I started out the day like usual, strapping into my car, finding the nearest on-ramp, and barreling ass down the highway toward the next line on my Mapquest print-out. Utah being Utah, it continued being..Utah, some magical land of big rocks and flat plains that must have inspired the folks who'd made Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

Being the flat land of completely undeveloped real-estate that is, however, there was an enchanting quality about most of it: the multi-hued desert tones, the sweeping rock strata in all their multi-layered geological fiestas, with only a handful of cars or trucks appearing behind and ahead of you. The odd part of all this came when my RPM gauge started to act funny. I'd press down on the accelerator, and the thing would shoot to 5--which is highly unconventional. The gears weren't shifting correctly and, instead of spinning the engine out and possibly burning it, I pulled over to the side of the road. I waited for awhile, fishing for the roll of TP I had to check the fluids under the hood (which seemed fine), then suddenly forgot where I'd put the TP. I spent 10 minutes pondering and pawing while the car cooled and sun-bathed. Finally, accepting that all convenient things show up only when you don't need them, I switched the car back on and kept driving.

With that lead in time, here's my take on Utah:

Like Nevada, but with bigger mountain thingies

More hilly, too.

For tens of miles, open countryside, a two-lane road, and people who pass on the right when you're feeling spunky. Good land, Utah.

Bearing in mind I took all these shots at 70-80 mph, I'm surprised this one came out like it did with the road line symmetry.

Best of the lot.

So on went my Buick and I, through Utah, entering into Colorado, still wondering about that bizarre car trouble and why Colorado seemed to love road reconstruction so much. It was an often enough occurence, having asphalt torn up or repaved, leaving just one lane and a row of 35 mph cars getting ansy--but Colorado just loved that shit. And I didn't mind much, I can tell you. That state was just gorgeous here, there, anywhere I bothered to stop paying attention to the road:

Somewhere near around the Utah/Colorado border.

7 seconds later. Why not.

I think this was slightly after one of those road construction bits.

Puffy clouds, lotsa puffy clouds...

Now around this time I was feeling extremely damned starved. I hadn't seen a thing in Utah and Colorado was being stingy with townships. Oh sure there was a turn-off for fast-food every so often, but I wanted a proper sit-down meal where I didn't have to take care of the trash.

Then along came Rifle. Yes. Rifle, Colorado.

In the original shot the 'Rifle' part is clear, but I digress. I decided to stop here because they had a 'Sonic'. Having never been to a Sonic, I was surprised to remember (when I found it) that it's one of those 50's style brings-out-food-to-your-car deals. This did not settle well with me one bit. I tried the ordering from my car thing anyway, but I guessed the order button was on the fritz. So I pulled in line at the drive-thru (when I found it) and waited..and waited...and waited, finally getting "food". I put that in quotes because I hadn't had such a shitty fast-food meal in ages: the 'coney' was this obviously frozen-turned-lukewarm hot-dog that reminded me of gov't cheese more than a menu item, popcorn chicken that was mostly all breading, and this 'limeade' strawberry-lemon thing that was more post-modern thought piece than beverage. I gave the whole lot a 2, and it gave me indigestion later on.

The meal aside, though, Rifle was a beautiful little town, with cookie-cutter townhouses in back and your usual midwestern fare. I must have looked interesting, full goatee and all black clothing. I did get some of those 'well what the hell? That is kinda peculiar' sorts of looks. I tried brushing my teeth at this point, contacting Mom to let her know how things were, and generally resting up for the next stint of the journey.

Eventually I got out to the Rockies--or what looked like 'em, anyway:

This was about 5 miles before I descended into this gorgeous mini-canyon, with the Colorado River flowing on my right with its white-water rafting enthusiasts, a walking path just below the two-lane highway I wrapped around at obnoxiously moderate speeds. I got so in the mood of looking and seeing what'd be a perfect shot that I only took one--and it's too dark to do the place justice, so imagination'll have to do.

I did get to the proper Rockies pretty soon, though:

Well they are mountains..

Right?

Going through the Rockies was a wonderful, uplifting experience. The scent of conifers wrapped all around the sliver of open land in-between the mountains, this crisp, subtly sweet bouque of thistles and earth flowing in and away, like a stream of clouds whisking away and in front of the sun. The small mountain villages and mini-cities had a pleasant set of road amenities to them, with residences blending into the background but standing out just enough to give you a cultural flavor of the place.

