18th May - 'I been driving all night, my hands wet on the wheel'

Right, time to get out of this den of iniquity and head East across the country for another 800 mile drive!
Guess what?
It was really hot!
On the way out of town we stopped off at City Hall to get some more Dirty Harry shots.
Then we began to eat up the miles in our trusty Toyota Rav 4. She had been a good runner, serving us well down the west coast and up and down the treacherous hills of San Francisco.
But unbeknownst to us she was tired. Tired and thirsty. Tired and thirsty and unwell. If she'd have told us we would have helped her. But she did not tell us, she attempted to push on into the desert towards Grand Canyon, the brave little tyke.
As we trundled up a hill she could take it no more. We had driven her for four hours straight in oppressively hot conditions, but did she beep at us or attract our attention with a little light? No she did not. She died quietly, peacefully and with no steamy fuss in the middle of fucking nowhere.














After letting her cool down for an hour and hearing a snake in the bushes which hastened my path back inside the car with great ferocity we relied upon her to take us to the next habitable town, the name of which escapes me.
Alamo were good but their nearest replacement car was in Burbank which is in LA...
SO we had to wait for four hours in which time it got dark. We had some food in City Slickers - Yee-haw! Then we ran the battery on the laptop and the car down watching episodes of The Office in a hotel car-park while we waited for the cavalry. A lot of people in this town have affairs and choose this hotel to rut in or to swap cars before going home.
The very nice man named Michael brought us a car which was a welcome relief but at the same time could also be described as a shitty Nissan.
Not to worry! Let's get some miles under our belts after all this wasted time! Let's go really fast down the dark empty freeways! There are sure to be no police around here!
Ten minutes in and we're doing 90 in a 65. Wooo! We'll be there in no time!
I didn't know they have stealth police cars in America but from out of nowhere come the flashing lights. Oh bollocks. I did what you're supposed to do, slowed down and pulled off to the left side of the road - except this is the US so you're supposed to pull over to the right of course. I suddenly realised this and swerved back over the other side to finally pull over, which made me look like I was pissed up. He went full on with the spotlight and everything which shit me up real good cos these fuckers have guns and probably take steroids.

Ian and I must have speaking about three-thousand words a minute as we explained that we are English, stupid, had broken down and I'm so sorry please don't give me the full cavity search. He couldn't hear a word we were saying and got bored after a bit, took pity and let us off but not before a quick chiding 'the speed limit on this road is 65 miles per hour; that 6...5 MILES per hour not kilometres'.

The last bit doesn't make sense cos if I thought the speed limits were in kilometres I would have been going slower.... I decided to not point this out and drove for the next three hours with the cruise control set on 75mph (they're not going to notice 10mph are they?)

I drove til three in the morning, the adrenaline still pumping in my veins but the other two demanded rest so we stopped at a Best Western in the town of Needles.
Two things stood out here.
1. Lots of insects which made me very uneasy.
2. A man wearing nothing but short shorts sprinting across a petrol station forecourt in the middle of the night. I would label him a homosexual amphetamine freak but it's wrong to generalise.