Day Eleven: Albuquerque, NM; Middle of Nowhere; Tucson, AZ

There are probably many interesting, engaging, and possibly enlightening things to do in Albuquerque. 

But fuck that. BREAKING BAD!

I started off the day with a complete breakfast, as is required by Albuquerque law. For those not in the know, the first picture is the house where Walter White, Breaking Bad's main character, lives. In reality, it's just a nice house in a nice little neighborhood on Piermont Street. I felt kind of weird taking a picture of somebody's house, especially since I was driving around this neighborhood for 10 minutes trying to find the place and a decent place to snap the shot. The whole neighborhood must know, right? Every time some car they don't recognize comes by, they know it's some jackass from 2,500 miles away that came to take a picture of a house because it happens to be in a TV show. I'm sure that people have gone up and knocked on the door and shit, too. That must be really annoying. Then again, it sort of comes with the territory of allowing your house to be used for a TV show. Especially when that TV show is the best TV show.

Next, I stalked up to Hank and Marie's house, which is in a planned community that has cops and stuff patrolling. Pretty sure this is the right house, they all kind of looked the same. I saw two old guys a few roads over talking in the middle of the street, and they saw me rolling down with my Massachusetts plates and gave a face like "Jesus, this is only gonna get worse." I did see that companies are giving Breaking Bad tours in Albuquerque, so those old guys are probably right.

Whoever moved into Gus Fring's house after his face exploded has used the notoriety to push political agendas. According to some poorly-written blog I just looked up, Alisa Hadfield has a history of siding with abusers in domestic cases. This might be the election to watch in 2012.

Jesse Pinkman's dwelling looked really nice. I would totally live there, as long as that problem with the ceiling is all sorted out, and I get to keep the Roomba.

By this point I was completely unashamed of taking pictures of strangers' homes. Now, where to eat in Albuquerque?

I don't know why, but this place looked really familiar. I was trying to put my finger on it, when a guy in a van pulling out of the parking lot stuck his head out the window and yelled "Helllll yeah, Breaking Bad, bro! This is the place!" OK, fine, I already knew that the real life Twisters is the fictional Los Pollos Hermanos. But that guy was awesome and made me think that not everybody in Albuquerque hated me for going around taking pictures of buildings from a TV show.

I wish they sold some sort of device that could make your out-of-state license plate appear to look like an in-state license plate. Like that weird camouflage suit deal in A Scanner Darkly.

They had the logo printed on the inside of the restaurant, which is pretty badass. Twisters is actually a TexMex place. I got the enchilada plate, and it was actually pretty good for a place I ate at just because it was a different restaurant on a TV show.

I touched on the pretty major spots from Breaking Bad (didn't feel like driving to the laundromat) and got on my way to Tucson. Being in civilization for a few hours made me forget that most of New Mexico is a deserted wasteland. Ok, "wasteland" might be a little harsh. It's really scenic and stuff. But there are stretches where there's just nothing to look at.

Maybe this place actually gets snakes frequently, but I'm guessing the main purpose this sign serves is to freak out people like me.

I started getting into the more mountainous region of New Mexico, and most of the mountains looked pretty awesome.

No wonder they tested nukes out here.

I went through Hatch, NM, which is famous for its chiles. I thought about stopping at Elephant Butte State Park, but I hear that place stinks.

I was more interested in this giant statue of a man offering me an RV.

I left Hatch following a guy in an old Pathfinder. Then birds started flying out of his car. Like two of them. And one more was still flapping around inside. Pretty sure it wasn't a trick.

... It was his illusion.

Nine billion miles later, the sun started going down and I don't know if I've seen anything more beautiful than the sun setting into the Great Continental Divide.

Still getting the hang of photography at 85 mph.

So I stopped the car for some stationary photography.

Scorpion vs. Rattlesnake, WHO YA GOT?

I got to Tucson and met up with my parents, who were there because they just bought a house. Free meal! Free hotel! It's looking like Tucson is gonna be my last stop before LA. Which is good. This trip has been fun but I've been driving for a long time and it'll be nice to not be homeless anymore.

Day Ten: The Middle of Nowhere; Roswell & Albuquerque, NM

A few days ago I was on the phone with Danny and he asked me if I'd been through the desert yet. He said he'd heard it was spooky out there, but I was inclined not to believe him. Woops.

