day eleven

memphis, tennessee, to pensacola, florida, 497 miles.
FROM SCOTT:
what a day. by the time it ended, far from where we expected to be, we'd almost forgotten about the morning's high point: the home elvis lived in when he was a kid in tupelo, mississippi. all elvis all the time. and nice women with syrupy southern drawls helping everyone inside the gift shop. but on down the road, through mississippi and alabama. originally, we were going to spend the night in mobile, alabama, but the place was full. so we motored on down the road to pensacola, figuring we were going to see my cousin danny and his wife tabby and their family anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to be closer. we decided to go out to the little islands off the coast of pensacola and get a room there. we hadn't figured on a three-day fourth of july weekend drawing everyone in the entire south to this one spot. it was a zoo, a madhouse and everything else. a resort area full of people. more than full. the parking attendant at the first hotel we were going to try nicely informed us the closest available rooms were probably in northern pensacola, quite a ways away. so we headed out again, me driving and olivia calling hotels and motels. no one had a room, and no one knew of anyone who had a room. after umpteen attempts, we finally found a room at a howard johnson's on the west side of town. got there and checked in, took our stuff up to the room, opened the door and almost gagged. it was hotter inside the room than outside, it had a nice view of the motel's garbage area, there was some loud intermittent noise coming from the laundry area just outside the window, and it smelled like a bunch of large animals had either died in the room or had just spent a few months there. it was awful. we headed out to get something to eat and ponder our options. going down the road, we saw another place, and stopped in to see if they had a room available. they did, we took it, then went back to howard's and told them we couldn't stay in the room because it smelled so bad. they said ok, canceled our bill, and we went to dinner. i'm sure they rented the room to someone else. so we would up in a room that was cool, clean and quiet. ahh. all in all, a decently adventurous day for olivia's first one on the road.
FROM OLIVIA:
If this is what every day on the road is gonna be like... im thinking about calling it quits. 8 hours on the road wsnt that bad.. its better then being in a plane for like 10 hours straight basicalllyy. and theres a lot more to see. so basically im kinda upset everything on Pensacola Beach was booked.. because the beach there.. was ASTOUNDING <: haha so dad basicaly summed it up.. it was really nince on the road though. and i got a very nice arm tan... :D well im gonna go.. byeeeeee
TOMORROW: pensacola to probably somewhere in the tampa-st. petersburg area, unless we get slowed down by playing on every beach we see. good night, heather; good night, nicole, who is taking care of willy the cat while we're gone; good night, linda and george, who are playing at ocean shores this weekend...O:good night, emi!; good night, all of my friends who i have to go another 2 more weeks away from.. yeah you know who you are.

day 10

texarkana, texas, to memphis, tennessee, 307 miles.
starting today, olivia will be adding to the blog. so we'll separate it as FROM SCOTT and FROM OLIVIA. enjoy.
FROM SCOTT
blasted through arkansas to get to memphis so i could meet olivia's flight. so naturally i arrived in memphis before she even left seattle. it's no fun being on the interstates. they serve a purpose, but it's only to get from one place to another, not to see or do anything along the way. lots of history in arkansas. some of the city names reek of history: little rock, pocahontas, arkadelphia, fort smith. one of the day's bigger smiles was reserved for a gas stop in arkansas -- $3.89 per gallon. arkansas also was much greener than texas; lots of fields of corn and hay; lots of rivers. crossed the mississippi just west of memphis. nice river. big. as big as its history. best roadside sign of the day, particularly considering olivia's arrival: "use the rod on your children and save their life." hey, liv, come here, let me save your life. i drove a little faster after i saw that sign; that area wasn't one i wanted to linger in. only saw one elvis impersonator in training at the airport, but that was ok. it had a starbucks. the best part of the day was olivia's arrival. she had a nice hawaiian tan, though i believe my top-down tan is darker. she had a good week in hawaii, and now we'll have a couple of good weeks on the road.
FROM OLIVIA(who's tan is much betterrrrr)
So.......... sheesh. im suppossed to put everything ive done this week with my phone vibrating constantly cause all my friends want to talk to me.. at the moment. i have 10 unread text all occuring in the last 2-5 min. haha ok so.Day 1. i went to Hawaii.. nothing really ummm exciting happened.. unless you count flying over the hugestestest ocean ever for like 5 hours exciting.. i sure dont.Oh! but i just remembered.. i had to spend a night in San. Fran. cus our flight from seattle to Sanfran was delayed cus' of smoke.... and so our flight to Kona. LEFT WITHOUT US! how rudeeeee.... haha so we got to Kona, got our car and...... got caught in traffic. yeah i know! i mean why would an island have traffic?!?!?!?!?!?!?! i still havent figured it out. the next day we went to this AMAZING BEACH called Hapuna Beach... google it. youll be glad you did. anyway it had great boogieboarding waves... so great i forgott to re-apply my sunscreen... whoopsies. haah needless to say i looked like a tomato... and i felt like a fire. OW! haha so day 3.. i cant even remember what we did.. im gonna look at the letter i wrote to remember.. one sec. i need to go get it. ok. so day three. I went to the rehersal dinner for the wedding i was at Kona for.. it was pretty funny.. because they had this watermelon.. but it was spiked... but i didnt figure that out until i had had like 5. needless to say... i stopped immediately. haha that was all i did day three.. besides hanging out in the pool with my cousin.. and watching the surfers. hahahhaahahhahaha yay! Day 4 was the Wedding... kinda like all the other weddings ive ever gone to................... but. i did go to a beach again.. on the road from down below.. basically it was a lava road... that was just a little smoothed ou. it was not a good road.. specially if you're in a dodge charger. oh well day 5 was the Luau.. purddy fun! they had some good food.. some not so good food.. i ate it anyway.. (what can i say? i was hungry!!!!) they had a fire thrower juggler person.. it was cool! haha day 5. i went snorkeling at a reallllly cool and pretty bay. that was all i did. day 6. i drove around the island... from 830-830. we saw cool stuff and went to the volcano.. while it was erupting.. even more purddyyy cool. haha. day 7. i dropped my sister off at a farm.. and headed home.. day 8 Emi came over.. really early this morning.. like 7! haha we played rockband until she had to go.... then i went to the airport.. and guess who i saw there... EMI!!!!!!!! haha i swear she stalks me. oh well.. haha i also got to call jeff today! so i was happy.. anyway..im gonna go to reply to my texts now.. so umm buh-bye?
TOMORROW, memphis to as far as we get in alabama before we crash for the night.

