Moving On
For our move to Colorado, I didn’t really have all that much to take with me. I figured anything I need, I can buy while I’m there. Chrissy however had a lot of furniture she felt she needed to take with her. Most importantly was her giant king sized bed. Because all of this was her stuff, she was going to rent a truck service that would move her stuff to the storage locker here in New York to one in Colorado. However, to rent a storage locker in Colorado, she needed to give a credit card number. Chrissy had no credit card of her own except for one card of mine I lent her to buy gas and such that only had a $2,000 credit limit. I just gave her the unopened bill each month and let her pay it. But because she was paying for the truck and I did have two boxes going, I gave her my credit card number so she could rent the storage place in Colorado over the phone. We also arranged to have my uncle be there at the locker when the truck arrived to lock it up afterwards.
The day Chrissy and I were to leave for our trip I picked her up at Deana’s house where she had been living the last couple of months to save money. We packed up my car with her stuff and said goodbye to Deana who saw us off. Chrissy then handed me $100. I asked her what this was for. She said she was going to put me in charge of the money. It turned out that $100 was how much she had saved for the trip. We were going to be on the road for a month long road trip doing a figure eight across the country and she forked over $100. I tried to remain calm when I asked her if this was all she had saved. She informed me that she had a lot of expenses. I thought that she did spend $2,000 for the movers and the truck. And there was her half of the first month’s rent and deposit for the apartment when we got there. So I let it go.
No sooner were we on the road then Chrissy’s alergies started acting up. Her eyes became watery and she had trouble seeing. This meant that I would have to drive. And I did, almost the entire time.
Our first stop was to visit her cousin, Alison, who was in the Air Force. She lived near an Air Force base in central New Jersey and a bit of a party girl. That night we went to a karaoke bar and although Christine promised to sing, she did not. I did go up and sing as terrible as I am at it and had Alison and her friend dance behind me as my backup singers.
The next morning the news coverage was filled with reports of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s missing plane by Martha’s Vineyard. Christine gave me a haircut, we thanked Alison for her hospitality and continued on our way.
Now that Chrissy’s $100 got us thru New Jersey. I informed her that we might have to spend quite a few nights sleeping in the car and eating a lot of Taco Bell because I wasn’t about to fork over a lot of cash every night for hotels. Luckily, the plan was to visit family and friends across the country in periodically spaced intervals so we wouldn’t need to often.
Our next stop was to visit my cousin Rachel who was living in Germantown, close to Washington D.C. at this time as a live in tutor. She was relatively new at this position so we didn’t want to overstay our welcome. Especially since the house she was now living in was like a mansion and clearly, Chrissy and I looked and felt out of place there. Due to this unforeseen roadblock. We ended up spending our firs night without a roof over our head. It was a beautiful night that I decided to sleep on the hood of the car at a Park & Ride parking lot shortly after we crossed into Virginia.
The next morning we drove inland towards Raleigh North Carolina to see my friend Debi. I’ve only gotten to see her a few times when she’s been up for weddings. Michelle’s wedding and before that, her sister’s. They had a big backyard reception in which they had one of those bouncy castles. Matt and I had stopped by to see Debi and for some reason kids are attracted to me. At one point they dragged me into the bouncy castle and literally beat me up. From outside the castle, Debi and watched me trying to climb out of the bouncy castle in vain as the little boys practiced every WWF move they knew on me, which by my count was about 84. Afterwards, the neckline of my t-shirt was never to return to its former shape again.
It was great seeing her and her husband and little girl. We went out to dinner and fed her horse in the morning. We said our goodbye’s and moved on west to visit my Aunt and uncle and my grandmother all living in Greensboro. We stayed overnight at my grandmother’s apartment who was still talking about her imminent death for the 5th year (Still with us). We spent the night watching a little TV at the volume of 3 as not to disturb the neighbors (How she hears it is beyond me).
The next morning we said our goodbyes and headed south to see Christine’s grandparents. They lived off of a lake in Anderson South Carolina. We spent a couple of day’s there because Christine believed it would be the last time she would be seeing her grandparents again and they had a sort of family reunion while we were in town. In the evenings we rode on their boat in the giant lake separating South Carolina from Georgia. We also paid a visit to the Georgia Guidestones, a granite monument , that explained how the next civilization should live after we destroy ourselves. It was written in four languages and promoted an “Age of Reason.” It was in the middle of an open field located in the middle of nowhere. Rather interesting. After this visit we headed south to Florida. Chrissy had a former coworker that had moved to St.
Petersburg.
In St. Petersburg, we went out to dinner and then bar hopping to all the hot spots. It was a good time. What was really odd was that at exactly 1:00 AM they took your drinks away even if full. What a crappy ‘last call’ system that is. We spent the night there and in the morning we headed West.