Saturday :
Saturday night, around 7 PM, we started. Just as we started, our son Amey gave out violent protests and started crying and writhed his way out of his car seat. He is not a tantrum child. Something was definitely bothering him. We had taken him to the doctor on friday as he was wheezing and the doctor had given us medicines to use during the road trip but had advised against the need to shift to flights. So we gave him his medicine puffs and he instantly subsided.
Having been packing till late night 3 AM friday night and with just four hours of sleep to credit,
I was very irritable during the drive. I would fight the light in the ipad games my daughter was playing. Before the drive picked up, Niya wanted a restroom break. I stopped at the petrol bunk next to "Salvation Army" headquarters, I believe I have chanced here on an earlier drive as well.
I held the thin string of attention that I was capable of and got us to the next state Alabama.
Claiming that as a win, we got to a rest area and had our dinner. Sajan's mother Jaya aunty had prepared potato baji, curd rice and tamarind rice for us. Homely. Easy. Quick. After a pleasant dinner round, with a happy stomach, we continued on for a while. Divya had taken a night-out on friday with cleaning the room and I also deserved a full rest to start fresh. So we decided to sleep it up uninterrupted at a "Hilton Garden Inn" somewhere in Alabama. A lovely dreamy sleep. 200 miles done. Only.
Sunday:
Fresh as morning flowers, we plodded on through many states , starting late at 11:30 am.
The real journey had started. Niya was very excited and was counting the states we were passing through - Georgia,Alabama,Mississippi,Tennessee,Arkansas,Texas,Oklahoma.
I have done one tank non-stop on my return trip from KeyWest to Atlanta earlier. Next
level for the challenge would be "how many full tanks can you do in a stretch". Our VP at work had done a non-stop 48 hour road trip from San Fransisco to Atlanta when he had relocated to Atlanta. Against that premise, I had set myself a target of three tanks. One and a half tanks into the challenge, as we hit Monday 5 am, Divya pulled us over to a "Red Roof Inn" at Amarillo, Texas as the kids needed rest.Texas is where the 75 mph started and I tried to keep it at 85mph. However, it is a fact that the further I was into a drive stint, harder it was for me to keep up with the curves and with the roads rising and falling blocking my view. I was mostly in the company of heavy trucks. I would overtake them when the roads were straight and abruptly slam the breaks when I hit curves, the trucks clearly must have been annoyed. I still had many more miles to go. I had not hit my limits. I had done 1000 miles exact in this stint and had another 1000 to go. Would I have done another 1000? I will never know.
Bijibal's beautiful malayalam movie songs that were playing in the split screen with the other half being the map had a very crucial role to play in keeping the drive pleasant. The impact that software makes to life is impressive. There were times when lack of signal would cause the songs to stop but the map would continue to work. Such thought around caching is second nature in software industry. However, that was a nice direct delivery of the thought. Anybody could go from anywhere to anywhere using google maps and for free and for all. Songs from the malayalam movie - Charlie, the tamil movie - Thangamagan were the other frequented ones. Ghazals soothed some portions. Amey repeated some of the songs he liked - O re Sawariya from "Om Shanthi Oshana" was one of them. He would say the words as the bgm started.
Monday:
Having made up for the late start with a long drive on Sunday, Monday started off with
over-confidence and we stopped at "Texas Tea" to buy water followed by a buffet at Furr's. Time just flew while the service and food was not all that great. However, it did make sense to make some sort of a stop at every state on the way to get some sort of an impression about the place over what you get looking at the empty landscape from the road. Arkansas shopping felt different from the Texas buffet stop. Arkansas was striking at how big the people were and as I looked over from person to person, the consistency was striking. Two people could not cross each other in the isles without stopping.
