FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Whenever I take one of these journalistic road trips I quickly come to wish I’d gone into another line of work. Like, say, the manufacture and distribution of orange traffic cones.

I don’t believe I’ve ever driven Interstate 40 when it wasn’t under construction, and today this record remains intact. If only I’d had the foresight to major in traffic cones instead of journalism! With double minors in orange barrels and orange signs, of course. I could buy the 2012 elections, and wouldn’t that be interesting. Maybe not.

Cerrillos in Santa Fe was a construction clusterfuck, too. It was something of a struggle to enjoy my evening ales at Second Street Brewery, my breakfast burrito at Tia Sophia and a leisurely soak at Ten Thousand Waves. But I got them all done, and in that precise order, because I know that you, Dear Readers, expect nothing less than perfection in recreation from Your Humble Narrator.

Now I’m at a Motel 6 in Flagstaff and wishing I’d fetched a piece along, as per my usual practice. The place has backslid along with the economy and I’m pretty sure there is at least one flatbacker working the joint alongside the usual collection of chain-smoking toothless weirdos, grinning ax murderers and illegals camping 12 to a room. But there is wifi, so we have that going for us. I can webcast a digital appeal for help as the serial killers dismember me in front of my own webcam.

Meanwhile, I ignored the national slobbering over the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I didn’t hear anyone mention their most chilling effect — turning us into a nation of cheapjack, chickenshit bullies who wiped our collective asses with our own Constitution and then set about roaming the globe, shoving that stained document into brown people’s faces.

Instead I listened to a nonstop collection of Tom Waits CDs: Real Gone, Blood Money, Mule Variations, Small Change and Alice. Now I have a party in my head and an idea for a fireworks display.

Tomorrow: Vegas. Pray for me.