By the time we arrived in Sacramento, we were both so exhausted. We were also greeted with what I took to be not a very welcoming situation, too. We parked at the Clarion, which was where we’d reserved a room for a week. By then it was chilly. We entered the lobby to see that all the employees were black, and it seemed that so were all the guests! I was like, what? Are there no white people in Sacramento at all? But as Tom pointed out, 2nd and 3rd shifts tend to have more minorities, and the loud, rude, obnoxious assholes next to what would’ve been our room, were traveling in groups for some sort of reunion or something. Just your typical rap-blasting, attention-getting blacks that don’t have a care in the world unless it pertains to them. So we went back down to the lobby, told them we could hear music blasting in our room, and were given a refund. By now it was past 11:00 and we had to hope to find another place to go.

I’ll admit things could’ve been worse. These assholes could’ve checked in after we did and other things could’ve gone wrong, but as usual, the truck is having various problems and it’s been tough enough. For one, we had to ride with no AC in the heat yesterday. I hope we can sell the piece of shit real soon. It may be normal for a vehicle to need work every few weeks or months, but not every few days! I just don’t know that we could get enough for it to buy something else. For a ’79 vehicle, it’s getting to be a bit of a collectible, but not much yet. Tom’s napping right now. Then when he gets up he’ll have a look at it to see if it’s a problem with the alternator, or if a wire loosened, or whatever. I just hope it’s not going to cost too much! We’ve already had to spend $60 for a new power cord, and other surprise expenses that crept up on us. I just wonder if he’ll be able to get it registered tomorrow as he plans on doing.

Anyway, we checked into a room at the Econo Lodge on our first night. Although it was too expensive and had no internet access, it was a great room. It was huge. It had a king-size bed, a double bed, and a loveseat. I didn’t like how it was by the pool, but it was empty for most of the two days we were there. I’d have gladly used it myself if I hadn’t been so damn exhausted, but I was beat as hell. I was too wound up to sleep right away, and of course, I had to be woken up a zillion times in the morning because no one can shut doors normally. Everybody has to slam them. So between people checking out and the housekeepers doing their thing, I dozed on and off during most of the first day while he got our stuff in storage. I offered to go and help him, but he insisted he’d be ok on his own.

He returned in the late afternoon, calves and feet sore as hell. By then I was perking up somewhat but still felt half-drugged. We were both starving after not eating all day. So we went to a nearby coffee shop, found it closed, returned to the room, and ordered room service from a restaurant which took 45 minutes to arrive.

Since we knew we couldn’t stay there, we left Tinkerbell in the truck so we didn’t have to pay for her. The Clarion wanted a ridiculous $100 for her, but this other Econo Lodge charges just $6 a night, and we couldn’t keep her in the truck forever. Keeping her in the front of the rental truck where the AC was running during the daytime and windows open to ventilate her at night was one thing, but we couldn’t keep her in our truck with it being nearly 100º out.

So we checked out of the first Econo Lodge yesterday at 11:00, which was on the edge of Sacramento. And I saw that yes, there are other whites, thank God! I wasn’t too tired, since fortunately, I was able to fall asleep the next night a little earlier than I thought I would, and ended up getting up at 9:30. Motels are no place to sleep in during the daytime, so I’m trying to stay on days as best I can. The noisiest hours are in the evenings when people check in, and then in the mornings when the housekeepers hit the scene. I’ve stayed in plenty of motels/hotels before the 90s and never heard a damn thing. It used to be people simply checking in and you never knew it. You never heard them banging around in their rooms and they’d never make such a big deal of slamming in and out. Perhaps there’s only so much the bamboos can do in today’s motels, but it’s still making me wonder if the extreme noise curse we’d been under for so long was kept off those two years in the dump by either the horseshoe or just something in particular about the dump itself. We’ll find out for sure when we get a place. It’s definitely noisier downtown, which is where we are now. More car stereos, but not as many as I thought there’d be with so many more people around. I’m surprised. Maybe they do ticket them here. Someone in Roseville, who I won a shirt from and had to give the new address, said they didn’t have a problem with them there when I asked. I guess it depends on where you go. The nicer the area, the less likely you are to have them.

