Albuquerque

We've made our first stop on our 1400 mile journey to St. Louis- Albuquerque.

Yesterday was a very long day. A very very long day. I'll write about it later and spare you the details here, but suffice it to say we got to mom's house around 8pm filthy, exhausted, stressed out, and still in possession of the apartment on Monte Vista. We just got so behind there was no way we could do a final walkthrough, so that got added to today's plate of events.

 I had a hard time sleeping last night, after going to bed around midnight. Then, I got up at 6 AM and drove back from Awhatukee for the final cleaning and walkthrough at 7 AM. The apartment rep was nice, slightly early, and said we were good to go. Next stop was Tempe, where I picked up my old roommate Sal, who is also an architecture graduate student at ASU. We drove back to Ahwatukee, and mom made us all breakfast before we took off. Also, before we took off was the challenge of tranquilizing the cat. Our vet gave us some pills and told us to give her a quarter pill, up to twice a day, each one effective for 12 hours.

Once I got it down her, it was like we'd hit her with an elephant dart. Her eyes got really confused and sleepy, she staggered around, and rested frequently. I'd prepared a little "cat zone" in the back of the Prius with her big pillow, fresh water and food, and even her kitty litter box, but we were not even out of Phoenix before she somehow managed to jump out of the completely covered area and start making her way towards the front of the car, stumbling and sliding over the other baggage I'd stored in the backseat. She really wanted to sit in my lap, but Grandma Perkins grabbed her and held her in her lap for awhile. Finally Suki wandered into the backseat and attempted to climb into her kitty carrier, so we stopped for gas in Payson, I put her in the kitty carrier in the back seat with the door open and she quietly rested in there for the remainder of the trip. So much for the kitty class seating.

It was a beautiful drive out of Phoenix, up into Payson, but soon after we left the town, with Grandma behind the wheel, it started absolutely pouring like it does in AZ and visibility plummeted. We kept driving on slowly, keeping an eye out for cars ahead of us, and keeping a sharp eye out for our turn. When Saori and Sal came to the turn, the visibility was so poor they completely missed the sign and didn't realize after they had far passed it, so they had to detour by way of Show Low, which put them about an hour behind us.

We grabbed a bite at A&W in Holbrook, where we jointed I-40, and kept driving all the way to Albuquerque. Hit more downpours along the way, almost always the most severe weather while grandma was driving. Checked into our motel, and now I'm just waiting for Saori and Sal to arrive.

Tomorrow night: Oklahoma city.

Road Trips

Some interesting events from this week: Ahem,

Thursday was the summer solstice and me and a coworker went to see solar noon at the Burton Barr library. The library, which was a collaboration between Will Bruder, DWL, Rick Joy, Wendell Burnette, and many others, has a top floor which is about 30 feet clear to the roof, which is a floating roof, suspended on cables tied to columns. This floating roof means that there is a gap between the roof and the walls on either side. At solar noon, the sunlight washes directly down the concrete walls, all the way to the floor. There was a big crowd. Bruder was there, and gave a speech about the library as a "solar temple", as was as my sketching teacher and a classmate who now works for Bruder. Another Philipino guy who used to work for DWL, and did a lot of the drawings for the library showed us around after the event, and gave us a bunch of stories about its design and construction.

Friday, Chase came to town with his girlfriend, and I picked them up at the airport that evening. I actually stopped in at the "Stage and Go" lot to wait which was kind of fun. Stage and go is a bit like a drive in movie, except you just watch the flights which either say "in range" or "ready for pickup." I thought it was kind of strange, especially since it usually takes about twenty minutes after your plane lands to get you your luggage at sky harbor. Anyway, they were very impressed with the Prius, and I was happy to show it off to them. Chase took us out to Trader Vic's in Scottsdale, a restaurant he's been craving for awhile. We went here the last time he was in town, actually. We had some minor problems finding it as neither one of us could remember where it was exactly, and we ditched the valet service since I'd have to explain how to operate the car. It was a good evening, we hit the Valley Ho lounge for some drinks while we waited, (they didn't know how to make an Aviator, unfortunately for Chase). Food was really good, great appetizers of steak on small skewers which are served rare and can be flamed over sterno to doneness. I had the bbq pork chop, and Chase bought a round of Mai Tais, which were incidentally invented at Trader Vics.

