a home away from home
Interesting fact of the day. I have not purchased a single roll of toilet paper since leaving. Yup. Read it and weep.
Hmm. Today I sit at the kitchen table typing away. My Nana is sleeping just 10 feet away on the other side of this wall. I just got out of my third shower since getting here. 3 showers in 5 days is a lot more than 0 in ten I had the days before getting here. I had dirt on me but I wasn’t really dirty. Does that make sense? If you were there it would.
Anywho. Lake Havasu City is in the beautiful state of Arizona. It sits far on the west side not far from California. If Arizona were Michigan, I’d be residing on your pinky finger.
And it was a hell of journey from when I left San Marcos however many days ago that was. I met this cat on craigslist named Captain Caveman who was offering a ride from Dallas to Nationals in NM. He told me was from the DFW area. I later found out that DFW is fucking huge. When I got closer to town I asked him for advice on where to camp out for free. After suggesting one not far, he gave me the phone number for his friend Britton who I could stay with until Caveman returns.
I didn’t hang out with him a whole lot. He was always out. The 3 people he shared this 1-bedroom apt in Arlin with were really awesome. Attie, Anna, and Walter were really hospitable people. They offered everything they had to me after never really knowing me. It was a very welcoming experience that I greatly appreciate.
Captain Caveman came home after his stay in Maryland. Guitar broken, riding on a bus for the past day and half, and needing a nap, he was very energetic and fun to be around. Sitting here thinking of him as a stranger at some point in my life seems just laughable. And so my adventure riding the dreary waves of travel begins. I hopped on board with Captain Caveman co-piloting my journey towards the sunset.
Evan is his name. Him and his girlfriend Audrey were heading west towards California. They’re there now recording some music. Evan and Audrey had been given a mini-van and vowed to never have an empty seat in that thing. It was no micro-bus but with tinted windows and a Jesus fish we were convinced it was as good a hippie van as any. He found 2 other folks from Dallas who were piling in with us towards our rainbow colored destination. Nick and Raina were heading there with us.
We didn’t know the exact house but we figured it was the guy with the dreads and long-board. Just a hunch. I later found out that Nick was on a full ride scholarship to Northwestern University before dropping out to live in an anarchist collective. He had a passion for debate, social injustice, and was a proud feminist. Today he’s my brother. I didn’t marry his sister or anything, but we’ve had an amazing time from start to end and whatever is beyond that and I just know our paths will cross again. He’s on a path to see his god daughter in the pacific north west and found himself a perfect ride on the way.
Raina as only going to Rainbow and meeting with friends there for the ride back to Dallas. Her stay was much shorter but part of the memory. She’s a burner who like the rest of us has never been to a gathering but has anticipated it. In with the rest of the troupe and we were only 727 miles from our Destination of Cuba, NM.
We had money, food, a car, companionship, and 4 working tires. What could possibly go wrong, right?
I’d like to talk about that time that we only had 2.75 working tires in Decatur. I’m sure nobody knows who, what, or where Decatur is but we were on the road for an hour. That’s when Evan – who by the way is a god awful driver (I love you Brother!) – ran over a curb at 30 mph bustin’ a u-turn in podunk nowhere. After the fiasco of getting the spare on it we decided to sleep for the night as close as possible and get it fixed properly in the morning. Oh yeah, we left Dallas late evening because we’re backwards like that.
I’m going to use the term ‘camping’ very loosely in this paragraph. We camped out a few miles down the road at a highway rest stop. We pulled the van over and slept in the grass beside it. This is how I spent the first night of my life with these guys. The 5 of us spread out in the grass next to our Jesus fish sleeping in a rest stop in some place I’ve never seen and will probably never see again. Nick was introducing me to debate theory and I found it to be pretty damn interesting. Anyone who knows me well enough knows I love to argue some shit. Just for the sport of arguing.
Laid out in the grass during this I laughed about it. I tend to laugh at life a lot. We do so many things thinking we’re in control of the events unfolding before us. Then you hear people say, “man if someone told me I’d doing this 5 years ago I would have laughed at them.” And then I laugh at myself. For me, 5 years is the joke. Not the punchline. And that’s the clearest I can explain it.
We woke up with the sun and prepared ourselves for another day of Texas. Texas is so vast that it overshadows any positive experience I had there. It was also god awful hot and pretty equally miserable. I was looking forward to crossing that border and screaming until my head exploded knowing that I died during the single greatest moment of my existence.
First thing first we needed a new tire. Being broke and and on the road you tend to be on a fairly rigid budget. So keeping that in mind we decided it would be in our best interest to get a used tire. The first place we stopped at wasn’t open yet. So we figured we would start the day off on a high note and have a good breakfast.
