Monday, April 02, 2007
the spring break trip . . . part one
the morning of Friday the 16th, i flew out to see my sister in oklahoma city. i had stayed up until 2 or so the night before trying to get everything taken care of before i left . . . and packing . . . i got up about 5am to catch my flight to chicago. yes chicago. and then i caught a connection to oklahoma city. i got there about 5pm OKC time.here is a photo from the plane of Mt St Helens (in washington state):
my sister picked me up at the airport and we went back to her dorm room. navigating the many crazy freeways in OKC . . . i've decided that people cannot merge no matter what state you are driving in. i thought it was just oregonians. but i was wrong.
that night i met some of her fabulous friends and they took me to chic-fill-a. they said it was a "must experience" for the south. the only problem was that all it served was chicken. so, i had a milkshake and fries. the milkshake came in styrofoam.
i knew i wasn't in kansas (or oregon for that matter) anymore.
here are d and i outside of chic-fill-a on the beginning of my vegetarian road trip across the SouthWestern US. an almost impossible feat. :)
that night in her dorm room, deborah gave herself a stick on tattoo of a lion's head that her roommate from japan had given her the week before. we christened him aslan and said he would protect us on the road. we watched pride and prejudice (with kira knightly . . . sigh) and fell alseep.
the next morning, we took an adventure to pick up the rental car. 1/2 hour to get to the place. 20 minutes to get the car. Larry the rental car guy upgraded me from an economy two door to a rav 4 . . . i don't really know what the significance of a rav 4 is, but it drove well and got good gas mileage . . . and i felt safe driving it, so that was good. and i had a good turning radius. i have respect and appreciation for cars with a good turning radius.
an hour to get home . . . we got lost in oklahoma city. an easy thing to do . . . there are freeways like a spiderweb just looping off wherever they feel the need to go.
my grandma arrived with my uncle a bit later and we got on the road. grandma and d and all grandma's stuff in her car, me, the snack bag, and all mine and d's stuff in my car. i followed grandma . . . so usually went about 5-15 miles under the speed limit. so if i had lead, i would have lost her. :) the only coffee shops near my sister's school were starbucks. but i knew i needed something to get me through the long drive. and the siren is better than gas station coffee! so i went in to get my americano.
grandma: "how much is a cup of coffee here?"
me (looking on the menu): $1.55 (plus poopie tax)
grandma: makes a nasty face. :)
me: but it is GOOD coffee.
here's d at the first rest stop showing off her tat:
the oklahoma countryside:
graffitti in oklahoma, surpriseingly close to the texan border:
it says "bush sucks"
Bushland Texas:
for real!
the dash of my car (nice):
the texas landscape:
yep, i took all these photos while driving my car.
since we were driving on st patrick's day. and d and i are both irish (thanks to our full-blooded irish grandma on the other side of the family - not the one we are driving with) we totally wore our green:
we celebrated st patrick's day by eating mexian food (mmmm sopapillas!) at a diner with our grandma in tucumcari new mexico and staying in a travelogde motel.
we woke up to the sound of my grandma watching "full house" on tv the next morning.
say it don't spray it 11:25 AM
1 i heard that