Despite being downtown and despite beggars and people arguing here and there, it really is quite nice. We wouldn’t want to live here, but the trees and flowers are so pretty the way they provide so much nice shade. They make a canopy over the streets. The houses are older in this area. I think that’s why they refer to it as Old Town Sacramento. I don’t care for them, but they’re not nearly as dumpy as some of the K-Falls houses, and they’re nice and big, too. I wish we had our bikes, though. It’d be fun cruising around with them, and that way we’d be less likely to be pestered by beggars. One funny chick, who appeared to be a bit drunk or high or whatever, asked Tom for the time and told me I had pretty hair. She should try taking care of it! I should’ve cut it off before we started packing. It’s such a pain! It’s always in the way. It’s too long and heavy to put up in the heat. But I’m always too lazy to bother cutting it and figure that the best way to avoid a bad cut is to never bother to cut it in the first place. Yesterday, I wouldn’t have cared if someone shaved it off, though. Even in a knot, it was still smothering me, and we were driving around during the hottest part of the day.

Our first stop was the mailbox in Carmichael. I was really impressed with parts of Carmichael and its nicer homes and better-kept yards. The houses are still too close for comfort, especially if barking dogs are left in the yard next to yours, but the driveways didn’t run alongside the houses like they usually do in the west. I liked how they drove up in front of the houses. I guess if you have a garage, and most of the houses in Carmichael do, they run right up to the garage, but when you have nothing or just a carport, they run between the houses. Anyway, Carmichael seems to be a good place for those who want to be in the mainstream or who have no choice but to be, though I doubt we’d be able to afford to rent a place there. I’m sure we’ll be in an in-between neighborhood like we were in Phoenix with the freeloaders, car stereos and whatever else our lovely God sics on us.

After getting our mail, we went to the storage place to store a few more things to clear out the back of the truck, so it’s easier for him to see out the back window.

Then it was off to Walmart with kids behaving as they usually do – screaming, running around the place, mothers acting oblivious to it all, etc. We got the power cord there and a new pre-paid phone.

This was when we didn’t know if the truck would break down completely or what since we didn’t yet have the roadside assistance thing set up, and it seemed to take forever too, to get to the Econo Lodge we’re in now until Monday. This room sucks. There’s only one bed and the room is tiny. The internet access sucks too, because it’s wireless, and wireless is so undependable. I don’t know why anyone bothers with it. It keeps cutting out every few minutes. There’s no way I can sweep till we get something reliable and that can only be non-wireless. There’s no pool here, and it’s noisier than the other place. Tom showed me a better way to use the wax earplug so it seals up better, and it really does a surprisingly good job blocking out banging and bass, but I still can’t sleep with it because it loosens as I move.

I also liked how the AC fan in the other room kept running even when the compressor wasn’t.

I hope he’s right when he says he thinks we’ll only have to play motel for 2-3 weeks as opposed to the 2 months I vibe because having to sleep in spurts and to get my sleep shorted so many days in a row is a real killer. Monday we’re going to try this Motel 6 that says they’ve got non-wireless internet. Their ad says they have just one floor, but their picture clearly shows 3 floors. I’m sure it’ll be noisy enough either way. I just hope they have a pool and reliable internet service. At least I can now update this journal and charge my iPod. That’s a little louder than the laptop, believe it or not.

The good news is that we could survive at the cheapest motel on just the Unemployment, which he applied for online last night, and on a low-paying job, but I still hope I’m wrong in vibing he’s going to get a $9 job on days and that we won’t get a place for a couple of months. The question is, will that place be a rocking apartment? A noisy house? A tolerable house? A peaceful one? Well, God would never consider us good enough for a peaceful place anymore than He’d consider us worthy of having something decent to drive, so I’ll hope for a tolerable house but expect a wild apartment. Either way, I just hope he gets a job or the Unemployment before our money runs out!

There are a lot of Chinese restaurants around here, which is fine with me. I got some Chinese to go from a nearby convenience store, and later we’ll order a pizza.

My lungs have been ok, thank God, and my ear is about the same. Maybe a little worse, but so far it hasn’t been bad enough to take anything for it.