We Are Magical

Well, folks....I did it. 
I said my sad goodbyes to my friends, family and my puppy dog and drove 1800 miles across the country with my sidekick ladyfriend. We had our ideas of how this trip would go, but really had no plan. It ended up working greatly in our favor. 

I left Belleville at 5am and headed across the Mississippi River one final time. I used to tear up when I crossed over the Poplar Street Bridge, looking at downtown St. Louis and thinking about how much I loved that city. It was weird that this time, I didn't. However, that might have been because right as I was coming up on the bridge, I ran over something in the road. Or maybe it was something more symbolic. Probably not, though.

I got to Lyndsey's around 5:20am, stuffed her few bags in the backseat somewhere and headed towards I-44. We stopped to fill up and get some coffee, and we were on our way. [I'm going to keep a tally of the approximate money spent throughout the trip. At this stop, Coffee $2, Gas $40]

It was strange because I had always thought driving that highway back and forth to Springfield during my college years was such a trek. I remember dreading it and always having to stop in Rolla for a stretch break. It's funny how looking at that drive from a different perspective, as a tiny portion of a two-to-three-day trip, it seemed like we got there in a flash. 

Our first gas stop was in Joplin, MO. It had been raining for the last 200 miles or so as a result of Hurricane Isaac's weather moving up from the south. We had a good stretch, took a bathroom break and were back on the road in about 20 minutes. [Gas $35]

My navigator showing our love of maps. 

Our main goal of this whole trip was to make it to LA in two days. Everyone we talked to pretty much shot us down, and, knowing the two of us, I can see why they would assume that we wouldn't make it. HOWEVER, we made killer time on day one. We had a lunch and gas stop in Oklahoma City, stopped again in Amarillo, and made it to Albuquerque around 8pm Saturday night. [Lunch $12 (seriously, the waiter probably thought we scraped that money together), Gas $25, Gas $30]

We found an ok hotel right off one of the first exits in Albuquerque. It was the kind that the door to your room led right to the parking lot, but it was $49, was well lit and had a hot breakfast in the morning. We were sold. 

We got most of the stuff out of the backseat of my car and checked out our room. It had two beds and seemed bed bug free. We were satisfied. It was time to find some grub. A quick change of clothes and freshening up our contacts, and we were ready to go. The little man at the front desk recommended a bbq joint across the street called Rudy's. One look at Rudy's and we decided to do some exploring on our own. 

I guess I had a whole mindset that going west, we were going to run into really awesome places with really awesome people who all looked really awesome. My hopes were way too high for Albuquerque. We drove around aimlessly thinking something had to be popping on a Saturday night. Wrong. Apparently, the only place that seemed to have anyone at all was Red Lobster. We hit it up.

Noticing the cities on our driver's licenses, the bartenders (reminder: at Red Lobster) assumed that we were small town folk coming to the big city of Albuquerque to experience the world. In the tables closest to our bar stools sat some pretty mangy folks with outfits that seemed to have been purchased head to toe from a 5-7-9 back when it was cool and hairstyles I can't begin to describe. I'm not saying that we looked like supa models, but we had been on the road for 18 hours. 

We had a couple of drinks and a nice little dinner, paid our bill and headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest. We were definitely looking forward to not being in a vertical or sitting position for a while.

 As we pulled into the parking lot, a strange, Hispanic man was wandering around the parking lot. I barely noticed him, but Lyndsey was full on protection mode. She took my car keys and instructed me to head into the room. I had no idea what was going on, but she sounded like she meant it, so I followed her directions.

After about 10 minutes, Lyndsey returned. She said she saw the guy looking at us and at our car intently as we pulled in and as we were walking to our room. She took the keys, got back in the car for a minute, got back out, locked the car and shook the keys at the guy while maintaining eye contact with him the entire time. She checked with the front desk to make sure someone would be there all night, made sure the guy saw her seeing him one last time, and came back to the room. She slept with the box cutter under her pillow all night, just in case. My protector. 

We woke up early the next morning to shower, rearrange the car and eat some breakfast. One stop to fill up the gas tank and buy a coffee, and we were on the road again by 6:30am. We were on a fucking roll. [Hotel $49, Dinner $50, Gas $45, Coffee $5]

Two beds, great water pressure in the shower and a hot breakfast all for 50 bucks. 