Sleep is crucial. Sunday morning, I had started after a full rested sleep. Today, I just
had slept from 5:30 AM to 10:30 or so. That started telling on the trip as soon as the trip
started. The fear of the curves set in pretty early. And Amey was not well. So we stopped
multiple times to take care of him. However, we quickly got to the next state New Mexico from Texas. At one of the gas stops, we went into a gas station next to a Dhabha where a Sardarji was shopping. No smiles were exchanged though. Albuquerque was probably the most striking city that we hit during our trip. We passed through in the evening and the city lights were very impressive. Civilization seemed to have flown in through all those twining highways. Some portions reminded us of Hebbal flyover back in Bangalore.
We hit Arizona as well Monday night and the drive was about getting to a place to rest for the night. There was no ambition to go all the way tonight. Stopped at a "Rodeway Inn". Called my parents while having breakfast the next day. This motel was operated by a Patel. It is impressive how spread out the Patels are in the Motel industry. We would have stopped at atleast one Patel-operated hotel in most of our weeklong trips. Five hundred miles today.
Meanwhile, we were getting phone calls/emails from our apartment in California as I had signed up to arrive on 20th instead of 22nd. This was a buffer overlap. However I had not let them know upfront.
Tuesday ( December 22nd)
As we had gotten off the road in good time on monday, I got a decent sleep. Amey had gotten a lot of attention on Monday and was visibly a whole lot healthier. Amey's change in health suddenly changed the scene completely. We were one happy family all over again. And we had a challenge to meet today. We had to cover the remaining five hundred plus miles and reach the apartment office before it's closing hours of 6PM, PST.
It was almost like a day job for me. Start at 9:30 am and drive on till 6:00 pm.
Hoping for an uninterrupted drive, I was rewarded as the dashboard indicated that fuelling needs to be done. Another full tank.
The drive through Arizona was the most pleasant one of all the states. Started with plain landscape marked in the distance by windmills. The plane-ness gave way to a little more drama with plateaus and mountains again lined by windmills. We could see wind mills on the other side of the mountains as well hovering over the mountatins at every last tenth of it's circles.
Weather presented itself in all it's variety today as well. I had been advised on taking the i10 and not the i40 on the trip as the i40 had already seen some snow recently. I had inadvertently landed on i40 taking suggestions from Google maps without making checks. The snow capped mountains in the distance were initially exciting, replaced by left over snow right next to the road on both sides, replaced by live snow as it fell right then replaced by the fears of a potential road block. We were seeing upside down vehicles on the side, potentially slid the previous day. Snow clearing vehicle was cleaning the roads. Visibility was scraping the drive. Abruptly, the scene changed.
Now, it was more picturesque, no snow, smoother roads. Arizona is a beautiful state. True to the observation that there is something telling in even a small experience of getting a sandwich at a McDonalds, the walls were lined with black and white photographs of native americans. The cigarette ad at the pump had a native indian as the logo.
After the snow round, now it was time for winds to really show up. I had very little faith in the weight of the car anyway. There were signs that read "GUSTY WINDS" while the car was swaying around harmlessly as traffic was less. It is impossible to keep the car on the lane when it gets into the right currents. The saving grace was that not many people were relocating from Atlanta to Los Angeles while we were. It was during these winds that our daughter Niya just has to take her restroom break. With that down, we swayed on through the winds into california.
As soon as we entered California, it was time for fuel and the fuel was a striking 3.65 $ a gallon to contrast with a 1.66 $ a gallon at Arkansas and many more 1.xx$ on the way. We were still paced to be at the leasing office before 6 PM PST.However, we still had to move fast. Again, this was the best day of the trip. I was driving on full attention, with kids playing in the backseat. California presented it's own landscape, distinctly different from Arizona, more yellow and just as
beautiful. We hit the city traffic before long and arrived on time at the leasing office.
We got the formalities done quickly and did get into the apartment before 6PM. Divya's family was being kept informed through Whatsapp messages as were some of our old neighbors and friends at Atlanta. And yes, we were pleasantly surprised at what Cerritos presented. There was a section called "Little India" which is full of Indian shops. The small-town old-town and the green feel of the place at once won our hearts.
