airborne again

Back in November, when it looked as though we'd be here until January or February (oh, wait, hold on; we'll still be here until February), I struck a deal with my parents. If they floated me a loan of $4,500 I could get my commercial pilot's license before I left for Korea. Miraculously, they agreed. Either they're bigger pigeons than I thought or they love me very, very much.

In order to stretch the dough as far as I could, I decided to train in a cheaper airplane. I'm more familiar with the Cessna 172, but they cost something like $110 per hour to rent these days. For my purposes, I went down to M______ Aviation and picked the cheapest airplane they had: a little red Cessna 152. Two seats. One hundred and ten horses. Tricycle landing gear. Basic instrument package, no GPS or anything. Looks like this:

If that seems mighty small to you, it is. Standing on my tiptoes, I can practically see over the wings. It's rather tricky trying to cram Miss H and myself into that little cockpit. Headroom is plentiful, but the seats aren't adjustable: my legs are stuffed up under the control panel. The 152 is comfortable once you actually get in and get situated, though. Ventilation is more than adequate, too. However, putting two full-size adults into an airplane with a 110-horsepower engine presents some special problems. We had to ensure that we weren't taking off with a full load of fuel, or else the little bird wouldn't ever get off the ground. (Don't worry; we made sure we had plenty for the flights we had in mind.)

But before I could get started, I had to get checked out. I'd never flown a 152 before and, though I technically wasn't required to get checked out in it (the FAA says that private pilots can fly any single-engine fixed-wing under 12,000 pounds without a checkout), M_____ required that I at least have a familiarization flight with an instructor before I took it out on my own. I understood. They had to cover their behinds. And a checkout flight wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience; I'd just have to buy some instructor's time and submit to a few maneuvers under his or her watchful eye.

That's what I thought at first, anyway.

You can imagine my chagrin, my horror, and my utter revulsion when I walked into the main office of M_____ Aviation (which smelled strongly of secondhand smoke) and saw him sitting there.

It was Bob.

Bob the Poacher.

Bob the Loony.

Bob the Motormouth.

He of the Shadowy, Mysterious, Shady Past.

He was the kind of pilot whom all the other pilots said was off his blinkin' rocker. He didn't know what he was talking about. He had a lot of half-baked, erroneous ideas about flying that were dangerous to teach impressionable students. He wasn't fit to fly a paper airplane. The rumors said that he'd been fired from every flying job he'd ever held. Rumors notwithstanding, it was an undeniable fact that he was a poacher. He'd migrated up from some airport down the hill and ingratiated himself with M_____ Aviation's management, allowing him to lay in wait at the door and pounce on any students who walked in. With flattery, high-flown promises, bravado, and a great many tall tales, Bob enticed these unsuspecting neophytes away from their current instructors and under his own wing. This insidious and highly disreputable practice is frowned upon in most flight schools, but not M_____ Aviation. The Dutch matron mysteriously refrained from pitching Bob out the door. Instead, she hired him on as an instructor, even when all her other instructors tacitly resigned in protest.

You may imagine my remorse when I learned that Bob was the one who'd be checking me out in the 152.

Good God, no.

Somebody help me!

Oh yeah, before I go any further, I should explain to you what a checkout is, and why I needed one. Let's say you're a pilot. So far you've flown only one or two types of planes (just like yours truly). I trained in a Cessna 172, and have quite a bit of time in a Mooney M20E. I'd never flown a Cessna 152 before. So, when a pilot is going to fly a new plane for the first time, another pilot (who is familiar with the airplane in question) "checks him out" in the new airplane. The experienced pilot flies with the newbie and gets him oriented. Generally, checkout flights are very short: you do some maneuvers, maybe a few practice landings and touch-and-goes.

Not with Bob. Bob sat me down and did ground school with me first.

