Complex Numbers

From the Ashes

Entry #6 for

Journalistic Intentions  (18+) This is for the journal keeping types that come to PLAY! New round starts July 1! #2213121 by Elisa: Snowman Stik

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I haven't been to Scottsdale, but I've been pretty close.

On one of my excursions, I decided to follow U.S. Route 60 from beginning to end. Or... I suppose it was end to beginning, considering that the US mostly developed east to west, and I was traveling back east.

Route 60 ends just east of the California border, because apparently, a while back, in a transparent attempt to begin its process of secession from the US, it took over the old US routes that ran across it, giving them new designations.

It's not as well-known as the storied Route 66, but I figured, hey, I'm in Vegas and I want to get back to Virginia, and the other end of the old route is in Virginia Beach. So I drove south from Vegas until I reached the end point of U.S. 60 and began the long trek home.

I don't live in Virginia Beach, of course, so this route would take me past my town (missing it by about 35 miles), but I'd long been wanting to trace one of the older, pre-interstate US routes from beginning to end. I have a friend who, until earlier that year, lived on a farm adjacent to Route 60 in Virginia, but that, and Pacific Avenue in Virginia Beach, had been my only experience with that road that I remember.

It's worth mentioning that yes, I'm fully aware that interstates get you where you want to go much faster and with more services available. But I don't travel for the destination; I travel for the experience of traveling.

Still, US 60 through Phoenix was one of the most stressful experiences of my driving career - and I've driven in New York, Boston, DC, LA, Atlanta, and the SF Bay area, just to name a few traffic-heavy places.

Phoenix. Sucked.

A few months after this trip, I saw a news story about a high-speed chase that the cops were involved in through Phoenix. My comment was I didn't believe it, because the top speed you can make through that shithole is, in my experience, approximately half walking speed. Okay, probably it's not a shithole, because clearly people want to live there. But the traffic sucks.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that Scottsdale is essentially part of Phoenix. Oh, sure, it has its own separate designation, but my rule is that unless cities are divided by a major river, a significant park, farmland, or a big honkin' wall or something, stop calling them different cities. It's annoying and confusing to anyone who doesn't live there, and I say that as someone who lives in the only state where cities are separate political entities from their surrounding counties.

But U.S. 60 doesn't go through Scottsdale, instead bypassing it to the south. Though "bypassing" doesn't convey the right flavor of traffic jam. After slogging through Phoenix, it was getting dark (I'm pretty sure I entered it in the morning), so I pulled off to spend the night at a motel in Mesa, which is another annoyingly city-that's-not-a-separate-city, directly south of Scottsdale. Or I don't know, maybe it was Tempe. Look, I've only been to Phoenix once and the chance of me being there again is minuscule. Okay, no, maybe it's not; I didn't have time to visit any breweries there, so it's still on my list. I'll just have to remember to allow a few extra weeks to get around the city.

From what I can gather, Scottsdale is, like, the rich people part of Greater Phoenix, so I wouldn't be allowed across the border anyway.

Which does nothing to explain or even hint at an explanation for the actual prompt, so my headcanon is that the appliance repair company is a front for a right-wing conservative pedophile, undocumented immigrant, human trafficking, and opioid distribution ring (hey, they're not the only ones who can make shit up), and that particular email address is for someone who follows the ebb and flow of politics so they'll have some warning when the government decides to start rounding them up.

Though they won't, because the government is in on it.

Following an old US route can get tricky at times, especially when it goes through a city and signs are missing or unclear. I must have looped around Louisville, for example, three times making sure I stayed on track.

And then, when I finally rolled into Virginia Beach a few days later, I stopped for the night just a few blocks short of the other end of Route 60, because that's where my favorite bar in the entire world is located.

Well. Was located. It closed last year, and I'm still sore about it. Add Virginia Beach to the list of cities I have no further reason to return to.

Unless a new brewery opens there, of course.