flagstaff frank

Flagstaff Frank stands on the corner of 7th Ave and Pine Road with a cardboard sign he flashes at passing motorists. Jesus Saves! And I guess he probably does, but what he's saving Frank for I haven't the slightest idea.
I don't stop in Flagstaff. Rather, I take a left off I-40 west onto I-17 south which will take me straight into Phoenix in just about three more hours. I am dropping into the Valley of the Sun in a high speed cargo van full of what I thought was important enough to keep. In the right lane, trucks and elderly blue hairs fight the steep grade and smoke their brakes, but I let the van fall and gather speed until I hit the first sharp turn and I learn that here, unlike everywhere else I've ever been, a posted 55 mph turn IS a 55 mph turn. I get the truck under control just in time to avoid hitting a lizard as big as a healthy chihuahua, flexible looking and obviously psychotically vicious. But I've got a road that needs focusing on and the lizard can't and doesn't penetrate the truck's metal exoskeleton.
This evil road includes 6% grades that go for miles. There are runaway trucks ramps all over hell (which I suspect it would be like to actually use one). You don't hit the desert floor until just outside of Phoenix. As I do, traffic begins to build and out come the meth-smoking freeway cowboys who all have to be somewhere else RIGHT NOW. Flabbergastingly high four wheel drive monster trucks with spiked metal rims and copper plated spit cups. The dryest pork rind of a woman looked out and grinned at me as she and her pie-eyed duster sped past. Of the four teeth I could make out, two were black, one green and the last spiky like a vampire tooth. I was reminded of the chihuahua lizard.