Keep in mind, now, that Miss H was sitting in the car, reading a book, and patiently waiting for me to take her flying. Bob was unaware of this. Even if he had been, he might not have cared. He was on a roll. His ego would not permit him to take me flying before he'd demonstrated to me that he knew all there was to know about flying. To some degree, I appreciated the fact that I was getting a refresher: I was a bit rusty, after all. Going over a few things beforehand really helped me get my mind back in the game. But Bob pulled out all the stops. Though the Cessna 152 is not equipped for instrument flying, somehow or other we wound up talking about instrument approaches and landings. This was totally irrelevant to what we were about to do. But Bob was an unstoppable avalanche, and it was only my gentle pushing that finally got him to shut up. We adjourned to the plane to do a preflight check.

Ten minutes later we were in the air. Unfortunately, Bob's tendency to chit-chat, gab and proselytize continued even after we got airborne. I expected to do a few maneuvers and some practice landings. Nope. We did spins.

Just so you know, a spin is very similar to a stall—except for one thing. Instead of both wings stalling simultaneously, one wing stalls before the other. Rather than merely dropping out of the sky in an orderly fashion, the airplane begins to spin violently as it falls earthward. Spins are extremely dangerous and cause numerous fatalities every year. However, they are simple to avoid and (if you know what you're doing) not too difficult to recover from.

Eventually I would have to practice spins as part of my commercial training...but I was in no mood to learn today, especially not from Bob. I'd never flown with him before. All of the awful stories I'd heard about him came flooding back into my mind. I protested volubly, but he insisted. So we spun. Granted, they were only half-turns and not complete revolutions, but they were enough to make my stomach jump, my eyes roll and my hands convulsively clutch at things.

Bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard, I kept thinking. Let's just get this over with.

One more spin. In distracted fury and sickening fear, I fixed my eyes on a sticker on the control panel.

THIS AIRCRAFT MUST BE
OPERATED IN THE NORMAL CATEGORY.
ALL AEROBATIC MANEUVERS,
INCLUDING SPINS, PROHIBITED.

it said.

Awesome.

Finally, the ordeal ended. We landed. Bob got out. Miss H got in. She'd been waiting on the ground for nearly two hours. We burned some holes in the sky for an hour. Then we flew back and landed.

That was the last I ever saw of Bob, fortunately. He signed my logbook and I left. I paid him $30 the next day (there was a sort of vile satisfaction in making him wait for it) and that was it.

I've made two flights in the 152 since then: one with a buddy to Lancaster for a bite of lunch, and a long cross-country with Miss H to Twentynine Palms and back. The Cessna 152 is a fun plane. It's a bit slow, but it's stable, forgiving, and fun to fly. I haven't yet made a landing that I've been completely happy with, but for all intents and purposes, I can fly the dang thing.

No thanks to Bob.

Sheesh...

jaguars and spring rolls

April 7 was a fine day: clear and cool with a fine breeze blowing. So fine, in fact, that our hair was lifting off from our foreheads and tugging at our scalps, trying to fly away. The trash cans kept falling over and a fine haze of aerosol hung in the desert air, obscuring the horizon.

Nevertheless Miss H and I decided to venture some 100 miles to the southeast, to the town of Palm Desert, California...and the singular zoo and botanical garden which hides itself there. Tucked into the rocky hills behind the city, behind the golf courses, country clubs and gated communities, lies the Living Desert.

One of Southern California's little-known gems, the Living Desert showcases plants and animals native to the world's deserts. Here you will find all the major players from the hot and arid regions of Planet Earth: the Sahara, Arabian, Gobi, Atacama, and even our own Mojave, Colorado and Sonoran. (For some reason,  they left Africa's Kalahari and Australia's Great Sandy and Simpson Deserts right out.)

From the black widow spider to the zebra, the oryx, giraffe, ostrich, bighorn sheep, Ankole-Watusi, peccaries, badgers, mountain lions, coyotes, fennec foxes, ringtails, coatimundis, servals, sand cats, rock hyraxes, chorus frogs, Gila monsters, meerkats, golden eagles, roadrunners, Mexican wolves, ravens, pronghorn...all manner of desert denizens reside here. Heck, the only thing they don't have is...