Saturday morning, Saori (pronounced like saudi, but instead of a d, use a slightly rolled r) and I drove up to Sedona to meet some friends. We drove up the long way, by way of Payson, and up through the Rim. I really much prefer to take the longer, more beautiful roads over the straight shot through hell I-17. Our friends had gone camping the night before, and we called when we got up there and planned to meet at Slide Rock park.

When we got to Slide rock, the entrance was blocked by a massive line of cars and police turning new cars away. We finally found a parking spot on the side of the road in a turnout over half a mile away near the campsites. Sedona was packed this weekend. I've seldom seen so many people packed into a single place in Arizona. Slide rock was crammed full of people, families, screaming children, everyone. My experiences and preferences with nature tend to be 1 on 1 or with very small groups. So I was less able to appreciate the cool water and the beauty because it felt infested with people. It was still nice to enjoy the cold water and small waterfalls though.
Saori pointed out that you can't have great natural places like this so easily accessible and NOT have tons of people go there.

Our friends never showed up though, they were turned away in their cars and decided not to try to find parking elsewhere. It was ok. We really enjoyed the drive up. Driving back into town on the I-17, my eyes began to burn a bit, and I absent mindedly rubbed them with my hand. Instantly the burning began to get worse and worse and I began tearing up and blinking. It was a bad time, especially since there was no place to turn off and traffic was intesifiying as we approached the outer limits of Phoenix. It became difficult to keep my eyes open, and finally I pulled out onto an access road and parked in a construction site. We washed my eyes out repeatedly and washed off my hands. My eyes were totally bloodshot, although the water flushed out or diluted whatever was burning them. Saori drove the rest of the way back, although we stopped off at Chino Bandito since we were in the Neighborhood.

Road Trip: Phoenix to Alamogordo

A friend of mine once told me about his spring break down in Rocky Point. He had taken a "drunk bus" along with a bunch of other ASU students down there, and there the travel company kept the supply of alcohol flowing to the extent that many students stayed drunk for a week. As this is my last spring, I debated for a moment, doing the whole Rocky point thing, and rejected it after a few seconds thought. Instead, Saori and I set out for the road less traveled, a loop which would take us through north and south Arizona and New Mexico.

We left Sunday afternoon, after my friends in Tucson agreed to host us for the night at the last minute. Sally and Jonathan lent us their minivan for the trip, which made the drive a lot more comfortable and convenient. We knew were headed to white sands national monument, but not a whole else other than some vauge destinations in New Mexico. Just outside of Tucson, we pulled into a Wal-Mart to see if they had sleds. We had it in mind to go sledding on the sand dunes once we arrived. No luck. The Wal-Mart was located in an edge city which bore a strikingly depressing resemblance to north Scottsdale. Actually on this trip, we saw many cities which had parts just like north Scottsdale, almost to the point where you could predict the stores in the shopping center: you had your Starbucks Coffee, the Michaels and WorldMarket, the BestBuy, the fresh mexican food chain, etc.

Leaving Wal-Mart behind, we drove up to Gates Pass, a high mountain pass which overlooks Tucson in the West. From there, Saori and I and another two dozen people watched the sun set across the valley laid out below us. It was slow, serene, and beautiful. It made me happy and hopeful, that these families and people of all sorts would make the effort to drive out to this spot, just to see something beautiful and natural. It never fails to amaze me either, the absolutely perfect blending of colors in the sky, the unbelievably crisp silhouettes of saguaros and paloverde trees against the sky. These are the things you really appreciate after working with photoshop for awhile.

After admiring the sunset, we drove into town to meet Cassie and Kevin at a Korean BBQ / Japanese restaurant. Soon after, we were joined by Whitney and a new friend of hers, Billy whom she knew from working at Blockbuster. We split a grill-it-yourself thing and also got a bit of sushi. It was really fun to see them again and to hear what was going on in their lives. There was a party of asians who at one point burst into song which was very strange. We spent that night at Cassie's apartment, crashing on the couch.

Monday morning saw us on the road again around 9 AM. Somehow, we never managed to get up before then the entire trip. We drove out of Tucson and headed east, a route I'd never taken before. I realized to my surprise, that I actually didn't mind the driving. I was good for several hours nonstop, traversing the countryside that I'd never seen before. It was a lot easier than the hellishly boring flatland between Phoenix and Tucson. Saori loves Tucson, she likes the greenery, and the small-town feel it has. It has its charm, but it still feels very slow and provincial to me.

