I'm here

Turns out there were two nails in that tire. I finally heard the “hisss” of escaping air at a Loves convenience store in some town in New Mexico. An L word I think. Sure enough most places were closed since it was the first Monday after New Years. But M & A towing did me up right, patched the tire for like twelve dollars. It did add about 1 hour to the whole time.

Thus my trip from El Paso to Phoenix went from 12 to 7:30 pm, for a total of seven and a half hours. Yes I did get a late start, but that allowed me to sleep in. Besides I had nothing to do when I got here, so I didn’t really see a point in getting up early.

Something else that really got to me, more after I crossed into New Mexico and while in Arizona, was that it seemed like the two lane interstate (I-10 West the whole way) was really crowded. I always had lots of cars in front or behind me. And we kept doing this “shuffle”, when the speed limit was 75 miles per hour, I and a couple of cars would be doing 75 in the right lane while the speeders would whip by in the left hand lane, and all was right with the world. The “shuffling problem” would happen when we’d come up on a car in the right hand lane that was going below the speed limit. It would be going really under the speed limit like 55, but as if it was doing 65 or 70. Well eventually we’d all start slowing down to that speed, and the last car in line would pass everyone, and then get back in the right lane, then the next car would pass, and get up front, and so on. Then we’d again proceed until we came upon another slow car. It wasn’t an exact car for car replacement, but I know me and 3 other trucks repeatedly would pass each other. My question though, is why in the world would you be going under the speed limit? It’s just miles and miles of nothing, there were some hills but a great deal of it was flat.

That being said, right before mile marker 203 in Arizona I did see a woman lying in the street around a lot of parked cars. A man was bent over her very closely, and some other men were standing around. This was at an entrance ramp in a pretty desolate patch of road. I called 911 and the operator told me there were already police in route, someone else had called to report she got hit by a car. I wonder how she got hit, or where she was walking from and to, we weren’t exactly in the middle of nowhere, but it was close.

Well I came into Phoenix after dark. My tiny studio apartment’s neighborhood looks a lot scarier. Of course I needed to use the bathroom (as it seems I always do when I buy a 44 ounce Dr Pepper every 2 hours), so I stopped at a 7-11 just down the street. No public restroom. I did notice a homeless person hanging around outside, counting the change in his hand over and over, and figured that was why. There happened to be a Burger King on the opposite corner, so I stopped in there, ordered a meal, and asked where the bathroom was. On my way out, the guy who had been working the register was stopping a homeless guy from entering the bathroom. I’m pretty sure that was what he was doing, all I heard him say was “I’m sorry, they don’t want people to get used to it, I’m sorry”. So I do have to commend Burger King for having a restroom available to customers. However it gave me serious pause about where I was living.

So far the apartment meets with my approval. I have to give 30 days notice if I want the security and key deposit returned to me, so it looks like I’ll start looking for a new apartment pronto.

I’m planning on recording the property on video camera, then converting that to digital and mailing it back to the wife to help her decide which apt we will choose. I do still need to buy a box to convert it with, but I guess I’ll do that now.