...well, I take that back. They have 'em now.

Now, my girlfriend had never been to a zoo. Her parents are homebodies. They don't really go anywhere. Miss H has been to Disneyland (with her friends, or the school band), but not the thousands of parks, museums, zoos, beaches, or other attractions Southern California is famous for. She hadn't even been to an aquarium until she went to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, near where she went to college.

I consider this a travesty.

Zoos were central to my childhood. I still consider them one of the few places I could spend an entire 12-hour day, along with libraries and arcades.

So I elected to rectify this inequity.

I've already spoken to you about the wonders of Old Highway 247, so I'll say no more about it here. But the wonders of the CA-62 deserve honorable mention. The chaotic descent through Morongo Valley (little more than a glorified canyon, narrow and steep-sided, houses clinging to the hillsides like mountain goats) is followed by a sudden drop through through a perilous gorge, which opens out into the Coachella Valley. Mount San Jacinto looms up in front like a great blue-gray god preaching to his minions—the white and many-armed masses of windmills which line the valley floor. A few miles later and we merge onto Interstate 10, which stretches from Santa Monica to Jacksonville, Florida, thousands of miles to the east.

A few miles later we get off in Palm Desert.

Palm Desert (and the neighboring borough of Indian Wells) is the slightly shabbier cousin of Palm Springs. Only slightly shabbier, mind you. If Palm Springs is the equivalent of a thirty-room mansion, Palm Desert manages at least a fifteen-room hacienda. Green lawns, red-tile roofs, stucco walls, golf courses, country clubs, classy restaurants, and more palm trees than the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It's a haven for the wealthy, where the comfortably-well-off go to golf and get away from the hustle and bustle of the beach and metropolis. It gets blasphemously hot here; even a 90-year-old wouldn't need to pack a sweater or track suit.

This is also the perfect environment for a zoo with desert animals.

Miss H and I had to dodge a few stupid drivers on our way through town (unfortunately, you can't lose the dumb people no matter how far you go). We parked, took a last swig of water, and marched on the gates. About $28.50 later we were inside.

Thankfully, in early April, it was still quite equable in the Coachella region. If this had been a normal spring, temperatures might've been in the upper 80s; but as it was, a cold front was blowing through and it was a balmy 67. That same stiff breeze was blowing, cooling whatever wasn't already cool enough. The train diorama was in full swing, and so were the billions of schoolchildren surrounding it. 

(Photo credits go once again to my beautiful and talented girlfriend.)

I won't spoil the multitude of exhibits awaiting you inside this fantastic place. As always, I invite you to see for yourself. I will say, however, that Miss H and I strolled through it with languor and abandon, picking out the zoological attractions we'd most like to see on the map and sallying forth to peruse them. Aviaries, paddocks, sprawling pastures, quiet tree-lined paths...arm in arm, hand in hand we walked, gazing into each other's eyes and sharing a quiet giggle between us. Once we paused beneath an ironwood tree to snatch a quick, passionate kiss. We were in love and we didn't care who knew it, not the oryx, nor the meerkats, nor the warthogs or cheetahs or...

...the jaguar.

Whoa, wait, WHAT?! A jaguar? What the—?! They didn't have jaguars the last time I was here!

It was with awe and wonder and no small enjoyment that Miss H and I beheld the Living Desert's newest attraction, a grade-A genuine jaguar. Set in a newly-built habitat simulating a Mexican silver mine, the jaguar dozed contentedly on his patch of dirt, in the shade of a spreading mesquite tree. I was stunned. I'd never seen a jaguar in the flesh, not in any zoo. Up until this point I'd been content with the Living Desert displaying species which were unique, unutterably suited to their environment, but nonetheless familiar, and therefore slightly mundane: golden eagles, mountain lions, coyotes, giraffes. A jaguar...well, that was a cat of a different color.

