Hostel life

Over the years I’ve stayed at a bunch of hostels, some bad and some good. This mural is from the one I stayed at in Albuquerque. It was less than stellar but that had more to do with my bunk mates and lack of ear plugs…

Here’s what I texted my sister Thursday morning after waking up there.

“Omg the woman on the bunk below me makes the weirdest scariest noises. I thought she puked at one point but I think she was drinking out of a water bottle??? There’s a deaf woman in here too who makes a ton of noise but I get it she’s legally deaf.”

“And I’m on the top bunk which sucks… I would have taken another one but they don’t have ladders and I’m sure as shit not that athletic. I literally tried and was like, nope… have to be over here with the messy sloppy girl who has a bowl of food scraps here…”

“Well the deaf woman left after her alarm went off 5 times… the Australian woman is great and gave me the heads up about the bitch below me…”

I did realize I had all sorts of judgements and assumptions about the woman in the bunk below me and that I should check myself. That despite leaving grapefruit rinds in a bowl and using every single closet she could be a lovely individual. But that was before she came in late on the phone, not being courteous of anyone and making a bunch of noise. By morning I had no desire to talk to her so I scooted out for breakfast.

I had half a mind to stomp around my hostel room at 8 am while gathering my stuff but was raised better than that… so I just joked about it with Emily. I wanted to go explore Old Town before heading out to Arizona.

While walking around I saw two different people pick up trash at random to make their city cleaner, which made my heart full.

I came across the Holocaust and Intolerance Museum of New Mexico. It reminded me that some people still don’t believe atrocities like the Jewish or Armenian holocausts happened. They had a map about active hate groups in the USA and I’m not proud of New England here… I also don’t think they asked anyone in Alaska or Hawaii.

From there I walked a bit and found a shop that sold GORGEOUS Native American jewelry. But damn, I walked into the store and there were 3 people behind counters staring at me trying to talk to me. Ugh. But it’s jewelry so I dealt with it, until I saw the price tags. I realize to make a living wage as a jewelry artist is not easy and makes your products more expensive than the cheap stuff from China but I still couldn’t justify it.

I hit the road for my 6 1/2 hr drive to Sun City Arizona! Damn is our country beautiful.

I started another audio book, did a lot of dancing & singing in my car and called my folks. I also got a tumbleweed stuck to the front of my car, which just had me laughing hysterically.

I got all confused when I stopped to eat my lunch at the Arizona state line rest stop because the time changed again… because Arizona doesn’t do day light savings.

As I was driving on I-40 I saw a mountain range with snow on it and had no idea what mountain it was. I later learned that was Flagstaff AZ. I was driving through this crazy, windy landscape that reached a 6000 elevation at some points. It was gorgeous. Even the rest stop views are amazing.

Seeing cacti just made me laugh, they’re pretty funny looking. I made it through Phoenix to Sun City to my friend Napoleon’s house! Make time to catch up with friends. Xoxo