Amarillo

A Short Story

It was early evening on a summer day, and the road was nearly deserted—which seemed strange, since it was a major east-west interstate. Nonetheless, she saw few vehicles, only—now and then—large trucks. As the sun was setting behind the mountains, the light hardened to a deep orange, then dimmed into a purple twilight. This part of the country had deep folds in the land, which would continue until it flattened out near Amarillo, her immediate, but not final, destination; she did not remember it taking this long to reach the town after crossing into Texas, but she now realized she probably wouldn't make it before dark. Just before she turned on the headlights, something crossed the road in front of her, some unknown creature that seemed almost to float like a wisp of smoke, not identifiable by any means of locomotion she had ever seen. A roadrunner?

Gradually, the land smoothed out, and she recognized a gas station, calculating she was perhaps 30 minutes from the outskirts of Amarillo. She was tired but alert and saw nothing else moving through the dry landscape except for other vehicles, the occasional RV or truck, on the road itself. As she neared the city limit, the wind picked up, and in the rear-view mirror, she saw that what had looked like a distant mountain range was actually an enormous steel-gray cloud encroaching over the desert and emitting an occasional flash of lightning. It was still some miles away.

She had no hotel reservation, had not eaten since breakfast, and knew nothing of Amarillo except for the long strip of hotels along the interstate corridor. She needed to find an ATM, a gas station, some food, and a place to stay, which seemed a reasonable plan until the wind turned cyclonic once she left the highway to look for an ATM. It whistled around her head while she punched buttons at the bank machine and steadily rose in volume as she dashed through the drive-through at Wendy’s, starting to feel somewhat frantic. The wind was actually shrieking as she made her way back to the interstate and attempted to navigate an access road that led first to a dead-end field, where the grass lay nearly sideways in the wind, and then to an expensive hotel that she could not afford. Coming out of the parking lot, she saw the familiar logo of a moderately-priced chain a mile down the road and sped toward it, expecting to spot a tornado at any moment.

The hotel was new and clean and had vacancies. The deep purple color scheme and Pierrot-inspired decor had a curiously deadening effect, but she just shrugged. Probably designed by a committee. There was even an available luggage cart on which she piled her suitcases, fearful that her car might be destroyed overnight in the cyclone. In the elevator, her breathing began to slow to a more normal level as the sounds of the wind were muted, but when she stepped into her room, the full force of the storm made itself felt once more, a giant body-slamming the building. She looked out the window before closing the curtains and saw an enormous sea of darkness next to the hotel, as if the building were perched on the edge of a deep canyon. With a small shudder, she turned away. Her Wendy’s had gone cold, but she ate it anyway while watching an episode of Fixer Upper that she had already seen. Despite the ferocity of the storm, the nearly constant lightning and pounding hail, the lights never flickered until she turned off the TV and pulled back the bed covers. Then all the lights went out at once.

This won’t last, she told herself. The hotel is bound to have a back-up generator. She walked over to the door, checking to make sure it was locked before lying down. It was only then, with the TV silenced, that she noticed a repetitive sound coming from outside her window, the sound of one hard object pounding another. Fearing that an adjacent window shutter had come loose and was about to crash through her window, she risked a quick peek and found herself face to face with a human-sized winged creature, with red eyes, gray skin, and sharp claws. Although she had difficulty processing what she was seeing, she had no trouble realizing that the creature was trying to open her window from the outside.

Stay calm, she said to herself, amazed that somehow her mind had switched to an automatic pilot mode. She reached around in the dark for something to use as a weapon, picking up a wooden chair just as the window latch came open and the creature put one wrinkled foot over the ledge. She pushed at it with all her might, using the chair to throw it off balance, so that it had to scrabble with one claw to maintain a hold. The coffeemaker on the desk was full of boiled water from the hot tea she’d forgotten to make; she grabbed the pot and threw the contents into the creature’s face. With a piercing cry, it let go of the ledge and fell into the darkness of the chasm.

