Arrival
Trip Start
Jul 21, 2006
1
12
Trip End
Aug 06, 2006
La Canada, California
Friday, August 4, 2006
I pulled into La Canada, home (it's Mexican and is supposed to be spelled with a tilda over the "n" in "Canada" so that people don't think I'm a confused Mexican living in Canada, but my computer doesn't speak Spanish), at about 5:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, 8/2/06, four days ahead of my anticipated schedule. The reason: wending my way through the Southwest, I realized that deserts are, with the exceptions of Grozny/Herzegovina, Chernobyl, Lebanon, and Bin Laden's cave (he doesn't have HBO), the most uncomfortable, depressing, and unnerving places you can possibly drive into. Don't ask me how to drive into Bin Laden's cave; there's a secret entrance that only the CIA knows about. Coming across the Arizona border via Interstate 40 there is a 70 mile section of absolutely nothing. Literally. There's a sign, that I now wish I had taken a picture of for proof, warning motorists that the next services from that point are 70 miles ahead. Absolutely nothing for an hour of driving. The South at least had fireworks shacks and sketchy seafood huts every fifteen minutes or so in their "uninhabited" areas. Then again, it is the Mojave Desert. Don't ever enter the Mojave Desert. Even when there are services they consist of little more than a Dairy Queen, a Chevron or 76 gas station, and a depressing hovel/junk yard where the owner of the establishment(s) lives.
Unfortunately, my journey also brings bad news. The ferrets were both a casualty of my crossing. Actually, casualty is unecessarily harsh. They were confiscated by the California Department of Agriculture. No, Ahnold wasn't concerned that the ferrets were only entering the state for the purpose of cultivating illicit crops. Ferrets are illegal in the State of California. Apparently there is widespread concern among California conservationists that ferrets will, if released into the wild, become a devastating influence on indigenous species, specifically ground nesting birds and small mammals. Yes, ferrets are carnivorous. However, it would be fairly difficult for them to wipe out the local bird species from the confines of the Burlison Complex in the foothills of the San Bernadino Mountains. The Department of Fish and Game didn't believe me, though.
The back story: A number of family friends all have ferrets. My family was, apparently, informed by all of them (note: "informed" should be applied weakly, if at all, in this sentence; I think my family may have just presumed, and as everyone at Granite knows, presumptions make mistakes and angry customers calling Justin and Jim) that ferrets are okay to posess in California but not to purchse or sell. Switzerland has a similar policy regarding marijuana. You will not be arrested for posessing or smoking weed but will be arrested if, somehow, they happen to catch you in the act or purchasing or selling it. Clearly, marijuana markets have sprung up despite their stringent controls... So, I hit a Department of Agriculture inspection station. I'm familiar with them (though I had forgotten that I would have to pass through one, after being out of state for so long). California stops all vehicles coming into the state and asks them if they are bringing in any fruits or vegetables from out of state. It's ridiculous, I know. I had no fruit and hadn't consumed a vegetable since I was 12 and my mom gave up. I did, however, have a clearly visible cage with two ferrets. To my immediate left, behind the big Mexican guy who was asking me about my destructive fruits and vegetables, was a flyer with a picture of a ferret, a description of their "destructive" habits, and the bold word "quarantined". I was had.
The thing that pisses me off the most is my own ignorance. All I had to do was cover the cage with any several of a litany of items I had packed into the back of my car. They don't search anyone and wouldn't have thought twice about it. But, because they were in plain sight, I was caught. I had unwittingly delivered my ferrets.
I contacted the Department of Fish and Game and requested a permit to maintain my ferrets in California. The big Mexican was exceedingly helpful in guiding me to the appropriate parties, but the DOFAG (I don't think that's their real accronym, but that's what I'll call them, because they suck) informed me that I could certainly fill out and submit the paperwork, and that they would certainly help me towards that end, but that they would reject the request. My only option was exhausted. So, I could either hang out in Arizona, or give the ferrets to an adoption agency. A ferret adoption agency operates out of a city about 30 or 40 miles east of the checkpoint and coordinates, apparently more often than should be necessary, with the border check station to retrieve quarantined animals and adopt them out to willing owners in Arizona and the surrounding territory. I called the adoption agency and spoke with an empathetic woman about what would happen to my little buddies. Damned if I hadn't become very attached to them by then. Let me offer this advice: don't become attached to a species of animal that is listed for termination by the Governator. You will be let down.
So, to sum up this science journal-length novella, I left my two ferrets with an adoption agency at the border. It was tough, but I'm satisfied that they'll be set up in a perfectly acceptable place. The people I spoke with have a specific affinity for ferrets and gave me the impression that they will take good care of my two rectally proficient rodents (they still poop a lot).
So, it was a bittersweet homecoming. My new task is to find housing. I checked out Loyola and realize now moreso than when I was looking at it on GoogleEarth that the surrounding neighborhood sucks. All the windows have bars, there's graffitti (not too much, but enough to detract from the ambiance), and few of the natives speak english. I've found some good places in the downtown area but they're predictably expensive. Regardless, I'm excited about the fast-approaching first day of orientation, followed shortly thereafter by the first day of classes.
My special thanks to everyone for following along and to the people of the South for not trying to convert me to the Church of Uber-Christandom and unleashing their donkeys to fornicate with my leg when I predictably resisted. Also, special thanks to Rockefeller for creating a well organized oil industry that provided fuel, at predictable intervals, with the exception of the Mojave Desert, which should never be traversed, for my travels.
Rob Burlison, journalist and goat cheese coneseur extrodinaire, signing off. Good night, and good luck; against the commies, of course; they're trying to disrupt Bush's vacations and that's just unacceptable, because if he can't relax he can't possibly run the country...
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