day nine

wichita falls, texas, to texarkana, texas, 331 miles.
thought i was going to be in arkansas tonight, but it turns out i'm one exit off the freeway shy of arkansas. seems like i've been in texas a long time. not sure whether that's because it's big or because it's still BORING. why did we want texas anyway? of course, i'm saying this having seen just the northern part. i'm sure places like brownsville are much more scenic and interesting. galveston! oh, galveston. i don't really have anything to say about texas despite umpteen hours driving through it. except it has nice speed limits. you go 70 on the freeways, and you go 70 on little farm roads. everyone goes 70, all the time. nice. and i absolutely detest texas mud. yesterday, when i had to take a little detour because of a "major accident," according to the sheriff's deputy, i was following a car with texas plates that pulled into a driveway, then backed out to turn around. after i did the same and got going down the road again, it felt like the entire car was going to fall apart. shimmying, shaking. if the car had a front axle, i would have been certain it had fallen apart. got out and looked, but saw nothing, so started slowly down the road again. little by little the shimmying smoothed out and i picked up speed. eventually i was doing 70 and everything was fine. the only thing i could figure is that i had picked up some nice red texas mud on part of the front tires when i turned around, and it had dried and was causing the problem. but when my shimmy problem was gone, so was the car i had been following. I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF TEXAS AND HAD NO CLUE WHAT DIRECTION TO GO TO GET OUT OF TEXAS. fortunately, a nice guy driving a huge combine stopped and opened the door when i climbed onto the thing and told me where to go. today, there were a couple of firsts. number one, i was so engrossed in the fabulous texas scenery that i missed a turn and had to backtrack about 20 miles. the second was when i made an intentional detour and drove north about 10 miles into oklahoma, just so i could say i had been to oklahoma. noticed on the map that there's a durant, oklahoma, and i almost went there to see what marketing plans they had for kevin durant of the sonics when he becomes an oklahomaniac. also stopped in paris, texas, but the hilton girl wasn't there, and the guy putting out flags around the town square for the fourth of july didn't know if she had ever been there. i just finished spending a day and a half driving across texas, and i must admit i'm still looking for a reason for its existence.
tomorrow, texarkana to memphis, where i'll pick up olivia. it's about 5 p.m. texas time, and i just got off the phone with her. she's in the airport in hawaii getting ready to fly to seattle, where she'll have a layover of about 12 hours before flying to memphis. will be good to see her. miss her. miss a lot of folks. hope you're all well. don't worry about me -- i'm getting used to talking to myself. and i've been asking lots of questions of the folks behind the counter in the hotel lobby today so i can get used to talking again. good night olivia, good night ray. good night, texas, wherever you are...

