MONDAY, JULY 20th
Wake-up time was 5:00 AM, though we did wake up at 2:30 initially because Evan (who had decided not to sleep the night before for some reason) began to burn the biscuits he was baking, causing the smoke detector to go off. So yeah, sleep was decidedly minimal that night.
But anyway, 5 AM rolled around, we gathered our things, retrieved Judy from her apartment and waited for Tim to show up. Sam said goodbye to her girlfriend Jess (who was kind enough to drive her down from Omaha-land the night before) and we all buckled up and headed on down the road.
We should have spotted the signs a little sooner I guess, as by the time we hit North Platte, Tim and Evan discovered that Evan's engine was smoking and steaming a bit. Now, Evans car had just gone in for expensive repairs, so this was surprising, but the car still ran okay, so we decided to let it lie and keep going.
We pressed on, and I got to do what was (in my opinion) the most boring section of the drive that day: Eastern Colorado. No offense meant to the state, but damn it's even more boring than Nebraska, which at least was green instead of yellowish. We made it through Denver and then stopped for lunch at a Village Inn just off the freeway, which was a tasty break. It's not IHOP, but they do have tasty pancakes. I like pancakes.
The rest of the drive was much prettier; Western Colorado has absolutely gorgeous mountains and rivers and other such things. Yeah, I love me some mountains (being from the Pacific Northwest does that to a girl). So the latter part of the drive was full of scary winding roads with steep gradients along with beautiful rocky and green mountains and pretty streams and cool little towns lurking in the middle of nowhere. I'm a fan of the roadtrip as much as I am the destination, so I apologize for the excessive descriptions. But yeah. Colorado was pretty.
Monday finished up in Grand Junction, where we stayed at the cozy Holiday Inn Express, which was great even though the pool was over-chlorinated. The utterly amazing shower made up for it, and the beds and the giant TV were worth it. We also grabbed dinner at a cool little diner, which I forget the name of but I remember that it was bear-themed and that their avocado cheese omelettes were delicious.
We all turned in early, alarms set for 5:45 AM, and huddled under the sheets in the too-cold rooms after over twelve hours in the car. And that's the end of day one.
NOTE: I would have pictures to post here, except I did a lot of sleeping on the first day and did not whip out my camera. I am most apologetic.
TUESDAY, JULY 21st
Another early morning, which felt even earlier thanks to the one-hour time difference, but we got a tasty breakfast at the hotel; free hot buffet FTW. Also, cinnamon rolls.
Our early morning drive was through utah, which I thought was very pretty (again, I like mountains and cliffs).
See? I think those are some damn sweet mountain cliffs!We stopped just across the Arizona-Nevada border at a gas station (damn it was hot in Nevada) for lunch at a Quiznos-Popeye's place. The drive continued through Nevada and through Vegas, which was fairly unexciting to me. We saw all the important famous stuff driving through on the interstate, and so we continued, making it to California shortly thereafter.
Then the exciting stuff happened.
As we drove through the Mojave Desert of California, a light on Evan's dashboard started flashing; an exclamation point under the RPMs dial. Also, we got a call from Tim behind us to inform us that our exhaust pipe was existing intermittent bursts of steam. We found a rest stop after a good thirty miles of driving without air conditioning (in the desert), in a little town called Minneola. Well, I'm not sure if it even counted as a town actually, it was just one gas station and a crappy cafe that was closed. We pulled in and the car went 'hurk-die' and shuddered to a stop. Upon trying to make it start again, the car refused, so our assesment (and by ours I mean 'Tim and Evan's') was that the transmission had given out.
So Sam called AAA, and we were stuck waiting at a tiny, poorly-air conditioned gas station that was only about ten degrees cooler than it was outside. And it was at least one hundred and three degrees outside. The station attendant was a nice hispanic guy who gave us discount on ice cream and soda while we waited, and even turned his fan around so we could cool off a little (as Sam and I both dehydrate and overheat at the drop of a hat). At this point John called his Mom (who was a good three hours away in Poway) to come and rescue us from our little corner of hell.
The tow guy showed up after about three hours, and we all headed for Barstow, where we could wait for John's mom to rescue us. So we got food at a mini-mall (om nom panda express) and chilled out in a McDonalds for a while. Once John's mom rescued us, we transferred luggage to her station wagon and drove away. Her car has no AC, so it was a warm drive, but it was late so we had no problems. Her house also had no AC, which we forgot, but after twelve years living in England (where air conditioning was sparse at least in my house) that wasn't an issue for me. So we made it to Poway, got to the house, and promptly passed out. Man were we tired after that impromptu rest-stop.
So that's the trip out. Next post will be con-related, probably relating to preview night and the first couple of days of the convention. As well as San Diego, trolley rides, and tasty foodstuffs.
See you tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment