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MONDAY
(day one of the new life) 
felt good and woozy from the previous night’s going-away-party activities and another night on the couch. the next day was even more emotionally traumatic with Karen and Kristen being all weepy and draping themselves over us all day...not that we minded. Karen tackled us all and gave us nasty white-trash hickies on our necks to remember her by. tried all morning to motivate johnny to do his last minute packing and get him loaded into the truck. 
joeys parents came over and brought us lunch from burger king and ANOTHER bag of snacks for the road (so many coolers full of snack cakes, trail mix, bulk candy and tic tacs... like we’ll have bad breath on the road or something... sheeesh). our departure time kept getting later and later and soon there was a crowd of our friends gathered on the porch waiting to see us off. finally we loaded the last items on the truck at about 4:00pm (not quite 11:00 as we had planned). don gave a little speech and we posed for pictures in front of our “San Diego or Bust” sign. the goodbyes got teary again and then we pulled away. 
on the road: lost some time in richmond trying to find a gas station with an air pump so we could fill the back tires on the tracker (which were desperately low) and then hopped on 64 to 81 as the sun was setting. Joey got a feel for the truck going over Afton Mt. tried to soak in as much of the Blue Ridge scenery as possible even tho ive seen it over and over while traveling to Roanoke for the holidays. im gonna miss the mountains and pine trees and fall colors but im sure as hell glad that joey was driving the truck thru the mountains. maybe i’ll be brave enough to take over once we hit the plains. stopped in blacksburg for dinner and almost lost the Tracker on the exit. it was only being held on by the chains... not the tire straps... eeesh. pushed on to Bristol and got a room at the (tiny-ass) Budget Inn with our Budget truck. went to sleep almost immediately and got a full 8 hours of sleep for the first time in weeks. |