CALIFALOOZA, or DUDE, WHERE'S MY GAS, or PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD ABBY

California....what can I say.  You know what they say about California girls, or at least what Katy Perry says about California G-U-R-L-S, which really pisses me off, being from New York and not exactly at my optimal physical fitness.  Even as I sit on my poolside hotel balcony, here in Palm Springs, there are bikini-clad woman sunning it up at 10:30 am.  Go back to bed, bitches.

So how was the ride in to Southern California?  Not too impressive, honestly.  I mean, after you've seen Tucson, AZ (above), the desert out here looks pretty pathetic (below).  

 

My camera was so unimpressed, it clearly refused to focus on anything but the insect cemetery on my windshield.  I have bugs from at least 15 states on my car, incidentally - it will probably belong in a museum by the time I'm done Road Trippin'.  Like, a really nasty one.



I had forgotten how bad Southern California drivers are, until reaching the border.  I inherently knew this because my older brother used to be one, tearing up the mountains of Escondido, CA, unsuccessfully racing Mexicans in his Subaru Brat, back in the early 90's.  I have some fond memories of being strapped into a back-seat harness at the age of 10, listening to my brother play Metallica The Black Album with the volume up so high it shook the Orangina I had a death-grip on, absent-mindedly chewing beef jerky clutched in my other hand as wind whipped through my hair and thinking: "today is the day I die."


Anyways, instead of going to my happy place...

...I preoccupied myself with communicating to fellow I-10 drivers ("[Expletive]!! [Expletive]!! [Hand Gesture]. [Expletive]!!").  Despite having 4 bars on my cell phone, I was unable to make phone calls or even send dangerously-crafted-at-80-mph text messages to anyone I knew, rolling into Cali yesterday evening.


All this drama led me to the following state of dehydration:

Car dehydration.  All that negative concentration on "Why are these drivers such #@$@s?!!" and "Why don't my @#$ing friends call me back?!!", and pretty soon my gas light was on, and the desert was long.




PANIC soon set in!!


I made it to a Chevron with 0.188 of a gallon left in the tank.  Thank you, Jesus.  I know we haven't been exactly close, but you came through for me, and I appreciate it.




Walking into the bathroom in the Chevron, a woman approached me.  The conversation went something like this:


Woman:  "Excuse me!  I just want to let you know that you have a piece of toilet paper sticking out of your shorts, from the last time you stopped to go to the bathroom."


Me: (Feels back of shorts and pulls off piece of toilet paper.) "That would have been Arizona."


Woman:  "Wow, you must be really embarrassed."


Me:  "I guess I should be.  But the only person looking is the back of my seat."


Woman:  (Eyes me with pity and goes into a stall.)




So, that's Cali for you, and I can anticipate that the looks of pity are only going to get worse, as I go into the heart of plastic-surgery-and-yoga-land, wearing shirts that say things like "Down and Dirty with Crabs", holding a Wendy's bag and a coke, and undoing the button on my (hopefully T.P.-free) shorts as my expanding gut frees itself from the restriction.  Well, my license plate does say Florida on it, at least.

Check you later!
~A

*WARNING*

Texas is HOT.

                                          Example:

That's the temperature gauge on my rental.  We didn't know it had the capacity for three digits!  Fascinating.

I believe I have already explained my strategy for avoiding bathroom breaks by simply avoiding liquids.  This has worked well, even all through the South!  However, the South has frequent rest stops, so if a person does choose to drink water, there's no worries.  Also, I never hit three-digit degree percentages in the South.

...and we keep climbing...

Apparently in Texas, if one is traveling towards New Mexico, things are pretty straight forward.  Literally, the road is completely straight.  Also, one gets no stops, unless traveling through a town with a gas station WITH a bathroom that is functional.  It's best to avoid liquids...or so I thought.  Might as well not eat either, since you aren't going to see any of that fast-food nonsense out here. 

So, I traveled very straightly through Texas for 5 hours, avoiding liquids and foods, really just taking pictures and admiring the view:

Ahh, the gorgeous and strange Southwest.  Wow, that gauge just keeps going up.  Well, New Mexico will surely be a little cooler.  Right?

Oh, but "it's a dry heat."

Let me tell you something about New Mexico, and about a "dry heat".  First of all, New Mexico is not cooler, it is even hotter, than Texas.

 

...and "DRY HEAT" is not an excuse, IT IS A WARNING.  What this means is:

If the HEAT doesn't kill you, the liquids rapidly draining from your lifeless body surely will.  I discovered this in the ten minutes it took to move my stuff out of the car into my hotel room in Roswell, which apparently did not have a working AC.  I think it also had smurfs and rainbows, but then again, that may have been the hallucinations.

One room change, a cold shower, two bottles of water, and a meal of packaged tuna, crackers, and soup later, and the moon stopped moving around in the sky like a UFO.  Hey, I'm in Roswell, you never know.

~A

...

It gets lonely on the road.  The mind dredges up all sorts of things without distractions like work, school, daily living chores, family, and friends.  A massage therapy friend once explained to me that sometimes, on the table, people will cry as deep knots are worked because they have been holding in emotion with their tightened muscles.

 A solitary road trip is like your first massage:

•  Long overdue
• A bit uncomfortable at first, and may hurt if you aren't assertive about what you need
• Leaves you wondering, "why the hell did I wait so long to do this?"

