Back in the USSR

"Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee, it's good to be back home."  Well, no, I recognized the place (not the USSR, but California) right away and gee, it's good to be back home.  It's cold and foggy in Daly City right now, deeply gloomy, depressingly gray and I am so happy about that.  I know I have said this before, but that condition that people get when they haven't had enough sunshine? It's called SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I have the opposite disorder.  I have SDM.  Sunshine Depresses Me.  Not sunshine per se.  Just tons of sunshine.  Too many sunny days make me gloomy.  I like a little sun and then some overcast days.  Then a little sun, like three days and then some rain.  Then some more rain, like 15 days and two sunny days. Then more rain.  In the summer, if it really must be sunny, it is best, for me, if the temp does not exceed 75.  And best if there are a couple of cloudy days per week and the nights cool down to 65, minimum.

So, you can see why my stay in Texas was so shocking. It wasn't just the heat, it was no cloudy days.  Sun, sun, sun, over and over. It was relentless, like a Chinese water torture, drip by drip, sunny day after sunny day, no cool nights. It was as if I was in a science fiction movie, being tortured by light, sunny, happy aliens.  But they weren't aliens, they were just the weather people on TV, every day saying the dreaded words:  TRIPLE DIGITS.   Those two words were like a Satan mantra in Texas, every friggin day I was there.  TD, TD, TD over and over.  I was not happy about that. But I could not change it. I was a prisoner of the weather, sunny, hot and cruel. It was meltingly mad.

OK, TMI, deep breath,  but now I am back in the land that I know, the coast I love and random parts of my random families that I love.  I drove 3,000  miles, almost exactly, from Texas a week ago. I drove through these states:  Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and back to California. Nine states in 6 days, three thousand miles, a huge national park and numerous state parks, several doggish motels and perhaps two nice ones, one really awful meal and many apples, cheese and cracker dinners.  Two McDonald's Egg McMuffins, four small double lattes from Starbucks, lots of BeerNuts, four yogurts taken from my free crappy breakfast buffets provided by the many motels I stayed in, a roll of Starburst, one Snickers bar, many raisins and dried cranberries, one package of Peanut M&Ms, two Lean Cuisines bought at local markets and nuked in the privacy of my sleazy hotel room, a pint of Johnny Walker, a pint of Jack, two bottles of wine, a box of animal crackers, some bad beef jerky and at least ten large bottles of water.  Really, that's all I can remember eating in the six days on the road. Nothing good. Never had a pizza delivered to my room, although I thought about it often. Never really went out to eat because that was never an option in the small towns I stayed in. 

Here in Daly City it is quiet and nice and it is like being home.  Tomorrow I leave again, moving northward.  I hope I can find a more permanent perch than what I have had the last week and I think that is possible. Maybe. Perhaps.

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