In an Attempt to Keep My Sanity... Why Not Road Trip?

As some of you may (or may not know), back in August my dad fell off the roof and broke his heel in 2 places (3 pieces). Ever since then I had been developing a bit of cabin fever, not to mention dad had been driving me nuts. I needed an excuse to get away from it all, and at the end of October I got just that excuse.

One of my friends living out in Las Vegas, NV was having a baby shower. I got the invitation in the mail on October 24th and it was for the second weekend in November. Plane tickets at this point were $567 and that didn't include a rental car so I could actually get around. My car was sitting pretty at about 12,000 miles at that point and almost 2yrs old. Sooo... I drove. My friend didn't know I was coming, and I was there for a whole week prior to the party even happening to surprise her. This post is about my trip out there.

After work on Friday, Novemeber 4, 2011, I left NY and home at 6:30pm. Making a quick stop at Kwik Fill to feed the car and I was on my way. Now I couldn't really show up to the party without a gift so my first stop was in Henrietta, NY and Baby's R Us. What better gift to get for a baby shower I was driving across country to but a car seat? Domini's (my friend), roommate, Summer, was going in on the gift with me, so I let her in on my secret of coming out there. After about 30 minutes in the store, I was back on the road and heading onto I-90 which was going to turn into a long night of driving.

I had to make a stop in Buffalo to look over my trip ticks (thank you AAA) and make sure I could plan out the drive. My first actual feed the car stop was not until I got outside of Pennsylvania. Driving at night is the way to go... sometimes. I found myself getting bored pretty fast and disappointed I couldn't really take pictures while driving, or stop to take pictures at all the welcome signs. Not to worry, I got a few on the way home.

Upon leaving NY it was roadkill city for the rest of the evening, on main highways, in the midst of city limits, with no forests in sight. We are talking deer, or what was left of them. Blood splattered roadways are not really my cup of tea. I was more concerned watching the road's edges for eyes looking at me. Lucky for me, all I saw on the way were dead animals.

According to the time stamp on the next photo, I arrived to my hotel for the night at 2:20am November 5, 2011. A Super 8, with outdated mattresses that looked like a 500 lb. man slept in them for a month straight, a heater that clinked so bad I left it off, and coffee, that tasted like dirt. I stopped at a truck stop about an hour before to call ahead, the man who answered said "Microtel Inn and Suites" then mumbled some other bullshit like he was reading off a teleprompter and said they were right off the exit. OK good. What would have been nice is if they told me they were no longer the microtel so I wasn't driving around unfamiliar territory for 15 minutes looking for the place. Well, dad gave me the trip ticks and the books, and they were 2 years old. Within those 2 years, they changed names. Gah! The price was right, so I stayed there. I left at 8:30am the next morning.

Back on the road, nothing really exciting today. I made it from Columbus, OH to Weatherford (OK City) OK. Lots of construction made life hell going through but still enjoyable. Somewhere amongst the construction I passed by a nice Lexus (which is really a luxury Toyota, hehe) towing a uhaul trailer. Out of the construction zone and heading into another this guy passed me, going about 75-80. We were not going downhill, it was pretty flat. All the sudden I see the trailer start doing this (insert me waving my hands back and forth like a tidal wave). The damn thing was bouncing all over, I was waiting for it to flip the overpriced "luxury" SUV over. I slowed wayyyy down and kept watch as the driver was able to get over to the side of the road. All that was holding the trailer to the SUV was the wiring harness for the brake lights. Fun!


Before heading through OK city, I needed to make a stop, I had many random stops here and there to fill up the car but not as many as say if I was in mom and dad's car or my brother's. I came upon this truck stop and the women's bathroom did not have tampons or pads in dispensers in the bathroom. No, I didn't need any at the time, but I found it rather odd that they had these instead: I was 1/2 tempted to buy one of each just to bring them home for the ladies on my sister's bowling team for shits and giggles. I didn't, but I now wish I had. The area was slightly ghetto so I got out of there as soon as I could. I get through a main drag in OK City and decided to stop and call ahead for a place to stay. Did anyplace have rooms free? Of course not. I ended up calling a Comfort Inn and Suites and had to stay there, price was over what I really wanted to spend, but I needed to sleep and I refused to stay anywhere with exterior corridors when traveling alone, its just not my nature to do so.

