Well, I probably should’ve had my truck shipped to Texas, but I didn’t…

I consider myself a veteran traveler.  I have flown to foreign countries and state side.  I have driven most of the United States including Alaska.  My most frequent trip is the 1200 miles from San Antonio to Los Angeles on IH 10.  I have mastered it in a 22 hour venture that I do with no overnight stops.  So, when my son mentioned his first world problem of having three vehicles and only two parking spots, I thought that I would just fly up to Vermont and drive our Chevy Silverado down to San Antonio, Texas.

It was about Christmas time and my oldest son Daniel was not going to be able to come home for the holidays.  I had visions of my first holiday away from home, and decided that I was going to fly up to Vermont and surprise him for the holidays and then just drive home the truck.  I had already driven to Vermont with Daniel when he was relocating to Vermont with his new job, and with my extensive driving history I never imagined an issue.

My husband would stay at home with our younger two children and we would have a Skype Christmas together.  So, yeah, I thought I had this all planned out.  I loved spending time alone with Daniel.  I realized that we hadn’t been alone together since before his sister was born.  He was all grown up now.  Such a great man! 

It was a typical Vermont winter with snow and cold weather.  Daniel was just amazing.  He really took care of me.  The truck was at a garage to be serviced before the trip.  He drove me to the truck.  Told me to stay in his car.  He started the truck and cleaned off all the snow.  He took all my bags from his vehicle to the truck, and I just sat warm and cozy in his vehicle until the truck was warm.  I was totally digging’ the treatment.

Then his work paged him to go fix a problem and we had to say goodbye suddenly.  I sat there knowing what I needed to do.  First stop, CVS.  If I was driving a long distance, I would need some disposable diapers, because I have no idea where the next restroom will be, and then I also stock up on some snacks and water.  I like to munch on pretzels while I drive to help keep me alert.  I make sure to visit the bathroom before I head out.

There is a winter storm warning out, but I have friends in Indiana that said it wasn’t all that bad so I was confident in driving today.   My daughter was only going to be home for a few more days, and I wanted to get back to San Antonio to spend time with her before she flew back to California.  The snow started to fall.  My GPS was guiding me, and Daniel ensured me that I was going the best route.  I would only be traveling on state roads, because there was no interstate to take me out of Vermont. 

After a few hours driving the visibility became impossible.  I felt like I could slip off the road at any moment.  The oncoming traffic made the fresh snow fly, and I was not able to see the center stripe.  I came upon a restaurant with a large parking lot.  The sign for the restaurant read “Almost Home Restaurant”.  Checking in on Facebook as I normally do when I travel, I made sure to post “I want to go inside and yell Liar Liar pants on fire”.  I was nowhere near home, but then I realized that I had only traveled 40 miles from Daniel.  OMG this was going to be a long trip.

I argued with myself that I would stick out the night in the parking lot and if it wasn’t better in the morning, I would head back to Daniel.  I kept my truck running.  I did not want to enter the restaurant.  I was not hungry.  I had already used my diaper, and decided to change quickly in the truck.  It was so cold that the warmth of the pee was actually quite nice.  I wrapped the used diaper in a plastic bag and threw it on the floor in the back seat. 

I had my own hot spot.  I was able to charge my phone, iPad, and Bluetooth.  I sat entertaining myself and was even able to Skype with my family in Texas while I waited for the storm to pass.  The restaurant filled up with customers.  After they were about to close up, a woman who I suspect was the owner knocked on my truck window and asked if I was okay.  I gave her thumbs up, and she welcomed me to stay as long as I need to.  I had no idea where I was or where the next gas station would be so I did not plan on going anywhere until daylight.

I chatted with my daughter until it got late, and she needed to sleep.  I spent the night in the restaurant parking lot with a restless routine of trying to fall asleep…needing to wake up to pee…stepping outside the truck to pee…freezing to the bone, and then crawling back in the truck to try to get comfortable to sleep again only to wake up to the same routine.  The snow fell all night with emergency plows passing behind me on the state road.  By morning the snow was up to my truck door. 

A plow came at daybreak and I woke up to him plowing the parking lot around the truck.  I concluded that now was a good time to venture down the road to see if I could find a gas station.  My GPS was zero help in locating one on my phone.  The emergency plows that worked all night did a great job, but the coldness kept the snow very dry and the blowing still caused visibility issues.  To my relief just a couple miles down the road was a nice sized gas station with a store.  I went inside after filling up the truck and enjoyed some coffee and human interaction with the locals.  One more bathroom break and I would be back on the road.  I considered myself a road warrior, and I made short stops with a purpose.

