day 0-2 : 6:40 to yuma (Patreon)

After 2 and a half days of travel-transience, I have arrived at a hotel in Yuma to unload and unpack.

The train ride was long, and steady. We had two strange delays on our first train, which I doodled about in my comp book. We were stopped for 2 hours because emergency fire services had to run their hoses across the tracks. Later, there was, perhaps, a car on the tracks? I didn't see it, so I can neither confirm nor deny its existence.

On the train my cousin and I pulled some oracle tokens out of bag and did some esoteric trip orientation with a book a friend of hers made and gifted her. The concise version of it was: I have learned to Leap, so that I can Empower, which will lead to Release.

It seemed apt.

We got off at San Luis Obispo & smoked a joint under a fig tree in the police station parking lot (also pictured). The train lets you off to smoke at specific stops where it will be 5+ minutes before departure, and they are kind enough to announce when the smoking stops are coming up. When it's time to go, they yell "All aboard!" --just like you say when you pretend. I had only pretend-ridden-trains before. We were banned from eating in the cafeteria after my cousin was paged over the intercom for pocketing a plastic tip tray. Accountability and consequences in general have been swift and fair. We are both good at moving slow and asking questions and accepting responsibility for our actions.

We got in to Yuma around 3:30 this morning, or maybe it was 4:30. We learned there is no daylight savings time here from our first uber driver. My cousin thought maybe we could sleep a few more hours at the station once we arrived, but there isn't so much a train station in Yuma as there is an ancient weathered platform. A woman at the visitor's center told me it burned down a long time ago. We were bumbling a little on our way off of the train, and the last thing the train attendant said to me was "I need to get out of here." Then she left. The train left. It was empty, and dark, and we were here.

We wandered from the train station into 'Historic Downtown Yuma.' The only activity was a group of folks working out at the gym, and running sprints up & down the sidewalk. We wondered what they were training for so early, but we didn't ask. We sat on the sidewalk and stretched and explored until the first Starbucks opened. It felt good to put everything down for a bit.

My phone was stolen pretty early on while on the train (oops, it was definitely my fault), which has forced me to be present and engaged damn near full-time. At this point I've finished grieving the loss, ordered a new phone through my insurance, and resolved to use a burner for the rest of the trip. It's nice to have the resources to work around so many misadventures--financial and emotional.

The desert oscillates between naturally scenic and very under-development, especially around this area. Our last uber driver said that when she moved out to Fortuna Foothills just 2 years ago, it was distant and empty. Now it bustles. The value of her house has gone up $80,000 in the same amount of time. We discovered a lot of similarities between Yuma and Fairbanks.

The hotel we're staying at is across the street from a small lot of washers and dryers and refrigerators. On the building next to it, there is a sun-weathered sign advertising the Foothills Psychic. The front desk person said she's never called the number, but she's seen the sign there for years. She asked if I'd been to Mexico and described the street-psychic scene there to me as pretty ubiquitous, and told me to keep my head straight about dishonest fortune tellers. She knew which way was north because she wrote it down.

Today is a day to rest, and read, and arrive. I picked up a couple of Yuma-centered Images of America books, and some supplies to map known family history in context with the timeline of the events and culture of place. I am chomping to use the pushpins and yarn though.