Somewhere in the midst of this first section of the day 2 trip, I remembered that the back passenger tire has a slow leak and we probably should have checked it before we left. Whoops. I can't remember the town we stopped in, something that started with an H, but literally the next exit we could find with a big name gas station. 

If anyone is planning on making this trip anytime and needs to air up a tire, this town that starts with an H off of 40 in Arizona is a terrible place to do so. The first station where we originally stopped had free air (yay!) that was out of order (boo!). The second big name station we came across just plain didn't have an air pump....when I asked the attendant and was told there wasn't one, I made have answered with a profanity or two. Not a great start to the day. Station three had an air pump (yay!) that was blocked by some moron who parked at a 45 degree angle with his engine still running (boo!). When we finally got to the pump, it cost $1 for 1 minute (boo!). It took us $3 to figure out that the pump didn't work and was taking more air out of the tire (f---!). 

I was fuming. Poor Lyndsey had to deal with me. She was trying to help me see the light in the situation by saying we could have never stopped and blown a tire. My frustration was getting the best of me.

We headed back out to get on the freeway to find another station, and I missed the entrance ramp. Now I was about to stop and blow up the tire myself. Luckily, Lyndsey spotted the best gas station we had seen yet. The air wasn't free but it worked and we finally we able to get some air into the tire. So much for day two being as successful as day one. Ugh. [Gas $20, Vitamin Water $2, Air $5]

After that fiasco, the next part of the trip went pretty smoothly. I have heard from several people that the dessert can be pretty boring to drive through. I don't know what they were talking about. The road is rather straight and boring but the scenery that surrounds it is amazing. Maybe it's because I've never seen anything remotely close to it, but I loved it. I kept wanting to pinch myself. The drive was a vacation in itself. 

At the beginning of this whole trip, Lyndsey and I had both expressed our need to see the Grand Canyon. I'm not sure how many cross-country trips I'll be taking in my lifetime (hopefully, very few), but I wasn't about to pass up this opportunity. We got to Flagstaff around noon and took a sharp right up Highway 64. It was an hour both ways and completely out of the way, but it was definitely worth it. 

It was the definition of breathtaking. 

I'm not going to try to put into words how amazing it was. I'm definitely not that talented. We spent a little while snapping pictures and taking it all in, and we were headed back to I-40. One stop for a quick lunch at Wendy's, and we were back on track. [Grand Canyon $25, Gas $15, Wendy's $15 (No, we're not heffers. They up the prices at the Grand Canyon. Duh.]

The rest of the trip went as smoothly as day one. We did have some issues with the sun when it was setting over the desert, but we powered through it. 

FYI: When crossing the California border, there is a mandatory stop to check for plants, fruits and vegetables coming in. There were signs warning us that there will be a stop, but no details as to what it was. Well, this being my first cross-country trip and my first car in my name, I was nervous as fuck. Lyndsey was driving, so as we approached, I got all the car documents ready, had my license out and was on edge. 

"Do you have any fruits or vegetables in the car?" was the last thing I was expected to hear. I yelped a little "Yes! Apples!" and leaped out of the car. I had to dig through all of my belongings to reach the cooler in the middle of the backseat to finally reach the three apples I had packed as part of our 'healthy snacks' motto for the trip. 

He had to confiscate the apples, which in retrospect, I wish I had been on my toes enough to try to gobble one more down before he took it. Such a waste of perfectly good apples.  
Unfortunately, for me and the cars piling up behind us, that was not the end of the search.  He then wanted to know if we had any plants. Well, I had just gotten a little fern from one of my best friends, and I wasn't about to gibe that up, so I said no as I was returning my belongings to the backseat. Then, I saw the little plant sitting right in plain view.

"Oh, yeah, I...I forgot. I have this fern. It was a gift! That's why I forgot it!" I stammered. Oh great, I was going to lose this guy, too, and possibly get arrested for lying to this state trooper or whatever he was. Fortunately, this fern passed the test and went back to his little spot in the back seat. 

Little guy had a stressful trip.

One more stop in Needles, CA for some fuel and potty, and we were onto our last stretch of the drive. We made it to Hollywood around 8:30 and pulled up to Gabe's where, somehow, the parking spot directly in front of the door was waiting for us. We took a load of my things upstairs and took a load off with a celebratory Budweiser. It was the perfect end to an amazing, successful trip. [Gas $35]

Cheers! BIG MAPS, BIG DREAMS.