Day 7 - Memphis, TN to Columbus, OH

Today was our first full-tank day; we've got a bit left, but we drove from Memphis to Nashville on yesterday's tank and were done with the new one by the time we hit Columbus this evening.  That's 591 miles on about 1.5 tanks of gas. I love my hybrid. :)

It was also our second time clearing entire states in one day - first time was Oklahoma, that we entered and left on the same day. Since TeKay's home is only about three miles inside the TN state line from AR, it's safe to say we covered all of Tennessee, Kentucky and a goodly chunk of Ohio today.

So after experiencing them all today, we have both agreed that in our survey of the nation's roadside rest stops, all three of those states' are mostly forgettable. Points to KY for having airdryers so powerful it took under 15 seconds to dry our hands. :)

We hit the road a little after 8am, planning to do a full day, and pulled into Columbus after 9pm local time (we lost one hour in hitting EST). It was bizarre driving through the end of sunrise as well as well after sunset, but if all goes well we'll be able to hit the Canadian border before the Customs office closes at 5pm tomorrow, so we can start the 72-hour hold on my car by end of day Monday. Fingers crossed!

All along, it's been up in the air whether we'd get to visit with her family or mine along the way. I really wanted to head up the coast and see my family in New England, spend the last night of the trip in Montreal with my folks, and then hit Toronto at the end of this week, but with yesterday's "ack" moment decided to shoot straight north from Tennessee - which took us within two miles of Beth's mom, and not that much farther away from her boyfriend and one of her six brothers (I have been offering Beth to do the blog, but she prefers to edit over my shoulder, so the above phrasing is Beth-approved).

Me, Carol Brumleve (AKA "Mom"), Beth, Dan and brother
Ron. 

So we stopped to meet them at a restaurant less than half a mile from the highway, and enjoyed a fun 1.5 hours over food. After much hugging and unloading of some of Beth's extraneous items, we ran for the car, and Beth gave me a bit of a tour of her past (pointed out the highway exits to her house and her childhood home, and the hotel at which the Junior Achievement conference she and her late husband met at when they were 16 took place, etc).

We're now in a beautiful and romantic hotel suite in Columbus, both wishing we were with other people. [grin] The room's a little drafty and having someone to snuggle with would improve the situation. :) I'm letting Beth take the bed, I'm taking the pull-out in front of the drafty fireplace.

Tomorrow's another 8am day; no idea what city, state or country we'll be posting from tomorrow!

Oh - funniest sign so far of the trip: Bucksnort Trout Ranch. Dunno why, it just tickled my funny bone.

Not actually taken by us. There was
no sign on the highway when we
passed; probably taken down to
put the new governor's name on it.

Day 6 - Fort Smith, AR to Memphis, TN

Day 6 was an adventure of a different sort. We had to start the day by going to the post office to re-submit my application for a PO box (in the shuffle, I managed to misplace the one already stamped by the post office in Alameda).  The process is fill out the application, have any USPS office check my ID and stamp it, and then fax it to the post office in Lewiston, NY, where the box will be.  When I did this in Alameda last week, it took four minutes.

In Fort Smith, I kept being told "no, you have to go online to do that." I couldn't get them to understand I already have done the online portion, and paid for it, but that they needed to look at my ID (for security reasons, the PO box number can't be assigned until a postal employee acknowledges that I am a human being with valid US-issued ID). They insisted that only the post office in Lewiston could approve the ID. Finally, I gave up and we ran to a major post office in Little Rock, where they were happy to help me and understood what needed to be done, and we were in and out in under five minutes, including time spent waiting in line. (In all fairness, Beth did volunteer that she "speaks Southern" and offered to translate for me at Fort Smith, but I decided a major city post office rather than a rural one would be preferable.)

Then, we headed to Memphis to meet up with TeKay, a mere 286 miles in one day. We knew it was going to be a shorter day because we planned to break in Memphis no matter what time we got there - he's the only person we knew for sure we were going to visit on the road, the three of us worked together for too long to pass up the chance.

Since he was in rehearsal, we took that time to go to Kinko's, fax the signed application to the NY post office, call the border of choice to confirm their fax number to start the process on the car, and hit the tear-inducing episode that was the sum total of the blog I put up last night.

Watching the cats climb was a hoot. :)

We met up with TeKay, went for a lovely dinner and chatted for hours. The three of us were the editors of the Contemporary A cappella News together (Beth was Editor, I was Managing Editor and TeKay was Assistant Editor) for a number of years, but it's been about eight years since we've all been in the same room, and it was just like old times.

We retired to TeKay's adorable apartment, I bonded with his cats (in preparation for my new home in Toronto, which also has multiple cats), and then we went to sleep early because Day 7 was going to begin our madcap run to the border, and was going to involve many long hours of driving.

We have finally decided on what our route north will be - the shortest possible, straight up through Kentucky and Ohio, to get to the border to present the paperwork in person as fast as possible. Once there, the three-day window for getting approval on the car starts, and we have other plans for those three days that will be posted once we know more.

Major snag hit in move

So, two months ago I called US Customs and Border Patrol for information about how to export my car. Te information they gave me is now being directly contradicted by the two border crossings I have spoken to tonight (one says they don't accept export paperwork by fax, the other wants the original bill of sale of the car, not just title). Also, both are saying that the 72 hours they need to process the paperwork is three business days - I was told 72 hours. Period. I specifically made sure it was 72 hours, period, because I knew there was a chance I'd hit the border on a Tuesday.

Looks like I may be stuck in the U.S., near the border, for at least three days once I GET there, which throws my plans completely out of the water. DAMN.

Random bits

I have a bunch of things that don't really fit anywhere else, so I'm throwing them in here.