No sooner do I get off the phone with this place, sitting in a rest stop with the car running, heater running... my car started shacking from side to side. It was windy out, but wind would not make your car feel like it was going to flip over both ways at the same time. I seriously thought at that point something was wrong with the car. I put the car in gear and start driving, and the feeling of being blown away stopped. Odd. Not an hour later I get a text from a friend in Vegas who was watching my path and travels and he tells me there was just a 5.8 mag earthquake in Oklahoma city. "where are you and are you ok?" hehe, yeah nice I survived an earthquake, in my car. Although at the hotel, In order to get a non smoking room, I was on the second floor, in a suite (hence the not so nice price) 2 king sized beds, a couch, desk, fancy ass bathroom and I was only there for 5 hours, if that. Best night sleep EVER! I jumped from bed to bed just because I could =) then I passed out. But the room was swaying when I got up there, like I was going to faint, or drunk pass out. Aftershocks are sometimes worse than the quake, the room was swaying, not my body.


Here is a picture of the room from the entrance area. This was before I played monkey's on the bed and jumped around between them =)

Next morning I got up late, so I didn't leave until about 9:00am local time. The time stamps on my photos are off, but if I remember correctly I didn't make it to the hotel until 330am on November 6, 2011, which was a Sunday morning. Well, I got up and started my day with feeding the car and driving through the worst and most boring part of it all. New Mexico and Arizona are not fun at all. Some of the views are pretty, but the road is like a never ending, straight path you can see for MILES.

I did try very hard to get a good picture of the roadway, but even when I stopped at a rest stop to take one, it didn't do it justice. All the photos in the actual blog, by the way, are from my phone. I think I already posted the trip photos from my camera on Facebook if you want to see them. Just look for the album.

Alright, despite the boring parts, Albuquerque was by far my favorite to pass through. It reminded me of the tv show "In Plain Site" about the witness protection and US Marshall. Coming over the hills and then the city is just there was AWESOME! I have a photo from my move home in 2010 of the falling rock sign, but I cannot seem to find it to post it. It was a picture of a mountain with rocks of different sizes falling and a little car tilted like it was getting thrown by the rocks. Classic! The boring went away as soon as I saw the big black lady, driving what looked to be a brand new school bus (no names on it yet), with the door open. The doors to get on the bus, that open outward, flapping in the breeze. I sped up to get by because not only were the doors open, the lady was going about 10 miles under the speed limit and couldn't keep the bus in the lane. Never a dull moment really.

So I made it through all this and ended up in Arizona and Flagstaff sooner than I thought. I was about 2 hours from Vegas, with a potential arrival time of 11:00pm Local (PST) time. Not soon after I arrive in Flagstaff, the ground looked funny, and bright. I touched my window and my hand immediately froze. I called dad. "Dammit, I came out here now to avoid snow, why does it have to have SNOW!?!"

After I got that out of my system, it wasn't actually snowing, it was just on the ground, about 3-5 inches. The road had nothing but wet. I slowed down for fear of black ice. About 5 minutes later that nice cold nothing turned to nice cold white out! First an earthquake and now a blizzard? In the desert? UGH! Driving for 14-15 hours on 3 hours sleep, in a blizzard, in the desert; on a road full of semi trucks and people who don't know how to drive in snow, with no exits to stop at until it cleared. The tunnel vision started, I was staring at what parts of the road I could see instead of the truck in front of me. The snow was so thick it was like instant coverage on the road, without plows in sight. I wasn't sure if I should just keep driving and get away from the storm or pull over at the next stop if there was lights close to the exit until it let up. At that time my inner New Yorker kicked in and I decided to just stick it out and drive. Took 30 min extra and my arrival into Las Vegas was 12:00am instead.

I arrived at my friend Tony's house and he let me in, and I went right to bed. Up at 8am to drive to the office for work. I was there all week without Domini knowing I was there. Monday night after work I went back to Tony's, changed, and went to Henderson to pick up Domini's roommate from work to take her to the midnight release party of Modern Warfare 3. I got a t-shirt, we got peppermint mocha coffee at Starbucks and were right around the corner from their apartment.

2,511 miles, 2 overnight stops, 1 earthquake and 1 blizzard in the desert and I was in Vegas!

Part 2 of this to come, which will include a week of hiding, work, baby showers, almost t-boning someone, smokey joe's and the parking extravaganza =)

until next time, this is Jen, out!