road trip photos

Photos from my son's road trip across the USA.

busy weekend

Friday when I got home from work, my wife started mowing the yard. This means that I have to finish since it takes too long for her to complete the whole yard. No problem as I think of mowing as walking exercise.

Most of the remaining weekend was spent cleaning the garage and fixing stuff around the house. My day started off removing the downstairs toilet as one of my next to oldest son's friend's dropped his cell phone into the toilet and flushed the toilet thinking the phone would remain in the bowl. All his friends had fun trying to get the phone out by using a clothes hanger and finally after a couple of hours gave up. I was neglecting it hoping it would fix itself, which never happened. I removed the toilet and went to Home Depot to get a new one. Once I got home and took it out of the box, I saw the toilet was cracked, so I returned to Home Depot. Not a good start to my Saturday morning I must say. I got the next better model for $99 and with a little effort had the new one working. While feeling handy, I started working on the downstairs bathroom as the ceiling looked pretty bad. This is a mini story in itself as last year one of the kids broke the upstairs toilet by accident and the water leaked downstairs through the ceiling. I did not complete the ceiling repairs as I should have, so I spackled the ceiling and then repainted it.

The next task was to help my youngest son as he is switching rooms. He decided to paint the walls VaTech orange and maroon colors with two walls maroon and the other two orange. The clothes dresser, which used to be in the room, covered up my handy work, where I ran a TV cable from the adjoining room and left a hole in the wall. I had to repair that hole with drywall and spackling and then repaint it. For once I left the painting to other members in the family. Just as I finished my handy man tasks, I had to quickly clean up and be preentable.

It was time to attend a very good friend's graduation ceremony at the Dean Smith Center at UNC (my affectionately known as the Dean Dome). I remember watching so many Tar Heel basketball games when I was a kid, but have only once been on the UNC campus. To actually be inside the Dean Dome was like holy ground for a UNC graduate. They had photos of every UNC basketball team since the late 1970's in the area where you walk inside the dome. Inside the dome itself there were tons of jersey's hanging from the rafters as well as conference titles and championships.

Today I took some rest and walked with my wife and then took off to play cricket with some Indian friends. Last season I practiced my batting skills, but this year I am practicing my bowling skills. I had fun today as I really bowled well. Once I got home I had to finish working on the downstairs bathroom and take some stuff to the local thrift store in order the finish the garage cleaning ceremony. After so much activity I had to take the Sunday afternoon ritual nap to round out an active weekend.

road trip is over

Well, it is official, the next to oldest son's road trip is over. He arrived in Emeryville today after seeing the beach in Morro Bay and then traveling up Highway 1 for a while and then looking all around San Francisco. Tomorrow he has his orientation at school and moves into his apartment.

Even though I was all the way across the USA, my day was pretty exciting in a bad way. My car has not been starting very well since Saturday and then today as I was leaving work my car would not start. Fortunately the person who was car pooling with me knew the number to call for our company's security desk. He showed up within a couple of minutes as he was just driving our way when he was paged. He jumped my car even though it was raining lightly. Instead of going home I stopped by my favorite mechanic. It turns out that my car had a good battery but the starter died. After a two hour wait, I finally made it home. Not exactly what I needed was an extra expense with the road trip, but better this happen to me than my son on his road trip!

road trip : almost there

I talked to our road warrior son this evening and he has made it to Bakersfield, CA. They decided not to go to Roswell on the southern route and instead stayed on I-40 on the northern route. They stopped in Albuquerque for the night and then got up late before setting off to see Meteor Crater which I thought was a bit of a tourist trap when we saw it several years back. They spent several hours at the Grand Canyon, which on the other hand is worth every minute you spend marveling over the beauty and majestic of it all. They spent the night in Williams, AZ which is where we spent the night the last time we visited the canyon as it right on I-40 as you exit the park. They were running out of time so did not see my mother in Tucson, but instead continued to California. They want to see the beach and the large redwoods before our son's best friend leaves by airplane to return home on Thursday morning. The great road trip is coming to a close already...

