San Diego to Blythe (Day 3 - 31/12/13)

San Diego Old Town.

It's the day for shipping out, and our goal is to get to Northern Arizona for the next stage of our journey. We decided to only do half of this drive and stop at the California-Arizona border so that life isn't too stressful, something that turned out to be a beautiful and wise decision.

The first half of the day we spend at Old Town, the original historic part of San Diego that has morphed into a ye olde touriste trappe. I like the museum-y historical parts of it and the Mexican food, whilst the Duck enjoys the capitalist tourist-trapping parts. We find one of those Zoltar machines where a robot gypsy in a glass case reads your fortune (think the Tom Hanks classic Big), and Little Duck gets ridiculously excited when it tells her she will make friends with someone of red hair. It's very cute and kitschy.

Ye Olde Soft Drinks

A model of the original San Diego settlement.

Eventually, by about 4:30 pm, we get on the road and are heading out of the San Diego city limits. Night falls very suddenly, like a thick blanket over our heads, obscuring the landscape and bringing the long road ahead into sharp relief. For someone used to Western Sydney's slow, gradual boiling of the day away into a 9 pm darkness it's quite a shock. A shooting star cascades across the sky but this is by no means the most memorable part of our drive. 

Jalapeno white chocolate. Delicious.

We pull into an Indian reservation to get what the Americans like to call 'gas' and are bemused to find that the Indian Casino and gas station are one and the same. From the outside the gas station looks like a normal service stop, but on the inside one of the walls is missing and the bright junk food-heavy interior gives way to a darkened hall of poker machines. It's a very strange sight. 

From here we strike out east along the Mexican border. Duck is convinced that every desert bush and roadside stop harbours illegal immigrants crawling their way into the country. I laugh cynically at her imagination but she has the last laugh when a scared Mexican family dashes out onto the road with that hyperventillating caught-in-the-headlights look.

Okay, that didn't really happen.

What does happen is a very eerie and quiet New Year's Eve drive through a darkened desert landscape. Our fear is ignited by the site of floodlight-decorated trikes burning dust alongside us amongst the rocks, like a scene out of Mad Max 2 (the best Mad Max film). Being New Year's Eve, these trikes foreshadow a remote and surreal truck stop filled with drunken partygoers spilling out into the desert, and two flashing police cars chasing vehicles down into the dust alongside a train line. And the Duck's excitement about border breakouts? Even I have to admit that this was somewhat justified when we find ourselves being waved into a pop-up car inspection by Border Patrol. 

The officer asks us both several questions while the Duck rummages through the car boot for our passports. Our Australian accents transform this Border Patrolman into our best friend, although good tidings and pleased demeanour unfortunately do not extend to the use of his toilet (much to our combined disappointment... 'our' being the Duck and myself, not myself and the Border Patrolman).

Aside from this interruption, our night time drive through inner California is fairly silent and devoid of human settlement. We get a pretty good startle from the sight of a donkey running only a metre alongside our car, and my bladder experiences the greatest relief of its maudlin life at a quiet gas stop (every owl hoot and bar chirp makes me very paranoid that an angry local will come screaming out of the night to blow me into kingdom-come with an antiquated shotgun).

Navigating Blythe

After this we reach our destination: the quiet town of Blythe. It's a fairly large town but by no means a city; very spread-out and flat. I'm not all that surprised that it seems fairly deserted as it's smack-bang in the middle of nowhere. 

They have this thing on American roads where intersections have solid white lines across each side like an indication to stop. There are no stop signs but we slow down every time we see one anyway just to be cautious. A car starts hovering behind us so we decide to pull over and let them pass. Said car follows us to the side of the road and flashes their lights, promptly giving birth to the town sheriff!

"I thought you might be either drunk or lost", explains the sheriff.

"We don't know what those whites lines are for", admits the Duck bashfully.

"Oh", he is taken aback, "They're pedestrian crossings. Just drive through them!"

Just drive through them. Sheriff's orders. Watch out pedestrians!

We have a good laugh and move on. Our night finishes with the hotel clerk almost destroying my credit card in her click-clack machine. The VISA card becomes resolutely jammed and will not be removed. The clerk keeps trying to yank it out and signs of stress start to show on the card (and on my face) as it starts to look like it will bend or snap apart.

About five minutes pass in this fashion, and the situation becomes more tense. This card is a lifeline, and if I lose it then it will mean a whole world of trouble. Eventually the Duck shows up after dropping the bags off at the room and I bite my tongue to prevent a major Hulk-out while she helps the clerk unscrew and take the manual credit card press apart in order to free my card without damaging it. 

The poor clerk is so relieved that she upgrades our room.

This acting duo performed an abridged and energetic version of A Christmas Carol.

The Duck and Old Town clerk.

The Mighty Zoltar.