Every. Step. Of. The. Way. Is. Earned.

This move, so far, has been anything but easy. I knew that going into it, but still, C'MON.

I got ready to leave Atlanta with Boris and Blanca packed into the Vue with most everything else. I'm talking 'tetris' style packing. I even got a camera mounted just underneath the rearview mirror, so I could do a timelapse of the trip. Everything seemed like it was going along OK. Ha. The dreams of the naive.

Saying goodbye to everyone was hard. Saying goodbye to Ashley was beyond hard. Gut wrenching, soul rending, lose-a-piece-of-you-heart-in-the-tears kinda hard. Still we managed to pull ourselves together long enough for me to drive away.

So I get on the road, already emotionally exhausted, with 2000 miles to go. And right on cue, the first gut check. My AC goes out. Totally out. In July. I couldn't believe it. But I figured, hey, it's probably just the freon or something. Surely a car with only 30000 miles on it wouldn't be suffering something major. WRONG. I stopped in Pensacola briefly before getting on I-10 and had GM service people look at it. They wanted $800 to replace the whole compressor. $800 I couldn't (still can't) afford. But they said they thought the car would make the trip anyway, so I figured why not. It's just heat. Surely I could survive that.

It's hard to sum 35 hours of driving in the windows down, in July. It was hot. Unending hot. The poor animals suffered along with me. I'd stop every 3 or 4 hours during the hottest hours and pour water over Boris, and soak Blanca's bedding. That seemed to help them make it through. Blanca surprised me the most. She didn't meow much, and pretty much just found a nook between some camera cases, out of the sun, and slept the whole time.

Doug and Courtney let me crash their home outside Houston, which was a welcome surprise. I hadn't seen them in about 7 years or so. Funny how no time at all seems to have past when you sit down with old friends and have dinner.

West Texas was beautiful. Which surprised me. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was geniunely moved by the beauty of it all. If I ever have a million dollars laying around, I'd consider buying a large piece of land there and building my very own compound.

I made it all the way to El Paso (easiest the ugliest stretch of road I've seen in the US) around sundown, and decided I would try to push all they way through the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona so I could avoid the sun. Before it got dark, I saw the most magnificent sunset I think I've ever seen. As cynical and as stubborn I might be, sometimes the magnificence of nature trumps everything else. I about drove off the road a few times while I tried to snap photos and video with my iPhone.

In retrospect, what made the sunset so pretty was the dramatic contrast of storm clounds in front of the setting sun. Actually not so much 'storm' clouds as 'monsoon-hurricane-apocalyptic' clouds. I have never experienced a storm like that. It was night, which didn't help, but at one point the winds actually blew my car off the interstate and into the shoulder. At that point, my pants about soiled, I decided to pull over. And on cue, all the cars in front and behind me did too. I guess they were waiting for someone to be a chickenshit first. I was glad to oblige.

The storm passed after about an hour and I pushed on. It was cool while it rained, but it shot right back up to 97 or so afterwards. Insane to be 97 degress at night. I pushed on.

I made it all the way to Blythe, California before I started to hallucinate a bit. Hallucinations aren't my favorite thing, so I pulled over and crashed at a Knights Inn for about 5 hours or so. I got up and finished the drive to LA, with temperatures averaging 107 degress or so. It was gross, hot and miserable. But we made it.

I got us checked into a Motel 6 outside LAX. Boris immediately chugged too much water and dog food (he was parched and starving) and then puked it all back up all over the room. Awesome.

I've been here about 48 hours or so, and so far, I haven't been able to lock down a place to live yet. It's hard to find a place that's affordable, that isn't a total hole. But I'm not giving up yet.

Stay tuned.