This was what I saw at a rest stop about 25 miles into New Mexico. I don't think it really does it justice. There is nothing out there.

Cars here and there, I guess. These picnic tables? And every once in a while there's a shell of a town with maybe a gas station in it. But there really isn't much. OK, it's kinda spooky. But the spookiness mainly comes from the thought of something happening and getting stuck out there. Obviously, my car breaking down was a large concern. But I had no idea what was out there before I went. And judging by some of the roadkill, it included some serious shit. Namely, the wolf/chupacabra I saw splattered on the side of the highway out in Western Texas.

The other thing Western Texas has are some big ass birds. I thought they were vultures at first, but I think they were just hawks whose wingspans seemed to reach at least my height. And they didn't give a shit. They just hung out in the middle of the highway chowing on whatever poor sucker got flattened, usually a porcupine (I think). And if their bounty was in the way of my car they would begrudgingly flap away, but I swear I could feel their annoyance as they looked back out of the corner of their beady, round bird eyes. I hope they weren't taking notes.

On the way to Sweetwater, Texas there was a gigantic windmill farm along the road, and stretching much further back. At first, I saw a couple of them along the road and thought it looked cool. But since there's no one else on the roads out there it's pretty easy for your eyes to stray, and these things looked like they went on forever. I was listening to King Crimson's Starless and Bible Black at the time and it just went together so well, for me at least. I'm guessing most of you wouldn't like that album, so I won't tell you to listen to it. I also heard this song on some random station in Texas and I don't think I'd ever heard it before but thought it was really awesome. Again, though, it's probably weird or whatever.

I stopped in Lubbock, where Texas Tech is, for lunch. I didn't take any pictures there because I was too busy trying to figure out why the whole place (and the 75 mile radius surrounding it) smelled like a hangover fart.

It's really weird how the highways work out there. They're also the main roads through town. But they're only the main roads through town when there happens to be a town. But I finally got through Texas (unscathed and without incident; take that, Aimee's dreams) and entered Mountain Time, and also I guess New Mexico. There wasn't even a welcome to New Mexico sign or a now leaving Texas sign or anything. I suppose both states felt they didn't need to impress the 417 or so people who have ever driven through there. At one point on 125, the first road in New Mexico, I saw what I thought were the makings of a dust storm and freaked out a little. But it wasn't one, so that's good.

Roswell was on my way, and I had to stop there. But goddamnit, it was Sunday! and these damn religious (or lazy) Southwestern folk don't open (or keep open) their crazy alien shit on goddamn Sunday! It was pretty disappointing, until I thought about it and realized I was better off not getting gouged to see a bunch of (what I assume was) complete crap. Lolly summed it up best, and she wasn't even there: "I picture it's kind of like Salem, alien-style, but with twice as many paranoid freaks." She left out the gangbanger drug dealers rolling around in Monte Carlos, but essentially nailed it down pat. Hmmm, unless Salem has that, too ...?

The Roswell city hall has a green dome, I'm assuming because of the extraterrestrial influence, which was rather dope. It was kinda funny since the rest of the building looked like a well thought out, detailed, expertly built, Southwestern-style building that looked extremely nice. But I guess someone was like "Dude, green dome. Come on." And he or she was totally right.

It was too bad that there wasn't some crazy guy in a tinfoil beanie trying to shoot down UFOs with this war memorial. The cannon was pointing at a Bank of America building. Trying to send a message, Roswell?

Sorry for the links to youtube, but I think it's necessary for this. Please feel free to not click on them.

This R2D2 mailbox was far and away the coolest space-related thing in Roswell.

They should localize mailboxes for other cities. Like in Boston, they could make it look like some drunk dude telling you how he's "totally not a racist, but there's sawmthin I don't like about that punk Rajon Rahhndo." I just realized I should have opened the lid to the fucking R2 mailbox and saw if it Beep-boo-dweeped. Damnit!

 
I saw some things in Roswell that were non-sci-fi related, and they seemed genuinely cool and not "haha aliens" cool.

This is a statue of John Simpson Chisum, the "Cattle King of the Pecos." 

Here it is from the front, but the lighting didn't really cooperate. Looks kind of sweet and silhouette-y now that I think about it, though.