After being stationed in Alaska for three years with the military, I learned that in extremely cold weather like this it was important to have two sets of keys.  One stays in the vehicle and it is running at all times, and the other is used to keep the vehicle secure while you are away.  When I came back out, I noticed the amount of snow that was frozen in the bed of the truck.  This was a good thing, because extra weight is needed with these road conditions.  Before I left, I asked the locals to tell me if the roads would be more flat from here until the next state road that will take me thru New York.  They assured me that they are not too hilly.

It is a fact that none of those people have been to Kansas and understand the word flat and not too hilly.  I drove 30 mph white knuckled sliding down the road only to get to the top of the next hill on a prayer with a fish tail.  And, I was cussing those locals aloud the entire time.  I was tired, sitting in pee clothes, driving in a state that I didn’t know, with conditions beyond belief, and then I hear on the radio that they have named the snow storm that I am driving thru….HERCULES!!!!

I have driven a lot, but never alone.  I think when I drove with the children I had to be calm so they would be calm.  I remember heading thru rain storms where Charlie would comment on how scary the rain was coming down so hard.  But, now I was alone.  I didn’t need to be brave for anyone, and my rants would boarder on ramblings of an insane woman.  It was amazing how comforting it was to scream “this is insane!!!  Who the fuck drives in this weather?!!”  I seriously went on with full out conversations to myself in my most sarcastic tone….”oh, you are a road warrior.  It’ll be fun.  I’ll get to visit Daniel for the holidays.  I’ll have plenty of time to make it back to see Charlie before she leaves.”

I took an entire day to drive thru New York, and I knew that I wanted to stop and get a hotel room for the night.  There would be not break in the storm and I needed to get to shelter before night fall.  The truck was awesome!  I love my Chevy.  This is not a normal road trip for me.  New York doesn’t believe in road railings beside the road on the hills; they are more fashioned as trip wires.  I am stopping more often, because I don’t know when the next rest stop will be…probably because no one else is this stupid to drive from Vermont to Texas!!!  Texas has the best roads, next best roads are probably Tennessee, Arizona is just retarded with their road construction…I swear they have been working on IH 10 for the last six years.  If it was TXDOT, it would’ve been done already!

I finally get thru New York and enter Pennsylvania.  I have no idea where I am in Pennsylvania, but I stop at the first big city that looks like they have a brand name hotel.  All these fuckn’ hills are killing me.  The sun in setting and my view is hindered.  I see the sign for the hotel, but I do not see and entrance or the hotel.  I end up having to park in the shade of a building to stop and focus on what is around me.  I see the hotel across the street, but I don’t see where I can enter to get there.  Then, my eyes follow a vehicle that is leaving from that general direction.  I choose to enter on that road and it winds around to the front of the hotel. 

I turn off the truck, and grab my bag with my overnight things.  It is freezing!  It is a brand name hotel, but there is no room service or restaurants that I see close by.  I check in and go up to my room.  I share the elevator with some young, rustic 20 something’s with their winter attire, and grown beards…I instantly remember why I love this country.  Talk about gorgeousness!!!  Ah, I’m back.  I am remembering to be grateful again.

The room is so clean and perfect.  The bed is so soft.  I have to tell you the most wonderful thing about hotels is having the coffee pot in the bathroom.  If I didn’t have to share my vanity with my husband, I would totally have our coffee pot in our bathroom!  I make some coffee and shower.  I pile my pee clothes on the floor of the bathroom.  Showering feels like a real luxury.  I use all the towels, because I can.  After I have coffee, I decide to venture down to the lobby.  They have advertised a breakfast bar, and I am hoping that something is left out in the evening as well.

I am able to talk with my sister, Trisha, from New York.  I originally wanted to drive down to see her before heading to Texas, but Hercules changed my plans.  She really understood and had her own stories of the storm hitting her house and her husband not coming home from the city.  He is a policeman, and I imagine this was a busy time of year for him.  I made hot oatmeal, and hot cocoa, and took some tea packets up to the room to have later.  I didn’t feel like I needed food as much as warm liquids in my body.

Being able to sleep in a bed after two days on the road going thru the mountains of Vermont and New York, 30 mph, with the snow storm Hercules…well, let’s just say I was finding myself grateful for the little things like hot water, warm bed, and clean sheets.  I felt great in the morning.  My ignorance more often than not gave me the energy that I needed to wake up and hit most days head on.  One of my favorite sayings is…”Be the kind of woman, that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil says oh shit she’s awake!”