We stopped at a few places along the way to New Mexico, rest stops to enjoy the scenery, little towns just to see what was there, that kind of thing. We took turns driving, and finally a bit after 5 PM, we passed through Las Cruces and into the White Sands Missile Range. I saw a sign for a museum on the base, so we turned off the main road and followed a single track to an army base at the edge of a ridge. Signs on the side of the road warned us to stay on the road to avoid live ordinance which might be around. At the gate, we realized the museum just closed, but talking to the checkpoint guards, we learned we could still drive in and see the outdoor missile park. The only thing was they wanted to check our vehicle registration and proof of insurance. I had a few panicked moments as I dug through the glove compartment of our borrowed vehicle, but both documents were sanely together in a single flip open view folder. They gave us a little sheet for our windshield and we drove into the base.

The weather was cool, but not cold, and the sky was a bit overcast when we went out to walk around. They had a lot of very old missile casings, from the experimental V-2s patterned on the German missile of WWII to some very large missiles designed to be tipped with nuclear warheads. They also had a Fat Man casing, which was identical to the one that housed the nuclear bomb that destroyed Nagasaki. Saori was shocked at how small it was, and how the amount of plutonium it had taken was smaller than a soccer ball.

We pressed on the dune park, getting in an hour before sunset. White Sands National Monument is definitly one of the more surreal places I've ever been. The monument is actually only half of the dune field, as the other half is on the missile range. Occasionally, they close the road between Las Cruces and Alamogordo during missile tests. Geographically, the dune field is in the middle of an even more massive flat valley, which stretches over 50 miles in all directions. The sand is white because its all gypsum sand, and its the slightly off-white bone or milk color.

When we first arrived, I tossed my sandals and walked around the dunes barefoot. The sand was cold. We had stopped at the first place to park, too eager to get onto the dunes, but then we drove on a little further to find a more quiet spot. There, on top of the white sandy dunes, we watched the sun set in the distance behind the mountains. The sand turned orange, then pink as the sun went down, casting incredible patterns. We sat for awhile until the park ranger drove by, informing everyone via megaphone that the park was locking its doors at 8 PM. I checked my watch. 6:30. No problem. The ranger continued. "The time is now 7:33." I realized that I'd forgotten to take the time change into account. We raced back across the dark dunes back to the van, and barely made it out of the park on time.

We got into Alamogordo and started looking for hotels. Saori had picked up a coupon book at one of the places we stopped and she was thumbing through it looking for cheap rooms. On a whim, we decided to grab one of the tiny motels off the main strip. I liked the name: "The White Sands Motel." It was run by an Indian woman (ALL of those motels seemed to be run by immigrants) who gave us a room for under $30. It was perfect for us. Easy, cheap, clean. The furniture was old, and the room smelled of old smoke but it had that great cheesy, quirky quality to it. We dropped our stuff and went out for fried chicken. Afterwards, we found a Big5 Sports. The sales guy kept calling me "bro" and sold us a plastic toboggan for the dunes. I asked about missile testing, as he told us about a few months ago, there had a been a series of tests the space of a few hours that caused earthquakes and shock waves to hit the town, rattling windows, and knocking all the shoeboxes off the back wall. Impacts like that can only be caused by nuclear weapons at that distance.

Tuesday morning, we grabbed a coffee and cinnamon roll at the motel office and drove back out to White Sands national monument. There, we drove to the center of the park and found the main sledding hill. Sledding on sand dunes is not as fun as it sounds, mostly because the sand just doesn't move fast enough. Saori and I were too heavy to ride the sled together- we just buried it in the sand build up in front. Everyone else had the disc sleds, mostly kids, so they were pretty light and they were still just kind of poking down the dune. It was fun anyway, and tiring trekking up the dune. After awhile we decided just to head out and walk out among the dunes.

Oddly, there was flooding in the area, so there were a few places with huge standing pools of crystal clear water a few inches deep. The gypsum sand gets really weird in these cases. It sometimes formed air pockets below the surface forming these weird rippling tubes, walking on saturated gypsum mud felt like walking on a damp thick carpeting. There was also these two layers of red and green which we figured were probably algae.

Anyway, it was out there that we found the places that were unmarked by footprints. There was the surreality we had looked for- where all you could see was the deep blue of a cloudless sky, and the blinding creamy white of the sand, thats all, two color fields. We trekked around taking photos and running down the dunes until our eyes began to burn with the glare.

on the road

Saori and I are in Tucson, heading out to white sands. Stayed at Cassie's place. Good korean BBQ dinner with Whitney, her friend, Cassie and Kevin. But now its morning, the sun is shining, and its time to hit the dusty trail!