In The Beginning

March 9th was difficult. Not only was I packing for a month away from home and hubby for two kids and I, but I had attempted to switch over to using a jailbroke iphone that didn't like me so much. I finished packing at 10 a.m., I was kid-free thanks to my MIL, but I couldn't leave the house because I didn't have a working phone. I worked on it until 12:30 before finally giving up and driving to Tulsa with the kiddos to pick up Kristen and finally get on our way. I spent another 90 minutes or so trying to get things figured out while Kristen packed up the van and made enough sense of my part of the packing to get all of her things in. In the end though, after updating and restoring my unlocked phone, it refused to be a phone to me, so I activated my old one again. So, no email and facebook on the road for me - drat.

We pulled out of Tulsa at 3:30 and made pretty good time until we realized we were hitting Oklahoma City at rush hour. We came to a full stop in the middle of the highway and I again kicked myself for spending so much time on the iphone - bane of my exsistence. But then, pask OKC we were free, it was just open Oklahoma roads! We came down I-44 through Lawton, OK and crossed over into Texas around dark. Ohhhh Texas - you are so so very large. We cut through a mess of small highways until Abilene and then headed west on I-20 through such Texas greats like Odessa and Midland before dumping out onto I-10 around 2 a.m. and praying that El Paso would seem closer than all the mile markers made it seem. 321 miles to El Paso - ugh. 2 in the morning - uuuughhhh!

It's all kind of a blur after a while, all I know is that Kristen is a champ. I know I got more sleep than she did, and even that isn't saying much. At one point in time we pulled of the road and slept until the sun started lighting the sky. It was maybe 45 minutes or an hour? After that I hopped back in the driver's seat and drove on, finally taking on more of the driving. God bless you Kristen. I could never have done this without you!!



At about 10 a.m. we pulled into Tuscon, AZ. It was BEAUTIFUL! I'm not much of a desert person, and maybe it was because of all the scruby land I'd already driven through that made it seem all the more amazing. But, when we came into sight of the mountains around Tuscon I was just blown away!



We met up with my friend Julia, who I hadn't seen in 5 years. We both lived in Jackson, MI and worked waiting tables at Red Lobster. We met her at her apartment, which was adorable, it had a little hidden courtyard in the middle of all the apartments and had a painted brick interior. So cute. She treated us to breakfast at a place called "The Blue Willow" where I had a gigantic mess of eggs, salsa and chilis with potatoes, sausage and toast. Afterwards we walked to Avenue Coffee, proud purveyors of Intelligesta Coffee, a place I look forward to visiting while in the L.A. area :)

So, we had high intentions of using my fantasmical coffee setup while on the road, but unfortuately, while my grinder has a low enough voltage to operate on the 12v converter in the car, my electric Moka pot, which I'd gotten JUST for this purpose, couldn't get enough power fromt he outlet and would just turn off as soon as I'd turn it on. NOOOOOO!!!! Okay $4 coffees, I welcome you with out-stretched arms... in the tenative a lover scorned kind of way...






After coffee we went to a beautiful old park about a block in size. It had palm trees and other desert trees that I don't know the names of. The kids played in the sandy area beneath the play structure. Jack, unfortunately, grabbed handfuls of sand and shoved them into the back of his diaper which meant a thourough roadside deep clean of his bottom before heading out again. I had a great time catching up with Julia and re-getting to know her after we'd lost touch in the last year or two.

Then, we were on the road again, this time to Yuma. Which is where we are now, but more on that later :)