road trip plus family life

It is official, our next to oldest son has traveled half way across the USA. I talked to him this morning as he was at a rest stop in Amarillo, Texas. After stopping in Nashville, TN the first night and Fort Smith, Arkansas the second night, they now hope to reach Carlsbad, New Mexico this evening after passing through Roswell, NM. I convinced him to forget about the alien's tourist trap in Roswell and go Carlsbad Caves. Plus I told him to go to White Sands National Monument as these are places we have never visited as a family. Hopefully he will make the right decision. As I spoke to him on the phone while at the rest stop, he saw a road runner and was trying to get his friend to look at it. I think sights like these are helping him appreciate the life he has had as we have seen so many things as a family together. Once he arrives in Arizona, then the sight seeing will really begin as he is planning on seeing my mother in Tucson, then drive through Phoenix on the way to Flagstaff to see the Grand Canyon.

While holding down the fort at home, my daughter helped me paint his old room in our house and it is looking very nice indeed. This morning I took a break and played cricket with a couple of friends. On the way back home I stopped by a lake near our home and ran around it for some more physical activity. I visited Home Depot to get ceiling paint to touch up the mistakes we made yesterday and when I got out to my car it would not start. I called home twice but no one answered the phone, so I made an executive decision and went back into Home Depot to get a socket set. I took out my battery and in a Home Depot cart I took the battery to Wal-Mart which is in the same shopping center. They tested the battery and said it was fine. When I got back to my car I took a cloth I had in my car and cleaned the battery terminals and my car started. When I got home I used my battery cleaning tool and finished the job the right way. Hopefully I will have no problems tomorrow morning to go to work.

news from the Army and the road

We received news from our oldest son from Ft. Jackson Army base yesterday. He is doing well, which is very encouraging for all of us. He says he is forced to wake up at 4am and goes to bed around 9pm each day. He actually gets off every Sunday, which is definitely surprising, but we don't know what that means exactly. He really looks forward to the evening meal as he says he likes the food a lot; also a bit shocking to me. He has learned to repel and use a gun so far. He likes learning new things and how you have to work as a team, giving him a sense of accomplishing something together. All in all this is great news.

We heard from next to oldest son last night as he made it to Nashville. I hope he doesn't want to stay and become a country singer! I remember stopping at the McDonald's next to the Grand Ole Opry on our trip back to NC, as it is quite hilly and nice in that part of Tennessee. His next stop should be on the western part of Arkansas in the Ozark Mountains. I don't ever remember going there, but I must have been there at least once.

let the adventure begin...

So my next to oldest son left this morning at 5am sharp for his 3000 mile driving adventure to California to attend school. One of his best friends is going with him so that makes us feel a whole lot better than when he was talking to driving the whole way by himself. They are planning on sleeping in camp grounds all along the way. The last plan we heard, which is definitely subject to change, was for an over night visit in Nashville TN, Little Rock AR, somewhere in the heart of Texas, Flagstaff AZ (where they will make a side trip to see the Grand Canyon), Tucson AZ (to see my mother), then up through eastern CA so they can see Yosemite with a potential side trip through Las Vegas (which I suggested they didn't attempt). Sounds like a wonderfully exciting adventure for a 20 year old to take on a cross country road trip. Especially with a really god friend, who just so happens to have never been further west than the middle of North Carolina. Of course all of this depends on his car, which hopefully will make the journey without giving them problems. We had the whole car checked by my mechanic friend last week and he has extra oil and engine coolant in the car just in case. I emphatically told him that if he goes to Las Vegas just to see it, then he cannot go through Death Valley on the way to California. Just the name alone should scare him, but at 20 of course it does not.

As I was bidding him goodbye this morning, I realized that I was 20 when I went to Europe and then onto India where I spend two years on my grand adventure. Now I am beginning to understand how my mother felt...