Highway Companion

Current Mood: as if there were few, if any, limitations on my current situation

A week ago today I left to drive down to Texas for my internship.  I'll write more about that soon, but first I wanted to share some thoughts about my big trip to the Lone Star State.

I had originally planned to leave Wednesday morning.  When I went to pick up my rental car Tuesday afternoon with my friend Taylor, the rental car company gave me all sorts of hassle - wanted a credit card not a debit card (noted), didn't like my insurance, and balked at the idea that somebody would rent a car for 91 days.  Yes, guy at the counter, I need it to get there, to work, to the store, to place and people and things, and then to come home.  He said if I wasn't being backed by a corporate insurer, the required insurance would almost double the price, placing the already probably out of my price range into "and monkeys might fly out of my butt" range.  So...lovely.

We settled on a one week rental, enough time for me to get where I was going and then get set up, before I had to return it.  Once we worked out the details and I explained my plight, the rental company actually cut me a deal, so I managed to get my car early Thursday.  Taylor was once again my driver, and I had packed out what I felt was a balance between the absolute bare minimum (basically living out of a suitcase) and backups and extra things for every contingency (what if there's a chilly evening?  flannel lined pants!).  Had to leave room for other passengers, though.

Got a really nice silver Toyota Corolla, with about 2400 miles on it - practically a preemie for that brand.  Also, air conditioning!  (something Jenny and my car does not currently have).  So I took off from Indy to Cincy.  Stopped for some Gold Star before trailing mom to the Louisville airport, where she would later fly home to.  Everything was goin' smooth, weather was great, I was good to go.

Then mom takes over the driving, and we drove to Nashville, then to Memphis.  Hit some bad stretches of traffic (including one freaky stop where the other side of the highway was completely empty and a single police cruiser started driving against the flow on our side...combined with the setting sun and the scenery, was very The Walking Dead).  Stopped for dinner at the Crack B, then made it all the way to just outside of Little Rock.  Stopped at an okay hotel, then zonked out.

Back up again early.  Continental breakfast, then we were on the road by 7:30am.  Got to Texas (finally) around 10:00am.  Ate Jack in the Box for the first time.  By this point mom and I had basically run out of things to talk about, and we were rockin' out pretty hard to Warrant, Firehouse, Cinderella, stuff like that.  Also, it wasn't boredom that got to me, it was the soreness in my back.  We finally got to Dallas...and then continued on to San Antonio to see Bradley.

Austin traffic was awful.  The whole drive, though, mom and I planned our stops very well - she drove fast enough that the GPS time saved "paid" for our stops, and we combined food, stretches, and gas at each break.  We hit more traffic in San Antonio and I was about ready to claw my way out of the car.  We finally, FINALLY got to Bradley's Air Force Base at about 5:40pm, not long after he'd gotten out of class for the day.  Despite the delay at the rental car station, mom and I managed to cover 1,400 miles in about 25 driving hours (about 34 real time hours).  Not bad!  Not something I'm looking forward to doing again in August at the end of my internship, for sure.  At least I have a few months to worry about that - plus I'd need to find another car, and maybe another driving partner.