Thursday, August 17, 2006

The Road Post to End All Road Posts

OK everyone. Sorry I haven't been in touch, but everything that has happened since I last updated has been a bit of a whirlwind. It's been crazy.

I left Kingman, Arizona on Monday morning at 10:30 am. This ended up being a very long day. I drove through all of Arizona and New Mexico which were both pretty. Around sunset I stopped in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a cup of coffee (actually two cups) which I decided to sit and enjoy at the coffee shop rather than suck down in the car. I had a nice peaceful moment in the cool windy desert air of New Mexico as I enjoyed my coffee and had a cigarette, thinking of all the incredible country I'd been rolling over.

Then I got into Texas as the day was drawing to a close. The problem was that I was still on Pacific Time and as I entered Texas I was now on Central time. So as I drove through and past Amarillo, Texas my body was feeling ready to keep on truckin', but the clock said I should stop. I listened to my body.

On most of the days on the road up to this point I was driving until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. This may seem late, but I usually don't even get on the road until mid morning, so it's not too bad. This caused a problem however when my body started feeling like it was 2:00 am, but the clock said it was 4:00 am. I was faced with the problem of whether or not it would be worth while to go ahead and get a hotel room so late in the night. If I went to bed that late, the hotel would just make me check out by 11:00 the next morning. Long story short, I finally got so tired when I rolled into Childress, Texas at 4:30 am that I couldn't stay awake anymore and decided to stop. The guy at the front desk told me I could get a late check-out for the same price as a regular room because it was so late, and I thanked him.

I hit the sack at 5:00 am and slept until close to 1:00 pm on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I woke up, hit the road running and managed to make it all the way into Lafayette by 1:00 am Tuesday night.

So if I've been in Lafayette since Tuesday night, why haven't I posted anything here until now? I'm glad you asked.

I pretty much went straight to bed on Tuesday night in Lafayette because I was dead tired, and Lindsey and I had plenty to do on Wednesday. You see, because of complications due to Hurricane Katrina, many trucking companies do not like to drive into Louisiana anymore. They will do it, but it is very expensive. So, we decided to have our cars shipped to Houston, Texas because the price was pretty much half of what it would cost to get them shipped to Lafayette.

So we woke up late on Wednesday morning, went to the bank to take care of some things, picked up coffee at CC's (mmmm...CC's) and then headed to the train station. We caught a train in Lafayette headed to Houston at 4:30 pm. The train was an hour late...it was supposed to be in Lafayette at 3:30. The train ride was really cool. It was mine and Lindsey's first time on a train. We hung out in the lounge car and watched a lightning storm, had dinner in the dining car, and then slept a little in our seats. Finally, the train arrived in Houston at 10:30 pm. We then got a call from the truck driver that he would be at a truck stop off of I-45 at 11:30. We caught a cab, got to the truck stop and waited. Thankfully, it was a really nice, bug truck stop. There was a Wendy's attached, so we had frosties while we waited. I remember thinking that while the whole ordeal of catching a train to Houston in the middle of the night was a severe pain in the ass, by simply going with the flow and doing what needed to be done, I was able to have a nice little ice-cream date with my wife on a Wednesday night that was really nice. It's strange where you end up if you just roll along with what life dishes out at you.

The trucker eventually showed up, and because my car does not have an air conditioner we decided to drive back that night because it would be cooler than the day time driving. We left Houston at 1:00 am on Wednesday night (Thursday morning) and made it into Lafayette by 5:00 am. Of course, we crashed as soon as we got home and slept late today.

And so ends our last cross-country move. It was interesting and exciting and fun. If any of you ever have the chance to drive across the country I strongly recommend it. I've done it three times now and loved every minute of each trip.