Ok, I'm now going to finally update and give the whole story regarding the road trip this past weekend.

It was AWESOME! It started on Thursday night when Patty, Erika, Dan and I piled into his car to go to Milton to pick up Adam. The trip to Milton was fun. Patty and I sat in the back talking girl talk, and Dan and Erika were having their discussion up in front. When we got to Milton and the McDonald's there, we all ended up getting something to eat, and just sitting there talking. Good times. Then there was the drive home which included me yelling out in frustration of the seatbelt, "I know I'm not THAT large and in charge!!" Yeah, got the whole car going. It was good times. And then the good byes started up. First there was Patty, hard, but I was able to manage. Then Dan, still able to manage (not like it wasn't hard to say good bye to those two). And then I had to say good bye to Erika. Not the easiest thing to do. I think I cried the hardest when I said good bye to her. Adam and I walked into the house, and I went right to mom's room, layed down, and started crying and saying how I didn't want to come to Vegas anymore. I eventually left, and packed my bag for the weekend.

I got to sleep at about 1:30 Friday morning, and was up at 4:30. A nice 3 hour nap, and a full day's worth of driving ahead of me. I was ready to finish packing the car at 5:30 when I woke up Adam. He was ready within 10 minutes, and I still had other things to do. We eventually got off and on to the open road at about 6:30. An hour later than I had wanted, but hey, it'll all work out. Drove for a bit, and then once in Illinois (or the ninth circle of hell as I like to affectionately call it) I missed the exit we needed to take. Instead of going south, I just kept going right towards Chicago. Yeah, I know. I messed up. I had 3 hours of sleep in me, and I'm used to going that route. We stopped at the Oasis to grab some Krispy Kremes, and then were headed back to the right exit. We kept driving, and then Adam decided reading aloud from the book that a co-worker gave me ("One Hour Orgasm"). It was weird at first, but then it wasn't. Got to go past the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, and then through the gorgeous hills and such in Missouri.

I found out a few days before leaving that Adrienne was going to be in Stillwater when Adam and I were going to be going through Oklahoma. I wasn't sure if we'd be able to stop, but we told her that we would call as we got closer. As we approached OK, we gave her a call to let her know that we would be stopping by. We weren't sure if we were going to stay the night, or if we were going to just crash in town. Adam had taken the reign of my car while we were heading to Adrienne's. He did well seeing as how the last time he drove stick was at least 2-3 years ago. He didn't stall it much. The only place he really stalled out at was at the last toll right before we got to Stillwater. We got out of the car at the exit, and switched drivers. Got into Stillwater, went to Eskimo Joe's, ate, drank and were merry, and then we had to decide if we wanted to truck on down to OKC. We decided that we'd get a room in Stillwater so that Adrienne could show us her old stomping grounds.

They had offered us one of their rooms in the res hall they were staying in, but I didn't want community bathrooms, and I'm over living in a res hall. It was very nice of them, but I just wanted to sleep and have my bathroom right next to me. As Adrienne rolled up to pick us up, the rest of her group of students were with her. That's cool yo. They were talking about trying to get into Tumbleweed for a country concert (Blake Shelton with Joe Nichols) at less than half of the cover price. Adrienne showed us around, and then we headed back to Tumbleweed. The student and Adrienne's supervisor were able to get the bouncer to let us in for $15, and Adam and I would get in free. I didn't want to stay out too late since I'd driven all day, but when would be the next chance of going to a country club in Oklahoma?! We got in, watched some o f the concert, and then found us a place to sit watching the country dancers. I said out loud that I wished I could do that, so within 15 minutes Adam and I were out there trying to figure out how to dance like them. At about 1am, we had Adrienne drive us back to the hotel so that we could sleep.

The next morning we were on the road by 7:30am. I needed some sleep, and I didn't want to get up much earlier than 7. Checked out of the hotel, and headed down to OKC to see the OKC Bombing Memorial. I didn't think I would be so moved there. We go to the fence with the mementos left behind, and I could feel the tears in my eyes. It was just really powerful. I can still remember when that happened. It was on Sue's birthday back when I was in 7th grade. We were all coming in from lunch recess, when the TV was on in our science teacher's room. He had told us a little bit about what happened, but told us our parents would fill us in more when we got home. I was able to see that vividly when I was at the site. There were other things there that were built for it. The diocese in OKC put up a statue of Jesus weeping with His back to the bombing site, and there were just other things around that just touched me. Once we were done with that, we hit the road. I drove through the rest of OK (with a minor stop for gas and coffee, and a prepackaged gas station rib sandwich for Adam), and then into Texas. Adam was "resting" through That trek. I knew he was sleeping at a couple of points. He did wake up when I hit a GINORMOUS tumbleweed! It was the size of a shrub from in front of my house! He then went back to "resting", but I made sure to wake him up for the Western Hemisphere's Largest Cross!

We could see that thing from miles away! It was awesome. We'd been looking for something touristy like that our whole ride. It was windy as hell through Texas and OK. While in Texas we saw roadkill that looked like it could've been a fox, or an armadillo. I decided that it would be called a "fadillo." (Adrienne informed me later that it was most likely an armadillo...told you Adam!) Once we got into the mountains in New Mexico, it got better. We almost made it to another tourist site in NM. We almost got to the Petroglyphs in Albuquerque. We were 5 minutes too late. We decided to drive a bit longer to get to a casino further up for dinner. We ended up eating at the Hungry Cowboy Cafe, because Adam was a "hungry cowboy". After dinner, we headed off into the sunset, or darkness, with a goal of Flagstaff, AZ. We ended up making the goal. I couldn't find us a hotel with a whirlpool, all of the good hotels were full, so we got a hotel that had a whirlpool, but outside. After I put my things down in the room, I layed down on the bed, and proceeded to doze off. I then changed into my jammies, and went to sleep.

We decided to sleep in on Sunday since we didn't have much more to go. Got up, drove more, almost finished the book, drove into California since neither of us had been and it was a millimeter to our left on the map,

and then decided to be smart and eat Chex Mix in the middle of the desert with no drinks in the car, or available places to stop and get something since we weren't on the freeway anymore. We finally stopped about 30 minutes outside of Vegas (like, I could see the Strip) to get something to drink. Next we hit up the famous "Welcome to Vegas" sign,

drove the Strip, and went to Mary and Roger's house. Got there, unpacked the car, ate, and then headed out to find my school and head to the Strip to show Adam some fun! Got home at about 10 so I could iron and get some sleep before having to wake up at 3:30am to take Adam to the airport. It was sad seeing him go, but I know that I'll see him soon, and that I was WAY too sleepy to be sad. Came back home, went to sleep for an hour, and then got ready for school.

That's where I'm going to stop, just because I haven't been up this late since Sunday, and teaching really does wear you out. I promise to update more about teaching in the upcoming days. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!