absurd to feel this way. It didn't matter. All I knew was that I loved it.

Two days later I decided I had to leave it again.

As I sit here in Indianapolis, days away from a place I'd longed to return to for five years, only to be brought back by the only person on the planet who COULD have made me want to come back, I ache a little. The cheap booze doesn't really help. I recognize that SoCal is more of a concept for me than a cold hard reality. It's more of an ideal than a thing I truly know. I might be so terribly full of my own shit that I can't see why I'd be just as likely to fail and be miserable there as I am here. But I don't care. I'd rather fail and be miserable in the most beautiful place in the world than in this shithole. But I'd also rather be near the most beautiful little girl in the world than be so far from her I could only ever be with her a few times a year. Only seeing her once a week is making me want to stuff my head into boiling corn oil. I'd have no good reason to continue this absurd joke my life has become if...oh fuck, that's really pretentious, Doug...

Someday I'll go back. Someday maybe my girl can come visit there with me. It'll be fun.

6.) Traffic is a relative concept. I drove for a day and a half in L.A. before I saw traffic I'd consider heavy. When I did see it, it was FUCKING INSANE. But it was the highway. City roads? Not really any worse than any other city. Highways? Actually, this is relative too. The problem with L.A. isn't that it takes an hour and a half to get anywhere. It's that it takes that long no matter where the fuck you are at. It lasts FOREVER. It NEVER STOPS. I've driven in shit like that in other big cities. I've just not had to drive in it at 10:30 at night for 45 miles solid. Un-fucking-believable. Between the price of a shit apartment and wall-to-wall fuckers in automobiles, it took me about 7 hours (about as long as it takes to get from Sunset to Mulholland on the 405) to figure I wanted to buy a trailer in the middle of the desert instead of being in town.

7.) Arizona and New Mexico might be even better. The day I left San Diego, I headed for Phoenix to meet my friend Tom and his family.

I said goodbye to the west coast the way I said hello. By going to the ocean. The night before, the magnificent Miz Ducky took me on a tour of San Diego's more interesting spots, and I loved going to Ocean Beach. The next morning, I went to Mission Beach, where Sheryl and I went in 2000. I got a post card for Katie and said goodbye to the ocean. It didn't feel good. I wanted to see my little girl. I didn't want to leave this place.

But I did, and the drive into the desert on I-8 was one of the finest times on the whole trip. You really must experience the desert while listening to Dark Side Of The Moon and Bridge Of Sighs. Utterly fucking surrealistic. I've never even done acid and I wanted to eat a ton of it and roll in the sand to spacy blues-rock guitar solos. Eat some peyote and barbecue lizard meat while James Dewar croons. Yeah. I half-expected a balding journalist with a cigarette holder in a large red convertible and an angry Samoan in the passenger seat to pull up alongside me and yell obscenities. I would have waved and wished him good health.

Once past the Sand Dunes and Yuma, things slowly change. Cactus appear in droves. I stopped off the side of the road and took pictures. I was in awe of the desert. There's nothing there. And it's all there. I don't know how to describe that feeling. Looking at a fucking wilderness and wanting to go get lost in it. Go see God after 40 days and nights. Ingest massive quantities of mind-altering chemicals and find your True Calling In Life. Get bit by large bugs and die. Fuck, I don't know. It beat the holy fucking poop out of Kansas, I know that.

Phoenix is one massive suburb. I liked it. Tom took me to a killer Mexican place and was kind enough to let me spend the night. I regretted not taking the time to go to Cooperstown (Alice Cooper's bar) but I can do that next time. And I'll make sure there is a next time.

I stayed off the interstate for two days. Highways 60 and 70 are close enough to being interstates at times, but they take you through more interesting places. I want to take the smaller roads next time and see even more. I left Phoenix and went through starkly beautiful mountains and into a large Indian reservation. Between Safford and the New Mexico border, I hit my favorite part of the entire trip. Totally unexpected. These beautiful low mountains. So little to see, so much to derive from it. It was gorgeous. It was awe-inspiring in such a simple way. I don't know if anyone else would feel the same way. It hit me really hard. I need to see it again. Slower the next time. Stop for a while and let it really sink in. I didn't do nearly enough of that, and I'm kicking myself in the ass for it.

