Last week I flew to California to join Lane as he attended NAMM for his job. Flew into California by myself and he met me in the airport. An Uber was $100, so while Lane waited for my flight (his had landed 2 hours prior to mine), he looked up public transit ways to get to the hotel. This required downloaded a TAP app to pay for bus and train fairs. Would have been convenient if it fucking worked. He downloaded the app and I asked if I also needed the app to pay separately. He didn't look into it but was so sure that we could both tap with his phone. His logic was; what does it matter? They're getting the money either way. I didn't trust it so I downloaded the app secretly. We didn't even need to pay for thr shuttle to the train station. Once we got to the train station, Lane tapped his phone to the turnstile and was granted entrance no problem. Handed me his phone so I could go and got an "already tapped" error. I KNEW that shit wouldn't work. So since I had already put the app on my phone, I added money to it and... it didn't work. It wouldn't detect my phone at all. It was already like 9-10pm and I was s t r e s s i n g
While I was standing there trying to figure out what to do, a stranger walked up and literally just opened an emergency gate and let himself in... so I did the same thing. We caught the train as the doors were closing and road it to a bus station.
I refused to ride a bus since I had no way to pay for myself and made us take a Lyft the rest of the way to the hotel. It was only $27 at that point.
Got to the hotel around 11pm-midnight. The next day, Thursday, I went with Lane while he and his coworkers setup the booth for the convention. This took all-fucking-day as there were a lot of setbacks. Setbacks would prove to be the theme of this entire "vacation."
The first day of the convention, Friday, I felt horribly awkward and in the way. So I spent the next 2 days in the hotel room. I was pretty depressed. I am still pretty depressed.
When we checked out of the hotel, we drove around Orange County and did some shopping. This was an okay day.
We drove to San Diego that night.
Spent the next day with Caleb and this was also an okay day even though we spent way too much time and money at the tourist trap of Old Town.
We left way behind schedule but headed to Arizona that night...
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New Mexico has by far been the absolute fucking worst experience. Fuck that place. I will never go back.
The first night took us on a wild goose chase for BLM land to car-camp on for the night. Despite maps and specific boondocking resources, all the locations looked and felt like private property and cow fields. It was all way too visible and surrounded by dispersed houses.
We slept in the Arizona desert the night before and it was a great spot that went just fine. Lane was hellbent on doing it again the next night in NM. Almost immediately we got the car stuck in some deep sand in a dried-up riverbed that ran into the trail. Lost a lot of time getting it unstuck. Lane kept driving around looking for a better spot to park, but I was extremely uncomfortable sleeping anywhere out there as it was not secluded and I didn't want to be hassled by strangers or authorities. Then we tried a National Forest with known spots... Drove all the way to the forest at 10pm to find it was closed. This would present almost all of the problems we encountered the rest of our time in NM. Lane wanted to park in front of the roped off gate, but I just KNEW we would get run off there (checking my camping app confirmed that was the case). We finally decided to get a hotel room even though Lane really didn't want to.
The next day, we drove 2 or so hours out of our way to check out a hot spring. Turns out this was also in a National Forest. We got to the pull-off for the hot spring to find it gated off with a big sign stating the forest is closed to ALL use due to the fire danger being too high. Again, Lane wanted to just park at the gate and walk the 4 miles to the spring. I was uncomfortable with this because I didn't want leave the rental car that long and risk a tow or a ticket. I knew this was extremely disappointing to Lane and we road in silence all the way back down the mountain. He found a gas station and crawled in the backseat to go to sleep. So I took over.
We were already HOURS behind schedule and ETA to our next stop (an airbnb in Tulsa that I regret booking due to barely getting to spend any time in it) was nearly 3:00am. So I was driving this long, straight open road through flat New Mexico with very little traffic. I was driving fast trying to make up time. Then i got a speeding ticket JUST before leaving that godawful state. Like 30 minutes from the state line. And that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I put on sunglasses and silently cried all the way to Amarillo. Stopped for food (mostly for Lane, I haven'teaten all day and wasn't hungry) in Amarillo right as a big storm was starting to roll through. I ate a breadstick to be nice and tried to hold it together. When we left, Lane was driving and the storm was getting worse.
So for the next 2+ hours we drove in this massive, powerful storm that was ALSO traveling i-40 in the same direction we were. I thought it would never end. Lane was driving 80mph in almost-zero-visibility, so I asked him to slow down. He just got mad and argued with me. I gave up, sunk down in my seat, and silently cried while I anxiety-scrolled on my phone to not see what was happening outside the car.
We are passing through Oklahoma City now on the way to Tulsa. Gonna get to the Airbnb a little after 3am and have to leave by 10am... I wish I hadn't booked it at all and just slept on a parking lot for free at this point.
I have absolutely had it with this trip and with this week. I am miserable and am never doing this again.
