In Which Boots are Gained, Numbers Lost, and Storms Survived.

I ended my last post in Ock-la-ho-ma, shortly after Keith the Bible-presser (not beater, he was a bit gentler than that) tried to save us. That was the end of our internet access until our discovery of an internet cafe in Santa Fe, where I now sit to summarize the last week's events as best I can.

The last day of our trip began in Oklahoma City and continued on through Texas into New Mexico. We made a few unusual stops, the first of which was a roadside attraction in Groom, Texas: the biggest cross in the Western Hemisphere. Now we didn't feel the need to get up close and personal to the giant white structure, so we stopped a ways down the road and took a few pictures with Velociraptor.


As we mushed on through the Lone Star State to Amarillo, we passed a sign for Boots n' Jeans Western Store and decided to stop and check out their cowgirl attire. We left minutes later with a pair each of perfectly fitted boots and Ragan with a hat.




Well, I suppose I should clarify that we left the store a few minutes apart. Ragan went outside to check on Taima and make a phone call and I paid at the register. A few hundred feet off the entry ramp back onto the highway, we heard a subtle yet unmistakable clunk on the back of the car. "What was that?" We both asked. "Must've been a rock," I said. A moment of silence. Then Ragan followed with "Where's my phone?" Which was followed by several more moments of silence and then an explosive round of expletives. Yes, Ragan's phone met it's end on the highway in Amarillo, Texas, sliding innocently from the top of the car to the trunk as we picked up speed and, with that subtle yet unmistakable clunk, it uttered its final goodbye. The good news is that she had insurance and now has a new phone with the same number. The not as good news is that she lost all the numbers saved in her phone, so if you haven't already you should call and leave her your number.

We made it to New Mexico by early afternoon and were determined to reach Santa Fe by nightfall. Had we not been so determined, we probably would have said "Hell, no!" when we looked a mile down the flat stretch of road into an ominous black wall of rain and lightning. It's one thing to find yourself in the middle of a storm. It's quite another to intentionally drive into a storm you see in the distance. I always thought the "crack" was solely associated with the sound of lightning until I watched these jagged white lines soundlessly pierce the Southwestern sky.

On I-81 there are two turn-off roads that lead to Santa Fe, with about 40 miles and nothing else separating them. As we neared the first turn-off the rain began pounding down and I called Rebecca (afore-mentioned Jersey Grrl) to see if she could pull up the local doppler radar and let us know which way to go. Neither way looked particularly promising. Just as Rebecca was telling me "it doesn't look good," my phone went dead. And later, as we continued on I-81 beneath forked lightning that landed on both sides of our car, I experienced my first Southwestern hail storm. We spent a while on the side of the road, snuggled up behind a FedEx truck that, while driving rain or shine, would not brave the monstrous conditions an hour outside of Santa Fe. Ragan, the experienced driver that she is, was calm and collected. I just bit my lip for the better part of an hour to keep from screaming "Oh, God, we're gonna die!" as I waited for the windshield to crack and the hail to start pummeling our bodies. I'm sure if I'd said this, Ragan would have rolled her eyes. When we finally emerged unscathed on the other side of the storm, she commented on how awesome the whole experience had been. I shared in her enthusiasm of the moment, but for an entirely different reason: my life and limbs.

So, having overcome the obstacles set before us, we have arrived happily and healthily in Santa Fe. I am sitting in the Tribe coffeehouse on Cerrillos, the road home to the Red Roof Inn, where we spent Thursday and Friday nights, and Motel 6, where we spent Saturday and Sunday. Where does that leave us the last three nights? At home. Yes, home. But I'll have to save that story for next time.

It's the Detours

As we departed our Jackson, TN inn this morning, we told the front desk staff how much we appreciated all their help. "We're just sorry you had such trouble," responded the head housekeeper who'd chauffeured Ragan down the road yesterday for a new pack of Parliaments. "Hopefully everything will go smoothly from here onward." The other employee on duty, who'd been there when I'd first emerged from the Chicken Van juggling a cat carrier, bag of essential snacks (chocolate), kitty litter and my purse, had another approach. "You know it's like that author Faulkner said," he drawled. "You start out thinking it's the destination of your journey that's all important and really what makes the trip, where you end up learnin', is the detours."

