Day 88: August 30 2009, Lovington to Artesia (39 mi)

Fuck! I hate being cold. My cover is doing me no good anymore. Again I couldnt sleep because of the cold. At 1 AM I got up and put on another long sleeve layer I had and my socks, but little difference it made. Waking up cold made me so damn angry. I packed my shit in a minute at about 615 (the sun rises in MST at 6) and warmed myself up by skating. What a shitty, miserable night it was. I was too pissed to do anything but push. Sunday, this early, not shit is open and nobody was out on the streets. The cold weather in the low 60s killed my ipod battery and my solar charger had nothing left in it so I had no music.

In lovington, I got onto US highway 82, which would take me straight into Alamogardo, 174 miles west. US-82 started out as a one lane, no shoulder road and flat. Smooth, but on a one lane each direction its pretty intense to skate. This sucks, I though, I didn't think New Mexico was going to treat me worse than Texas. The landscape is so boring, just flat dead desert grass and scatterd shrubs, not even any cctus. I didn't see any mountains either. Just oil rigs, oil rigs, Halliburton trucks and oil tankers. What the fuck is this?

I skated on the road, moving out of the way for passing vehicles which was very frustrating. I couldn't get sleep last night, I was cold and I hate being cold. New Mexico roads and landscape was not what I expected and then I couldn't even have a smooth skate. What the hell is going on?

"Man, you gonna get yourself runover this early on this road. Where you headed?" asked a brown man in a Halliburton truck
"Somewhere along this road man, where's the shoulder?"
"It starts at Maljamar, Ill give you a ride there if you want"
"Cool"

So I did. Daniel talked to me all about how shitty work was because the "fucking tree hugger Obama" was bringing businesses down. I heard the same thing from Mackenzie, whose brother worked on an oil rig and Marco who also did the same. For a while he sold some "devils dirt" and made some easy money, but then quit when he found cops looking into his house from a parking lot across with theri binoculars. His supplier who got caught with $30000 in cash and a half ounce of that shit was doing 10 years. We arrived at Maljamar at about 725. He wished me luck and we parted ways.

The whole town of no more than a 1000 was still asleep. I was on a hill and could see plateaus in the distance. The sun was coming out and the heat picking up. Smooth, wide shoulders awaited me. Aaaaaah, finally. Without my music it was hard to skate but I found myself in the zone and pushed and pushed. Some nice hills gave me some good speed and I found myself in Artesia at 1130.

Artesia exists because of two other oil, or 'energy' corporations are headquartered there, Marbob Corp and Yates Corps. I was completely exhausted when I arrived. I wasn't going to skate anymore today and there was no way I was going to sleep cold again. I went to the local Wal-Mart and bought myself a $10 sleeping bag. Finding a place to carry it was the issue. I ended up hanging it from the bottom using bungee cords.

I stopped into a couple of motels in the area to try and get a room, but nobody really wanted my poor looking ass in their rooms. In their own words "watch out, you look like a wetback, you'll get trouble around these parts". Im not even Latino and I don't want no trouble. Unfriendly assholes, but I know how it is. Egyptians are the 'wetbacks' of the oil rich, arrogant Middle East. So instead, I ended up in Artesia RV park. There they had a toilet (yes!), electricity (hell yes!), and showers (FUCK YES!). Thats all I needed anyway. Today Im going to relax and dream about the Pacific.

I remember that last fall surf session in Rhode Island, before leaving for Ghana. Hurricane Hanna swell brought us big waves. Im talking avergae sets of 10-15 feet with a 20 foot monster every once in a while. And I caught my biggest wave ever that day. Going down it felt like forever but when I rode it to the end and over the back I stayed standing on my board for some seconds, threw my hands in the air and screamed as loud as I could "Aaaaaaaah". Sean Trees looked back at me and gave me the look of 'you motherfucker, that was my wave'. It gives me the most gigantic smile reminiscing. I can't wait for that feeling again. Im only skating the hills so I can surf the waves.