After enjoying the park to the fullest (including the unexpected proximity of bighorn sheep), we made our egress from the Living Desert and went in search of our next conquest.

The Elephant Bar.

A charming little African-themed place on the CA-111 in Palm Desert, the Elephant Bar had lots of dark, carved wood, brass fixings, bamboo inlay, and some rather unusual ceiling fans. We arrived during happy hour, and seated ourselves at the 60-foot bar, where appetizers and well drinks were half-price until 4. The food, which the menu had claimed to be an Oriental-Occidental fusion, was just that—only in wondrous abundance. We dined first on artichoke dip and Vietnamese shrimp spring rolls, both of which were more delicious than anything we'd yet sampled. For the main course, I selected the teriyaki chicken, while Miss H chose the chicken marsala. Between the two of us, we'd try both sides of the coin. Both dishes were exceedingly flavorful and succulent, and served in amazing proportions. We didn't even have room for desserts, even though there were at least four pages of those in the menu: the bartender recommended the crème brûlée, but it was the chocolate-chip cookie sundae that caught our eye. We waddled out of that place.

It was but the work of an hour or so to traverse Palm Desert and Indian Wells in the fading daylight, view the fountains and green fairways tinged orange by the red desert sun, regain the CA-62, climb the torturous road back into the Mojave, and travel homeward with the warm evening breeze fresh in our faces.

Another field trip bites the dust.

Arizona by car

One evening earlier this week I was sitting in my best friend John's room at his parent's house, nursing a Blue Moon and a virulent case of cabin fever. The two of us had finished watching a few episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion and were listening to a little music on John's souped-up surround sound system. As we sat there in reflective silence, John, who'd been having some girl troubles, suddenly perked up at the corners. He asked me if I was free on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I told him I was. I had nothing on the docket except possible flying lessons, but I hadn't scheduled those yet. 

"Want to go on a road trip?" John asked, a characteristically mischievous grin on his face. 

Let's review. I had cabin fever. I spent every day sitting in my room trying to force myself to write banal travel articles that always came out like travel brochures. Apart from that I was doing little but editing a few daily pages of my nascent novel manuscript and reliving my irresponsible college days with some rediscovered video games. So of course I said yes. Hell yes. 

 John fetched some maps and atlases and, after some brief indecision about which direction to go, we settled on Arizona. It was proximal. I'd never been to the Grand Canyon, and John had only been once, when he was too young to remember. That clinched it. We'd take the scenic route to the finest geological formation in the States, and camp there. With a clear sheet of plastic laid over the Arizonan atlas page, we traced out our route with a marker. We'd take off sometime around noon and spend a few hours on the road, spending the first night in the town of Yuma, Arizona, just over the border. The second day we'd traverse the state, passing through Phoenix, Prescott, and Flagstaff, to reach the Grand Canyon before dark and set up a tent. The third day we'd break camp, scout out the canyon, and head home on Interstate 40.

View Larger Map

We held a brief reunion on Tuesday night to compare tents. My mom loaned me a little orange two-person Marmot that she'd taken along on a bicycling trip across North Dakota. It turned out to be a bit small for John's lanky, six-foot-four frame. John's family, on the other hand, had a three-person Hillary that, though it was a tad complicated to assemble, was admirably spacious. We split, packed, assembled what gear we could from our families' respective stores, and met up at my house at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, to load up and hit the road.

After a quick stop in Lucerne Valley for my half of the groceries (bagels, peanut butter, strawberry jam, cheese sticks, fruit, and some batteries), we headed southeast down old Highway 247. We got into the rhythm of the thing right away. John had a black notebook in his backpack that we rapidly came to refer to as "the log." Whenever anything noteworthy happened—say, we passed by a palm tree farm, or neared a natural landmark, or got stopped by the Border Patrol—I would enter it in the log. In this way, we recorded our passage through Yucca Valley, where we switched to California Highway 62; our subsequent traversal of Morongo Valley, and our merger with Interstate 10 East; and our eventual connection to Interstate 8, after a little meandering on State Highways 86, 78 and 111. 

