Chapter 4

We don't generally drive the freeway. Getting around town Cecelia and I both prefer the surface streets, and even when we go to Leanna to visit her family, way back east in Alabama, we find US highways and state and county roads, just because they're more interesting.

But Wednesday morning we woke up Darlia and thoroughly surprised her, and put her in the Blazer where she promptly went back to sleep, excitement or not, and I pulled out of the Hoffmantown neighborhood we live in onto Wyoming Boulevard going south. I drove past Indian School and Constitution, and turned onto I-40 going west. Except for stops, we wouldn't be off the freeway till we hit California.

We do it that way for a couple of reasons. The main one is that the first time I ever took Cecelia to my desert place I was in a hurry to get there, and however boring freeways may be they're definitely fast. Second, we're always in a hurry to get there. Aside from our house on Wisconsin, it's the only place we all three love equally. And third, there just isn't any good way to get to Lanfair Valley without going at least part of the way on the freeway. The only US highway that goes anywhere near my place is 95, and it doesn't come near enough – and besides it's a north-south road. To get where we were going without taking the freeway would have meant going way out of the way.

Even on the freeway, though, it would be a long drive. We had, more or less, 600 miles to go, and while on the open freeway you can get up to speed – and beyond, if you're not like me – we don't sit in the car for hours on end. None of us are George Custer, who could stay in the saddle so long that the first name the Plains Indians gave him was Iron Backside. We get out and stretch, and eat, and use the restroom, and buy something to drink, and look at the scenery. It was going to be 10 hours or more till we got there, and if we got tired we'd just find a hotel or motel somewhere and spend the night – it wouldn't be August for a week yet, and we had time.

We wound up stopping for the night in Kingman, Arizona, about 50 miles east of the California line. We ate, and walked for a bit, and went to bed early. We'd been up since dawn, and wanted to get up early again in order to get to Lanfair Valley around 8 in the morning. It would be a two or three hour drive.

We did get up early, and while I put things back in the Blazer Cecelia and Darlia went to eat breakfast. I don't eat breakfast, and don't admit it on the rare occasions I do. Though I've learned since I got married that going to bed earlier makes mornings less horrible, I've never been a morning person and I never will be. It's immoral to eat first thing in the morning, and if it's not immoral it's certainly crazy.

I did get a Coke out of the machine, wincing at the price. I am not old, but I can remember when hotels and motels didn't require you to take out a mortgage in order to buy a Coke. Of course everything used to be cheaper, including wages, so "the good old days" weren't as glorious as sometimes people remember them. Yeah, it used to be you could buy a car new for $5,000, but your paycheck was smaller too.

I carried the Coke into the restaurant and found Cecelia and Darlia. Cecelia scooted over on the seat to make room for me – all the tables were busy and they were in a booth. She got a glob of scrambled eggs on her fork and offered it to me.

"Cecelia, even if it weren't morning, you know I don't eat no eggs."

"Which means you do eat at least some eggs. Open wide." Her smile was sufficient to launch ships for centuries.

"I'll open wide as soon as I'll breathe vacuum for 20 years and like it." I was partly pretending to be grumpy, but only partly – I really don't like eggs, especially in the morning.

Cecelia poked the eggs at me again, and when I showed no sign of opening my mouth, ate them. Just then the waitress appeared, but I shook my head at her and she went away again. I took a drink of my Coke, which brought the bottle down to half full, and looked at what was on Cecelia's plate. She had ham there, and hash browns, in addition to the eggs. Darlia was eating pancakes, with lots of butter and what looked like maple syrup but was probably a synthetic fake... As opposed to a real fake, my mind told me. I don't know how many people these days actually have ever seen real maple syrup. I know I haven't, but then I've only been in New England once, and it was summer, and anyway I don't do breakfast.

When my family was finished with breakfast Cecelia paid the check, and we walked out and got into the Blazer. We'd told the desk clerk it would only be for the night and we'd be leaving early, and we'd just left our keys in the room. We got onto the freeway, and headed west ... well, south actually, for I-40 takes a turn south just out of Kingman and doesn't turn back west until it's south of Yucca. Then it crosses the Colorado River at Topock, and turns north to Needles, where it starts west again. I don't know why it takes that big jog. If they'd kept going west the freeway would probably have crossed the river at Bullhead City.