I’ve been in Tempe/Mesa for a couple of days now. I’m leaving today. I wanted to get the scooter looked at before I got back on the road since it’s been a little shaky since I crossed that trail leaving San Dimas. Days ago now. Plus, I haven’t got the poor boy a checkup in a while.

Nothing wrong; did no damage to him. Everything was just loose. So got everything tightened, got the air filter replaced, got the oil changed out… we’re a go.

I had hoped to have this done earlier in the day so I could get fully beyond the mountain ranges I’m going to be hitting today, but it didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped.

In any event, I’ll be leaving soon and it’ll be nice to be back on the road. I won’t get there today, but I’ll be glad to get to Roswell, New Mexico. That should be pleasant.

Photos here.

It seems like I’ve covered zero ground yet it seems like I’ve been on the road forever. (I have covered almost 600 miles, though.) Of course, a lot of the non-traveling would have to do with my health. Three nights ago, I spent the night in Parker, Arizona. I had intended to leave the following day but…

When I woke up in Parker the next morning, I could barely move. Skin infection that had been developing came on full force overnight, making moving around difficult. I decided to stay another night in Parker and take care of the problem. I pretty much had to. That night, I took some small scissors, sterilized them, and cut into my flesh at the top of my tailbone to relieve the pressure and pain. My life is fun.

I feel better. I can ride at least. So I did. I left Parker yesterday morning, drove to Wickenburg, and decided there where I was going to go. I had debated going north before Phoenix and head up to Prescott, but looking at the map, I decided that I would drive on the 30 or so miles east to Lake Pleasant Park, just north of Phoenix. The plan then would be that I would then head down to Phoenix and then go north from there.

I’m in Tempe now resting. I slept almost the minute I arrived and set up camp at Lake Pleasant Park last night. Two hours. Out. When I awoke, my next door neighbors who had been playing some urban hip/hop music had all left. Smoked a couple of cigarettes, rode into town (10 miles away) grabbed a bite to eat, rode back, passed out.

While I was in Parker the last night, I stayed at the Kofa Inn Motel. One of those motels with neon signs from the 60s and a pool that was surprisingly clean. A room with cinder-block walls and plastic lounge chairs outside. A patio. Motel for the road traveler, the family in the RV, going across the country. All the cable channels. Duct tape holding the batteries into the remote. Large soap bars. Wifi but only if you’re sitting outside the building next to the office.

“We don’t have a snack machine, but Koffee Earns next door is open all night. They’re a restaurant. And there’s a Circle K half a block the other way.”

I took some advice the night before and ate a real meal at the Crossroads Cafe. Shrimp. Vegetables. A dinner roll. Eighties soft rock playing in a large room. Pine wood paneling. Exposed nails. Who drove them? How long ago was that? What are they doing now? White curtains turning yellow. Green desert patterns. Merchandise for sale at the cashier stand.

Parker, I’ll remember you.

Photos here.

A Tale

In what I knew would be my final night in Los Angeles, I decided to take a walk on Hollywood Boulevard. I left the Coral Sands Motel on Western Avenue, and drove past Hollywood and Vine to where Orange intersects the boulevard.

I looked at the people. The tourists. Fat tourists with cash and cameras and a souvenir to say they had been there.

A bad cough lingered in my chest. A perpetual case of the shakes from a low-grade fever, even with the heat in the cigarette-stained hotel room blazing at 90 degrees. I can’t get warm in this city.

I walk past Mann’s Theater. Grossly distorted imitations of movie heroes and villians pose with their signature looks. Jack sparrow with gun pointed to camera. The Joker with mortal despair behind his blood smile. Spiderman on a hydrant. The tight costume reveals a famished superhero underneath; being a hero in Hollywood doesn’t put food on the table, apparently.

As I pass these Tinkerbells and Supermen and Scooby Doo, where are you, a tour operator in the distance screams in a bullhorn for passerby to take a ride on his bus. Louder on the approach. It’s blue, the bullhorn.

At the moment I walk by him, time slows down. In the corner of my eye, I see the pitchman drops the bullhorn to his side. He turns to me as I move slowly through this haze of people. He is looking at me.

“Are you okay,” he asks.
“Fine, thanks.” I walk forward, gazing at the stars beneath me.

And this twelve-inch LP – this carnival music of car horns and tourists and sirens and heroes screaming to be heard – returns to 33rpm.

I leave.

I’m in Joshua Tree. Well, I’m actually in the Starbucks in Yucca Valley, five miles up the road. I only wanted to make a couple of notes:

1) I’m not sure that tracking my mileage/gas is worthwhile this trip as I’m going to be darting to and fro with an extended stay in the Carolinas. I did start out at 9836.4 km, though, and hit the 10,000km mark yesterday on the scooter driving to Joshua Tree.

2) I had dubbed the trip out to LA “Nomad’s Land.” So witty. While I was traveling, I saw all these slices of Americana. All these snapshots of America that I hadn’t seen before except in my mind, some of which I didn’t capture, neither in words nor in photos. And then some of what I saw, I had never even imagined. I’ve decided to classify everything on this part of the trip under the title “American Gothic”, borrowing from Grant Wood’s classic painting. It’s a surreal life in a surreal landscape filled with surreal people. This is the America I see.

That’s all.

Photos up here.