DATELINE: kingman, az                                                    

Author: Andy

I'd been to tucson once before, on my last project with IBM. I did a fair amount of siteseeing then, and decided it was imperative that I bring karl and ilteris to my favorite attraction, the Titan Missile Museum. It messes with your head, touring a nuclear missile silo with a missile still in it. The tour guide even lets you turn the key that would have launched the missile. Our guide was a veteran who had been staffed at the facility in its heyday. We could tell that working there leaves some lasting effects on your outlook towards the world.

Karl's friend Bruce took us to a nice Italian restaurant in a hip part of town. Even after exploring Tucson thoroughly for a week when I was there the first time, I completely missed that area. It's a college town afterall, and therefore I should have figured there would be a bohemian neighborhood of some kind. Anyway I realized that I'd had a fairly one-dimensional view of the town, and that there is more to it than I'd thought. Bruce's wife made some cupcakes for karl's birthday, which were delicious. They were great hosts.

This morning ilteris and I woke up at 4:30 and loaded Cannonball 2 with our luggage and Karl. I volunteered for the first leg, and made it all the way up to the grand canyon in 6 hours. We just beat the notorious phoenix rush hour (I made extensive use of the carpool lane). I am so glad I got the FM transmitter working again. Listening to my own music was key to my success. The best part of the drive was when the sun came up and all the mountains glowed red and orange. I was driving at 85mph listening to good music. It was a fairly inspiring moment.

I'd been to the grand canyon twice before, but it was fun seeing it through karl and ileris' eyes. For some reason there was a lot of corvettes cruising around the south rim. They're apparently having some sort of convention. I wonder, though, about parading around in those right by something that is clearly more awe-inspiring than your car will ever be. I'm glad we stopped by, although on the way out of the park we stopped at the most unnerving Wendy's I've ever been to. The lady behind the counter was super-hyper and laughed at everything anyone said and had a gigantic creepy smile. Also, the place was crowded with an even mix of midwestern families and surly bearded bikers. Now we're on the road to vegas. It's exciting to know that within a couple hours these guys will see both Hoover Dam and Las Vegas Blvd for the first time.