Can You Show Me The Way to Santa Fe or Santa Barbara???

Our journey begins on Saturday, April 18, 2009 in Austin, TX
(key players are Evan, Casey and the dogs).

Does anything really prepare you for a move? I mean really?
I started preparing for my move weeks in advance, but when it got to moving day, I still felt I could have prepared more and done everything differently, better...I wished I knew I was in a good place Friday night, but I knew I had a long Saturday ahead of me. Early Saturday morning Casey joined me for many more hours of packing...After hours and hours and I mean hours of packing and throwing away and labeling, etc. Casey and I hardly knew what to do with ourselves, we had done all we could do so, we decided the most rewarding thing to do was to take a load off and lay on my stripped bed in my packed up house on Salina Street. We talked and laughed and played on Facebook laughing ourselves into a tizzy. After we were all laughed up, the movers arrived to haul my stuff away. (It turns out the movers I hired were actually the movers I used when I first moved into the Salina house three years earlier). The movers came, packed up, dropped off and all went super smoothly, they were gems (thank you Infinity Movers). My "last" night in Austin was somewhat bittersweet as I find many departures to be (what is that about?), I kind of like to view this move as a "See you soon!" rather than a "Good-Bye" kinda move.

When I went to sleep Saturday night, I was in a slight state of shock, was I really leaving Texas after almost seven years? Really? I didn't really have an answer for that, then at 6 am, I jumped out of bed with the epiphany that I was really moving and had some shit to do (I am not sure I even slept the night before), so I ran home, did some house moving type stuff and then went to the gym, where my trainer made me do awful things like pull her across the gym with resistance bands around my waist. As awful as it was, it probably helped me keep my cool. Post torture work out, I caffeinated myself and went back to do do do, Casey came to join me shortly there after.

After running around like chickens with their heads cut off, Casey and I picked the dogs up from Laura and Charlie's (god bless them), drugged the pup and we were on our merry way, El Paso bound...or so we thought. The drive through Texas was totally uneventful and not as boring as I thought it would be. We stopped somewhere in the middle of nowhere and ate Subway, Subway was better than I remembered, it was so good and satisfying (and painless, so long as I took my casein/glutard pills) I tried to convince Casey that we should eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner...healthy and cheap, how does it get any better than that?! Anyway, we thought our drive from the middle of nowhere to El Paso would be about an hour or so, but much to our dismay, we found out it was another two or three hours...so, after departing the middle of nowhere we decided we would drive until we were tired. I was so excited and rejuvenated post Subway I thought I would be able to make it all the way to El Paso, maybe even past El Paso, but I was wrong...we drove for about an hour in the twilight and then my eyes started to get heavy and I couldn't tell where lights were coming from and what they even belonged to...so we drove as far as we could, which turned out being Van Horn, TX. I hadn't heard of Van Horn anything before either, well until the day before because they apparently have a great Mexican Restaurant (thank you Lisa and Boo), Chuy's (no relation to the Austin one) and I wish I could report more about the place, but we didn't eat there, we just crashed at a relatively nice Motel 8 or 6 or whatever (and for $10 more we could even have our doggies in legitamately, no sneaking necessary), so we showered (seperately), played on Facebook, talked some more then passed out around 10:30 pm.

Early Monday morning we continued on from Van Horn, still El Paso bound on a mission for coffee. After two hours of driving, just outside El Paso, listening to the radio, Casey and I noticed that the woman on the radio said it was 7:30 am, only my car clock said 8:30 am, instantaneously, Casey and I looked at each other and said aloud, "no it is not 7:30!" (and laughed of course)...I thought the radio show had been pre-recorded, Casey just thought the lady was wrong, then we checked the time on our phones and sure enough, we had gained an hour. Just inside El Paso we had hit gold, Starbucks and my favorite kind no less, a drive through, although we didn't go through the drive through. The service was great, the coffee mediocre (sp?), but it did the trick and on we went.

