The Final Leg!!!

April 26

We left the UVA house today and explored the campus a little. It’s beautiful! So many trees and students walking everywhere! We walked down the main street parallel to campus and it had a myriad of shops and restaurants to stop and peruse. We ate at a little Irish pub that had a patio area right on the sidewalk. It was nice to sit and watch all the students rush by. Sometimes I wish that I had gone to a school that had a more connected feel to it. I loved UCI and everything I did there, but sometimes it felt like more of a commuter school. We left Charlottesville and started the five hour journey to our destination. On the way we got the honor and privilege of sitting in DC traffic. People may complain about LA traffic, but it is NOTHING compared to DC traffic. It was awful! In the end it took us seven hours, but we finally pulled up to the apartment where we’re going to be staying for a few days.

The city is huge a little overwhelming especially coming from Orange County. Half of the streets run only one way which makes it difficult to navigate. The apartment we’re staying in is a small studio so Roomie and I are very cozy with Friend H and her little doggie, Franki. It’s a hot night, but we’re so freaking tired that sleep should be no problem.

Sisters!

April 25

Nashville's downtown area was all that you would expect from a musically inclined city. The main street had old rock and roll and country music playing from speakers set on the street lamps and the street signs were in the shape of guitar picks. We went to the oldest operating ice cream shop in Nashville, Roomie got some coffee while I had a scoop of Tennessee Track ice cream. It was good, but not what I wanted at 11am. We walked the three blocks of downtown, passed some local guitarists playing on the street, took our picture with an Elvis statue, and decided that we had seen all there was to see.

Hoping to continue with our good weather luck, we drove through Tennessee. We had already dodged the fires in Texas, just barely escaped the tornadoes in Arkansas (they came the day after we left), now we were hoping to breeze right through good ole Tennessee and avoid the thunder storms. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had another plan. We had great weather until we got close to the Virginia boarder and all of a sudden it started pouring. It was so bad that at one point we could barely see five feet ahead of ourselves on the freeway. It poured on us for about 15 minutes, then just as quick as it came, it went away. As we got closer and closer to the Tennessee/Virginia border we kept our eyes peeled for the Welcome sign, but we soon discovered, much to our dismay, that Virginia did not feel the need to welcome us to their fine state. Thanks for ruining one of our road trip goals!

After a quick change at a gas station, we finally arrived at the sorority house at the University of Virginia. The house was so big and beautiful; just like a typical east coast house! It had a huge porch complete with a porch swing and large bay windows. The sisters who lived in the house were very welcoming and eager to talk to us about our road trip and about our chapter at UCI. We chatted a little bit upstairs with the girls and got a tour of the house. They told us that they don’t have meeting or initiation in the house itself, but rather all the Greek chapters hold all their meetings and Ritual events in an old church on campus. Roomie and I thought that was pretty interesting considering all the things they have to carry down for meeting. Two of the girls who live on the main floor were nice enough to let us borrow their room for the night so we let all the girls of the house get back to studying while we got a much needed night’s rest.

Hallelujah to ya!

April 24

I woke up on Sunday morning and felt a lot better. We all decided to go to a riverboat casino in Tennessee. However, I decided to do some laundry that morning and it took longer than usual to dry, that paired with other logistical issues, we decided not to go. Instead Roomie, Friend J and one of his coworkers went to a Mexican restaurant to have margaritas, which is exactly what none of us wanted. Roomie and I left shortly after for the birth place of rock and roll, Tennessee. As we got closer to the state line, we waited anxiously for a “Welcome to” sign, alas all we got was another sign over the freeway much like the one welcoming us to Arkansas while we drove over a suspiciously wide body of water. We were pretty disappointed until we found out that the large body of water we were passing over was the Mississippi River. Oops. Because it was Easter Sunday, not too many things were open and there were few people out and about. Memphis was kind of dirty and sketchy looking, but we did find a delicious bbq place about five miles outside of the city. It was in a small neighborhood and it had a huge patio on which to dine. We of course had ribs and I learned that ribs can come in two forms: wet, where the meat is cooked with the sauce on it or dry, with only a rub on it. These people were clearly serious about their ribs.