During this languorous tour of the Southern Mojave, we passed the impressively vast Salton Sea (none of my pictures of which came out very well). We also drove through the tiny, grubby town of Brawley, near El Centro, where every third person's immigration status was cast into severe doubt. Here we appropriately stopped to go to the bathroom. 

Eventually we entered upon I-8 and headed east toward Arizona.

The weather was fine: 70s and 80s, with a light breeze and broken clouds. John's iPod was hooked up to his Chrysler Concorde's superb stereo, and a steady stream of country and contemporary tunes was wafting out of the speakers. Both of us had our sunglasses on and were feeling freer by the minute. Our minds had been heavy. My financial situation was deteriorating rapidly, and John was having some personal relationship problems of his own. A road trip was just what the doctor ordered. We execrated every jerk who passed us, commented on the scenery and the music we listened to, and made masculine small-talk. 

And so, after a few short hours of sand dunes, creosote bushes, scant farmland, and a nominal encounter with the Border Patrol (they asked us if we were American citizens, and then let us through), we found ourselves in Yuma, Arizona.

We signed into the nearest Motel 6, dumped off our heavier suitcases, and sallied forth once more into the gathering dusk. John had to get himself an adapter cable for his iPod. As an employee of Geek Squad, he was dumbfounded by the minuscule size of Yuma's Best Buy. It was cramped and laid out illogically, he said. He found his cable while I checked Facebook on the nearest Snow Leopard. We were also at a loss for a camping stove. My family possessed several, but during that morning's trials, all had proved to be either inoperable or undetectable. So John and I had ventured forth that morning resolving to stop at the soonest Wal-Mart or Target and purchase a stove instead. 

Serendipitously, as we exited the Best Buy, we spotted the telltale Target logo across the street. We entered just as the red sun's last dying rays lit the storefront, the voice of Taylor Swift still ringing in our ears. We located a small $28 stove and a bottle of propane, purchased both, recrossed the highway, stopped for cabbage at Wells Fargo, and finally set our minds to the problem of nourishment. 

 There happened to be a tasty-looking Mexican restaurant a few yards from our motel. This being Yuma, within shouting distance of the border, we figured we couldn't go wrong with Mexican food this night. The restaurant's name was Chretin's, after Señor Chretin, a World War II veteran who constructed the eatery in 1946. Since then, apparently, the venue has entertained some of the most famous names in America: everyone from John Wayne to Kim Basinger to George Bush the Elder has eaten there, according to the guest list hung on the wall. The food bore that litany out. Consisting of fresh vegetables and meat, accompanied by homemade tortillas and chips, the beef enchiladas were far more authentically Mexican than anything else I've sampled. John's tacos, he said, were incredible. Moreover, the service was excellent. Neither of us ever lacked for drinks.

Speaking of drinks, we adjourned to the bar after paying our bill. I had an Ultimate Margarita (mixed by the lovely new barmaid, Leah, late of Huntington Beach) and John sipped a beer. We cast occasional glances at the World Series on the TV, and I flirted a little with Leah, competing with the middle-aged, polo shirt-wearing man a couple of seats down. Leah took it all in good grace, I with a few grains of salt on the rim of my margarita glass. 

Concluding our after-dinner libations, John and I settled up and retreated to Room 245. There we watched a nameless Bruce Willis flick (in which the aging warrior faces down both a trio of petty crooks holed up in a rich man's home, and a shadowy gang of masked conspirators seeking a mysterious DVD). During the commercials, John fired up some music on his laptop and introduced me to Mathisyahu, a full-bearded, hat-wearing, card-carrying young Jew who nonetheless can reggae like a professional. He regularly performs live, and his beatboxing is nothing short of miraculous. Take that, Muhammad. 

