(Written on July 20-21)
The folks at the Honda dealership were quite nice, and were fairly fast in diagnosing the problem with the air conditioning. The bottom line: we’ll be in debter’s prison by tomorrow, but our air conditioning will work, by God. The parts won’t arrive until tomorrow morning, so we’ve taken the chance to avail ourselves of a little rest in Kingman.
The benefit of flat panel displays in hotel rooms is that you can hook a laptop into the VGA port and watched your own recorded TV episodes, movies, etc. We spent the afternoon watching “Lost” for the first time (phenomenal series, by the way), and then called a cab for a ride to dinner. We hit the Kingman Co. Steakhouse, to which even the cabbie remarked, “You can go to other places in town for ambiance, but if you want good steak you come here.” It was excellent, and capped off a pretty great day in Kingman.
The other joy of the day was weather. About midday, clouds started to roll over the city followed soon after by downpours and a thunderstorm. I stood outside and tried to film some of the lightning, with no luck. The wind was whipped through the parking lot, pitching the rain at a 45-degree angle. It was really beautiful. The benefit? The front that passed through brought cold air that dropped the temperature from 104 to the mid-80s.
This time in Kingman has, for the first time, helped me to understand the beauty of the desert and mountains. The scenery here is fantastic, the weather unpredictable. There is a feeling of isolation, but isolation with friends. That said, one guy commented in the Honda lobby yesterday that he’s lived here a long time (he’s even been a cop in the area) and there are a lot of prejudices, a lot of things people don’t know about. But that’s people – can’t blame the land for people.
On our last day in Kingman, we left our hotel after arranging a late checkout and were shuttled to the Honda dealership to wait for the completion of repairs. The dealership’s shuttle was run by a very pleasant gentleman who kept his radio tuned to Christian broadcasting. He seemed very interested in the fact that we were scientists, and why we got into science in the first place. He seems drawn to our passion for the field.
At the close of the conversation, as we arrived at the dealership, he hurriedly added that he doesn’t like to push people, but that we should read the Book of Job and look at the many scientific facts embodied in the Book. Mountains under the sea were one example he gave. I decided that once we unpacked a Bible, I would have a look and remind myself about Job. Meanwhile, we hit the road and were in Dallas after 18 more hours of driving.
Then, the unpacking started.
