Hell

I don't believe in Hell but I have driven through the middle of Kansas, mid-August, in a car without air conditioning. Between the brain boiling,  oppressive humidity and soul-crushing monotony of the fruited plains, hay stacks and rolling corn fields, I'm convinced that Beelzebub and Dante's ninth circle of the inferno must be somewhere in the general vicinity. I write this to provide context for our recently completed ride which, though arduous, was actually… I want to write pleasant… but that doesn't really capture it. How about tolerable? Almost, enjoyable?

What follows are some impressions of the states we passed through from the viewpoint of (predominantly) Interstate 10 East. Certainly, these don't reflect on the actual states themselves, merely their respective highway ambassador.

Arizona: our oldest kids live in Mesa and we know Phoenix and Scottsdale, fairly well. From I-10 East, however, Arizona paints an image of the swollen land of saguaro cactus, scrub brush, lot of tans, sprinkled with green, and road runners, one of which didn't make it under wheel. Sorry, little fellah. Among this rather droll landscape, however, boulder fields erupt spontaneously, stacked this-away-and-that, random, like the fossilized, fecal remains from giant, prehistoric rabbits.

New Mexico: we love New Mexico; we've honeymooned in Taos, spent too much intoxicated time in Santa Fe, driven through the splendors of Eagles Nest. From I-10, however, the "Land of Enchantment" should really be called the "Land of 'Ahhhhh, FV@k It'", as in "My car just broke down. What do I do now?" Well, fv@k it, leave it to rust in a ditch. "What do we do with these leftover railroad cars? Can't use them anymore…" Well, fv@k it, let's just derail them on the rail embankment. How about the unwanted Winnebago… You get the idea.

Texas: ah, Texas. I really enjoyed the 80 MPH posted speed limit for the western half of the I-10 speedway. Also, during the evening hours, late - when the fatigue of the last two hours of the first 16 hour day nearly demoralized us - we noticed many deer on the roadside, in the scrub, ready to leap in front us, giant versions of the Arizona road runner, looking to cause untold damage to us. The fact that there are so many guns and that many deer still alive in the same place, gave me a warm fuzzy for humanity.

Louisiana: Louisiana, for us, has been the rather soggy remembrances of New Orleans Bourbon Street, bank-draining dinners among high-rollers we knew and gratefully abandoned long ago, and Melissa shedding her clothes during Jazzfest, ostensibly to acquire beads from a gaggle of inebriated frat boys. Essentially, what you'd experience from the land of Mardi Gras, beignets and Hand Grenades. What we found in our travel was an amazing twenty mile bridge, the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, that spans  bayous, bald cypress swamps, and marshes. That Baton Rouge is a college town only makes it that much more interesting and we wished we could have explored it more.

Mississippi: it's undoubtedly ride fatigue but Mississippi proclaimed itself as the land of large casino billboards and numerous state police cars, far too many for such a small state, the trooper cars lit with many blue and white flashing lights, a veritable dance floor light show, pulling over three different cars of African American people, not that there's racial profiling happening. Just coincidence, I'm sure.

Alabama: we experienced the most rain in Alabama, not that much really, and the skyline of Mobile really stood out for us. The picture below doesn't do it justice. We left the Mobile drive-by saying "Who knew? Why are they keeping this a secret?"

Florida: We're spending a lot of rest time in Florida and we're enjoying the respite here in Ft. Lauderdale, land of the blue in the red that is home to Dade County. The travel into north Floriday, also along highway I-10 East into Pensacola and eventually Jacksonville encompassed heat, humidity and a myriad of insects, many of whom died a horrible death, impaled on the war machine that is our motorcycle.

Tomorrow is the last day that my lovely wife, Hurricane (how apropos!), will be with me and we'll spend one last day together on this trip before she returns home to San Jose. Words cannot express the sorrow I feel that I'm losing my traveling companion and best friend for the rest of this trip.