The Boring Part

8/19/2017-8/20/2017

Let me tell you, living in the middle of Texas can be a real pain sometimes. It’s hot, it’s full of rattlesnakes and cactuses, and every city is surrounded by a nearly impenetrable barrier of either desert or swampland. But the worst thing about Texas is something that you encounter only when you’re trying to leave or go home: its size. Texas is so immense that you can drive in a straight line all day and still be in the state at the end of the day. And because of the aforementioned impenetrable barriers of desert and/or swamp, it is really just not pleasant to drive through for long periods of time, because it’s pretty much guaranteed to look the same at the beginning of the day as at the end of the day. So that’s why I hate going home. Not because I dislike my home – Austin is a great city – but because I really, really dislike the 8 hour drive through Texas desert that is required to even get there. It’s just awful.

That part is the part that I call “The Boring Part”. The part where I just drive for hours and hours and hours, stopping only for gas and grub. It can be a calming way to unwind at the end of a trip, to come down from the excitement and get back into normalcy. But it can also cause a completely maddening itch, a feeling that you NEED to be home, RIGHT NOW, because you are so bored that you would just hit the fast forward button on your life if you could.

Usually, The Boring Part is only limited to Texas. But unfortunately, on this trip I needed to be home by a certain date. I had already stretched the trip length to its limits by taking extra time to screw around in Modesto as well as Sequoia/Kings Canyon. So my typical leisurely travels through Arizona and New Mexico had to be compressed down into long deathmarch days in order to get home on time. This caused them to get lumped into The Boring Part. No interesting stops, no camping, just driving until my eyeballs feel like they’re going to fall out and I’ve got tinnitus from the roar of a built V8 turning 3500 RPMs and I’m permanently folded into a sitting position with a dent in my left knee where it rests up under the window crank on the door.

I suppose I’m fortunate, being able to claim complete and total boredom while driving a vintage Mustang halfway across the country. I’ve owned this car for 7 years now, and the extraordinary does occasionally become ordinary. But honestly, even while I’m bored out of my mind, I’m still having a good time. I’m never mad at the end of the day, even if I had to drive for 12 hours straight. I never wish that I wasn’t doing what I was doing. Well, except for the last few hours of my Texas drive, but I don’t think anyone could fault me for that. Arizona and New Mexico are two of the best states to long haul in, at least – they’re both very scenic, even along the interstate – so it’s not that bad driving through them for long periods of time.

On the first day of the boring part, I departed Bakersfield with my new old decklid firmly wedged in the rear seat between all of my other gear and souvenirs. The heat started climbing but I didn’t pay it any mind, having 80 mph gusts of wind coming through my open window. I proceeded to drive until I hit Holbrook, AZ, 600 miles away.

I only took one picture. It was of an interestingly shaped chip in my windshield. I don’t know when I picked it up but I thought it was a bug for about 300 miles.

And that’s about all I’ve got for the first boring day of The Boring Part.

I stayed in a hotel for the night, then took off for Roswell the next morning. I like to split my deathmarch days up so I’m not driving more than a thousand miles in a two day period usually. It just feels a little absurd. A thousand miles is more than what a lot of vintage Mustang owners put on their cars in an entire year, and I can exceed it in two days flat!

Anyways, I pushed my self-imposed limit and drove 450 miles to get into Roswell. I probably could have gotten further and stripped some time off of the last deathmarch day, but I had a specific reason to be in Roswell the next morning: the solar eclipse! I figured that if I couldn’t get up into an area where I could experience 100% totality, I might as well at least go somewhere where aliens might show up.

The New Mexican terrain was pretty enough that I bothered to take a few pictures this time.

Another case of my windshield being so covered in bugs (and chipped glass that looks like bugs, apparently) that my camera couldn't focus properly.

And that concludes the first two days of The Boring Part. Tomorrow at least I’ll get to see a solar eclipse and hopefully some aliens and maybe I’ll get abducted so I don’t have to drive 550 miles home through west Texas.

Kelly signing out.