Tucson Trip, Day 2

"There's a TOGO's!" This was said by Melissa in a particularly disgusting voice. We had checked out of our hotel and driven across the street trying to find Starbucks and then realized that we were headed away from the freeway. We were attempting to get turned around when we spotted the restaurant. I didn't know what a "TOGO's" was but you may remember from my last post that we had hiked ten miles, (according to Melissa), the previous evening and had to forage for food in the wilderness. And yet, here it was, food for the ordering, if we had just turned our heads in the opposite direction the night before.

Anyway, off we went for another full day of driving through barren wasteland. The road to Tucson is literally through "No Man's Land" and we were challenged to entertain ourselves throughout the day. Melissa decided that she needed to make a list of songs that she would later put on my iPod for me. She called this my "Manhater List."  Apparently, since I am now single, I need songs that I can listen to when I'm feeling down. I guess she didn't think Praise songs would do the trick, but instead, Manhater songs were required to fire me up! I haven't yet heard the fruits of her labor but I am looking forward to it. To be fair, I had already memorized all the words to Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" and it had cheered me up a time or two. Speaking of Carrie Underwood, I introduced Melissa to Carrie's rendition of "How Great Thou Art". So beautiful!

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=KL6WYLNX

And she turned me onto an awesome version of our national anthem by Madison Rising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8C7i9kdEf8

Besides the "Manhater List" we also enjoyed a game we called "Life Questions." This involved writing down random questions that came to us as we laughed, sang, talked, and yelled across Arizona. We intended to research these questions when we got home but I am just now getting around to it. Some of those questions were:

How did Jimi Hendrix die?  

                                         

He died on September 18, 1970 in London, having choked to death on his own vomit.

What is the meaning of "Hotel California?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_California

What makes a person see stars?

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_causes_you_to_see_stars

We were covering some deep ground. I told her about a video I had watched where Billy Joel had been so gracious to a college student so she added that to her "Life Questions" list to check out later.

http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2013/03/14/a-college-lecture-by-billy-joel-turns-into-a-performance-to-remember-for-vanderbilt-student-and-audience/

Lest I paint the drive as completely unimaginative, there was some beauty along the way. I was fascinated by the cloud formations and in fact, I pulled off the freeway at one point and wound through little side streets trying to get to a good spot to take a picture. Melissa thought I was slightly wacky!

We found odd things amusing. Sensory deprivation will do that to you. All across Arizona we saw this sign:

In case you can't read it, it says, "Drive Hammered, Get Nailed." Many a joke was made about the signs but most of them aren't appropriate to share here.

Melissa was taking a turn driving as we got closer to Phoenix but she had only been behind the wheel for about 45 minutes when the unthinkable happened!

Yep! You guessed it! Our peaceful, boring, two-lane road widened, first to three lanes and then more. Melissa started to panic and she had to quickly pull off so that we could switch places. The rest of the trip was uneventful except for the truly tragic moments we spent driving right by IKEA and deciding that we really shouldn't stop. I think I may still regret that decision but we knew if we gave in to that primal urge we wouldn't get to Tucson until the next day. Phoenix is only two hours from Tucson and we were anxious to see Tammera and her sweet family. We soldiered on and arrived, hot and tired, excited and elated, just in time for dinner.

More to follow...