Tripping...For Two.

As my super loyal follower (HI MOM!) must know, I have driven across the country before. This would be the first time I successfully circled the nation with another human being, however. Unlike last time, I brought a companion. And to everyone's surprise, including my own, it was NOT Bert. Even though he wanted to...



As I was informed about half way through the trip while in San Francisco, it was rather ballsy of me to drag someone I had been dating for a handful of months through the U S of A in the tiniest car imaginable (with NO CRUISE CONTROL as I have been notified SEVERAL TIMES throughout the last three weeks).

To be completely honest, I kind of didn't think that through when I decided WE were going to do this. I know you're shocked at my lack of foresight. I know. AND to be completely honest, I don't think HE thought it through either. Some similarities are emerging!

Here's the thing though. As you may have noticed. We survived. I mean, yes of course we survived the travel. More importantly, we survived EACH OTHER! It was touch and go there a few times, trust me. BUT we did it.

 

It is not easy being physically next to the same human being for hours on end with such acute movements, even those movements start to hurt. I mean HE WORE THE SAME SHORTS ALMOST THE WHOLE TRIP! Thank goodness the scenery was changing OUTSIDE the car!

Weird microhabits start to form within the TINY TINY little red Hobbes we called home for the last three weeks.

First of all: I learned about the scan button in my car. I mean, I KNEW about the SCAN button in other cars, and I have even read the button on my dashboard. Here's the thing, though. Have you ever just NOT NOTICED something because it's always been there? Like the dishwasher? You know that thing that other people use like EVERYDAY, but you only see it in a passing fancy?! You know it!!!! That's my SCAN BUTTON!

 (Side note: one year I thought my mom got a brand new oven and I was so psyched about it, only to be informed that it would be NICE if it was a new oven. It was really loudly, even though I was right next to my mom.)

Scan button is really cool, unless you're a LITERAL stones throw from Mexico. Then you just find out about Mexican Rock N Roll and weird Mexican country hybrid music. That's when you play "OH MY GOD, IS THAT ENGLISH?! PUSH THE BUTTON PUSH THE BUTTON!"

Second: You play really creative games like "I bet you can't catch that combo in your mouth!" I know, it sounds complicated. Let me tell you the rules. At random moments in the long long LONG LONG LONG LONG LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG drive through Nevada you are asked if you would like a Combo (a pepperoni combo for those who are using all of their five senses).

If you say Yes: Suddenly the car needs to be expanded which can only be done by two humans simultaneously pressing against their respective door with their backs, resulting in the two players facing each other. This has to be done within seconds, with the driver only able to drop their jaw for moments only while facing the other player. The heat is on! Talk about a moving target! The passenger MUST launch the combo from basically inside the passenger door, as the pressing of their body has rendered them something like Han Solo as he was trapped inside his carbon frozen sepulcher.

If you say NO: You basically get pestered and tickled violently in a rolling red cage (WITH NO CRUISE CONTROL) until you say yes.  OR you get a combo thrown at the side of your face...

Beware: this is an extreme sport. Both people in this game have chipped teeth now.

Third: With the new realization that I do not ALWAYS have to drive because there is someone else on this earth that knows how to drive stick shift, and they happen to be on the trip with you, you now have plenty of time to experiment with new hairstyles.

I can hear you now: 1: Jax, that was a run on sentence. 2. Oh no! Jax is getting girly!
My reply: 1. I know. Indulge me. 2. You. have. no. idea.

The hairstyle I have mastered is absolutely remarkable and actually has two versions.  You start by putting your hair in two pigtails. Then, you meticulously twirl your hair for hours and try to find your favorite piece. THEN! You discover you have a favorite piece on EACH SIDE! GAH! THE GLORY! Next, you further discover that if you put them BOTH over your lip and make a pucker face...VOILA! you have a girlstache! (this is a mustache for girls. I'm brilliant!)

Wait, wait, wait WAAAAAIIIIITTTTT! Now for the alternate! After hours of giggling at yourself incessantly and trying to kiss the driver with a mustache, you discover even MORE! If you use the remaining part of the pigtails, you can wrap it around your chin and then you have a FULL ON BEARD! DOES LIFE GET BETTER!? DOES IT!?

Oh my god, pull over....we need to breath real air. Time for a beer....or would you like a Combo?

I tripped and fell into a Disney Pixar movie!

I am in the mood for magic. Makes you wanna watch a Disney/Pixar movie. Which brings me to the time I drove right into one. Just imagine yourself, like good old Roger Rabbit. One moment you're just driving along, then slowly things start to contort and reform into animation...

It's a place, or rather, set of places along a long and lost road called Route 66. It's a magical land in the United States of America that will have you travelling back in time. So, off Hobbes and I went. And in the great words of Doc Brown:

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit."

I totally did. I went to the past, and Back to the Future, and into a mix of the two.

