We were somewhere outside of Gallup about 12 miles from the Arizona state line crossing into the Painted Desert. The blistering summer sun dried our faces into leather masks and by the end of the day I wasn’t sure I wanted to look in the mirror.
I prayed for a big monsoon to appear out of nowhere to give my partner and I some much needed refreshments. “It’s monsoon season in these parts,” I thought to myself, but our luck was being saved for our end destination down the highway.
Hell, where my partner and I were going, we were going to need all the luck we could get. I was going to make sure we didn’t waste any ounce of luck. Between the two of us, it’s our only ticket to the good country. The attitude in the car was getting sour, the wind burned our eyes and the heat from the desert was starting to get to us. I turned over to look at my partner in the passenger seat. His squinted eyes were glued to the brown dusted asphalt and his hair was blowing in all directions. Our shirt collars were drenched with sweat, but with the convertible top down, the wind and our sweat gave us some natural air conditioning.
I needed to pull off the highway to find myself one of the many options of high fructose corn syrup drinks to keep me going for another 300 miles or so; at least to keep me from losing it. We still had another 250 miles until our next stop. We crossed into the Arizona border around three in the afternoon. Crossing into the Grand Canyon State sitting west bound, there’s a massive building carved into the side of a mountain with huge advertisements of “Native American Artifacts,” “Native souvenirs” and “clean toilets” in red letters on a yellow billboard.
“Perfect,” I thought to myself. “This place should have what I’m looking for.”
It wouldn’t be a proper American rest stop if it didn’t have the classic artificial space food packed with the best preservatives that this grand nation has to offer. We’d been driving close to three hours at the time and we deserved a much needed stretch.
We pulled off from the cathedral of asphalt known as Interstate 40 and whipped into the Yellowhorse trading store parking lot. My partner finally said his first words to me since back in Albuquerque.
“Why in the hell are you stopping here? Are you seriously going to buy some turquoise jewelry?” He said.
“No, my mouth requires liquid death to go on any longer,” I said.
“You know you wouldn’t be thirsty if you put the damn top up, I’m sweating through my jeans.”
“Oh, don’t get fussy with me, I’m not putting the top up. I paid extra and I intend to get the most out of my dollar.”
I pulled the convertible into the farthest spot I could find and neatly parked it in the corner. My partner, with his sunburned forehead, got out of the car and walked into the trading post without looking at me. I shouldn’t have brought the fun-sucker, but I don’t blame the bastard for acting in this manner since he’s been forced to put up with me for two days. But, at that moment, I couldn’t care less about his feelings or even mine. I was on a quest to find something to get me through this horrible desert.
