Ryan's Journal

Hollywood is home. The road trip is over.

I missed my flight out of Boston due to my poor reading comprehension, the first time I recall doing so on my own, and thus my first adult experience with standby. Getting out of Boston was no issue, but the connection to San Jose ended up counting down to the wire, waiting on edge for hours to know if I'd have to wait even more hours to get where I was going.

It turned out one soul missed their flight to San Jose, and I was listed at five on the standby list. But lo and behold, numbers one and two in the list? They're dating, and, unbelievably, they start playing the, "no, you take it" game with each other, much to the annoyance of the ticketing agent, who forces them to make a choice right now. Shockingly, they opt to cede the seat to the next person on the list. I find out one and two already got on and that they're actually three and four. And so I write this wandering to baggage claim at Mineta International instead of trying to sleep on a DFW terminal bench.

Thanks for having issues being apart from one another, kids. Next time you should probably just take the seat and give it to whomever has to wake up earlier the next morning.

The Big Game, Cal vs. Stanford, and I had a prime near-campus parking space because that's just where my road trip took me. I should have put a sign on my car to offer to move for $55; the sorority across the street was making sales at $50 for double parking their driveway.

And now the road trip takes to the skies as I fly home. Home, which was my car for the past five months (as of yesterday), is sitting in a friend's lot, and I kind of miss it already. I erase all of my westward gains flying back to Boston next week before returning to the comfort of my driver's seat at the beginning of December.

So, home. Happy Thanksgiving.

For some as-yet indeterminate reason, I find the freeways of the Bay Area immensely pleasing to drive upon when not under rush hour conditions. Perhaps because the elevation changes and twists and turns appeal to the hidden race car driver deeply embedded somewhere in the male psyche. The miles-long bridges help.

It took about 14,000 miles, but I've finally been forced to parallel park, and downhill no less. Passing that part of the driving test wasn't a problem - those spaces were more than 25 feet long - but that's the last time I remember needing to do it, until I got here to Berkeley and its hills. No dings, no injuries. I guess it's not so bad.

Things are winding down on this road trip deal. More on that later.

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is a circuit of amazing sandstone formations, iconic of the southwest, a circuit of unpaved roads that an unscrupulous businessperson would parlay into a profitable brake, tire, and suspension repair shop. You can drive it yourself or you can pay for a ride. In light of the severe amount of wincing I did, you may really want to opt to pay for the ride. Some reviews claim the road is fine for normal passenger cars. It isn't.

Garmin knows nothing about BIA-59, a route an hour faster than going from US-160 directly to US-191 (it's the shortcut from Kayenta to Many Farms). Driving BIA-59, a simple, straight road, brought out several "recalculating" expletives from the GPS engine, and none of its routes would have saved time; as the route progressed, each recalculation got shorter when the suggested turnoff was skipped.

It's beautiful out here. Sunset is intense and colorful and warm - and all too brief. Aside from the weather extremes, the desert agrees with me. The southwest is often depicted using the formations of this region, but unlike, say, the Statue of Liberty (so small!), this part of the world is far, far better in person.