Phoenix, Arizona

Tintin and I were suffering our respective Monday Blues on August 29th, 2005. The entire week yawned before us. The news made a mention about the coming long weekend, and that news sparked a life into the day. There were no second thoughts about it, it was fixed even before it was decided that we were going on a roadtrip to Phoenix, Arizona. Ri in Phoenix would have to be hospitable whether he liked it or not.

MapPoint became the order of the day as Friday started drawing closer. We agreed upon driving straight to Ri's crib, starting Friday afternoon. When Friday afternoon did come, I was still waiting for the office pile to unclutter. I could see the traffic getting thicker and dense, wheels whizzing past me with untold fury, my hands glued to the steering wheel, and TinTin would be saying, "Brad, we have to go. Brad..."

"What the heck? What do you mean we have to go?", I mumbled. Day-dreaming had graduated into 40 winks at the office desk. Uh oh.

With no further ado, we sneaked out of the office, lest we invoke the wrath of the superiors. They had been informed the day before. "Errr...I'll be out of the office before 5pm tomorrow sometime.", I whispered into the aura of my immediate senior. That should do the trick, I retrospected on the roads, sinking my teeth into a snack bar.

Starting off at 3 o'clock would help us beat the outgoing Los Angeles traffic and exit the city quickly. We started driving at sharp 4 o'clock, just an hour off the mark to soon find out that everybody had thought just like us. Miraculously, we escaped the traffic jams and were soon driving out on I-10 off to Arizona.

Since we were eastbound, the sun was behind us all the time. Driving back, however, would be a bitch. Yeah, we knew that already. After about 3 hours of driving we were travelling through the deserts that cover the southern part of California. We would be approaching the Grand Canyon State of Arizona. The myriad of windmills outlined by the lovely sunset, was an amazing site to witness. The ups and downs through the hills and dales, we were beginning to get into a tizz

(To be continued...)