OVER THE ROAD – Feeling The Changes

Amber waves of purple mountains. A glowing edge of scarlet touching the horizon. Dome to dome. My mind to your mind.

I’m deeply moved on the road. Nothing but my crazy thoughts for company. The radio is broken.

The road goes on forever and the party never ends. Route 66, Santa Rosa, Gallup, Kingman, Lake Havasu, Southern California.

Follow road signs to Beach Cities. You’re getting close. It smells like fresh desert rose. A perfume that always drives me crazy.

This country is ours. Go and see it. I transformed my boxtruck into awesome over-the-road sleeping RV. Complete with California King and cold weather sleeping bag.

At the end of a long day of driving I find a Pilot Flying J travel depot. I back into a spot away from the store front.

I climb into the box and pull down the door. The truck is my personal bedroom on wheels, tall enough to stand up in, I’m 6 foot– I feel right at home.

I zip into my sleeping bag, read my Twain, click off the light and begin my first over-the-road night in the truck.

Santa Rosa New Mexico. After following the lovely Highway 256 out of Texas and seeing fields of real cotton, massive bales of freshly shorn material drying in the fields, I feel proud to call these folks my countrymen.

I turn right at Fort Sumner and find Santa Rosa New Mexico in the black of night meeting Interstate 40. All through the evening a low rumble is heard. I figure it’s the adjacent rail line hauling impossible number of rail cars. I close my eyes and fall right to sleep. The next thing I know it’s 5am and I’m burning to get on the road again.

I plug in the machines and begin to transact payment for load of fuel. $70.00 dollars of fuel is purchased with Monero using third party pay system. I type in my code at the terminal. All of the Pilot Flying J cashiers are helpful and know how to use the codes.

I spend the rest of my trip noting the Pilot Flying J travel centers on my route. I stop at another for my second night in Kingman AZ. The ambient noise is unsettling outside the truck. I wake up early and kick myself for stopping at this location.

I make a left on 95 and drive through Lake Havasu in the glowing dawn. Great pyramids of impossible formations frame the twisting road. I follow the Colorado river to Parker and make a right, finally breaching California territory.

The next 3 hours on highway 62 is a dream scene. I’m on mars, I’m on the moon, I’m in fairy land, the bottom of an invisible sea. I wonder if I’ve taken a wrong turn. I begin to watch the fuel gauge.

I pop back into civilization at Joshua Tree, meetup with Interstate 10 and begin city driving with coffee concentration.

The ocean is mine. I claim this entire expanse in the name of my new found role. It’s only just begun.

OVER THE ROAD – Feeling The Changes