During the week of August 14-24, 2004, I helped 7d move every last book and cat he owned from Alabama to California.
I was unable to post updates from the road so I jotted down random thoughts and observations along the way. I finally collected those thoughts and over the next few days I will post them and some of the photos taken from the road.
One Penske truck, two friends, two cats, and 2200 miles lay before us.
Night – Corinth, MS
There are no Motel 6?s between Madison, AL and Memphis, TN.
That is a fact.
I thanked the Motel 6 phone lady for letting us in on that secret and we trucked along, keeping a sharp eye out for someplace?anyplace to put us up for the night. After some rather dodgy directions from a service station clerk about where to find the nearest ?mo-dells?, we stumble upon the Comfort Inn.
We caught some of the Olympics before we crawled into our respective beds to grab some much-needed sleep. Dharma, 7d?s black and white cat, crawled under the covers with me.
She?s usually skittish around me so I was a bit surprised but I figured she was a grown cat and knew best where she felt the most comfortable.
I awoke many times during the night soaked with sweat. That?s when I had this thought: When the time of The Matrix falls on humanity, all The Machines need do is clone Dharma about 20 times, plug them all into the Matrix and sit back while 01(Machine City) runs off of Dharma power for the next 100 years.
The Next Day
By morning we were good to go. We were refreshed and ready for the damn beautiful day in Mississippi. I’m unsure how the hell that happened. It was also the first of many late starts of the week.
The morning TV news was doing a feel-good piece on the Isle of Gigha in Ireland. Apparently the local lord was selling the entire island and the people gathered together the money and bought their entire island.
Talk about home security.
An American from L.A. loaned the people a huge lump of cash for the purchase. He lives on the island now. He is in the business of fragrances. The reporter asked him to describe his most popular scent and the former Californian proceeds to announce the name of the scent, the Crown of Fragrance (or something like that), and using both of his hands, he mimes placing a crown atop his head. Then he smiles creepily, as if that was all he needed to say on the subject.
Damn Californians.
The truck was packed, Dharma was in her cage and we were ready to roll. But Dusty, 7d?s silver Persian, had other ideas for he had disappeared.
We turned that place upside down for the better part of 15 minutes. We called his name and checked every dark, hidden place that a cat likes to hide. He was nowhere to be found and there was no way he could have gotten out of the room. Just as I was beginning to believe that Dusty was The Cat Who Walks through Walls, 7d found him.
He was tucked in the tiniest of cubbyholes at the head of one of my bed (the beds at that Comfort Inn were blatant boxes solidly attached to the floor). There was a break in one of the beds and Dusty found it. He refused to come out even after his secret spot was discovered.
Damn cats.
7d grabbed Dusty and shoved him into his cage and we were finally ready to go.
12 hours of pavement
Memphis, TN was a blur.
I wish I could say the same for Arkansas.
Oklahoma City has kick-ass rock radio stations.
A conversation started up about caldermobile taking bets on whether 7d and I would still be friends after this trip. I told him we should get a third party to place a bet for us, stage some kind of drama, and collect all the cash.
If he were going to ditch me this early in the trip, I hope it would be in OKC. The radio stations and the 5-story water slide we just passed would keep me entertained for at least 2 days.
After that I?d be the homeless guy pushing my cart filled with radios listening to all the cool stations simultaneously.
We stop in Elk City, OK for the night. I must have road sickness ?cause the sunset here is captivating.