Saturday night, around 7 PM, we started. Just as we started, our son Amey gave out violent protests and started crying and writhed his way out of his car seat. He is not a tantrum child. Something was definitely bothering him. We had taken him to the doctor on friday as he was wheezing and the doctor had given us medicines to use during the road trip but had advised against the need to shift to flights. So we gave him his medicine puffs and he instantly subsided.
Having been packing till late night 3 AM friday night and with just four hours of sleep to credit,
I was very irritable during the drive. I would fight the light in the ipad games my daughter was playing. Before the drive picked up, Niya wanted a restroom break. I stopped at the petrol bunk next to "Salvation Army" headquarters, I believe I have chanced here on an earlier drive as well.
I held the thin string of attention that I was capable of and got us to the next state Alabama.
Claiming that as a win, we got to a rest area and had our dinner. Sajan's mother Jaya aunty had prepared potato baji, curd rice and tamarind rice for us. Homely. Easy. Quick. After a pleasant dinner round, with a happy stomach, we continued on for a while. Divya had taken a night-out on friday with cleaning the room and I also deserved a full rest to start fresh. So we decided to sleep it up uninterrupted at a "Hilton Garden Inn" somewhere in Alabama. A lovely dreamy sleep. 200 miles done. Only.
Sunday:
Fresh as morning flowers, we plodded on through many states , starting late at 11:30 am.
The real journey had started. Niya was very excited and was counting the states we were passing through - Georgia,Alabama,Mississippi,Tennessee,Arkansas,Texas,Oklahoma.
I have done one tank non-stop on my return trip from KeyWest to Atlanta earlier. Next
level for the challenge would be "how many full tanks can you do in a stretch". Our VP at work had done a non-stop 48 hour road trip from San Fransisco to Atlanta when he had relocated to Atlanta. Against that premise, I had set myself a target of three tanks. One and a half tanks into the challenge, as we hit Monday 5 am, Divya pulled us over to a "Red Roof Inn" at Amarillo, Texas as the kids needed rest.Texas is where the 75 mph started and I tried to keep it at 85mph. However, it is a fact that the further I was into a drive stint, harder it was for me to keep up with the curves and with the roads rising and falling blocking my view. I was mostly in the company of heavy trucks. I would overtake them when the roads were straight and abruptly slam the breaks when I hit curves, the trucks clearly must have been annoyed. I still had many more miles to go. I had not hit my limits. I had done 1000 miles exact in this stint and had another 1000 to go. Would I have done another 1000? I will never know.
Bijibal's beautiful malayalam movie songs that were playing in the split screen with the other half being the map had a very crucial role to play in keeping the drive pleasant. The impact that software makes to life is impressive. There were times when lack of signal would cause the songs to stop but the map would continue to work. Such thought around caching is second nature in software industry. However, that was a nice direct delivery of the thought. Anybody could go from anywhere to anywhere using google maps and for free and for all. Songs from the malayalam movie - Charlie, the tamil movie - Thangamagan were the other frequented ones. Ghazals soothed some portions. Amey repeated some of the songs he liked - O re Sawariya from "Om Shanthi Oshana" was one of them. He would say the words as the bgm started.
Monday:
Having made up for the late start with a long drive on Sunday, Monday started off with
over-confidence and we stopped at "Texas Tea" to buy water followed by a buffet at Furr's. Time just flew while the service and food was not all that great. However, it did make sense to make some sort of a stop at every state on the way to get some sort of an impression about the place over what you get looking at the empty landscape from the road. Arkansas shopping felt different from the Texas buffet stop. Arkansas was striking at how big the people were and as I looked over from person to person, the consistency was striking. Two people could not cross each other in the isles without stopping.
