its already May??

Last week I made the most incredible/insane drive of my life.
10.5 hours; 700 miles x 2
Park City, UT to Los Angeles, CA and back.

Everything from Southern Utah to the Arizona/Nevada border is gorgeous. Jagged peaks sitting atop green pastures scattered with trees and cows. Red-rock country is also a sight worth driving through. Then the desert happened. Nevada is a desolate landscape where one prays that their car isnt sacrificed to the hellfire demons of the desert. While driving, I saw not only multiple flat tires being changed and smoking open-hooded cars but also a handful of crazy hitchhikers just trailing I-15, like you do? Some of the broken down cars were newer than Betty, which freaked me out. "Good girl, good girl," I kept saying under my breath, as though i were calming a canine. How ridiculous was i to be driving a car almost considered to be a "Classic" through the Mojave? TWICE? I began to drive myself crazy listening for possible warning signs that i was about to become dinner for the scavengers of the desert. Between blasting beats supplied generously by drew's ipod, I would hear what I thought to be an odd noise coming from the car, however, the clanking or whirring or buzzing would fade with the turn of the dial. OH Desert Paranoia, how you warp my music!

Then out of the dust, Las Vegas happens. What a societal anomaly that city is! Desert, desert, desert, CITY! What a great way to isolate vice. Surround it by desert. Its only once you drive through it do you begin to wonder why people choose to live there (aside from no property taxes, prostitutes, etc.) because you have to drive through MILES AND MILES AND MILES AND MILES of dry, dusty, barrenness, just to get anywhere that isnt vegas.

It wasnt until the desert after Vegas, the Mojave, that I began to think of CSI. Yes, I am such a tool as to think of television while looking mother nature in the face. I thought about a few episodes where characters were left to die/died in the desert. ::insert some more DESERT PARANOIA here:: "People die here. It makes sense that killers scatter corpses in the middle of the desert. In its expanse and vastness, it just swallows anything that stops moving for an extended period of time without access to water." Praying for rest stops to become visible, I willed Betty through the desert at 90 mph to Los Angeles.

California was a whole other story. I dont know why I was expecting a sort of lush fauna crawling to the ocean kind of vista. Instead there were hilly, rocky, masses that blocked my view of the Pacific. Jerk mountains. Just as I would pass over one, thinking that this was going to be it, cue beautiful view of blue, there was more hilly dry, southern California. Perhaps its more desirable to keep the waterfront views quarantined, but Id dreamed that id see the ocean as i drove in. Though there was no immediate ocean, I was officially in Orange County, which was cool enough for me. Being the tool that I am, I thought about television again as I passed the exits for Chino and headed for the signs that said Newport. Oh Ryan and Marissa, how do you live your fictional lives in this place!

No McMansion Newport OC style accomodations... Instead: Concordia University, Irvine. What a piece of work! I can see why Jordan is transferring. Aside from the campus being terribly small its also filled with super conservative, selfish high schoolers who are headed down the road of trustfund exhausted alcholism. Jordan is definitely outnumbered in this venue, though she had a few friends that were quite awesome. Her roomate situation was unfortunate: I was told to stop bad mouthing Sarah Palin in the dorm room because her obnoxiously rude roomate who was a couple feet away on the other side of the partition she created by positioning two open doors together LOVES the Alaskan govenor. "I dont care," I said. Who likes Palin anyway? Really? I welcomed that debate, though her roomate really didnt talk to me aside from asking how old i was, how long i was dating my boyfriend and if we were getting married. weird.

"Happy Cinco de Drinko!" read Jordan's friend's facebook status. Is it really May already, I thought to myself. Crap. Shots of tequila slammed down raspy swine flu throats could be heard for miles... Cinco de Mayo is big amongst the white upper-middle class college crowd, especially if it means a sample of HPV might be at your party. Extra points for spreading it without showing signs!!! Gross. Dont get me wrong, I had a great time and Jordan was awesome. All you can eat sushi and IN and OUT, PLUS H&M! I was having a greattime. I even got to stick my East Coast feet in the Pacific. The fact of the matter is that there is a reason that East coast and West coast have their stereotypes. I have totally begun to appreciate my Vassar education, especially when I continuously find it difficult to have the conversation that starts with "this one time when i was really drunk..."

The trip home seemed more bareable than the trip there. Perhaps it was because i left at 730AM instead of 430AM. Perhaps it was because I was coming home. Driving towards the green instead of away from it. For the first time since we drove into UT, I appreciated the landscape and climate. Cool mornings, Cool evenings. Beautiful native green in lieu of transplanted palms. The best part of the drive was US-189 through Provo canyon. Somewhere that I will frequent this summer. Lakes, BBQ, sun. mmmmmmm.

When I got home Drew was still playing golf. sucky. So I showered, and plopped onto the couch just in time to catch a Vassar freshman win Jeopardy followed by a great episode of LOST. I passed out rather early that evening...probably because i was totally pooped from driving over 1400 miles in three days.