Sandstorm

Somewhere in Texas I broke out the shorts

Funny thing about driving like hell and only stopping as needed, most of the time I can get near a customer the night (in this case, afternoon) before an appointment and do stuff.  Things get especially interesting when the destination is in a town I spent the 3 best years of my life- Tempe, Arizona.

Better than an espresso machine.

Though GDC was going on and most of the crew was out of town, I did get to hit some dinner with a few friends I hadn't seen in years and then a quick once-over on campus to see what was new.  Not a lot of stuff I didn't already know was in the works when I left, but there were a few surprises.  The hour or so on campus was spent nostalgia bombing and shooting the shit about the old days, going through 7 year old albums on facebook and laughing our asses off. It was kind of surreal, like it hasn't really been almost 4 years since I last set foot in that city but it was so embedded in my mind it felt like I was only gone a few hours.

If I don't stop, nobody can tell me to get the hell out, right?

As for the ride out there, I had a fun time spending about 2/3 of the trip on US highways 50 and 54, obviously a way I hadn't gone before but a good one to note for the future  Amazing how I did an 1800 mile ride mostly on cruise control and didn't go through a single toll booth.  

The return trip was going from Tempe to a town right next to HQ, so it was almost a perfect double back. 
Turns out this particular cycle is just as typical as the ones I take east from WI to PA from the same shipper, it's just that I never get assigned to these.  The reason for that is they prefer sending guys on that stretch with a full 70hrs to burn, which is something I will pretty much never have because it takes 25 of my 70 just to get from home to Wisconsin.  We actually had to push the Thursday afternoon appointment to Friday morning, which was no big deal because we knew by Monday afternoon when I was loaded to come back that it wasn't happening.  Still pretty lame that if only it was a 73 hour rule I would have made the original appointment.  3 hours.  That was all I needed.

Sheila wouldn't fit on the corner

And in July the rules regarding how the 70 resets are going to get tougher.  I don't think even commercial airline pilots have as many complex hour restrictions as we do.  As I've preached before, the 70 is the only rule I have to abide by that I fail to see logic in.

I had been to Winslow twice before, but never actually got the chance to walk around town.  Enjoying the weather before it got dark I did some exploring.  Ironically, something you don't see if you never get off the interstate are all the towns they killed.  Driving on state and US highways you see them a lot.  Its just mind blowing how everything is still there; stores, motels, nothing gets demolished- it all just sits there and crumbles.  I-80 runs about as closely parallel to route 66 in New Mexico and Arizona as anywhere else along its old corridor, so you can take any exit and literally be in the towns that used to thrive on it.  Winslow is a great example.

Best.  Thing.  Ever.

4 days late, 1,700 miles short.

Little known fact about UAT road trips, whenever they included trips north of town we usually made a point to stop in Camp Verde, about half way between Phoenix and Flagstaff.  Much to my dismay, the A&W/KFC that we often visited was closed down.  No root beer float for me- at least not right away.  I manged to wait until it was convenient to stop at the one in Oak Creek, WI.

Side note on massive catastrophes

In 2008 I went on a UAT field trip to see Cloverfield, and after my brain matter had found gravity again I posed a question to the rest of the group:  "How come all the bad stuff in the sci fi world happens in either New York or LA?  Why not like, Boston or Phoenix?
(Boston got it's piece in Knowing (2009) but I meant *good* sci fi)

Four years later we find via Halo 4, that Phoenix's luck finally runs out (in 2557) when most of the population is vaporized and their consciousnesses digitized and emailed to a fake planet on the other side of the galaxy.

Meet the "New Phoenix"- same as the old Phoenix.