Spending Easter in the Bible Belt was definitely an experience. Nothing was open and we saw tons of “inspirational” billboards. Most were just Bible quotes, but some of them got pretty creative. Our favorite had a box of babies on it with the caption “God’s stimulus package.” I also noticed that groceries did not sell alcohol in them. For that, you have to go to a liquor store which are only open during limited hours in the day. However, many of the liquor stores have a drive through, which I thought was pretty ironic. It was pretty obvious that we were in a Red state. 

We finally got to Nashville and were too tired to do much of anything except go to bed. The next morning we packed up and went to explore Nashville.

Little Rock: not worth it

April 23

On the road again, but this time to Little Rock, AR. Another fun-filled eight hour drive through middle America. Luckily for us we avoided all the fires that were ravaging Texas, but there were crazy tornado and storm warnings in Arkansas. Roomie and I were both running on about three hours of sleep so when we weren’t driving we tried to take a nap. It turns out though that when your car is so full of stuff, you can’t lean the seat back even a little bit, it’s hard to sleep, so neither of us were really rested. The scenery was beautiful; lots of lush trees and shrubbery in varying shades of green. We were staying with a friend from college and he lives in Conway which is a tiny town outside Little Rock. As we were getting ready to go out in the oh-so thrilling city of Little Rock, I started to not feel so well. I figured I just had a headache from all the driving and lack of sleep, but then on the way to the city I started to feel nauseous. I realized that I had a migraine. For anyone who has never had a migraine, you are so lucky because they are horrible, awful things. So instead of hanging out with the delightful people of Little Rock, I spent the night lying in the back of our friend’s car while everyone else had fun. We finally went back to the house and I fell asleep without talking to or meeting anyone. Roomie informed me the next day that Little Rock is pretty boring so I took comfort in the fact that I didn’t really miss anything.

Austin is awesome!

April 21-22

Finally we left early for a drive, Austin bound! A long day of driving across west Texas, but we were no longer in the desert, now we were in a plains-state. The scenery was beautiful and there were tons of cows grazing. We stopped once to take our obligatory picture by the Texas state sign, got lost trying to find the hotel, but we finally arrived. We were super tired, but we pushed ourselves to go out and we were so happy that we did! The hotel had a shuttle service that dropped us off on 6^th Street which is where all the night life is. It was so amazing! The city blocks off the street so cars can’t drive down it and people just walk in and out of bars and down the street. There are food carts and other places to eat, everything a drunk person could want!

There are promoters all around like Vegas and we got wrangled into the first bar by the offer of a free drink. We quickly learned why this bar had a promoter; it was empty. We had our drink and left. The second bar we went in to was called The Library and it was pretty cool and way more populated than the first. There was an enormous faux book case behind the bar and an upstairs area with lots of places to sit. We had a couple drinks there and migrated to the next bar that had a deck area outside upstairs. We had a pretty awesome view of all the drunk people stumbling around below. They were mostly college kids but we couldn’t believe all the guys in polos/button downs, khaki shorts and boat shoes. Rommie was upset that there were no cowboys in sight. We hung out there for awhile, talked to some guys, then left because we were really hungry. We stopped at one of the pizza stands on the street and had the best pizza of my life! We then had to find a cab. We wandered around for about half an hour and FINALLY found one. We had to beat some guys out of it, but we finally got a ride back to the hotel.

The next day we slept until 11am, which felt amazing!! We spent the day exploring the city. We had some amazingly delicious bbq at a restaurant called Stubbs. I had a delicious pulled pork bbq sandwich and Roomie had the ribs; both were finger licking good! We asked the waiter what there was to do in Austin, but he wasn’t much help. We did find out that south Congress Street was pretty cool, so we drove down there; it was so hot and humid, we couldn’t bear to walk. It turns out that south Congress is a lot like Berkley in California. There were hipsters walking around everywhere and lots of cute little shops on the streets. Roomie and I got some cold beverages at Jo’s and sat on the patio and people watched.

After a lengthy nap at the hotel we went out again, this time we drove. Our first stop was to get another piece of delicious pizza. The first bar we tried to get into wouldn’t let us in because of our CA ID’s. apparently it’s their “policy” that they don’t allow people with out of state licenses into their “fine” establishment without another piece of ID. Too bad for them because we were ready to give them our money. Instead we went to a place called Maggie Mae’s which had an upper level which was like a regular club with hip hop, but the downstairs had a live band playing. Roomie and I sat down there for most of the night enjoying the music.

