Orlando! Miles traveled: 3248.2

Thanks to friends who can cook after 8 days of travel: shrimp, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers…not a Chilis or DQ in sight. Fabulous evening. With a few days in one place. /relaxed.

Absolutely cool drive today. The landscape was completely new to me. I have never seen bayou after bayou or the gulf inlets or the trees of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Really gorgeous part of the country. After seeing the country in this way, you really start to hate corporate America. On the major highways, we all look the same: DQ + Chevron + Subway + Shell + Popeyes + Sonic + Waffle House…to infinity and beyond. Loving the out of the way highways.

Ash and I are learning a ton about road tripping. Things like: check the weather before heading out, make sure you’re not entering a large city at 5pm, and never leave a town with a perfectly good cup of coffee and a gas station because you’re sure “there’s got to be another one in a little while once you’re on the road…” These things are complicated.

And, for the record, road trips are exhausting. And totally worth it.

Geoffrey Brock
 
I’ll pack my toothbrush
and my cyanide molar
the iPhone the car-seats
and a tactical stroller
I’ll pack a snack-bag
with the Kraft food groups
and white flags for me
and black for my troops
I’ll pack a fresh pack
of Shark double-edge blades
my boy’s Razr scooter
and my girl’s blue shades
I’ll pack doses of patience
and some Kevlar smiles
check our air and our fluids
our gauges and dials
and we’ll hit I-40
in our old green Accord
there’ll be collateral damage
and we might get bored
but we won’t need TomTom
to know where we’re headed
a theme park they dream of
a theme park I’ve dreaded
and if we ever get home
and if our home still stands
I’ll unpack my dark heart
and Purell my hands
 
Copyright © 2011 by Geoffrey Brock. Used with permission of the author.

it may just be the 2000 miles of driving, but Austin is a great oasis. We are thrilled to be staying a couple of days here, especially since it means not driving tomorrow. Spent the afternoon on 6th; found an awesome bar called the Casino El Camino with a great burger. Power nap and then back to sixth for a beer and a piercing. Yep. Me: nose. Ash: Monroe (upper lip). High fives all around.

And a great view from our hotel on 4th of downtown.

This doesn’t suck.

When you’re driving in rural Texas, you soon discover that you can simply stop hoping for your taken-for-granted amenities. No ATMs, no Chevron, no hip coffee shop….no, you’ll soon learn to cherish an Allsup gas station with a friendly cashier who points you to a bathroom. Ash, however, did manage to make today’s drive bearable with some ingenuity. She bought a soda from a rare Dairy Queen location (actually, not that rare. DQ seems to be the fast food of choice for small town America), emptied out the soda, and filled her cup with a Bartles & James berry wine cooler. She spent miles and miles with her feet on the dash, listening to tunes, sipping her wine cooler out of a DQ cup. At one point, we found ourselves singing ABBA’s Honey Honey through miles of wind turbines. Epic. Texas. Driving.

Our Holiday Inn in Abilene is quite lovely and we head out tomorrow for two days in the same place. Miles covered: 1835.