Genesis 24:56
But he said to them, “Do not delay me, since the Lord has made my journey successful; let me go that I may go to my master.”
This was the reason for our adventure: I had never driven across the US and I wanted to. And I did it. It was not the way we had planned – we had planned to spend more time crossing the country, but we secured a visa appointment with the Spanish consulate office known as the BLS on November 7, Gillian’s birthday, and so we had to modify our trip. After New Mexico, we traveled to Georgia (the Atlanta airport to be exact), only to fly back to LA for our appointment and fly back to Georgia to continue the rest of the trip. All of this while the US government was shut down and flights were being cancelled at airports across the USA. At the end of September when we secured the appointment, I was worried about weather. As time went on, I was worried about flight cancelations due to the shutdown. Not to mention crossing the country in four days. Unfortunately, this meant no camping during this time.
Day 1: New Mexico to Oklahoma through West Texas – After Mass on Sunday, we left Dee Dee and Randy and headed east toward Texas. We stopped in Amarillo, (West) Texas for dinner before crossing into Oklahoma to spend the night. The restaurant we stopped at was called Cork and Cask and it was inbetween cattle land and new industry/subdivision land. The overwhelming odor was cow manure… hmm. The dinner was good, and we got on the road again and made it to the oddly Irish-named town of Shamrock by bedtime.
Day 2: Oklahoma to Arkansas – These days were about four hours of driving each day. We would drive for two hours, hike, and then drive the rest of the way. On our way through Oklahoma, we stopped near Oklahoma City and walked at Lake Stanley Draper reservoir. This was the least memorable of the hikes we took during these days. Also, the drive was the least memorable. At this point, Michael said that he was sad he was going to miss the fall colors this year. But our drives, hikes, and autumn colors got better and better as we drove east.
Day 3: Arkansas through Tennessee to Mississippi – The majority of this day was in Arkansas. The sun was bright, the sky clear and scenery on either side of the car was definitely fall. We enjoyed looking at the scenery while listening to the book, The Everlasting. Our stop this day was in Arkansas, and the hike was lovely through the trees. Our hike was west of Little Rock, in a place called Pinnacle Mountain State Park. The hike was challenging, three quarters of a mile straight up and three quarters of a mile straight down. It was our slowest 1.5 miles of the whole trip.
Day 4: Alabama to Georgia: We continued our plan of driving halfway, walking, and continuing our drive. We hiked just outside of Birmingham at Ruffner Mountain. It was a short stop because we didn’t want to get into Georgia too late.
We spent the night next to the Atlanta airport in a part of town that seemed to be “Little Jamaica”. We had a fantastic dinner at a Jamaican restaurant – Michael’s oxtail tacos were a standout! The next morning we flew from ATL to LAX on a Thursday morning. We stayed in the Relax Inn near the BLS Spanish Consulate, had dinner with Gillian and her partner Carlo, went to our consulate appointment the next morning, and then flew back to Atlanta to pick up our journey again.
This past week was the impetus for the entire trip. The southern part of this country is quite beautiful, and I am so glad that we were able to drive this journey. This isn’t the end, though. We still have about one more month of travel before we settle in California to await the results of our visa application.