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A Photocopied Travel Letter
To Home
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by: Steve Gillman
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As we drove
from Traverse City, Michigan to Tucson, Arizona, I
wrote a series of letters, and photocopied them to
send to family and friends. This was the first of
the three.
Travel Letter #1
Saturday, 12/13/03 - Good morning. Welcome to our
vacation form letter. We're in Arizona now. The sun
is shining and it will be in the sixties today,
which should melt the ice on the windows soon.
Ana's foot doesn't seem to be broken, as we
thought, so we took a long walk in the desert last
night. We saw a coyote, probably the same one I
chased the other day, and there were javelina
tracks everywhere.
The library in Safford has books in Spanish, so Ana
is enjoying reading now that her eye-patch is off.
The doctor promised that the "divet" left by his
golf-club-like blade will heal soon. We learned
that eyeballs have many nerve endings, and we think
the object in her eye may have been a fiber from a
yucca plant.
Our uncontrollable coughs are under control now,
and we aren't among the ten people in Arizona that
died from the flu this week. Oh, and the
antibiotics from the Safford clinic seem to have
helped with Ana's abcessed tooth.
I should start at the beginning. The first day,
after dealing with the usual rudeness of the INS
employees in Detroit, we made it to Kansas. We hit
a traffic cone there at high speed, and heard a
horrible sound coming from under the van. The cone,
I discovered, had been dragging along underneath.
Nothing was broken, but later the bright light
switch stopped working.
Fortunately, we drove during daylight after that.
In the Colorado mountains we went from 16 to 20
miles-per-gallon, confusing the sensors and causing
the "check engine" light to turn on. We
successfully ignored it until it changed it's
mind.
In Farmington, New Mexico, we spent a few days
resting and coughing. We were about an hour away
from buying a house when we discovered it needed
new wiring, had a garden hose attached to the
natural gas line, and other problems we missed on
our first visit. The old man begged me to buy it,
called our motel room to tell me he needed money
for open-heart surgery in three days, and called
again to lower the price, but we moved on. By the
way, the house was to be a winter project, not a
new home.
Monument Valley was beautiful, the Christmas parade
in Holbrook was cute, and despite various problems
and illnesses, we're having a great time. You see,
I didn't want to make you all jealous, so I left
out a lot - the constant sun, the beautiful
sculptures in Grand Junction, and the nine times
we've been in hot springs in Colorado, New Mexico,
and Arizona. Next week we're going to Mexico for
lunch. Hope all is well in Michigan. Adios,
Steve and Ana
About the author:
Steve Gillman hit the road at sixteen, and traveled
the United States and Mexico alone at 17. Now 40,
he travels with his wife Ana, whom he met in
Ecuador. To read letters ##2 and ##3, plus stories,
tips and travel information, visit: http://www.EverythingAboutTravel.com/travelletter2.html
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