Sleep is crucial. Sunday morning, I had started after a full rested sleep. Today, I just
had slept from 5:30 AM to 10:30 or so. That started telling on the trip as soon as the trip
started. The fear of the curves set in pretty early. And Amey was not well. So we stopped
multiple times to take care of him. However, we quickly got to the next state New Mexico from Texas. At one of the gas stops, we went into a gas station next to a Dhabha where a Sardarji was shopping. No smiles were exchanged though. Albuquerque was probably the most striking city that we hit during our trip. We passed through in the evening and the city lights were very impressive. Civilization seemed to have flown in through all those twining highways. Some portions reminded us of Hebbal flyover back in Bangalore.
We hit Arizona as well Monday night and the drive was about getting to a place to rest for the night. There was no ambition to go all the way tonight. Stopped at a "Rodeway Inn". Called my parents while having breakfast the next day. This motel was operated by a Patel. It is impressive how spread out the Patels are in the Motel industry. We would have stopped at atleast one Patel-operated hotel in most of our weeklong trips. Five hundred miles today.
Meanwhile, we were getting phone calls/emails from our apartment in California as I had signed up to arrive on 20th instead of 22nd. This was a buffer overlap. However I had not let them know upfront.
Tuesday ( December 22nd)
As we had gotten off the road in good time on monday, I got a decent sleep. Amey had gotten a lot of attention on Monday and was visibly a whole lot healthier. Amey's change in health suddenly changed the scene completely. We were one happy family all over again. And we had a challenge to meet today. We had to cover the remaining five hundred plus miles and reach the apartment office before it's closing hours of 6PM, PST.
It was almost like a day job for me. Start at 9:30 am and drive on till 6:00 pm.
Hoping for an uninterrupted drive, I was rewarded as the dashboard indicated that fuelling needs to be done. Another full tank.
The drive through Arizona was the most pleasant one of all the states. Started with plain landscape marked in the distance by windmills. The plane-ness gave way to a little more drama with plateaus and mountains again lined by windmills. We could see wind mills on the other side of the mountains as well hovering over the mountatins at every last tenth of it's circles.
Weather presented itself in all it's variety today as well. I had been advised on taking the i10 and not the i40 on the trip as the i40 had already seen some snow recently. I had inadvertently landed on i40 taking suggestions from Google maps without making checks. The snow capped mountains in the distance were initially exciting, replaced by left over snow right next to the road on both sides, replaced by live snow as it fell right then replaced by the fears of a potential road block. We were seeing upside down vehicles on the side, potentially slid the previous day. Snow clearing vehicle was cleaning the roads. Visibility was scraping the drive. Abruptly, the scene changed.
Now, it was more picturesque, no snow, smoother roads. Arizona is a beautiful state. True to the observation that there is something telling in even a small experience of getting a sandwich at a McDonalds, the walls were lined with black and white photographs of native americans. The cigarette ad at the pump had a native indian as the logo.
After the snow round, now it was time for winds to really show up. I had very little faith in the weight of the car anyway. There were signs that read "GUSTY WINDS" while the car was swaying around harmlessly as traffic was less. It is impossible to keep the car on the lane when it gets into the right currents. The saving grace was that not many people were relocating from Atlanta to Los Angeles while we were. It was during these winds that our daughter Niya just has to take her restroom break. With that down, we swayed on through the winds into california.
As soon as we entered California, it was time for fuel and the fuel was a striking 3.65 $ a gallon to contrast with a 1.66 $ a gallon at Arkansas and many more 1.xx$ on the way. We were still paced to be at the leasing office before 6 PM PST.However, we still had to move fast. Again, this was the best day of the trip. I was driving on full attention, with kids playing in the backseat. California presented it's own landscape, distinctly different from Arizona, more yellow and just as
beautiful. We hit the city traffic before long and arrived on time at the leasing office.
We got the formalities done quickly and did get into the apartment before 6PM. Divya's family was being kept informed through Whatsapp messages as were some of our old neighbors and friends at Atlanta. And yes, we were pleasantly surprised at what Cerritos presented. There was a section called "Little India" which is full of Indian shops. The small-town old-town and the green feel of the place at once won our hearts.
