West Coast

  We got to California in under 24 hours.  We had stopped and took a break at the Great Salt Flats in Utah where they had broken the fastest land vehicle speed record. When we got to Sacramento, California I gave my parents a call and my mother informed me that my credit card company was desperately trying to contact me. I called my credit card company. I had figured all my credit card purchases from all over the country may have put up a red flag. It turned out it was one specific transaction that had them concerned. It was a $2,000 charge for a trucking company.

  Stupid me for assuming Chrissy only had $100 to give me for this trip because she paid for the truck. Stupid me for thinking Chrissy would only use my credit card number for the storage place. I was livid. I had to permit the charge to go through. The company did what they were asked to do. I never wanted to strangle anyone as much as I did at this moment. Chrissy was all ‘I thought you knew. I was going to pay you back for it. Etc…’

  I then asked the million dollar question. “You have the money for your half of the rent and deposit, right?” But we all knew the answer to this question. I have now been footing the bill for this girl to travel the country for almost a month for the low, low price of $100. I informed her that there would be no more hotels. No more Starbucks Coffee that she needed every single chance she got. No more anything. She’ll be lucky if I let her eat.

  I don’t think I spoke to her for literally the next 24 hours. If it weren’t for the fact that I got to drive Route 1 on the California Coastline like Matt wanted to in his old car, I may not have lightened up before the end of the trip. By nightfall we were in Los Angeles, but it was too late to get into see the Los Angeles Dodgers ballpark like I wanted to. I don’t remember where we stayed that night, but I’m sure it wasn’t a hotel.

   The next day we were in San Diego and then drove into Tijuana, Mexico.  It was harder to pass the Utah/California border than the U.S. Mexico border. After driving around Mexico for about tem minutes we  quickly drove back into the U.S. and took a pedestrian bridge back into Mexico to sight see. We saw the typical street urchin  trying to sell chicklettes  and street venders trying to hock their wares. Every 500 feet or so, the bar or restaurant would sell Coronas for less and less. Of course if you went to far in, you felt unsafe. As it was Chrissy and I had walked down a side street past a bunch of women that at first I didn’t catch on, after we passed I stopped and said “Hey, wait…” and started to turn around.

 Chrissy called out, “Yeah, they are. Let’s go” as she pulled me away. Mexican hookers are chubby!

We bought some authentic Tacos and drank Coronas, but before we left the restaurant, Chrissy lost her contact lens. One of the men found it and I tipped him for it. It was only $5, but still, even when we did nothing, she was costing me money.

  After we left Mexico we turned east. We were going to stay with Pat. A friend of ours we met through my older brother. Laurie, Denver’s ex-girlfriend referred to him as ‘Pat, the Bunny’ to differentiate him from ‘long Haired Pat’, the one that Chrissy knew well. Pat played Hockey on Kevin’s dek hockey team and played softball with us. When he moved to Arizona a few months before, my parent’s hosted a goodbye party at our house.

So there we were driving through the Sanoran desert in 115 degree heat when Chrissy announced that it was that time of the month. The problem was that she didn’t plan for it. The only gas station we saw did not sell anything that would have helped so she was forced to use paper towels. The gas station attendant said there was a store 50 miles or so up ahead. So There I was driving 100+ miles an hour in 100+ heat to make it to a store as fast as I could in a 1984 Oldsmobile. Needless to say, it didn’t do the engine any good. When we got to the store, if you could call it a store. It turned out that it was a shop on an Indian reservation that had nothing we could use. Annoyed at the entire situation, I just handed Chrissy more paper towels.

  Finally we got to a little town, she got what she needed and we continued on our way to Tempe, Arizona.

  Pat was an awesome host. He took us around to the sites and at night we went to a bar for trivia night. Another night I played as a fill in on a league softball team he had joined and played horribly. He let us stay for quite a bit because we cut the California part of our trip short due to money concerns and our apartment wasn’t going to be ready for a few more days. That last day we said our goodbyes to Pat and I told him I’d see him next month in NY for my brother’s wedding.  Then we headed north to the Grand Canyon.

  That afternoon while driving to the Grand Canyon, the car overheated. That hostile driving environment, killed the thermostat and we overheated in the desert. While we waited for the car to cool down some kind of hog came out of the brush to watch us. When it cooled down, I took the thermostat out and filled the radiator with water. It should get us to Colorado, I assured Chrissy. However, we won’t get to the Grand Canyon in time to enjoy it, so we<

span style=”mso-spacerun: yes”>  parked in a slightly wooded field by the road and spent the night there under a beautiful sky of stars.

  That night, after I thought Chrissy was asleep, I had tried to quietly and discreetly masturbate under my blanket. I had done it before without disturbing her, or so I thought, but tonight she announced, “I’m awake.”

Embarrassed, I tried to play it off like I wasn’t up to anything, but she flat out told me she knew and she knew the other times. I was mortified.  We never spoke of it again.

The Grand Canyon was beautiful. We spent the day there and drove to Colorado that evening, stopping off at "the Four Corners", a spot located on an Indian reservation that four states meet. We got pulled over by the police in the mountains when Chrissy drove in the left lane. We stayed with Christine’s Aunt for the last night we were homeless.

   After I alone forked over the rent and deposit, the leasing office handed us our keys. Chrissy and I moved into our brand new apartment on August 13, 1999. As we were moving the first of our stuff in, the two girls that lived across from us were rolling out an empty keg. One of the girls asked if we were moving in. We told them yes. They followed up with  "if we ever get too loud, please don’t complain, just join us." Sounded like a plan to me.