Loverly Las Cruces

We head out on the road again a little after rush hour traffic, almost 6pm and go through Tucson without stopping, although I’m tempted to go to my womyn’s bookstore there and try to look up my chosen family/friend Desire.

Jess is biting at the bit, wanting to get home to her honey, the womon she’s going to marry and spend the rest of her life with, so I don’t even suggest stopping, as we just spent almost 4 hours at the rest stop.

It is dark when we get to my very favorite Arizona rest stop & I have to fill the tank with veggie oil from my reserve container.

I am worried we won’t have enough solar juice to run the motor that I use to pump the veggie oil from the storage container into the main tank, as it is dark & I’m not sure how much energy it will draw. But it turns out it is not a problem – I am able to pump the whole container into the main tank without drawing down the electricity under 24.7!

Jess does not offer to help or automatically pitch in at all. I have to ask her if I want her to do anything – then she does so willingly, but she’s not the kind of person to see what needs to be done & to do it. Interesting.

I fill the tank with just one 55 gallon container, which will get us as far as I can drive tonite. Then when it’s sunny, I’ll continue filling the main tank with the other container.

It is very dark by the time we traverse almost the entire length of New Mexico arrive at the beautiful rest stop that sits on top of a cliff above Las Cruces: we can see the city lights sweep across the desert in a half circle, as far as we can see.

We are less then 30 miles to the Texas border, El Paso & it’s sister city, Ciudad de Juarez. I will attempt to get up early & head thru as much of Texas as possible before the heat rises again.

Where's jeeezsus... in aaaall this

It’s almost 90 degrees and we’ve landed at the rest stop past Phoenix and before Tucson. I really wanted to make it to my favorite rest stop the other side of Tucson but it is so very hot & I’m not going to tax the truck.

Jess is okay to travel with – she has her i-pad i-pod whatever it is that plays music, & I have my book on tape. I’m reading “Saving Grace” & I recommend it 10000%. I feel really lucky to have such a great read as I drive.

A crisp old white man with drooping chubby pink cheeks, a new bright blue shirt, pale eyes that don't blink, creased trousers and a mop of white-white hair, comes up to me as I park, asking me to explain the truck.

I try to stifle my disbelief when he says he’s never heard of Monsanto, genetically-modified food, or terminator seeds. I explain all three as briefly as I can, as his eyes slide sideways & lose interest after a sentence or two about each.

We move on to the back of the truck & he reads each word out-loud. I tell him it’s time, we have to disarm.

His eyes have indignantly zeroed in on my “turn off fox: bad news for america” bumper sticker. He puffs his cheeks, leans forward to wave over the sticker & peers at me, inquiring a wounded “but why?”

I tell him fox spouts hate. He shakes his head, disbelieving. I urge him to face the truth, fox tells him to hate people like me, lesbians, Jews, single mothers.

He denies the Jew hatred but he believes the lesbian and poor part. I tell him we have to stop hating each other.

He gets that vacant look again, then perks up and asks me as he waves his hands in a much broader arc this time, with his thick southern accent, questions “where is jesus in all this?”

What a good question. I ask if he heard what I said, about stopping the hate – how much more christ-like can one get?, about me being a Jew.

I spell it out for him: we are ALL children of the creator, not just jesus: I point to his round beer belly that is thinly disguised by his blue shirt tails that billow softly in the breeze over the hump & declare he is a child of god, I am also.

Jesus, he mutters distraught, but where is jesus. I tell him see, I told you I’m a Jew – why would I have jesus on my vehicle?

Well, he huffs very christ-like as he turns heel, you have a nice day.

I don’t give my usual response “as nice a day as the people we are bombing at least” but I urge him instead to have a thoughtful day.

Good-bye California!

We’ve made it to the new rest stop just east of Palm Springs and have been able to sleep for almost 4 hours.

Jess is not only severely immature, but she’s so ridiculously full of right-wing propaganda, she’s not going to know what she got herself into by the end of our trip.

She spouts Limbaugh rhetoric like it’s the truth. I 'm struggling not to think she is just really stupid as in she can’t think for herself, and trying instead to believe maybe she is just incredibly ignorant as in why should she think for herself.

So far she’s said such things as we have to “kill them before they kill us”; and “we are all individuals with the same chances and choices”; and “if they would just try & work hard, they could make it, anyone who really wants to can make it” (talking of poor people of course).

I tell her that her mind is full of propaganda & that I expect more from her, being so young, a lesbian, and so advantaged. (She has told me she has had great jobs & made a lot of money. Yet when I ask her if she's ever made 100 grand a year, she looks at me like I'm the crazy one. She's talking $8-9 dollar an hour jobs - and she believes she's wealthy...)

As we talk, I reassess my opinion of her. She is able to hold up her end of the conversation, she doesn’t get defensive, and she stays calm & explains her position as “that’s just the way it is” when I ask why or what does that really mean to you?

Off we go, before the sunrise – I need to make it across the desert and thru as much of Arizona as possible before noon!