The Epic Drive, Part 3

This is the part of Epic Drive which kind of sucked. It did so because I woke up at 5-ish AM with my gut protesting, hard and LOUD, that it was Unhappy. I later found out that this was due to an Unfriendly bacteria taking up residence in my gut, proving once again that Texas sucks. I spent a VERY uncomfortable time in the bathroom, alternately showering (I will say this for the random motel: the hot water was HOT, good for random gut-pain) and . . . evacuating my gut. Yeah. Not fun.

Okay, whatevs. We kept driving. Texas, as I may have mentioned before, is flat. FLAT. As in, the only reason you don't see forever is because there's this horizon thing, so instead you see for twelve miles. (assuming your eyes are about 5' off the ground. Mine are.)

Sadly, because of our route, we missed Amarillo and the Cadillacs entirely. For those who do not know, there are these ten old Cadillacs buried nose-first in a field, you can get to it off of I-40 West. They are a public art statement (of some kind) and it is considered perfectly acceptable and necessary to the art that they be regularly re-graffiti'd, so I am sorry to have missed them. I cannot make this shit up, guys.

Then we got to New Mexico! There was a Very Strange Thing, though, which was that on the ground in New Mexico, there was snow! I shall take this opportunity to show off the gift given by Aunt Naomi in honor of my graduation: a camera. Follow the cut to the picture.

( New Mexico Snow )

We stopped for lunch in Albuquerque. It cleared up and I took pictures of Sandia peak, but these did not come out well at all, so I do not share. Instead, we drove out of Albuquerque, and into . . . New Mexico hail. I swear this was real hail, not freezing rain or slush, just pea-sized balls of ice hitting the windshield. We tried taking pictured of some Unamused Cows in a field, but they were Unamused and not staying still for picture-taking.

Then it got all foggy, so I drove through the fog to Santa Fe. MW's guru lives there, and she had arranged to meet up with him. The guru is now and forever known to me as Tall Paul, because he is. We went to fabulous dinner at this little bar-and-restaurant, and he even picked up the tab! Then we walked around Santa Fe for a bit. Only a bit, though, my anemia plus the unaccustomed height (Santa Fe is 6000' above sea level) was making it hard for me to get enough oxygen, no matter how hard I was breathing. So we went to the Cowboy Store and bought Panda a hat.

Then we went to the Sage Inn, got a room and went to sleep. I leave Epic Drive there, for the moment.

In today news, JJ is back from Israel! He was there for five months training his martial arts, because no joke, those Israelis are either military or ex-military and can kick your ass*. I hadn't seen him since July anyway, and finally my family is all together and family-like again! I made sushi for dinner to celebrate, since JJ wanted some.

One good thing about living on the West coast, when you go to the sushi fish store to buy fish, assuming you do so about 3:00-3:30 in the afternoon, the guy who is just coming from the docks is likely to be unloading fish caught, oh, a few hours ago. And then he cuts of a hunk and hands it to you. I am sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that sushi is better when made with really fresh fish.

And then, because we are a family again, we watched Jeopardy.

<3! Later!

*It works like this: Israel is a tiny country surrounded by much larger countries which would like to wipe it from the map. Therefore, from 18 to 21 years old, everyone in Israel (barring certain extenuating circumstances) is in the military. I have a distinct memory of my junior high Hebrew teacher telling my class about how machine guns kick up more than back, so you have to push down or end up firing straight up into the air . . . Anyway.