I believe this is a new record for me. I have not posted in exactly three months. While part of me says I should apologize for this transgression, the other part of me says that I traveled like crazy, packed up my life while working full time, moved myself across the country, participated in holiday festivities, started my new job and then moved into my new house. Whew. It’s a miracle I’m alive at all.

This is how i wanted the drive from DC to SLC to transpire.

You’ll notice that DC and Salt Lake City are approximately the same latitude. It’s a straight shot – just take I-80 all the way! Another popular option is I-70, but as it goes through Denver this was not a possibility in the middle of December. The benefit of taking the northern route is that it’s so cold you don’t have any melting/freezing going on – just freezing. Freezing butt cold, as my mother would say.

Due to highway closures and insane weather across the plains, I was forced to take I-40. I was not pleased with this because it increased the trek from an estimated 2000 miles and 31 hours driving time to 2800 miles and 42 hours. Boo.

I have come to learn over the past two years of my life that things never go the way you plan. My friend Carlie and I left DC the morning of Saturday, December 20. The first glitch was when I got food poisoning from The Olive Garden the first night of the drive. Carlie drove the last five hours while I pressed my face against the cold window of the passenger seat, carefully sipping pepto-bismal from the bottle and hoping that death would just hurry up and take me. We had planned to make it further, but because of bumper-to-bumper traffic for the first 100 hundred miles trying to leave the city, some inclement weather crossing the Appalachians, and occasional puke stops, we settled into Nashville for the night at 2AM after 800 miles and 15 hours in the car.

The next day we drove about 1000 miles to Tucumcari, New Mexico, and spent our second night in the most terrifying hotel of my life. We had planned on staying in a Hampton Inn but they were booked – who would have thought to call ahead when you’re in the middle of nowhere?! We would have continued on but there wasn’t another hotel for 100 miles and it was after 2AM. So we stayed in the joint where No Country For Old Men was filmed. I requested a king bed instead of two queens so that in the event that Anton Chiguhr showed up in the middle of the night, Carlie would notice if I was stolen from our bed.

The morning after our death-defying slumber we learned that Flagstaff, Arizona, was being buried in snow; patrol wasn’t letting anyone through without both four-wheel drive and chains. Considering the little mini has neither four-wheel drive nor tires large enough to hold chains, we had to re-route. Of course I-40 crosses through the only ski resort in the state of Arizona. The only option at this point was to drop down to I-10.

After our hotel stay I didn’t want to see New Mexico ever again, but this lovely detour awarded me hours and hours to enjoy the tumbleweeds and never-ending nothingness. At one point, when we finally did reach I-10, we were a mere 20 miles from the Mexico border. MEXICO. I could not believe it.

We then drove up through Vegas, where I dropped Carlie at the airport to fly into Salt Lake because the detour took so much longer and there was now bad weather between Cedar City and Salt Lake City.

The entire trip totaled 3400 miles and 56 hours driving time. But I made it. Sigh.

I have a whole quarter of a year to catch up on and am resolved to write more frequently now that the dust has settled, so check back soon.