Road Trip 2019

Well, it finally happened. I missed a day. In my defense, the past two days have been incredibly busy. Thursday night Mom and Jon took us to the local casino to see a stand up comedy show. Then Friday morning, Mom, Derek, and I toured Jerome, visiting where my mom works (when she doesn't have a broken ankle) and the Old King Mine museum thingy. Then in the afternoon Jon joined us and we went into Sedona for a "Pink Jeep" tour of the surrounding canyon. It was a very bumpy ride and I wound up dehydrated and nauseous but it was a lot of fun. Friday night we went back up to Jerome for dinner with Mom, Jon, and Jon's parents. Then today, we drove up to the Grand Canyon which was amazing as always. Derek and I are both incredibly tired but we've had an amazing time. It's been great to see Mom and Jon! Mom especially since she broke her ankle three weeks ago. I've been worried about her and seeing her so mobile is really making me feel more reassured, even if she does have a long road of recovery ahead of her.

Tomorrow morning we hit the road again for the trip home. It should be just as long as the trip out here, although we're going the Northern route up through Colorado. So I'll see you tomorrow from the Rockies!

I'm happy to say we've finally made it to my mom's house in Northern Arizona. Today's drive had no stops for roadside attractions; we just wanted to get here. The drive itself was beautiful, going through the mountains by Flagstaff and down into the Verde Valley.

We've got a busy next couple days planned, with a jeep tour of canyons in Sedona, then the Grand Canyon on Saturday. A part of me would just like to relax and do nothing but oh well... Gotta squeeze in as much as we can, right? Then Sunday morning we hit the road again for the trip back to Massachusetts-- another five-day journey.

Not much to say today, just relief that I get to sleep in the same bed for a couple nights in a row, even if that bed is my mom's Murphy bed.

Hello from Albuquerque! It's gonna be another short entry tonight because I'm tired, but I wanted to get something down.

We've left the plains and entered the desert. Today we saw the famous Cadillac Ranch, plus the less famous homage, the VW Slug Bug Ranch. That, and some abandoned buildings along a dirt road section of Route 66. We tried to find what our trip planning app called a "singing road" here in New Mexico, but it wasn't there. Then we got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic coming into Albuquerque. Our first traffic jam since we left New England!

We're just over 2300 miles away from home and almost halfway through our trip. Next stop is my mom's house in Arizona, where we'll spend a couple days before embarking on the second leg of the trip. It'll be nice to sleep in the same bed two nights in a row!

Almost forgot to check in again... Whoops!

Today we left Missouri and drove to Oklahoma: the state where they make you pay a toll when you get on the highway, another toll to keep driving on the highway, and a third toll to get off the highway. Luckily, we were able to do a good chunk of our driving off the highway on ~Historic Route 66~!

We stopped at Pop's Soda Ranch for dinner and picked up six bottles of assorted rare sodas. The first one I tried was good (because it was a beans I'd had before and knew I liked), but Derek's first bottle was a bit of a cough syrup-y disappointment. Still, there's four bottles left to try.

We've learned that the best place to stop for gas and bathrooms is Casey's General Store. Their bathrooms are always spacious and clean. The first Casey's we stopped at was in Casey, Illinois, so I thought it was just a local thing, but no, it's a chain! It's like a Cumberland Farms, but with a little more Midwestern charm. At one of the Casey's we stopped at in Missouri, the woman working the counter said, "Oh, fiddlesticks!" completely unironically. Gotta love the Midwest.

Tomorrow we finish crossing Oklahoma, drive across the top bit of Texas, and finish the day in New Mexico. See you then!

Coming to you the morning after Day Three, because guess who forgot to write an update last night? Anyway, yesterday was mostly a bust. Almost all of the stops we had planned to make, we couldn't end up doing. Either the road was closed to the public, it wasn't what we thought it would be, there wasn't enough time, or it was closed for Labor Day. The one thing we did get to do was see Casey, Illinois: a small town home to a lot of "the world's largest" stuff. There was a rocking chair, a wind chime, a teeter totter, a giant bird cage, pencil, mailbox, knitting needles... There was a world's largest golf tee too, but we couldn't find it.

In any event, we're most of the way through Missouri now, about to head out on Route 66 for another day of driving. This day's journey should be a little shorter than the last few— only five and a half hours of driving instead of eight— and we'll be seeing some small and quirky attractions along the way. (That is, if they're open!)

Hello again! Coming to you from Indianapolis this time. Almost forgot to write my update tonight. It's going to be pretty short, because we didn't do much other than drive today. We originally planned on visiting the Indianapolis Zoo & Gardens today, but we forgot to factor in the fact that we would be getting into Indianapolis at around quarter to five PM. In the end, we were both too tired from driving more than four hundred miles to try for the zoo. So, we grabbed some Steak & Shake and had a quiet night in our hotel room. (It wasn't all that boring; the room came with a whirlpool tub!)

Tomorrow we head south into Missouri. No more four-states-in-one-day legs of the journey. From here on out, the states get a lot bigger.

I did get to do some of the driving today. I guess after 700 plus miles in the driver's seat, Derek figured it was my turn. We'll see who takes the wheel tomorrow. (Spoilers: probably Derek.)

Well, here we are! Coming to you live from western Pennsylvania. Today we went from Massachusetts, through Connecticut and New York, then into Pennsylvania. The beginning of the trip was pretty uneventful, with my main source of entertainment being pointing out every Honda CR-V we passed (our car for the journey is Derek's CR-V).

