APACHE INDIAN

O.P. made it up some mountain passes, which surprised us, she did good. Entering Apache Country, my mobile phone lost its signal - in terms of mobile coverage, it really was a-patchy area. I wondered what it must be like being a native on horseback a hundred years ago, before these roads dissected their valleys and mountain passes. Natty commented no wonder the Indians hate our society as we passed giant quarries, plundered by us palefaces. Although it is wrong on so many levels we wouldn’t be able to make our trip across America without roads and gasoline though.

As Chief Sitting Bull famously said “Only when the last tree has been felled, only when the last river has been poisoned, only when the last fish has been caught will white man learn that money cannot be eaten”

I only know that from the Ringo’s Pizza delivery menu. Hammersmith’s finest pizza.

Driving from just outside Phoenix through Arizona we passed through a half deserted ghost town by the name of Globe. We did not stop to talk to anyone, we did not want to. From the looks of it I guess it was once a mining town, but from the looks of the locals I reckon they had one mind between them.

As we cross more and more of the Arizona and New Mexico desert, buffeted by crosswinds and attacked by tumbleweed, Optimus Prime gets through more gasoline than Pacman gets through PacPellets. Last night we shoplifted showers from Pilot’s Trucker’s Stop. The door to the shower room was unlocked so in we crept; malodorous gypsies of the night, stealing hot water and electricity for 2 laptops, 2 cameras, 2 speakers, 1 phone, 1 ipod and 1 iphone. Thanks Pilot’s, we owe you.

Twenty five years on and I’m still making Pacman references, they do say that video games influence children, but I don’t believe them. If that were true, my generation who grew up with Pacman would all be listening to electronic music and munching pills in darkened rooms eh?