I found the blazing hot, 90-degree Phoenix morning air rather
invigorating. There are few trees and
mostly rocks and the big ball of sun that reflects EVERYTHING and says, "TIME TO BE AWAKE NOW, SLEEP TIME OVER
NOW!" Ok, got it sunshine, now let
me run to my air conditioned car before my core temperature rises and I start
seeing desert phantoms on the horizon.
The first few hours on the road were uneventful and I actually
was able to soak in the beauty of the desert.
Before this trip I didn't think the words beauty and desert could be
placed near each other. It was just me
and baby boy, who was sleeping, and I drank in the stillness. I loved the yucca trees that dotted the
freeway (I-10). They are like squatty
palm trees with razor sharp finger- leaves jutting in the shape of a ball or
egg. About every other tree had a
blossom shooting straight out of the top, some of them 8 ft above its mother
plant. The flowers looked like a fishing
pole, bent slightly, with a bundle of popcorn on the end. The contrast and randomness of these flowers
were so beautiful and bizarre, like something from a Dr. Seuss book. It was
like the flowers were reaching for heaven or simply saying "GET ME OUTTA
HERE, ITS BLEEPING HOT!!"
After about 2.5 hours of stillness and beauty, I got the two
year old in my car. "She's been
crying for you for over a half-an-hour," says my husband at fuel-up. So she hopped down from the cabin of the truck
with her essentials: a pink, foam cowgirl hat from the dollar store, and a
ratty pillow. As soon as we pull onto the freeway of course she screams "I
WANT DADDY!! I WANT DADDY!!" It took
her 1.5 minutes to realize that up high, in a big, loud truck bumping along
with dad and big-sis is WAY more fun that being in this low, quiet, cold sedan
with baby brother. Her screams turned
into the shrill ones--I like to call them "Brain Rattlers." They are so intense and piercing that you can
almost feel your brain shake with the vibration of the sound. My words were useless to calm her and we had
to keep driving, so I had to find something to ease the fierceness of the sound. You get very good and improvising on the
road. The only thing available were baby
wipes...but those are wet...hmmm. So
I squeeze out the liquid baby-smell from the wipes with the left hand, while
driving with the right, and tear off two tiny pieces. Still a little moist in my ears, but they did
the job. My brain stopped rattling.
A part of me felt a little cruel just blocking out the
noise, but we were stuck in the car, and I was behind the wheel with few
options. So she screamed and I sat there
with wipe-scrap in my ears, staring at the desert whizzing by telling myself to
keep going...