arkansas,oklahoma, texas

from memphis we decided to have a long day of driving and make some time for ourselves on the west coast by driving about 11 hours through arkansas, oklahoma and part of texas. there wasn't anything i really was desperate to see in those states and i would rather have an extra day or two in california. i did see a couple of bad accidents during my drive as well. they were both pretty recent as we passed because it looked like the police and ambulance crews had just got there and traffic had just started to back up on the opposite carriageway. one of the accidents was a big truck that had overturned in the central reservation and the other was an SUV that looked like it had flipped over judging by the damage and dents to the top part of the windscreen and roof. they both looked pretty bad accidents and it makes you drive a little more carefully.


after about 6 hours whilst passing through oklahoma i suggested stopping and trying to get tickets for NIN who were playing that night. like i mentioned before, my friend was less that receptive to the idea. i even suggested he take the car and leave me in oklahoma city and i would meet him santa fe, new mexico in a couple of days and the thought of getting rid of him for a couple of days sounded very appealing. he didn't want to carry on on his own and seeing as i couldn't ditch him i knew he would just be hanging round in a bad mood if we did stop and seeing as i saw them a couple of days before, i decided to give it a pass.

i did most of the driving on this day as my friend said he was tired from his 800 mile detour to st louis. unlike him, i kept myself with in 10 mph of the speed limit and was in no danger of getting pulled over by five-O even if i did come across any.



he did get upset at one point when i noticed we were low on gas and the warning light came on. i told him that if a gas station didn't appear quite soon in the next 20 miles, we would be having a nice walking tour of texas. he kept going on and on about why i had let it go so low and it annoyed him even more when i said that after driving for 7 hours i was hoping we wouldn't get to a gas station and i was actually looking forward to a nice long walk on a sunny afternoon in texas. he didn't like me saying that at all. i said it as a joke but some people don't seem to like that kind of humour. jeez!, whats the worst that could happen?. we ran out of fuel. so what!. it not a big deal.



like i said before we kind of ran out of conversation somwhere around new jersey, about 1500 miles ago. with my other friends we usually talk about football, but my friend said he didn't want to to talk about football. he actually said "i don't want to talk about football", when i started to say something about the new season coming up. how can you not want to talk about football???.

with my friends we also talk about bands and music but seeing as my friend only discovered radiohead about 18 months ago, that was a non starter as well. to make matters worse on his mix cds he had also put on songs from abba and diana ross. what the fuck!!!. 2 guys in a car in texas listening to dancing queen by abba. they'll think we are a couple of queers and we'll be hanging from the lamp posts by sun down. anyways that was the music conversation scuppered.

one other thing my other friends do is just sit around making fun of each other. its just harmless banter and a little childish but it can be quite funny. i tried this in washington earlier on this trip and he just didn't realise i was joking and he had a stern, stony expression on his face. it all started when the valet at the hotel asked me where i was from and i said london. he then asked my friend where he was from and he replied london and then the valet asked how long he had lived there and how long he had been speaking english. i just burst out laughing at that point and just started making fun of him. you see the thing is that since being in the states my friend had decided to put on a fake half-english, half american accent when talking to people, but it just sounded like a messed up accent from nowhere in particular and thats why the guy looked surprised when he said he was from london, because it was most definitely not a london or english accent.

i told the valet that my friend was a refugee from eastern europe and that he had come to england on a boat in the middle of the night, about 3 years ago, and that at the time he couldn't speak a word of english but that he had made remarkable progress since then. my friend was not happy. me and the valet guy were laughing our heads off. the valet guy who was from pakistan and had been in the states for 2 years could pick up from my tone that i was just making fun and taking the piss. my friend born and bred in london didn't pick up on that and looked very serious. there was going to be a carbon copy of this incident later in the trip that amused me a great deal again and left my friend scowling. ha ha ha!!.

that was it really for that day. we got to amarillo, texas in the evening, found a motel and rested up after a long day on the road.