In shock, the coffeepot still in her hand, she noticed that the wind was much less desperate-sounding than it had been a few minutes ago; then the lights came back on. How long had they been off? Two minutes? Five? The curtains blew in toward her along with some cold rain. Numbly, she latched and locked the window, which was completely intact; stumbling away from it, she hit the TV remote with her hand, and HGTV switched on to a discussion of shiplap and the choice of a door for an excited couple’s walk-in pantry, followed by a commercial for Lowe’s summer sale. It was incredible that even in the face of an incursion of the fantastic, the rational part of her brain could still take in details about custom doors and tile choices, could still tell her to straighten the chair and return the coffeepot, now empty, to its place. It was as if nothing had happened, as if she had just awakened from a nightmare without realizing she had ever gone to sleep.

Maybe that’s it, she told herself. I’m overwrought, I fell sleep while watching TV. It's all this pressure from the sales meeting. This will all fade to nothing in the morning. Still, she decided to leave a couple of lights and the TV on before lying down. To her surprise, she was suddenly exhausted and fell asleep with no difficulty, though she woke several times during the night. In the morning, she awoke to a bright daylight seeping through the curtains. All seemed normal, except for the damp places in the carpet near the window.

When the pleasant middle-aged woman at the reception desk asked if everything had been alright with her room, she took a deep breath and asked if the woman was aware of any large birds native to the area, really large, like a condor or possibly a harpy, that might have been noted around the hotel. The woman frowned with thought, as if contemplating an unexpected but pleasant puzzle, before saying no, not that she was aware of. “Although I’m not from around here,” she added, handing Cass’s receipt to her. “I’ve only been here for about six months. Why do you ask?”

“I just thought I saw a really big bird outside last night. But the storm was so wild, I probably imagined it.” Cass made a mental note that this was now the official story she would take with her from the incident, when anyone from the office asked about her trip.

Once she was behind the wheel of her car, she sat for a moment, thinking of the many miles she still had ahead of her. She still needed gas. She tried not to look toward the chasm at the rear of the hotel as she pulled onto the street. Everything looked ordinary in the morning light, which helped quell the unease that lingered in her mind. It simply had to have been a dream.

She filled up at the gas station and went inside to pay. The gas station did not serve breakfast, so she grabbed a package of crumb cakes and a bottled tea before going to the counter. She was the only customer. The clerk had the radio on to a morning news show; a stack of newspapers sat on the counter with a photo of a presidential candidate in a headlined story. Morning in America.

She had paid the clerk, taken back her change, and was saying thank you before she noticed how ashen the clerk’s face was. When he nodded to her thanks, his movements were stiff, and there was fear in the glance he flicked at her. The inside of the gas station was as conventional as could be, but somehow the slant of light wasn’t quite as it should be. It was as if he knew, as if she was marked in some way. She had never seen him before. Still, that look.

As she walked slowly out to her car, the miles and miles ahead of her seeming to stretch into infinity, she began to wonder for the first time, strangely, if she would ever make it home.

Travels with Wordplay

Wordplay has spent the last few days touring the Southwest/Rocky Mountain region, waiting for job applications to bear fruit and connecting with family and friends, or trying to. As you may recall from last week, I was trying to avoid throwing myself on the mercy of charity by making my resources last as long as possible. This strategy would only work if it ended up saving me money, and the jury is still out on that aspect of the adventure. One thing's for sure, I have seen some places I haven't been to before and revisited some old ones, seeing them, as it were, in a new light. I've never been to the Southwest or the Rockies in late summer, and it's remarkable how a different slant of light transforms a landscape into something almost new.

What about a Jungian travelogue this week, just for a lark? That's not something you see every single day of the week, especially one written under annoying conditions in which a persistent wi-fi issue in a public cafe makes typing nearly impossible--which in itself seems like a great reason for continuing. Is it a conspiracy to prevent free speech? Is the person sitting next to me emitting negative gamma rays? Is Mercury in retrograde? Does this cafe need to replace its router?

Rather than draw any rash conclusions, perhaps it's more constructive to proceed with my groundbreaking travelogue and avoid getting sidetracked by minutiae, though whoever/whatever is responsible for this horrible connection probably deserves to have their ears boxed, at the very least. A day in court is probably more like it.

