Phoenix, Arizona

On Wednesday I began my Journey to the West.

Most of the mountains I saw in New Mexico were sprawled out and squat, but they were pretty colors under the vast cloudy sky: some mountains were pink or terra cotta, and some were striped terra cotta and pale green dotted with dark green shrubs.

After driving for eleven and a half hours the first day, I spent the night at an Econo Lodge on the outskirts of Albuquerque, which was fine except for having Spongebob Crankypants, a grumpy old Irishman, at the front desk in the morning. But there was continental breakfast and a big soft bed. Too soft for doing yoga, I found.

The next day, I drove through some breathtaking landscapes, including what I think was called Prescott National Forest, where the highway curved through the mountains. That must be the first time I ever cruised downhill at 75 miles an hour. Wheeee! (Note: the speed limit was 75, and it actually wasn't raining.)

I reached the "Phoenix City Limits" sign at about one pm Mountain time and got to my brother's apartment about an hour later; my Mapquest directions were a bit whacked and I had to stop for directions. So it took me about nineteen and a half hours to drive from Topeka, Kansas, to Phoenix, Arizona.

It also turned out that I didn't have my brother's current phone number, so it was useless using a tea shop's cell phone, but fortunately someone who worked for UPS had just stopped there. So although I had told my brother I'd show up in the evening, I showed up in the afternoon and camped out in front of his apartment. The guard cats looked out the window and meowed at me periodically. Neighbors walked by and greeted me. I went up a half flight of steps and watched doves fighting on a Spanish tile roof. I went back down and continued reading a book.

It rained slightly (which is weird, since this is a desert and it's not monsoon season). As soon as it stopped raining, huge gusty ornery wind made the palm trees dance and threw dirt in my face. I heard popping noises, looked up at a palm tree on the other side of the swimming pool (yes, my brother's apartment faces a swimming pool) and I saw yellow and orange balloons popping in the tree, and another cluster of balloons flew off and exploded in the air. I guess flying debris popped them.

My brother Francis showed up after 5, and we went out to a pizza place where we met up with my nephew Malcolm and my x-sister-in-law Jennifer, who has lived in Portland, Oregon, so we talked about Portland. Because of the shockingly high rent in the San Francisco Bay I've decided to move to Portland instead, and Jennifer told me about some of the neighborhoods and said she can definitely see me living there. I mentioned the neighborhood that includes apartments that only cost $285 a month, and she said that's a high-crime area. I decided that I'd rather pay $450 a month for rent than dodge bullets every time I step outside.

My brother's apartment actually makes me feel like a clean freak, which is pretty scary since I'm the Anti-Housekeeper; but my brother has a six-year-old son, and his apartment is like a big toy box. Since Francis is working today, I'm going to stay through Saturday and we'll go museum hopping (oh, yeah, and it's supposed to be 96 degrees Fahrenheit tomorrow), and I'll leave Phoenix Sunday morning to head out to the Bay area.

The Beginning of My Journey to the West

I am in the process of traveling to Portland, Oregon, in order to see how I like it and find an apartment. I’m taking a long route because I’ll be mooching off friends on the way to and from Portland.

Today I drove eleven and a half hours, from Topeka to the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’m at a hotel (Econo Lodge) in a state I’ve never visited before. I started in Kansas and have been to Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. That’s four states in one day! Well, I’ve read there are thirty-six levels of deep meditation….

Albakoykee—that’s how Bugs Bunny pronounces it with a Brooklyn accent.

It’s so nice to be in a hotel, but it’ll be even nicer to be in Phoenix with my brother Francis. I’m dizzy from driving so long, like after riding a sleeper train in India or the Tube in London or riding a plane across the Atlantic. That constant motion stays with you even after your feet are finally on the ground.

The scenery I witnessed in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas was drab. Boring. Flat Fields and Big Skies. If you drive through western Kansas and the parts of Texas and Oklahoma that I’ve been through today, you’ve got to listen to tapes or CDs, preferably some rocking tunes. Just to stay awake.

After I entered New Mexico I finally encountered some satisfactory scenery. Under the vast sprawling sky was rolling landscapes with green pompoms dotting it—shrubs. Eventually I saw some genuine trees. Finally, I came to mountains, although compared to the Himalayas they scarcely seemed like mole hills. They’re elongated and so squat, it’s as if the fabled ogre/goddess pinned down by the main temples of Tibet finally got loose, got up, and angrily stomped on the mountains. As I got really close to Albuquerque, the mountains were taller and more curvaceous, like about the size and shape of the mountains around Rajgir, India. But of course, comparing the mountain range around me to mountains I’ve seen in the past is not living in the present moment.