These words came back to me four hours later as I watched our Jetta rise ten feet into the air and a guy named Keith sporting a NAPA Auto Parts tee poke beneath the car with what looked like a long stick and a flashlight. "Aren't you girls a long way from home?" his assistant remarked as he caught sight of our plates. Ragan later decided his name was "either Earl or Billy Bob--it's hard to tell." We mumbled something affirmative and focused on what Keith had to say between pokes into Betty's underbelly.

"This here is Arkansas humidity. What's happening here is condensation. You know, when you use the air conditioning condensation forms. That puddle on the floor there could happen in fifteen minutes round here if there's a block. That's why it's backing up and coming out under the dash." Poke. Poke. Gush. An impressive fountain of water splattered the ground near where we stood.

I wriggled my toes around in their already drenched sandals and suppressed a half amused half fed-up giggle at the continuing car issues. This made Auto Repair stop number 4 since leaving Boston. This latest stop was inspired after I discovered my feet were sitting in a few inches of water beneath the passenger's seat, and yet another call to Ragan's dad confirmed another visit to the car doctor was in order. As Keith returned Betty (and an unfazed Taima in the backseat) to the earth, Ragan suggested we give Keith a twenty if he didn't charge us for unblocking whatever had been blocked. (How's that for technical?) I nodded, and a few minutes later attempted to hand him a twenty while Ragan started up the car.

"I'm not going to take your money," Keith said, folding my hand over the bill and looking at me intently. "I am going to ask you to do something instead. Will you do that, will you both do something for me?"

"Umm...I,...kay."

"You take this twenty dollars and you girls go out and buy yourselves a Bible."

I've gotta say I am so proud of myself for keeping my composure.
"We have one," I managed to say.

"Then buy another."

"Uh, thanks for your help," I blurted out, and practically ran back to the car. I made Ragan pull around the corner and pull over so I could repeat his request where our snorts of laughter wouldn't be heard.

Of course it later occurred to me that I should have told him I'd already read most of the important passages on highway I-40. Because Arkansans take their sins and the sins of others quite seriously. Every few miles a gigantic billboard pointed out another thing THOU SHALT NOT do while within state lines. The one against adultery seemed especially bitter and privately sponsored. "Looks like someone got burned," was Ragan's comment.

After that things quieted down for a while until we hit a sign for "Toad Suck Park," followed by "Hickey Park" and a little while later a Jubilee "Hard Kor" youth group sign that read "This church is prayer conditioned." Wow. So this is Arkansas.

Crossing into Oklahoma brought us to the home of Carrie Underwood, as announced by an official green and white highway sign reading "Welcome to Checotah, Home of Carrie Underwood, American Idol 2005." Around 20 miles later we hit a similar sign for Woody Guthrie's birthplace. Now that sign I can understand, but Carrie Underwood? What movement has she led? Shouldn't these things be earned after a lifetime of hard work and accomplishment? Really.

In other breaking news on Oklahoma Radio 105.5 a butcher in Milwaukee was injured today when a dead cow fell on him. He is in serious condition but expected to fully recover.

"Eat Mor Chikin"

Chick-Fil-A is which of the following:
a) Home of the original chicken sandwich.
b) The only fast food place with painted cows holding signs that read "Eat Mor Chikin."
c) Where Sarah and Ragan spent several hours in Jackson, Tennessee on Monday waiting for a AAA tow truck.
d) Managed by the nicest guy ever who drove Tai and me in his "Chicken Van" to the nearest motel, which turned out to be a gorgeous yet affordable pet-friendly inn a few hundred feet from a mall where we can, as Ragan put it, "spend money while waiting to spend money."
e) I won't insult anyone's intelligence by listing an "all of the above."

Welcome to our cross-country blog, which until yesterday was going to be a tally of how many horses (27) , cows (104 cows, 2 bulls, 1 calf, and 4 herds before I quit counting), Emu (2), armadillos (1, dead), deer (1 alive, 1 dead), and donkeys (1) we have seen on the endless expanse of highway. But things have gotten a bit more exciting lately, so perhaps I should go back to the beginning.