I headed out of L.A. via the 210, and the trip in reverse (I came into town that way) wasn't nearly as bad in the murderous Polar Express runaway train sense of bad as the journey west. We don't want to let you into town, but feel free to leave whenever you want to, is that it? Even the roads were in better condition on I-15 heading toward Nevada, though I put no great stock in that as an indication of anything, except perhaps the fact that too many people go to Vegas on vacation to let those roads deteriorate to any great extent.

What follows are archetypal impressions of some of the high points of my trip, and, as always, the opinions are entirely my own.

Las Vegas -- Never been before; not really my scene, though I was curious to see what the famous skyline would look like. If you're going to drive through, might as well do it at night, which is when it's really meant to be seen, was my reasoning. By the way, I have nothing against people going there, per se. Indulging in a little bit of what wouldn't be good for you in big doses is probably not a bad way to let off steam. For most people, it's merely entertainment, a way to escape the everyday and indulge in a little bit of frivolity--though it can have a strong undertow for some. The skyline was as glittering as one could wish, but some of the drivers are much less stellar. They in the business of running people off the road there? And that traffic stop that seemed somewhat gratuitous? No, thanks. Archetypal assessment -- Like going into the anteroom of the Underworld, from which you can still see daylight if you don't start mucking around in backrooms and alleys. Hades rules, not that that's a reason for you to cancel your vacation. Have fun, but don't forget to go home at the end.

Arizona Portion of I-15 North -- What the heck was that? "Watch for Falling Rocks?" All I saw were rocks. I'm sure this is seriously scenic in daylight, which is the reason I'm glad I was doing it at night. I was still trying to recover from Vegas and was in danger of scenic overload. Archetypal assessment -- In the dark, it looked like the aftermath of the clash of the Titans.

Idaho Falls, ID -- All I can really tell you is that I unexpectedly had the best sandwich and Caesar salad combo of my life in a downtown cafe, to the point that I had to tell the waiter about it, and that the back of the Tetons, normally visible all the way from Idaho Falls, could not be seen that day due to haze. (I say the back of the Tetons, but of course that's all relative. What I really mean is that the famous view, the one everyone is familiar with, is on the other side.) Archetypal assessment -- Olympus, brooding, hides its head in the clouds.

Salt Lake City -- I always wanted a closer look at its downtown, so being in great need of a break, I spent one night. I was nearly run over by a truck just before I got off the interstate in an inexcusable display of poor driving (not by me), but exit the interstate I did. I found a modest hotel with scary hallways but nice rooms and a view of the city lights from my window. I had a pleasant walk through a pedestrian-friendly downtown full of shops, businesses, cafes, and gardens, under a dramatic sky that threatened a storm at every moment but never really rained. I watched the sun setting behind the Mormon Tabernacle building and peeked in at the fountains and courtyard of the downtown mall. Archetypal assessment -- The Mormon Tabernacle building looks a little bit like Oz when they turn those green lights on at night, which gives it a bit of a fantasy look, but the main public library is as high-tech as they come. Salt Lake City seems to have it both ways, being both ethereal and gear-heavy. And those views of the mountains! Jacob's ladder might be sitting there in some back street, with angels going to and fro at all hours, each carrying an i-Pad.

I-80 Across Nevada -- Just don't do it if you can help it. The salt flats on either side of the road in the Utah portion throw off an uncomfortable glare; there are very few places to stop for gas; there's a section in which low-flying planes are a real possibility; the local microclimates make for sudden squalls during which tractor trailer trucks are prone to coming up right behind you and honking madly (Buddy, there are plenty of lanes here. If you think this is going to get me to pull off the road, you're sadly mistaken.); and you're out in the middle of nowhere--relatively speaking--for an ungodly amount of time. Archetypal assessment -- It's a bit like Eurydice and Orpheus ascending from the Underworld; just don't look back. The entry into California's Sierra Nevada after you pass Reno almost makes it worth it--but maybe not quite.

