Nothing says spontaneous like a last minute road trip, right? I think most of your know the story by now, so this is mainly for me to be able to remember such a fun and unexpected week.
A little back story: Back in November, Julie and Christian got surprise orders to move from Fayetteville, NC to Tacoma, WA. Christian's report date was at the beginning of January which meant they had some serious scrambling to do to get the house ready, packed and moved. They turned in the keys to their rental in NC and headed to Atlanta for a week mid-December. I got to see them (and cute Madelyn) a few times as we all counted down to the big move out West. The night before they left, I was talking to Dad on the phone and he suggested that we (he and I) take their other car out to Washington for them. I was instantly game, but was sure that it would cause more stress on them since they were packing up and heading out the next day. I called to offer and we had a YES! within the hour. Even though they were leaving the next day, dad and I knew we wouldn't pull out until after Christmas.
So they dropped the Jeep off on their way out of town the next day. It sat at the end of my parent's driveway taunting dad and I every time we passed it. Dad read the manual and practiced driving it to the gym and local errands. Oh, I guess I should mention that it is a 6-speed manual. Which means that dad was going to be doing all of the driving since I have yet to master a clutch. From the minute Julie and Christian agreed, Dad started looking up maps and routes online. He was checking the weather patterns every 5 minutes and would always have a different suggestion for how we should get from one side to the other. I realized early on that this was the big difference between us. I was more concerned about what we would listen to in the car or what I could pack and could I prepare for the different temps across the country while still fitting it all into one suitcase for the flight home, but I could care less about our routes and directions.
I got really sick the week before Christmas and was essentially bed/couch ridden the entire week (dang sinuses). Thankfully this was the first year I'd decided to do all of my Christmas shopping via Esty and Amazon instead of local stores on Christmas Eve. I think by Christmas Day we were both feeling overwhelmed at the task ahead of us. I mean, it sounded like fun to take a cross country road trip, but just how would it go? Would dad really try to make me drive some of the way as he had threatened? Would we run out of things to talk about? Would we get on each other's nerves? All this loomed at the fore front of our minds....along with my secret fear of passing on my sick germs to Dad half way through the week.
First thing December 26th, we got up, showered, breakfasted, and hit the road. Thus starting the Great Trans-American Expedition.
Day 1:
Here we are with the Jeep moments before pulling out of the driveway.
We decided early on to take a picture of each state sign. Silly me dropped the ball heading into Alabama so we thought this would have to count. The #1 finger signifies the first state (well, technically 2nd since Georgia does count).
Since I was still recovering from being sick, we bumped elbows at every new state entry instead of the traditional Meloy handshake. This was my first time in Mississippi!
I'm sorry to say, my photography skills were challenged this week. This is welcome to Louisiana.
We decided to take a turn through New Orleans since I've never been. As it turns out, we didn't stay long. It just so happens that the Atlanta Falcons were playing the New Orleans Saints at the Superdome that night. There was traffic everywhere! People were tailgating/pre-gaming and partying in the streets as they made their way to the Dome. What's even more stressful is that it started raining. So we took a turn through the main part of the city so Dad could show me some of the sights. I was stressed by all of the people and didn't think it was worth it to try and find parking so we could eat a bignet. So we just waved at the famous spots as we jumped back on the highway. Next stop was Baton Rouge where we stayed the evening.
Day 2:
I think we were both running on a high from making it through the first day. We did notice once we hit highway speeds that there was no way to listen to the radio. The Jeep had a canvas top so once you got up to around 70, the wind noise made it too loud to hear anything...including each other. You should've seen us yelling back and forth. I also noticed after day 1 that my eyes were red and sore as I was going to sleep. It took me until day 4 to realize that it was probably wind burn. It was like the same feeling at the end of skiing a full day. Even with goggles on, your eyes get red and scratchy.
Anyway, Day 2 had more adventures in store for us so we hit the road.
Next stop: Waco, TX! OK, so there were a few bathroom stops and a lunch stop before we made it. We hit Waco right around dinner time and stopped in to see Court and Co. and their new house. Ryan's parents were in town for Christmas so we didn't stay too long. Plus we had more stops to make!
A huge star welcomed us to Texas!
The officialy elbow bump.
We hit our first 1,000 miles
Court's new house. Isn't it cute?
A close-up :)
Next stop on our road trip adventure was to the house of my god-parents....who just so happen to live in Waco. I haven't been to their house since I was little (maybe 8?) and they had no idea we were in town. *Note that I have seen their family since I was 8, just not in their house. So dad and I got their address from mom and rolled up to the front door. I was surprisingly nervous! They were so shocked to see us, I thought we were going to have to introduce ourselves. Mary and Bill were home, thankfully, and middle son, Drew, was still home from Christmas. We sat for about an hour with them and chatted about life, love and other mysteries (wait a second, isn't that the title of an Indigo Girls album?). After turning down kind offers to stay the night or at least stay for dinner, we hit the road. Right outside of Fort Worth we found a Cracker Barrel that was calling our names. Day 2 ended in a hotel just north of Fort Worth.
Day 3:
This will forever be known in my mind has the longest, hardest day. I think this for a couple of reasons.
1. We didn't have any stops to look forward to.
2. We drove across West Texas. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? It is loooooooooooooong
3. We were sneaking up to the half way mark which made time feel like it slowed down
The excitement of the day really came at the end of the day. During the whole trip we never pre-booked rooms. We didn't know where we were going to be and since we didn't have a definite schedule, it just made since to pick a spot and work towards it all day and then stop and find something when we were tired. Dad brought his iPad along so in the evenings he would look up hotels with reasonable rates for the next day's travel. Then as we were approaching that city I'd pull up the details on my handy dandy GPS (Niles, as we lovingly refer to him).
Only there was a glitch this time. For some reason all of the rooms in Gallup, New Mexico were booked. Seriously. All of them. They were even calling around to other chains for us and no one had anything. So back in the Jeep we hopped and drove for another hour to Grants, New Mexico. The first stop we made had a cluster of 3 hotels and all of them were booked. What the heck? At that point I was starting to think we might have to sleep (read: FREEZE) in the Jeep overnight. We finally found a spot at the Motel 6 and jumped on it because we weren't guaranteed it would still be open if we kept looking. Needless to say, it wasn't the nicest of accommodations and neither of us ended up sleeping well.
Here's a shot of the flat West Texas scenery
Welcome to New Mexico! My favorite of the state signs since it stretched across the highway.
A sunset shot. No, don't reach to wipe your screen. Those little black specks are the bug collection on the windshield.
Days 4-8 -- To Be Continued....
