Escaping The Desert

Throwing In The Towel

The past 48 hours have felt as long as the combined 10 days that came before it. Upon leaving Petrified Forest National Park and checking into my motel, I became increasingly more and more unwell. My throat had become so sore that swallowing was pure agony and I couldn’t find anything that could help with the pain, which was constant. A hot shower helped a bit, but once I laid down to bed it became obvious that it was going to keep me awake and, around 3 o’clock in the morning, I started coming to terms with the fact that the desert environment was making things worse and I wasn’t going to be able to tolerate another three days in the desert, let alone an overnight camping in Joshua Tree National Park, which was the event I was looking forward to most on the trip. Instead, I’d be driving straight through to San Diego.

A Long Haul

This is a nightmare because the drive from Holbrook, Arizona, to San Diego, California, is about an eight hour drive, which doesn’t include stops, so I was looking at probably nine hours on the road, through the desert that was kicking my ass, on very little sleep while I felt like complete dog shit. All of the rational thinking about how getting sick was a possibility on the trip and trying to accept it as a part of life, it just all goes out the door right about now. It’s got me upset and wondering how I’m going to manage to get through it.

There’s also the fact that I’m staying with my aunt in San Diego, who is dealing with long covid, so I’m worried about giving her whatever I have. We talk on the phone and she sets-up an urgent care appointment for me in San Diego on Sunday, so the plan is just to get there and mask up until I find-out what’s going-on. Another home test says I’m covid negative, but I want a real PCR test to confirm it.

After that, it’s just dealing with nine hours in the car with the with the windows up listening to satellite radio. Unfortunately, I was too sick to appreciate the landscapes I passed through. The national forests northeast of Arizona were beautiful, and the desolation of Route 8 through southwestern Arizona and southern California are my jam. Even though I’ve only done this once before, the transition from 100-degree, flat deserts, into those green hills that separate them from San Diego felt really familiar.

Arrival and Sleep

By the time I arrived, I was out of it. Only the essentials were unloaded from my car and my aunt and I spent a couple of hours talking on her back patio before I started to pass-out from exhaustion. Somehow, I got through the drive without feeling tired after only a couple of hours of sleep, but now that I was here I was hitting the proverbial wall, so I went to bed and got the deepest sleep I’ve had since I’ve been on the road.

San Diego Routine

The next morning began what I feel will probably be the start of my routine for the next couple of weeks. While I slept a little later than I plan to, I got to work out on the back patio because the weather is really nice here, obviously, and I didn’t feel like I’d have to mask-up outside. There was a break to eat a lunch of delivered ramen and gyoza, and around 4 o’clock I had to head to my urgent care appointment, which went as well as I could expect: I tested negative for covid and the nurse said it wasn’t strep throat. So, I can pocket the antibiotics and just tough out the rest of the sickness, which already feels like it’s beginning to wane.

Future Travel Posts

While I’m in San Diego, I don’t plan on posting every day. Partly because it’s a lot of work, but also because I don’t want to take time away from socializing with my aunt and my friends who are here. My plan is to maybe group the days into chunks and summarize them a bit. Anyway, that’s all for now.