and the saga begins...

but i have to back-track a little -- so here goes :)

PROLOGUE
i finished work on tuesday, officially, after spending a solid 10 hours in the office. i didn't leave till 6:45 or so 'cause i'd been working furiously on completing this budget project... and still had to clean off my desk and empty out the computer, etc etc etc. my boss, of course, left at 5. "g'bye stephanie! keep working! haha!" funny.

for most of wednesday, after awaking startled and worried that i'd had completely missed my alarm clock, i disassembled furniture all day long. it was lovely -- except for the fact that i discovered some pretty nasty mold growing on my wall, due to our faulty air conditioning system. damn apartment building. i packed.. packed some more, paused to watch some good ole world cup soccer, and ended out the night with a grand adventure: me, vegas, opie and amy, and nelson -- along with our 4 cars -- managed to strap my queen size mattress to the top of vegas' car (go roof rack! go biners! go vegas' mad skills!) and to transport all the pieces of my bedframe to nelson's house. wait no, nelson's swank pad... and swank it is -- huge and awesome and full of possibility, but a bit random and strange. i guess that succinctly describes nelson too. except for the "huge" part. ha.

anyway, thursday brought about the beginning of box lugging. garnering as much sweat, energy, muscle power, and oomph possible, i somehow carried, dragged, drove, pushed, wheeled, and lifted five boxes worth of heavy books and media (total: 250 lbs) to the post office for shipping. the rest of the day was filled with more packing and cleaning and sorting and thoughts of "where the hell did i get this stuff from?"

i woke up on friday to a bedroom and a living room full of large boxes. so i continued to tape and label.. and by mid-afternoon, re-started the damn process of shipping them. LORD. the apt bldg typically has luggage carts that they let residents use to transport luggage and baggage and supplies and lots of grocery bags. but when i went downstairs to politely ask for its use, the grumpy concierge informed me that "hun, we don't got no carts anymore. you people break 'em, and you people overload them with luggage, and kids ride on them, so you can't use them anymore. and we only got one left anyway." i looked at her incredulously, thinking -- "woman, i've got a bajillion big and heavy boxes to ship away to california: gimme the cart." but no, she stared back at me, and i didn't feel that cussing at her would do any good, so i grumbled back upstairs, plopped down on the carpet amidst my boulders of boxes, and grumbled some more. eventually, i just lifted and grunted one box at a time downstairs and left them in the corner of the lobby while i went back upstairs and brought down another one. the irish facilities man, oh-so-sweet (ha), commented to me twice: "you gonna break your back, missy" and "what, does this lobby look like a storage space?" both times, i glared viciously at him and said "well, IF YOU HAD A LUGGAGE CART FOR ME TO USE, I WOULDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS"

so anyway, thursday: 5 boxes shipped. friday: 6 boxes shipped via DHL. saturday, after cursing at us airways for delaying willie's flight from a dc-arrival of 9am to SEVEN PM (that would be 10 hours late, yessirreee): 5 boxes in early afternoon. 4 more boxes after picking willie up. go DHL, go smelly guy at fedex. then, we checked out libby's partaaaaay in columbia heights -- quite nice :)

end of prologue.

actual saga:
the plan? hahahaha, "plan". plan was to leave at 9am sunday morning and begin the drive to chattanooga, tn, better known as my hometown chattanoogie. but after waking up to sheets of rain and the realization that there was more to pack and ship, 9am came and went.... and voila, i was still in northern virginia, frowning at all my stupid possessions and smaller-than-expected-car-trunk. needless to say, packing the car took a while too. so we didn't ship out till 3pm. goodbye dc! 6 hours late. it's okay, 6 hours is better than the 10 hour flight delay, right? we're getting better. but the first 4 hours of virginia were filled with downpouring rain, lightning, and thunder. thank god for rainx, and what a nice goodbye from VA.

we arrived in southeastern tennessee at approx 1:30am, via 66W, 81S, something in-between (i think), 75, and 153, all the way to valleybrook lane. we also passed two ginormous crosses (like, oh, 40 feet high) along the way down, signifying that alas, i was back in the deep south, the dearest buckle of the bible belt.

monday morning was filled with a quick tour around gps, my high school (yay!), and downtown chattanooga, which has flourished a bit since the last time i was there 1.5 years ago. we left around 1:45pm (only 1.75 hours after the "planned" time of noon) and traveled on 24 west through nashville (that's in central tn) to st. louis around dusk to columbia, mo for the night.

the arch in st. louis at dusk

today -- tuesday -- is "the day of driving". we're attempting to make it to western colorado, preferably grand junction. we'll see if that actually happens. so far, we've gotten through the rest of missouri (boring), and it took all afternoon to get through the incredibly flat and monotonous plains of kansas (even more boring) -- miles upon thousands of miles of farmland... aye caramba. i was driving 95mph on cruise control... and just kept on going.. and going.. and going. then again, it was sorta neat seeing a whole different part of the country and lifestyle: the epitome of middle america, full of irrigation systems, cornfields, power lines, miles of road construction, dots of barnhouses, grandiose rays of sunshine, and mcdonalds every 45 miles (seriously). we've been listening to bill bryson's a short history of nearly everything on audiobook, which is pretty amusing and informative, and being the nerds we are, we -- well, willie -- have managed to create a set-up that connects together chargers, ipods, laptops, treo cell phones, and adapters to allow for an internet connection while driving. quite awesome, except that it drains batteries viciously. and we've got mass quantities of food, lots of entertaining reading and audio material, and a cool camera to play with. so thus far, it's been good. my butt gets numb, but that's expected, no? and my worrywart mother has called numerous times to let me know that wildfires in arizona -- no wait, nevada... no wait, arizona -- might cause us delays and eventual death. i saw some smoke earlier in the day... maybe the wildfires had gotten to kansas already. they spread fast.

for 40 miles, kansas advertised the "largest prairie dog in america". awesome.

denver, or rather the beginning of colorado, is absolutely gorgeous at sunset. flatlands transition into rolling hills, and with the clouds playing colorful tricks on the sky, the horizon is super cool-looking. and then suddenly, kinda out of nowhere, the rockies appear in sight. and then, denver comes into view. so awesome. for the past hour-ish, we've been weaving through the treacherous curves of I-70w past denver and golden, etc etc... willie's in charge of this leg since i drove most of the afternoon. it's no small task.... the mountains here are pretty amazing though, and i keep looking around at the rock walls next to the interstate. haha, i can't ever look at rock the same way again -- is that a sloper? ooh, a sidebar! :) the dark silhouette of the tall rock mountain peaks against a navy blue sky is just... mmm.. beautiful.

so goal: grand junction. and then, tomorrow, it's onto southern utah and moab and arches national park. i hope we get there okay.

a few thoughts: my windshield and car, soooo clean last friday, are currently covered with bug splat. every couple miles, you hear a mini thunk or kersplat, and suddenly, more bug guts have been plastered on the window. yuck. cruise control is awesome. the next car i get will have amazing amounts of easily-accessible trunk space. and it's dark, so i should help pay attention to the windy roads through colorado. how could anyone NOT love this state?? i'm torn -- i like both nature and cities -- what a contradiction, sigh.