The plan had been to be out of the apartment by 9:00 AM when
the office opened. I could drop off the keys, then hit the road. What happened was
I kept finding places in the kitchen that needed to be cleaned—little knick-knacks,
here and there which had to get shoved in the truck or tossed out. Stuff you
wouldn’t necessarily pack in a box, but still manages to show up, CDs, mail, ipod
chargers, you know stuff like that. There was a stack of mail with tax
paperwork and Christmas cards, including a gift card to Red Lobster from my
Grandma.
We broke down the bed, moved it over to the neighbors, printed
out the directions for the drive just in case the iphone went down (amazing how
much I rely on this thing now), called mom, and hopped in the truck to leave.
It was 11:00 AM.
Plenty of people told me that the drive was “brutal” so when
I hit the road I was ready. The hardest part was getting out of Austin and
gassing up at Schell for the last time in a long time. Pulling out of the gas
station, I tried to drown my sorrows in gas station coffee and a Mrs. Baid’s
Honey Bun. I love me some honey buns.
Chewing mouthfuls of that sweet sweet honey bun, I started to wonder how long
it would be before I would get another Mrs. Baird’s Honey Bun. How long it
would be before I saw all my friends. Was I crying and chewing honey bun and
doing 85 mph…I can’t say for sure.
Luckily, there were a couple of surprises on my 500 mile
drive to El Paso. In Johnson City (hometown of President Lyndon Baines Johnson),
there’s a shiny chrome colored longhorn that easily could have made it into one
of the Transformers movies. It kinda jumps out at you. Everything else out
there is green fields, grazing pastures, horses, goat farms then—all of the
sudden—a gigantic chrome evil ROBOTIC COW!
After that, the drive is long, but if you’ve got the audiobook
biography of Che Guevarra, it’s not so bad. Sure, there are times when there’s
nothing but white dust and dirt and large rocks. And sure, having a blow out
here would very much suck, but it’s a great time to think ahead, to plan things
to come as you watch the miles to El Paso on the green signs that melt away and
just as you start to learn what Che was like as a teenager, you start to get an
appreciation for the landscape…and audiobooks. At about 20 miles to El Paso, the
sun started to drop down over the horizon and maybe it was the dust, maybe it
was the rock, or maybe it was that I knew there was less than 20 miles to El
Paso, but it was one of the most incredible sunsets. I started to pull over
then realized (thanks to a truckers’ horn) the speed limit’s 85 mph and with
all the tractor trailers in the right lane, that may not be the greatest idea.
My tailgate doesn’t have a lock on it and not wanting
someone to snag my stuff, I asked friends for their advice. Some said just
sleep in the truck. Some road warriors even told me that Wal-Mart parking lots
aren’t a bad place to sleep when you’re on the road. No one will mess with you
there. In the end, I managed to find a hotel that would keep a camera on my
truck parked just outside of the 24 hr. front desk. Happy to know I wouldn’t
have to sleep in a Wal-Mart parking lot, I headed to the one place everyone
goes when there’s been a big win. Red Lobster.
 |
| Thanks Grandma. |
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