Journey to the West (Part 3)

After an evening of MMA matches and pizza as well as a good night of sleep, the world looked great and I felt like a new man! It did everyone an entire universe of good of good to get the rest and relaxation we had after all that anxiety over packing and cleaning from the day before. Now that we were all rested up and ready to take on the next part of our trip, it was time to say farewell to Wichita and get moving toward toward our next goal: New Mexico!

Even as early as this far into our trip, the green farmland I was used to seeing on either side of the road was starting to slowly change into a more natural green landscape and even further into a flat brown landscape. Almost like the deserts in the Dragonball universe, except without all the cool mushroom stones and random plateaus that don't seem to exist where roads do. It was pretty neat when I first started noticing it. Too bad it was pretty much all I was going to see all the way from Oklahoma until we just about reached California.

The only thing that really slowed us down during our second day was an amazingly brutal car wreck that had slowed down traffic due to the clean-up process. After sitting around for about maybe half an hour (it felt a lot longer than that), we did get a peek at the car itself. Honestly, it was such a mangled ball of twisted metal that was only recognizable as a car because you could still sort of see the seats. We were pretty sure that whoever was in there didn't live through the accident. Especially considering that the even the semi it ran into was pretty much turned completely sideways. We all felt at that point we needed to stop and rest for a few to make sure we didn't get unfocused from too much driving and see the same happen to us.

When we did stop, it was at a gas station that didn't have tacos (sorry, Connor!). We had asked about the wreck to the attendant and she had said that the wreck we had passed by actually happened about six hours before we passed it and they were still cleaning it up! News did get to her, though, that the people in the mangled car (or truck... not sure by that point) did happen to survive! I don't know what kind of condition they were in when taken from the scene, but it was good to know that at least nobody was killed.

From that point onward during the day the landscape became pretty predictable and nothing really stopped us from getting through Oklahoma's panhandle a small corner of Texas (where we stopped at a Dairy Queen), and finally into New Mexico. After not taking a left turn at Albuquerque, We had gotten through to some small city (I don't remember the name of) and managed to get a hotel room for the night. Again, it was time for a bit more sleep so we would be ready for the final stretch of the trip to Costa Mesa, California!

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The next morning came around, and we were finally ready to make the final stretch of the trip. After a boring day of flat brown landscape on all sides, we were finally ready to see something we didn't have in Indiana: mountains! Now, mountains may not be too exciting for some people, but in Indiana we don't have anything like that sticking up from the horizon and we don't have anything like that to look at while driving. So, for us, it was actually pretty neat to finally make our way through the mountains.

The day wasn't really all fun and games, though. We had a very strict schedule to adhere to. Not only did we have to stop as little as possible, but we had to hope for no distractions, no dangers, and no technological failures. The car we took to drive to California wasn't really in the best condition for going over 2,000 miles in three days and it was starting to show. All we could do was hope that nothing bad would happen on the last day of our trip.

Aside from that, my phone was the only one capable of keeping track of where we currently were and it was the only phone that, out of mine and Heather's, wasn't dead halfway through the day. We'd have used a car charger for the phones, but the fuses are messed up and the car charger would've blown out the air conditioner's fuse if it was used. Heather didn't want the windows down with the cats in the car, either. So, I was very cautiously trying to conserve energy while keeping track of everything and letting our landlord know where we were so that we'd have a way to get into our new place once we got there.

After several uneventful hours that were tense only due to making sure we were in the right place and keeping on schedule, we'd finally made it through the mountains, to the coastal town we were moving to, and to our apartment building! We made it with only a few minutes to spare before the office closed, too! After parking, I made my way to the front desk, pulled out my debit card that I had all the money we needed to get into our apartment (and a super high limit so I could pay it all at once), and was ready to move in.

"Sorry, we only take cashier's checks."

Wait. What?! No! It can't be!

To be continued.