The Road Chronicles: Day 3

So now we're in Tulsa, safe and sound at our friend William's house for the night. It's ridiculously hot here, and muggy, and icky, but it's nice to be at our (semi) destination. I'm really looking forward to not driving for the next two days. I'm going to bed without setting an alarm and waking up whenever I wake up tomorrow! How exciting. William said "I have to work a shift tomorrow, from 8am to noon" and I said "Don't worry, we probably won't even be awake until you get home anyways". Hurray!

Today was an interesting day. The driving wasn't horrible but because we had such a long day yesterday we were already a bit tired. And we got lost a few times trying to get back on highways that we left to take a break or get food or switch drivers.

We left at about 7:30am after eating a continental breakfast in our Super 8 motel (er, some toast and juice). At some point we crossed into Texas. At some point we then crossed into Oklahoma. It was rather uneventful overall.

Though, I did have a huge scare about almost hitting a deer! We were in Oklahoma on a four lane highway that had a large grassy divide between the two lanes going the different directions. There were no other cars in sight so I had the cruise control on at 75mph. About 100ft ahead of us we saw a frantic doe sprinting across the two lanes of our side of the highway and into the grassy divide. It was far enough in front of us that I wasn't worried, and I was more thinking "Ooh, a deer! Oh no deer, don't run into the lanes on the other side of the highway, you'll get run over!" But apparently the deer had the same thought and it whipped around in a quick U turn right before reaching the other two lanes and headed back towards our side of the highway. So I was like "Ok, slow down, I'll let it run back across and we'll be fine". But the deer didn't run straight across the road, so I had slowed down, and the deer slowed down a bit, but we were both still going about 60mph (I swear that deer was fast!) and the deer was RIGHT NEXT TO US. The deer and I were trying to figure out "Do I go in front? slow down? go in back? aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!" and neither of us could decide, but the deer had all of this forward momentum, which was taking it straight into the driver's side of my van! It was right next to my driver's side door; if I'd had the window down (and the car and the deer hadn't been almost hitting each other at 60mph) I could have reached out and patted it's head.

Well finally I just hit the gas and managed to pull right in front of it. We didn't hit the deer, and it didn't hit us, but when we looked in the rearview mirror the deer had completely fallen over itself in the lane behind us because of trying to turn and avoid us and because of the slipstream from the giant van. Poor deer. But it's still alive to frantically run around the highway and give someone else a heart attack another day.

The rest of today was fairly uneventful, and like I said, I'm looking forward to going to sleep and not waking up until my body is good and ready to!

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The Road Chronicles: Day 2

Or Day 3 I suppose, depending on how you count it. But since we didn't make any progress with the little amount of driving we did yesterday, I count today as day 2 instead.

Yesterday we went to San Diego to visit Lauren and Whit. It was really awesome! We walked around on the beach with Whit and then met up with Lauren for lunch at a burger place called Hodad's in Ocean Beach. It was yummy.

Today we woke up at about 5am. We finished packing up some of JonMarke's stuff and loading it into the car, and we also put a tarp over the seat on the roof to avoid some of the bugs. Luckily we didn't run into any summer thunderstorms on our route today, but JonMarke's mom had the brilliant idea of us getting a tarp and bungees BEFORE we got to Tulsa, rather than in Tulsa. It was nice to have the tarp to keep the bugs off, but it was freaky to hear the noise of the tarp flapping around and see the shadows every once in a while. We must have stopped about four different times to make sure the thing wasn't falling off!

We made excellent time today. We got in to the motel at 11pm, left at about 6:30am. So, with a one hour time change not in our favor, it was 16.5 hours on the road, but only probably about 13 of that driving. We stopped for a full breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as snacks and leg-stretching every once in a while.

It was ridiculously windy today! My van is already unhappy in the wind and definitely gets buffeted around, but there were high wind warnings etc. and it was a bit scary. Add in the tarp noise and it was a bit harrowing for a while there.

My car finally hit 90K miles just as we were passing the Grand Canyon! So exciting, it's all grown up!

Also, we were driving along when all of the sudden we saw signs for Winslow, AZ. Turns out we also wanted to stop then for a pit stop, so we got a picture of me "Standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona"! It was awesome.

I have a bunch of pictures of cool landscapes and stuff (and me on a corner), but we're exhausted so I'll probably put them up tomorrow or Friday.

Off to bed!