There appears to be legitimate artists in Roswell who get no cred because they are from Roswell.

My advice to them: GET THE FUCK OUT OF ROSWELL NOBODY TAKES IT SERIOUSLY BECAUSE OF THE ALIEN LUNATICS!

So I got the hell out of there and drove a few more hours to my hotel in Albuquerque, which is way too nice for what I paid for it. It's not even a room. It's a suite I think. Here, look:

That's not the bed on the right of the picture.

Either Albuquerque is really cheap, or Bill Shatner knows how to hook it up.

... Goddamn Patriots. Oh, and the scab refs need to go.

Days Eight & Nine: Austin, TX

Austin, Texas was all about Dos Equis and guns. Oh, and I got to see Andy and Jen for the first time in like three years.

Andy has been married for several years and lives in a really nice house in a place called Pflugerville which I don't think is technically in Austin but is close enough to Austin to call it Austin. Not only is he married but he is a homeowner. It made me reevaluate living in relative squalor in decaying Boston buildings for the past four years, but it also made me realize I'm happy I hadn't been married during those years because I completely was not ready for things like mortgages and life insurance and if I had to do it over I might have changed some of the details but the plot would have remained largely consistent with my reality. But he isn't me (and I know he's quite happy about that), so good for Andy that he is happy. And it's not like that is some new development to either of us.

His wife, Abigail, was a super trooper all weekend. She hobbled around on a bum ankle to help show me a good time in Austin. I am very grateful for them to let me stay at their home and provide me oasis in Austin, which also happens to be considered an oasis of sorts in Texas. Boom, poetry. Anyways, now that that's out of the way ...

MOTHERFUCKING GUNS!

I'd been to a gun range in Massachusetts once and I think there was one other guy there. The one in Austin was a whole different story. There was a wait for us to get in. And once we got in, it was really hard for me to load the clip to our rented Glock 17 9mm, at least at first, because holding/pushing down on ammo while a bunch of other guns fire is kind of jarring and I kept getting spooked and thinking somehow I was blowing the bullets up in my hand and that probably would have been bad. But I realized such a thing was also basically impossible and eventually settled down. Also, our Glock seemed dinky compared to what some of the other people in there had. These dudes and dudettes (Monday is Ladies Day at Red's Indoor Range, if you take a close look at the sign) were firing straight-up Call of Duty shit. M4 rifles with holographic scopes and hunting rifles and shotguns and bigass revolvers. Somehow this powerful-as-fuck handgun that I knew would have blown the shit out of my face had I made a mistake was like a water pistol in contrast.

But, man was it fun. We split 100 rounds, but I think I shot a few more than he did since I was the guest and all. And you know what? Maybe it was the adrenaline or something, but that paper target was my bitch. Had it been some unarmed motionless nobody posing zero threat to my well-being, I would have killed the fuck out of him or her many, many, MANY times over. I was even better than Andy was, and he's the Texan (sorta). He only would have killed this imaginary ignoramus many, many times over; as far as I'm concerned that is a big difference. I was totally jittery in there though; being in a room full of people firing guns might do that to you, I guess. Or maybe just to me.

He was still at work when I got to town on Friday, so after replacing both of my car's headlights in an Autozone parking lot, I went to see the Capitol building because I could a) see it from the highway and b) there were signs pointing to it. And this place was pretty big and cool looking. Not Jerral World big, but definitely a little cooler looking.

Day Seven: Arlington, TX

Not a whole lot happened today. Burned my way through Arkansas, which has some of the worst roads I've ever been on, but that really isn't too surprising. Little Rock looked meh so I didn't bother stopping there. At one point the highway traffic stopped dead for 10 minutes and I was not pleased, then it finally started going again and I have no idea why it stopped so I became less pleased. Other than that it was OK.

Then I drove for what felt like ever through Texas and barely got anywhere. The drive was pretty boring until I got to Lake Ray Hubbard, which looked awesome and I never would have guessed such a place existed in Texas and I would have taken pictures if I wasn't driving. It probably looked even better because it was right before Dallas, which didn't look especially good.

