So Far, (Not) So Good

Well, I've missed a full day of blogging about our travels, so let's play a little catch up.

Sunday, we arrived in Baton Rouge and stayed with the Francis family, which was ridiculously awesome! We finally got to meet Theo in person, who really is one of the most adorable children on the planet. Theo and Gilligan made friends, and I think were each a little sad to see the other go. After a delicious dinner at an (appropriately) French cafe, we played a bad news game of Cranium, which the guys won (shocker), then followed it all up with the famous chocolate-chip cookies Ryan and Elliott are known for whipping up together.

At about 11 Monday morning, we got back on I-12, which led us back to I-10. We drove across the 18-mile Basin Bridge, which was all kinds of fun. It wasn't long before we were bidding adieu to Louisiana and entered Texas. The drive through Texas has a really unfair bad rap. All we heard from day one about this I-10 drive was how long, flat, and boring Texas is. We only found the "long" part to be true. From San Antonio on, Texas was anything but flat. Elliott and I quickly got into a debate about whether the land masses we were seeing were in fact hills or mountains. Okay, so they were hills to begin with, but it wasn't long before they undeniably were mountains. And it was beautiful! The most awesome part about being in that terrain was watching (and dodging!) storms from 3,000 feet above sea level. We saw some pretty awesome rain clouds, lightning, and even what we thought was a dust funnel thingy.

I totally skipped over a small hiccup at exit 833 we encountered. Penske will have the last laugh about that one, and that story might come up all in due time :) (This story accounts for the blog post's title. But rather than bore you with the lengthy details, or worse yet, elicit your pity, let's just leave it be for now.)

Anyway, Houston was hellish. We made it through alive and Elliott only got honked at once. We finally settled for the night in a beautiful Holiday Inn Express, which did NOT allow pets. We are firmly against such things, but we had no choice but to sneak Gilligan in. Then we basically cat napped all night long for fear of Gilligan barking, which he did do about three different times throughout the night. NOT FUN. We were able to get him back out this morning by putting him in our computer bag and covering him with a sweater. Once we got to the 2nd floor's stairs from the 4th, he let out this awkward moaning sound from under the sweater, but thankfully, we left without drawing notice. *Sigh.

Tonight we are staying in Deming, New Mexico (the state I always forget exists!). The hotel is considerably cheaper and, better yet, dog friendly. I told G he can bark all he wants tonight :)

Onward.

And So the Adventure Began

I'm breaking my books-only blog rule to write a little bit about the Great Adventure, as it's so been dubbed, on which my husband and I currently are.

Yesterday, we left Gainesville, our home for the past 3 years, to move cross-country to Los Angeles, or more specifically, North Hollywood. This move has been a long-time coming: 2 years this August. It almost doesn't feel real yet that we're on this major road trip, I'm sure in no small part because I'm writing this from my sister's home in Pensacola. Once we get back on I-10 west of her home, a stretch of the road I've never been on, it'll probably hit us a little harder.

But then again, yesterday evening was as real as it got. We ended up having to back up the 22-foot Penske (which Elliott named Lucille, then realized the name didn't fit and switched it to Bonnie, in honor of the second named storm of the season) with an SUV on a trailer attached to the back, down a dirt road that's maybe 200 feet long. (Why, you ask? ONE, SINGLE low-hanging wire on Danielle's property that would have snapped had we kept driving forward.) Backing up was a seemingly endless game of missing mailboxes and not tearing down people's tree branches. We succeeded at the former and failed at the latter. By the end of the ordeal, I was a hot mess, but the Penske was safe at the opening to the dirt road and can now be pulled straight out when it's time to hit the road again in a couple of hours.

Thankfully, my sister had an awesome spaghetti-and-meatball dinner ready for us when we got here, and my niece Adalee was all smiles despite an ear infection. We were ravenous, having only had a McDonald's breakfast hours earlier and a hodgepodge snack of beef jerky (thanks Lanette, Lauren, and co.) and crackers and cheese (thanks, Mom Morgan).

It looks like we'll be driving in rain the rest of the day. Next stop: Baton Rouge, LA, where we'll finally get to meet little Theo and see Ryan and Sarah Francis after 2 (too) long years away.

Four days and counting until we're in our new place!