I got in my bag and started to pick out something to wear.  My pee clothes lay on the bathroom floor, and they were a horrible stench.  I packed up my bag with my night clothes, and chose to put my pee clothes back on for the rest of the trip.  I am in Pennsylvania just inside the state line from New York.  I have to get thru Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and hopefully be in Arkansas by night fall.  I am a healthy woman traveling alone, and I really felt like wearing this pee outfit would be my best line of defense from an unwanted sexual assault.

I go downstairs and enjoy some breakfast.  Proceed to check out of the hotel and pack the truck to get back on the road, and realize that I turned off my truck!!!  It is freezing out.  My truck doesn’t start.  Okay, I only have self-enforced time lines to adhere to so I can adjust to this.  I go inside the hotel and call road side assistance.  Normally this is an amazing benefit with USAA, but for some reason probably the storm outside, the service is not all that great.  I wait for an hour and a half before a child comes to the hotel and calls me to come out and meet him at my truck.  I am really confused.  This boy is in a little hatch back that looks like it spent the night in a garage.  He carries a battery charger no bigger than a brief case and has me pop the hood and he attaches the charger.

He invites me to just go back in the hotel and wait and he will call me when it is charged.  He informs me that it might take a while.  “No shit,” I said in my head, but I smile and go to the lobby and sit patiently looking outside periodically to notice that he is no longer with my truck, but he is sitting in his warm car and it looks like he is either on Facebook or playing a game on his phone.  After what seems like another hour, he calls to let me know that my battery must be dead and I need to get a new one.  He instructs me to call roadside assistance and ask for a tow truck.  I am so happy to have that imbecile get out of my life!

I call roadside assistance and in my most cheerful “I have not been traveling for two days in a snow storm called Hercules and wearing pee clothes” voice ask for a TOW TRUCK.  I elaborate.  I want an old man with a beard and a fat belly that drives a tow truck.  I don’t know how that child with a brief case charger driving around in his hatch back ever got to be an approved roadside assistance person, but I repeat. …I want an old man.  An old man with a beard, and a big belly!  I want him to drive a tow truck, and I need him to come help me start my Chevy.

I wait.

Another hour or so later a cute teenage boy pops into the lobby of the hotel and asks my name.  He sees the look of horror on my face when I think he is my roadside assistance.  The boy holds up both his hands as if to halt me and says, “I came with my Dad.  He is outside with your truck.”  We walked outside and there he was my savior.  He was an old man with a beard, and a belly!!!  And, he drove a tow truck.  While I was waiting in the lobby, I made calls to local garages that might be open during this horrible weather, and I found a guy whose shop was right across the highway from the hotel.  Apparently he and my roadside assistance guy knew each other.  My savior, we will call him, informed me that he wanted to try to start my truck first, and only if he couldn’t get it started would we have to take it to the garage for a new battery.  I was so certain of his capabilities that I went back into the lobby to wait patiently.  The hotel was so nice that they wanted to let me go back up to my room, but I just wanted to get back on the road. 

I waited patiently and then my savior appeared before me.  He said, “I have some good news and I have some bad news.”    I said, “What is the bad news?”  He said, “It is COLD out there!”  I smiled, “and the good news?”  He said, “We got your truck started.  Your battery was loose so I tightened it.  That is probably why it didn’t charge with the other guy.  He said that it will loosen again, so keep an eye on it.  But, right now you are good to go.”  I was so happy!  I had lost a lot of time, but with no money out of pocket and just a little behind schedule I was happy to get back on the road.  I thought Texas here I come!

The snow still covered the roads, but I was able to get on an interstate road and travel from Pennsylvania into Tennessee.  Still taking more breaks than a normal road trip for this road warrior, I was refreshed and so happy to be able to get home to see Charlie before she went back.  I was into Tennessee when I felt like a needed to take a power nap.  Tennessee has great rest stops that have facilities.  I slept with my truck running and just locked the doors for safety.  It was the middle of the day still so I really did not feel any danger.

The urge to go to the bathroom disturbed my rest, and I locked up the truck and brought my extra key with me as I left the truck running.  As I came out of the restroom building, I noticed that the lights on my truck were not on.  Augh, I thought.  My battery is dead.  My truck was no longer running, and so I took the key out of the ignition.  I went inside to the warm building to call roadside assistance.  This would be the third time in a 12 hour period of time, but now I was in another state. 

