Road Trip - Chicago to Vegas 2003

Well...everyone knows I was supposed to leave Chicago last Tues, but was delayed with the flu a week before and was still not feeling well. After getting email on Thurs afternoon about a casting call for a new detective TV show (for which I had to audition for by Friday~!) I packed my Van and left Chicago at 4am on Thursday. Got to St. Louis by Sunrise. It was a smooth ride thru the night, and I stopped at McDonalds for breakfast.

 

Drove 14 hours until I couldn't drive any more, ending up in Oklahoma City, OK. It was an endless drive of nothing...a few cows and boring flat land and straight roads that seem to go nowhere. Stayed overnight at Motel 6 because the Van was so packed I had no where to lay down, plus it was about 14 degrees out and Weather Channel said snowstorm was going to hit overnight. Time to speed ahead of the storm.

 

Got about 5 hrs of sleep, got up at 4am and went down to Waffle House. I was the only person in there...had a nice breakfast of egg sandwich and hash browns and a large hot tea...and tea to go of course!  Hit the road at 5am in an attempt to beat whatever storm was supposed to hit. There was no snow till I reached Texas.  Everytime I drive thru Texas its some pain in the ass drama. I stopped for gas in Amarillo, didn't realize it was "pay before pumping" until a very rude old guy yelled at me from speakers inside the store to come in and pay first.  I told him I had to fill up and didn't know how much I needed to put in (dollar wise) and he said I needed to get off my cellphone and listen. Then I asked him if it was snowing up the road, and he said "depends on if you can handle it"  I told him was from Chicago and probably have seen more snow than any Texan has.

 

It was so spooky and foggy out. Clouds from the storm hanging on the edge of the jet stream were so close to the ground, seemed like they were right above the van.  Everything was white, I could barely see the road and after what seemed like forever, the fog lifted and I was at the clear and sunny border of New Mexico!  I was so happy....I reached for my vanilla coke and opened it while doing 80mph, and the thing exploded like a champagne bottle, all over the car, the steering wheel, the window and me. I had to laugh...the scenery was so beautiful...I was literally out in the middle of nowhere, so I just pulled over to the side of the road and changed clothes in the desert. 

 

Drove thru N.M...and saw the worst accident ever.  You know when you have a wet towel and twist it up to wring it out? Well, thats what this semi trailer truck looked like...it was twisted up and the cab was smashed and I saw a body hanging out of it. I have no idea HOW a truck would have ended up like that. Must have rolled over several times. It was just beyond a sharp curve in the road.  Near Grants is a huge tourist stop with shops in the side of a mountain where I stopped for gas.  There is a huge Indian tee pee and other neat stuff to see, and I was dying to do some shopping.  Interesting billboards on the side of the road advertised "Meteorites - 50% off! " and a hotel had a special going on with a "free hot cookie social" for all hotel guests. Yeah, I brake for hot cookies in the middle of nowhere. Wouldn't you?

 

Next was Arizona. Got a call on the cell from tv producer asking I am in Vegas yet. I tell her a few more hours...and I get another voice mail saying they have an 8:30 deadline. At this point....I am doing 80-90 mph and I'm gliding up the mountains so smoothly and getting sunburn in the process!  The skies were 3 shades of blue, the clouds were layers of pure white again so close to the ground, and the mountains were changing colors to pink, purple and black as the day went by. At this point I had consumed iced tea, hot tea, vanilla coke, vitamin water and ginseng water, energy bars and had quite a buzz going on.

 

Drove thru gorgeous Flagstaff and past Grand Canyon, reached Nevada border about 8pm under a black sky with a million glittering stars and a desert lit up by a full moon. I saw the skylight from the Luxor Pyramid 80 miles in the distance.....

 

Near Hoover Dam there are two new signs. One saying "construction zone, expect delays 2003-2005. Well, at least they give two years notice. Then of course the good old "police checkpoint."  They had the road blocked and you had to drive up a dark gravel side hill and let them look in your car. I thought I'd for sure get searched with a van full of stuff..but they just shined the flashlight in the van and Princess  (who had been sleeping for hours) yelled "BABY" and the police said "go ahead" and I took off. Now I have driven thru Hoover Dam in the daytime and it is a challenge even then. With twisty turny one lane roads, no barricades and deep grades, one wrong turn and you are over the edge.  At night, you cannot see a damn thing, there are no lights till you get down to the bottom. It was like being on a rollercoaster with no lights on, and I was the first car on the road so I had no one to follow no lights ahead, I had to just be very careful.

 

At the end of the mountains...I saw the lights of Las Vegas, and I was finally HOME after 17 hours on the road