OK, maybe that was a bad analogy, but give me a break...I live in a constant state of dehydration on the road to avoid excessive bathroom breaks, and haven't exactly been eating healthy.  That PF shirt above is complete irony.  It's got to be affecting my brain.

Who is a person, when all their major life components are taken away?  For example, who are you if not your job title (or student status), without your family obligations (spouse, parent), or even without your familiar surroundings?  What if all that was removed, and you were in a different place every day, with different rules and culture...what part of you remains consistent and unchangeable?  It's a strange journey, and the answers may surprise you.

My time at this hotel is coming to a close.  Time to hit the road again.
~A






P.S.  This ghost journey brings to light that soon we will all be ghosts, or a pile of ashes, to quote The Wreckers.  If there are souls lingering, we seem to think it's because they had unfinished business in life.  If you died today, what would haunt you?  What have you turned away from out of fear?  You'd better start doing it, like, now.  Life won't tell you when it's coming to a close.

The Hotel Macomber ...."Yeah Buddy!"

Cape May, New Jersey is the oldest seaside resort in the country, dating back to Colonial times (400 years ago)... and is one of my favorite vacation spots.  It's filled with old Victorian goodness, pristine shore line, childhood memories, and fudge.  This is actually where I was introduced to fudge at the age of 7...no wonder it's in my top 10.  Oh, and apparently, Cape May is one of the most haunted towns in the U.S. as well...who knew?

 

My mom and I have many fond memories of Cape May.  Which is why I asked her to come with me for my first leg of the road trip.

OK, also, I had booked a notoriously haunted room in the old Hotel Macomber, and was too chicken to go alone.  Mom to the rescue!

She was up for the challenge.  We don't watch Ghost Hunters for nothing.

  The Hotel Macomber:

Room 10 is said to be haunted by a woman called "The Trunk Lady"... formally, Miss Wright, a regular guest you can read about here.  There is so much activity in room 10, its windows are pointed out on regular Cape May ghost tours....including the trolley tour we took ourselves!  

So....what happened that night? 

Honestly, I'm so freaking tired from driving through Texas today, I can't even go into it.  11 hours on the road, people!  I started going nuts at the end, imagining Palmetto bugs on my feet and laughing hilariously at nothing.  Luckily, cruise control gave me the option of keeping my feet folded up on the seat.  Wait...am I not supposed to do that?

Find out what happened in Room 10 tomorrow (or in two weeks, if my past blog performance is any indication).  In the meantime, enjoy this photo taken at night on the shore (yeah, the Jersey Shore, and I don't mean this one).  Keep in mind, this beach has been the site of hundreds of shipwrecks and drownings, and is said to have many, many souls wandering it at night.

Orbs or ocean spray?  I couldn't replicate it regularly...what do the masses think??

Goodnight from Texas.  

~A

I know, I know...

...I haven't been diligent about the blog.  Thank you to the dozen people I didn't even realize were following me for the gentle-to-harsh reminders that inquiring minds want to know where the hell I am.  Let me just tell y'all, WIFI is pret-ty spotty in the dirty south.  That being said, here's where I'm at (oops, sorry Mom, ended that sentence in a preposition):

Waffles.  Belgium waffles, to be specific.  Free Belgium waffles.  Which I made in this iron, after a kind foreign man showed me how to do this without burning my hand beyond recognition.

What a lovely hotel here in Baton Rouge!  But now...off to Texas.  Here's where I insert more promises of ghost stories and good meals, because believe you me, I've already had a fair share of both.
If only I could blog while driving...






Until next time, keep it real, friends...
~A

P.S. This blog entry is dedicated to certain persons that take endless pleasure in making fun of my usual inability to make it to continental breakfast.  You know who you are.

It's not really all that HOT in Atlanta...

...but I think that has something to do with the incredible AC in the South.  And presently, in my awesome Country Inn and Suites hotel room that cousin Lynne found at a bargain (how does she *do* that?), which is the very opposite of the creepy Williamsburg Best Western of last Thursday:

 Is this decor not scary?

 Why did they give me two living rooms?  I had no use for four couches...

There were things moving in the reflection of these mirrors ALL NIGHT...that is, until the Nyquil set in, and I fell asleep after requiring various friends and family members to talk to me for three continuous hours...

Yes, Atlanta is much, much better.

 ~A

The Adventure Begins

Hello, I have finally made it to the blog!!  *Thank you, four internet readers that have patiently and eagerly awaited my first entry.  I know you have been hanging on the edge of your seat, and will try to make it worth two minutes of your day.  Of course, I'm a little backlogged, so bear with me as we catch up together.  

For the future reader that has no idea what I'm talking about:

As a graduation gift to myself, I decided to take the summer off work and travel the U.S. in search of long-lost family and friends, ghosts, and delicious meals.  This blog is meant to chronicle the adventure, and let people back home in New York keep track, in case my car dies in New Orleans and I am eaten by alligators.

....where the f#$% am I again??  I surely have this look often.

Thanks for following, and I PROMISE to have some tales about ghost-hunting and over-eating in Cape May, NJ through Wilmington, NC up soon.  But right now I have to haul ass to Georgia.  So go back to work.

~Abby

*A HUGE thank you to my cousin John who not only has allowed me to wear out my welcome at his home in Raleigh, NC, but in addition, magically fixed my laptop.