The Big Trip part 1.2 - On the road

A continuation from the first post. Which was long enough, for me at least, to warrant a new post.

So we left at 4:30. We didn't get out of the city until probably 5:30. This was partially due to rush hour traffic over the bridge and a bit on the NJ turnpike, which we unfortunately hit. Mostly though, it was because we foolishly decided that instead of following my written directions to get onto the GW bridge, we'd just find our way out.

The Ryder van is a commercial vehicle. Which means that we can't go on any parkways - the main way to get from Yonkers down to the bridge. You can go a bit east and follow Broadway down and I had written out how to find Broadway, but we decided eh, there was bound to be signs pointing out a truck route, right?

That was an incorrect assumption.

On a side note, Yonkers has many lovely suburban areas, with nice houses and fairly cute shops. Many of them. With numerous dead ends.

Oh, and we didn't bother to stop for lunch, so besides Coolattas neither of us had eaten since about 7am and 8am respectively.

Also we were still sweaty and gross from loading the van.

I feel that this was a good initial test on how Chris and I will interact in the face of annoying crisis. Luckily, we both did well! I'm pretty chill in such situations and it turns out so is he, so once we were on the bridge and across, we were fine!

We stopped about an hour later to get Chinese food for dinner, then back on the road.

It'd been agreed that we were going to just drive straight through. Our first stop, Kansas University in Lawrence, KS, about 18 hours without traffic and it turned out nearly 24 hours with it! That meant arriving a day earlier than planned and having an extra day of down time before the sales began. Which for myself is turning into an extra day to cement away paperwork, but hey it would have had to be done anyway so the extra time is wonderful.

The trip down was good. There were a few spots of bad traffic, particularly where late night construction shut down long stretches of turnpike. The van handles great on the highway though and we just stopped every couple of hours to gas up, take a break, get food and switched off about every 3 to 6 hours. The van is very uncomfortable to sleep in - a cheap pillow solved that.

There were a couple of noteworthy things. We drove around St. Louis in Missouri, which has a lot of beautiful old brick building in various states of use or disrepair. Actually, we were in Missouri for a loooong time.

There were a couple of thunder storms in Missouri and Kansas, including one after we'd checked into the hotel. They were fantastic! The land is flat compared to the east coast, so the lightning just comes straight down. The rain was heavy, there was thunder - it was great. Thunder storms are my favorite weather.

Interestingly there were a lot of help wanted signs around Missouri and especially here in Kansas.

Once we got to the hotel and checked in, showers and dinner were more than a necessity. Chili's was chosen because it was in walking distance, also a necessity after 24 hours in a van. Margaritas were a necessity because we needed to celebrate getting here and because there were only $3 each. Wooo cheap midwest! Only one each, of course, and then back to the hotel to relax.

A facebook update lead to the realization that Rob Freytag is in Kansas - and only about 30 minutes away! We're going to go by later this evening to have dinner and catch up, which will be awesome. I think it's been a year, maybe two, since I've seen Rob.

We are bringing pie.

It turns out another tour was just finishing up their week at KU! The director, Karen, called me and we met up. I got to ask a few questions and I'll be going with them in about an hour so they can show me how to get to the specific building, where to park and a few good spots to get out advertisements. I'm really glad about that. This is going to be my first week ever doing this job and while I have all the supplies and notes, it'll help to have another director who just did the same gig show me around a bit.

The night ended with a whirlpool. Mmm hotels.