 Then we turned in for the night.

the Apple Valley Airshow and other desert doings

Not much has happened over the past few days, and yet so much has. That is to say, by readers' standards, what's been going on is rather humdrum. By my standards—seeing as how it's my life and all—quite a bit has happened. I'll tell you about it anyway, shall I?

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. Saturday, October 3, was a red-letter day in Apple Valley. There were two events going on, the Equine Affair (sort of a rodeo-cum-horse show open to all livestock owners in the area) and the airshow. We stopped off at both. We went into town about 10:30 to get some stuff done, and since the Horsemen's Center is right off Highway 18 on our way into town, we had a gander at the Equine Affair. It was mildly interesting—all the feed stores in the area had set up display booths, as had the farriers. Other parties had brought horses, so there were a bunch of people in cowboy hats riding about on beautiful paint and quarter horses. There were also some neat miniature horses standing by for people to cuddle with.

We stayed only long enough for Dad to locate a heavy equipment dealer who our neighbor Sharon knew. She'd told him that Dad was a gunsmith and he had expressed interest. Dad found him and they exchanged contact information, and then we were on our way again. We hit a couple more places, and then (as I'd been eagerly hoping) we turned down Dale Evans Parkway to the Apple Valley Airport, on the northern outskirts of town. A tiny general aviation airport, the place is even smaller than Cheyenne Regional. But that day it was packed. People of all ages and sizes were going back and forth from the dusty lot where their hundreds of cars were parked onto the apron at the airfield. 



The first thing I noticed after we paid the $2 admission fee and walked in the gates was a Rockwell Commander parked with its door thrown open, inviting people inside. I would've killed to get inside and sit in the cockpit—but that would've involved infanticide. The plane was a hit with the little kids. I never got a chance. Oh well, I got a photo-op with the Predator drone at least. 

Moving on, we discovered that Apple Valley Aviation, the flight school I hope to attend, had hauled out its fleet onto the tarmac and was displaying them for the public. I looked over their Cessna 310K, which I'd be using for my multi-engine rating, and perhaps my commercial license as well. 

The rest of the airshow passed in the blur of whirling propellers. I saw a P-51 Mustang, a P-47 Thunderbolt and a P-40 Tomahawk, all great favorite World War II fighters of mine, do flybys—and come taxiing down the runway after landing. This one's the Thunderbolt. 

I'm particularly proud of this photograph, just so you know. Ain't that a beautiful piece of machinery? You should've heard it roar as it flew over. I'm 75% German, and I got a strange urge to duck.

We walked further along the flight line and saw a life-size replica of the Red Baron's triplane (with a life-size replica of Snoopy in the cockpit).

I got to peek inside one of the California Highway Patrol's nifty Eurocopters, and meet one of the pilots, with a .45 automatic holstered at his waist (cool!).

Finally, I got to drool all over the B-25 Mitchell parked in the center of the flight apron ("Photo Fanny"), and be blackly jealous of its pilot, who would be flying it out of there at 4:00. The B-25 is a seriously cool airplane, folks. I dig warbirds, and have ever since the age of 14, but the Mitchell has always been one of my favorites. What a sexy beast! 

We wandered out, and went over for a bite at the Phoenix House. It's a Chinese restaurant on the corner of Navajo Road and Bear Valley that has been there since I was in high school. And get this—we haven't been in to eat there since we left for Wyoming three years ago, and the old proprietress recognized us. She remembered us perfectly. It was like we'd only been in the week before. She couldn't believe I was 23 already. She asked me if I was married yet, which made me go red (she's a past master at making me blush). What I should've said was "You got a daughter?"

We ordered up our old favorites: hot-and-sour soup for starters, followed by three-flavor delight (Mom likes this, a blend of pork, beef, and shrimp with assorted vegetables over rice), Szechuan chicken (Dad's favorite of course, being hot and spicy) and sweet-and-sour pork. Normally I go for the shrimp with lobster Sauce, but this time I decided to shake things up a bit. It was a lovely day, I'd found my old safari jacket packed away in a box in my room, my beard was actually longer than an eighth of an inch for the first time in my life, and I was feelin' mighty fine. We ate and departed with much good cheer. That was Saturday.

