California and Back in 5 days (going)

Ready for part 2 of our trip?

I left off where Carlos asked me, "why don't you go by train?". So, I checked Amtrak website. It was surprisingly like the airline websites. I started checking to see how much the tickets were. I was able to price tickets at about half the price of airline tickets. Actually for 2 train tickets it was like $30 more expensive then 1 airline ticket. I was like WOW!!! I started again with my figuring. It was going to cost about the same to drive as it was to go by train. It was a whole lot safer to go by train than it was going to be to drive. And lastly, it was going to be a whole new adventure going by train than driving. (I hate to bore you with the motherly stuff) but the actual selling point was that I could "hang out" with Brennen in a train where I couldn't in a car. We could eat together, and play cards, and explore. (In a car my attention is mostly on the road and his is mostly on his video game or music). I was looking for that bonding. It was gonna be cool.

So, I had to wait a little while before I could book our train tickets. I had to wait till I had all of the money. I ended up booking our tickets about a week and a half before we were leaving. This raised the cost of the tickets by about $150 but it was ok. I was able to book us overnight train rides. I thought this would be better, that way we could sleep some and be refreshed when we arrived. So, we waited....until the day to come when we could go. While we were waiting we had one of our cars break down. Great! Nothing I do is ever seamless. I don't know why I still expect it to be. So, we are down to one car. Our tickets had us leaving out of Albuquerque. Now, that we were down to one car, that added to our trip expense because I would have to pay for gas to get to Albuquerque and whoever drove us to go back home and then come get us and take us home when we came back. So, I kept saving money. (well, not really. I am not good at saving. I am real good at spending though). Anyway, I had to find someone to take us to Albuquerque. Amber's anxiety has increased in the last few years and she is no longer able to drive in Albuquerque. Gladys has not been comfortable driving there in a long time and Dorian said he would take me but really seemed apprehensive. So, I looked at changing our tickets to Santa Fe. But really, I just tried to wait out our car trouble.

Guess what - it worked. Our other car got fixed so this meant I could go with the original plan of driving myself and Brenn to Albuquerque and leaving the car there till we got back. The day came fast and soon it was the night before we were supposed to leave. Of course I had been planning at work too, but of course another seam showed it's head. I ended up having to attend a meeting the morning we were supposed to leave. So, the day before (on Wednesday) I gave Brenn some instructions on preparation stuff - like laundry and went to work to get everything done before Thursday (except the meeting). When I arrived home from work Wednesday night (late of course) I expected to see all of the laundry done so I could pack. Well, I won't go into details but by the end of the night, I ended up mad and Brenn and I were up till 1am doing laundry. Brennen packed while we waited for the clothes. I attempted to regulate what he took (as much as a mother of a teenager can do). Poor Brennen. I still make him pack, then bring me the bag and I go through every outfit with him again. I count underwear and socks. I bug about matching and appropriate dress. I also bug about toothbrushes and combs.

I did not sleep well that night and woke with a pounding headache on Thursday. I went to work and actually only worked about 2 hours. We were planning to leave between 11am and noon. I got home about 10:30am and then still had to pack. As we loaded the car, Mama saw us off. I am 34 (almost 35) and I could still see the worry in her eyes as she tried not to worry and told us to be careful and that she loved us. We headed in to town to run some errands. First, we stopped to get gas. Brennen and I started off feeling the tension from last night but we were able to shake it off by our next stop, which was to tell Amber bye. Then we went to the store and bought snacks.  We loaded up on granola bars, Vienna sausages, Pringles, gum, candy, Pop Tarts and some Dr. Pepper.  We had one last stop to make before we could leave town....

LUNCH!  Neither of us had eaten breakfast.  So, on the way out, we stopped at Sonic and ate on the road since it was already like 12:15pm.  Brennen was kinda flipping out that we would miss our train (which was scheduled to leave at 4:45pm.  I assured him it only took about 3 hours to get there (but I don't think he really believed me).

We were finally on our way.  As I tried to rethink everything and make sure we weren't missing anything, I did a lot of self talk.  I talked myself out of being stressed and just sat back and drove.  We listened to music and ate.  We did some talking and even took these pictures on the way to Albuquerque:

  This is kinda mine and Brennen's new "handshake".  For a while he wanted to do hand hugging but then it has been the heart for about the last month or so.  I am ok with it.  It is a way to say "I love you" with less touchy feely stuff.  (I actually prefer the touchy stuff but of course, he doesn't).

Please do not ask me what face it is that we are making but we both seem to be making the same one.  Funny.

And then of course, the highway.  This was someplace between Vaughn and Corona, NM.  Anyway, stay tuned for our next segment.