Road Trip of Wonder: Part 1

“That song from Willy Wonka… the one Veruka Salt sings… it’s been stuck in my head all day. I feel like it’s appropriate. It’s about something I often think: I want it all.

I want the whole world




Then I digressed, and this popped in:



I’m alive!

It’s hard to know whether I can follow a path of simply being happy to be alive and taking full advantage of all the wonderful things I have, or whether I’ll continue to be sucked into a world of needs and wants and must-haves again and again and again. I think that I’m happy right now in this moment… then I think that I need to go get something… so I get it, and once again am happy right now in this new moment with this new thing. But that desire is always looming nearby… so am I ever truly content?”
- From a blog I started back in August


The wonderful happenings of the past month are innumerable. I don’t know if there’s any way for me to possibly put them all down into words. First, however, I believe I owe an explanation for the post-before-last.

I finally got my appointment at biometrics to have my fingerprints and photo taken for my new green card. My address is still technically in Florida, so I had to fly out for a few days to get everything back to normal. My flights were typical, short, and not unpleasant, though it had been a little while since I last flew, and so take-off and landing were particularly exhilarating. (As was looking out of the window at the land I’ve driven over so many times.) I was able to appreciate flight with a whole new basis of comparison. When I landed, my father met me in the Orlando Airport Atrium. That was where most of the blog was inspired. I was so taken aback at his appearance. It had been nine months since I had last seen him, and in that time, not only had he lost weight, but also some bone density, I’m assuming. He was smaller and shorter than before, he had significantly more grey hairs in his full beard, and he was walking with a cane- something I hadn’t actually put together as necessary from our telephone conversations about his health. I knew he had pain in his leg, and I knew that the doctor had given him handicap placards for the cars, but I didn’t think you’d be able to see it in the way he looked, or the way he walked. I was naive, I suppose. The shock of seeing him this way, so suddenly, without having prepared myself for it, was enough to reduce me to tears when we embraced. I was so happy to see him, but so sad to see him in that fashion. My crying set him off crying, and we spent a few minutes there, in front of everyone at the airport, crying together unabashedly.

The rest of the visit was fine. Babbo helped me to get to my biometrics appointment, and to work at the shifts I picked up at my old store in Celebration. I spent some time with my mom as well. My brother was virtually invisible for most of our visit, although we did have a nice time smoking hookah in the backyard. I got to visit with Malyssa. We spent a night together drinking wine and eating watermelons from the perfect waters of the pool. It was beautiful, really. But I flew home with only a feeling of concern for my dad. This combined with the illness of my cat, which doesn't seem to be getting better despite the medications and surgery, and the illness of one of my rats, Lily, which I can do nothing to treat due to a lack of finances, conspired to make the next few weeks very difficult. I wanted to be at home with my parents, to spend as much time with them as possible. I was afraid and confused and I felt like my dad was just dying thousands of miles away, slowly and miserably, and I was over here- ignoring it all. I saw him everywhere I went and was as haunted as Macbeth, and thus, that blog was born.

Being able to go back again just a month later was very cleansing for me, emotionally. The entire trip was just a fortification of my sense of love for the world, and for myself, and I was able to work through my feelings of intense concern for my dad, as well as other things.


I left Denver on Tuesday, the 7th of September. I had spent the night at the house of a new friend, (albeit a wonderful one) Grant. I worked for a few hours, and spent an hour or two preparing for the drive. Once I figured out my route, I went back to Starbucks for my customary road-trip beverages, chocolate milk, and a Starbucks double-shot with white mocha. I put the chocolate milk in my front cup holder, and the double-shot in the back cup holder, and away I went. When I got to I-70, two things happened. First, my car hit 100,000 miles. I took a picture at 100,001. Second, I smelled coffee. I assumed it was from the bags of coffee that I had in the back window-sill. As I drive through different elevations, the air inside the bags expands and contracts and, when it expands, it pushes out of the bag and makes my whole car smell like coffee for a moment. I chalked it up to elevation and kept driving. A few minutes later, I reached to take a sip of my double-shot. It wasn’t in the cup holder. Confused, I looked back. The entire venti sized drink was upside-down in the backseat. That was what I had smelled… not coffee beans, but my 24 oz. coffee and sugar concoction filling my backseat with its stickiness and scent. ‘Hurray!’ I thought to myself, and laughed. The only thing about it that upset me, really, was that I hadn’t really had the chance to drink any of it… and now I was coffee-less on a long drive. I got over it quickly.