Later that afternoon, the winds were howling along at forty miles an hour, gusting to sixty. The Santa Ana winds had kicked up with a vengeance. With the worst timing possible, a wildfire sprung up in the San Gabriel Mountains, near Wrightwood. The ferocious winds fanned the flames and blew smoke throughout the entire valley. It was a disorienting thing to wake up Sunday morning and see a perfect river of smoke flowing through the sky thousands of feet overhead, heading northeast, following the path of the jet stream.

In that howling wind, Dad and I flung ourselves under my '95 Jeep Cherokee to fix the hoses. Remember, while my Jeep technically passed its smog test, it still couldn't be registered, because the filler and vent hoses were leaking and needed to be replaced. The repairs would have cost me $450. Dad figured we could do it ourselves instead, so I simply ordered up the parts through the mechanic's shop and took them home. The morning of October 4—and those ghastly winds—found us prostrate under the Jeep's rear axle, making earnest repairs. At first we figured we could simply unscrew the metal bars holding the gas tank in place and drop the tank only part of the way, in order to be able to access the hoses on top of the tank. No such luck. Quarters were so tight that we had to drop the tank all the way down. I thanked Our Lady of Internal Combustion that I had only about a quarter of a tank of gas at the time of the repairs; if I'd had a full tank the task would've been flatly impossible. As it was, Dad and I had a devil of a time wrestling the tank out of its slot and lowering it onto a makeshift platform—while laying flat on our backs under it. But we did it. We took out the old hoses (which were chewed and worn through in places), slapped the new ones on, somehow hoisted the gas tank back into its proper place, and screwed it back in. Whew!

It was then time for some beer and some football, no doubt about it. Too bad the Chargers lost to the Steelers 28-38. That was a real letdown. I almost thought they'd pull the rabbit out of the hat, seeing as how they were down by 28 points through most of the game. But no, even Darren Sproles couldn't make up for the deplorable holes in the defense. Shucks. Next game's October 19. Double-shucks.

On Monday the fifth, I finally, finally managed to get my Jeep registered with the state. (You remember what a hassle that's been, right?) I drove the Jeep down to A-Action to have it re-tested. It passed. I came straight back home to get my registration paperwork (which, in retrospect, I should have taken with me when I left in the first place; it would've saved me a trip). I retrieved it, and since the hour was still reasonably early (as I thought) I decided to try to hit the DMV and get it registered that very same day.

I'm not going to go into a lengthy description of the California Department of Motor Vehicles. I'm sure many of you reading this are familiar with the DMV in your own state and can identify with me, and those of you that aren't have gotten an earful already. So I won't describe the mile-long, 'round-the-building lines, or appointment schedules months backlogged, or the rainclouds over the heads of the people on both sides of the desk. Suffice to say that, when I drove down to the Victorville DMV, the line was going around the building, twice. I went there merely on a whim; I suspected in my heart of hearts that the crowd would be prohibitive.

So I swung away, got on Interstate 15, and drove to Barstow. Barstow is this wonderful little town about 30 miles north of Apple Valley, right in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It's about as crappy as Victorville and Apple Valley on a per capita basis, but since the population is drastically lower, the crappiness is not as noticeable. Plus there's a neat little gem store there where you can buy all sorts of cool rocks, and a Sherman tank in desert camo set up at the entrance to the downtown area. It was that downtown area to which I drove, exiting the highway, turning left on Barstow Road and hanging a quick right down Virginia Way, whence lay the Barstow DMV.

Now, customarily, the Barstow DMV is far less crowded than Victorville's. This is—or was—a well-kept secret, and for years a furtive legion of tri-city residents has been sneaking up to Barstow to get their vehicles licensed and their driving tests taken.

