June 5, 2013
The trip begins! At 10:00 this morning when I returned home from my graduation breakfast, I dawned on me that we were not ready. I had not fully packed my bag, the car was not loaded, and the dog who was supposed to come with us was giving us the evil eye because she knew that suitcases meant people leaving. (little did she know that we had spent several days packing for her and forgetting to back for ourselves) At 12:00 sharp (one hour behind schedule) we departed San Diego and headed off on our big adventure. Five minutes into the drive Tess (our dog) was already sound asleep, I not far behind her. If you have never driven about an hour away from the beachy southern California coast, let me give you a visual of what is out there: NOTHING. It is a hot, flat, dry, hot, dirty, hot wasteland. Did I mention it is hot? The temperature rose to a balmy 111 degrees. About two and a half hours into the drive, (we would have stopped at two hours, but we had to keep going because every time we wanted to stop, we were gently reminded that we were in the middle of nowhere.) we stopped and I dined on Panda Express and my mom had In and Out. We ate outside with Tess while she chugged down a bottle of water. We then spent the next four hours in the car together. I would like to take a moment to applaud my mom. She sat in the car for four hours with me of all people…and Tess.
The conversation gets pretty dull when your in the middle of nowhere. I decided that it was time to play some “fun car games” the only one I was ever good at was I Spy. For the next hour my mom sat patiently in the car playing I Spy with me. Let me explain a normal conversation between two people playing I Spy in the middle of the Arizona desert:
Me: “I Spy something white.”
Mom: “That truck”
Me: “No”
Mom: “That sign”
Me: “yep, your turn”
Mom: “I spy something brown”
Me: “That bush, dirt, tree, tumbleweed, that bush, a tree, dirt, a tumbleweed”
Mom: “Emily you can’t say more then one thing thats cheating”
Me: “You can’t at I Spy”
Mom: “Well it doesn’t matter none of those were correct.”
Me: “Mom only so many things are in the desert and I just named all of them.”
Mom: “It was a shrub.”
Me: “Mom a shrub and a bush are the same.”
Mom: “No they are not”
Me: “Yes they are”
Once again I would like to applaud my mother for putting up with all of this. Not only did she put up with this, but she put up with Tess having to go to the bathroom almost every hour. Us pulling up on the side of a highway because she is whining, me getting out and walking her so she can use the restroom., but no false alarm she just wants to sniff around. We get back in the car and repeat. Though we did this trip last year, I am very excited for this years trip as we are also driving back cross-country, too. We arrived at our hotel in Phoenix in time for dinner and to go swimming. It was a great day and I am excited to continue on the hot, dry adventure tomorrow!
Good night to all,
Emily Vertel
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