Our first stop was in Centralia, PA, a former coal mining town that was abandoned when the coal mine caught fire in 1962, releasing toxic fumes into the town. Supposedly, the mine is still burning to this day, but you can't tell from above ground. Back when we first started planning this road trip months ago, this was the first point of interest that Derek decided he wanted to see. For a long time our itinerary was Home >> Centralia >> ??? >> Mom's house.

When we got there, Derek was a little disappointed to find that the place was hopping with other tourists and people riding dirt bikes and ATVs. I think he had built it up in his mind as this exciting, deserted ghost town that only he and I would be there to explore, but it was really more of a weird tourist stop. It did have a stretch of abandoned highway, the surface of which was entirely covered in spray painted graffiti. It was kind of cool, I thought, but Derek was a little bummed. To make matters worse, when we finally made it to our hotel, turned on the TV, and started browsing channels, the History Channel was doing a piece about Centralia. Derek failed to appreciate this little bit of irony, and changed the channel right away.

Shout outs to some of the more interesting parts of our drive through Pennsylvania:

• The massive windmill farm along the top of the mountain ridge by Union Township.
  
• The back to back tunnels through two different mountains.
  
• All the signs for Shenandoah that made us feel like we were driving through a John Denver song.
  
• The random stretch of Interstate 76 that smelled inexplicably of cooked ham.

Honorable mention:

• Derek and my decision that the band Emerson, Lake, and Palmer is made up of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rikki Lake, and Arnold Palmer.

Tomorrow, we continue west through Ohio into Indiana, stopping at the Indiana Zoo & Gardens. Derek's never been to a zoo, whereas I went to a zoo or aquarium on pretty much vacation growing up (the benefits of having a ASD brother whose special interest was animals). I haven't been to a zoo in almost two decades, though, so this should be fun.

It's Friday night. We're pretty much all packed except for last minute essentials. We went grocery shopping for some snacks to bring with us that we'll put in the cooler we borrowed from Derek's aunt Deedee. We're basically all ready to leave first thing tomorrow morning, and to be honest? I'm a bundle of nerves.

Don't have much to say for this check in but I wanted to put something down. I have been counting down the days to this moment all week and now that it's here I'm... nervous? For some reason? I don't know. That's just part of GAD, I guess.

I'll sign off shortly but here's some last minute reminders for myself:

• Don't forget your electronics chargers!
  
• Don't forget your meds!
  
• Take the trash out before you leave!
  
• Have fun!

Alright. That's all. Next time you hear from me, I'll be on the road.

We're six days and counting from our departure date of August 31st. Derek's birthday is tomorrow, so he had brunch with his mom, grandma, and twin sister today. I wasn't able to go because I was meeting a dear friend who was in town from California. All in all, it's a pretty quiet day. Derek checked over all the fluid levels and other technical stuff in his car yesterday, and today he installed new LED interior lights. He's been little by little tricking out his new CR-V to be Road Trip Ready. New tires, a spoiler, a trunk organizer. He also bought roof racks and a ski box that we were going to use back when the idea was to sleep in the car overnight at various campgrounds along the way, but now that we've pretty much decided to use hotels the whole trip, he's nixed those in favor of better gas mileage. He told me he read online that the amount of miles we're doing should result in over $330 in gas, but we'll see if that holds up.

I bought a really cute handmade zipper pouch to put my toiletries in when we were at the Plymouth Waterfront Festival/craft fair yesterday. I wish I had thought to take the card of the woman who made it; it's super cute, and she not only designed the bag, but the fabric as well. I may take a picture of it later to share. It's a little early to pack all my toiletries but I've already got a spare toothbrush and toothpaste in there, along with nail clippers/file, sunscreen, lotion, and icy hot. I debated throwing in a bottle of shampoo, but I'm pretty sure everywhere we're staying will have shampoo, so I may leave that out. Once the time comes to actually pack for real, in will go the hairbrushes, hair ties, deodorant, pill bottles, etc. Our suitcases are still packed from our move to the new apartment in June, so we'll have to pull those out of the closet to pack the rest of our stuff. I get out of work early on Friday so I'll be coming home to do as much laundry as possible before we leave Saturday morning.

I have no idea how I'm going to get through this next week at work, short Friday or no. Already last week, all I could think about was the road trip. I kept looking at my calendar throughout the day, counting down, "Two more weeks!" Derek and I have been talking about doing this road trip for over a year, it feels like. It's kind of incredible to me that it's finally happening. Derek's never done any traveling like this before (he hadn't even been on an airplane until last year), and the last time I did a cross country trip was when I moved to Los Angeles in 2011 (and then back, in 2012). The trip out to California I did with my mom, from Cape Cod to LA, and we took about ten days to do it, stopping and visiting friends and family along the way. It was fun. We went up the St Louis Arch, stopped at the Hoover Dam, I got a haircut in Santa Fe. The trip back home I did with my dad, from LA to Burlington, VT, and we did nothing but drive and sleep, basically, making the trip in four days. This trip should be something in between those two. We have attractions we plan to see on the journey, from Centralia, PA to the Cadillac Ranch, and then Niagara Falls on the way back. Expect lots of pictures, and video even! Derek wants me to put my Cinema Studies degree to work and be his cameraman, but we'll see how that actually goes.

Anyway. The tl;dr version is... I can't stop thinking about this trip. It's exactly what I need right now: two weeks off work to destress and go see things I've never seen before. Or things I haven't seen in a really long time. I need this. Derek needs this. I can't wait.