Hate to rub it in…

…but it was around 70 today. Breezy. Sunny. Bright Sunshine. I almost feel guilty that my friends in Cleveland are digging cars out of giant drifts of white stuff. I have arrived in Arizona.

The trip here, of course, could never be without incident. I delayed the drive by one day (well worth it to spend one more day with that certain special someone) and of course the entire state of Ohio was under some hefty snow warning. My windshield washer fluid stopped working (only assumed it was frozen or empty—there WAS a reason I spent $140 for a 15,000 mile maintenance before I left, right?) only to be stuck somewhere around mid-Ohio with salt caked over my windshield. Kind of got nice when we hit the sun glare. Good thing that snow is white and so are the road lines.

We made it to St. Louis, MO Day One. Stayed at some random two-star hotel near the airport. I would have stayed in my car at the truck stop, but it was about 5 degrees… and I couldn’t recline my seat. I was impressed by the sight of the arch driving into the city at night. I never imagined how massive it was. St. Louis looked to be beautiful and clean. I hope to have a longer visit next time around the block. The hotel clerk never heard of Starbucks.

Day Two was a long day of driving to Oklahoma City. Of course, we didn’t make it there until nightfall. Temperature got to around 60 degrees today. I wanted to see the Oklahoma bombing site memorial. Very sad site, especially when you see the children-sized chairs. I was most impressed by the gated entry ways with the time-stamps on the arches and the reflection pool. OK-City is a pain in the ass to understand HOW to get back west on the highway with the east entrance right next to it. We drove around aimlessly (with maps in hand from our good friends at AAA) until we took the wrong entrance to the next exit and turned around the correct direction. This city has so much neon you’d think it were the Vegas strip at street-level. Not close. Not much going on downtown either. Neon symbolized bike shops and cellular stands. We drove another 2+ hours at night to the “Ritz” in Amarillo, TX. (just a clever name, I assure you). The hotel room smelled like curry. Burnt curry. And covered up in cheap carpet and B.O. The only fun thing was the indoor pool in the solarium. Too bad my bikini was packed underneath 8 bags of shit.

Day Three set out pretty early for driving once again. I have to remark that the scenery on this trip will forever be burned into memory. These are great sights of the country that I’ve never seen before. Oh, and a tumbleweed hit my car on the highway. Moving on… We got caught up early on somewhere in the Ozarks fumbling through stupid gift shops. Made pretty good travel time the third day as we got to Albuquerque, New Mexico in no time and decided to keep driving to Gallup. THIS was when time and space and everything that is sacred and holy went out the window…

it started to snow.

And I’m not talking your a couple flakes or a flurry or two. I’m saying it snowed 4 inches in about an hour (in the mountains) with 75mph and steep inclines. It sucked. And it gets dark around 5pm. Needless to say, we were at a crawl for a good hour or two well across the Arizona border. Who knew it snowed in New Mexico OR Arizona. Our good friends at the Cracker Barrel tried to convince my sister and I it was rare. Glad God saved some for our trip.  We made it into the Phoenix-metro area around midnight. Weather was chilly, blustery. I couldn’t really see what my surroundings were like.

You could never imagine the view I had in the morning. Mountains. Sunshine.

The entire road trip took around 33 hours. (Add in a few hours for food stops/bathroom breaks/and random pics of road signs). I drove most of the country; sis took over for a few hours in Oklahoma. I bought a beer in OK and asked about the “open container” laws of the state. Apparently it’s cool once you get into Texas.

How else would I let my sister drive?

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