The next six hours were a bit of a blur – I alternated between belting out classic tunes from Doyle’s “Middle School Favorites” playlist and listening to three hours of podcasts that I had downloaded to my phone the previous night. Yes, I didn’t bother to Google Map any of my destinations the night before, but I managed to find time to download hours of my favorite talk radio shows. It’s called priorities…
I was thrilled to receive several phone calls during this first leg of my journey. However, every person who called began the conversation with, “So where are you?” Now anyone who has ever driven with me (or read my comments above) knows that I will follow Sheila straight off of a cliff if she instructs me to “make a right turn ahead.” In other words, as long as I’m doing what Sheila says and abiding by basic traffic laws, then I feel like I’m doing my job. To satisfy these callers’ curiosity, I stealthily searched for “nearby locations” on Sheila’s “Route Options” and just named whatever city appeared first. I’m sure that there are clever naming conventions associated with Freeway names which provide hints as to one’s whereabouts, but if humans only have access to ten percent of their brains, then I’m not wasting any of that precious real estate with trivial street facts.
During the next four hours of driving, I made two significant discoveries. First, I realized that the one profession that I would NOT like to try (in case James Lipton ever asks me on Inside the Actors’ Studio) is truck driver. The highlight of my drive today has been a tie between counting the number of Cracker Barrels that I’ve passed and watching the temperature gauge in my car climb from 30 to 60 degrees the further Southwest that I drove (yes, I did figure out that I’m driving Southwest – I’ll hold for applause). Needless to say, I’m ready for this drive to be over with, but I’m only one-fourth of the way there. The second thing that I’ve learned is that Arkansas likes to Brangelina “Arkansas” with other U.S. locations in order to create city names. So far, I’ve driven through Arkadelphia and I am currently staying at a hotel in Texarkana. I hear that Texarkana is the new LA so buy your timeshares now people! (Jess that’s a joke – please don’t buy any more timeshares! )
Time for some California Dreamin!
Good Night!