Time for some father-daughter bonding, so Jessica and I headed out on the road to torture each other. I mean, seriously, who travels with their 17-year-old kid when said kid actually wants to spend time with a parent? I always thought this was anathema to the very ideas of freedom. And it’s not like we haven’t had a rocky past where Mr. Opinionated A-Hole made his fragile progeny weep giant tears of hurt.

But here we are all the same, just the two of us testing one another to see who will crack out a giant desiccated car-length turd of despair. This example log at Petrified Forest National Park may not have been a tree at all and could seriously be a T-Rex BM back in the day when Father Tiny-Arms attempted to visit the Grand Canyon but got so pinched in the tension of such an ordeal that this happened.

Of course, I’m just kidding. My heart is not made of stone, and I’m sure hers is not either, though her mother sent me this image claiming it is, in fact, a fairly accurate representation of that cold thing beating in her chest. What I didn’t laugh at was her claim that she’d inherited from me.

Jeez, we only made it to the north side of the park before I had to push Jessica over a cliff. How she caught that pole is beyond me. I guess if she’s old enough to be heading off to the Navy, she’s old enough to have been practicing pole skills. Oh, did I forget to share that? Jessica needed me to sign off on her early enrollment to join the military, and after a minute of trying to dissuade her, her argument was too strong to ignore. Her reasoning was something like this, “I don’t know what I want to do, and I don’t want to end up pregnant or on drugs, which seem to be the options out here in Florence, Texas.” Well, how do you argue with that?

Next, I tried the old trick that I’d hidden her birthday present out in the maze and all she needed to do was to brave the heat and hellish sun exposure and start hunting for it. I insisted there was a cash element to it, but she wasn’t biting. I think she knew by this time I would drive away.

But then there she is, putting on that cute “I’m seriously nice, Dad, but you have issues” smile, and I give in to allowing her to eat. My daughter is a vegetarian, yet another reason to leave her by the side of the road.

Jessica exclaims, “What am I supposed to do, just pose here or something?” I responded with, “Look behind you; you are on Highway 666, which seems an appropriate place for the spawn of some evil like you to find your way. I’ll just tell Caroline you got cold feet about the Navy and decided to go nomad.”

This is turning out more difficult than I thought, as even up here in the mountain retreat of Mesa Verde National Park, she wouldn’t believe me that her room for the night was in a kiva on the other side of the wall. It’s not that I don’t cherish my daughter, but you’ve never smelled her feet, and if we get to a motel tonight, I’m going to suffer in inhuman ways unimaginable to others. Guys have feet like hers (including the incredible size; I swear if she were shorter, she’d be a hobbit). Her feet are of the kind where you ask people to take their shoes off outside and wash those mosquito attractors before entering the room or just leave them sealed up in their shoes that are probably growing to their feet anyway.

Wow, we made it to the world’s cheapest motel I could find in Cortez, Colorado. This remnant of dryas would have provided more loft under our heads than the pillows we were given. To add insult to injury, I found us a Chinese restaurant to “dine” at. Anyone who’s traveled America’s minor roads knows, “Never go to a Chinese restaurant in a city under 150,000 people,” and here in Cortez, the population doesn’t even hit 8,500. You wanted vegetarian food, it’s this or Arby’s.