The TN Diaries Day 3

November 3rd 2007. We didn’t sleep last night. But we wanted to. Who wants to actually move across the country on zero amounts of sleep? However we sadly spent our entire night before packing up Mels car with whatever we had left.

But I’m getting ahead of ourselves. After our money was put in our job possibilities fell apart. But we still left the state even with no jobs. While 2 weeks before my Barnes & Noble job fell through due to my mean soon to be ex-boss and Mel lost her because of whatever reason for Star Bucks we were very scared. We had friends come over and pack with us. The funniest thing was the horrible ordeal we went through to get our two bikes in the moving truck. On top of a chair mom said we could take I got stuck under my bike and Mels for almost 2hrs! Dad cried, mom couldn’t believe it but when the night before rolled around on the 2nd we chose to go. All was set anyways.

We left the lovely Oceanside around 10am on the 3rd. Mom and dad bought us one last thing, breakfast. I had a tiny credit card for our hotel stops (4 in total) and mom gave us $100 for food. And with hugs and tears we got in the car. I will never forget my dad looking at me and going “well you are moving now, just like you planned you would” and that was it.

Drove about an hour to a Del Taco. That is where Mel tried to sleep a little for like an hour. Mean time I got food at Del Taco and water for Rainbow. In our little front of the truck we had the cats each in a carrier, Tinkerbell in a tiny cage and I was always carrying my dog. Each stop we made for food included “water in a cup with no ice” for my baby. I cried a lot those first few hours. Me and Mel even said “maybe we should turn around” after we left. We knew what we were doing was scary and unsure and we didn’t know why we was doing it. Silly things could be fixed right. Why not go back? We never did!

After Mel finished her nap we started driving again. Our first stop including getting our first gas and realizing that we were in deep crap to think we could make it to TN on a $300 credit card! The tank with one filling was almost $100 and we were still in California. So with many prayers we continued on to Nevada. This was a side trip taking us a bit of our course but I had already promised Deborah we would be coming to see her that night.

Its so odd though. In 2006 I had dream that seemed so real. Mel and me in a moving truck with pets in front drove into Las Vegas. We were going to see Deborah. We could see Vegas far away and stopped at a Carl’s Jr. We called Deborah who said and I quote “You drove all the way to Vegas to eat at Carl’s Jr?” Then we drove to her place. We got a bit lost but found it and hung out for a little bit.

That above description is what exactly happened that first night. Yeah, freaky! I had NO idea I was having a future dream like that. After we left Debs house we continued onto Arizona our goal being stop there for our first night and get some sleep. But things got a bit crazy.

First we just kept going towards the city. We stopped at a Motel 6 near the strip where it cost us $96 but we got it refunded when a guy told us it wasn’t safe there. So that was when we decided to go to AZ from there. Then we kept getting stuck driving to the city. It was like Vegas was pulling us in, we just wanted to live the state! Ugh.

At one point we went to the Hoover Dam. It was an accident. I had fallen asleep (not a good idea) and Mel didn’t mean to. We would have crossed had they not wanted us to unless we opened up our back and made sure that we only had stuff not bombs or something. Sure that’s understandable but at the same it was like are you kidding me? Our truck was so packed we had to leave stuff behind. I. Do. Not. Think. So.

After we turned around and found out that California and Nevada are so close to Arizona that in order to leave Nevada you have to go back into California then go to AZ. Well we freaked out and turned around. Where we ended up was still in California. A small town called “Needles”. It was around 5am by now we were exhausted and checked in.

As Mel pulled out stuff, we heard a wolf howl that freaked us out. We were so close to the desert. We got in our room quickly. Princess poor kitty had to pee so badly she peed on our blanket before we could get her in the litter box. Also that night while we slept someone pee’d on my bed, I think it was Rainbow. We didn’t leave that room pretty.

When the pets were settled that night, Mel got breakfast for us at the Denny’s across the street. Man that food tasted great. We slept a lot and called the freaked out parents. Then after a good nights sleep got up the next day to start driving again. We were both so out of it. Little sleep but still some we packed up to go the next day and on we would go to Arizona.

Good bye California at last…stay tuned to day 4 of our trip to TN from California.