Catching Up

Whew! I'm bushed!  I didn't get home until late last night, and had to work first thing this morning!

The trip was the greatest! I flew from New York to Durham on the morning of February 2, and saw Jay's production of THE SHAPE OF THINGS that afternoon. Then we hung around for the rest of the evening, and I stayed at his house Monday night.

On Monday morning, we got up and dropped his car off for inspection, then we went and I sat in as he taught his acting classes at Duke University. We finally got on the road at about 3 p.m., and spent most of the first day crossing North Caroline and Tennessee. We made it as far as Jackson, TN, before deciding to call it a night. All in all, we did about 650 miles the first day.

On Tuesday, we got up at 7 a.m. and got on the road right away, continuing west on I-40. It was a short 1½ hour trip to Memphis, where we hung out at Graceland for about an hour before we hit the road again. Sadly, the mansion was closed that day, so we couldn't get inside and take the tour, which I'd have loved - but we got some great photographs of the mansion and the "memorial garden" where Elvis, his mom & dad and grandma are all buried. It's frankly pretty creepy and a bit underwhelming, when all is said and done. I do have to say this about Graceland: I thought the pool would be bigger.

After finishing with Graceland, we got back on the road and headed west, again on I-40. We almost immediately crossed into Arkansas. I thought Arkansas was gonna be a scary place, but it was actually really pretty, and what people we met were really nice. We skipped around Little Rock and kept heading west, and just out of Fort Smith we turned north on our only real side trip from the Interstate: We went up to Fayetteville, AR to see Jay's brother. THAT was wild. Jay's brother Steve is a total hippy with a scraggy beard, a wife who's 9 years younger, and a two little girls - Penelope and Zolabell. Fayetteville, it turns out, is a bit of a hippie town, which was the LAST thing I expected. That area of the country is really beautiful, though.

Anyway, we were bound and determined to reach the desert, so after having a lovely dinner with Steve and his family, we hit the road again for some more driving before giving up for the night. We managed to make it about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City before stopping for the night.

Wednesday morning, we hit the road again and plowed westward across the rest of Oklahoma and into the panhandle of Texas. At Amarillo, we finally got off the Interstate 40, after having traveled over 1400 miles on it... in a little over 1½ days! We took State Route 60 south west away from Amarillo, and crossed into New Mexico at a little town called Clovis. We headed west on 60 till we got to a little town called Vaughn, where we took Route 54 south to a town called Carrizozo. From Carrizozo, we went north west a few miles to this amazing landmark called The Valley of Fires, where we got lots of great pictures. Hopefully, I'll get them posted soon.

The trip south along 54 was, I think, some of my favorite vistas of the whole journey. The Chupadera Mesa, and the mountains looming to the south of Carrizozo were just amazingly beautiful. If ever I'm independently wealthy, I think I'd consider living in the area.

Anyway, as dusk was falling on Wednesday, we finished our photo expedition in the Valley of Fire and headed south east through the Capitan Mountains into Roswell. There was no way I could visit the state without seeing the home of my alien friends. We got into town too late to wander around taking photos, so we got our hotel and ate a nice meal, then sacked out.

Thursday morning, we got up and wandered around Roswell, taking snapshots. It was too early to actually get into any of the freaky alien attractions, and we didn't feel like wasting the time waiting for them to open, 'cuz we'd hoped to make it into southern Texas by nightfall, and that would involve some long, hard driving. So we headed south from Roswell on Route 285 passing through Carlsbad (had to miss the Caverns!) until we crossed back into Texas again.

This part of west Texas was actually a little depressing. Lots of really tiny towns with no industry or commerce to speak of... Just lots of old people looking like they'd all been deserted by the young folks. The most depressing town in the world is Orla, Texas. I slept through it, but according to Jay, it looked like Beirut with 5 pueblo-like outhouses that had been bombed out.

Eventually, we made it to Ft. Stockton, Texas, where we joined up with Interstate 10 headed east. We took that till we passed the town of Junction, and then got onto Rt. 290, which we took to Austin. Austin was very cool, and I think I'd actually like to go and spend some time there, exploring the gay scene, which is apparently pretty big, and the theater scene, which isn't huge, but is supposed to be pretty hip. Maybe someday.

We stayed east of Austin that night, pretty exhausted at having driven so hard.

Friday morning, we drove from Austin and spent most of the day getting to Baton Rouge, which was pretty, but a bit dead. We got some nice photos of the historic downtown area, and had an amazing meal at a place Jay's friend (who's from the area) recommended.

Saturday was fun, 'cuz we spent the morning wandering the French Quarter of New Orleans, taking photos and soaking in the atmosphere. Yet another place I might live if I were fabulously wealthy.

From New Orleans, we drove across the Gulf area of Louisiana and into Alabama, passing through Mobile and Montgomery as we headed north east into Georgia. We stayed Saturday night in Atlanta with Jay's cousin, Chris (the night of the NBA All Star Game AND the Playa's Ball - a yearly gathering, I shit you not, of the city's pimps, who apparently deck themselves out in their "finest").

Sunday morning, we got back on the road, and made it back to Durham by about 3 p.m., just in time for my flight back to New York City, which, it turns out, was canceled. US Airways put me on a Continental flight to Newark (Ugh!), and by the time I caught the airport shuttle to the train station, took the train into Manhattan, and then the subway home (of course, as it was a weekend night, there was construction work on the 2 line, so it skipped my stop, took me four stops out of my way, and then I had to wait almost a half hour to get a subway train going BACK to my stop), it was nearly 1 a.m. by the time I got home.

I have to say, though, it was an incredibly enjoyable vacation, and I couldn't have been luckier than to have Jay along.  He's so fucking smart and so well read, and has such incredibly strong opinions about all the things that interest me, that we never lacked for conversation, which is saying something, considering that we did 4,057 miles and 11 states in six days, and never ran out of shit to talk about.

This experience has, in fact, changed my mind about road trips.  I used to hate them, but now I suspect that they're all about who you're with and why you're doing them.  I plan to put that to the test sometime this summer, if I can.  I'm gonna rent a convertible and take two weeks to do south eastern Canada and the Pacific Northwest in the US!

For now, though, it's back to the daily grind.  I'll work on downloading and posting those pictures soon!