Day 2: A great place to hide a body

We made a very important decision upon waking up: Screw the Pacific Coast Highway. We’d had nothing but low-to-no visibility, so the whole point of traveling on it was lost. We got in the car at the hotel and pulled up Google maps on our phones. We told it to take us to Vegas the fastest way. Unfortunately, because we’d already come so far, we had to continue on the PCH. We did finally make it over to I-5 and had relatively smooth sailing.

I also had some little nuggets of joy. First one – when I opened the car door to load my bags, an odor wafted out at me. I knew there was no way I could ride for a whole day with the smell, so I started to investigate. I sniffed all around the car, but couldn’t identify it. Then I realized what it was. My nail polish was in the trunk, in a plastic case. Apparently the plastic isn’t strong enough to contain the odor. Rather than suffer, I threw it away in the hotel room. Fifteen bottles of nail polish – gone, a casualty of the road.

When I went to shut the trunk after taking out the nail polish and filling the space with something else (my car is COMPLETELY packed), I went to shut the trunk lid. Turns out, the trunk didn’t really need my help. It came flying down ON MY BOOB. I have a nice welt and bruise to prove it. JOY.

The next bit of fun came when we stopped at the gas station to fuel up before heading out for the day. I was walking around to the back of my car to get to the gas tank. A homeless man was standing behind my car, staring at my bike. I thought he might be considering stealing it, so I said hi. His response was, “My Specialized Flyer bike was nicer than yours.” And then he walked off. Fucker.

It nearly gave me a panic attack to hand over the keys, but I just couldn’t drive after a while. My neck was 85 kinds of tense and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I asked Matt not to kill us. He said he wouldn’t make any promises.

At one point, we were having conversation and I was munching on some blueberry Jelly Belly. Not much else to do in the car when you’re driving at 90 miles an hour a high rate of speed. I responded to him and looked away. When I looked back over at him, he was laughing uncontrollably. I asked him what was so fucking funny, but he wouldn’t/couldn’t answer. Apparently I have a slight problem with spraying it instead of saying it. I’d totally spit jelly bean on his face. I told him I was just trying to share the jelly beans with him and that I was hurt he was laughing at my offering. The bastard.

As the night descended upon us, we got to thinking about Vegas and whether we should continue to Vegas or just head toward Dallas. Knowing that we wouldn’t get in until at least midnight pushed us toward skipping it. I also learned that I might not be the world’s best pet mother. Matt was the one who asked if Orpheus would even be allowed in the hotel if we stayed at a place on The Strip. I looked back at my baby, sitting in his cage, staring at me as though I’m forcing him endure the most horrific experience with this trip (not surprising, since Matt feels the same way). I made the hard decision and said, “Well, he can probably sleep in the car.” Matt at looked at me as though I’d grown a third head and I also got the sense that if he ever has children of his own, I will not be allowed to go within 500 feet of them. He said I lack maternal instinct. I stared at him blankly, but ultimately we decided to bypass Vegas and re-routed ourselves straight to Dallas.

We got pushed onto some really odd state roads and ended up going through a place called Nipton. The road to Nipton is dark, scary, and prone to flooding. If you were looking for a place to bury a body where NO ONE will ever find it (as long as you bury it deep in the ground), that is the place. I pointed that out to Matt. I was a bit freaked when he turned to me, smiled like Heath Ledger’s Joker and said, “I was just thinking that.” There were very few cars and it was PITCH BLACK. It was the darkest 31 miles of our lives. There were no gas stations along the way and we were just shy of pushing the car to the gas station ourselves. No cell signal meant I wouldn’t be able to call for roadside assistance either.

We took a brief drive along the historic Route 66, humming the son to ourselves. Yes, we know we’re dorks. We made it to the hotel in Kingman, Arizona for our earliest check-in yet – 10something

Quick re-cap of the trip so far:

Times Matt’s told me that I need to re-set my lady cycle to match his: 2

Times Matt’s asked “Are we there yet?”: 3

Times Matt’s denied that he volunteered to do this drive with me: 15

Highest elevation point: 7,355

Times Matt has said he’s a better driver than me: 7,500 7,501

Times Matt’s threatened to kill me and leave my body somewhere: 10gajillion

Times I’ve been thankful he’s riding with me: How many hours have we been driving? At least once an hour.