AArdvark's Arizona trip thread

[AArdvark]

Anybody know what lake that is?

[AArdvark]

Amybody know whose Hopi kids those are?

[AArdvark]

Funny how they all look the same after a while, no matter how old they are

[Tdarcos]

Funny how they all look the same after a while, no matter how old they are

'Vark, Matthew McConaughey said something like that about high school girls in Dazed and Confused.

Actually he said they keep staying the same age matter how old he gets. But the comment still works.

[Tdarcos]

I was just honest with the security checkpoint guard and told him we were all firearms free, its better than being a dick.

Its best not to fuck with those guys.

There is a BIG difference between interstate crossings and border crossings. The government has a legitimate security interest in keeping contraband out of the country, and the Supreme Court has recognized their right to search incoming persons.

This does not, however, apply to interstate inquiries, including border patrol checkpoints within the United States. One is not "being a dick," by refusing to answer questions, one is standing up for their constitutional rights, something that people fought and died over to provide them to us. You are under no obligation to answer any questions even at the border, and outside of border crossings you are under no obligation to permit a search. In fact, like anything else not regularly exercised, you'll lose the ability to use your rights if you don't exercise them. In fact, if you refuse a search, they do so anyway, and they find something they think is contraband, it's much easier to get the search results suppressed in court if you refused a search. In fact, it's basically impossible to exclude search evidence if you consent.

Oh, but you're innocent? Do you know everything that happened in that car? Was it absolutely impossible for anyone near it to have ever stashed or dropped something in it? If you bought the car used, what might a previous owner or user have left behind or secreted somewhere? If you're driving a car and you were stupid enough to consent to a search and police find contraband, you're responsible for its possession; not knowing it's there is no excuse.

Police are not your friends, your confidant, or your buddy. They are here to prevent crime, and collect information to solve crime. You do not want to be the target of their investigation or supply them information that can lead them to suspect you of committing crime, and the easiest way to prevent that is to keep your fucking mouth shut.

Professor James Duane gave a classroom lecture on why you should never talk to the police, including how an innocent, truthful answer given to the police could be enough to get an innocent man convicted, whereas if he had said nothing, certain evidence the prosecution was able to use to help convict him would have been inadmissible. At the end of his speech, Prof. Duane turns it over to a detective for the Virginia Beach police, who, the first thing he says, is that everything Professor Duane said was correct. And he explains ways he gets criminals to confess. It's only 45 minutes, very interesting, and well worth watching.

[Flack]

Hoover Dam is federal property. All vehicles entering the area are subject to search. People refusing to answer questions will not be allowed access and may be detained by federal authorities for further questioning and/or searches.

[AArdvark]

Are we still on about this? I answered truthfully and we went on our way.

[pinback]

I was just honest with the security checkpoint guard and told him we were all firearms free, its better than being a dick.

Its best not to fuck with those guys.

There is a BIG difference between interstate crossings and border crossings. The government has a legitimate security interest in keeping contraband out of the country, and the Supreme Court has recognized their right to search incoming persons.

This does not, however, apply to interstate inquiries, including border patrol checkpoints within the United States. One is not "being a dick," by refusing to answer questions, one is standing up for their constitutional rights, something that people fought and died over to provide them to us. You are under no obligation to answer any questions even at the border, and outside of border crossings you are under no obligation to permit a search. In fact, like anything else not regularly exercised, you'll lose the ability to use your rights if you don't exercise them. In fact, if you refuse a search, they do so anyway, and they find something they think is contraband, it's much easier to get the search results suppressed in court if you refused a search. In fact, it's basically impossible to exclude search evidence if you consent.

Oh, but you're innocent? Do you know everything that happened in that car? Was it absolutely impossible for anyone near it to have ever stashed or dropped something in it? If you bought the car used, what might a previous owner or user have left behind or secreted somewhere? If you're driving a car and you were stupid enough to consent to a search and police find contraband, you're responsible for its possession; not knowing it's there is no excuse.

Police are not your friends, your confidant, or your buddy. They are here to prevent crime, and collect information to solve crime. You do not want to be the target of their investigation or supply them information that can lead them to suspect you of committing crime, and the easiest way to prevent that is to keep your fucking mouth shut.

