Cross Country Adventure

Okay, I am still trying to figure out how all of this works, so bear with me.

Last Wednesday Nate flew in to Phoenix, where I picked him up at the airport, and we went to my parents' house for the night. We hung out with the family, and some people that stopped by for a quick last visit. We had some delicious Mexican food for dinner, and played a little frisbee with the family, and just hung out. We got to bed pretty early because we were going to wake up around 5 on Thursday to embark on our journey.

So, 5:15 Thursday morning, my mom woke us up. We relucantly, yet excitedly, got up and ready. We were on the road by 6:15. We got through town with no problems and took the I-17 to Flagstaff-ish, where we got on the 40 (which we took for many many many many hours). We stopped at Meteor Crator near Winslow, which was pretty cool. Luckily there was not too much excitement on our drive, and we arrived in Amarillo, Texas for the night. Somehow, niether of us had taken into account the time difference (which was 2 hours later in Texas). I will admit, but the time we got there I was a bit of a grouch. I was all concerned because my mom had told me my tail light was out, and we had to drive for a little while in the dark and I was certain that I was going to get pulled over. Then, when we checked into out hotel, we were going to get dinner, and I really wanted to go somewhere we could walk, but there was nothing around, within walking distance, that served booze. So, we drove around to a few different gas stations until we found a bottle of wine, and then we got fast food for dinner. Not exactly the dinner we had been hoping for all day, but it definitely sufficed. (And we found out that my tail light was not out, which was very relieving).

So the next morning, Friday, we slept in a little bit. I don't remember exactly what time. We drove through some of Texas, and through Oklahoma. We decided to stop in Oklahoma City for lunch, and ended up taking like a detour, and we ended up in some super shady grocery store that reminded me of a Walmart and Food City mixed. Eww. We used the restrooms, and got the fuck out of there. After all of that we ended up getting Subway for lunch (one that was in a gas station, just off the 40). We were both kinda weireded out about the situation, and a little annoyed that we wasted so much time, but Nate was cute about it and kept saying "we visited some relatives", which sounds way better than "we drove around a shitty part of town aimlessly for the better part of an hour." And by "we", I have to admit, it was me driving. Then we made it through the rest of Oklahoma and Arkansas without a glitch. I even let Nate drive. We stayed the second night in Memphis, Tennessee where we stayed in a Double Tree. It was a wonderful hotel room! We walked across the parking lot (thank goodness) to a Fox and Hound where we had dinner and a couple drinks. Then we made our way back to the hotel room, where we slept in a very comfy, big, clean, soft bed!

Saturday we took our time getting up because we had already decided that we were not going to try to make it to Virginia in the three days we had planned. That was a very good decision on our part because we had no real need (Nate didn't have to be back to work until Thursday). Plus, this way we got to stay a night in Asheville, North Carolina. So we stopped at a Food Lion, and got some snacks and breakfast, and were on the road, the 40. Still. We made it to Asheville fairly early, I think 6 or 7. We had called a bunch of hotels on the way, and ended up liking the sound of one called Country Inns and Suites. We wanted to be able to take a dip that night, and this place had an indoor pool. Plus they had free breakfast in the morning. And it was a reasonable price. When we got there, the guy working at the desk, Gene (super sweet, and hospitable guy) offered us a free upgrade to a suite. Sweet. And, they had free Otis Spunkmyer cookies. Very yum. We asked if there was a good resturant that we could walk to, and he told us about this place called Cornerstone which was a bit down the street. So we went upstairs, got dressed and headed of to this yummy place. On the way back to the hotel we encountered this super creepy man, and was coming out of a motel parking lot walking straight towards us with his hand in the pocket of his trenchcoat. I was sure he was going to kill and/or rob me. But instead he just wanted to tell us about him being in the Mafia and talk about how Hitler almost did a really good job. Hmm. He also told us he would be our body guard. I was very happy when we got to the well-lit gas station and he picked up another few beers and headed back where he came from. So, we went back to the hotel, took a swim, showered, and then watched The Sweetest Thing and went to bed.

We slept in pretty late that morning, had some less-than-good free breakfast, and headed on our final journey! We took our time coming from North Carolina and finally getting on some different highways, and getting home. We made it around 4:30 or so (I think). At this point we unpacked all of my junk, and sweated our faces off (the humidity here is very high, but that's a whole different blog). Once we got all of my stuff upstairs, I swear it grew. Literally, it took up 1/3 of the living room. It looks like enough stuff to fill my car twice. I don't know how I managed to pack it all in there. So, Sunday night after we had showered and recouperated a bit, we walked down to Colley Cantina and had ourselves some dinner.

That is all for now, the cross country adventure summed up into just a few paragraphs. We took a ton of pictures but Nate's computer isn't working right now, so I will get some of them up as soon as that gets fixed. I love you all and miss you a ton! There will be many more blogs to come!