right on bro!

Yesterday: Left Van Horn, Texas, and drove north into New Mexico, and then to the White Sands National Monument. Right before I got there, I had to stop at a checkpoint, where an armed policeman asked if I was a U.S. citizen or not. I said yes, and he let me pass.

White Sands is pretty cool. It’s one of the few places where the climate is right to produce gypsum sand, and there’s a grip of it. The area looks like a giant white sandbox. Kids brought sleds and were sledding down the sand dunes. I’d forgotten that my parents took me here when I was a kid to do just that.

The rest of my trip was just I-10, which, quite frankly, is a boring-ass road. Fortunately the speed limit in New Mexico (road sign: PRISON NEARBY - DO NOT PICK UP HITCH-HIKERS IN THIS AREA) is 75 so I managed to make pretty good time. I stopped in Deming, New Mexico, and had a steak at the Grand Motel, whose roadside sign advertised “Best Steak and Prime Rib” It was broiled and awful. Stopped in Tucson last night and stayed in a sketchy-ass cheap motel, which spurred me to wake up early and drive the 450 miles back to Los Angeles, only stopping for gas. You could see the smog, starting in Indio, and that and the traffic just got worse from there. I stopped in Monterey Park to pick up some Chinese food and boba tea, and that was it.

So…I’m back. After nearly a month (just a few hours shy of 30 days) of traveling around the country, I’m home. It was a pretty cool journey - approximately 8,000 miles - and at the end of it, I’m glad to be back as well. America is an amazing place, despite our faults sometimes, and I’m glad to have seen a big part of it. Cross this one off on my to-do list.

I’ll put up the final set of pictures soon, and write up a couple of things I have been thinking about along the way. It’s time to unpack, take a long hot shower, sort through a month’s worth of mail, and what not. I’ve also got a grip of CSI and Lost to catch up on, and have to collect on somebody owing me an Xbox and Halo 2, so those should both be fun.

Thank you all for coming along with me on my journey. I really enjoyed all of the comments as I’d read them from wherever I was - you kept me company along the way.