But as I was driving, I saw the best billboard ever. Again, no picture, a) because I was driving and b) it was one of those electronic billboards that cycles through images. But it was for something called the Saggy Pants Summit or something. Apparently there's a politician in Dallas that is extremely opposed to kids wearing their pants saggy and showing their boxers/butts or whatever. I guess people don't have anything worthwhile to worry about in Dallas. It was hilarious. The summit is two days from now and I almost sorta seriously considered staying in town so I could go to it with my pants sagged. I think it's OK since I'm white. How long could this summit go on for, like a minute? "SAGGY PANTS ARE BAD" and then let's all go home.

Look at this idiot and his dumbass sign. "Big Mama Says: PULL 'EM UP! Keep it a secret." Newsflash, asshole: Even if you're wearing pants, people can essentially see what your butt looks like. And I guess seeing a butt with boxers on, which are shorts (which are more than OK to wear in public), is just too much for Dallas to deal with. Oh the humanity. It's not like there's dudes walking around with their pants sagging showing off a thong or something. So shut up and quit wasting everyone's time, Hank Hill. A google search said Big Mama is someone who makes chicken and waffles in Dallas, but I don't know if this is the same one. And I don't care. Big Mama can cram it and so can this asshole whose name I'm not gonna even bother looking up.

/end rant

Here's the view from my hotel balcony, overlooking a highway and an abandoned gas station, but whatever, BALCONY. I guess a bunch of MMA fighters are staying in this hotel because there's a fight on tomorrow or something. But I don't know anything about those guys and will probably only recognize them in the hall if they are 5'5" and covered in tattoos and then kick the shit out of me for underestimating them. Unless Lyoto Machida is there, then I will ask to see his hard left from the videogame Jeff and I played.

I went to a bar called Humperdink's to watch the football game. I drank a beer called "Butt Face." Wondered why they called it that and almost asked the bartender but then I looked at the picture on the tap and there's too rams butting ... faces? I don't think that's what they really do, oh well. I guess Butt Face is funnier than "Head Butt" or "Horn Ram." There was this guy sitting a few seats from me and he was giving some chick (wife?) a shoulder rub. And every time someone walked by he was like "Hey, I bet you want one, too!" And every time, that other person was like "Hmmm yah ok pal." But the sad truth is I kinda wanted one because I'm kinda sore from all this driving.

There was so much booze in this place that they needed a ladder to reach it. Cliche warning: EVERYTHING'S BIGGER IN TEXAS.

It's kinda hard to read, but this says "Arlington's Tallest Bar." I guess that's something to brag about. Look at all that wasted space that they could have packed booze into.

Here are the brewing vats. I should mention again that the beer was really good. Also had the Oktoberfest. It was only $4.50 for a 22 ouncer. That's great value.

I was down the street from Jerral World, aka Cowboys Stadium and oh my shit this place is goddamn immense. Simply HUGE. The lady at the front desk of the HoJo I'm staying in tried to tell me all this stuff to do in Arlington this week, even though I told her I was only here for a night. And my reservation is only for the night. But I guess bless her heart for trying. Yes, she was missing teeth.

Fuck, this place is enormous.

LOL.

I can't imagine being a bowling researcher. What's to research? "Gee, Wendell, my super-scientific research tells me that you should try and knock down all the pins. I know what you're thinking, but come on and listen to me. Knock all of them over."

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Something tells me that Roswell will be less weird than Arlington.

Day Six: Memphis, TN

Felt like total shit in the morning, but scraped myself out of the room and got on the road. I continue to overpay for gasoline. Every time I fill up, I drive 15 minutes down the highway and see it for 20 cents cheaper.

I stopped at a rest stop and this fat lady's fat butt was on display. Gross.

I took lots of pictures in Memphis, so be prepared.

I parked across the street from a BBQ restaurant I wanted to go to. I didn't realize I was directly across the street, so I walked toward where I thought it was. I finally doubled back and found out it was closed. Here's a courthouse I saw.

There are a lot of churches in Memphis.

See?

There were a bunch of these sweet paintings on the side of a building.

Here's another.

I went looking for another BBQ place and stumbled across this museum, which I had to go into. The Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum. Focused mostly on musicians from Stax, Sun, and Hi records. There is music happening everywhere in Memphis. There were two blues guys hanging out on the street, not really playing anything in particular. There were several outdoor concerts going on. And there was one guy sitting in front of the FedEx Forum playing solo trombone.