We continued our journey through the "Land of Enchantment" (New Mexico, which we deemed the "Switzerland of America" - we tried to come up with Slogans for all the States, but I think we stopped after four or five) and Tucson (do not ever forget to "Pray for Tucson") which we were gong to have lunch at, but it seemed that the whole of Tucson was under construction so we couldn't get into it...it was kind of strange...so we continued on a mission for a place to eat and a bathroom...no sooner than asking where we could stop aloud in the car, we came across a very clean Shell station and an El Pollo Loco. We devoured delicious chicken in the car with the dogs ever so patiently watching us. We then continued through Phoenix, where we hit some traffic, not bad, at least we got to listen to decent radio, oh and we got another hour on our side somewhere in Zona, but I don't remember the exact spot we actually noticed it. We drove and drove until we got to a little town that was near the Zona - Cali border, unfortunately the woman at the Chevron couldn't tell us how far it was to Cali...so on we went with our treck, still unsure of where we were going to stop. And then we saw it, our second boarder patrol stop place, but we noticed that this one was different, it was from the Arizona - California boarder into Blythe, I swear crossing over that boarder, you could feel the difference (not that Arizona is bad) and that's when we knew it was time to take a break after a wonderful 13 hours of driving. We got a perfectly fine motel room, that again for $10 allowed us to have the dogs and was not more than a five second drive from a drive through Starbucks. We checked in, put our things down (dogs included) and went across the street to a Mexican Fish restaurant, that's right, a fish restaurant in the middle of nowhere, we opted for beef and I opted for a Marg. Post food and Marg, we then went back to the room and proceeded to amuse ourselves for over an hour on Facebook and were asleep by 9:30pm.

Tuesday, we woke up around 5:30 am, when the pup decided it would be a great idea to perch on my head and then playfully brawl with the Wazowsk on Casey's head. Finally, we rose, fed the beasts, packed the car and then we were west bound once again around 7 am... (well, sorta west bound, we had to head a little east for our coffee and Arizona -California boarder pictures - how could we resist? I mean really?).

And so we continued west, we drove and drove, passed through Cochella (now I know where I will be going next year during that Music Festival) and continued on through many other places that I don't remember and through Riverside. Riverside is when we really knew we were in LA, the traffic to say the least, sucked. The traffic was so brutal and our bladders so small, we had to stop in Riverside for a restroom break and maybe some gas for the car, the one gas station I decided to pull into happened to be out of gas and the bathroom was the worst one we encountered the entire trip...good ole Riverside.

After a sort of traumatic stop experience, we then continued on still west bound, until we got to the Sades, as in the Pacific Palisades, where we unloaded the dogs and ourselves and visited dad and we were fed...The dogs got to play, the girls were replenished and we went on our way, again, Santa Barbara bound.

On our way tomom's house, we were at a light and who was next to us? Yup, you guessed it Brad Pitt, just kidding, Momma. We raced home, she won (I only think she won because of the extra bodies and cargo we had in our car)...We had a class and some Thai food and great company...we finally crashed on a blow up bed with a slow leak around 12:45 am. We woke up early, enveloped by the slow leaking bed (picture me in a taco shell, now replace that taco shell with a blow up bed)...it got to a point where the Wazowsk didn't even wanna jumping on it...

We woke up, we coffeed, we ran errands, we lunched with Susan and Susan and Casey left, LA bound once again.

Thursday mom and I were LA bound for a fam lunch, which was awesome.

So, we are pretty much up to date, minus a few trips to the dog park, a few meals, a few phone calls, few dog interactions, movies and maybe some laundry, etc.

Now, I can happily announce that the journey continues, now in Santa Barbara. My SB time still kinda feels like a vacation, well other than a few things on my car geeking out (these things are not suppose to happen on a vacay are they?) . It still feels very vacation like. I am currently looking for work and applying at bakeries around town and/or whatever else tickles my fancy I applied to a Cupcake place today) and open to all of the possibilities...

And if anyone wants to go on a roadtrip, I might be down. YA!

I will continue to keep everyone posted, I don't know how often, but I will update for shiz.

Please feel free to call and/or email me, I want to hear about all y'all. Look forward to hearing and seeing everyone soon!!!!

Kisses!!!!!!!!!

Show Me The Route to SB Please...

So, as most of you know, I packed up my house on Salina Street and put it in storage. I then loaded up the dogs, a few suitcases and a pregnant Casey and we headed west. The trip to California was wonderfully uneventful...we stopped and got gas, let the dogs out, found pretty decent motels that allowed dogs and we laughed a lot, oh and we drank coffee and ate a few times. As of this trip, I am now a fan of the road trip. How does it get any better than this?!