Quest of the Phoenix 2017

During the dread Polar Vortex of December 2016, I, having worked six to seven days a week for the last five weeks, most of it spent outside when snow buildup made it nigh-impossible to pull out of any intersection at which one had to stop one’s vehicle, got to work a full and rather lengthy day when the wind was blowing at around negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit (about -23 C). By the time the day was done, my face was too numb to talk properly, and even after getting back indoors it took over an hour for me to feel warm again. And shortly after getting home (and reflecting also on the fact that two months previously I had nearly died of a severe asthma relapse that seemed to have been brought on by the humidity of the autumn, not to mention the depression and general health-deterioration that ALWAYS afflicts me as summer comes to an end), I found myself thinking: “I don’t want to live in Michigan anymore.”

Incidentally, right around Christmas Day, the weather grew middling and rainy, and we ended up having quite a mild winter after our horrible December. Nevertheless, I began to spend large amounts of time on Wikipedia looking up info on regions, states, towns, and cities elsewhere in the U.S., particularly those near the bottom of the map. At first, I gravitated more to places like Jacksonville, Florida, where the temperature stayed nice and consistent, but then I started looking towards Arizona, which had more temperature variation but also tended to be nice and dry. NOT TO MENTION I’ve always had a fascination with deserts and I used to want to move to the Southwest when I was a teenager anyway and my favorite part of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was always Gerudo Valley. And since I had previously designed a personal insignia depicting a mythological pyrotic-avian creature I’d long been fond of, I decided that I must go to Phoenix, AZ, and see if the place was livable. Doing so would furthermore be an excuse to get out of town, get away from work for a bit, and see the country while I was at it. (AMERICA IS VERY BIG. I’ve been out to the East Coast, crossing about a quarter of the continent, and even that involved LOTS of driving.)

My desire to do so was further motivated by my roommate’s sudden and unexpected acquisition of a girlfriend, so it wouldn't hurt to have a Plan B as far as living arrangements go, lest I get the short end of the stick in any "it's either me, or her" situation. (Incidentally, this is exactly what ended up happening, despite his having known me for twenty years and her for five months. Love is a beautiful thing.)

Planning the trip took about two months and involved a lot of safety precautions, supply purchases, and online research, as well as talking, in person, to a few individuals who had been out West (such as my father, who has been damn near everywhere; my brother, who lived in Wyoming for just under a year; and my friends D and C, the latter of whom I incidentally hadn’t seen IRL ever since he returned from Out West, specifically Nevada, and who was originally raised in Southern California anyway). Finally, I was all set to depart in the early morning of Monday, April 3, 2017. Immediately before I left, I did an extremely basic Tarot reading (just pulling a single card from the Major Arcana — why make things complicated?) and the result was both appropriate and encouraging. (As a general rule I avoid talking about these things in detail, so please don’t ask me which card I drew, and keep your guesses to yourself. Thanks.)

This shall chronicle my Hobbit-like journey in eleven parts, one for each day of the trip. And there shall be pictures. I took exactly 582, though of course, only a fraction of those have made the final cut.

~ DAY 1 ~

Following an unpleasant Sunday at work, I hastily completed my packing, passed out nice and early, and was up at 5:40 AM, intending to be on the road by 7:00. I succeeded, though I did stop in a small town just south of home, for breakfast and (more) coffee, since I would be driving for a minimum of 11 hours today.

The drive down Highway 52, and then Freeway 69, was fairly easy and relaxing. To pass the time, I began listening to the CDs onto which I’d burned my friend Dr. Jim’s Hammer of Retribution metal podcast, or at least the first eight episodes thereof. In Episode 1, I particularly enjoyed his observation that we in “Vinland” (he’s a Limey) have always been good at THRASH, after which he played some Nuclear Assault and Testament. Or the part where he played a horrid song by some croony 1960 lounge band called Ronnie and the Redcaps just so he could then ask, “And who was this ‘Ronnie’ fellow?” → HOLY DIVER.

Southwest Michigan is rather hillier than the very-flat, east-central part of the state where I live, though hardly mountainous. (Practically the entire state is between about 570 and 1300 feet above sea level. Only in a few places does it get higher than that, and then not by much, with our highest point being just short of 2000.) The weather was cool, grey, and damp (as usual). There is some fairly nice countryside down there, however; at its best Michigan offers an interesting mixture of pastoral countryside, creepy swamp-woods, and rugged northlands-forest type areas, with the third category being more prominent farther north.

After several hours, I crossed the border into Indiana (“The Crossroads of America”), which was unremarkable. It was similar to SW Michigan, only not as hilly and therefore more boring. I was only crossing the northwest corner of the state so I was in and out of it in 45 minutes. Near the infamously stinky industrial city of Gary, I switched my car’s air to interior-circulation rather than bringing in external air.

Next came Illinois, starting with Chicagoland, the semi-official name of the enormous Chicago Metropolitan Area. I was now on 94/80 West, and as usual for the freeway in any major urban area, traffic got congested, aggressive, and unpleasant for quite some time. I couldn’t see much of interest, just the freeway itself and the many cars and trucks clogging it. Once I was clear of this melee, I saw a sign for a rest area and pulled over to take a piss. As I came out of the building, I saw that the right front tire of my car had gone flat.