Sacramento -- Old Sac is fun in a half-kitschy but educational sort of way. Motel 6 in North Sacramento? Not so much. Downtown Sacramento is rife with handsome Victorians and wide streets, and the state capitol is impressive. Archetypal assessment: Zeus and Hera reside here, so you know the trains are going to run on time.

Davis, CA -- Reminds me of a Midwestern college town; I thought of living here once. Archetypal assessment -- Funny business with the wi-fi here. Hermes?

South by Southwest

Wordplay has landed in Los Angeles after a trip that was in some ways better and in some ways worse than my last journey here (I refer readers to my previous blog post "Out West" for an account of that episode). One thing that hasn't changed is the number of odd occurrences, some alarming and some just plain weird, that seem to accompany me any time I step out the door (much less move across country). My last trip was peppered with repeated appearances by a stalker, heat exhaustion, food poisoning, hotel doors that didn't lock, and much night driving. When I got home to Kentucky, I was so glad to have survived the trip that I had no wish to repeat it any time soon, and didn't.

This trip began more auspiciously, helped in part by the time of year. A journey in spring, flooded by light, is bound to have a more holiday feel than one begun in late October, and this one did. The air seemed to sparkle with optimism as I headed out of Kentucky, and most of my encounters on the first stage were no more strange than the ones I'm used to, except for all the burned tire rubber I had to dodge in Indiana from a convoy of trucks ahead of me. Oklahoma was fairly uneventful until I hit a windstorm just as I was passing through my second toll booth. It was like a scene by Cecil B. DeMille via The Wizard of Oz, complete with an enormous storm front, a funnel cloud (unless my eyes deceived me), and a choice between exiting the interstate and trying to drive clear.

I know the standard advice is not to try to outrun a storm, but based on past experience I have found that sheltering in place is not always the best idea either. The storm was far enough away that, given a split second to decide, I concluded it was better to keep going. (Note: I'm not telling you to try to outrun storms; I'm only telling you what I did in this instance.) It worked out OK, but I saw my life flash before my eyes for a few minutes there. Was it all going to end on an Oklahoma highway? Later that evening, I narrowly avoided running over an actual log in the middle of the road that surely would have ended my journey right there in Oklahoma City had I not seen it. That's two strikes against Oklahoma.

I accomplished my goal of getting as far as Amarillo, Texas, though I didn't expect to have to deal with sub-par hotel plumbing after a full day of driving. (I have a prejudice against calling for maintenance assistance in the wee hours of the morning while traveling alone, silly though that may seem to you.) After declining the orange juice that tasted suspiciously like Tang at breakfast in the morning, I journeyed on, looking forward to getting through New Mexico as expeditiously as possible.

I disliked eastern New Mexico, though driving in and out of rain showers did clean my car off. I found two things to like about western New Mexico: the beautiful sandstone highway infrastructure that mimics the colors of the landscape on the western slope of Sandia Mountain and the red rocks in the dessert near Gallup, two sights worth seeing. I enjoyed the sunset drive across Arizona as far as Flagstaff and the holiday mood that prevailed in the hotel there; Flagstaff was apparently hosting several events that weekend, and it was a Friday night to boot. I almost felt like I was on vacation.

After that, things went downhill (literally), as the interstate was under repair and not in the best condition for driving. I didn't like to stop in Kingman, as I had a problem with my hotel when I was last there, but you have to stop sometimes, and I prefer to take gas-and-caffeine-breaks in populated areas. That stop turned into a 90-minute delay when I forgot to lock the bathroom door in Starbucks and had someone nearly walk in on me. Normally, I would simply have felt embarrassed and let it go, but I didn't like the look or attitude of the man who did it and insisted that the Starbucks staff write up the incident. They called the police as well, and I gave a report to the officer who arrived. You meet all kinds of people while traveling, including some that you would much prefer not to.

Aside from delaying me, the incident soured what was left of the afternoon. I didn't like the look or feel of Kingman and was glad to get away, but I had some of the toughest driving of the trip just ahead of me. The last time I crossed the Mojave into California, it was at night, and I don't remember it taking nearly as long or being as difficult a drive. Between poorly maintained roads, a persistent wind that seemed determined to push my car around, the desolation, and the number of big trucks on the road, it was altogether a trying way to enter California.

