Mom and Chrystal Take On America Day 3 - OOOOOklahoma!

It was just by chance that we were going to be driving through my birth state on my birthday and I was really excited about it.  The last time I went to Oklahoma I was 12 years old it was summer time and I just remember it being really flat and brown.  I also remember crossing the Red River when we drove from Lubbock, TX to Fredrick, OK.  I was born in Altus Oklahoma because that is where the hospital was, but we lived in a little town called Fredrick.  When I was born I think it was the second time my parents moved out to Oklahoma.  They were doing missionary type work basically.  Helping small congregations that needed help preaching about the Bible.  I always think it was cool that I was born out there while my parents were doing such an amazing thing.  Actually myself and my brother were.  He was born in Kansas though.  We moved from Oklahoma to Kansas when I was a baby to help another small congregation in Yates Center, KS.  The best thing of the day was that I was driving through Oklahoma on my birthday with my mom.

But we had to drive through a little bit of Texas to get to Oklahoma.  Howdy Texas!

Had to take a quick picture of The Big Texan!

So on to Oklahoma we went!  It was beautiful!  Again I wasn't expecting it to be so green.  The combination of the big blue sky, red dirt and green was just gorgeous.  Again - the pictures don't do it justice.

We wanted to stop off at Lucille's Gas Station, a really old stop on Route 66 because I wanted to get a picture of Lucy and I.  We could not stinkin' find it!  It's really sad because the town was so small you could blink and be through it - how could you miss it!  So we just decided to go to the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, OK.

This little museum was pretty cool.  Had a little diner in there and gift shop along with the museum.  If you are ever going to drive through Oklahoma on I-40 I would stop here.  It is small enough to where you don't have to spend hours there - but enough little details that if you wanted to spend a few hours - you could.  Loved all the old cars that were in the museum.  There were a lot more than I listed below but some of the pictures just didn't come out good.  Here are my favorite pics from the museum.

We wanted to stay at the Blue Swallow Motel in Gallup, NM.  My mom said her and my Dad stayed there and there are like maybe 8 rooms and really cute.  A lot of the old motels on Route 66 have been updated and would be really fun to go a stay in on a road trip.

My mom stayed outside with the pups because her and my Dad had already gone through the museum the last time they drove back from Kansas.  It was too hot to leave the pups in the car so they enjoyed some Nini time!

We had a great drive through Oklahoma and are next stop was Fort Smith, Arkansas.  It is on the border of Oklahoma and Arkansas.  This picture below is of me leaving Oklahoma.

Fort Smith was actually a cute little town that I definitely would want to drive back through and spend some time in.  Cute little down town area - all old timey and stuff.  The hotel was clean and the neighborhood was safe.  Mom got her foo foo sauce from the market next to our hotel and we were so pooped we ordered Dominos so we didn't have to move.  We keep it classy.

Great day Oklahoma!  You were OK!

Kiss Love Squeeze

Mom and Chrystal Take on America continued

Day 2 of our trip was from Flagstaff, AZ to Tucumcari, New Mexico.  One of the things we needed to do was to take a picture of the road side billboard that said "Tucumcari Tonight!"  With ads like that I knew I was in for something special.

We got the pups ready and we were on our way.  I again thought New Mexico would be very brown and deserty (weird spellcheck says that isn't a word), but it was green - not like Ireland green or Central Coast green - but it looked like it got a healthy dose of rain because we saw lots of green.  It was really beautiful against the red rock formations and plateaus.  My mom said when we were kids (and they were kids too) they used to drive this route and she had never seen it so green.  It was nice to see something with my mom that she had never seen.

Aren't their bows cute - they didn't last long on Brando.  

So pretty!

We then saw some caves in the side of plateaus or mountains...whatever you want to call them.  The pictures of course doesn't do it justice, but it was really cool.

My mom and I started another book on tape which was another Paul Reizer book, Parenthood which was not as good as Couplehood in my opinion.  I forgot to mention on the first day when we were getting close to Flagstaff we were done with the Couplehood book and I asked if my mom wanted to listen to a book I read and loved called "Lets Pretend This Never Happened".  The writer is a blogger and is hilarious.  She is from Texas and has a crazy family and I thought she would enjoy it.  Well...I was wrong.  We didn't get too far into the book when mom was like...yeah ok I can't listen to this anymore.  I did forget that this lil lady had a sailor mouth and her dad was a taxidermist for fun.  Also because we were going through a rain storm as well and my mom can't drive through a rain storm while hearing a girl say the f word and explain how you skin a deer....I know it's weird.

I wanted to drive through Gallup, NM obviously because of the Route 66 song.  It was actually pretty cool.  They seemed to have put some money into making it worth the drive through or staying over night.  I originally wanted to stay in Gallup the first night but my mom thought we would be pushing it with the dogs on our first day and she was right.

 We took this picture for my brother in-law Peter because we were sure he would want to stop here and eat.

