California or Bust!
We left that Thursday afternoon with all our worldly possessions (ok maybe not all, but certainly what we thought we needed) crammed into that pick-up along with our hopes and dreams for a future full of changes on all fronts; new jobs, new surroundings, new attitudes and a new way of life. There is something very surreal about starting a journey without having any particular final destination in mind. Yes, we knew where the first job stop would be, Mountain Pass, CA and for roughly how long, but after that it was a work in progress.
The trek that took us from Connecticut to California lasted less than seventy-two hours, but was filled with great conversation, lots of laughs and an endless array of breathtaking views. After battling the normal New York and New Jersey traffic on Interstate ninety-five we decided on making the lower middle of the USA our route of choice. Route seventy-eight brought us through parts of New Jersey and across Pennsylvania in pouring rain and fog as thick as the proverbial pea soup. Of course as luck would have it, these horrendous driving conditions lasted throughout my entire three hour driving shift. In the end, however, it actually worked out to my advantage as Joe decided that he didn’t like the permanent fingerprint dents my white knuckle death grip left on the steering wheel. That measly three hours was the extent of my driving on this leg of our journey.
As the sun came up in western Ohio we stopped and had breakfast at a Perkin’s Restaurant and Bakery www.perkinsrestaurants.com/. I’m not sure if it was the sleep deprivation from the two day packing frenzy or the fact that we had been driving for eighteen hours straight, but none the less we had an incredibly hard time keeping straight faces while conversing, or should I say listening, to our waitress. I couldn’t help thinking as she rambled on endlessly about “the most incredible episode ever of Dr. Phil” (yes, her words) before even taking our drink order, that she must be daft or blind. Couldn’t she see what we looked like? In my mind’s eye I felt we must have looked like road weary savages on the verge of breakdowns if we didn’t get caffeine ASAP. But apparently not to her, for instead of running to get us a pot of coffee she continued to fill us in on this one particular episode about in out of control teenager … even as we blatantly gave each other the “seriously … ??” look. It wasn’t until she asked us innocently “Don’t you just love Dr. Phil?” and I answered truthfully that I had never seen an entire episode that she seemed to see us for the first time. It wasn’t our wrinkled clothes, mammoth bags under our eyes, or the confined space road stink that perhaps I only imagined we had that brought her out of her Dr. Phil tribute. Instead it was the fact that I was not a Dr. Phil worshiper. Ha ... go figure!
Having been a server myself for years, I always treat servers I encounter very graciously. Therefore I’m sticking with the theory that it was the sleep deprivation that made us chuckle out loud as she walked away. We both had the feeling this poor woman thought we were the anti-Christ because of our cavalier attitude toward Dr. Phil, and for whatever reason we found that hysterical. Rest assured we tipped this hard working woman above the 20 percent norm not only for the great meal and attentive service, but for our somewhat, for lack of a better term, adolescent behavior.
Alas, after the albeit delayed hot coffee and cinnamon-apple muffin French toast and bacon for Joe and an omelet e stuffed with fresh spinach, mushrooms and red bell pepper for me, both deliciously prepared, we grabbed a couple hours of sleep parked in an adjacent church parking lot. I have to say those two hours felt like six and we woke feeling refreshed and ready to go!