day eight

socorro, new mexico, to wichita falls, texas, 550 miles.
boring. texas is really big, and so far really boring. in new mexico this morning, i crossed the rio grande river and later the pecos river. also passed the trinity nuclear site. i'll have to check tonight to see if i glow. speaking of glowing, a highlight today was the town of roswell, new mexico. alien central. many of the businesses in town have names that speak to the "crash landing of a ufo" near town decades ago and the alleged hauling-off by the military of a couple of alien bodies. believing it or not doesn't really matter in roswell; they're cashing in on it in a big way. across the state line in texas, oil derricks, big farms and ranches, cowboy boots and hats and a happy "join the NRA" sign replaced rock outcroppings and the beauty of the desert. boring. maybe tomorrow i should sneak up to oklahoma city and stand on a street corner downtown and tell everyone there what seattle thinks of the new sonics owner. maybe not.
tomorrow: wichita falls to texarkana or however far into arkansas i get. it better not be boring...

day seven

phoenix to socorro, new mexico, 403 miles.
an absolutely great day on the road, once i finally left the traffic of the phoenix area behind. refreshingly cool as well, because the temperature only reached into the mid-90s. there's so much to see out there, and today's drive was a good example of not knowing what was in an area and discovering a lot. if you haven't been to the salt river canyon along highway 60 in east central arizona, go. go now. it's beautiful. not as spectacular or deep as the grand canyon, but it has a significant "wow" factor. and you get to drive down one side to the river and then back up the other side. crossing the state line into new mexico, i drove through a thunderstorm. a little one, but lots of lightning and rain. lasted maybe 15 minutes. also came across pie town, arizona. hey, i didn't name it. wasn't much of a town, with about four businesses on the road, all of them advertising pie in big letters. why pie town? in the middle of nowhere? someone's grand marketing plan to put the community on the map? but none of the businesses were open, and there weren't any indications they had been open for a while. a pie in the sky? in pie town, i crossed the continental divide at about 7,800 feet. much of the day was spent more than a mile high, driving through some beautiful country. east of pie town, there was a stretch of road that was straight as a line for 21 miles. not kidding. 21 miles. it stretched all the way to the horizon. and about halfway through it there was a strange assemblage of stuff -- at least strange from a distance (initially thought it might be my first mirage). at a little rest area near the stuff, a sign indicated that it was the "very large array," the most powerul and widely used radio telescope in the world. it was substantial. lots of big dishes arrayed in lines and pointing to the stars. there was a jodie foster movie years ago with scenes that included a very big array. don't know if that one was this one, but if you saw the movie you get the picture. all in all, a good day on the road. need to put a lot of miles behind me in the next two days, though, to reach memphis.
tomorrow: soccoro to wichita falls, whatever state it's in.
good night jack and shirley, jack and jackie, jake and jill, mike and barbara. good night jean...

day six

june 29, flagstaff, arizona, to phoenix, 294 miles.
27 or so years ago, in a world far, far away, i was covering baseball for the paper in bellevue, washington. each year, i drove to spring training in arizona. one year, terry tazioli, a good friend who also worked at the bellevue paper at the time, joined me for the trip south. along the way, we drove through a snow storm at the grand canyon; enjoyed laid-back sedona, arizona; discovered picturesque jerome, arizona; and marveled at montezuma's castle and montezuma's well, a couple of national monuments that contain dwellings used by folks here thousands of years ago. today, i revisited those places. sedona is no longer laid-back -- it has two starbuck's -- and jerome is no longer a tumble-down community perched precariously on the side of a hill in copper-mining country. the buildings have been renovated, it has been designated an historic site, and the tourists are out in force. but they're still good places to visit, and montezuma's castle is still amazing. the day ended with family and friends, first family at a dinner in chandler, arizona. an uncle and aunt, jack and shirley, have been in arizona for a while, and were joined about six years ago by one of their daughters, jackie, her husband, jack, and their kids. much more recently, one of their sons, jake, and his wife, jill, arrived. so we had dinner. and good conversation. then it was time to drive to sun city west and spend the night with mike stanton, who had been my boss at the seattle times before i drove him into retirement, and his wife, barbara. when i started planning this trip and contacted mike about the possibility of mooching a night's lodging, his first comment was something along the lines of, "what? are you crazy? it'll be like 110 degrees here that time of year." ok, so he got lucky, and it was 110 degrees. i finally turned on the air conditioning. on the way from chandler to sun city west -- it took over an hour to get from one to the other because the phoenix area has become huge -- it rained for a while and the wind blew strong. felt good. it was a good day. it was nice to see everyone and spend at least a little time with them. wish i could have stayed longer, but olivia will be in memphis in a few days, and i need to be there as well.
tomorrow: phoenix to socorro, new mexico...