holliday

Do you remember way back when I bought these for myself?


Do you remember when I didn't even know how to change the oil in this heap of shit?


Do you remember how terrified I had been about driving out to Texas? Do you remember the day I finally braved the road all by myself in that shitbox, and admitted it was only because I was out of whiskey?

It's sure been a long year and a half...

I admit part of me was sad to be leaving Houston...but I packed those boots...

and my two kitties...

and headed west...

I drove for 13 hours that first day...mostly in the darkness...which means in the end...I never really saw much of Texas...although I did drive past it.

This part of the trip was relatively uneventful, thanks in LARGE part to Datsun letting me know EXACTLY where to fill up on gas if I didn't want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere!!!

So I sat there, in the darkness, reveling in my having purchased my heated seat massager and measuring time with cigarettes...thinking...mostly about how much I've grown.

I think a lot of people would look at what I'd done, quitting my job and moving in a completely new direction in life, as a move made by someone with confidence enough to move mountains. But that's not at all what it was.

That was a move made by someone fed up with living a life she didn't seem to have any say in planning out. Someone with a heart full of faith and balls of brass. But no, no confidence.

I marveled at the woman I've become, racing towards the Texas stateline in the middle of the night. A woman who had been so afraid of herself. A woman who literally and figuratively terrified of taking the wheel. A woman who spent the past year and a half facing down age old fears...the deep seeded kind you hardly even know you have... A woman who discovered that when the shit hit the fan 1,500 miles from home...she could still surive it all.

And yes...a woman who indeed, packed her life into the back of a minivan and headed out on her own, into the unknown.
I think what amazed me the most, was the complete lack of fear in doing so.

I hunckered down for the night just over the boarder of New Mexico. Not because I couldn't keep my eyes open, or I wasn't motivated to keep moving forward (anyone who's done driving like this might know, that truthfully, once you see yourself making progress getting OFF the road can be difficult), but because I'd promised myself to take it easy.

Headed out the next morning after taking some pics...


My two lovelies who have become masters of the road themselves...

Flying west on I-10...I discovered how much nicer driving is in the daytime...when the landscape is flat, the road clean, and you can actually see what's around you. Even the trucks didn't deter me from my speed of somewhere around 90mph.


Mostly my thoughts at this time were consumed with imagining what the stories of these other people on the road were. Other little cars packed to the brim...where were they going? Where had they come from? Were they starting a new life too?

Driving through Arizona...I couldn't help but think that way back in '93 when I was living there...if you'd told me that one day I'd be driving through like this...I would have laughed right in your face.

Watching the sun setting over those beautiful mountains...it really hit me...I'd finally escaped Texas...
I know, it's kinda funny that it would take so much time, and so many miles between me and the stateline to really feel that...but really that's how deeply I'd hidden my own self away.

And for the record...if you've never seen the sun setting in Arizona...it's truly magical.



Unfortunately, after the sun went down...driving became more stressful, and not even my seat massager could help me out. The roads were more crowded...caravans of trucks...and speeding cars not adhering to the passing lane rules... I got so tense I swear I thought my shoulders would actually crack... Plus, after another 9 hours or driving...I really needed a break...so I pulled off and called home.

At least by then I'd passed over the boarder of California...

After my break I got back on the road and shot for LA.
Things were going pretty well for a while until I drove straight into a windy/dust storm, which in case you don't know...especially at night, can be a little disconcerting. I resigned myself to the slow lane with the trucks, all of us going about 50mph in a 65...but yeah, fuck off.

Soon the dust turned to rain...at this point I was so cranky and getting fed up...I wasn't sure if I wanted to pull over for the night...but I WAS sure that I didn't want to be navigating the highways through LA in the rain and in the darkness of the middle of the night.

However, every time I tried to pull over and find myself a little motel...things went bad...so I kept driving and driving...finally making my way through the heart of LA...

I'd like to say that it was kinda exciting...to finally see street signs for the places I've heard so much about...but my mood wasn't playing along. Ok...so seeing the Capital Records building was kinda cool...but that was about it.

Then suddenly, instead of being on I-10 I was cruising along on 101. Seems what looks like on my map as I-10 and 1 running straight into each other...wasn't. I-10 in fact splits off somewhere in the middle of LA and reconnects later.

So I hoped on 101 north with confidence that at least it was heading north and would get me out of LA.

I finally pulled over somewhere near Thousand Oaks and called it a night. I wanted to save my last few hours of driving for the sunlight. (i also didn't think my roommates would appreciate my showing up in the wee hours of morning). And after laying eyes on California-1 North...I realized this was a better idea than I'd imagined.

Here's my girl Satan making herself entirely at home in our hotel room...as I feasted on Denny's...Jim Beam, and some of the good green stuff...because yeah, it had been THAT kind of day...and for the record...those folks in LA drive like fucking idiots...


Heading out onto the road again...I threw on some Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, which was the perfect soundtrack to all that sun and all those palm trees. All that is southern Cali...

I had my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean right around then.


It would be my last for quite some time as I followed 101 through the twisting mountains...I called it wine country...although I'm told TRUE wine country is north of where I am...and no, despite the overwhelming temptation to stop for a taste...I kept driving...


Eventually 101 got me onto N-1...which, if you've never driven it...you MUST...just preferably not in your minivan packed with all your belongings...

It's a twisty, turny, rollercoaster of a road with lots of 20mph turns...with one of the most beautiful views of the ocean I've ever seen in my life.

I threw on some Rusted Root for the hippie in me and thoroughly enjoyed myself...laughing all the way at how easily I took to this road, which only a short time ago would have scared me into submission...

Luckily there was a place to get gas up there where I discovered why folks in northern california are so happy all the time...they're stoned. This little gas station sold every kind of pot smoking paraphanalia you can imagine, and then some.

I was amazed that this road actually had little driveways leading off of it...that people actually live up there!!!

I'm also probably the only person I know who can develop road rage in a setting like this...but I did.
True those turns needed to be taken slowly...but I got stuck behind the SLOWEST old folks ever...
When we reached a turn that was labeled 45mph, I looked at my speedo to find we weren't even doing 30...if that's any indication...

So I tailgated them...put my lights on...and flashed my brights any time we came up on a 'turn-off' to let them know that me and the five cars that had piled up behind me, desperately wanted them to pull over for a moment to let us get by. But no...they never did...

I mean, there's no shame in going slow on a road like that. I did too...and when a VW bus came up behind me obviously taking the turns better than me, I pulled my slow ass off for half a moment and let them go. Because in case you don't know...there is ABSOLUTELY no place to pass on this road. None at all...so if you get stuck behind someone, you're stuck.

Eventually the road opened up and me and those five cars finally blew past them...and my mood lightened, though it took a moment for me to let the rage go.

***

Finally...driving up the last leg of my journey...I saw the sun beginning to set...little signs on people's trees out front of their houses that said things like, "Gravity at work" and "Exit Iraq." Happy little people with open liberal minds...

And I admit it...it was right around here that I actually cried.

I had on some inspirational music I'd trained for the marathon to, so it always connects to a spiritual place in me...

I was surrounded by one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen...and it finally hit me...it was mine.

Not only that it was mine...but this was it...this is what all those lonely, hungry, exhausted, days in Texas had been for.

This was the pay-off.

***

I rolled into Marina, California sometime around 5pm Saturday night...the rest of the story I'll have to tell you at another time...but here it is, the long awaited picture of my flat black magical minivan...that made the journey here without incident.