Don't even get me started on the displays of unnecessarily reckless driving I saw on the hill near San Bernardino: I was afraid of getting blown off the road at any second, if not actually run over. I know people drive more aggressively out here, but I had never seen anything remotely resembling the way people, including truckers, were careening down that hill and cutting in front of others. It was as if everyone had decided to try for a live action replay of the runaway train scene in The Polar Express. The traffic in L.A. seemed tame by comparison.

I had tried to imagine how I might spend my first evening in California and had come up with a few thoughts, though I had never settled on anything. I had vague ideas of a celebratory dinner, and I wanted to try to find the house where I did some accidental damage to a screen the last time I was in town, but since I was late in arriving, dinner at Wendy's ended up being the main event. I finally managed a California Highway Patrol escort to my hotel when all the directions everyone gave me had me driving in circles. I spotted the CHIP car at a gas station and asked for help . . .  and when it's all said and done, I guess having a police escort at the end did kind of put a final flourish on things.

I've gotten organized, bought groceries, hung up my clothes, tried to find the people whose screen I damaged, and signed up with a temp agency. That's not bad for less than two days in town after a trying journey (punctuated by a few moments of beauty, I must say). I've been wondering how the pioneers ever managed it, since even today, a cross-country trip--with air conditioning, bottled water, and caffeine--is no joke. But as I told the highway patrol officer, the end of an exhausting day often takes on a different aspect the next morning, and it did. Here's hoping for better things ahead, but whatever happens, you can count on Wordplay to let you know about it. May your travels (and mine) be a bit smoother for the rest of the summer.

Listening to the Road

This week, I finished Neil Gaiman's novel, American Gods, which I decided to re-read after a recent conversation with a friend about some of my travel experiences out west. In particular, I was trying to describe the oddly discomfiting experience of driving east on I-80 through Wyoming. She mentioned a friend who'd had a similar experience once, and the conversation then shifted to Mr. Gaiman's book, in which the main character undergoes many peculiar adventures in a series of road trips. One of the novel's conceits is that roadside attractions in America often disguise places of ancient power, places where people feel compelled to stop without knowing why.

In my case, the drive through Wyoming, a harsh landscape with (to my Eastern eyes, anyway) remarkably few people, was punctuated by road signs referring to a place called Little America, which seemed to be the Western version of Stuckey's, those gift shops (famous for peanut brittle) one used to encounter off the interstate on trips to Florida. I couldn't quite make out what Little America was known for, though it seemed to be a kind of inn. It may have been a trick of the winter light or tired eyes, but all the signs I saw were a bit on the oafish side, as if the advertising agency had a strange sense of humor. I later read on someone's blog that Little America is known for ice cream, admittedly not a big draw in winter.

When at last I came up to Little America, it was on the opposite side of the road, and--as happened frequently on my trip across Wyoming--there wasn't a person in sight, just a sort of sprawling building. I hurried past it, but that wasn't the only time that day that I passed some small town or other and wondered, "Where are all the people?" Often, these tiny burgs had the look of ghost towns or movie sets, a phenomenon that persisted across much of Colorado and Kansas. I stayed on the road rather than spend the night in any of these places--so I actually had the opposite experience from the tourists in Mr. Gaiman's book.

I wasn't really sure re-reading American Gods would give me insight into my experience, but I was mildly curious to see what Mr. Gaiman made of the American road trip. It's been many years since I first read American Gods, and I didn't remember it well. As it turns out, the book I read this time was not even the same book, not entirely, since Mr. Gaiman put out a revised author's preferred edition some time ago, and that's the one the library had. I'm not even sure where the differences are, though the preface mentions that the preferred edition is longer than the original. The experience of revisiting a familiar book after a long period of time to find it utterly changed is compounded in this case by the fact that the text actually has changed. So, that's one thing.