I stopped at a BP somewhere half-way through, re-gasing the car and myself as I got the 16 oz. Sobe energy drink, the official drink of Daath Trip 2004. For some reason the cashier and I had a brief conversation about how expensive gas was, how outrageous it was in California, and that higher costs generally drove people up north. I could tell by the look on his face he wasn't quite sure how we'd gotten to talking either. Biggest thing that surprised me was that he was white. I mean this is the Rockies, yeah, but it's a gas station mini-mart deal. In LA seeing a white person head one of those was like catching a blue moon.

The stint through the Rockies wasn't all cedar smells and odd talk, though. I found out that my car really does not like climbing high elevations. I could tell this by how much trouble it had going above 65 mph up most of the slightly steep to steep inclines. The automatic gears weren't shifting too gracefully, but the car was holding up decently, so I mostly stayed over to the right. To make matters more interesting, it began to ran profusely, in sheets and buckets and giant washtubs, overflowing on the road and giving me pause about going 15 miles over the speed limit. Not that it gave other drivers pause of any kind, of course. I slowed down a little just in case.

Finally, though, I crested to some vista place at 10,000 feet elevation and slowly descended into Denver. Fuck but Denver's outer traffic was a pain in the ass. I nearly missed one of my big turn-offs because Mom had decided to call at around there to do the regular update thing. Compounded with that was Jack Off Fuckhead driving a blue toyota. I signaled to go over to the right. He stayed the course and looked indignant at me, saying something and speeding off. As any good American would, I flipped him the bird with a good shake and weaved my car into the lane I needed to get in.

After the Rockies pass, you get an ironic rolling plains sortof an effect going in central and eastern Colorado, like Utah but with grass and grass and lots of grass and a few hills. It was after Ft. Morgan, somewhere along Mile 80 or something, where my car started having those RPM problems again.

From here on out are entries I wrote at the time all of this happened...

"So here I am, at this very moment, stuck on I-60 something outside of Fort Morgan near Denver, Colorado. It'd been easy going for the last 40-60 miles: decently illegal speed of 90 mph, coolant running normal, oil fine, transmission fine--then all of the sudden, my RPM gauge begins getting wonky. Every time I accelerate, the thing jumps up like a Senator in a whore-house sting. I wasn't getting much oompf for all my pushing, y'see, so I decided to park the thing on the side of the road. I couldn't find anything that seemed wrong, so I'd just let the car chill out for awhile like I had a few times before.

Only problem was that the battery suddenly cut out. Just like that. From a little under normal to squat. So I'm calling Ma and she's flabbergasted and I'm flabbergasted. After all, we'd had near 2,000 bucks of work done on my Buick, which right now is just a pretty typing desk with one emergency blinker working in the front. After the phone call with her, I phoned AAA and eventually getting my location to sink into the thick-skulled associate's head. Which part about "I'm several miles before or after exit 80 on I-76 E" wasn't comprehendable? This motherfucker takes motorist calls for a living. I had to walk half a mile with him on hold before I could rattle off what some green sign said about Fort Morgan. Before then the guy thought I was on the I-53. Suddenly me saying the I-76 E makes sense all of the sudden. Floss between your ears lately, asshole?

Now I'm standing here, on the side of the road, feeling so very uncreative, moderately pissed off, and mostly praying that some jackass doesn't suddenly decide to pull over into my car--and me. So far I've gotten lucky on that count. I'm pointing the screen toward the road, so that someone knows something is here and avoids it. At least, I hope that's the effect the little laptop has.

Did you know there are assloads of mosquitoes in around the rural parts of Denver? Well neither did I, but oh I'm intimately acquainted with several of them right now. (And as I learned later from the dude that towed me, I'd shuffled my car right next to some drainage ditches. Luck loves me. Yes).

I'm hoping a charge will be all I need to get this showboat started again. Having to get something like the "alternator" changed (which allegedly was done a few days ago by Pepe Boys) would majorly suck and put me back about a grand.

Ok, way too much excitement flinching every time a car fwooshes by me at 90. I'll talk to you later. Hopefully. If not, it was fun writing to all of you.

I'll update this as the situatiohn unfolds..."

----

{An hour later}

This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't in the fucking playbook. I could take having to crank the fan on maximum and open all the car vents to keep the engine from overheating (while going uphill and when it's hot); I was getting used to driving for hours at a time; I had it all planned out and I was supposed to get into Mad Town EARLY tomorrow.

