Driving Into The Sun

Driving Into The Sun

 

On the morning of Sep 23rd, I left Redlands, CA for Dallas, TX. Stopped overnight in Albuquerque, NM.

Leaving was hard on many levels. I was leaving with a heavy heart. Leaving with the sense of unaccomplishment. I had meant to do so many things in California and I had gotten almost none of those done. I had gotten stuck in a weird rut and not been able to break free of it. Efforts of renting out a new place were not successful since the price per apartment is so high in Cali. In Santa Monica or Los Angeles area it is much more expensive than Redlands. So moving was not gonna happen. Didn’t get to find a band and play. Kept focusing on the wrong things. Had met a new personal low. Feeling rejected by family really does wonders. This was definitely not the plan but it had become the experience.

On my way out I was playing Unbreakable by Fireflight. Every song meant so much at that point. They all brought hope and feeling of everthing being under God’s control.

As the journey kept moving on, as I kept on driving on, I started feeling better. After all, this is going to be an experience that will hopefully teach me lessons. How to deal with similar situations in the future. How to deal with friends and family. How to have correct expectations. How to not get stuck in a rut while running from one!

Towards the end of the journey, I was so glad to be in Texas. As I entered Texas, the warm sun, the friendly faces, the familiar highway design all invited me home with open arms. It was an amazing feeling to feel like myself again.

Pictures From The Santa Monica Trip – Part 3

Long post alert!

1 - Street
1 - Street
2 - City Hall
2 - City Hall
3 - Apartments
3 - Apartments
4 - Beautiful!
4 - Beautiful!
5 - The Tallest Building
5 - The Tallest Building
6 - For Rent
6 - For Rent
7 - Hotel
7 - Hotel
8 - Santa Monica Blvd
8 - Santa Monica Blvd
9 - New Work
9 - New Work

Notes:

1 – Street next to the beach. Imagine how much people in these apartments pay in rent.

2 – Santa Monica City Hall.

3 – Really nice looking apartments. 10 minutes from the beach.

4 – That’s a really beautiful building.

5 – It’s not “The Tallest Building”. It’s the tallest I’ve seen in Cali.

6 – Sign says For Rent. No idea how much and don’t wannt know. It’s not going to be affordable.

7 – This hotel is across the street from the beach. Walk right out of the hotel and just run free on the beach.

8 – Obligatory shot of Santa Monica Blvd.

9 – New work.

 

Note: More pictures will be added later.

Pictures From The Santa Monica Trip – Part 2

Part 2 of the Santa Monica Pictures.

1 - PD
1 - PD
2 - Civic Center
2 - Civic Center
3 - Beach Road
3 - Beach Road
4 - Nice Day
4 - Nice Day
5 - Parking Area
5 - Parking Area
6 - The Beach!
6 - The Beach!
7 - Beach
7 - Beach
8 - More Beach
8 - More Beach
9 - Beach 2
9 - Beach 2
10 - Still Beach
10 - Still Beach

 

1 – The Police Dept.

2 – The Civic Center.

6 – Finally! The Beach! This was after 13+ years that I went to a beach. I brought back so many memories. Memories from days gone by when we would go to the beach and just be kids.

8 – Couldn’t go on the teach ‘coz some people I was with weren’t ready to go on the sand. Didn’t have their slipper/sandles/beach-footwear. The dress shoes would have been ruined.

9 – Seemed so relaxing just watching others obey Frankie.

Pictures From The Santa Monica Trip – Part 1

So here’s the promised pictures from the Santa Monica Trip. These are actually leading up to Santa Monica. The rest follow in later posts.

1 - Headin\' Out
1 - Headin' Out
2 - I-10
2 - I-10
3 - Clean Highways
3 - Clean Highways
4 - Busy Saturday
4 - Busy Saturday
5 - 3 Mill!
5 - 3 Mill!
6 - Nearing Santa Monica
6 - Nearing Santa Monica
7 - Nice Bridge
7 - Nice Bridge
8 - Santa Monica
8 - Santa Monica
9 - More Santa Monica
9 - More Santa Monica
10 - They Have Artists
10 - They Have Artists

Notes:

1 – This is just heading out of here.

2 – I-10. The least advance highway in the road.

3 – The highways seems to be just messy and unclean. Coming from Texas, this seems like a trash yard.

4 – Lot of people go to LA on the weekends. Many people from the Redlands are go to the beach every weekend.

5 – 3 million people! Laura, you think that’s a big enough town to move to (since you were saying to move to a bigger town)?

6 – The picture doesn’t do this view justice.

7 – This view looked really beautiful in the tree shades and in the nice sun.

8 – Heading to SM.

9 – Seems like any old cali town.

10 – Graffiti is everywhere. It’s almost as if they forgot to educate this whole last generation.

Is Google maps ever wrong?

So is Google maps always correct? Does it make mistakes…. Well you judge for yourself.

Dallas to Roswell
Dallas to Roswell

I-820 N is actually I-820 S. If you try to merge on N, you ain’t gonna find it.

I was trying to decide whether to turn and find the correct highway but the exit numbers kept going down to the 3A mentioned in the next step. So just to find out whether this is correct or not, I decided to drive another 20 miles or so to try to find out. And what do you know, it was the correct decision to go 820 S.