Professor James Duane gave a classroom lecture on why you should never talk to the police, including how an innocent, truthful answer given to the police could be enough to get an innocent man convicted, whereas if he had said nothing, certain evidence the prosecution was able to use to help convict him would have been inadmissible. At the end of his speech, Prof. Duane turns it over to a detective for the Virginia Beach police, who, the first thing he says, is that everything Professor Duane said was correct. And he explains ways he gets criminals to confess. It's only 45 minutes, very interesting, and well worth watching.

Paul, can I talk to you for a minute, in the other room?

[Tdarcos]

Paul, can I talk to you for a minute, in the other room?

No. I already know what you're going to tell me, I'm ff topic and too wordy. I kind of realized it later but then it was too late to edit a saved message. He'd pushed my buttons by criticizing a person's right to exercise their constitutional rights.

But more than that, you quoted my entire message to make a one-line comment. That's a red flag of stupidity, when you're too stupid to know you're supposed to cut back the other person's quote to what's necessary. And I don't want to talk to stupid people. In fact, I shouldn't even be talking to you, the stupid might rub off on me. Ou weight, eye thinck I'm tew latyt.

[pinback]

Paul, can I talk to you for a minute, in the other room?

No. I already know what you're going to tell me, I'm ff topic and too wordy. I kind of realized it later but then it was too late to edit a saved message. He'd pushed my buttons by criticizing a person's right to exercise their constitutional rights.

But more than that, you quoted my entire message to make a one-line comment. That's a red flag of stupidity, when you're too stupid to know you're supposed to cut back the other person's quote to what's necessary. And I don't want to talk to stupid people. In fact, I shouldn't even be talking to you, the stupid might rub off on me. Ou weight, eye thinck I'm tew latyt.

Just a quick word? In the other room?

[Tdarcos]

Hoover Dam is federal property. All vehicles entering the area are subject to search.

Flack, I want to apologize. I had to look it up. i thought Hoover Dam was still on a public highway, I did not know they closed the Arizona exit so the only way in is from the Nevada side. Federal property or not, the rules are different when traveling through on a public highway, especially if it's the only road in the area.

That's probably why they closed the road, turning it from a public highway into a restricted federal installation.

I didn't know it was exclusively a visitation site and was no longer a public highway. I apologize for my ignorance.

Chalk it off to me spending too much time talking to Pinback, I think his stupid is leaking onto me.

[pinback]

Quick word?

[AArdvark]

Can we move interstate traffic issues into the politics base so I can get back to posting more scenery pix and an epilogue?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Sorry about that

I’ll let this one slide if the admin will.

It's fine, she's got a mask on.

[Flack]

Amybody know whose Hopi kids those are?

During your trip, did you get hit up by any of the locals selling things?

The last time we were there, we saw people with big blankets on the ground covered in turquoise jewelry taped to the blankets. First sign of a ranger, the blankets got rolled up and whisked away... almost like they'd done it before.

[AArdvark]

I saw her leaving, with clothes on and mask off, and I thought meth-head for sure. It's weird how there's SUCH a lack of self-respect on that street. It's bad enough with the skanks on the Strip, dressed up like showgirls with the big headdress feathers and suchlike, handing out pr0n flyers and asking twenty bucks to pose for a picture. Then there's the leather bikini skanks with whips and chains and things asking twenty bucks to let you pose with them (I didn't). THEN you hit Freemont street and you see topless skanks dressed like nuns, or the above picture. Even the bums have no self respect. I saw cardboard signs that read: "I won't lie, I need a blunt" or "Too ugly to prostitute, please help"

Man, I thought the homeless fake vets were bad, at least they're TRYING.

Didn't give away any money to bums, or slots.

THE
HARD EARNED
AARDVARK

[AArdvark]

The only natives we saw were in Winslow. They were in a van, monitoring an old medicine woman (or something) who would come up to the tourists and ask for a donation to the Hopi tribe in exchange for a stick of rolled up herbs of some kind. I heard one tourist tell another tourist that when burned, it's supposed to cleanse one's house of evil spirits.

