Oh The Places I've Never Been To: Volume 1

One of my adventure-fantatasies that I've been holding on to for a long time is going on a desert road trip.

And I don't just mean a trip to Las Vegas, I mean all those little signs you see along the freeway between Victorville and Las Vegas along the 5 fwy, or along that other  one (the 40??) that goes out to Arizona. The Colorado River is out there, London Bridge is out there, there's even a stupid swimming pool that people are supposed to go on a scavenger hunt for.

(There's so much cool stuff in the mojave desert that I haven't seen just cuz its hot out there, if the car breaks down I will surely die...and I'm terrified to drive on the freeway.)

Some years ago I discovered that there's a beautiful rock/dune formation that's like, maybe ten miles from where I live (if that). People go there from all over the continent to ATV and camp. I've even met people at hospital clinical sites in the inland empire who're all like, "Wow, you're from lucerne valley!" (You don't get that enthusiasm from the residents of other high desert communities as much).

I want to be like those people. I want to see the beauty in the desert and not just look with distain at that empty nothingness between where-I-live and where-I-want-to go.

Today I was shopping the market, and I found this set of books by an indie explorer-author, Bill "Shortfuse" Mann (which totally sounds like a gnome W.o.W name). I talks about places to go in the desert and it has a lot of pictures, which is awesome).

I found out the spring that I drive by on my way to work;  indians used to live there and a justice of the peace guy. And the tree that grows right next to it is called "the hangmans tree".  There's also a ton of places that I've not been to. 

When I checked out through the express lane and the clerk and I got into a conversation about the book and he says something like, "did you hear the dinosaur house got trashed...again?"

I was taken off guard and almost said, "Eeyye did not know that there was such a place as the dinosaur house."

But irl I just said, "No!! Really?"

And he said, "Yeah, the boy scouts renovated it the first time, but its a mess."
Then he showed me page 53, one of the homestead houses his grandpa used to make for people. 

Pretty darn cool!

I wanna go to all of these places, and greatfully this is something I can do. And when I'm done, there are five other volumes of Mr Mann's desert adventures to go through.

Hello,  world here I come ;)

I think a full on desert road trip is still beyond me, but that doesn't mean I can't explore these places.

I basically live in operations central. If I get stuck, I can probably walk home.

Stories I Can't Find

Lost Stories: I read these a long, long time ago and now I can't find them. If you know where they are, I will be forever grateful.

Collecting Emilys-

This one is a murder mystery, but not the type where the case gets solved at the end. A detective notices that a lot of people with the same last name are dying and gets really suspicious. Word gets out there's a serial killer targeting people of a certian last name. A small boy with the last name is playing his yard and talks to a stranger. The stranger tells him, "Your mom is really lucky her son is cute." and the boy lives. Later, a group of people in a diner are sitting around discussing the mysterious killer their favorite theories regarding his origins and why he is targeting people with the specific last name . One of the guys gives a theory that the killer is playing a game with the authorities: he picks a random characteristic that people may share (in this case, a last name) and targets these people exclusively until the police catch on to what he's doing.

Everyone in the diner is super-weirded out with the guy, but eventually the group disbands, and the guy and a girl named Emily are the only one's left. They continue to talk about the killings and the girl says something like, "well at least they (the authorities) are on to him now." and the guy is like, "They're not going to catch him, the fun is over once they figure out what characteristic he's targeting people by." now he'll just pick another random characteristic. The story ends with Emily (the idiot) has agreed to allow this guy to accompany her across town. And the guy says "Collecting Emilllllllyyyyyyysss"

Highway Robbery-

These two guys are trying to get to this place and they're driving their car across the desert or somewhere. No civilization for miles and miles and miles, and their care is having touble and then they find this kind of rest stop with this auto mechanic's garage.

Basically the auto mechanic keeps finding new stuff wrong with their car so that he can fix it and make more money. You (the reader) feel real bad for the guys because they keep talking about the place that they need to get to, and they're being swindled by this auto-mechanic guy.

At the end of the story, the guys finally get away from the mechanic with their car...Turns out these two guys were actually robbers on their way to rob a bank.

The One With the Girl And The Cat and the Teacher/Neighbor-

This middle school girl is kind of lonely, she has a mom and a dad and a brother. Her teacher is this middle-aged lady. One day she and her family go to this county fair thing and someone is selling a liter of kittens, she falls in love with one of them but doesn't have enough money for it. She can't persuade anyone to give her the extra two dollars or whatever for the kitten, So she steals her teacher's wallet and takes the two dollars to buy the cat.

I'm sure theirs other stuff that happens in the story but all I remember is that every time she looked at this cat that she loved, she was reminded of something she did that was wrong. And every time she's around the teacher/neighbor he has to pretend like they're all friends and everything's normal and "no I never did steal your wallet out of your purse. nope, not me."

At the end the teacher kinda knew about it all along, she get's confronted by the teacher and the two eventually share ownership of the cat. Like, where the cat stays with her part time, and visits the teacher/neighbor part time.

Yes that is a super cheesy ending. But it was sooooo sweet that this girl was so conflicted about it through the whole story and the sharing of the pet was a really meaningful reconciliation. 

Of course, she could have just PAID THE FREAKING TWO DOLLARS BACK...

But wasn't just about the repaying of a debt, more like the rebuilding of a friendship.