I drove a fairly short distance that night, only a hundred miles. Since I had no coffee to keep me buzzed, I decided to call it a night, and so pulled into a rest stop a little while south of Colorado Springs. I had to find a highway to cut south-east from the 25 to another highway that would take me more directly toward Houston, Texas, and I would much rather do that during daylight, anyway. I’ll confess to you now, most of my thoughts, for about the first half of this entire trip, were Grant related. I was worried that there might actually be something there. And I say ‘worried’ because, if there was something there, then it would be foolish of me to move to Idaho in November. I like to use a Robert Pirsig quote as an analogy to my predicament. “The truth knocks on the door and you say ‘Go away, I’m looking for the truth.’ And so it goes away. Puzzling.” I didn’t want to go off on a search for a full life-experience, in turn leaving behind a chance at a different aspect of life. I’ll also tell you now, that I am perfectly content simply being friends with Grant, now, with no concern for a future romance: nothing unpleasant, just an understanding, which took a huge weight from my shoulders, and literally left me laughing with glee when it occurred.

After an uneventful night at the rest-stop (save for sprinklers which sounded like someone peeling carrots while surrounded by rattlesnakes… or perhaps someone peeling rattlesnakes while surrounded by carrots?) I continued my drive to Houston. Just this side of Oklahoma I was sitting in traffic, waiting for the oncoming cars to pass so that our line could make our way down the single open lane. I zoned out for a minute, but when I focused on the windshield again, I noticed a cute little yellow butterfly. I watched as it flew over the car and to the right toward a giant field. It took just a second, but all of a sudden I noticed that the field was absolutely filled with yellow butterflies, and they had been swarming all over my car since I came to a halt where I was. I had been there for a few minutes and hadn’t even noticed! I had the chance to sit inside this swarm of fluttery things for over five minutes, watching the little critters swoop and dive and play around in the most adorable manner. I realized once we started moving again, that if there hadn’t been that little stall in my trip, I never would have noticed the butterflies… I felt so lucky, and I knew that the entire trip would be like that: having the chance to stop and appreciate all the amazing little things that would have passed by unnoticed in normal circumstances.

I arrived in Houston refreshed and ready for adventures. I found Isaac’s house, and finding him not at home, had the chance to socialize with his sister-in-law. She’s a nice girl, about at the level of a six or seven year old mentally. She introduced me to the two overly-enthusiastic dachshunds living in the house, as well as offered to let me play some of her Nintendo games with her. I declined- I’ve always been more of a watcher anyway. We passed the afternoon quietly, waiting for the boys to finish with school and for Isaac and Heather to return home. They came home in a flurry. The boys, Demian and Gabriel, were a hurricane of terror and destruction, and utterly amusing to watch. They drove the dogs and their Aunt crazy, and I had a blast helping Gabriel with his homework, and teaching Demian everything I know about rats (I had brought them inside to keep them out of the sun). When Heather and Isaac came back it was late afternoon and I absconded with Isaac to go out on some adventures. We spent the early evening exploring Houston’s art district including one of the art museums showcasing a lot of Asian and Indian art. We walked around the town and caught up with each others’ adventures and misadventures in the last few years. He and I had worked together at my first Starbucks in Hunter’s Creek, Orlando, Florida. He had moved to Texas a few years back and we hadn’t seen each other since, so there was a lot of Starbucks gossip to catch up on. We talked a lot about love.

Eventually the night wore on and my long day of driving caught up with me. I had hoped to be able to spend more time with my friend, but given his busy work schedule and my desire to get to Florida a day early, I decided to leave the next morning. We went back to the house and had some dinner, pasta with garlic bread and salad- a staple in my house growing up- and then settled into our respective couches and lazy-e boy recliners to watch some stand-up comedy. I laughed myself to sleep. The next morning I awoke to a bustling house full of people getting ready for work and school, scrambling around for homework assignments and clothing. It was such a huge change of pace compared to the daily life I’m used to- spending my nights and mornings alone with just the rats for company. Isaac and I said a heartfelt goodbye, and shortly after everyone jetted out of the house, I moseyed my way out as well. With the rats in the passenger seat, and nothing but miles of highway stretching out before me, I settled into a long stretch of driving.

I got turned around in New Orleans, Louisiana for a minute- not somewhere I’m very fond of stopping. It was somewhere on their maze of highways running through downtown that I missed an exit to continue on the 10… and had no idea. I drove for another 15 miles before the highway I was on ended in a street in part of an urban neighborhood. I thought to myself that the highway had seemed a bit unfamiliar. I had remembered it going right into the city, whereas the one I took this time swooped just around the city’s limits. I eventually got myself turned around and followed this new highway back to I-10. I decided to take an intentional detour when I got to Mississippi, however. There’s a short highway running through the southernmost part of the state, just along the coast-line. I turned off the highway for a nice costal digression. It had been a few months since I’d seen the Gulf, I reasoned, so a stop was not out of the question. I parked on a nice empty part of the beach and got out to go to the water. At the shore’s edge I found millions of little sea shells- one of the largest clam shells I’d ever seen at the beach, it probably would have been five or six inches across if it was still in one piece- and a seagull pecking at what looked like a dead catfish of some sort. After a nice look around and a breath of sea air, I headed back to the car. Just a few blocks down the road, people were working with bright orange gear and large buckets, cleaning oil off the beach. It was a sharp reminder of the devastation just so recently inflicted upon all of the beaches along the Gulf of Mexico. So I continued on driving.

