Classic Road Trip to San Diego

I came home to Artesia on 10/30/91 during my move from Denver to San Diego. I stopped and saw Mom first. Then I went to see Dad. We went over to the apartments and I started taking stuff off the truck. Since I had labeled all the boxes "Take" and "Leave," it was amazingly quick to figure out what I was going to put in storage.

Then my Dad showed me my "new" car, which would turn out to be Car #4 for me. It was a 1975 Chevy Nova hatchback. I was able to load up all the stuff I was going to take to San Diego inside. Dad told me this was the car he wanted me to have instead of the Pinto, which had been the source of so may problems in the 10 months I had been driving it. The strange thing about this car was that it was a standard with only three gears. I didn't know how I was going to adjust to not being able to shift into fourth. However, it turned out not to be that hard to get used to.

The next morning, I took the U-Haul truck and turned it over to the rental center there. It was alto the location of a gas station, but they didn't have diesel fuel pumps, so that meant I had to drive down the street to fill up at another station. As it turned out, I went 40 miles over my limit and had to pay extra. But that didn't matter because Landmark was footing the bill for that.

Before I had left Denver, I called and told Kird that I was going to be moving to San Diego and would be driving through Alamogordo on my way out. He said he wanted to go with me and hang out for a few days. I agreed. He would take a Greyhound bus back home.

Before I left Artesia, his wife called my mother and expressed concern that there had been snowfall in Cloudcroft, which I had to drive through to get to Alamogordo. However, I had left late enough in the day that most of the snow had already melted by the time I drove through the area. I arrived at Kird's house and saw his wife and child. He quickly said goodbye to them and we were on our way. He had us stop in Las Cruces to see a few people at NMSU. One of them was in a band and gave us a few cassette copies of their album. I remember it had the title "Is God in Show Business Too?" (Great, a "Zardoz" reference.) He wanted us to drop them by the alternative radio stations. (Somehow, we never got around to that.)

After leaving Las Cruces, we drove past a prison facility. There were signs on the highway warning people not to pick up hitchhikers. So, we did the obvious thing: We stopped the car. Kird got out and posed next to the sign with his thumb sticking out. Then we left and were on our way.

And of course, this isn't a classic road trip without some run-in with law enforcement. Kird wanted to drive the car for a while, so I let him. While he was driving, we got pulled over. I guess one of the taillights was out. The officer asked to see his license and insurance. I knew my Dad had insured the car, so I furiously searched through the glove compartment. I found several pieces of paper that indicated insurance, but they were all for the previous owner. It was also dark and I couldn't see anything very well. After about five minutes of this, the officer said, "Never mind, I'll just take your word for it that you've got insurance." Kird still got a ticket for the taillight. After we were back on the road, I finally found the insurance card.

We stopped at Tuscon and checked in at a Motel 6. We then spent the next two hours trying to figure out what we were going to do in town that night. As it turned out, we wound up doing nothing but getting something to eat, hanging out in the motel room and watching TV. We still had a good time, but I guess Kird was really missing his daughter. This was Halloween and he didn't get to go trick or treating with her. I didn't realize that was weighing heavily on his mind at the time.

We got up the next day and ate breakfast. Before we left Tuscon, I decided that we needed to stop by the Greyhound station to buy Kird's ticket back. If you buy the ticket a week in advance, you're supposed to get a cheaper rate. On our way to the bus station, we saw a truck try to turn a corner and run over a street sign, which got stuck in its rear tire. We were laughing so hard, I had forgotten I had my camera there. I wish I had taken a picture of that.

Inside the bus station, we went to the ticket counter and asked to buy a ticket from San Diego to Alamogordo to be valid on November 8th, a week later. It took the guy a half hour to get us the ticket. I was getting nervous because it was apparent that a bus was about to depart and people were lining up behind us. Fortunately, no one started causing a fuss. We finally got the ticket and headed out.

We got into San Diego around 3pm. We high-fived each other as we passed a sign that said "San Diego City Limits." The first thing we did was go to the Park Theatre. I hoped that Ved, Landmark's City Manager, would be there so I could meet him before going to the residential hotel where I would be staying for the first couple of weeks. He was in the lobby talking to someone when we arrived. We introduced ourselves. After the general pleasantries, he said that Anz, the woman who would be the House Manager of the Hillcrest Cinemas had just arrived as well. He gave me her phone number to contact her. He said he would try to make plans for us all to get together for dinner that evening and he would show Kird and me around.