All my evil spirits are in bottles, on the top shelf of the pantry, so no need for wrapped up roadside weeds.

THE
BEGONE, FOUL CRONE
AARDVARK

[AArdvark]

DAY ONE

GETTING THERE

IT was four thirty in the morning. I was standing in a slowly moving line with my shoes in one hand, inhaling the aroma of feet. I wished that I was smelling coffee but there was no way I would get past the TSA screeners with a Starbuck's grande. I sighed, thinking that I would have to pay premium airport prices, something that I would get used to in the coming week.
It was vacation time and my wife and I and a couple of friends were off to Arizona for nine days. Let me say here that I am not an enthusiastic traveler. I can manage just fine when the need to travel arises but I am just as content to sit on my back deck with a martini, thinking up Crazy Doodles. But there's family in Mesa that we haven't seen in seventeen years and the wife is really jacked to see the Grand Canyon and other western touristy spots.

It was about then that I realized the foot smell wasn't coming from my own shoes as I had first thought, it was the guy in front of me. Breaking out of my no-coffee stupor, I examined him from the back. An average sized guy, middle thirties or early forties, blue jeans, long sleeved striped shirt, kinda dingy. When I get bored I play this game of guessing someone's occupation. This guy's got that doesn't-go-out-in-public look, so he's possibly a Unix programmer or slightly autistic janitor. Then I saw his hair. He's bald but is trying to hide it with a back-to-font combover. Imagine if a really bald guy grew a mullet (like that ugly heavy metal guy) and combed it up from the back.
Shuffling behind him I started wondering what the guy's ancestors looked like as cave men, and how his DNA survived through the eons. Must have been after they invented alcohol because his male ancestors sure weren't getting any sober procreation with hair like that. I wondered what other cave men would think of such a ridiculous hairstyle. They'd probably hoot and point and throw mastodon bones at him. This thought made me chuckle silently. Then I wondered if he did it himself or did he patronize a hair salon, run by, say, Helen Keller. I got an image in my head of this guy sitting in a Helen Keller hair salon, three or four barbers with dark glasses and scissors, all bumping into stuff and shouting Waaaa-Waaaa!
I laughed even harder now, snorting quietly. My wife, who knows me all too well, saw me laughing and then saw what I was laughing at and hit me in the elbow, something that I have grown used to. She gave me a why-don't-you-grow-up look, something that I have also grown used to. I was about to explain to her in whispers that it wasn't Wally Weirdhair (for that was obviously the guy's name) but a Helen Keller salon that got me going. But it was my turn in the scanner and I had to compose myself.

Flying used to be fun. Now it's just a bus ride in the sky. I always think of flying as kind of a bumpy airborne waiting room, but at least on an airplane you know when the wait will be over. This time while I was waiting I pondered some of the odd practices of airlines. One of the things I will never understand is why they never board the people sitting in the back of the airplane first. It would certainly be more efficient than having to wait for everyone to store their stuff in the overhead bins and sit down. But it's all about letting the first-class passengers go first. Perhaps they should institute a Last-In-First-Out prestige mentality, like the Grateful Dead. 'Plebes in the back, please.'
It's just so inefficient the way it is now. I didn't bring any carry-on luggage, everything got checked at the terminal. If they lose my stuff I can always buy more underwear and t-shirts. And I don't have to dick around putting on a backpack, feeling like the old Junk Woman in Labyrinth ('here's little horsie, ya loves your little horsie, don'tcha, hmmm?').
Another thing they should eliminate is the so-called food service on these regional jets. It's just a hang-over from the glory days of in-flight meals. These days they offer you a choice of a hamster-food biscuit or a pack of fun size Cheezits. Why don't they just hand that stuff out while boarding, or better yet, just leave snacks in the magazine pouch. I suppose pushing that cart up and down the aisle gives the flight attendants something to do.

