the light above the metropolis

well, flagstaff was supposed to be a milestone for me. i had been thinking of it as the first place that i would visit for the second time on this trip...but then i just remembered that chicago-land was the first place i visited for the second

...

time. i guess too many good things happened there the second time, so this little fact failed to enter into my consciousness.

however, as i previously noted, this wasnt such a great milestone - this flagstaff visit. i stayed on the hostel for another night to little fanfare. i watched some american football on the television with various foreigners and found myself explaining the game to them. i finished my bottle of wine and took a number of hot showers. this morning, i gathered all of my things, filled up all my water bottles and set off in the direction of the post office.

i wasnt the only person that had this idea. because of the snowstorm very few, if any, people that live in flagstaff received their mail. so i waited in line for a fair amount of time to get what i came for, a parcel from my friend vaughnda in chicago. the teller went into the back to discover my mail but came back empty-handed. i was crestfallen, i had waited out the weekend and she said that the mail was backed up at least two days so it may be that long before my letter actually arrives.

with my head down, i exited the building. i didnt really have enough money to stay at the hostel again so i was convincing myself to just find a place to park and wait it out for another night. and it took a bit of convincing, i had been looking forward to this mail for quite awhile and i debated just leaving flagstaff and having the mail returned to sender. quickly i realized how poor of an act this would be so i decided to settle in. i went to the town square and started reading. i havent been reading enough lately and this most recent book that i picked out is a very hard read.

i sat there for a few hours, basking in the sunshine and came back to being happy. it is a hard thing for me to be unhappy for a very long period of time i have this problem of always finding something in life to be positive about. when it came around 3:pm i was done sitting there. i talked myself into pestering the us postal service and decided to go back to inquire if my mail had yet arrived. the place was even more packed than in the morning and i stood counting off the people in line, trying to use math so i didnt get the same teller as i had in the morning.

my math worked. i got a different teller and gave my id just as before. i steadied myself against getting too hopeful for her to walk out with whatever awaited me. and to my ultimate delight she emerged from the backroom with a small package. i thanked her and went back into the sun. i opened the package to find a nice picture card with some words on it and a compact disc.

with my objective in flagstaff completed i hightailed it out of town. well, i tried to hightail it. i got a little bit lost looking for the expressway and almost ended up going the wrong way on it. but when i got my direction straightened out, my tail was high. i listened to the cd a number of times as i drove west toward las vegas.

after two days or so of lounging around a comfy hostel, returning to driving was no fun. driving in general isnt very much fun but for some reason today was very much not fun. it didnt seem like i had far to go but the miles were moving slow. eventually i made it to the switch-off from the expressway to highway 93 north to las vegas. i was not aware that i would run right into the hoover dam driving this way, i was somewhat pleasantly surprised until i got to the checkpoints.

the hoover dam

at the checkpoint the performed a light search of my truck and quickly i was deemed okay to go over the dam. once inside i was finally able to get my friend steve on the phone. we talked for a bit of time, about the money he is depositing into my bank account tomorrow and some trips he is planning for his future. i want him and his lady friend to borrow my truck when i get back and go on vacation, but he considers himself too old for that.

then i got paranoid about talking on the phone because of all the security and someone was probably listening in on the conversation, and i already sketched these people out so i got off the phone real quick and away from the dam. and twenty miles later i got into the shadow of las vegas. i pulled off before i hit the city proper, becuase all of the lights were very intimidating. they say that las vegas at night is the easiest thing to spot from space. they say these things, but i have never been to space.

lets see, i have been to las vegas once before. i think i wrote about it previously, which was dumb of me - clearly i should have saved the story for once i was actually here. but it was after santa barbara, in march 2001 i think, i was on a greyhound back to indiana; my tail between my legs. i was 20 years old and since i had never been here and we had a short layover, i decided to try my luck and my last few dollars on the slot machines. i think i won for a minute and then lost all of my money. when i came back to the bus station, the bus had left without me and i was stuck there for another three hours. (just now i reviewed my old journals and found the entry from las vegas, but i am opting not to share it here.)

after sitting here for awhile, i got in touch with my friend here and shortly i will be with some more new strange friends. let me get out the meeting people face.