holdonfortherideofyourlife: Been through the desert on a horse with no name..

Well the been through the desert part is true, but I'm still lookin' for mah hoss ..Santa Barbara to Phoenix carried a whole whump o' desert and it was..super hotttt. Which means you really need to make a point to keep the fluids up. Which leads to the rest stop topic:I really don't know what is going on with the California rest stops, but more of them are closed than open right now, maybe sprucing them up for summer travellers or trying to increase local business for the small towns dotting the highways. Don't know about you, but I feel compelled to buy a small drink or something if using the bathroom at a fast food joint. That's just the (lapsed) Catholic guilt kicking in, keeping in mind that Guilt's older brother is ..youknowhat'scomingnext- Fear. Hmm, so , logically, that must mean if you alleviate fear, you alleviate guilt..two for the price of one. That sounds like a philosophy worth checking out. But maybe later, because I'm standing in line for the confessional right now and don't want to lose my place .

Leaving Santa Barbara and getting one last hit of California coastline-before driving inland- stirred up feelings of separation anxiety and my mind started frantically figuring out ways to get back there after New Mexico, yeaahhh, I could just do the reverse trip, no matter how long it took me to drive it, retrace my steps up the coastline. And then I realized I was doing exactly what I always do, get stuck holding on to an idea, frame of mind, or moment and not going forward because I just like that moment so darn much. Or I like the sameness because knowing what to expect arms my own internal security system .ENNNHHH, insert Jeopardy buzzer/security alarm- wrong response on this trip, Sister! Don't even think about it. So I shut that thought down with the affirmation ' don't be a flippin' idiot', or something along those lines. (Disclaimer-not sure if that is the correct use of an affirmation so please don't try this at home unless you have spoken to a qualified professional).

HOWEVAH,I'm so excited to be able to declare that I conquered my biggest fear on this whole trip- driving on the LA freeway system. I'm a pretty fearless driver, for the most part (it's just my passengers who are scared), but this was really causing me anxiety before I even left Vancouver. Welllll can check that off the list, I so gave LA traffic a whoopin',cutting through the lanes and the smog,tunes playing. I just applied my whole philosophy about driving in major traffic: "The other guy doesn't want to ram into you any more than you do into him"...simple!

I felt little surges of excitment seeing turnoffs to Malibu , Ventura, Pasadena..they seemed like little celebrities themselves, with the bit parts they have played on the screen. I also thought of Jennifer Aniston alot..more than I wanted to, it was annoying that my mind wasn't conjuring up more of a variety of movie stars for my viewing pleasure, cuz I'm a veteran at this. I started reading 'movie magazines'- Modern Screen,Photoplay- when I was a kid, but only to look at the pictures, I didn't read the articles. (which were coincidentally my dad's exact words when I discovered that Playboy in his briefcase). (Hmm.)

And other points of interest along the way:

- sitting in a MacDonald's in the border (CAL/AZ) town of Blythe, chatting to staff- a tanned man in his 50's wearing full traditional Mandarin Chinese garb (check out Peter Sellers as Fu Manchu in The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu and you'll get the visual)-the billowing pants, silk button-up collared long jacket,silk embroidered cap-with white tufts of his hair sticking out beneath it- and a long black ponytail sewn to the back of the hat. But he wasn' t Chinese..h..u

-Morongo's, a huge casino , all of a sudden BAM! pops up in the middle of the desert outside Palm Springs, impressively beautiful architectural design, for a casino..

-the turbo pressure faucets in the One Rest Stop Open, I actually had to step a couple of feet back from the sink after turning them on because the water literally blasted out of them with painful pressure and a radius of one foot. It was sweet to get the unexpected shower though, because at that 110 F heat the 30 second walk from my car to the bathroom had Vancouver Me sweating like a bull from heat prostration.

-a street in Palm Springs with NO LEFT TURN painted on the left lane in huge letters, when all that was on the left was a big brick building, with no road..halloooahhh! God, I wish I got a photo of that , now that would have been a great Photo of the Day

- the realization that the Universal Attire for Cool Dads Who Were Once Single And Don't Want To Let It Go is :a tan, a baseball cap with racing sunglasses crowning the rim (like a little tiara), designer golf shirt softly falling over board shorts, plaid maybe, and a trendy pair of flip flops. They're everywhere. And they've really still got it goin' on. (Just ask their wives.)

- that you can go 75 mph (that's 123 kims for us Canucks) on Hwy 1o E. the last hour or so into Phoenix. It felt so..decadent. And a huge relief at the end of a long day of driving, so it was just about listening to DJ Tiesto played LOUD and following the desert hills as they transformed from beige to red,like big chameleons the end of day sun had painted with a wash of its tired heat

MOMENT OF THE DAY- greeting my family in Phoenix (will be here till Monday)

PHOTO OF THE DAY- miles and miles ...and miles of these "wind farms'- futuristic windmills harnessing energy from the super windy areas in the desert. I've never seen them before but it truly felt like Alien Stations Monitoring Earth , so surreal, so cool.