It made me a little nervous to have left without taking the average road tripper life-line -Rand McNally. But, Google didn’t have any other errors.

Final Set of Pictures From Road Trip

The last leg of the journey on the road trip was on Aug 11th, 2008.

This is the final set of pictures from the Phoenix to Redlands trip. First the pictures are posted in a table and then the comments at the bottom.

1 - Cali
1 - Cali
2 - State Prison
2 - State Prison
3 - Tank
3 - Tank
4 - General Patton Museum
4 - General Patton Museum
5 - Redlands, finally!
5 - Redlands, finally!
6 - Redlands University
6 - Redlands University

 

1 – That’s just first time there was something green in California. Until that point it was all desert and lifeless palm trees.

2 – Don’t pick up hitchhikers. Well, duh! State Prison is a little far out in the desert. Wonder how long it takes to get people there.

3 – Is that General Patton’s tank? Or does it belong to somebody from the same era. Didn’t get the opportunity to read the signs. The temperature was over 100 degrees.

4 – General Patton Museum. Just so hot that Museum on one end of the rest stop and the food on the other left no doubt as to which side had water and which side would be the saner choice. So long General Patton. Thanks for what you did. Mostly, thanks for the random quotes you enrich people’s email signatures with throughout corporate America.

5 – Redlands. Well the destination seemed old and unpolished all of a sudden. Having been here on vacay before the memory made it much more polished and in general a place in California!!!!!. Now it just seemed like any other small town. Maybe a little older and less modernized. A feeling that would be re-inforced throughout the next few weeks.

6 – The University. The town is big enough to have a University. So lay off, Bobby! Quit saying it’s a small place….

Leaving Phoenix Towards Redlands

The last leg of the Trip was on Aug. 11th. It was also the one with least amount of hassle. I guess it was because a conclusion was in sight. However, by the end of the day there was a big headache…. All that driving and sunlight. Plus on that day I was wearing contacts thinking that wearing glasses on the previous two trips possibly contributed to the headache on the previous day. That was an incorrect assumption.

Oh well, from Phoenix to the California border there were few pictures worth posting.

The pictures are in the grid, then notes at the bottom.

Goodyear? Tires?
1 - Goodyear? Tires?

To Yuma
2 - To Yuma

Nuciler Power!
3 - Nuciler Power!

Little Fun
4 - Little Fun

Open Road
5 - Open Road

US Inspection Station
6 - US Inspection Station

Inspection Station
7 - Inspection Station
 

 

1 –  Do they make the tires in this place or they’re just using the name?

2 –  Only importance was the movie 3:10 to Yuma.

3 – They misspelled Nuciler. Where’s Homer!

4 – Little fun on the way. Couldn’t max it out ‘coz the road had a bend and the I-10W was just too bumpy to try to go faster.

5 – The open road.

6 – Inspection Station.

7 – So the inspection station is actually the California border. California welcomes you believing you’re a criminal. Arizona welcomes people on a highway, open road, come one come all, but California thinks people should be first inspected.

University of Phoenix

Redlands, CA – For you University of Phoenix student folk.

I was driving by and and didn’t start the camera on time. This was aiming out the window while driving on I-10W 65mph and without looking.

Univerisyt of Phoenix
University of Phoenix

Arizona

Arizona, finally! After hours and hours of driving this was a nice sight. However, at this point I knew fully well that countless more hours lay ahead. Just driving. Just staring at the road. I had thought that music would be very enjoyable companion on a road trip. It really wasn’t. I found it more comforting to reflect and to just be with my thoughts… every now and then getting annoyed at drivers who’s cruise control was a mile less than mine. That really is annoying. You either have to disengage and pass quickly or just intiate the 5 minute long passing process. But I digress. The point of seeing Arizona sign was to know that Phoenix was getting closer and that soon the third leg of the journey would begin and the long drive would conclude soon. Also wanted to snap a picture of entering Arizona and saying farewell to New Mexico post.

Well those New Mexicans! They also didn’t put a sign saying you’re not leaving the state of enchanted people. Whatever! At least Arizona was nice enough to put the sign there welcoming you. Truly people in Arizona felt more welcoming that the people in New Mexico. New Mexico is beautiful. The beautiful pictures you see from west of Roswell, are mostly from Ruidoso, Alamagordo, Deming, and other small towns in between such as Tinny, etc…. I didn’t really stop anywhere in Deming other than to fill gas. Deming was nice. Correction: The person manning the gas station by I-10W, on the outskirts of the town of Deming, was nice.

So moving onto to Arizona. By the time, I was in Arizona, I had a throbbing headache and didn’t feel like taking any pictures. Only pictures I took were in Phoenix just to have a few pictures.

Arizona
Arizona

Border Patrol Inside the Border?

Driving from New Mexico to New Mexico on I-10W, right before Deming, one comes upon a …. border patrol manned US Inspection station. There isn’t supposed to be a border inside the country. By definition the border would mark the outer boundary. However, the border patrol is happy to put an inspection station and “inspect”. Didn’t matter. They waved me right thru. But I was slightly curious as to the fate of the fortunate ones that get pulled over. Still curious actually.

US Inspection Station
US Inspection Station
US Inspection Station
US Inspection Station