No orange trees

Five hours later, I'm sitting in my parent's Phoenix residential compound (main house). They've removed the orange trees since my last visit.

"Orange trees are unAmerican," my father said. These days, he is rarely without a Cold War-era AK-47 or his 9-mil Sig. Even the orange juice in the fridge is a strange non-juice--a low-carb version of orange juice.

Traffic getting here was better than I could hope for. The highways were almost unpopulated, and my speed rarely dropped below 80. I only got 28 miles per gallon this trip, but I figure the added weight of all of my personal possessions crammed into the back couldn't have helped. All well, it took less than a tank of gas to get from LA to Phoenix (more about 2/3s of a tank), so that's not too bad.

My apartment is a thing of the past. Technically, I'm homeless. My possessions are scattered among my friend's garage, another friend's apartment, and the trunk of my car. I will likely end up taking perhaps five to ten percent of my possessions with me to Kona.

Hey, guess what. The Ironman competition is on October 15th. The one day I choose to fly into Kona is October 15th--purely a freak accident. They close the freeway for the Ironman, so I imagine I'll be waiting at the airport for many hours before I'll be able to get to my new home.

I'll post pictures when the time is right (that's when I find the Godddamn USB cord to hook my computer to the camera).