Mt. Shasta, from I5.

Well, I got off to a late start, and I stopped about 40 minutes into the drive to call CarToys to figure out how to connect Pandora up to my spiffy new stereo system, and I5 was jammed with oversized semi’s hauling what looked like parts for a nuclear reactor, but I made it out of the rain and into the California sun, and over the Sierra’s and through Reno, and into Carson City, Nevada where the first thing of note was a shuttle van to a whore house.

Yup. Complete with a provocative logo air-brushed on its side.

The irony of the day came when I started listening to a book I had downloaded the night before. My dear friend and comrade in writing Kathlene Postma had given me a list of authors she thought I should read. One was Elizabeth Berg. So I randomly chose a book from Itunes, knowing nothing about it.

Ended up The Pull of the Moon was about a 50-year-old woman who leaves her family to take a road trip. Her one child is grown up, and she never speaks about having elderly parents – but all else – the whirlwind of emotions and need and crazy making thoughts—mourning life going by and simultaneously feeling wildly powerful and totally intolerant of idiots – were all in sync with my own feelings, and I thought – well, fuck me.

I love it when life imitates life.

Onward. Today, I will drive route 395 through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I want to see Mono Lake and Death Valley. That’s my goal. See these two. Walk there. Take pictures. Tomorrow I will make my way to the Grand Canyon where I will unpack my car and hopefully all the other crap I have been carrying around lately.

-Naseem Rakha 1/31/12
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