Tomorrow.

Alright. Tomorrow I leave Buffalo and start on my way. My route is all planned out. It looks a little something like this:

Purple dots are where I'm stopping to sleep. Smiley Face = Destination (in case you didn't get that) If you want to e-mail me to praise my artistic computer skills please feel free. I'll be driving along/close to route 66 for a lot of the way so its kind of like the ultimate roadtrip experience.

The car is packed to the brim. I had every intention of having a seperate bag with carfeully chosen clothing for the drive itself and having everything else in other bags for when I get to Arizona. That did not even come close to happening. Everything is fit in like a jig-saw puzzle so hopefully I can find some new clothes each day. I have some trail mix and my Starbucks travel mug, Tim Tim my Tom Tom and the talking Jesus for good luck. "But she's going to study Buddhism, why would she bring Jesus?" you say. Because Jesus is a cool dude, thats why.

I'm sad to leave my family but I've resisted crying so far. (Except when watching The Biggest Loser - ugh, poor red team.) I almost packed my nephew but then we ran out of room in the car.

He's the one who made the decision to sit down in the MSKCC duffle bag.

Now I should probably go to sleep and be all ridiculously well rested for my first day of driving. Instead - I will watch tv shows on my mom's pretty lap top which, unlike mine, has a full working screen.

***

Adventure #2 - Brooklyn to Buffalo

I would like to report that I succesfully made it from Brooklyn to Buffalo in a Budget moving van without harming any people, animals, or other vehicles. There were a few unfortunate winsheild bugs that could not be helped. Other than that, it was successful trip.

It's actually a really nice drive. The leaves were starting to change a little bit so it made it even better. The hardest part was the beginning when I had to get out of the city and go through tiny tiny tunnels with my big ol' truck. It ended up being fine though. When I was going into Jersey I had to stop and open the back of the truck for two nice Police officers who wanted to make sure I wasn't transporting people or drugs. When I opened the back of my truck a laundry basket and a stray bag of rice started to fall out to which the nice policemen said "ok, ok, just shut it, it's fine" and I said "thanks guys!" as they helped my stuff my rice back into the truck and close the door. So then they ask me where I'm going. I said to drop my stuff off in Buffalo and then to Arizonia (or Ara-zone-ee-a as my nephew calls it) And they said "oh, for what, school?" Now at this point I had to make a decision and could reply in one of 2 ways:
1. Tell them I was going to live in a tent and do some yoga in the desert.

2. Just go with their assumption that I was going to school.

Since I was nervous anyway at the beginning of my journey and wanted to get back into the cab of the truck and away from the whizzing traffic I chose option number 2. It's not really completely un-true, I am going to AZ to take classes so I said "Oh, um, uh huh, school. Yep."

The rest of the trip was, for the most part, uneventful. I sang through my entire collection of CDs by The Weepies before moving on to Shuffle. I only stopped twice. Once to pee and buy a snack. Then to get some coffee and gas. My mom and I unloaded the truck and we returned it. 418 miles total.

My next challange: Actually being ready to drive across the country...

Oh, Brooklyn...

... you will be missed.

Adventure #1 - The Moving Van

2 days left in New York. 10 days until Arizona.

The plan:
Thursday: Pick up moving van and pack. (No, I have not finished packing. Yes, I have started. No, I have not packed a lot. Yes, I should have done it sooner.)
Friday: Work then finish packing and loading and eating pizza with Sarah Duncan and company.

Saturday: Drive my Budget Rental Truck to Buffalo, NY. Drop off belongings (I don't need things like huge frying pans and dressers in my tent so DebGaz will watch them until I decide to move into a permanent residence again) Spend time with The Fam, plan what to do during my 5 day cross country journey, etc.
Wednesday, September 30: Leave for Bowie, AZ with Tim Tim my Tom Tom

Sunday, October 5: Arrive at Diamond Mountain University and move into my tent. (oh, also, I haven't even bought the tent yet...)

Tim Tim is what I call my new Tom Tom that was given to me by the coolest coworkers in the whole wide world. Tim is British and has a very soothing voice. The way he says "stay straight on" sets me at ease even while driving a moving van through Brooklyn praying that I don't squash any passersby with the combination of my unecessarily large truck and inexperience at driving it.

Tim Tim in action

The adventure of the moving van goes like this: Nothing about this whole plan is stressing me out more than the moving van. It's big, expensive, it seems unstable and if I can be quite frank, I don't want to drive it. I have no choice so I had to suck it up and get on with it. I made the reservation, talked myself off the ledge after realizing how much it was going to cost, and I was good to go. The I got a call only a short 24 hours before I was supposed to pick it up telling me I had to come earlier or they wouldnt have a truck to give me. This could simply not be done because I had to be at good old Memorial Sloan Kettering until at least 3:30pm. I still can't really wrap my head around why they would call something a reservation if it doesn't actually reserve anything but, hey, who am I? So natually I freaked out and wanted to give up and crawl into a hole. After calling a 1-800 number and calling the pick up place and calling my mom I settled down a little bit and realized that I would just have to roll with whatever came at me. Thanks to Suzanne and Tim Tim I got to the place, got a truck, got it parked close to my apartment and then went to a cute Mexican restaurant with Suzanne and ate a salad.

I don't belive, though, that the Moving Van Adventure is over. It has only just begun. Tomorrow - loading the contents of my apartment into a moving van after dark.

So in summary: I have one more day of work after which I still have to pack up my apartment with the boxes I hope are still at the 0268 side of the 5th floor, load all of my personal belongings into my moving van and drive to Buffalo. Then when I get there I have to buy the tent which will be my home for at least a month, say goodbye to my family after only a few short days and then drive across the country. I mean, no big deal right? Hopefully this will all come together and I'll make it to my destination. No matter what happens though - I think this is gonna be kind of fun.

This post is dedicated to Suzanne Murphy of Long Island, NY who came with me on my stressful pick up the moving van adventure. She is The Best.