We were pretty sad to leave Austin because the city had a really cool vibe. It was really clean and downtown was incredibly easy to navigate. The night life was great and even though there wasn’t much to do in the day, we considered just staying there rather than moving all the way to the East Coast. Responsibility eventually got the better of us and we packed up the car to go. In Dallas, we met one of Roomie’s friends whom she had grown up with. We had a nice lunch in Downtown Dallas (not as awesome as Austin) and I almost got run over by a man in a wheelchair; one of the many “colorful” locals in Dallas. What a way to end our stay in the lively state of Texas!

We're being invaded!

April 20

We started our drive again this time to Roswell. We left late again which was probably a mistake. Driving through the desert is always an enjoyable experience for me. It’s so nostalgic and comforting in a way; most likely because we’d drive through it to get to Grandma and Grandpa’s and to get to El Centro.

As we’re driving, we see all these signs for “The Thing?” (question mark included) and of course we have to stop. So we pull over to this combination gas station/Dairy Queen/desert souvenir shop/The Thing? Exhibit. After buying some gas and post cards, we pay our $1 admission to The Thing? After walking through several rooms of old things (old horse drawn carriages, books, cars, etc) we finally get to the third and final room. Then we exit the third and final room. Nowhere in any of the rooms is there a sign that says “Here is The Thing?” Our only conclusion is that it was an old mummy-looking thing in a plexi-glass case. We’re still not sure though…..

We got to the New Mexico border and took a picture with the “Welcome to New Mexico” sign. As we were standing there, we realized that we didn’t get one with the Arizona sign. Then we turned to go back to the car and we see the Arizona welcome sign on the opposite side of the highway, gleaming in the sunset. Then we get the bright idea to run across all four lanes of the 10 freeway to get a picture with that sign. And we do. And we got our pictures. Mission accomplished. Probably not the brightest thing we’ve done, but it was necessary.

Again I drove the second half of the trip and unfortunately we drove through Ruidoso in the dead of night which is sad because I’ve heard it’s a gorgeous area. Our GPS, Gypsy, took us some screwy route and after getting lost a few times, we finally pulled in to our hotel in Roswell. It was very blustery and pretty cold. Again we were tired and we go into the room and just fell asleep. The next morning at the complimentary breakfast downstairs, the news informed us that there were fire warnings all over Texas, the next leg of our trip, and tornado warnings all over Arkansas. Oh goody!

We packed up the car and drove down the street to the International UFO Museum. Now, Roomie and weren’t quite sure why it was the “International” UFO Museum because we’re not sure who, outside of children on field trips from neighboring cities and tourist who just happen to be in new Mexico, would come to this museum. Most likely idiots like Roomie and I. So we paid our $5 to enter this museum and it was a total waste. It mostly consisted of the same news article over and over again, pictures of people who dug at the site, paintings by people who weren’t even there for the alleged landing, and replicas of the substance that the Roswellian farmer found on his land. Our favorite items though was the “Checklist of Ways to Tell if You’ve Survived an Abduction” and the VHS box of the movie they made about Roswell. Pure gems.

We bought some post cards and Starbucks and got the hell out of Roswell.  

Let the trip begin!

April 19

After an amazingly long day of packing on Monday and a hectic day on Tuesday, we finally left in the evening at 5:30pm; only 7.5 hours late. The car was so packed that we could barely see out the back window. We went to go get our farewell burritos and we got on the freeway. Roomie did the first half of the driving and I did the second. She has a stick shift and she taught me how to drive it only a few days before. I think I did pretty well, I only stalled about five times in one intersection. Apparently I’m a clutch popper.

It was such a relief to get to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Tucson and sleep in comfy beds. They were so nice to wait up for us because we rolled in at around 1am. We slept in pretty late and went to brunch. I told Roomie that they were really funny people, but she was still surprised at how feisty Grandma was and how silly Grandpa was. It was pretty funny to watch Grandpa, who’s about 6’5”, climb in and out of the back seat of Roomie’s two-door Honda. We did a few other errands with them, but unfortunately had to get on the road. We really wish that we could have stayed two nights with them to relax and enjoy their company, but we had reservations in Roswell to get to. Another eight hour day ahead of us!