My commute is about 5 miles, but LA traffic makes that about 30 minutes on a good day. My drive home Thursday night was an hour and 15 minutes. I still love it here, though. For what I gain living here, a slightly longer commute to work is a small price to pay.

We’ll be moving in about a month and a half into a house, hopefully. We’re currently looking around Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley and around West LA. I can’t wait to get my own room. I’ll finally be able to put up all of my books on a bookshelf and take the rest of my belongings out of my car.

I’ve been getting used to the area pretty well. Traffic is interesting, but it’s not really any worse than route one in Rockland in the summer; it just goes farther. I’ve been doing a lot of interviews and I’ve got a couple jobs that I should be hearing back on tomorrow. Both of them would get me earning about $40,000 a year and they both have great benefits. One is farther away, but the scenery is really beautiful, so I don’t think the drive would be that much of a problem. Either way, I should be doing pretty well fairly soon.

That’s about it for the moment. Hopefully I’ll have some good news to post about tomorrow.

We’ve also been doing some apartment searching, but it’s 2 months before we head out, so it hasn’t been very productive yet. We’re getting to know the different areas and price ranges, but that’s about all we can do for a while now.

For now, I’ll just have to take it as it comes and see what happens next.

P.S. I saw Alec Baldwin in an Apple store the other day.

Anyway, tomorrow, my path should take me, first, to the Grand Canyon, then to Needles, California. The next day I should arrive at my final destination in Los Angeles. I’m feeling mixed about it. It’s been a great trip and I really would love to see more, but I’m also really looking forward to putting down some roots and beginning the next chapter of my life. The rest of the world will just have to wait for me.

Bandelier Old Tree 1

Originally uploaded by spectre_240sx.

Things have been quite busy since my last update. I made it into Albuquerque on Friday the 13th at about 1:00 p.m. mountain time. That evening, I went with my family to the Balloon Fiesta to see a balloon blow, where a bunch of balloons are inflated and sit on the ground with the burners being run from time to time to light them up. It’s a great chance to see the balloons up close. Saturday morning we got up at 5:00 to head back down to the fiesta to see the mass ascension. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best, so a lot of balloons were forced to stay on the ground, but enough got up to make it a very interesting sight.

Sunday morning I left for Santa Fe, which was really great. I got to see the Loretto Chapel and its miraculous staircase. I Then I went around to different galleries, stores, etc. on the plaza. After that, I met up with Tom and Gale Albury and went to the top of Hyde Park, which is a park on a large mountain near Santa Fe.

The next day we set off about 9:00 a.m. for Bandelier National Monument. We spent about 3 hours there hiking through the trails and up to the caves. We even made it into the large ceremonial cave which is up 3 or 4 ladders about 150 feet in the air. It’s a breathtaking view from up there. I took a lot of photos, but most of them were taken on film, so it will be a little while before I get a chance to develop them and get them scanned for uploading.

Good and Evil

Originally uploaded by spectre_240sx.

Today was a good day. I got all the way to Amarillo Texas for a grand total of 530 miles or so. It was a bit long, but absolutely worth it. Albuquerque is 287 miles from here and I hope to make it there by mid afternoon tomorrow. Then my largest part of the trip will be over and it will be fun and sightseeing time again.

Amarillo is an interesting area. I don’t think I’d really want to spend too much time here. I’m not sure what it is about the place, but I just don’t feel all that safe. There’s a lot of litter on the ground and things are in a bit of a state of disrepair in many areas. I’ll definitely be happy to get back on the road and leave. On the good side, I do feel quite comfortable in my hotel room. I guess that’s what matters most since I’m really not going to leave it until I drive out again anyway.

About the picture, one thing I noticed is that the ground is so flat that the sky is a bit mesmerizing. I ended up driving most of the way with my sun visor down to help keep me focused more on the road. Once I did that, everything was fine and it was quite an easy drive. This is the first time I’ve actually been able to use cruise control and let my legs stretch out a bit.

Originally uploaded by spectre_240sx.

Well, I’m in much better spirits today than I was yesterday. Although there’s still a day and a half left of driving, I’m feeling great about the progress I’ve made so far. I’ve driven about 1400 miles in three days. I think that’s something to be happy about. I did run into a little bit of trouble in Nashville when the entire line of cars ahead of me stopped nearly instantaniously, but I managed to avoid an accident.

Today’s drive ended up right at 500 miles. I started at about 8:15am and I think I finished up around 5:30. I’m staying at a Holiday Inn (definitely reccommended) in Russellville, Arkansas. It’s a great little town. Everyone here is quite friendly. I got a glass of wine at the bar in the hotel and the bartender was actually from Maine. Funny how that works out, huh? One strange thing, though, is that this is apparently a dry county and you have to have a membership at every bar that you go to. It only cost me about 2 dollars, though, so it was worth it. Plus, I got a niftly little card as a souvenier.

My next stop will hopefully be Amarillo, Texas, which is about 520 miles from here. Either way I should be in New Mexico by Friday, which will be nice. I’m really looking forward to seeing my family there and to doing some sightseeing.

note:

One thing I wanted to mention is that all of the photos on the blog here link to a larger version of the photo on Flickr. From there you can see all of the photos I’ve taken so far. Have fun!

100_3213.JPG

Originally uploaded by spectre_240sx.

I’ve made it to Cookville Tennessee today. That’s 490 miles or so from where I started this morning. It’s not a bad distance for one day’s driving, but I’ve still got a long way to go. I’m a little discouraged, though, because i just realized that my trip is more likely to be about 5 days long rather than 4. That means I’ve got 3 more days of driving to do.

Anyway, the scenery today was pretty amazing. That’s definitely a plus. In a day or so I’m guessing I’ll be driving along flat ground in between cornfields without anything interesting popping up for miles.

Well, the day started off well. I got a great night of sleep and woke up feeling quite refreshed. I ran into a little trouble coming into New York where I somehow managed to get into an EZ-Pass only lane. It wasn’t bad, though. I just got yelled at and was let through. Other than that, it’s just been 8 hours or so of driving on the highway. I’m writing now from a Budget Inn in Woodstock, VA.

I tried to get some pictures, but I didn’t really end up stopping anywhere, so I only got a few from the road and a few at a rest stop.