1 The Exodus – Story of a Journey
9/12/2008
I was supposed to be out of work at 1400 (2:00pm) but I actually didn’t get off till 1500. And this is following a 15 hour shift the day before that didn’t leave me enough time to get anything that I need to do, done. So I ran home from work (exhausted), mowed my lawn, took a shower and set about running errands. I had to run to several banks to make withdrawals, deposits and pay bills. Then I had to run to my mothers to pick some stuff up and jump on the internet real quick to pay bills before hitting the road.
18:44 hours – I’m finally hitting the road, almost 4 hours behind schedule. Starting mileage is 47685
I get to 1604 and IH-10, and I know that I need IH-10 west to get to Las Vegas, which is my first stop. By my GPS says take IH-10 east. Hmmm? Well i figured I would follow it to see where it takes me. I figured maybe it was going to take me to HWY-90 but no. It wanted me to go east 4 exits to Huebner Rd, turn around and then go West. Oh boy, this is going to be an adventure.
19:24 – started yawning… this is going to be a long trip.
09/13/2008
01:20 – I’m almost to New Mexico, but I’m dog tired and my eyes are fighting to close. I stopped at a rest stop and closed my eye’s for exactly 30 minutes, then I was back on the road.
03:20 - I hit El Paso. This city is surprisingly larger then I expected, but it is Flat, Flat, Flat. It also smells like some kind of epoxy or something. After a while I was getting nauseous and I hammered down to get the heck out of there.
- The lights of El Paso
05:10 – That’s it, I’m done. I have been fighting sleep this whole time and at this point I think I drove 8 or 9 miles unconscious. I have to stop for another nap. My phone rings at 6:40, waking me up. It’s mom again, wondering where I am. Thank goodness she called cause I could have probably slept till sun-up. I have some serious time to make up. This whole trip is about not having rules or a schedule, just doing whatever feels right. The only exception is this first part because I have to meet people in Vegas, and Brads wedding on the 27th.
As I drive through New Mexico I can’t help but sense that the air is different here. And it’s desolate, with very few trees, but it’s still beautiful. This part is mostly flat plains, but still there are huge peaks jutting out everywhere. I love the juxtaposition of it. The peaks stand like silent sentries watching over the plains. It’s very comforting. I don’t know what it is about seeing tall peaks that gives me the sense of being alive.
As I hit Arizona I start to daydream about moving out of Texas. I try to play in my head how and when I would sell everything, quit the job that makes me miserable and move to a place with mountains, and seasons. I start to plan things out in my head to try and get a time line together, and everything boils down to taking a couple of years….. Then God sends me a message:
Apparently, it’s now or never
09:12 – I get to Arizona. This state is more mountainous, but just as arid in conditions (Of course, it’s a desert). It’s 97 degrees outside but this is the first time that when they say “it’s a dry heat”, it actually is a dry heat. I drive with windows down (partially cause it keeps me awake.) The scenery is wonderful. There is a stretch where you drive for miles through a field of tremendous boulders, stacked in ways that seem to require human intervention. It almost as if God placed piles of “pebbles” down. They are round smooth boulders which probably means there was large amounts of water through this valley many, many years ago.
11:49 – I pull into a little city called :
The surprise is that we went from a 75MPH highway to a 2 lane 45 mile per hour road for 38 MILES!
15:47 – I pull up to a check point where they search the car, apparently for bombs. Then I continue on for a couple of miles and find an overlook where you can see Lake Mead.
This is allegedly part of the largest man made lake in the country. It extends 110 miles from it’s dam and holds 28.5 million acre/feat of water. What’s interesting is that after the dam was constructed this flooded out several communities, including St. Thomas Nevada. They say that when the water level drops down enough you can still see the ruins of St. Thomas.
I then continued on to the Dam, which you have to cross to get to Nevada. You might have heard of it, it’s a little place called Hoover Dam.
From this side you’re like, “It’s cool but it’s not as big as I had imagined.”
Then you get to this side.
16:30 – I finally make it Las Vegas. Ending mileage is 48967
Total Miles Driven: 1282 Total Time Actual Driving: 17 hours 51 Minutes
Total Time Trip Took: 21 hours 46 minutes (That’s 3 hours of break/fuel stops)
See the next page For Vegas
http://blogadoodle.org/exodus-las-vegas/
Or head back to the Table of Contents
Sep 20th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
You can’t really see how big Hoover Dam is in pictures. I was there a decade or so ago, and I still remember that the pictures don’t give you a sense of the size.
Sep 22nd, 2008 at 8:55 am
I cannot tell you how many times we drove that route through TX, NM, AZ on the way to CA when I was young and my father was in the Army. I loved it. There is no feeling like looking at the scenery. Some people see barren nothing! Too bad for them. I was a boy!!! Gravel, rocks, horned toads, snakes, scorpions, cacti, petrified rock, pieces of wood that were almost like driftwood that had been polished a bit, and then….the SIGN!!!! There it was in the distance….some restaurant/diner/truck stop….and on the roof…the SIGN!!!
“AIR CONDITIONED”
(Did I mention this was late 50′s???)
To so from the heat into the air conditioning was mind blowing! Not all of these places had it yet, but it was becoming universal real fast. On top of that, you got to eat and play the jukebox…”The Battle of New Orleans” by Johnny Horton…it was #1.