Flying J, you disappoint me

For the second time in two but really three days, I rose in someone else's house, while the residents slept on, and prepared myself for a long journey. I ate and gathered my bags and packed the VW van.

The day before I had put gas in the van and bought groceries for the two thousand mile drive home to Minnesota. Just as an aside: I went to a Trader Joe's, and I don't see what the big deal is. A faux co-op with misleading packaging and too much of it. Nothing much fresh and lots of sugar in everything. The employees wear fake tropical shirts but I'm not fooled, I know I'm not in a bamboo trading hut in the Tropics.

I was in the midst of writing a good-bye note, when James appeared, still sleepy, pulling a t-shirt on over his head. He followed me outside and watched as I put my gear in the van. Then Trish appeared on the front walk in her pajamas, then Brendon in his boxers, and finally a barely awake Jordan in Stars Wars pajama top and briefs. The whole family stood out front, in pajamas or underwear. I hugged them all and then drove off.

After a long slog north and east through Los Angeles and environs, I came upon Interstate 15; soon after, I summited Cajon Pass, and fell down into the open desert, driving across a creosote bush plain, past jagged mountains not too far away on both sides of the highway. Already I wanted to stop and get out.

But soon the heat kicked in, discouraging walking, even if I had time, and I don't, I have to get home so I can get on a flight to Maryland Tuesday with Alix. Plus, I'm ready for Minnesota.

I listened to NPR for the first time in over a month. One story was about how artificial playing fields are heat sinks, often too hot to play on in the summer, and little bits of black rubber from the fields stick to the kids' legs and arms and collect in their hair. Sometimes things like grass just can't be improved on.

Down the road, out towards San Bernadino, I switched to am radio and listened to "Focus on the Family," to an interview with Trish Berg, author of Rattled: Surviving the Baby's First Year without Losing Your Cool. She spoke of the difficulties women have in balancing their various responsibilities. She said women put too much pressure on themselves, and she advocated for what she called the "Ministry of Mediocrity." The other night, she said, when giving a talk to 1500 women, she had told them to reach down and rub the calf of the woman to their left. In any crowd, she explained, only half the women will have recently shaved their legs, and this fact will make all those who haven't shaved feel better about themselves, as they will discover that they aren't alone in their failures. "There's a ministry in giving that gift to other women," she said.

I reached Las Vegas in five hours and got off the highway at Charleston and drove to Rob's work. We went for lunch at La Compita Tacos #2, a small Mexican place in a small strip mall. I ordered the carne asada burrito and filled a plastic bag with radish slices from the condiments bar. We sat at a dirty corner table, where the smell of lysol was strong, and soon our burritos were ready, and they were hot and good.

Rob had recently competed in a moustache contest, and, as he said, looked something like Ron Burgundy in Anchor Man. He's now, though, growing out his goatee, to soften the 70s effect. We talked of lawyering and of Australia, and I would've been happy to spend the whole afternoon in like fashion, but soon Rob had to return to work and I had to get going eastwards.

The Vegas traffic was heavy on the way out, due to two separate car accidents and a looming thunderstorm. A report broke in on the radio warning of flash floods, and I thought, just get me out of here already. I had escaped the storms by Mesquite on the Arizona border, and the temperature had risen to one hundred degrees.

On a long distance drive by one's self it's a challenge to manage all the tasks that need to be done--to drive, of course, but also to get food from the food bags and cooler, to go through my waistpack in search of an old journal to check some fact, to write down comments in the current journal, to consult maps, to maybe roll down the passenger's side window.... More than once I wanted something from my duffle on the back seat, and I wondered if I could, on a straight stretch, make it the few steps to the rear and back to my seat witout mishap. I didn't actually give this a try, but I thought about it. I also would've liked to read.

In Cedar City in Utah I got off and drove through town, trying to decide on which of the hotels I had stayed at with Jenifer and Naomi and Alix in 1988, when we were on our way to Colorado to go skiing with my parents. I couldn't remember, nor could I pick out the restaurant where Alix, then almost one, created, on the floor all around her high chair, a large mess largely consisting of saltine cracker crumbs, and I left a large tip in apology.

In the town of Beaver I stopped for gas at a Flying J truckstop, the worst I've ever visited. When I got out to pump the gas I stared at the display as if it could not be true. $4.39? The price in Cedar City had been $3.99, in L.A., the most expensive of places, $4.15. Plus, the radio said oil prices had dropped. Hadn't these people heard? In my still jet-lagged, and now road trip weary state, I just could not accept this price. So I stood for a long moment and waited for it to change.... But no.

The truck stop was packed with travelers and locals both, the pumps all crowded with vehicles, people filing into and out of out of the store, the latter cohort all holding huge cups of soda, not really cups more like vats. Thick-set, sunburned people lingered just outside the doors, or stood outside their pinging cars, and the smell of gasline was heavy in the evening air. The lighting in the gas islands area was over-bright, yellow and aggressive, and made the people seem suspicious, even in their inert and coke-swilling jowliness.

Inside a long line of soda buyers snaked back from the counter, held up by an argument over a receipt at one register, a complex lottery transaction at the other. The bathroom was filthy, and I said out loud, "of course." Paper towels littered the wet and dirty floor, a dingy rime of gray circled each of the sinks, and all of the soap dispensers were empty. A sound as if someone were mopping came from one of the closed stalls, and continued unabated as long as I was in the bathroom, and I didn't know what that was and didn't want to know.

I waited in line myself and bought a Coca-Cola pick-me-up. I was going to pay for a bag of ice also--the cooler was out front--but pissed off by the high prices and the overall bad performance of the station, I didn't. I simply took a bag of ice when I got back outside. This made me feel a little better about the mistake of stopping at Beaver's Flying J, but only a little.

Soon I came to the turn-off for Interstate 70 and took it. In the dark, I tried two different "Ranch exit, No Services" off-ramps, in search of a place to park for the night. But the solitude was a little too complete and spooky. I imagined Mormon cowboys gone bad, maybe a dangerously caffeined Flying J patron looking to prey on weary, unsuspecting motorists. In the end I settled on a rest area, parking in a less well lit corner beside a couple others tired out with driving. I pulled the curtains in the back of the van, put down the bed, and lay down to sleep.