I just finished driving approximately 3300 miles across the country in my little Nissan (and during the last leg, a big Penske truck) packed to the brim with most of my belongings. It took a week to get from San Francisco to Birmingham, including an extra day spent in San Diego and an extra two days in San Antonio. After a break at home, we got back on the road to Charlotte, and then finally Williamsburg.
The decision to take the “southern” route across the country was made mostly because I wanted to see my brother in San Diego and visit my friends in San Antonio. It was certainly a fascinating experience. We were driving through Arizona right when a judge there handed down the decision about their contentious immigration law. I saw Mexico for the first time, right across the border from El Paso. I saw “the wall” along the border in a few spots.
Here are some other observations from the trek:
- Arizona is really hot. We got out of the car for, oh, 4 minutes to put my bike inside. We were drenched in sweat by the time we got back in.
- Texas is massive.
- There are actually some radio show hosts out there who claim that Islam is an instrument of the devil. It was really disturbing.
- Glen Beck observed on his radio show that his new iPad attempts to correct many words, but it doesn’t attempt to capitalize the word “god.” ”Just pointing it out,” he said. ”Not saying anything besides that whoever programmed this apparently didn’t think ‘god’ ever needed to be capitalized.” Thanks Glen.
- There are parts of the country where you hit the “seek” button on the radio and it cycles forever without finding a signal.
- FedEx trucks apparently have a vendetta against me.