Unfortunately, somewhere over the last few days, I had picked up a bug that had settled in my tonsils. At the end of my first day driving I was feeling sick. I had a twinge of pain in my right tonsil… and I knew that meant trouble after so many cases of tonsillitis, bronchitis, sinusitis, strep throat, etc.
I made it all the way to Florida before a fever made me seek a rest stop. I had hoped that eating a bit would help my predicament, but by around 10pm I was woozy. I pulled into a rest stop to try to sleep… and I did for a moment… but the heat and, more obtrusively, the humidity, made it difficult for me to rest- especially with a fever. By around 4am, I couldn’t sleep any longer, so I started up again and continued on. I drove through the sunrise, which I commented on in my Facebook, saying “The sky has turned a hazy grey and there is a heavy fog in the dense black masses of forest all around. Dawn is underway.” I made sure to stop again for a nap while the air was still relatively cool. I popped some fever reducers and hoped to be able make it to my parents’ house without too many more stops. I just wanted to rest, and I had no one to take over the drive for me. If I kept going I was miserable, but if I stopped, I was still miserable, only extending the time for which I would be miserable driving. I pushed through. When I finally got to Orlando, it was so comforting to be able to navigate the familiar roads and point out familiar landmarks when I’d grown so accustomed to using a map and always being somewhere new. I got to my Mom and Dad’s house and promptly flung myself on the bed in the guest room where I’d be staying. This was the first real bed I’d been on in nearly a year… and it was wonderful!

I passed a restful afternoon with my parents and fell sick again that evening, as I often seem to do. My mom says it’s because I’m a child. I refuted and said I’d grown up a bit. She waved that away, insisting that I’m still her child. I accepted that. The next morning, we had planned to make an outing to see Harry Potter World at Islands of Adventure in Universal Studios. I woke up with a fever and swollen tonsils and glands. I told my mom that I still wanted to go, renting a wheelchair if necessary. She and my dad laughed and agreed- so long as I didn’t breathe on anyone. We went out for breakfast at an IHOP on the way to Universal. I felt better after eating, and when finally at Universal, decided that a wheelchair wasn’t necessary. Inside Harry Potter World, we found Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts Express. We saw Ollivander’s Wand Shop with carts outside selling replica Harry Potter and Voldemort wands. We saw the Hog’s Head and the Three Broomsticks, as well as Zonko’s Joke Shop. We made our way toward the Hogwarts castle, first and foremost, to wind our way through the 30 minute line exploring different rooms with talking portraits and amazingly 3D projections of Ron, Harry, and Hermione, getting us ready for the adventures ahead. We piled into a seat assembly and were promptly whisked away to help Harry during an adventure. It was absolutely thrilling! I could hear Babbo shrieking two seats down. I probably shrieked, too. Haha. When the ride finished and we staggered out, Mom was grinning from ear to ear and Babbo, red in the face, exclaimed that he hadn’t flown like that since… since… well since he last flew! We gathered our water bottles and things and decided to go for a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks before calling it a day. I was getting tired, and Babbo’s leg wasn’t behaving very nicely, so the table at the back of the restaurant by the wall of antlers was very much appreciated. The butterbeer was fantastic- kind of like a cream soda topped off with whipped marshmallow froth. We decided to head for home by taking the long route around the other little parts of Islands of Adventure that we hadn’t seen yet, thereby making a complete revolution. Finally back at the car and hour or so later, we all collapsed into our seats. I slept for years and years and years.

The next day was Sunday, and doctor’s offices weren’t open. I considered going to an Urgent Care place since there were a few very close to my parents’ house, but my medical insurance cards had been in my purse when it was stolen, and I would have to pay out of pocket without them. Luckily, there is a doctor’s office in town where I had gone not too long before moving away from Florida last, and they had all of my new insurance information. I just had to wait for Monday and show them the letter from the insurance company confirming my continued enrollment. I believe I spent that Sunday only partially conscious. Monday morning came, and not a minute too soon, and I drove directly to the doctor’s office to make an appointment in person. I got the insurance squared away and made an appointment for 9:45am. I was actually in to see Dr. Miller by 9:15 and had my prescriptions filled by 10. I could hardly wait for the antibiotics to kick in. Just the next morning I posted on Facebook that I was feeling better, or faking it. I was just determined to have the best vacation possible (which I accomplished).

This is where I’ll leave you tonight. In my next installment I’ll be feeling better and out seeing friends and having unspeakably amazing times… just you wait. <3