Road Trip

This was written over the period of roughly a week.


Today Marissa and I drove from College Station, Texas to Questa, New Mexico. For those of you who do not know, Questa is near the top of New Mexico, right in the middle.

The drive was amazing.

There are some things about a road trip that are just plain awesome. There are also some things that are just horrible. Leaving at 4 a.m. was horrible. 4 a.m. I mean I have gone to bed at four, but to be awake with plans on remaining awake until the day is over at 3 in preparation to leave at 4 is gross. We hit the road.

It is an eerie feeling to drive for miles without seeing another car. That is what much of the morning was like. The first two hours of our voyage were an attempt to keep one another awake. Almost immediately after the sun rose, roughly two hours into our journey, Marissa took a nap.

It is a lonely feeling to be in a car with someone and be unable to talk to them. You go into the don't make a sound mode and in my experience this is the time when you make the most noise. Perhaps it is just my nature, but the more effort I put in to being quiet the less successful I usually am.

Marissa's nap was a great time of reflection for me. I got to really think and talk to myself without any distractions for almost an hour. Don't get me wrong, I love talking to Marissa, but it was nice to have some time to just think. After solving roughly half of the worlds problems, and none of my own, Marissa woke up for good.

Our journey took the two of us across Texas. Starting from College Station we drove north to Fort Worth, and then west, through Decatur, Childress, Memphis, and eventually Amarillo. Somewhere between Memphis and Amarillo I fell asleep. Fortunately it was Marissa's shift behind the wheel. I swear, she moves like a soft breeze. When I walk across a room the earth shakes and I usually break at least one thing. I slam doors, stub toes, and drop things. I cannot count the number of times Marissa has come in to my apartment, come up stairs and walked into my room before I even knew she was there. I even know that she is coming, but somehow she opens a door that is loud as heck and closes it silently, slides up the stairs unnoticed, and opens my door, which needs WD40 without a sound.

Now I cannot sleep in moving vehicles. Airplanes, buses, cars, it doesn't matter. I suppose it was sheer exhaustion that got to me, but part of it must have been the feeling of security in trusting the person behind the wheel. I know bus drivers have licenses as do pilots, but knowing it was someone who I love and who loves me helped.

Love is an amazing thing, and I will talk more about that in a later post because it would keep me up all night and I need sleep.

Back to the trip.

I woke up just in time for the landscape to begin to become interesting. Don't get me wrong, I love Texas, but there is just so much flat land. On the other side of Amarillo is Dumas. Dumas, now there is a town with an unfortunate name. I wonder how many people have made a joke at its expense.

Dumas leads on to Dalhart, which has to be pronounced with a thick drawl or it just isn't right. Finally, after thirty eight miles of literally nothing you reach the state line and the aptly named Texline.

Finally the scenery was changing. Mountains began to appear.

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Skiing is exhausting, especially when you spend half the time getting back up. In spite of this, I must say that I am still a fan. It's a strange feeling to glide along on snow, shooting down a mountain. I wonder who first had the brilliant idea to tie a stick to each of his feet and slide down a mountain on them.

In any event, skiing is fun. I think my favorite part is riding the lift. There you are sitting on a bench attached to a cable hanging sometimes seventy plus feet over a mountain. It makes me think that if I can trust the people who put this thing together to get me up to the top of this mountain without killing me having faith should be a walk in the park.

I love the silence. It's the kind of silence you can feel. Sometimes people say "silence is deafening." This is so true on a ski lift. You can hear your thoughts. Also, ski lifts provide some of the most amazing views of God's creation available.

Maybe that's why I like skiing. I love scenery, really of any kind. The whole way to and from New Mexico I kept saying to Marissa "Isn't this beautiful?" That question was usually met with a reminder that I was saying that dead grass stretching for hundreds of miles is beautiful. I will admit, the dead grass isn't all that impressive, but its the idea of the whole landscape stretching out before me that appeals to me.

If you have ever molded something with your hands you know what I am talking about. Even the imperfections are beautiful. Skiing also offers some amazing views. I think I like it most because of this. This fact also makes me a horrible skiing partner. I want to stop every five feet and just look. I guess it goes back to my thoughts about taking it slow and taking everything in. I cannot multitask so the stopping is necessary and I often did it without thinking about it.

Day one was all but an exercise in futility for me. I spent more time on my bottom than skis for most of the day. I finally felt like I was starting to get it right before lunch. Coming down the face, or main slope to the lodge, I was moving quickly and doing well. Then a small girl, probably five or six fell in front of me. I adjusted my line to go wider, and this took me to a fenced off area. I cut hard back to the open slope and I was about to smile that I had neither killed anyone nor crashed when the tip of my right ski slipped around a ski pole that was being used as a post for the fence.

That was the longest instant of my life. In my mind I could see the ski slowly sliding around the pole, as my boot got closer and closer. The pole caught my boot and I was launched down the mountain, skis and poles spreading to created a debris field of roughly 20 feet long by 10 feet wide.

Ouch.

I landed on the front of my body, and the water bottle I had been wearing around my jacket landed right beneath my gut. Having the wind knocked out of you is awful.

In any event, I survived day one without any broken bones or major injuries.

Day two I was much more successful but a snowstorm cut the skiing short around 2. We went to a different place, and I liked the second one a lot more. It was much smaller and it had more trails to explore at a more William-like speed.

Day three we went snowmobiling. It was awesome! I'll spare you the five paragraphs of details and just say do it if you never have.

The trip back was amazing as well. Marissa and I were prepared this time to get a picture of the Camels near Decatur and the Cadillacs near Amarillo, though my commentary about when to take the picture of the cars ruined that chance. Sorry again Marissa!

Dinner at Luby's in Waco and a short last leg of the trip and we were back in College Station. Roughly 2,000 miles driven in two days with two days of skiing and a day of snowmobiling sandwiched in there. What a trip!