We then found our way to the residential hotel where I would be living for the next two weeks. It was just a couple of blocks from the Hillcrest Cinemas, where I would be working as the Assistant Manager. When we checked in, the front desk told me I needed to pay upfront. I told them that it was supposed to already be paid for. He said it wasn't, so I had to pull out my credit card and pay for the room. I figured I would just get the money back when I was reimbursed by Landmark. Later, the manager came up and told me that he had found the information about who was paying for my room and canceled my charge.

One thing we weren't aware of was that the Hillcrest neighborhood was considered the center of the LGBT community. We had seen this young Asian man out in the courtyard and hanging around the front office. Kird came up to me and said, "Fayd! This is a gay hotel! That guy is a gay prostitute! I just heard him talking about it!" Since I had gotten over my homophobia about a year earlier, this didn't really bother me. I told him not to worry about it.

I knew what Anz looked like because Denver City Manager Maud used to have a photo of her in her office. In the picture, she had long, dark, curly hair and glasses that feature what I call a cat's eye rim. She was next to a poster for the Claire Denis film "Chocolat" and was pouting her lips like the actress in the poster. After Maud had gotten romantically involved with the Esquire's House Manager, Mr. M warned me not to get involved with Anz. The thought of dating my boss kind of appealed to me and I wondered if things would head that direction. I called Angz and introduced myself as her new Assistant Manager. She told me that she and her husband were in the process of moving into their apartment. Her HUSBAND? Any fantasies I had about us hooking up were immediately doused. I mentioned that Ved said that we were going out for dinner that evening and she said she would meet me then.

After we had settled in, Kird and I walked up the street a little bit. We found a record store called "Off the Record." Kird went crazy in there and bought $200 worth of CDs. We came back to the hotel and he started listening to his new music. Ved showed up a little later and we walked down the street to Anz' apartment. She and her husband were still unpacking. She looked quite different from the photo I had seen before. Her hair was still long, but it was straight and a strawberry blonde color. She wore a similar pair of glasses. I remember their apartment was very small and that all the unpacked boxes they had seemed to crowd the apartment.

We then walked over to an Italian restaurant nearby. Kird dominated the conversation. He told them about how he and his wife held a garage sale. He had been surprised at how many people came up and bought stuff they would have otherwise thrown away. He said this one guy who looked homeless came up and bought an old pair of socks. Later on, they had gone somewhere in Alamogordo and saw that guy. He was wearing the socks on his hands. He recognized them and waved "Hello" with the sock on his hand. Kird had everyone laughing real hard about that. I kind of felt overshadowed and almost regretted bringing him along.

After dinner, Ved took Kird and me walking around Hillcrest. He knew a lot of people in the business district. Then we walked by the site of the Hillcrest Cinemas. It was still under construction. He then drove us into the Downtown area and through Balboa Park. The first thing that struck me were the yellow street lights. They all looked like the yellow lights on traffic signals. I could see myself getting confused. Ved explained that the lights were yellow to cut down on glare for the nearby observatory.

Kird wanted to see a couple of movies that were showing at the Landmark theatres there in San Diego. He had been reading all about "My Own Private Idaho" and was really dying to see it. Ved arranged for us to go see it that night at the Guild Theatre. But at this point, I was really tired. I hadn't slept since we left Tuscon that morning and we were going to be up until midnight watching this movie. Kird turned out to be really disappointed.

The next few days, we did some running around San Diego and considered driving up to LA to see Chud. However, we couldn't catch him at home. At the time, I thought LA was a four hour drive from San Diego (which it can be, but I found out a few months later that he was only about 135 miles away). At one point, while I was touring the new theatre under construction, Kird borrowed my car and went out to the beach. He talked about putting his hand in the ocean.

We went out and saw a couple more movies over the next few days, including "Dead Again" and "Barton Fink." I was worried that after he was dissatisfied with "My Own Private Idaho," he wasn't going to think much of "Barton Fink, either. However, he stood up and applauded at the end of the film.

After that, we decided we were getting on each other's nerves and didn't know if we could last a full week with each other. I looked at the bus ticket and found that they had not sold us an advance ticket. It was good for right then and there. I was mad because the ticket guy in Tuscon overcharged me when I specifically asked for an advance ticket, but somewhat relieved that Kird could just take the next bus to Alamogordo. He packed his things, we went to the bus station and said our goodbyes. He got back home about 24 hours later. I can only imagine the stories he had to tell about that experience.

So that was it. I was on my own again in another large metropolitan area. There were plenty of adventures waiting for me.