The End of Shopping; The Death of Hope

In a final burst of inspired, if frantic, consumerism, I bought the last of my gear (read: crap) this past weekend. Final items included a power inverter, so we can run/recharge stuff in the car; 40 AA batteries, to keep the camera sated; a bathing suit, which is an item I haven't owned for a decade, but which I figure would be salutary to snorkling activities; several pairs of rugged shorts, long enough to cover my funny-looking knees, natch; a matching pair of 2.3 oz 10% OC 2,000,000 SHU pepper foamers, in cool black nylon belt pouches; and a matching pair of awesome black mini-mag lights (which we'll need for trekking through Tikal before sunrise), also with black belt pouches.

Sara and I are going to come off like Batman & Robin.

Sara's been in Austin for a week, and reports favorably of it; I envy her that leisurely time there. (I am going to Austin for the principal purpose of leaving it. Though I have visited before, briefly.) Sara and her friend Kasee have already made an expedition out to see the much vaunted bats. Austin, it turns out, is currently the bat capital of the known universe–tens of thousands of them migrate up from Mexico in the summer, and all fly out from under one bridge just before nightfall. Austinians have erected a giant bronze bat monument at that location, in their honor, and (presumably) in gratitude for the pleasantly bug-free summer nights. (The bats devour an estimated 40,000 pounds of insects with each evening's sortie.) I hope to see them tomorrow, in all their squeaking and cloud-like splendor, and will report my impressions in this space.

Newsflash: Mexico is fucking big. Sara has determined that we will probably grind out 1,800 miles before we hit the end of that country, and the beginning of the next one (albeit by a slightly circuitous route). I've sent her back to her notes make sure this isn't in kilometers, which would be a great relief. Longtime acquaintances of mine will spot this as a classic Fuchs the Infamous Naif misstep: "Oh, you know, I had this idea to drive to Central America, but at the time I really wasn't aware that the intervening country, uh, Mexico, was quite so, uh, long." Well, we're craftily putting off most of the detailed itinerary planning for in the car, so as to make good use of all that driving time. Hmm, does that present a platform problem? Well, at any rate, I realized we can at least do virtually all of the journalizing and photo editing in the car–which will both allow us to spend all of our stopped time exploring, and to truly collaborate on much of this material. (Look for a shift to first person plural soon.)

In other news, I got evicted from my apartment. Again. Last night. So, you know, I had to try and dig up some new Bay Area housing here in my last day in town. But, hey, what's one more errand on top of everything else? Actually, I got a little busy squaring things away at the shop at the end of the day, so rather than making arrangements to move, I decided instead to write a letter to my landlord suggesting some anatomically unlikely sexual exploits he might profitably pursue. Happily, the highly liberal nature of California renter's protection law makes this an easy sort of tack to take. And, when I get back, I will undertake to find that perfect little studio cottage in Palo Alto (most pleasant locale in the universe, as far as I can tell), where I've been meaning to get around to moving for some time.

Must pack. Plane leave in morning. And date to eat Thai food tonight. Hope everyone is wrenchingly happy, and I'll speak to you next from somewhere other than here! As ever, I remain,