I honestly hate that the first question that they ask you when you call for roadside assistance is “where are you?”  Really?  I am in the state of denial where I think I am a fuckn’ road warrior and I can drive a Chevy by myself from Vermont to Texas thru the Winter Storm Hercules!!!   All that was just shared with me of course.  I tried to look at the map inside and try to find what Exit number I was at, and then I gave her the name of the rest area, on this interstate.  She wanted to know the city.  Really?!

I notice a guy that I later learned was the keeper of the rest area.  His job was to make sure that it stayed safe and clean and that no one vandalized it.  I walked into his office and asked if he could tell me what city I am in.  He proceeded to push a button on the base of his throat and talk.  I didn’t understand him.  I noticed the Army MEDDAC cap on his desk.  A sense of relief came over me.  I love being around soldiers.  I pointed at his cap and shared that we were retired military and my husband was also an Army MEDDAC.  He wrote the name of the closest city on a piece of paper.  I said the name to the lady with roadside assistance.  She was not having any luck with that city name in Tennessee.

The Soldier motioned for me to get off the phone, and he wanted to look at my truck.  I told him about the battery being lose, and the roadside assistance helping me this morning in Pennsylvania.  He pulled his truck up to mine and put chargers on it to try to get it going.  We tried a couple more times before he told me that I need to go get a new battery.  I started to call roadside assistance.  He motioned for me to not bother.  He wrote down the name and number of the closest AutoZone store.  He wrote that I could drive his truck to AutoZone.  He took the old battery out of my truck, and I called Harold at AutoZone.  I followed their instructions and made it to AutoZone and it started to rain.  Of course, snow storm, dead battery, and now freezing rain.  I was visibly crazy laughing out loud at this point.

Batteries are heavy!!!  I carried it into the AutoZone and Harold sold me a new one, and then carried it out in the freezing rain with me and put it in the back of the soldier’s truck.  I thanked him so much, and started back to the rest area.  Thank you just didn’t seem enough for either of these men.  So, I decided to stop at the gas station and fill up the gas tank of the soldier’s truck.  I knew he wouldn’t take cash, but he couldn’t refuse a full tank of gas.  It made me feel better.

I arrived at the rest area, and the soldier came out in the freezing rain to install my new battery, and then made sure that the truck was able to keep running before I headed off again.  It wasn’t dark yet, but it was getting there.  The good thing was that I was traveling west and the storm was moving east.  I thanked the soldier, and headed on my way.

Tennessee has some beautiful views and really great interstates.  The rain was melting the snow so I could see the lines in the road better.  I was not traveling a normal 75 mph, but I was heading towards a solid 55 mph and wanted to keep going.  I was not tired, and I was NOT missing the chance to see Charlie.  She and my husband warned me to not push it, and it would be okay if I didn’t get home as soon as I wanted.  For their comfort, I agreed.  But, I was on a mission.

Now I was finally in territory that I know!  We have driven from Texas to Indiana and we commonly travel 35N to 30W to Little Rock and then take 40W to Nashville then on up.  I was on 40 going East and I didn’t make Little Rock by night fall like I wanted, but my adrenaline was on road warrior mode and I knew I could drive thru the night.

 

The freezing rain only slightly melted the snow in the back of the truck bed.  Even with a new battery, I was not taking chances on turning off the truck.  I traveled at about normal highway speeds now, and I easily made it thru Little Rock and Texarkana and thru Dallas.  I took another power nap in Waco, and got rested for the home stretch!

It was a very welcome and uneventful drive thru my great state of Texas.  I made it safe and sound, and with an entire day to spend with Charlie.  I needed to update the state inspection sticker and when I arrived at my Jiffy Lube I showed the guy the remains of the winter storm Hercules still in the bed of my truck.  During the trip, I totaled up the cost of the gas, wear and tear of the truck, food, hotel, vehicle repairs, air flight up to Vermont; and it probably would’ve been smarter hiring a professional company to bring the truck down to Texas.

But, I didn’t.  All this time alone in the truck gave me time to think about a pattern of my life where I get in my head that I can do something, and I just do it…experiencing the consequences along the way.  I am not saying that they have all been mistakes definitely all adventures.  Given the chance to do most of them over again, I don’t know that I would change much.  The experiences are life.  Good or bad they are lessons that make life worth living.

And this was the road trip where I decided that I was going to write and share my crazy experiences.  I hope you enjoy the journey with me as we look back at all the times that I can say ….”Well, I probably should’ve…but, I didn’t.”