Hobbes is  no DeLorean with the awesomely 80s doors that rise up to the sound of Transformer hydraulics, but he did his job. And to be honest, we weren't hitting 88 miles per hour, because when you are on America's highway, you cruise. You stick your arm out the window and let the dust mix with the whipping tendrils of your hair. Hobbes bobbed and grooved to the oldies, because what else do you play on Route 66? I just let the sun bleach the world in front of us and you just can't drive through dusty old Arizona in this way without a true, broad, "everything is just peachy keen" smile on your face. I stopped in to a "middle of no where" mom and pop store, grabbed a six pack.... of root beer (duh!) and sat it in the seat next to me. Popped a top, and continued cruising and collecting freckles.

Also, driving thousands of miles with the windows down is not recommended for beauteous luscious hair. I don't care what you see on the Garnier Fructis commercials. THIS is reality on the road. BLEACHED KNOTTY, but happy. In fact, A LOT of times, it had to be at least 1/4 of a bottle of conditioner a night to get my hair smooth enough to run my fingers through it without getting bitten by Medusa hair snakes.

 I started off on one of the largest loops on Route 66. I was unaware, for this reason, that Route 66 doesn't exist in it's glory and natural form as it did years ago. There are large and small loops all across the country off of the evil highway 40, that any good Pixar movie watcher will know, destroyed the historic route.

If you don't believe me, read the museum sign. It took FIVE highways to replace this amazing piece of engineering. FIVE. The largest being Route 40.

The sad and wonderful part of the deterioration of Route 66 is that you get lost a lot, because if you don't pay ever so close attention to it, it disappears on you. And sometimes when you DO pay extra close attention to it, it disappears anyway. Moral of the story, I got lost A LOT and it was SO MUCH FUN! There was one point in the road that it literally deteriorated right in front of me. It was a road, then, BAM! Pot Hole, BAM! BAM! Then BAM! BAM BAM! It was pothole filled and crumbling! Slowly it crumbled to dirt, and then to no road at all. It disappeared before my very eyes! All that was left was a forest of bramble and abandoned shops and gas stations. If we all have to live through a zombie Apocalypse, I feel like this is how life will deteriorate. Slowly the modern age will just be overcome by nature and time and wash into memories.

Even after driving thousands of miles, when you drive on this amazing road, you could go all day in the middle of nowhere because the most amazing things happen, the most magical things happen on Route 66. You just can't help but wander around, pop into shops, museums, dinosaur attractions, truly American wonders. Then you let the sun go down on your day warm and satisfied, and THAT is a truly American wonder as well.

One of the most amazing things that happens on Route 66 is that things pop up in random places along the road. One moment you're in an old black and white movie with your hair blowing in the wind singing all the classics, the next moment your neck gets a bite from whiplash and you nearly drive off the road with your head out the window in the complete opposite direction because you're pretty sure you just saw "Mater" in someone's back yard! THAT WAS HIM! REALLY HIM! Oh My God! THAT MOVIE IS REAL!

They pop up EVERYWHERE! And you double take every time! You could be touring a natural dry cave in New Mexico, and then sneaking in between old junky cars is the firetruck that's afraid of everything!

And you start shouting random things like "Luigi! It's a FERR -Ahhhh Ree!!

I started playing, "What's that movie?!" with my family. I was texting them pictures of all the things that reminded me of CARS and I even took pictures of a Circle K to see who knew the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. (Best Keanu Reeves movie I've ever seen, Pssshhhh Matrix).

I was free wheeling through some kind of "Roger Rabbit" effect. The cartoons were all coming to life! I imagined the Goofy short films where he's driving through the desert and has all of these Jekyll and Hyde moments with fellow highway travelers!

I may have needed to lay off the root beer, or drink more water. It may have been the heat of the day, but it was wonderful all the same! Traveling through time and space and reality!

I did actually do some research on the road. The movie, Cars, has a town called Radiator Springs and it does NOT in fact exist. You would have seen pictures of me there if it did. Radiator Springs is actually cooler than existence, however. It is like a compilation of places that DO exist all in one town to demonstrate the nostalgia and uniqueness of the time period. There was a website I followed that showed you where you could find specific parts of Radiator Springs out on the road:

http://route66news.com/2006/06/09/a-route-66-guide-to-the-cars-movie/

AND Route 66 isn't complete until you've visited a half a dozen road museums. The best part of these museums are the amazing people tucked into the back corners. I toured the museum in Arizona with a fragile old man clad in a weathered old brown pant and jacket complete with newsboy cap. He was in charge of collecting personal artifacts like letters and postcards for the museum. In the other one located in Oklahoma, there was an amazing lady in a bedazzled Obama t shirt who retired from teaching to man the refurbished malt shop. We chatted about teaching and she played me a song on the jukebox while I put my pin on the map on the wall. People from all over the world had marked where they were coming from, some almost across the world.

And then in the middle of nothing, Texas. Cadillac ranch. It is actually outside of Amarillo, but honestly that's just a lesser level of nothing.

Nothing says art like non sense graffiti in half submerged Cadillacs. It actually is pretty wonderful. Even as you see these images, it looks nothing like this anymore, because it's been painted over by more tourists.

It's funny, I passed this place twice. Once without even realizing it and a second time actively looking for it. And that's the thing about it. Things come up and emerge off the side of the road just like that. You have to pay attention. That's the magic.