It was my turn to drive so we stopped to grab a quick bite to eat and we were on the road again. We started to see the clouds get bigger and darker and I for sure did not want to get stuck in a rain storm.  We saw this area far away dark cloud that appeared to be dumping a whole lot of rain and I was like crap are we driving toward that or away?  My mom said - definitely away - the road is not going that way.  In the next minute the road turned and we were driving toward it.  Great.  So I said "ok mom I'm gonna try and out run it before it gets to the highway.  We are the storm runners."  So our lil Element blasted down the I-40 and yes...we out ran it.  Well...that and it started to break up literally right next to us - so we won both ways!  So my mom and were laughing about out running the storm and took a little video for the occasion just to freak out our family - but I know we both wanted to poop when we saw we were going toward it.  I at one point asked if my mom was scared that I was driving because she usually likes to be the one driving if it is raining.  But she said "No honey I'm fine!"  We both possess that high pitch tone of voice that was handed down to us by my grandmother, her mother Teri.  That pitch is very distinct...you use it when you are scared, trying to clean up a mess from a child or just plain pissed off and you don't want to talk about.  "Me? No...I'm fine honey!  We are going to drive through this storm with no problem!"  Insert a big smile and maybe even a giggle.  Even though I know my mom is probably gripping the door so hard she is leaving finger nail marks.  But it is a great quality to have because usually everything is okay in the end anyways and then you can boast to your family and friends that you are like Cool Hand Luke and laugh about it.

We finally get to Tucumcari - sorry I don't have the picture for Tucumcari Tonight!  Mom has that one. I will have her send it to me and I will update this post.  Because I know everyone is dying to see it.  Anyways, we get to the La Quinta in Tucumcari and it definitely was not as nice as the one in Flagstaff, AZ.  There was a chaise lounge in the room and it looked like it had been the bed of a thousand dogs for 35 years.  It was nasty.  I then took the pups out to the designated grass area for them and it stunk so bad of pee that I almost gagged.  The mixture of the heat outside and grass that obviously is never watered so there is just stale pee scent is something that I wish no one to ever have to smell.  My mom also went to go get dinner and to try and find a market so she can find her foo foo coffee creamer sauce.  She came back and said...this place is scary...more like Tucumscary!  So that is what we will now call this crazy place.

There were about maybe 5 other families staying at the hotel...maybe.  But they all had dogs.  So what do the intensely smart people at the Tucumscary La Quinta do?  Well put them all right next to each other so all the dogs will bark all night long and everyone can know that you are taking your dogs out every hour because of their explosive diarrhea!  I mean why else would you be slamming doors until 4am!  Needless to say the dogs and I did not get a lot of sleep - even though we tried.  I think it was about 4am when I completely lost and opened my lovely hotel room door and screamed loudly "are you kidding me?!!!"  Not one of my finest moments...but I smile fondly at the memory.

I could not wait to get out of this place.  I was tired...it smelled...there were too many flies...I was done. I got up early to take the pups out to do their business and found another place that didn't stink so bad.  There was a little hospital down the way with a big grass area.  I walked them down there and let them run around.  After they were done and I turned to head back we all almost stepped on a snake in the grass.  Yep...just hanging out waiting to bite someone.  Needless to say we all ran so fast back to the room to get the hell out of there and never come back.

 Good Morning Tucumscary!  I'm pretty sure that there are dead bodies buried out there.

Beautiful isn't it?

Trip isn't over!  Day 3 is just getting started!

Kiss Love Squeeze

Mom and Chrystal take on America!

Day 1 of driving across America and our first stop was going to be Flagstaff, AZ.  We started early like I said before and we thought we start our journey on the freeway on the east side of the valley...because there won't be any traffic on the 118.  Hahahaha!  No traffic in LA - what were we thinking!  Of course that day there was traffic and it took us awhile to get out of LA.  Within the first 30 minutes of us being on the road my boss called and said they were going to try and find another opportunity for me to continue to work if I was interested.  Since that was our original plan I said yes of course I would like to continue to work.

We finally got through the traffic and turned on the I-40 in Barstow when I spotted this sign!

I had my mom pull over and since we passed it I ran back to take the picture.  There was a cop who had pulled someone over so I was hoping he was too busy with his business at hand than to notice a crazy girl running down the freeway to take a picture of a freeway sign.  I was lucky - he didn't notice or if he did I'm sure he didn't want to deal.

So after many miles of brown dry hills and talking about what I was gonna do about my job, my mom and I decided to listen to a book.  She suggested to listen to Couplehood by Paul Reiser.  I agreed - I loved him on Mad About You!  If you don't know this show that means you are too young to understand the 80's/90's TV sitcoms - the shows you watched with your family in the evenings because there was only one TV in the house.  And you may or may not have had to have one family member get up and change the channel on the TV - if you had a remote - you were kinda fancy.  These are before the days of Netflix, Hulu and DVR - you had to make sure you were sitting in front of the TV when that show started or you missed it.  Or you could again be super fancy and had your VHS hooked up to record it!

