For my summer vacation this year, I wanted to do what one good friend of mine called the "most American thing possible": a road trip.
My friend Jack had a writer's residency in Los Angeles, and we had been talking about checking out New Orleans for a while, so we decided to bridge the two cities by way of interstate.
Along the way, we'd check out parts of America I'd never visited: the open Southwest of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
I didn't expect to find sea lions, stalactites, and a guitar-playing horse along the way — but they turned out to be key characters in our adventure.
On my first full day, I woke up to a book and a view of Los Angeles's famous Venice Beach. It's the sort of thing a guy could get used to.
I knew I was in Los Angeles by two sure signs: psychics and traffic...
...and malls...
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