New Mexico has its own character. Still the desert, a different variation on the theme. The vegetation looks different, more vertical. Then I got to Los Crucas and stopped for a while to get online. I ate at the Cattlemen's Steakhouse east of town. Which looked like a great place for a long-haired Midwestern guy to get killed in. The brisket was pretty damn good.

Then into the White Sands Missle Range. Nothing to see for miles. And beautiful nonetheless. Then into the mountains, which was a bit weird. I thought I'd been morphed into Pennsylvania for a while. Then the mountains thin out back into desert.

Nothing could have prepared me for what came next. I drove to Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends live album. It had turned dark. I pulled off the road, in the middle of the desert, about 15 miles from Roswell. I rolled down the windows, cranked the living shit out of Aquatarkus (which on that album sounds remarkably like Hawkwind) and got out of the car to look into the night sky.

My god, it's full of stars.

It was the most utterly uncorrupted night sky I think I've ever seen. It's been decades, I know that. I didn't see any Roswell aliens, but I did see stunning natural beauty. I need to take my daughter there someday. I need to return often. I need the fuck out of the Midwest.

I've written about Roswell elsewhere, but I'll repeat my main impression - Redneck Disneyland. It's truly a hoot. I loved it.

The drive into Clovis was interesting. Or not, depending on your point of view. I guess if I lived there long I'd hate it as much as Indiana. Or even Kansas. But the absolute nothingness - more so than anywhere else on the trip - struck me as having a certain character. Absolute barren goddamn ZILCH for miles. But that meant no people. You've got it all to yourself. I wanted to ride a horse through New Mexico. Take some mesquite wood and Willie Nelson CDs in my walkman. Shoot some lizards and have dinner.

Instead, I live in Indianapolis. I'm a fucking idiot.

8.) I left New Mexico into the Texas panhandle. I'd only been in the Houston/Galveston part of Texas before, which was about as far away as Indiana. I like Houston better. But I did get to drive through Hereford and see a cattle farm with billions of cows crammed together into little spaces. It made me want to not eat beef for a long time.

Amarillo apparantly loves Alice In Chains, because I hit three of their songs on three different radio stations within half an hour.

It starts looking a bit too much like the Midwest again at this point. I became more anxious after Amarillo. More ready to be back in Cincinnati with Katie.

Oklahoma is nice to see. I'd see it again. Don't want to live there.

Missouri is nicer to see. I'd really like to see it again. Don't want to live there either.

Southern Illinois pretty much sucks cock.

Southern Indiana is a hell of a lot nicer to look at than the northern part.

I nearly turned around and headed back to eastern Arizona at least 47 times. I wanted to park in the middle of those mountains, eat some cyanide, and die in a beautiful place.

9.) The sun came out right when I hit Louisville, Kentucky. I was two hours from Katie. I'd say "from home", but I had no home. I had no idea what I was doing, except that I needed to see my girl again. Somehow right the wrong I'd done by leaving her in the first place. When the sun came out and I got on the part of I-71 I'd driven several times before, I felt good again. I was coming...home. Of sorts.

10.) There's no place like home. My home is where I can hold my daughter close. Everywhere else is just a place I'd love to visit. Often, yes. I dream of spending weeks on the road. Someday. Fuck knows when. I want to see more of my country. Other countries. Everywhere. I can hardly fathom the natural forces that have created this planet I live on. Growing up in the Midwest, seldom travelling far, I knew little about what was out there. I know more now. But not enough. And I want to see it all.

But I want to see Katie too. Someday, we'll explore together. I want to see this world with her. Through her eyes. I think she'd stop for longer than I did at most these places, point out things I might not have seen, or might not have paid enough attention to. And I'd learn something. I'd love to see her face when she first sees the Rockies. Or San Diego. Or the New Mexico night sky.

Fuck. I want to see her right now.

Dougie