- Did you know that contrary to the laws of physics, when you are putting the same stuff into the same car every day, it actually shrinks? We aren't gaining a LOT more space every day, but there's definite more holes in which to squeeze things.

- Thank heavens for hybrids. We're spending about $30 a day on gas driving across the continent.

Beth got to meet or re-meet many of
my friends in a final round of
goodbyes before I left...
Audrey and Danielle from Children's
were joined by Paul from my
a cappella life. Worlds collide!

Neigbour Joseph, my big brother,
and his partner Dave, took us out for
a goodbye.

Two men who'd heard all about each
other got to meet over Linguini's
pizza - Sam and Kurt joined me and
Beth for a post-cleaning relaxing
dinner. 

Seen at a gas station in the middle
of nowhere, where gas was $4.61
a gallon. We were in the dessert and
I wanted to be on the safe side so
grabbed a few gallons to be sure we
got through to the other side, but
...yowtch!

At our hotel in Barstow. This occurred
when one of us just brushed against
the bed. Glad neither of us brought
anyone along with whom we'd do
anything more energetic!

We always follow instructions....

Don't we?

I got an 8x10 storage unit, which isn't

near full. For those who've been in 

my house and know how I have 

accumulated in the last 20 years, this 

should be a shocking moment. That's

how much I divested.

Day 5 - Amarillo, TX to Fort Smith, AR

I apologize to anyone who is a fan of Oklahoma but lord that was a boring state to drive through... The most exciting thing to discover was that the rest areas there are the nicest we've seen so far. (TX was slightly ahead because theirs have WiFi, but OK's were clean, the people working in them were really nice and friendly, and they were beautifully decorated.)

We've been having an unofficial count of these rest areas through the drive and so far the count is:

California: -5 Unheated? In areas where there is snow on the ground? Clearly, decisions made by people who don't usually sit to use the facilities! One of them said "Tourist information" on the sign and when we stopped (looking for hotel coupon books), all we found for "tourist information" was a map pinned to the wall behind glass.

Arizona: 0 Pretty to look at. Essentially average. Good selection of vending machines.

New Mexico: -10 Heated by a 30-year-old space heater hung on the wall, dirty, one step above chemical toilets, and no vending machines. They had little voting charts on the door that said "We approve this stop Y/N" but we didn't vote.

Texas: +5 for really, really clean even when unmanned, fun decor, good selection of vending machines and had WiFi.

Oklahoma: +10 for everything TX had (ok, the first one didn't have WiFi, but the one in Oklahoma City did), plus free coffee & tea for visitors (one of the staff gave me a tea bag from his own personal stash, not the kind usually available to visitors). Also the only one where almost every stop had people working in them.

Today was the first day we made it all the way through a state; 441 miles from Amarillo to Fort Smith. We also finished listening to Arrows of the Queen, which I had to listen to while in Oklahoma, since that's where Mercedes Lackey lives.

Not taken by us. We went by it
quickly at night so our picture
came out blurry. Also, since Beth
is asleep and it's on her camera,
I cheated and grabbed one off
Google.

Arkansas is the third state we've driven in that I'd never been to before, not even so much as an airport. New Mexico and Oklahoma were the other two. Tomorrow, we hit Tennessee, where we're stopping early and visiting with a gentleman who used to work for both of us when we were editors of the a cappella magazine, and was one of my regional assistants when I ran the a cappella competition.

Speaking of: I had a small world moment tonight when I was downstairs at the front desk. Chatting with a guest checking in, it came up that I'd moved to the U.S. "to run a college music competition." He asked which one. I told him. Turns out he was at the show at Southwest Missouri State that I produced eight years ago, and even vaguely remembered me announcing the winners at the end of the night. Another moment of "I really can't get away from that life." :)

Interlude

Since we've been following it for days, and Beth (and now other people) keep singing it, it seems only fair to proffer a nod...

(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.

Day 4 - Gallup, NM to Amarillo, TX

Well, we got to explore the finer side of rural car repair today. We hit an ice boulder outside of Albuquerque and by the time we got about 50 miles away, to Clines Corners, discovered that a plate on the underside of the car was now dragging.


We called AAA, who sent a flatbed to bring us back to Edgewood (near Albuquerque) to Rich Ford of Edgewood, a Ford dealership who tacked the piece up and sent us on our way without charging us (yes, we tipped the mechanic). We lost a few hours, so drove much later into the evening than I'd wanted to (got off the road about 8:30pm), and finally hit Amarillo, 464 miles from our 9:30am departure site. 


Didn't plan to do much sight-seeing in New Mexico, so we weren't let down by our inability to do so. Each of the roadside stops we went to (pee/walk breaks) had historic markers, so we got to read a little about pre-colonialization New Mexico. And we saw a beautiful sunset. Now we're going to see the beautiful inside of our eyelids. 


Two interesting things today:


1) Beth is really digging the book on CD I brought, Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey. Phew. I love it and it really helps me focus when driving, by listening to a book I know well. 


2) We're staying at a Fifth Season hotel in Amarillo whose security is so bad that not only is the guest WiFi not password protected, but gives guests access to their internal network! I took a quick glance and their ACT files, business presentations and reports are all open for anyone to access. Yes, we'll warn them before we go.


We've been discussing re-organizing the way the car is packed (right now, the boxes are in the trunk and all the suitcases, daily-use as well as the ones full of clothing in space bags and weighing a ton, are in the passenger compartment), but it's been too cold outside each morning to want to stand out there and unpack everything. Amarillo is warm enough that we'll give it a try tomorrow before we go, because I have a stitch in my side that is getting worse each day. If we can leave the heavy stuff in the trunk (even just the biggest and most unbearable suitcase) and move the lighter boxes into the room (I don't want to leave things visibly in the car each night), it'll make things much easier for us.