Friday, or Your Hummer Looks Stupid

Anyone who knows me knows I tend to get things done with a last-minute push (like those 10 page college papers), so of course there were tables to move, bags to pack, and breakables to wrap in the wee hours of the morning. Ragan posted a Craigslist posting for free stuff we'd put on the curb, and less than ten minutes later a woman pulled up to pick up a dresser I was leaving behind. Her bumper sticker: "Your Hummer Looks Stupid."

It seemed like the best name for our blog considering the insane amount we'll be Shelling out for gas (go ahead, groan). Props go out to Jane and her band name generator for "Road Trip Finger and the Onions." It was a close second.

Jersey Sucks

By 10am we were on the road, with Taima (my cat) adjusting to his portable apartment in the back seat and me learning the ins and outs of our new Garmin GPS while Ragan took the wheel. We made our way through Massachusetts and Connecticut and planned to plow through New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland to my sister's house by nightfall. Man, were we wrong. Traffic getting out of Boston. 2.5 hours of traffic to get over the GW bridge in New York. And then we hit the Jersey Turnpike, where after getting very friendly with the bumpers in front of and behind us, we had 30 seconds to decide what the toll lanes "ticket" and "no ticket" meant, and ended up blowing through an EasyPass lane. (We blamed Jersey Girl Rebecca.) At a late night dinner in Delaware, I tried the house drink special, "freckled lemonade." Let's just say pink lemonade and strawberry sauce are best kept separate. Even for me it was too sweet! 13 hours after leaving Cambridge we found ourselves in Baltimore traffic and decided to call it a day in Elkville, MD while we were still on speaking terms. Or maybe it was Elkwood. Whatever the name, we're not going back to that motel or its creepy-crawlies, and we needed no nudging getting up with the sun to have pancakes with my sister Kristen, brother-in-law, Brian, and Brian's brother, Shawn outside of D.C..

It was so good to see them that we decided to stay overnight instead of continue driving after breakfast. In sisterly fashion this involved a day of eating a bowl of cookie dough, a trip to Blockbuster to introduce Kristen to the first season of "Desperate Housewives," and an evening of Will Farrell with the boys. (You're my boy, Blue!) Tai (or should I call him Custard the Cowardly Dragon?) spent most of the day behind couches after a friendly greeting bark from Sambu, the resident yellow lab. Kristen and I had to sweep him out with a broom to get him downstairs, then put up a gate to keep Sam from more traumatic hellos.

Masterpiece of Foam

With parting directions to I-81 and a signed copy of Brian's new book in hand, we returned to the road and watched the compass needle change from South to West. We were on our way, headed for the Shenandoah Valley. Our first stop of the day: Foamhenge.



Yes, some guy decided to build an exact replica of Stonehenge on a Virginia hilltop conveniently located a few hundred feet from one of the world's Seven Wonders: the Natural Bridge. Unfortunately, we couldn't stop to hike the Wonder with cat in tow, but we could leave him for five minutes to view a "masterpiece of foam." The pictures star Velociraptor (named many years ago by Brian), who is our stand-in Red Sox Team Gnome for photos until we figure out a way to get one.

Sunday night landed us in Knocksville, Tennessee, where Enoch the Holiday Inn front desk guy informed us, "You're in the Bible Belt now, sweetheart. Nothin's open on Sunday evenin'." Ragan hit up the hotel bar before they closed (at 7pm) and the only unopened bottle of wine they had for sale was pink and apparently tasted like kool-aid. Crazy nightlife cast aside by Christians Closing Early, we found ourselves some takeout BBQ with biscuits and corn puddin' and had ourselves a feast.

Miss Betty

There's another main character in our travelogue, Betty, the 1997 Jetta carrying us from our last home to our next. Betty didn't want to be left out of our StupidHummer blog, so she had a few things to say in D.C. in the form of an alarm that wouldn't shut off and back windows that wouldn't go up. We took her to the mechanic around the corner from K and B's and were informed they wouldn't be able to look at her until Monday. We opted to have her seen in Tennessee, when the Air Conditioning began not conditioning much of anything. In Knocksville, we took Betty to Mr. Cool, air conditioning specialist extraordinaire, for recharging and they put a dye in to track any leaks, I guess. (Ragan knows the lingo, not me. I've been asking her things like "so what's starter fluid again?" to which she promptly replied "honey, they don't make a special fluid to start the car.")