I remembered American Gods as being offbeat and strange but humorous; this time I found it much less funny. When I first read it, I hadn't yet made a formal study of mythology but was interested in any story that incorporated mythological characters. Mythology is quite trendy these days, but when I first read the book there didn't seem to be that many people doing it, or doing it well; I found American Gods to be wildly imaginative and original. I still think that, though I am somewhat surprised not to have realized back then that the genre of the book isn't really fantasy but rather horror. It's one of those stories that are hard to categorize, and I believe it has won major awards in several categories, but still--it's a horror story more than it's anything else.

The novel is complex and sprawling, with a large number of characters, and Mr. Gaiman seems to be doing several things at once. The protagonist, a man named Shadow, becomes entangled in the plot of a character called Wednesday (actually a god) to round up all the old gods of culture and religion, living in American under assumed names and disguises, for an epic confrontation with the new gods of media and technology. His ostensible purpose is not his true one, and Shadow realizes this in time to foil Wednesday's ultimate design, though his own life has in the meantime completely unraveled--due, it turns out, to Wednesday's machinations.

Much is made in the novel about America being "a bad place for gods," which is not perhaps surprising, since most of the gods in the story are transplants from other cultures, arriving here in the minds and hearts of immigrants from those lands and trying to make a go of it on foreign soil. One implication seems to be that American culture is too shallow to support them, that Americans are too taken up by television, pop culture, and other diversions to give proper consideration to the sacred. While recognizing that pervasive materialism is a fact of American life (though not the only fact), I'm much less convinced this time around that most of these gods deserve any pity. Their main raison d'etre is a constant need for attention and adoration, which becomes the excuse for all kinds of bloody-mindedness and cruelty. If we're supposed to think it's a tragedy that they've been diminished, I must say I came away with the opposite feeling.

Shadow is a curious kind of a hero. Though he ostensibly saves the day by averting the war between the old gods and the new, he takes the ruin of his own life with much less bitterness than you might expect. It's not clear in the end that he himself is still human . . . he seems to have gone at least partially over to the other side. He solves the mystery of what has been happening over the years to the children who have disappeared from the small Wisconsin town he settles in and in the process reveals the crusty town father to be just another murderous divinity in disguise. After so much death and destruction at the hands of these folks, you might think Shadow would be delighted to get away from them for good, but it's not entirely clear that he feels that way. It's a bit like Chaucer's narrator disavowing, at the very end, all the bawdy stories he's repeated in The Canterbury Tales. You suspect him of being disingenuous.

The name "Shadow" could be taken as an indicator that the character, largely unconscious of what is happening around him in the beginning, is much less so by the end of the story. It might be going too far to say that he's an "Everyman," standing in for the average American consumer who lives in a shallow, material world and grows in consciousness by getting in touch with the ancient powers both around him and within him--but there are some indications that this is the point. It's less clear what Shadow has actually accomplished. There are many images of suffering and death in the book, and much gruesomeness, and it all seems rather gratuitous after a while. I finished the book with the feeling that I had something on the bottom of my shoe that needed to be scraped off.

Mr. Gaiman mentions some roadside attractions that are apparently quite real, though Little America isn't one of them. There is a scene in which some mysterious characters temporarily imprison Shadow in a cell until he is freed by his wife, who's been turned into a zombie (don't ask if you don't want to know). When he escapes, he realizes he's been on a train parked in a remote area. Coincidentally, I noticed a freight train out in the wilds of Wyoming, the only thing moving in the whole landscape aside from the vehicles on the interstate, and wondered where it was going in all that remoteness. It might have been the train to nowhere and would easily have fit into Mr. Gaiman's story. The bleakness that adheres to many of Mr. Gaiman's locales matched what I saw through my car window, though I suspect my experience might have been different under different circumstances. If I ever revisit that area, I may try a Native American blessing--maybe that would frame things differently.

Next time I'm trying to put my own travels in perspective, I'll have to remember not to turn to a horror story. Things are bad enough without that. I feel sure there are other narratives out there, other ways to look at the land that neither sugarcoat the past or excuse it but allow us to see it for itself. If Mr. Gaiman's book is a map of a certain kind of journey, I feel sure it's not the only one available. It certainly isn't one I want to take.

