The First Four Days...

This is the Cosmic Van (a '78 Volkswagon Bus)...





And this is the Cosmic Van at the Cosmic mechanic...





...and THAT has primarily been the story of Dylan & Tom's Excellent Adventure thusfar.

Saturday started off easy enough until the Cosmic fan belt went kaput in the middle of the Arizona desert. And to make matters worse it went kaput near the "town" of Tenopah. All I can say about Tenopah is that it's everything you'd want in a horror movie setting: nothing but vast desert in every direction, unpaved roads, abandoned homes, a permeating sense of eeriness as the sun set, and not a real life human being to be seen. It didn't take us long to make the decision that Tenopah was not for us, so we took our chances and booked it 65 miles to Phoenix with no fan belt before the engine completely gave out. We had the van Cosmic towed to the nearest mechanic specializing in German-made cars; of course it was Satuday night and they wouldn't open till Monday, which gave us plenty of time to get to know and love Tempe, Arizona.

Tempe is everything a college town should be: a hip 'downtown' area on the edge of the Arizona State campus, a booming nightlife, club after bar after club packed with college students on a nightly basis, a very nice campus amidst the rock and cacti, a strong sense of school spirit (Go Sun Devils!), and more beautiful women than I have ever seen in one place in my entire life. Basically, it is everything La Jolla and UCSD are NOT. {Except for those girls in the UCSD Theatre Dept.. Damn they're sexy ;)} Tom and I thoroughly enjoyed Saturday night in Tempe with the help of some lovely ladies we met at an ATM. They served as our Tempe/ASU guides during our stay and enjoyed drinks with us on Saturday night and sushi on Sunday night.

Of course, things weren't completely swell during our time in Tempe. On Monday our rental car got towed outside of a Starbucks. With the towing company only accepting cash, we had to cab it to a Bank of America and then back to the towing lot. Our cabbie was quite a character: a friendly semi-retired Navy vet who enjoyed blasting pro-America, pro-Jesus tunes ("JESUUUUUS IN AMEEEERICAAAA...") while telling misogynistic knee-slappers such as "What's the difference between Big Foot and a smart woman? ...they have pictures of Big Foot" and "Why do women have small feet? ...So they can be closer to the kitchen sink."

Anyway, we got the Cosmic Van back this morning, decided that the road trip actually started TODAY, and tried to start from scratch. We hit up the U. of Arizona in Tucson where we were mobbed by underclassmen for free gear (When you're giving free t-shirts to college students, they don't really care what's on the front) and hiked several hours through southern New Mexico and west Texas (the asshole of America) where we saw a whole lotta nothing. Tomorrow we make the long trek to Dallas, then Austin from there. Hopefully fun times lie ahead. Until then...