So that brings us to yesterday and the Chick-Fil-A parking lot:
Ragan and Sarah walk into Chick-Fil-A, order their lunch, spread out a map of Tennessee and Arkansas, and plot their evening course through Memphis and on to Little Rock. Ragan and Sarah exit Chick-Fil-A and return to car. Ragan opens her door, sits back down, props her waffle fries next to the emergency break. Sarah gets in passenger side and picks up GPS to get back to the highway. HISS. Smoke pours from the hood of the car. Count one. HISS. Two. Smoke. Three. Sarah and Ragan stare out the windshield. "What the..." By count five Sarah was 20 feet away from the car, cat carrier in her arms. Ragan was about 8 feet away, inching her way closer.
Ragan: "It's not smoke. It's steam, it's not smoke."
Betty: HISS. Steam. HISS.
Sarah: "Are you sure? How do you know?"
Ragan: "It's steaming, Sarah. It's not going to blow up." She lifts the hood and peers inside.
Sarah:"I believe you. I'm just staying over here."
Betty: Hissssss. Spatter spatter. Drip drip drip.

A woman pulls up a few spots away. "Ummm, hey ya'll my brother here is the manager. Y'like me to git him?"
Sure, why not. Ragan paces, waiting for the car to not be spitting boiling liquid anymore so she can approach. The sun beams down at 105 degrees. Taima meows and tries to push his head through the opening on the side of his carrier, freaked out by the fact that he's been unceremoniously plopped down next to a busy fast-food drive through. Sarah feels the already hot top of the carrier and wonders where she can take her cat to get out of the heat.

Enter Daniel. Early thirties Chick-Fil-A manager, part-time caretaker of damsels in distress, and full-time down home country boy. If you have to break down somewhere in the country, you better hope it's Jackson, Tennessee and Daniel is nearby. Within minutes he has called the nearest inn. "It's pet-friendly, my sister brought her dog," he tells us, and recommends the nearest mechanic. Ragan, Tai and I find a corner table in Chick-Fil-A and wait for AAA to arrive.

Enter "Red." AAA tow truck driver who works more than 24 hour shifts and likes to talk about tattoos and the military. He put Betty on a flatbed, brought her to the AAA auto shop which was called - no kidding - Ragan's Old Hickory Auto Repair. Seriously! He then drove Ragan to the inn. I was already there, courtesy of Daniel and his Chicken Van. "My wife would be so proud of me for being nice to a cat," he told me. I decided not to ask why.

I met them at the front door. Red got out of the driver's seat and immediately took off his shirt and showed Ragan his back. It took me a second to realize he was showing her his tattoo.
We checked in, situated Taima, and spent the evening catching up on HGTV, me falling asleep early and night owl Ragan walking down the street to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner. "The state bird of Tennessee really is the mosquito," was all she had to say about her excursion.

Back on Track

It's Tuesday evening now, and Betty's back in the parking lot. We're spending another night at the inn, which is just fine, and we're looking at movie schedules ("Wall-E" or "Swing Vote," or maybe the new Angelina flick). Then again we've got cable and Yuengling so maybe we'll just stay here.

It turns out the car was not smoking but spraying the green dye the Mr. Cool guy put in in Knocksville, which steamed as it hit the engine and other parts of the car (but apparently not the starter fluid, since it doesn't exist. For the record what I meant was power steering fluid, which I now know is pink.) I was going to call and bitch the Knocksville people out, but Ragan and I decided the call would be more effective coming from her dad, who knows cars and well, this is the South, and maybe a guy would be taken more seriously. When it comes to getting my money back, I'll surrender my pride.

We're making our way to Oklahoma City tomorrow. That's pronounced "ock-la-hom-a" for those of you who don't know. Anyone who thinks different should talk to Ragan.

Peace ya'll.