We had some delicious wraps. Tomato, sprouts, avocado, onion, and spinach with a bit of rice vinegar for zest. During our time chopping vegetables in the parking lot, the tire shop opened. The guy got out of his truck, saw us having a feast and told us he’d be with us shortly. No rush.
We never saw him again and one of the other guys told us he had to talk to the boss before selling us a used tire. He came back and tried to sell us a new one for more than we were willing to pay. Which was like $30.
Next shop down the road looked like the guy lived in there. The shop didn’t seem to be open until a man peered from the other side of his yellow drapes; which could have been on his bedroom window for all I know. He came out introduced himself and loved to talk about tires. A real nice and polite man Barry was. He said he had a tire that just a bit more narrow I believe. Maybe wider. I dunno. It was a couple millimeters in either direction and he said it should work but instead sent us up the hill. “She owes me a favor and will take care of you.” 2 miles later she didn’t have the tire so we went back to Barry. He suggested the tire go on the back so offers to rotate the tires for us. We asked him to put some air one of the other tires and he decided he wanted to check it for leaks while it was off. He patched it with some new fancy German technology. He said it’s pretty expensive and most places are using “50 year old methods, thinkin’ that’s the only way.” He said it would last longer than the tire and did her up right for us. A used tire, tire rotation, and a patch set us back $20. While all that was going down two local boys were waiting for service when one asked me how I was doing. I engaged conversation with them and after hearing our stories of traveling the two of them emptied their pockets and gave it to us. At this point our trip only set us back $9, a few hours, and gave me this fun little story.
We set off out of town at around 10am with full bellies and high hopes. We spent the next few hundred miles reading, sleeping, and getting to know each other. Evan joked to us, “after hearing the story, some would call this a bad time.” and it really tickled us. We were a bunch of perma-kids on the way to no where in particular. Nothing to do except count the miles and and let your next adventure unfold.
Ours took place just east of Albuquerque. Just some town that if anyone ever asked where it was, you couldn’t narrow it down to a hemisphere.
We decided it would be in our best interest to not show up to nationals in the dark. It’s very far from the city and tough to navigate in the daylight. With a few hours of that over our heads we needed camp and booze. Booze took priority this time and thankfully so. We stopped off at the nearest liquor store for some cheap whiskey and cheaper beer. During checkout the cashier asked where we were heading. I guess we looked out of place. After telling her California, she shockingly asked, “you guys aren’t going to rainbow?” We figured she was like 99% of earth that has never heard of a rainbow gathering. We found out later that the gathering was big news in that area of the world.
After chatting shortly we asked if she knew where any free camping was. And in her southern accent she said “yup. my front yard.” And thus the universe provided. Kay told the other guy working that she was going to be right back and she hopped in the van to show everyone where she lived. Except me. I stayed behind because there was no room. Her boss knew they were coming back now.
Kay and her family were a bunch of lovely hillbillies in a trailer park and I had a blast hanging out with them for the 12 hours I was there. I can’t remember them all individually and I’ve always been the first to say I suck with names, but I didn’t spend some time partying with the daughter and nephew. I think the nephew’s name was Josh. He was really eager to take us out and make sure we have a good time. So what do you do at 11pm Wednesday night in bum fuck nowhere? You go to the strip club, Area 203. They had free pool and we didn’t need to bring any money anyways. Cool. Nick was down for some random adventure and so we hopped in Josh’s thunderbird and took off East and got off at Exit 203 to see the finest woman they had to offer.
They were all really sweet girls, but I knew what kind of chicks I was going to see long before I got there. We, on the other hand, were hot shit. We were completely out of place and loving the whole hilarity of it. Here we are in Moriarty, NM getting force fed jaeger bombs and beer giggling like little girls while spending more time dancing than watching the girls dance.
Fun was had and now it was time for bed. We woke up early with the intent of getting to rainbow early. We were only a couple hours away at this point and the anticipation was building.
We knew we were getting closer to Cuba. We stopped at a gas station and I walk in and scream, “where did all these hippies come from?” There were tons of RVs, micro-buses, and small cars packed with as many crusties, punks, tramps, and gear you could fit in there.
When we got into Cuba I was blown away by everything I saw. Residents on the sides of the road with signs. I saw a baptist church covered in signs. Every store window covered in every inch with some written on cardboard. All welcoming us. The idea behind rainbow is that we’re all family and to be with your family is to be home. The residents were welcoming us home and super supportive. It was beautiful. I had made it home after so long.
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