Road to Philly

I'm blogging from the road! Eric has Bluetooth set up from his phone so that we can get internet on the road.

My last day at my jobs was sad. It was weird knowing I'd never make those commutes to work again. I mostly loved my job at the tack shop, so it was sad to leave. I was just starting to get to know a couple of the girls there (along with another one at my "regular" job), and was having a lot of fun. Sigh... oh well. I'm sad to leave Riley, too. He was a really fun horse to ride--sensitive and opinionated, but fun.

For my solo trip to Philly, I packed as many boxes as I could into the car, and put Jaiden in the back seat. We left at 5 in the morning, and I drove nearly 1,000 miles (14 hours) to somewhere in Tennessee. I love that state--it's so beautiful! Right before I exited to stay at the hotel, I saw one of those blue road signs that tells you what's available for food, and saw they had a Shoney's! I couldn't believe it. I don't think I've seen one of those since they closed down the one in Omaha several years ago. They had the best--seriously, the BEST--breakfast bar ever. Crispy bacon, creamy eggs, fluffy pancakes. YUM. I would have stopped to have some breakfast, but #1 I'm on a diet of sorts (trying to eat healthier), and #2 it would have been a pain in the ass with Jaiden. So, I woke up at 6:00, had a bagel at the hotel (gave half of it to the pup, heh), and was on my way again.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I arrived in Philly at 6:30 PM on Friday night for a total drive time of around 24 hours. Eric and I went out to dinner with his friend Erin and Erin's fiance. We left Philly Saturday morning in Eric's SUV at about 10 AM to head back to Austin. Yep, that means three 1700 mile trips for me EEK. But, we weighed all our options, and for various reasons, we decided this one would be best. We only hoped we wouldn't be ready to kill each other by the end. :P

We drove straight through the night to Austin. Eric had set up a bed of sorts in the back of the SUV. He had bought a bed for Jaiden to sleep on, and put a sleeping bag with a mat in the back. It proved to be pretty useful, and Jaiden never complained about the arrangement--he was pretty happy to have all that room back there, and occasionally a human for company. We took turns sleeping and driving, and we were able to make it from Philly to Austin in about 28 hours. We picked up the trailer a day early, and headed back to the apartment, bouncing and clanging the entire way, with me giving Eric worried looks every time, and Eric reassuring me at every bump that everything was fine, haha. We began loading up the trailer. Poor Jaiden was going out of his mind. He was NOT a happy dog. I'm wondering if these were the motions his previous owners went through before abandoning him during hurricane Katrina. Poor puppy. We packed for about four or five hours and called it a night. We slept on the floor, and neither of us had a good night's rest.

By morning, we still had a lot to do in the way of last-minute packing and cleaning the apartment before handing over my keys. Jaiden was much calmer by then for whatever reason. We finally got everything loaded (with not an inch to spare in the trailer) and we were ready to go. We drove to get breakfast, and I handed in my keys. I had already signed a notice to vacate, so there was nothing else for me to do. Rather painless, and sort of scary at the same time. With Jaiden in the back, we hooked the trailer up to the truck. I decided to ride in the back for a bit, because Jaiden was scared to death of all the sounds coming from the trailer. Dog has issues. I had to hang onto his collar to prevent him from clawing his way to the front with Eric.

As we were taking the access road to get on the interstate, some moron was riding his bicycle going the wrong way with no shoulder to ride on. Eric stepped on the brakes and swerved slightly to avoid him. The trailer started fishtailing, sending the SUV into fits of side-to-side movement. It scared the crap out of both of us, and I was feeling rather vulnerable in the back with no seatbelt, but I wasn't quite ready to leave the dog yet, lest he climb into our laps and cause us to have an accident. After the fishtailing incident, we decided then and there to bypass the mountains of Tennessee and headed for Atlanta, Georgia on some highway in the middle of Texas.

I was a basketcase from that point on. We couldn't go above 55 MPH without the trailer getting squirrely, and I couldn't get images of jackknifing, crashing, and watching the trailer with my beloved belongings tumbling down the road, flinging my grandmother's clock around and smashing it to tiny wooden pieces. The whole contraption felt extremely fragile, and we were seriously considering trading the trailer in for a truck.

After an hour and a half, we decided to try one last thing, on suggestion of Eric's friend--redistributing boxes to put more weight in the front of the trailer to stabilize it. This would mean find a suitable place to stop, unload, and reload. Neither of us was keen on the idea, but we weren't happy with how things were going, so we went for it. It took about a half an hour, and we were getting irritated, as we had just loaded up this damn thing, but we finally got everything in, and even had more room to spare. We got back into the truck (I was still in back with Jaiden, though he seemed to be calming somewhat), and we immediately noticed the difference before even getting onto the highway again. Everything felt much more stable and secure. Eric tested it over 55, and it was perfect. No waggle whatsoever, even at 70. Jaiden seemed to be calming down, so after we stopped again, I joined Eric in the front.

We stopped for the night in Monroe, Louisiana at a Red Roof Inn. The smell outside was horrible. I don't know what it was, but it smelled in Shreveport, too. Eric and I decided to avoid Louisiana in the future if at all possible. The water was disgusting, too. It had a nasty smell, and it was yellowed as though it contained urine. UGH! I didn't drink any of it, and felt I was doing my teeth an injustice just by brushing them with that water. My hair was a matted mess by morning, so I washed it out as well as I could, followed by a rinse with dirty water. Oh well.

We just crossed over into Mississippi, and we're about five hours from Atlanta. I'll write more probably tomorrow or when we get into Philly!