Destination California
I woke up early Saturday morning and got on the road at 6am. I drove to Victoria’s house in Lawrence Kansas and we headed out. Driving through Kansas is a lot of fun, it’s really flat and has lots of scenic cow pastures and fields of corn. I don’t actually know if it is corn, but it’s some kind of crop. I am a big fan of obscure roadside attractions and when I saw a sign for “World’s Largest Hand Dug Well” I insisted that we stop and check it out. Unfortunately the town with the “World’s Largest Hand Dug Well” had been hit a few years ago by a devastating tornado that took out nearly the entire town and the well is still closed. The gift shop however was open and we learned that there was a giant meteorite in town and we stopped at Town Hall to peer inside the window at the meteorite inside a glass encasement.
We chose to take the southerly route to get to California and the first state we hit after Kansas was Oklahoma quickly followed by Texas and then New Mexico where we spent the night. We stopped at all of the State signs to take pictures and the next morning when we got to the Arizona sign there were giant “No Parking” signs on the side of the road so we quickly hopped out and took pictures of each other as tractor trailers wizzed passed and honked loudly at us. Later we entered an area that was labeled a “Photo Enforcement Zone” and so we put on our best smiles in case they took pictures of us we would look good. I’m not sure if they took any pictures of us, but we took the opportunity to take pictures of ourselves.
When we crossed into California the sign for California was just after a bridge and I told Victoria that she should slow down to get over. Instead she sped up and we didn’t get a picture with the sign but I was able to snap a photo from inside the car. We made it to my Grandpa’s house in Fresno around 10pm where my big sister was waiting for us and we had some time to hang out and I got some presents. My grandpa got me a really nice sweater and a button down dress shirt. My sister got me a gift card and a metal loop puzzle thing. Every year my older sister gets me a gag gift and this year it was the metal loop puzzle. It all started many years ago when I was in high school. My older sister had her own place and I wanted to get her something for her house. I found a snowman candle that I thought was really cute, that she could use to decorate her house. Unfortunately when I gave it to her it had been crushed and no one else thought the snowman was as cute as I did.
The drive to California wasn’t bad at all we passed the time by playing games like “I’m going on a trip and I’m bringing a …” where you work through the alphabet adding a new item every time. I would tell you what we were bringing but someone was bringing inappropriate things that are best not mentioned. I have a terrible memory and it would take me about 5 minutes to get through the list when it was my turn but Victoria could get it done in 30 seconds every time. We also played Categories, the game where you name a category and take turns naming things that fit in that category trying not to repeat. One category was “Things that start with ‘P’” and another was “Numbers between one and thirty”. Victoria pretty much one all of these rounds as well.
Monday we drove through the town that I lived in between 2nd and 9th grades and stopped by our old house. When I dream, I often find myself at this house and in the neighborhood and it was very strange to be back there for the first time in many years. Everything seemed so much smaller in real life than it was in my mind, but everything was still as I remembered it in every other way. Monday night I got to see my Mom and Stepdad for the first time since June, which was really nice.
I woke up early Saturday morning and got on the road at 6am. I drove to Victoria’s house in Lawrence Kansas and we headed out. Driving through Kansas is a lot of fun, it’s really flat and has lots of scenic cow pastures and fields of corn. I don’t actually know if it is corn, but it’s some kind of crop. I am a big fan of obscure roadside attractions and when I saw a sign for “World’s Largest Hand Dug Well” I insisted that we stop and check it out. Unfortunately the town with the “World’s Largest Hand Dug Well” had been hit a few years ago by a devastating tornado that took out nearly the entire town and the well is still closed. The gift shop however was open and we learned that there was a giant meteorite in town and we stopped at Town Hall to peer inside the window at the meteorite inside a glass encasement.
We chose to take the southerly route to get to California and the first state we hit after Kansas was Oklahoma quickly followed by Texas and then New Mexico where we spent the night. We stopped at all of the State signs to take pictures and the next morning when we got to the Arizona sign there were giant “No Parking” signs on the side of the road so we quickly hopped out and took pictures of each other as tractor trailers wizzed passed and honked loudly at us. Later we entered an area that was labeled a “Photo Enforcement Zone” and so we put on our best smiles in case they took pictures of us we would look good. I’m not sure if they took any pictures of us, but we took the opportunity to take pictures of ourselves.
When we crossed into California the sign for California was just after a bridge and I told Victoria that she should slow down to get over. Instead she sped up and we didn’t get a picture with the sign but I was able to snap a photo from inside the car. We made it to my Grandpa’s house in Fresno around 10pm where my big sister was waiting for us and we had some time to hang out and I got some presents. My grandpa got me a really nice sweater and a button down dress shirt. My sister got me a gift card and a metal loop puzzle thing. Every year my older sister gets me a gag gift and this year it was the metal loop puzzle. It all started many years ago when I was in high school. My older sister had her own place and I wanted to get her something for her house. I found a snowman candle that I thought was really cute, that she could use to decorate her house. Unfortunately when I gave it to her it had been crushed and no one else thought the snowman was as cute as I did.
The drive to California wasn’t bad at all we passed the time by playing games like “I’m going on a trip and I’m bringing a …” where you work through the alphabet adding a new item every time. I would tell you what we were bringing but someone was bringing inappropriate things that are best not mentioned. I have a terrible memory and it would take me about 5 minutes to get through the list when it was my turn but Victoria could get it done in 30 seconds every time. We also played Categories, the game where you name a category and take turns naming things that fit in that category trying not to repeat. One category was “Things that start with ‘P’” and another was “Numbers between one and thirty”. Victoria pretty much one all of these rounds as well.
Monday we drove through the town that I lived in between 2nd and 9th grades and stopped by our old house. When I dream, I often find myself at this house and in the neighborhood and it was very strange to be back there for the first time in many years. Everything seemed so much smaller in real life than it was in my mind, but everything was still as I remembered it in every other way. Monday night I got to see my Mom and Stepdad for the first time since June, which was really nice.
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