California Or Bust!

So, since it was only suppose to be a day to get to Florida and back, this should be a two day trip.  I am packed and ready to go!  California should be beautiful.  I have to admit I am sort of excited.  I have only been east and south.

This first day has seemed so long. I am bored out of my mind, the scenery is not as pretty as I was thinking it would be. Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico seemed to take forever to get through. In Texas, we did come upon a place where they had buried a bunch of cadillacs in the ground leaving only half sticking out of the ground.  This was on Route 66 west of Amarillo.  Here is an excerpt from what I found online:

“Standing along Route 66 west of Amarillo, Texas, Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh 3’s fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). They faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.”  You may want to Google the article.  Just search for Cadillac Ranch. 

It seemed I slept a lot through this trip since I was so bored. I do not know how those drivers stay awake for hours on end day after day.   It was about 10:00 p.m. when my “driver” woke me up and told me to sit up I would want to see this.  We were climbing a mountain and he wanted me to be sure to see when we got to the top. OH MY GOODNESS!!  What a beautiful, breathtaking sight!  It was Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It was the lights of the town, the stars in the sky, the way the night just felt, the sounds from the truck seemed hushed and it was like time stood still.   I can barely describe it.  It was like a bowl of jello, dark, dark jello with suspended bright lights in it.  It felt like we were hovering above it and were suspended in this bowl of jello.  It no longer felt like we were driving or moving. It was too beautiful to describe and exciting as well as it felt as though we were going to fall all of the way to the bottom. Seeing this was worth the trip! The Grand Canyon was driven through at night, so we missed that.  That actually made me sort of angry, well not angry, maybe sad.   My driver/tour guide sad we would have actually had to drive over to it anyway, but what a missed opportunity! There is beauty to be seen in everything, I realize and appreciate that but  I just had expectations.

Then came California which was not what  I imagined at all.   It is sort of sad to have waited your entire life to see something and then it is a let down. We dropped the trailer that we had in Long Beach, California at a seaport and were headed back out of there for Salt Lake City, Utah.  My driver/tour guide said, “Hey!  There is a sign that says Marriages, No Blood Test Required!  Want to get married?”  I looked at him confused and he explained that we could get married without a blood test, did I want to.  I looked at him a few minutes, shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sure.” Hey, I have known him now for three weeks, so what the heck!   Now I am sort of excited, sort of worried.  Okay, a lot worried.  Should I marry a guy I have known for only three weeks?  I saw his parents one time and we know how that went.  His boys did like me.  I never met his daughter.  I guess considering the facts, naturally yes is the answer!  I told him I would buy him a steak for a nice pre-wedding breakfast.  We are both happy now but that does not last long. The restaurant we stopped at was not the best choice.  I realize that the breakfast steaks are not always top quality, but I am not so sure that it was even a steak that we had.  Was it even a type of meat? We started teasing about what it might have been and then there was no way we could even take another bite.  Just the smell of it should have stopped us. It was the most terrible place ever!  I can honestly say that I have not had anything that bad to eat and it still holds the title for the worst thing we ever ate, rather, tried to eat. We left the restaurant, still feeling hungry, but with a complete loss of appetite.  We head on over to this place ….

As we are nearing our destination, we stop to  freshen up for the wedding.  Have I mentioned that I do not like truck stop showers either?  There is something about  going in right after a stranger that bothers me. They are pre-heated and pre-steamed up from the prior person which is unpleasant. It just feels sort of yucky. I was afraid the doors would not remain locked.  I made my now fiance. stay outside of the door and stand guard.  I even had to have a pair of flip flops so I would not stand on the floor after others.  As I thought this was a short trip,  I did not have many clothes with me.  Okay, I will admit it, I had nothing to wear!  I packed enough for two days so this means that I left in what I had on and brought one change of clothing with me.  I do not know what I was thinking.  I guess I thought this guy was the best truck driver ever and that  he could just endlessly drive and get there and come straight back.  I have no concept of time or miles.  He was having such fun laughing over this situation, wondering who would ever think it was that short of a trip!  He said that even if he drove the entire time we would have not made it back in two days.  We had stopped in New Mexico when we were there  and he bought me a rather pretty top so I could just wear that.  I had a pair of clean jeans and I had bought a package of underwear.  Well, I must have picked up the wrong package because three of me could have fit in them.  Now what?  I put the underwear on and that made my jeans appear to have a baggy diaper or a big wadded up piece of material in them.   I was in no way going to wear these! He had a new package of underwear for himself and his was closer to my size than mine. Nice, I am going to be married wearing  men’s underwear.  Is this what they mean by wearing the pants in the family??  If so, I was going to be starting the marriage out right! They were fruit of the loom briefs.   Go me! I am such a class act. I have come to realize two things about this truck — things do not seem to go right…. EVER!  and that once you get in that truck, you seem to never get out!!!

All cleaned up and ready to go! We were so excited, we were singing, laughing, joking and trucking right along.   Suddenly  red lights are flashing behind us.  I am sure they are not an escort to the wedding, but hey, it could happen.  We pull over and the officer was not very kind from the beginning.   We had no trailer on and the truck had  a jiff-lock.  This means that you could raise the back axle and you then have the same number of axles as a car.  The speed limit for cars now applies to you. The officer informed us that we were speeding.  My fiance told the officer we were not, we had the jiff lock up and he started to explain it, but this officer did not really care about any of this.  He  basically handed over the the ticket and said tell it to the judge.  As we start back up, the CB radio goes wild.  They are all saying things to him like we tried to get you and let you know, you would not respond to us at all, what were you thinking.  For some reason, this was making us laugh.  I guess there was not much else to do but laugh. He explained to the other truckers that he was just excited as he was going to be getting married and that we had the CB radio off,  the music radio on and we were singing and goofing around.  They were so nice!   Well wishes and congratulations started flowing along with condolences on our ticket.  It was fun talking with all of them.  It actually is rather fun to ride along with a truck driver.  The things you experience are endless. These people have a camaraderie.  Sure there are some bad as there are in any given group, but most are so good.  They sacrifice so much to earn a living and are stereotyped incorrectly.  They are people like everyone else and are under appreciated.  What a lonely, yet dangerous job this can be. There are so many wrecks out there and they are at such a risk, yet they look after everyone.

Realization — This is going to be an expensive wedding after all and maybe not so quick and easy.  Maybe it won’t even happen.  Who knows what else can go wrong?  Our spirits are a little dampened now but we head on over to this place … The Out Post Wedding Chapel, Victorville, California.  Interstate 15 and Hwy 395. …….