And then this fucking shit happens. What in the goddamned hell was all that car repair worth?! I get all this shit replaced and checked, and somehow it skips Pepe's attention to check my fucking alternator? Isn't something that's kinda sorta fucking intergral to having a machine run worthy of being checked? How in the fuck did they overlook this?! I want to throttle those incompetents. "Full diagnostic" should goddamn fucking well mean a FULL diagnostic of integral machine parts.

I can't believe the luck of it. It was all working out and then some car part I've never heard of apparently shorts out and suddenly my car doesn't work. According to the mechanic who towed me, they can go out at any time. "It could work fine in the shop, but then just quit 5 minutes in the car," he said.

So my car gets towed, I get escorted to Best Cost Inn and have to pay 69.99 for a room. 70 dollars. Which part about "I usually stay at Motel 6's" didn't the mechanic understand? 70 a night is not "saving a couple dollars" unless you like Sheratons and want to rough it a little with just 3 different kinds of HBO. Who only fucking knows how much the car repair will cost. If it's the alternator, it'll be 100-150, which is do-able...but I get a feeling they're going to recommend re-doing the transmission and other wacky high cost shit. I don't have time for high cost shit. I need to be in Madison AT THE LATEST in the early part of the 19th. Dr. Crisco leaves from the 20th to the 27th, said he'd show me around the lab again so he could orient me. Oh I'm sure he'll be sympathetic to my car dying, but that'll still mean having to get oriented around the lab right up close to when classes start."

- - -

{30 minutes later}

I was irate and almost in tears after I plunked down in my hotel room, so I decided to vent about my situation and asshole people. I figured I always feel better after not being hungry, though, so I decided to scrounge up whatever passes for food around rural Denver/Bumfuck Nowhere's 1st cousin. I could see the McDonalds from my window, but that was an absolute last choice act of desperation. Walking around the parking lot near the lobby, though, I noticed a Wendy's and also this chinese buffet place. I had a feeling it'd probably suck, but I couldn't pass it up: it made me fodnly remember the chinese buffet I had almost every lunch back in Boston.

I'd strolled into a world of stereotypes. The chinese waiter, obviously the father or uncle, greeted me and asked me what I wanted to drink. I knew Kirin Ichiban probably wasn't available. Only thing that was, it turns out, was Bud Light. Swilling the very same stuff was a group of middle-aged rural white people: two women doing the 'we're attractive, no really, we are!' makeup and clothing thing, one slightly grizzled old dude with one of those short poofy biker beards, and the rest were just the rest. They'd occasionally have fun with the waiter or talk about stuff like how a theatre could hold 300 people, but it really didn't look like 300 people were in there. Eh. In back of me were two high schools guys talking about a coach and someone getting trained or something. The food itself was mediocre. I don't mean just plain, but right across-the-board not bad, but not good mediocre. It was like you could taste the essence of the hot and sour soup, or the dumplings, but there wasn't anything to them.

I guess you can run that sort of place when everyone's only alternative is fast food. It was only 7 bucks, though.

Mom is having dinner right now, she said. I'll wait a little while longer, call back, then I guess have her log into my hotmail account and send Dr. Crisco a message for me. It woulda been clever/competent of me to actually have the lab's work phone number, but I'd thought I'd just drive to my apartment, hook up my laptop, search for the number and then call when someone would obviously be there.

Obviously I didn't plan ahead for setbacks. I had faith that nothing would go wrong with the car if I stayed on top of stuff. Unfortunately, shit happens--and I've yet to see the repair bill, so I don't know exactly how much shit we're talking about.

So now I'm laying on my stomach and typing this out instead of screaming. It's good therapy. I haven't eaten yet, either. The door handle has some major issues with opening, but apparently the owner's daughter has quite the touch for it. (And later on I got the hang of it; you needed to use this rowing sortof swinging motion, like you were pitching a softball, except it was a door handle).

And I'm still thinking about T now and then. 70 bucks for a hotel room. Bah. Bah bah bah. At least I have 'Neuromancer' to keep me company."

And the fun would continue screeching, but then suddenly continue during Trip Day 3: "Redemption of my car"...

As a small side-note I did hear from T when I arrived in Madison 4 days ago. It was a relief.

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