We had a short layover in Chicago and my wife asked me to go buy some of that 'really, really good popcorn' they have here. I looked at the wall map. The O'Hare airport is really, really big and of course the popcorn store is at the most extreme point from our departure gate. It took me almost a half hour to walk there. Later I looked in the back of the SkyMall magazine and saw that the walking time from end to end in O'Hare takes twenty five minutes. Ug. While walking through the concourse I realized that airports are really just big malls for rich people, you can't shop there without a boarding pass.
Naturally there was a line at the popcorn store, because, as you know, it's really, really good popcorn. I got in line and waited, glancing up at the wall clock from time to time. Must move along now, people, got a plane to catch. After ten minutes or so there was only one person ahead of me, an old biddy trying to make up her mind what flavors she would have. Apparently you can mix two popcorn flavors together and get really, really super-delicious popcorn! whatever. I glance at the clock again. It's getting close to my boarding time and I still have to walk all the way back to my gate. The old biddy is having trouble dealing with mixed flavors of popcorn because she couldn't be bothered to figure this out BEFOREHAND while she was waiting in line. Then she starts texting her grandson to ask him what flavors he wants. Are you KIDDING me right now! My hands clench as I realize I have to perform a popcorn-related mercy killing right in the middle of a public airport. I don't have time for this shit.
But with infinite patience I waited my turn and bought two of the smallest bags of corn and zoomed out of there. Luckily I found a shortcut through the food court (yes, they have a food court there) and I got back just in time for them to announce our boarding. The popcorn was ok but not really, really great.

We stepped out of the Phoenix airport into ninety five degree heat. It was like climbing into a turkey oven. It turns out that they don't put the car rental places near the airports anymore, because that would make things too easy for the travelers. This way everyone has to load all their luggage aboard a shuttle bus and be driven to a different city. I swear it was a forty minute ride to get to the car rental terminal, with everyone making dumb jokes and small talk about the weather.

Getting our rental car was the last step. Soon I could be master of my own fate again. Of course they tried to nickel and dime me for everything, they always do.
"Sir, if you'd like to add an additional driver that will be an extra thirteen dollars....a day."
I wondered how they could know who was driving the car at any given time. "Er, no thank you."
"How about our Road-bug insurance?"
Maybe I was having heat stroke or something, did she say road-bugs?
"What's that?" I asked.
"If your car gets hit by a random road bug you're covered."
"A road-bug? But we already bought the damage waiver."
"Yes, but this is our Road-bug insurance. It's only twelve dollars....a day."
She presented me with a tablet and stylus. We were standing in a parking lot in five hundred degree heat. The sweat was drying on me as fast as I could produce it. I swear I could feel my socks melting to my legs. The bank clock across the street said it was only a little after noon but my stomach was telling me it was five o clock somewhere and how soon before you get something down besides hamster food, asshole. Our rental SUV was freshly washed and already running, I only had to sign the pad and I could climb inside into arctic coolness and start looking for a restaurant.
"Uh, no thanks, I'll take my chances with the road bugs."
Her smile faltered a little. "The damage waiver doesn't cover everything, you know. How about our kitty crash coverage?"
I was definitely having heat stroke. She offered the tablet again and I noticed that she had more teeth than was humanly possible, or possibly it was just the sun glare. I blinked and looked away, into the car. I thought I saw drifting snow coming out of the A/C vents and there was a penguin in the back seat eating an Eskimo pie. I understood her game now. She knew I was from the northeast, where the temperature doesn't get above defrost for much of the year and she wanted me to agree to any dumb extra charge before she would let me escape the heat. Relief was only a signature away. This was how they rented cars to prisoners in Guantanamo.
"No, no cats," I muttered, which sounded pretty lame, even to me. "Well, we'd better hit the road before it melts, ha ha." I cracked the driver's door and felt an arctic breeze waft over me, it was heavenly.
She smiled again. "If you have any questions or problems be sure to call our 1-800 number--"

But we were already halfway out of the parking lot on our way to Sedona.

[Casual Observer]

On first blush it looks like the first couple of paragraphs of your story could be set to Garth Brooks Thunder Road.

[AArdvark]

Dammit! I totally forgot about this place! We were SO tempted to stop, just because, well, wouldn't you want to stop at a spaghetti bucket take-out?





THE
LONG HANDLED FORK
AARDVARK