austin to aspen and back again

a journey with several climates and methods of transportation.
special bonus size entry
08 March 1999

I'm back.

I'm exhausted.  I am drinking so much freakin' coffee.  Maybe you'd like a cup, too, to go with today's catch-up Squishy.

The cast:  pamie, Matt, Marc, Anna, Ray
 
 

We were all packed up and hitting the road by 10:30 Austin time.  I brought a suitcase, a pillow, the scrambled eggs (the yellow blanket), and a bag full of cd's, water, gum, books, and a brand new journal for us to mark moments that we wanted to remember.   Ray made sure that we knew that one corner of the Trooper had $3000 worth of electronic equipment, so we were to be careful.  He had brought a videocamera in case Matt was called on stage to perform.   It was dark outside, but the weather was nice, and we were in good spirits...

And then we saw that there wasn't really much room for us.  Between the skis, the boots, the suitcases, pillows, blankets, electronic equipment, games and everything else, the three people that had to sit in the back seat were shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh.

I claimed car sickness, and rode in the front.  Matt figured out a way to sleep on top of all the luggage, making his head inches from the roof of the car, but a way to be reclined, nonetheless.
 

Ray was driving the first part.  He had driven this stretch all by himself last year.  It took him somewhere between sixteen and twenty hours.  He couldn't remember which.  We just let Ray figure out how to get us there in sixteen.  We settled in for a long drive.

We had been driving for about fifteen minutes.  The back seat was sharing stories from last year's festival.  I looked out at the road and said to Ray, "I wouldn't have thought we'd take 183 to get to Aspen."  Ray leans in and says, "I don't really know how to get to Aspen."

"Did you just tell me a secret, Ray?" I asked.

"We'll get there.  I'd like to see America," he said.

"Well, I'd like to see Aspen," I said, grabbing a map.

One hour into the trip and everyone is asleep but Ray and me.  We chatted and listened to music.  I convince Ray to take the highway as opposed to a farm road.  He reluctantly agreed that it would probably be faster.  We joke about how Matt has a $3000 pillow because I get carsick.

Adjusting to staying in the car took some time.  At the beginning we took a lot of silly stops, gas stations every hour to get something to drink or to go to the bathroom.  I passed time by counting the number of skis on the roof, to make sure that nothing fell off.

"One-two-three-four-five skis."  That would kill about two seconds every hour.  I was making good time.

Have you ever driven across Texas?  It truly is the most boring drive you will ever take in your life.

By five in the morning, Ray and I had run out of things to talk about.  We started to make haiku.  I would take one line, and Ray would take another.
 
 

And you know we did.
 

We then played Grandmother's purse from A-Z and back to A again.  Do you know how long it takes to do that?  I do.  Forty-five minutes.  That's a list of fifty-two things when you are done.  We voted never to play again.  Matt woke up to say that he felt really bad for us.

Then it was six in the morning, and we had finally reached Amarillo.  As we pulled into the gas station, Ray and I began using our NPR voices.
 

Matt woke up at that point and started keeping us company.
 

This was where we changed time zones, making us have to remake the 7:00 haiku that also doubled as our 8:00 haiku:
 

don't stop now, you haven't met the pikas...