day 1 - wisconsin

I plan to "map" my road trip by days so that I have a record - because for sure I'll lose my maps

Home to Eau Claire

cocktails at 3pm

We are in South Dakota continuing our brew tour. The middle of SD has no brew pubs so we had to improvise.

We were in the middle of nowhere -

Dr. Deb

arizonal pics

http://s851.photobucket.com/albums/ab76/rmuskett/arizona/

political correctness

What the hell?

I don't necessarily understand what is and what is not appropriate. For example, why did Marquette change from the Warriors to the Golden Pigeons (or whatever the hell they are) - I mean how can a "warrior" be politically incorrect? - So here I am cruising thru the Navajo Reservation and what do I see? The Red Mesa Redskins? What could be the most politically insensitive word for a school district to use? I would have thought "redskin" would be it -

I don't get it -

flagstaff to farmington nm

We had to mail stuff so went out looking for the UPS store - didn't find it but found the fed-ex store and mailed my stuff. We then went to staples to find a tube to mail my contraband to my friend David (enjoy my friend) and then found the UPS store and mailed the other "stuff".

We then booked out of Flagstaff and headed towards Farmington NM. The scenery was unbelievable. It changed rapidily. I will try and post pictures later.

We ended up in Farmington - headed towards the downtown hoping to find a motel near restaraunts and bars and holy shit what did we find? Thats right the three rivers brewery - yep good beer. http://www.threeriversbrewery.com/ - hell great beer. We ate dinner and drank (Deb drank wine) and then headed back to the motel (2 short blocks - we walked).

In New Mexico the beer bars must close by 11pm. All they sold was beer and wine (and only their beer) but they still are a "beer" bar - sort of like when we lived in Kansas - but that wasn't real beer - 3.2 beer.

finishing the day from hell

or was it two days?

I got to Phoenix w/o problems although it was a bumpy ride - landed around 6:30 or thereabouts. Went to fire up my laptop so I knew what flight Deb was on and holy shit its dead. It won't boot; some file is 'corrupted'. Not much I could do so I tried (unsucessfully) to sleep in the baggage claim area. Unfortunatelly they have 3 or 4 terminals and I didn't know which one Deb was coming in on so I waited till she called me. I hate fucking cell phones but I was sure glad to have one then.

I couldn't sleep because every 30 seconds they would announce where the idiots that couldn't read were to go to get there luggage. I mean how hard is it to read that flight 343 from Chicago is to go to carousel 5 to pick up your luggage? Unfortunately due to the incompetence of our English teachers the idiots can't read thus it has to be announced and poor me couldn't sleep.

I was in terminal 4 and Deb arrived in terminal 3 so when she called I booked over there and met her. We took a taxi to the greyhound and waited for 1.5+ hours for our bus. The gal in line in front of us was great - I'm guessing she was over 80. She was traveling by herself from Yuma AZ to Montana (I think) for a wedding. She is planning on a trip to Israel in the next year or so - I hope I'm booking around like her in 30 more years.

side note: not all drivers of Greyhound are assholes. Our driver was nice and polite.

We arrived in Flagstaff around 2:40 and walked to the hostel ( http://www.grandcanyonhostel.com/ ). It was about a 10 minute walk and then we checked in (duh). We then went to the bus stop (local) to catch the bus to get to my storage shed. Of course I was clueless as to what bus to take but there was some lady there waiting for her bus who knew all there was to know about the bus system and directed us to the correct bus (thank you). Once we got off the bus we still had to walk 1 mile to get to my car but made it by 5 - they close at 5. My car started up and we booked back to the hostel after stopping at Office Max to get tape and a box to mail extra stuff (camping) home. After all my car is a tad small.

We went out had a few drinks and ate dinner. We were crashed by 8pm.

I was dead tired but all went well -

trip from hell

Got up at 7:00 am this morning and left the hotel (Guatemala City) at 9:am. I'm obsessive about being early I know - my flight left at 2:05. I got to Houston a couple of minutes early but really got stressed out. There was a million people in line for immigration and I only had maybe 70 minutes. Of course I'm always nervous going thru immigration and customs since they are more like Hitlers Gestapo than protectors of our borders. Of course I was a tad more nervous as I was smuggling a fine (I really have to question that assesment) stogie for a friend from some remote island country. I digress - I made it through customs and all the annoying bullshit and got to my gate with 15 minutes to spare. The plane ended up leaving 2 1/2 hours late (storms). I arrived in Chicago then at around 12:30 am.

What the hell am I doing in Chicago when my car is in Flagstaff? The cheapest ticket took me this way with a 7 hour layover in Chicago (reduced by the storms). So here I sit at my gate unable to sleep. If its not the guy vacuming its the guy driving the floor cleaning machine. If its not the cops walking their dogs (what the hell is that about) and talking its the other employees who obviously are unsupervised just talking. And then there is that damn repetitive announcement on the loudspeaker, "the current threat level is orange" and the whole 3 - 1 - 1 thing over and over. I finally said the hell with it and am now typing awaiting my 5:15 flight. So unless something magic happens there will be no sleep for this kid. I rested for a hour before I gave up but got no sleep. And then when I get into Phoenix I have to wait for Deb. I arrive in Phoenix at 6:46 am and our greyhound bus leaves at 11:45 am - boy am I going to be dead.