The PCS Diary: Part Four

Day One:

I lay in bed Monday, June 27, running through the many check lists that I have created for our very first PCS move. This will be the first time that I have traveled more than 8 hours in a vehicle in a very long time and to make me more nervous it will be the first “Big” trip Christopher and I will take together.

We got a slow start getting out of Monterey since we had a few last minute errands to run around town (dropping off Comcast cable box, getting gas, turning in our apartment keys, and picking up extra uniform items at the NEX). I am actually surprised at how easy I was able to let got of the place I called home for just under two years, but then I started to think of the people we were leaving behind I did tear up a little. I guess all that preparation I was doing kind of payed off in the end.

Good Bye, Monterey, California

When we finally get on the road it was almost noon (Chris got hungry before we even got to Seaside) and our big plan was to cover 400 miles to Barstow, California for our first stop for gas. I guess we think we are tough and can go long periods of time without going to the bathroom even though we are drinking water by the gallon. So only 100 miles into our trip we stopped at a beautiful rest stop. We actually pulled up next to the Semi carrying the Traveling Wall for the Vietnam Memorial, I though that was kind of cool and fate. After that we continued to stop at about every other Rest Stop. After awhile of being in the Uhaul, Christopher noticed that we were not going to be getting the the gas millage we had predicted from the Financial plan. I noticed that my original formula still worked I just need to account for the fact that the truck had gained a few pounds and the information on the Uhaul website did not account for a truck carrying stuff and pulling a Dodge Truck. So back to the gas millage, we orginally thought we would get 400 mile per a tank and in actual reality we were only getting about half that. Which put us stopping in Bakersfield, California.

That information only put a slight damper on our financial budget and it actually worked out for the best since Christopher and I were need a few extra breaks to stretch and move around, Chris especially. ( I do not envy him in anyway for driving the Uhaul, he was stressed out for a good bit getting use to the feel of the truck).

I think my favorite part of the entire first day of our trip was driving through Bakersfield, California. Randomly, Christopher asked me to look up the closest Fives Guys or Chick-Fil-A and conveniently there was a Chick-Fil-A just down the road in the direction we where headed. Talk about making A Hungry Georgia Girl very, very happy. I got so excited to eat a chicken club and have a Icedream Cone.

When we got into Tehachapi, I started to notice the big wind mills that people use to collect energy. WIND POWER!!!! It was beautiful to drive through the farm and see all the different sizes and locations of all the wind mills spinning at all speeds.

The Tehachapi Wind Farm, with around 5,000 wind turbines,
is the second largest collection of wind generators in the world.

After we got further down the road the landscape continued to get more and more beautiful by the minute. The mountains turned in to deserts as we passed through Mojave Desert, Not as boring a I thought it would be, it was quite breath taking to see the long stretches of nothing. It was also getting dark and I was able to see more stars than I have seen in my life time and I am pretty sure that I was seeing the Milky Way, that or my eyes were playing really mean tricks on me. The only thing that could have made this portion of the trip any better would have been being able to see a shooting star or two.

While we were in the Mojave Desert, Christopher and I barely paid attention to landscape after awhile, since it all looked the same. But for some reason something could my eye and when I looked up I noticed a red and gold sign. Apparently we were passing Twenty-nine Palms and were going to completely miss it.

My Last California Sunset for a while.

When we got to the state line I was so excite and mad. I am a person who sees the world through photographs and I wasn't even able to get a picture of the “Welcome to Arizona” sign. Actually, I completely missed it and got two pictures of the darkness. We ended up getting into Kingmen, Arizona a little after midnight and stayed in a cute motel just off Historic Route 66. The room we were in also had a little history attached to it as well, Miss Shayne Mason, 1987s Miss Coors Rodeo had also stayed in the room.

I have to laugh at most of the first day of our trip, it consisted of a lot of Sing-A-Longs with the radio or Ipod and every time we saw a Las Vegas exit sign I got these big puppy eyes from pathetic Christopher begging to make a detour to do a little gambling. We sent most of the first day changing the radio station since we were on the outskirts of most civilization and I listened to Christopher complain about the steep grades that was killing our gas mileage and the one truck stop that could not give us a receipt.