In the summer of '96, just before I made the big move to New York, I helped my friend Neal move out to San Francisco. We packed up a Ryder, hitched his car to the back, and headed west, and I have to tell you, if you ever want to experience true flatness, I'm talking two-dimensional fever here, try driving through West Texas. I love my home state, but man ...!

We did actually spend a night in Roswell, New Mexico. No alien sightings, but we did have a mouse in our hotel room. The Arizona Badlands (that's the red stuff below) were pretty spectactular, and so was the Petrified Forest national park (not pictured), where we saw one helluva dust storm kick up. Also not pictured is the ice cave, which is actually pretty neat. You descend down a staircase into what's basically an opening in the earth, and as you go down it feels like someone's opened up a freezer, because all this cold air comes pouring up. You can't really go into the cave, beause it's basically just a pool of ice. I don't really understand the geophysics involved, but it was cool (sorry) nonetheless.

We stopped for a night in Vegas, which I have to admit I hated. What a cesspool. Still, if you've got a couple hundred bucks to blow it could be kinda fun, and the room rates are really cheap.

July 1996