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Published: November 1st 2012
New Mexico Along the I-25
Jeff's elephant butt in Truth or ConsequencesSome Background Info
In 2010, my partner Jeff and I moved from Honolulu, HI to Silver Spring, MD for him to take up a job. Unfortunately, that job did not work out. To make matters worse, I had trouble finding a permanent job in the area and our foster son's behavior went downhill to such an extent that we asked him to leave our family (he was over 18 and technically no longer our foster child). After all that had happened, we asked ourselves: "Can we be happy if we stayed here?". The answer was no. With that, we decided to return to Hawaii.
This blog entry chronicles our cross-country drive to Long Beach, CA from where we shipped our car to Hawaii. We planned this trip to last a week so that we could see family and friends en route. After shipping the car, Jeff flew to Honolulu to start his new job. I returned to Silver Spring to stay there for another two months to allow sufficient time to lag so that we could avoid quarantine for our beloved cats in Hawaii and also to get our house ready to be rented out.
The Start
With
Somewhere in Tennessee
Sitting on a Rocking Chair on a porch in the South - something I have always wanted to do. a lump in our throats, we bid our cats goodbye - me for nine days, Jeff for two months. Setting off around midday, we drove down the Beltway and passed the Maryland border with almost no hint of emotion. More than anything else, we were ready to put the past two years behind us.
The drive down the I-95 towards Durham, NC via Richmond, VA took about 5 hours. Our goal for today was to see our friends and former Hawaii neighbors Will and Rochelle. Arriving at their home close to downtown Durham in the early evening, we toured their cute
Darko Urban Farm complete with ducks, bees and a cat, and had an enjoyable time reconnecting with their bunnies and turtles which I used to take care of in Hawaii when they were out of town. Their home is close to downtown Durham and the evening was spent walking downtown, exploring food trucks and participating in a trivia quiz on gay history (we lost, shame on us!). It seems as if Will and Rochelle landed in a liberal enclave in their new hometown. Living in Durham has also afforded them the ability to grow some of their own food, which
Waffle House
I first time dining at this Southern institution. It was too much and too greasy. Yuck. was something they could not do in Hawaii due to high property prices.
To Jackson, TN
After a hearty organic breakfast, we headed to Winston-Salem for lunch with my high school classmate Wendy from Singapore whom I hadn't seen in over 20 years. After a very pleasant hour catching up, we set off on the I-40 with the goal of at least getting to Nashville. The I-40 took us over a scenic, winding route over the Smoky Mountains which were, well, kind of smoky. We hit Nashville at dinner time. Googling places to eat, we came across Suzie Wong's House of Yum. How could we not go there? I had a decent Thai shrimp curry there. After dinner, we still felt good and so we pushed on west on the I-40. Approximately 2 hours later, we we ready to stop for the night at Jackson, TN. We stayed at Knights Inn, easily the nastiest motel I have ever been to in a developed country. The bathroom had a lot of scum and the floor felt sticky. Ew. Sadly, we were stuck here because we had booked the room online.
To Fort Worth, TX
My goal of today en
Memphis, TN
The (in)famous gas station sushi stand. route was to visit the famous sushi stand - complete with on site sushi chef - that sits in a BP gas station in Memphis. We got there at around 9.15am to learn that the chef only comes on site at noon, and that all the food there in the morning is left over from the previous day. We weren't going to wait three hours for a chef, so I took a chance and bought a calamari salad (it was cooked stuff... should be ok, right?). The other surprise there was that they had wasabi peas.
Crossing over into Arkansas, we made an impromptou decision to visit Little Rock Central High School. Some background in a nutshell: During segregation, Central High School was a whites-only school. When schools were ordered to desegregate, nine African American teenagers (the "Little Rock Nine") elected to transfer to Central High, only to face what can only be described as hell on earth. Central High School is still a functioning high school today. The National Park Service has a visitor center across the street, with a fascinating exhibition about desegregation and what happened at that school. We also joined a park ranger on a
Little Rock, AR
The historic Central High School. brief tour of the premises.