Out West

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Once upon a time (two and a half weeks ago) I decided to take a fall break and drive to the West Coast and back. All I can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time. I've never actually driven that far (and it's doubtful ever I'd do it again, not alone, anyway), but at the time, the thought of a little California sunshine was very appealing, and driving seemed the way to go.

If I had known what kind of a trip it would be, I would never have left home. The day I left, it was sunny, hot, and pleasant here, but I went through a number of climate changes before I got back and soon realized I was smart to have packed so many layers (though the two bathing suits I included never got any use). I left in the afternoon, at first driving a familiar stretch of interstate between Lexington and St. Louis, and then stopping for the night about an hour west of the latter. I got a clue that this wouldn't be a normal trip when the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn* (see comments below) did a double-take on seeing me and said that another guest who looked just like me (and was dressed like me, apparently) had just gone up in the elevator. Of course, that was a bit strange, but . . . what the heck. Coincidences happen!

Driving across unfamiliar stretches of Missouri, Oklahoma, and the Texas panhandle, and encountering increasingly unpopulated segments of road, I decided getting through quickly was the best plan, so I drove all night through New Mexico and found myself in Arizona the next morning. Looking for a hotel in the town of Holbrook at first seemed sensible, but on closer examination, I decided a more touristed area would be safer, so I drove on to Flagstaff, where finding a suitable hotel proved challenging. Looking up one that sounded reliable, I discovered it was outside of town, and I drove through miles of forest and desert only to somehow miss it and end up napping in the back seat of my car next to a residential area, waking in the middle of the night and discovering, on the way to get gas, that I had literally been almost next door to a Best Western. I checked in and spent the rest of the night in bed.

Although I was close to the Grand Canyon (which I have never seen, except from the air), I had by that time decided that to get where I was going was highly desirable, and that perhaps I would see the Grand Canyon on the way back. Pressing on, I crossed the state of Arizona, not before discovering in Kingman that my passenger side door had been unlocked (probably while I was at the Best Western). Since I had lost my keys (at home) back in the summer, that gave me pause, but by a strange twist of fate, it was actually lucky for me that this happened because I had just accidentally locked the driver's side door (with the motor running) and was thus equal parts perplexed and overjoyed to find the passenger door unlocked. After somehow getting on the interstate going the wrong way for 20 minutes (Arizona, your signage?), I righted myself and headed for the California border at Needles.

Now I have spent considerable time in California, but driving across the desert in a car was totally new to me. I had been here before on a train, but everything looks quite different when you're in a car, especially by yourself. By this time, it was dark and a little scary. An unexpected light moment came when the border guard, prior to giving me an inspection pass, asked if I had any live animals with me. I'm not sure why that was funny (three days in a car, and you get a little punchy), but I laughed and told him, "Just me."

I drove to Ventura County, almost home ground for me since I went to school next door in Santa Barbara County. I hadn't realized finding hotels in October could be such a challenge, but evidently October is high tourist season in some parts of the West. I ended up staying in Santa Paula, a nice town though a small one, but checked out of my hotel on Sunday, earlier than planned, to head down to L.A.

All I wanted was a good night's sleep in a decent hotel, and a little sightseeing the next day. I thought of going to the Getty Center. When I got to Santa Monica, I started to stay at one of the fancy hotels near the beach, but a trip to my room convinced me otherwise. I was stuck in a remote corner of the hotel, out of sight of anyone else, with a lock that didn't seem to quite work (this became a theme on the trip). I hauled my suitcase back down to the desk and told the clerk I didn't like the room. She offered to reassign me, but having gotten a bad vibe from this experience, I told her I'd look elsewhere.

I can't honestly say why, but I was no longer sure I really felt comfortable in L.A. I drove around for a while, decided to go down to San Diego, did so, tried to find a hotel district, and somehow found myself on the residential side of town, no hotels in sight. (Finding a hotel in the dark when you're tired isn't always as easy as you might think, along with the fact that experiences of the last couple of days had me leery.) Since I knew no one in San Diego, I decided after all to drive back to L.A.

