I have moved or helped others move across the country nine times. Next week (make that tomorrow) my parents and I will make that number a solid '10' when we leave Georgia, cat in tow, to head to New York and remove most of my worldly possessions from storage in Brooklyn, and then head back west to New Mexico. There I hope to establish a new and somewhat... I don't know... adult? respectable...? life.
The seventh time I crossed the country was on behalf of a friend and her lab/german shepard mix who were moving from Athens, GA to Denver, CO. In the winter. We left two days before the New Year of 2007, in H's rear-wheel-drive truck with a U-Haul trailer loaded with her household fixings with which she would establish her new home. Assuming we made it there.
I had lived in Laramie, WY for eight years by that point and was somewhat familiar with winter driving. Not saying I was good at winter driving as I had spun out on ice (no injuries to self or auto) twice prior to our journey, but as H was a Georgia native, it made sense for me to drive when things got snowy.
And things got very snowy.
I am not going to recheck weather conditions for the 2007-2008 winter, but I know that it was one of those winters when blizzards blew through the northwest, west, midwest, and northeast (I know those areas as I had friends who lived in them. Conditions probably affected others elsewhere as well...), stranding people on interstates, in airports, and in their homes.
On New Year's Eve, 2007, until New Year's Day, 2008, H and I were snowed in to Salina, Kansas. (Salina rhymes with 'lima,' which we did not automatically assume). We found a motel, set up B the dog, and then oriented for finding where to spend New Year's Eve.
We decided on Big Nose Kate's.
Just for orientation purposes, Salina, Kansas is the 'intersection' of I-70E/W and I-35/135N/S. Both have heavy traffic, and when both interstates shut down at the same time, all of the people who were in the Salina area at the same time were stranded in the Salina area until the interstates re-opened. So H and I were not the only people to head to Big Nose Kate's.
Several fellow travelers found their way to the same location, and as misplaced individuals, we shared a table, stories and drinks together. H an I have mad history, so when she took the more drunken route (as I have done on MANY other occasions), I took a step back and assumed responsibility for the course of the evening. Things were mightily fun for the majority of the time 'til gentlemen started hitting on H and myself. We were both attached at the time, and were quite open about our said attachments and our intention to have platonic fun for New Year's before hitting the road again tomorrow.
The jovial pressure to adhere to a 'What happens in Salina' code applied by our new acquaintances was a heads up that our fellow travelers had different agendas for the evening. I didn't worry about our different intentions until I noticed that one of our new 'friends' had cornered H and, when I tried to re-engage, seemed to try to steer her away from me. My concerns redoubled when the gentleman to my right, after having been reminded that I had a preferred partner of my own, resorted to describing the length of his genitalia in an attempt to get me to spend the rest of the evening with him. That was when I knew it was time for H and me to return to our temporary home.
H finally rejoined our inpromtu group at the table. After several attempts to disengage myself and H from our unsolicited gentlemen callers, they left to procure more shots, and I told H I had called a cab and it was time to leave.
Her response (spoken in slur), "We can't just gooo without saying goodbye. People have done that to me. I haaaate it."
My (quite unsympathetic response), "I am very unconcerned about hurting these people's feelings."
We made it to our cab. I wish H had been able to better share the experience of our cabbie fretting over the superconductor the French had built that would destroy our world. Oddly enough, years later, another cabbie iin New York fretted over French superconductors as well. The odds?! I googled 'superconductors' and they were correct... apparently a superconductor could create a black hole that could destroy our world. But (at least in my life) only cabbies have worried about it.
The next day, H and I started the last leg of our trip to Denver. We (clearly) made it. The drive was awful. Gross snow, ridiculous one-lane (on an interstate) traffic. I felt somewhat calm as a driver, but as a hungover, already-nervous passenger, H held her breath and tensed up at every pass, and every time the speedometer cleared 60. I finaly had to do the "I'm okay and feel nervous when you..." speech, and we made it through the rest of the treacherous road (including the gas station that took around 15 minutes to reach, 15 minutes to gas up, and 15 minutes to leave. We were all on the same stretch of road at the same time, you know...).
H and I crossed the state line from Kansas to Denver. The skies and roads cleared. H took the wheel and I relaxed. Friends helped us move once we reached Denver (although when I reunited with my at-the-time boyfriend, I cuddled with him and crashed while others completed the move). Ended well, and this is a fond, albeit 20/20 hindsight remembrance of the experience.
Tomorrow I embark on a more complicated journey, and with my parents. I friend reminded me that they are probably just as unexcited about this move as I am in my own way.
But sweet Jesus. Please, please, PLEASE let us not be snowed-in in Salina, Kansas. (And oh, what I would give for some xanax.)
No comments:
Post a Comment