My Count Down

My Great Count Down-1/17-18
Our trip started on January 17th at 3:30am. We had all spent the week before packing our lives. I was able to fit 14 years into one duffel bag. We only brought the necessities to get us started. But knowing that what I was taking was my basic life, and it was all going down to a foreign place to me. Somewhere I have never been. To start a new, a new routine, a new way, and life. We left Vermont in the dark at 18 degrees. I gazed out the window and looked at my last green mountain view. Night slowly started to turn into day as we went on. By the time we hit New York it was day, although it was overcast so it was pretty foggy and we couldn’t get much of a view. But as we went through Virginia I started to count down the mile markers and the exits, which was probably the worst thing I could have done. I was the navigator of the trip so I knew where all the major towns were. But while I was counting down the markers I started thinking. I wasn’t counting how far I’ve gone or how far I had to go. I was counting every step closer I got to a knew beginning. And so my count down began. I was practically dead on the ride until we stopped for some breakfast. After that I started to look out the windows more and tried to get a good view. New York and Pennsylvania went by pretty smoothly. While we were in Pennsylvania there was absolutely no one else on the highway. Just my father and I in one car and my sister and her boyfriend in the other car. So we tuned to the same radio stations and were goofing around a little but side by side. We would pretend to be rowing, running, swimming, or flying. Doing stupid disco moves to the music. We “ boogied” out of Pennsylvania and went into Maryland, only for about 20 miles or so though. Then it was west Virginia for again only a couple of miles. But then came… Virginia. That was the longest state for me. I felt like it was never going to end. We entered it in the afternoon and half way through the fog was so thick we couldn’t see in front of us. We eventually escaped the clutches of Virginia and headed full speed for north Carolina. We stopped at about ¾ of the way into north Carolina and called it a night. The next morning we blasted through North and South Carolina. Then was Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. I fell completely in love with Mississippi. I don’t know why I was just fascinated with it. It was so beautiful. The sky looked so big and the land was so majestic. But as we pulled out of a gas station and onto the highway we didn’t see the TWO tractor trailer trucks behind us. By the time we looked behind us there were coming in hot. Then in front of us was another one in the break down lane. We were trapped. We were in a 2000 Subaru against a 400 horse power Peterbilt tractor trailer truck. You tell me who’s going to win here! Somehow we made it out alive. Alabama was like racing heaven. We passed the Talladega tracks. They were A LOT bigger than we thought it would be. You think it was a huge fair ground. Louisiana was pretty boring. a lot of swamp, really open, and a lot of casino’s. I started to loose my cookies a little bit towards the end of Louisiana. I was playing drums with empty water bottles, making up songs about the most random things in the world, slurring my words, saying things that made no sense, laughing at nothing, and really just being wicked bored. Driving for about 30 hours does some serious things to your head. But we finally arrived in the great openness of Texas. The sky was bigger than I’ve ever seen it, the red clay on the ground to me popped out the most, gave everything that southern character, and the people all just seem nicer in general. Compared to in New England, all just happy. But the accents are my favorite. Its funny ho to them the way they do things is normal, as to us it is so much different. But that is one of the great things you learn and see when you are traveling so far away from home and learning to live in a whole new way. The 10 hour trip was 100% worth…but I also think taking a plane would be pretty reasonable as well.