Road Trip!! (AKA 2 Weeks in the Car with 5 People, Part 1)

So, Sonya's getting married. She lives in Carbondale, Illinois now - instead of just down the street. Which is good, because I so much prefer the man she's marrying to the boys she's dated in the past and am happy to attend this wedding. Because Illinois is not down the street, we decided to Road Trip It. "We" being myself, Cameron, Patrick, Fernando and my mom. YEP! 5 of us in the car TOGETHER for 2 WEEKS!!! Could be great, could be yikes! I'm thinking it's going to be a mixture of both, but because we are the age that we are, we can make the most of it and deal with it without too much of a meltdown, just minor crankiness.

We left Saturday afternoon with the intention of making it to Albuquerque, as I have some friends there - one in particular. The Official Road Trip started at about 2 PM Arizona time, and we drove north and headed for the I-17 to make it to the I-40 to get across Arizona and partway across New Mexico. There was quite a bit of rain on the way there, but it was just gorgeous. Northern Arizona, on the 40, is so different from any other part of Arizona. The Navajo nation lands are amazing. I can't believe how much the wind cut across various parts of the land and just created amazing canyons and caves.

Patrick drove the whole way, which was good because our Google directions for the hotel were way off. I thought we were getting a hotel just a few miles from my friend Tyson's house, as we were supposed to meet up to get drinks and I didn't want to have to go too far. Uh, Google was WRONG! I had to text him with our location and the hotel address to direct us, but Fernando also was checking his GPS so we were good. Drinks with Tyson was saved! [Side note, Tyson is a friend I had back as a teenager in Douglas who I lost touch with for about 20 years (really!) and recently reconnected with due to the lovely interweb & MySpace (pre-Facebook). I've gone out to Albuquerque twice to hangout, and it's been great to reconnect and become better friends as adults.] Tyson came and picked me up, and we decided to hangout at the hotel bar because it was close, and that way my mom could come have a few drinks, too. It was a lot of fun! I'm glad that my mom, Fernando and Patrick were able to meet Tyson - now they have a face and person to put to my friend.

Next day, we leave for Oklahoma City. I'll tell you what, Albuquerque to Oklahoma City is a loooong drive. It's pretty damn flat throughout Texas. Not really all that pretty, not like Austin. We came up with all the George Strait songs about northern Texas as we drove through, but that was about it. We did see the "Biggest Cross in the Northern Hemisphere" though! Saw some pretty funny signs as well : "Gusty Winds May Exist" (we decided this would be the existential question for the new millennium) and "If You Think All Casinos are the Same, Think Again!" were just a few - lots of religious ones that were pretty funny, but don't want to offend anyone. Animals changed as we drove through the various states. I swear that there were gazelles in Texas!! Then, we remembered the "Home On The Range" song and remembered that they're antelope! Whoops! Made it through seeing a few antelope, a couple of weird road kill animals (camel? kangaroo? chupacabra?) Patrick drove from Albuquerque to Amarillo, I drove from Amarillo to Oklahoma City. We made it to OKC, saw the interesting downtown buildings (one looked like the Empire State Building, just MUCH smaller) , and once again Googlemaps failed us. Drove us to a dead end. No hotel in site. Great. I am not a big fan of driving in unfamiliar cities with speed limits which are below my lead-foot limit to start with. But, we eventually found it (we made Patrick go in and ask for directions and then related the information to the previous hotel 8 miles from where googlemaps said to go) and checked in. It was about 10 when we finally checked in. Oklahoma City at 10 PM on a Sunday does NOT leave you with many options for dinner. Really. We ate at Denny's. Really. A Denny's without beer. Really. I was ready to go to bed and then leave OKC.

We woke up early this morning (well, it's central time so it's 2 hours earlier than back home) and headed out for the Oklahoma Memorial Site. I wasn't too sure how I felt about going there, I wasn't really excited about going to see the Twin-Towers in NYC, and this was the same feeling I was having about going to a place where a complete and total nut job decided to prove a point about the government by killing a shitload of people. Why should I go there? Then, I got there. I saw the fence where little kids put pictures and bracelets and memorials for the kids killed there. I saw the fence where parents put pictures and memories of their adult children and kids who were killed there. I saw the faces of the innocents who went to day care or to work like any other April 19th. I thought about going to Auschwitz and other concentration camps - we go there so we can remember, reflect and make sure that it doesn't happen again. Why should Oklahoma City be any different? We need to go there so that we can remember, reflect and make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm not sure if everyone will agree with me, but that's the perspective I took this morning, it is a place of pure quiet and peace now, but was at one time a very busy place with laughter and talking and noise, until one person decided to change that. I thought going to somewhere where people were killed for no good reason was wrong; that going would be recognizing what that person did to the innocents. But I found that going there recognized the innocents and that by not going there I would be giving that power to the person who wanted to take that away from all of us. If I can, I am going to post a picture of something that a rescuer spray painted on the building next door that touched me most of all "Team 5 4-19-95 We Search For The Truth. We Seek Justice. The Courts Require It. The Victims Cry For It. And God Demands It!"

Cameron was really affected by the site. He has a friend at school whose uncle was killed in the bombing. Their family is from Douglas (for more about the story, go to my mom's site). We found the chair that represented him and he sat there for a few minutes and thought about his friend and her losing her family. He looked at a tree that survived when it shouldn't. He saw the building next door that was partially destroyed by the bombing, but they repaired it as a reminder of the day. He saw all of the outpouring of love and caring that children from all over the world sent via tiles that they decorated. The National Park Service has done an awful scene justice and presented it in a way that is really appropriate.

After OKC, we headed out for the 7 hour drive to St. Louis. Missouri is really a beautiful state. They have some weird stores, like the "Kum 'n Go," which we laughed over for hours. We are trying to find as much levity in the trip as we can, which we have to with 5 people in a car. Our hotel here in St. Louis is directly in front of the Mississippi River and the Arch; two blocks or so from Busch Stadium. Really pretty. Can't wait to explore tomorrow. We're heading to the Zoo tomorrow (Cameron, my mom and I) and Patrick and Fernando are going to Six Flags. Fernando, Patrick, Cameron and I are going to see the Yeah Yeah Yeah's tomorrow night, so I'm not sure when my next posting is.

I apologize if there's a bunch of rambling here. Think about all the sleep I've missed out on!! I will add pictures later, the "Free Wireless" sucks!!!