No longer. Somebody squealed. When I pulled into the parking lot there was a line out the door and along the windows of the Blockbuster Video next door. Only a fraction of the lines at Victorville, certainly, but still an inconvenient wait.

Oh well, I thought to myself as I parked and clambered out into the 70-degree sunshine, I came all this way so I might as well stick it out.

And I'm glad I did, despite the two-hour wait I endured. The façade of the Blockbuster was decorated with faux-stucco pillars. In one hour, I had moved approximately three pillars, or about forty feet. It took another hour to round the corner and get in the door, and about 20 minutes to get from the door to the counter...about twenty-five feet or so. That was the only downside. I had a very interesting conversation with a short, swarthy, craggy-faced Barstow man who was registering his vehicle as well, and was worried that they wouldn't take ATM cards. Better yet, I managed to get all of my stuff done: I not only completed my registration, but I also applied for a California driver's license. (Both should be mailed to me within two weeks.)

I stopped by a Valero station on the way out of town to grab a snack (an awful gas station roast beef sandwich, some Sun Chips, a Nutri-Grain bar, and some Tropicana orange juice; it reminded me forcibly of the kind of meals I subsisted on when commuting three days to college every August and January).

Best of all, I got to come back home on the 247.

Beautiful, ain't it? It's old Highway 247, which turns into Barstow Road as you come into town. It's the back way out of and into Barstow from Apple Valley. After some winding turns across the stark beauty of the desert, and one pass over a 4148-foot mountaintop, it dumps you out on Highway 18, right in the middle of Lucerne Valley, hardly a stone's throw from my house. From someone who lives where I do (off Milpas Road) it's a sweeter deal than coming back on I-15 and having to bulldoze my way back through Victorville and Apple Valley traffic. Not to mention that it's scenic as all get-out. I thoroughly enjoyed the 40-minute drive back in the cool autumn air. And that was Monday.

Tuesday (today) I went into town with Mum to do something I should've done a long time ago: get my own bank account. Mom and I have had a joint account ever since I first opened one in 2000. Now that I'm all done with college and have gotten back from abroad, it's high time I took charge of my own finances. So we did that, closing my old student account (with the help of a lovely Wells Fargo representative, Dori) and reopening another one.

And you want to know something scary? On this new account, I pay $75 every month into my IRA. I'm only 23, for cryin' out loud. Yeah, I know that the sooner you start, the more you'll end up with, but still, it's a scary thing to be thinking about this so soon. Yikes. I'm not ready for this. I never really figured I'd retire anyway. I always thought I'd keep flying and tending bar until I drilled a hole in the ground or got shot. Strange to think of saving for retirement now...

Ah, but how callous of me to worry about things like my personal finances, waiting in lines, and the state of San Diego's defense, when there are poor people in Wrightwood whose homes burned down! Sadly, the Sheep Fire, which I mentioned earlier, eventually spread to 7,500 acres and burned several homes. The entire town of Wrightwood had to evacuated, and it was only today (the sixth) that they were let back in. All today, while out and about in the valley, Mom and I could look up at the slopes of Mount Baldy and see the smoke wafting up from it, gradually dying down. The fire is now under control, last I heard. Once the Santa Ana winds died, the firefighters had things a lot easier. The cool autumn temperatures helped, too. Thank goodness that's over. Lord knows we don't need any more fires this season.

Oh yeah, one more thing: last night I sat down on my bed, comic books, various novels, CDs, cell phone, glass of water, USB drive, and reference volumes scattered and piled close at hand, and took an enormous chunk out of the novel. I banged out 7,500 words (the same number of acres burned by the Sheep Fire—how's that for a spooky bit of coincidence?). In so doing, I took care of the climax. Now all that's left is the denouement...which I'm about to start working on now. That means I could have this novel of mine—my very first—finished tonight. Tonight. After having worked on it for nearly a year, and various other versions of the same story since I was 19 years old. Finished. Completely.

Now that's scary.