Echos From The Road (Day 1)

When we left Stillwater, I made sure my microcassette recorder was in the car with me and I recorded a few thoughts along the way. I had intended to post this long ago but just hadn't gotten around to it. I cleaned out my car and finally took the recorder into the house so I could listen to what I had recorded.
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April 3, 2007 7:22pm CST

We've been on the road about an hour and a half. It was really odd leaving the house and actually watching the mailbox fade into the distance in my rearview mirror - even though I'm going to be back in a couple of weeks to make some attempt to get all of stuff out of there. We left a lot behind. They put a lot on the truck but we left a lot behind. Most of it junk. A lot of older clothes that we just didn't have a chance to get rid of. (note: I had a HUGE garage sale when I returned and donated what was left to the Salvation Army. What was left still took up half the garage.)

I'm really tired. I slept okay last night. I'm tired but not exhausted. We started about six hours later than I really wanted to. Even though we had things semi-gathered together that we wanted to take in the cars, none of it was packed up. It was in 2 or 3 rooms, some items were unpacked and repacked, we added some last-minute items and finally got the cars packed. We had some errands to run and just got on the road late.

The vet gave us some sedatives for the animals. It doesn't seem to have really affected the dogs but they've settled down now that we're on the road doing a constant speed. Teddy is in my back seat and Shelly has JD. We stopped about ten minutes ago because both cats were restless. The sedative (something called ACE) got the mildly doped up. They were calmer than normal but Nikki was still trying to climb out of her carrier and Anabelle has been restless and vocal. We gave them each another 1/4 of a pill and I hope that will take care of it.

My brain is mush - I'm just too tired. The last two weeks being occupied with nothing but packing really exhausted me. We were up a little early this morning. It would have been better had we left closer to our noon estimated departure time but between having to visit the tag agency, going by the bank, feeding ourselves, and having to actually stuff the cars, it just didn't happen.

Being this tired, I had a bit of a freak-out this morning because of everything going on and realizing this was our last day in the house , I sat down and just let go. My mind is bouncing between anxiety attacks, minor breakdowns, excitement, and just wishing that we were somewhere that we could stop already - even though we've got 6 or 7 more hours to go.
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April 3, 2007 8:55 pm

We have not made it nearly as far as I had hoped. We keep having to stop and walk the dogs. I forgot what it's like traveling with animals - and when you have all four of them, it makes it that much worse. To top it off, Anabelle has awakened and turned into Ms. Talky-pants (you can hear it on the tape). Maybe it's the sedative and she's all freaked out because she's not feeling right and she's been confined to a box for more than three hours.

I knew this part was going to be stressful on me but I'm all sorts of paranoid about the critters and how they're handling it.
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April 3, 2007 10:21 pm

I'm listening to the Geek News Central podcast from March 27. Todd is talking about spaceports. Apparently, New Mexico is trying to get voters to pass a tax to help pay for the spaceport. He's also mentioned that there are others being built in Singapore, the UAE, California... and Oklahoma. Really? That's interesting. Anyway, the question he's asking is where all the passengers are going to come from?

Personally, I think they're putting the cart before the horse. First, you have to have some sort of vehicle, don't you? They built airplanes before building airports, right? So why are we building spaceports before building space planes (for lack of a better term)? Unless the builders of these spaceports know something we don't. Even though NASA has plans to revamp the space shuttle, it's still in the conceptualization stage. Where do they think the transport vehicles are going to come from? It just doesn't make sense.
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April 3, 2007 10:37 pm

I'm sitting here at the Flying J just East of Salina Kansas off I-70. Anabelle and Teddy seem to be quite stressed out which is increasing my stress. JD seems okay. I've brought him water a couple of times and he laps it right up but Teddy won't drink. I'll offer him some when he gets out of the car in a couple of minutes.

Anabelle has calmed down some but I'm sure the sedatives are making them feel weird. Plus, they're not used to traveling, other than JD. The two I didn't think I'd have to worry about are in my car and are not doing as well as I expected.

It has to be done and we'll press on. Hopefully they'll all unstress when we reach to hotel tonight and tomorrow will be easier.
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April 4, 2007 1:30 am

We are about 175 miles outside of our first stop. It might be 3am or later before we check in. Right now I'm dictating just to keep myself awake and keep my brain occupied. Everything on me is going numb from sleep deprivation and lack of movement, including my ears because listening to music is no longer providing stimuli.

Anabelle has been awake on and off and has complained now and again. I think if I were in a box that small for that long... actually, I wouldn't fit in a box that small... proportionally, if I were in a box that small for that long... wait a minute, I'm driving a car. I think I have been in a box that proportionally small for that long... and it sounds like I'm complaining, too.
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April 4, 2007 2:30 am

You know you're on the road late when you don't even see any more semi's.
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April 4, 2007 ???? am

It's after 4 o'clock in the morning. We've got about 15 miles to go and I'm sure I sound exhausted on this (I do). I'm trying to do anything I can to keep awake and I'm having a conversation with myself.

It's been a really long f-ing day. I hope tomorrow will be an easier day and I also hope Teddy will have something to eat and drink when we get into the hotel. (at this point, I'm rambling, singing made up songs and generally making a fool of myself)
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That's it for the first day. I'll post more of this saga later.