It had been at least five years since the last time I changed a tire, but I MOSTLY remembered how, and I knew I had a spare and all the necessary equipment. OR DID I? I did everything right, but the bolts holding the tire in place were on SO tight (thanks to me having gotten my tires rotated right before I left, when they also told me that my tires looked fine) that literally nothing I did would loosen them. I cranked on them with the wrench; I tapped the wrench farther onto the bolts with a hammer, and then used said hammer to strike the handle of the wrench; I even jumped on the handle and stood on the damn thing, but even my body weight would not make them budge. I was just about to call my insurance company to see if I could get roadside assistance WHEN OUT OF THE DISTANCE A FIGURE APPEARED. Some old trucker had apparently been watching my misfortune during a break and came over to ask what was going on. I briefly explained it to him; he took one look at my wrench (which apparently was of the “bare minimum” variety that came with the spare) and went off to get the actual tire-iron, cross-shaped, “good” one that he had. He came back with it and instantly loosened the bolts, after which I was able (with a bit of unnecessary but appreciated help from him) to remove the flat and put on the spare. Meanwhile, I mentioned that I had to get to the western edge of Iowa yet, a good 5-6 hours away. He was heading up to Canada, himself. “That looks like a good tire, actually,” he said of the spare, and I agreed — unlike some spares, it was a “real tire” and not just a “tire-shaped object” meant to get one as far as the nearest mechanic’s shop. Thus I resolved to drive to my hotel room in Council Bluffs, IA and then worry about getting a new tire after I arrived. I thanked the gentleman for his invaluable aid drove off. Leaving the rest area, I saw him also helping some other motorist who had pulled off to the side of the entrance-ramp and had his hood popped. As they say, not all heroes wear capes. Thanks, anonymous truck-driving guy; may your sojourn to the dark realm of Canada be both brief and profitable.

Mere minutes after I left the rest area, it started to rain and continued to rain for the entire rest of the day’s trip. On the plus side, beginning Episode 2 of the Hammer of Retribution (hereafter: H.O.R.) meant getting to hear Jim’s choice of new theme tune for the show, “Hail to the Hammer” by Tyr, which has already become one of my new favorite songs.

Illinois past Chicagoland was pretty dull aside from the part where the freeway passes over a bridge built across a big-ass quarry, that was pretty cool. Otherwise just flat fields, some trees, subdivisions, etc. The far western part of the state was a curious mixture of hills and flooded-tree swamps, however. Still, it seemed to take a long time to get out of it. At least it wasn’t PENNSYLVANIA. I hate Pennsylvania.

Then suddenly I was on a bridge crossing the mighty Mississippi River, which in Olden Tymes (by American standards) was the boundary between East and West. These days the West doesn’t really start until farther west, but still, it was kinda cool that I was officially out of the Great Lakes region. Curiously, the area immediately around the River (which also forms the border between Illinois and Iowa) was quite hilly, and even reminded me a bit of Appalachia.

And so I was in Iowa, a state known for being pretty and “nice” but fairly boring. I stopped for gas not long after crossing into it, near Iowa City, with the weather still chilly and wet. Progressing westwards, I discovered that the ENTIRE STATE consists of rolling farm-hills. The landscape really wasn’t as flat as I was expecting. It wasn’t exactly rugged, but it undulates anywhere you go or look. Trees were noticeably fewer than I was used to. The freeway was also, in many places, made of some kind of PINK asphalt, the color of which was especially noticeable when wet. The overall impression was that the landscape was attractive but just slightly alien. I can’t quite put my finger on it. “This looks like nice farmland, only it’s not how farmland is supposed to look”, something like that.

As I approached Des Moines, in the center of the state, traffic predictably got dense and nasty again. Des Moines has “only” a little over 200,000 people, but this was still enough to produce big-city road conditions. This time I could at least glimpse a bit of the city as I drove through/past it, and it always impresses me to see tall buildings, since anything over four stories is rare where I’m from. However, the usual vehicular congestion, psychotic motorists, and suddenly-appearing and suddenly-disappearing lanes and exits kept me busy enough that I couldn’t spare much time to admire the sights. Past Des Moines was more of the same weird-looking farmland. At least the rain slackened off (for a bit) near De Soto, birthplace of John Wayne. The spirit of the Duke is not all-powerful, however, for rain resumed again shortly thereafter.

Rain, rain, rain. The noise of it on my car combined with the noise created by the car itself, and the road beneath it, was making my head ring, and I had to turn off H.O.R. for the remainder of the day to spare my ears. By now I’d been driving for a LONG time and was getting quite tired, sore, and jittery. The last hour before I reached my destination was rough.

Western Iowa again turned into some kind of mini-Appalachia, with actual hill-hills, and as I neared Council Bluffs, on the west edge of the state and where my motel room awaited, I was surprised to discover that it has actual bluffs. (In Michigan lots of places are named “Posh Ridge” or “Upper-Middle Class Slopes” or “Mt. Gentrification”, but no actual ridges, mountains, or slopes are involved.) By now the rain was finally letting up and orange sunlight was peeking through the remaining clouds. As I took my exit into town, I discovered that the neighborhood around my motel was basically one giant construction site — people from Omaha (which lay right across the state line) moving here, perhaps? It was pretty ugly, in any event.

The motel, part of a national chain, was even more “basic” than I’d expected (it was cheap, at least), with a rather strung-out-looking woman behind the desk, no fridge or microwave in the room (I had a cold dinner of beef jerky, nuts, broccoli, and a fruit-and-grains bar), and various riff-raff seeming to inhabit the nearby rooms. Some of these people continued to talk and laugh loudly and blast hip-hop well into the night. Much appreciated. I forced myself to use my phone to access the Internet (normally I use a “computer” like a civilized person) to look for a Firestone place or something where I could get my tire replaced in the morning. I then kinda-sorta slept. Despite how tired I was, the combination of asshole-noise and breathing difficulties (which afflict me most evenings, though to varying degrees) made it a fairly unpleasant night.