Day Nineteen: Drive to Phoenix, AZ

As comfortable as the room was in Lawton, I didn't sleep very well.
I had taken a 5 hour energy drink pretty late into our drive into OK because I really needed it but the adrenaline from that and the excitement of seeing an old friend made me not very tired.

When I did fall asleep, I awokened several times to sneeze. I realized my allergies had come back and I felt miserable but my allergy medaction was in the car. I treid to will it away and just sleep but I was literally a wreck.

I looked in the mirror and almost burst out laughing. My eyes were red, my nose was red, my hair was a disaster, I looked like a zombie. I knew I needed to go out and get my medicine if there was to be any hope of getting some sleep.
So at 5 something in the morning I went downt the elevator and out to the car. On the way back in a worker from the hotel looked at me cheerfully and said "oh good morning!!!"

I mumbled some sort of greeting back before trapsing back to the room, taking the allergy pill with a shot of warm water and crashed.

About an hour later, the alarm clock started beeping... yeah... didn't take long for Francesca to rip the whole clock out of the wall.

And then at 8 something, there was a knock at the door with the stereotypical exclamation "housekeeping!"

I shuffled to the door, opened it, and told the lady we were still there. and sleeping.

By then it was pointless to try to go back to bed. I knew we needed to get a start on driving as it was likely to be a 14-15 hour drive to Phoenix.

We got up and went to get some breakfast.
They actually had a good breakfast and I had some scrambled eggs :)

When I went up the first time I noticed a huge basket of granola bars... probably about 20 or so Kashi granola bars. So after I finished my breakfast I figured i'd go and grab a granola bar to save for the drive.
So i went up to the counter and noticed that the basket was empty...which confused me because 10 minutes ago it was full.

Puzzled, I walked back to the table and took a look around. There was a huge Mexican family scattered about the dining area and I noticed granola bars on all the tables. I saw the Mom passing out granola bars to all her kids looking super guilty, looking around to make sure no hotel employee saw her. The kids would stash the granola bars wherever they could find.

I was more amused than anything, and considering I had a similar plan I couldn't be upset.
Though I promise I was only going to take one.....or two.



We headed out and realized that if we thought Louisiana was boring to drive through we had no idea what we were about to get into today. Western Oklahoma is a lot of this:

and this

and then we finally got into Northern Texas and it was a lot of this

and little towns with buildings that look like this:

Somewhere in Texas Francesca had to... go to the bathroom.

But she did not want to stop at a gas station, or a rest stop for that matter.

Nope, she wanted to go in the middle of the desert.

So we pulled off on the first dirt road off the highway we could find and drove to where no one could see.

The whole thing went just fine...except for her poor favorite sandals which looked like this after.

So she threw them out the window and they're probably still off the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, TX.

We did stop at a gas station so I could go to the bathroom because I wasn't feeling the whole desert situation... and when I asked the lady where the restrooms were she said "around the corner, under the buffalo" which i had to laugh at. And sure enough there was a huge buffalo head above the bathroom entrance.

So after a boring OK, and a boring TX I was falsely excited to get into New Mexico.

I will NEVER EVER EVER EVER go to New Mexico again in my life.
I hate it.

First of all, It was no less boring than any of the other states.

At one point we had ONE radio station and it was spanish music.

ONE STATION. one. I hit the "seek" button and it went right from 96.3 back to 96.3.

Around Amarillo we stopped to change drivers and so I could get something to drink.

Now I was driving and I was getting excited because there were some good radio stations...oldies music actually which reminded me of Saturdays growing up when we'd listen to oldies music all day

So I'm feeling refreshed and ready to jam to some nostalgic music and the speed limit is 75.

Then there's some construction and the speed limit goes down to 65.

And then 55.

And by then there is a single lane of traffic.

So I'm stuck behind a large semi-truck, of course.

And I really can't see much aside from the semi-truck.

But all of sudden I see two things at the same time because they're in the same place. And I see them as I'm crossing them both..unable to see either ahead of time because of the semi.

What were they?

One was an orange sign with a curve and a 45mph posting.
The other was a cop car sitting perpindicular to traffic right where the sign was.

So before I even had time to process the 45mph sign, I knew the cop could have gotten me at the 57mph i had been going when the speedlimit was still 55.

So i put on the brakes but up ahead a few hundred feet is another cop on the left hand side of the road...which of course pulls out behind me and puts on it's lights.

And I am the ONLY one to pull over, even though the cop didn't end up right behind me because of traffic

And all this time I thought that everyone needs to pull over if there is a cop behind you with it's lights on...

If he DID mean to pull me over I wasn't about to get an additional ticket for evading the police.

So whatever..the cop pulls up behind me and comes to the passenger side window.
He tells me he pulled me over for speeding and asks me if I know what I was going.
I told him 57 in a 55.

And he's all "well actually, you were going 57 in a 45.

And I politely but firmly tell him I didn't even have time to register the new speed limit sign because of the semi in front of me and the fact that the cop was sitting directly next to the sign.

He mumbled some BS and called me "mami" ( i kid you not) and told me to get of the car.

So I get out of the car and he makes me stand on the side of the road where he interrogates me on where we're from, why we're here, where we're going, where we've been, whose car it is etc.

Then he goes up to francesca and I hear him ask her the exact same questions and I realize Officer Chavez wasn't just trying to make small talk... he was making sure our stories matched up.

Now while i'm standing out in the middle of the desert, I notice there are two other cars pulled over right next to where I was pulled over and there are like 3-4 other cops just lingering around the area.

So if that wasn't a total intentional speed trap, I don't know what would be.

So obviosuly our stories match up and he goes and runs some stuff in his car and comes out and tells me he's going to give me a break on the speed and give me a ticket for going 45 in a 50.

Which i GUESS was nice of him but I was still fuming that I was getting a ticket at all because I WASN'T SPEEDING.

I'm a pretty calm, collected person and if had gotten pulled over and I would have actually been speeding I would have sucked it up and accepted the fine. Because I know that when you speed, you run the risk of getting pulled over and fined for it.

But i literally had to remind myself to not be rude to this officer because I was not about to spend a night in the New Mexico jail.

So my ticket is for $85. and New Mexico will never receive another penny of mine. 

(and by the way, traffic was NOT light)  

I kept driving... until Francesca saw a sign for Fry bread. She really likes the stuff so we got off on the exit and sadly found that the place was closed




pretty sad.

I really can't remember much else about the drive after my speeding ticket because I was so furious.

But after a 14 hour drive and being ONE MILE from my friend's house who we were staying with we hit traffic.

ONE MILE AWAY FROM OUR DESTINATION.

That mile took us a half hour to drive through.
It was awful.

I wanted to park the car and just walk to his house.

Somehow we made it through, hung out with Kevan and his cousin Travis for a bit and then slept :)