Hot to Trot

Relaxing in Flagstaff after a long, hot trip yesterday.

As we sat on the plane high above the Arizona desert I resisted the temptation to mention to Lucy how seamless our potentially tricky journey had been since we left Asheville - I didn't want to jinx it.
Turns out just thinking it was enough.

Once we'd landed at Phoenix airport, I felt from our map that we could walk from the airport to the greyhound bus station, it didn't seem that far.
The woman at information felt differently though, telling us we should really get a cab. I put this down to America's obsession with driving everywhere, but checked with a taxi driver just in case.
When we asked him he laughed and said we should just walk the 'block and a half' - no problem.

And so we began to walk in the direction of the station, safe in the knowledge it wouldn't take long.
It was only a matter of minutes before we realised the true nature of the desert heat, it was unbearable. After spending months roaming subtropical Mexico, Caribbean Cuba, New York in the midst of a heatwave and the humidity of the southern US, this was on a whole other level.

Within minutes I was completely soaked, and as the sidewalk inexplicably ceased to exist (a USA favourite trick) and we shuffled over cactus-filled gravel and sprinted over highways, I began to wonder if we were in serious trouble.
Stuck in the limbo of having gone too far to turn back, we also turned on each other, bickering, shouting and losing fluids at record rates.
By now my eyeballs were completely devoid of lubrication, and my mouth was as dry as a sock made from dust.
Lucy began to complain she felt faint, so I lied that we were almost there, hiding my now shaking hands in my pockets, feeling equally faint myself.

Finally I spotted a greyhound bus in the distance, and we collapsed through the doors of the bus station with just fifteen minutes to spare.
I handed over our tickets with my still-trembling hands and boarded the bus, which appeared to be a model from the 1960's.
It kept overheating on the three-hour trip through the desert and having to stop, and some of the people sat around us were literally the loudest most obnoxious humans to ever breath air.

I didn't care though. We'd made it.


This is the last of eight backblips I just vomited out of my brain, starting with this one.