For a place with not nearly enough palm trees, Arizona still seems to be a beautiful place, somehow. In the low areas the cactus stand proud even if their bottoms are eaten away or their tops are shot at by the bored and lonely. There must have been some rain because the hills are green and the grasses wave in the strong breezes. It's hot as shit but people don't seem to notice. They walk around like zombies, stunned by the high temps and failure of their basketball team to bring home another ring.

The higher the altitude the taller the shrubs get and then actual trees start to make themselves noticed. We write you from Flagstaff, evelation 6000 where you dont see hardly any cactus and if you didn't know any better you'd swear you were in Southern Oregon with acres of green trees, wild grasses and even sunflowers.

The Fry's Electronics has no charm or style or novelty of those in California. No UFO theme, no wild west theme... all they're busting with is the Strip Mall theme. This is made up for by the 75 MPH speed "limit" on the 10, and noticeable lack of traffic.

The clouds float by huge as if they'd just filled up on all-you-can eat buffets last night in Nevada and waiting to unload on those heathens in Texas. They threaten rain but they're bluffing like the seniors at the Indian reservation casino poker table who have unwittenly donated to the LAist road trip fund. Thanks, old timers!

LAist is on a secret road trip. We had heard the magic and majesty of Route 66 so we left LA at 4:20p, got an oil change in Pomona and the mechanic recommended about $250 of other minor repairs. We had some work to do and wifi was flowing so we flipped him the credit card and said go for it.

Because, you see, our road trip doesn't end in Chicago where the most famous Route ends - our journey will take us up through Canada, down the East coast and then back home to Hollywood.

Unfortunately the mechanic either never filled the oil chamber up with 10w-40 after he drained out the old stuff, or he didnt tighten the plug because somewhere in Arizona the Oil light started flickering on.

Right around the same time the gasoline needle said Fumes.