After meeting my parents, Chez, Joad and I got in the car and started driving. We were experiencing a complete rush of emotions during this part of the journey. Usually it feels like it takes forever to drive from Artesia to Las Cruces, but the time just seemed to fly by.
Early in the trip, we did get into a little disagreement. Chez said, "I want to know something. Your brother has red hair, but your Mom and Dad don't..." I knew where this was heading. In my childhood, strangers were constantly coming up to Loyd while my parents were around and asking him where he got his red hair. I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I was an adult, I would read letters to Dear Abby in which it appeared that those strangers were slyly implying that my Mom had gotten pregnant by someone else. Mom and Dad probably knew what was going on, but they just laughed it off around us. I wonder how they really felt when people asked that of Loyd. In response to Chez, I told her, "If you'd met my grandmother, you wouldn't be asking that question." (And Mom and Dad had told Loyd to respond to that question by saying he got it from his grandmother.) But I was only mad about this for a moment and we didn't discuss it any further.
We finally crossed into Arizona and knew that the vast majority of our problems were behind us. We were still riding the high of finally getting to be together. It was around 11pm. I was starting to get tired. We decided to stop and spend the night in Benson, AZ. There was a Motel 6 there. I parked the car and went inside. I told Chez I would be out in a little bit.
While I was checking in at the front desk, Chez and Joad came into the lobby. I guess she'd had enough of being in the car. After I got the key, we still had to go out to the car and drive around to the back of the motel.
We went in and got ready to go to bed. Chez gave Joad a bottle. After he finished, he put his head down and looked like he had fallen asleep. Chez and I started holding and kissing each other. Joad then jolted up and tried to push me away from Chez. We waited again for him to lay his head down and close his eyes. We started up again, only to have him jolt up and interrupt us again.
Finally, he actually fell asleep. Chez and I went to the other bed and made out. Chez asked me why I wouldn't just go ahead and make love with her right then and there. I told her I wasn't ready for that and that I was enjoying this because we hadn't gotten to be together in a long time.
We finally fell asleep. We woke up the next morning and got breakfast, then came back to the motel room. I wanted to leave because we still had about an eight-hour drive ahead of us. Chez wanted to stay and play with Joad in the motel room. So that's what we did. (This was something I didn't grasp the concept of. It was a "Same Planet, Different Worlds" situation. In my world, a motel room is only some place to spend the night. When you wake up, you leave and get back on the road. My parents didn't putter around when we went on our summer road trips. We had to get going to the next destination ASAP. In Chez' world, you try to get your money's worth out of the motel, so you just stay there until housekeeping practically kicks you out. Chez wasn't the only person from this particular world that I came across.)
We got back on the road and held hands almost the entire way. We stopped for gas in Yuma and then at a rest stop before getting to San Diego. Everything was still going well, but it started raining before we arrived.
We got closer to San Diego and were driving along Interstate 8 through El Cajon. Along the way, we saw the hillside depicted in the photo above. You can see the houses on the hillside. It was at this point in our trip that it seemed like I could read Chez' mind. She was looking at those houses and thinking, "Where am I? This is not my home. I cannot call this place my home. This is not the kind of place I want to live. What have I done?" She never said anything, but this was the point at which I could feel everything starting to go downhill.
And that descent continued after we reached the house. I would soon find out that I had made THE BIGGEST MISTAKE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.
We'll pick up on Monday.
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