After listening to the book for awhile we got into Arizona and I was surprised - it was green!  I always thought Arizona as one big desert...but I was wrong.  Driving into Flagstaff was gorgeous.  We got stuck in a little rain storm, although my mom wouldn't say that - it was raining so hard we could barely see out the windshield.  But thankfully it was only for a short while.

We finally got to the LaQuinta in Flagstaff and was pleasantly surprised.  Had a nice area to walk the dogs and was nice and clean.  I have never stayed at a LaQuinta before but we chose them throughout our trip because they are dog friendly.  Although this one was a little more uptight than the others.  The lady told me that we could not leave the dogs unattended in the room and they were not allowed on any of the furniture.  One...we were planning on going to a nice dinner together and Two...my dogs sleep in bed with me.  I decided to only listen to one of the rules as you can see below.

We were all tired from the first day in the car we decided to stay in and eat dinner at the hotel.  This was the first time I had the dogs in the car for that long.  They are used to road trips up the coast to visit my parents - but not this long.  They didn't sleep at all in the car and I am sure they had some anxiety about what was happening.  So needless to say...they were pooped!

We had a good nights rest and was ready to start another day on the road.  One day down - four to go!

Big Change

Wow...my life has drastically changed in one month.  I was a corporate project manager working on a major project (it's been in the news a lot lately) to a housewife! Gulp.  This was not the plan.  But of course life has a way of messing with your best laid plans.

My husband got an amazing opportunity to work in Wilmington for a few months.  It was for a job he has been striving for his whole career.  The plan was that he would work out in Wilmington for two months and I would come out to visit every few weeks so I could continue to work and take care of our pups.  Since my job allows me to work from home I was able to work from Wilmington to extend my visits with him.  After my first visit my husband was asked to stay on until the end of the year and possibly to the early part of the following year.  That meant he would be away from home about 4-5 months.  We talked a lot about it and decided that the bet thing was for us to be together.  We just worked through a really rough few years and we both felt we worked so hard to be where we were in our relationship we didn't want to start from stretch again.  So after many prayers and tears I went to my boss to ask if I could work from Wilmington so I could be with my family and continue to help them on this major project that was coming close to implementation.  I told her if it was not possible I would need to give my notice because my family is my #1 priority.  She was shocked at first but said she would see what she could do to.

After she researched with our company I was told I would not be able to remain an employee but I would be able to move to a contractor.  I was grateful for this because ultimately it met everyone's needs - I would be able to be with my family and the company would still have me assisting them on the project.  So I sent my request in writing to move from an employee to contractor status.  The wheels were in motion.  We decided that I was going to drive from CA to Wilmington so I would have a car to explore with and I would take the pups as well.  My mom offered to come with me and we were so excited for our drive across America adventure!

Then a day and a half before I was leaving I called HR to ask a few more questions about insurance, etc. and she told me "Oh...so that option of you going to a contractor status...yeah, that's not gonna work...haha...sorry! My bad!"  I took a deep breath and stopped myself from saying "are you kidding me? My bad? And you are laughing?!"  She said my only options were to go on a leave for 30 days to go visit my husband, come back and work out a vacation schedule with my boss so I can go visit my husband periodically.  It was a punch to the stomach and I was fuming.  I gave them 7 1/2 weeks notice and I was so upset that they would spring this on me at the last minute.  I would have no problem going to visit back and forth if it wasn't that our project schedule was insane and I was burning the candle at both ends...then add the energy it takes to travel from one side of the country and back.  I already did it a few times and I was about to drop from exhaustion.  I was going non-stop and had no time to breathe.  I know there are other women that have to be away from their husbands for a longer period of time...way longer...and you maybe be thinking - buck up sister!  Put on your big girl panties!  Which I totally get and believe me if you knew what I have been through in the past 5 years you would understand I have had my big girl panties on for quite awhile and handle my shit! Thoroughly.

The other side of it was my husband was telling me every night - I need you here - you are my anchor - I sleep better with you here - I need my family - Don't worry about work, I will take care of us.  How can you say no to that?  It took everything in me not to drop everything and go out there immediately.  Now if you know me you already know this.  I am definitely very independent.  My job, my car, my money - I can take care of myself.  I never wanted to feel someone had to take care of me and could hold it over my head.  I know...there are some definite therapy sessions around that subject.  I'll let you know if I figure that one out.  Anyways, that is why I tried hard to stay working.  But at the end of the day, I love my husband and if he says he needs me...I'm going.

I told my boss that I was taking a 30 day leave and leaving to be with my husband.  She wasn't too happy which I understand because there was so much work to do.  I told her I put plans in order to keep working but it didn't work out - I tried.  She asked if I could wait to figure out what else could be done but I said plans were already made - my mom already had her return ticket back to California.  I gave her a list of all the things I do and needed to be done and left.

On Wednesday, August 28th at 7am my mom and I got into our Element with my lil pups Lucy and Brando to drive across America to see my dude.

I figured a drive across America with my mom will give me time to think about what I was going to do about my job.

More to come!

Kiss Love Squeeze