We made it back to Cali! It was a really long haul over a period of 4 days. We sprinted back from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to cover a lot of miles quickly. We drove through Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona--that's a lot of territory. Time was running out on us. Why does that always happen? It must be a documented rule somewhere. Time passes slowly at first and then for some inexplicable reason, it speeds up at the end.
My Mazda MX-5 performed well without any problems. It didn't complain even when we drove through part of the Mojave desert to get to California. The top was down through the entire trip even when we encountered some torrential, but short-lived rain. I know people looked at us as if we were crazy. On the last day of the journey back home, I put in a 12 hour driving day--our time on the road was sadly concluding.
Sprinting through those 7 states, we saw the ravages of property abandonment. It was typical to see houses that collapsed on themselves after a while along with the dilapidated billboards that accompanied the ruins. There wasn't a lot of graffiti. I guess you can't tag something that no one cares about--there's no one to see it, after all.
We were particularly curious to see what remained of Route 66. Predictably, that has mostly returned to gravel with dead ends everywhere. The few towns that could claim to have a piece of it, made it a primary tourist attraction with kitschy souvenirs. The saddest of all of this was located at one of the end points of Route 66, Bagdad Cafe. We decided to have lunch there, as a way of trying to get an idea of what Route 66 was like. It was incredible to step inside a place that international tourists love. We saw touring buses stop regularly. People stepped out, took photos, and then piled back on the bus. The owner sat down and took time to talk to us. She told us that the cafe was named something else, but because of the movie, they changed the name to match the film. The change of name has helped them survive over the decades. But, I don't think the place will be there in another 5-10 years. The owner looked like she had had enough of all of the publicity and the work accompanying that burden. Additionally, the cafe is located in a dying town. I can't imagine that it can keep existing much longer.
The transitory nature of life has really been the star of this particular segment of the trip for me. You think that a house or structure will stand the test of time. The direct and hard rays of the sun suck the life out of everything in these states that we drove through. So many objects were washed out, dried out, and shriveled out of their former selves. There was an endless amount of flat patches of land that had little vegetation. Even the people that lived out here reflected that. It used to be that people traveling through here stopped and made lives--no longer is that the case.
I was anxious to get back and so we didn't make a lot of plans to stop anywhere significant. That was how affected I felt from viewing the broken dreams. However, there was one magical stretch of time for me in the car. We were driving through Texas (which has a speed limit of 75--that makes me smile) at night trying to get to Amarillo to rest. My husband was driving and I looked up. What is really special about a convertible car is that you have no roof to obstruct your view of the sky. For instance, whenever we cross the Golden Gate Bridge in the Bay Area, I can look up and see the arches from different angles as we pass through. This only works if you are the passenger or if you are the driver when the car is stopped. You can see the architecture clearly along with the sky. It's especially striking when there is fog involved.
Anyway, as we were driving at night, I could see stars! There were a lot of stars to see since the highway was not lit up and there weren't a lot of other vehicles emitting light. It's rare to see so many stars in the Bay Area, so this was a special treat for me. I could see the edges of the Milky Way and could recognize some of the constellations in the sky. I kept looking up hoping to catch the ISS crossing the night sky. I'll never forget that experience in my car.
It's hard to believe that most of a month has passed on this journey. It's been worth doing this. We still needed to do one more thing. We had scooped up half of a bottle of the Atlantic Ocean a while ago. Now, we wanted to pour that into the Pacific and christen the car once again with water.
For one millionth of one millionth of one millionth of the earth's water, particles from one body of water and another were united. Thank goodness this wasn't a matter/anti-matter moment.
The eclectic inside view of the Bagdad Cafe. There were business cards and flags plastered everywhere.
The car meets the Pacific Ocean!