I left Central High School feeling a little numb. It was hard to imagine such stuff happening barely a decade before my birth. For the remainder of the day, Jeff was obsessed with learning about the story behind the two main characters in the famous
Life Magazine photo.
Leaving Little Rock, we headed south on the I-30 toward Fort Worth where we went to the home of my friend JD who took us out to dinner at Fuzzy Taco and then put us up in his beautifully restored home which is on the National Register of Historic Places. As it was an election year, JD was busy and he apologized for not spending more time with us. That wasn't a problem, though, as Jeff and I were both tired and we wanted to turn in early.
I first met JD and his husband Joel 13 years ago when I interned at Fort Worth-based Sabre Holdings. At that time, they had a little puppy named Pokey (yes, he's a little slow). I had a brief reunion with a now deaf and blind Pokey. Glad he is still with us. Joel is a Fort Worth city
Roswell, NM
UFO Shaped McDonald's. councilman and whose moving
">It Gets Better video went viral. Sadly, he was out of town so I did not get a chance to catch up with him.
After saying goodbye to JD, we headed west on the I-20 towards Abilene before turning northwest and driving along two-lane highways all the way to Roswell. Total journey time about 8 hours.
Roswell is, of course, the site of the infamous UFO crash. This is one silly town. Most of the pictures from this post are from there, and I'll let them speak for themselves. We walked around downtown in the evening taking in the UFO-inspired architecture and theme stores.
We indulged in more UFO silliness this morning, including a visit to the UFO Museum and then a store with silly UFO/alien exhibits. Again, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Around midday, we headed west on two lane highways before heading south on the I-25 towards a randomly named town called Truth or Consequences. How could we not stop there for a photo op or two? After that, we headed west on a very mountainous and winding road through the beautiful Gila National
Forest. Going a little north past Silver City proper, we arrived at the home of my friend Rae - with whom I shared a
last year - who had a lovely dinner waiting for us. After dinner, Jeff retired early while Rae and I soaked in his hot tub and caught up.
In the morning, we set off with Rae, his friend Joseph and his dachshund Gigi for San Francisco Hot Springs about an hour away from Silver City. The hot springs were a short hike in. We soaked in a small rock-lined pool for about 30 minutes before leaving Rae there and hiking back out to head to Phoenix.
Our route to Arizona took us through some rugged desert landscapes along the I-60, after which we pulled in at our friend Sara's home just in time for dinner. Sara was Jeff's coworker at the Hawaii School For the Deaf, a school that has seen many changes (and some scandals) in recent years. Not surprisingly, a significant part of our conversation was dedicated to this.
Epilogue
Our car safe and sound in our garage, with her new Hawaii license plates. for a quick coffee with another Sara before heading west on the I-10 towards Los Angeles. On the outskirts of LA (West Covina to be precise), we stopped off for some Singaporean food - the best possible comfort food after a long week of traveling! Spirits lifted, we headed towards Jeff's parents' home in Santa Clarita where we celebrated his mother's 70th birthday.
Battling LA traffic (several accidents that day caused massive jams on the 405), we set off towards Long Beach port in our trusty Prius and a borrowed car, stopping in Venice en route for lunch with my cousin Patricia. We reached Long Beach port in the early afternoon, located the Matson lot, and bade goodbye to our car for a few weeks. Heading back towards Santa Clarita, we stopped to say hi to our friend Nancy in Alta Dena.
The next day, Jeff flew to Honolulu while I flew back to Silver Spring, thus ending our epic cross-country journey - Jeff's first and my second. I moved back to Honolulu two months later in December, and we slowly started rebuilding our lives once again.
Rae Douglass
non-member comment
Gigi
Siewch, Great Blog! Loved the pictures of Gigi. How is Hawaii Treating you?