The Drive- September 23-24

The plan was I get off work at noon, Katrina wakes up and packs the car, I get home and we leave.

Well, does anything ever go as planned?

Katrina had a million screenings the night before (actually both Wednesday and Thursday) and so things moved a bit slower than planned.

While, running to the store to pick up a few last minute food items, Katrina locked herself out. Fortunately work took pity on me and allowed me to leave at 11:30 instead of 12:00.

When I got home it didn't take us long to get loaded and we were on the road by 1:30. We forgot a few items, bowls, butter knife, can opener, sandwich bags, etc. but it was nothing insurmountable.

The drive was LONG. We drove straight through with minimal stops for gas and breaks. The longest stop was ~1 hr for breakfast in Tucumcari.

Breakfast was at a Denny's in a Love's Truck Stop. The pay at the pump was disabled so even with a credit card you had to guess how much fuel you were going to put in, and then they'd credit back if you went over. Strange.

Katrina caught a couple hours sleep in the back (4 hours total) and another 2 hours up front.

I caught about an hour's worth of sleep in the back and maybe one more up front After that point, I didn't get to drive anymore.

Prior to that I'd driven most of the way from Oklahoma, across Texas' panhandle, and through pretty much all of New Mexico. Since it was night traffic wasn't bad and there wasn't even too much road construction.

We got into Grand Canyon's Mather Campground about 3:00 and quickly set up camp. We were using my parent's tent that they were so kind to lend us and it was easy to set up. Its roomier than my tent and better suited for a week of camping. After spending $2 a piece for showers (8 minutes of as hot water you want) we went up to the Yavapai Cafeteria for supper as we were too exhausted to cook.

A young kid from E. Peoria was manning the register. What a small world it is!

Getting back to camp we headed to bed about 6pm and slept straight through until 6am. Nothing like 12 hours of sleep after a long long drive.

All told it was about a 27 hour trip. It would've been a bit less except for the extended breakfast and a little bit of time lost in Flagstaff due to missing a sign.