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The Road Chronicles: Day 1

Well we made it safe and sound (to JonMarke's parents house in Escondido)!

We woke up at about 4:45 to finish packing and getting all the stuff into the car and we left right at 6am. Went to Noah's and got some breakfast, and to Safeway and got some water, string cheese, apples, and blue Doritos. Driving snacks are awesome!

We actually got on the road just before seven and drove to Yucaipa to visit his grandfather and aunt. We had some awesome Chicago style pizza and then drove the rest of the way to Escondido.

Nothing (that we can tell so far) broke in the car or got smushed, and the seat stayed on top of the car just fine. However, it is now TOTALLY covered in dead bugs. Eww. I forgot to take a picture when we got here, but I'll take one tomorrow and add it in. [Here you go!]

I did get a picture of the pretty purple hills and the disgusting disgusting smog however. The purple hills were pretty, and the smog was really really bad. I kept cleaning off my sunglasses thinking that something was on them; it was blurry and fuzzy and just plain hard to see through. The mountain in the bottom picture is totally covered by smog. We couldn't see it at all, and it was only about a mile away.

Tomorrow we hang out in San Diego/Escondido and take a break. Then we leave again bright and early Wednesday morning!

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I'm engaged!

My boyfriend of three years proposed to me on Friday, right after we got back to our hotel after the first day of my family reunion! I had sort of been suspecting that he might be about to propose for the past week, but when he actually did it I forgot all about my previous suspicions and it was a TOTAL surprise!



He picked out the ring all by himself, with no help from me whatsoever, and he totally managed to find the perfect ring! Simple and elegant and totally my style. The picture is a bit bad but the top strand is tiny diamonds and the bottom strand is white gold that wraps around the top one.

So exciting!

Oh, and packing is all done, except for the things in the shower that I will pack tomorrow morning. We leave at 6am, wish us luck!

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Quilt is done! Packing, not so much...

The quilt is finished! Like, totally finished and done and ready to be packed. After I lint roll it; there is a lot of dog hair floating around, plus all the little threadies are sorta stuck to the microfiber on the front and the fleece on the back.

The thing is huge! You know how big a full sized pool table is, right? I had to stand on a chair to get the whole thing in the frame.


It falls off the edges of the table! The back is super soft and good. It's just one giant piece of gray fleece with a bit of purple border. The quilt ended up being a bit over 8'x6' though, thus the border because there was no one piece of fabric big enough or soft enough to make the whole back.


And now I have no excuse to not pack. Urg. I've started packing and it's not even going badly, it's just that I'd rather spend my last few days here relaxing and enjoying the (finally) good weather. Also, my boyfriend gets here tomorrow so I wanna drag him around to meet all of my friends. But instead I think we're going to mostly be packing. Bleh.

But I'm definitely excited for the family reunion, and for visiting people in San Diego and Tulsa on the way to Chicago, and for then being in Chicago! The next two weeks of my life are going to rock!

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Yay!

The quilt is done! Or, at least the hard part is done. All that is left now are the two borders for the front, the back itself, and putting it all together! But I'm done with the small crazy strips of black fabric and I'm done with lining up lines and praying that it all turns out square!



The colors are not nearly as pretty in this picture as they are IRL. The light from the pool table and the general iffy quality of photos taken from my iPhone are to blame...

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It's time for another post I suppose

So I talked to Whitney today for like half an hour, which was fantastic because I'm pretty sure the last time I talked to her was at graduation. Yeah. A year ago. :-(

And I'm figuring out plans for moving to Chicago! I'm hoping to spend a day in SoCal and a day or two in Tulsa on the way, so I'll keep all of you people we know along the way posted.

I can't believe we're moving in two weeks. That's insane. TWO WEEKS! And I haven't even started packing!

But in other more awesome news, I have started making myself a quilt. It's going to be fantastic.


I'm taking fifteen of the ginormous tshirts that we got for free at TU (that I will never wear again, see: ginormous) and turning them into an awesome soft warm quilt for when it gets cold in Chicago! It's an important project right now, cuz the sewing machine is the first thing on the list that gets left behind if (read: when) we run out of room for stuff in the van!

Also, Watson got his summer haircut...


Now we just have to actually wait for the summer weather to finally begin up here. Poor dog, got all his hair cut off so that he won't be horribly hot, and he's probably a bit cold, given the recent lack of good weather!

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