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Sunday, September 14, 2008 (Los Angeles, stop 5)

On June 16th I was stirred awake from my comfortable perch in the RV’s overhead sleeper. Gerry was pulling out of the Grand Canyon with a pot of water still simmering on the stove, and every kitchen utensil we owned, let loose in the bowels of the RV. The entire trip, he’s taken great pride in seeing just how fast the RV can get before the boiling water and set of kitchen knives get thrown into the adjacent bed, occupied by his pregnant daughter.

My awakening wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the previous morning, when I was lulled from my slumber by a nearby camper playing his harmonica. That mood quickly changed, as Susan was un-lulled to let him know that in fact if he continued, his fucking teeth would be smashed in by the very instrument he was playing. Forseeably, the next step was a force feeding of said harmonica.

As of this June 16th morning, we have already covered 1,590 miles and are about to do the last leg of the RV trip. Five hundred miles back to our trips origin, the annoyingly persistently nice weathered, Los Angeles. We had the next day off, where we would meet up w/ friends at an Angels – Mets game, coincidentally, the first game with Jerry Manuel as the manager, for one final farewell*. That evening we crashed for the final time, at least as residents of the state, at my sisters apartment.

June 18th we reunited with our much smaller vehicle, our roof rack equipped Suzuki, said goodbye to Susans father and added my brother Adam to the mix, who will join us for the remainder. We took off for Phoenix Arizona, 377 miles to the east, which turned out to be one of the crappiest places I’ve ever been. We took in a Diamondbacks game, spent the night in a hotel and hit the road bright and early, heading for Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. In New Mexico, we had planned on camping in Carlsbad but a sand storm that pulled in a couple hours after we did, drove us to a local hotel.

Other than the national park itself, the city of Carlsbad is a total dump. The happening local spot is a Chile’s, where the patrons are grossly obese and display no signs of slowing down. The large, tank-topped woman whom had the pleasure of being in my line of sight appeared to actually nap between her appetizer of deep fried something or other and main course of multiple helpings of deep fried something or other. What a town.

* Fun fact: We’ve now seen Pedro Martinez start for the Mets in NY, Philadelphia, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Anaheim.

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