The next day's adventures included going for what was intended to be a short walk, getting dehydrated, not being able to find my car, almost deciding to fly home in panic and frustration, and finally locating my car with the aid of the police. The police helped me look through my things to discover if anything was missing and told me to call the next day if I discovered anything amiss later on. After they left, I noticed once again that my passenger side door was unlocked. Wow! After spending the night at a favorite hotel in Santa Monica, I called in to report this the next day.

Could the trip get any stranger? Well, yes, actually, it could. After I ate lunch in Malibu, bad fish forced an emergency stop in Santa Barbara. I was ready to call it a night, and the hotel seemed nice enough, but after taking a shower and lying down for a while, I became increasingly uneasy about the door -- which did not have a dead bolt lock -- and the open transom above the curtains. I checked out that night, and after driving north in search of another place to stay, I suddenly wanted to be gone and decided to head home.

On Halloween, I found myself crossing the wide open spaces of Nevada, trying with difficulty to reach friends and family on my cell phone. Since this saga has already gone on too long, I won't go into detail about my unsuccessful attempt to see family in Idaho, the invitation from a friend in San Francisco to come and visit, my drive back to California and the Hotel of the Windy Corridors in Stockton, the impossibility of finding a parking space in San Francisco on a Friday night, and an overnight stay in Morgan Hill with a hotel full of lacrosse players. Heading east the next day, I experienced one of the few moments of joy and ease on this trip as I passed through the fertile hills around Gilroy, where they grow many things, including garlic -- whose scent suffused the air. The hills were enveloping and welcoming, and I was sorry to leave them behind, reminders of happier times on previous trips.

The scenery from Bakersfield to Barstow, and then on to Needles, across the mountains and down to the desert, was magnificent, but I felt like I was viewing it distantly, on a very small television. It was like something out of an old Western, especially the closer I got to Needles. I have heard that California is many states rolled into one, and I certainly had proof of it on this trip. I saw parts that I had never seen before, or had never seen by car, which makes a big difference; even the familiar parts looked strange, as if they had been flipped upside down. As a child, I remember once or twice experiencing a strange sense of disorientation, in which suddenly directions seemed to have reversed themselves when I came to a familiar place from a different angle. That sensation was something like what I experienced on this trip.

I stopped not long after dark in Kingman, Arizona, where I ended up in a room with a loose safety latch; traveled on the next day to Amarillo, Texas, where I had the identical problem with a safety latch in a different hotel chain; and finally decided I was getting home no matter what, so that I drove carefully and methodically across parts of five states before crossing back into Kentucky and collapsing at a Sheraton on the outskirts of Lexington. I took what was almost a semi-vacation that last day, going to the mall, buying chocolates, and shopping. I came back to my apartment the next day, Wednesday, and thought about kissing the door frame once I was inside. (I was so tired, I forgot.)

I could (and will) call this trip "The Vacation That Wasn't" or "I Dreamed a Dream of Driving to California, But This Was Not It." I could also call it "The Magical Mystery Tour," though my use of the word "magical" isn't meant to connote anything positive. I could call it "Into the Wild," though that title, too, has been taken. Or with the Grateful Dead, I could truthfully say, "What a Long Strange Trip It's Been," and be perfectly accurate.

One moment of great clarity stands out: I was driving west on I-80 in Nevada, whose harsh and immense landscape might as well have been the surface of the moon, when a great loneliness came over me. The only thing I could think of was my own apartment, my books on the shelves, and how much I wanted to see them. I was so far from anyone I knew, or anything familiar, and all I wanted was to get back home. And so I did, eventually. And here I am.

Like Dorothy, who wanted to leave Kansas so badly, I find myself, at the end of the yellow brick road, back where I started, if a little worse for wear. I was looking at a picture of myself that I took after getting home and thought, "Wow, the wear and tear is kind of showing." It brought to mind what Indiana Jones famously said: "It's not the years, it's the mileage" (literally).

On the other hand, it may not be anything that a good night's sleep and a little moisturizer can't cure. Check with me in a couple of days.

And if you yourself are on the road, drive safely.