On the Road, Day One, NJ & PA

So, we left Kearny on Tuesday, September 1, 2009. We put up some good luck charms that were both given to us by family and of our own:

Good luck and safe travels charms given to us by our family!

Another good luck charm from our family...

One of our own good luck charms: a Frida necklace Kristyn gave me a couple of years ago.

And another one of our own: a Golden Girls necklace with Hindi writing I bought at the Bust Craftacular a year or two ago.

I was an emotional wreck and slept for a lot of the first portion of the ride. We left at probably like 10 or 11 am and by about 3, I really regained consciousness. Before that, with Kristyn’s blessing, I was really in and out of it. We stopped at a rest stop for gas and snacks:

Kristyn at a gas station in Pennsylvania looking mighty self-satisfied, haha.

Even a few hours out of NJ, the air smelled fresh with a tinge of manure. People were friendly, smiling and holding doors for us. We were feeling pretty good. We got back in the car, self-satisfied with a full tank of gas and empty bladders.

Oversize Load in Pennsylvania.

We ate some snacks we bought and some snacks that Lori, Billy and Sandra had given us (Mini Snickers/various chocolate, Doritos, Sour Patch Kids, Goldfish, Swedish Fish) and listened to David Sedaris “Naked” that Lori and Billy had also given us. Thank you guys SO MUCH for that because all that stuff really brightened our spirits that day, especially mine as I was the Gloomy Gus on board, haha.

Monster, Chucky and Elvira all sat in the same (red) carrier. It was a huge one that should fit a Doberman. We were going to put Chucky in his own carrier but miscalculated the size of this big red one. It took up almost the entire back seat. Anyway, Chucky and Monster are all BFFs and so are Monster and Elvira. Chucky and Elvira are of the fairweather friend variety. “You don’t f with me and I won’t f with you, okay?” So they were fine.

Monster in the back seat in his carrier. You can see Chucky a little too.

Elvira begging for our attention, haha.

Edith had a bad start in life. Truly we shouldn’t have adopted any other cats with her. We were warned that she did not like other cats but stupidly we thought we could change her. The fact is, the other cats are hugely interested in her and she does not return that interest. Her interests are: Sleep, Food, Us, Being Left Alone by Monster and Elvira. She likes Chucky though surprisingly, haha. So she got her own little carrier which was more than fine by her. If she could have put a solid wall between her carrier and theirs, she would have, with glee, haha.

Edith napping in her carrier.

It took us forever to drive through Pennsylvania that day. NJ’s width probably only takes about two hours to drive through. For anyone wondering where we started off from, Kearny is on the entire other side of NJ from PA so we really basically went from one side of NJ to the other. PA though, is gigantic.

Trucks on Route 80 in Pennsylvania.

Various powerlines and clouds. What a lot of PA looks like, haha.

At the beginning of the trip, we used a map a lot. We really hadn’t come to rely on the iPhones for directions yet. And we already knew how to get through PA on Route 80 so we were mostly using it to see how far we’d come on the map. We had been hoping to make it to Ohio.

My view for a lot of the trip.

Route 80, still in Pennsylvania. Let me tell you what, PA is HUGE!

This is Littler Krissy. In 2001, I stupidly quit my job and immediately following, the Twin Towers fell. Everyone knows that because there were massive layoffs following 9/11, there were no jobs to be had. So, I found myself unemployed with a TON of time on my hands. I was living at my Aunt Heather’s house at the time and my Grandma brought me over some yarn, needles and thread to bide my time. In secret, I started making this Littler Krissy doll to give Kristyn for Christmas. At the time, she had her hair in a burgundy Bob and wore the outfit you see on Littler Krissy all the time! SO, we brought it with us in the car on the way to California because hey, it’s Littler Krissy! She was one of our mascots.

This is Littler Krissy.

So, we drove for about eight to ten hours that day. I don’t know the exact amount because of the hysteria/exhaustion/insanity of the day but it was a long time. We basically just drove until we absolutely could not take it anymore and then took the first hotel room we could find. We ordered a Domino’s pizza, ate it and passed the hell out.

It was a long, long, long, long day and unfortunately, we never made it to Ohio but at that point, we didn’t care.