On Drives.

On Long Drives

I just had my 17-year anniversary of becoming a Texan (by address, if nothing else.) Daily, I don’t understand how I have been here almost two decades, because A, how is that possible and B, I can’t possibly be that old now.

17 years ago, I decided to quit my life and start a new one. I found a Paul Mitchell school in Austin- a place I had never been but heard was cool- and I started the enrollment process from my desk as a Payroll and Benefits Specialist at Whole Foods Market in Berkeley, CA. Once I did that, I did two things: I called my mom and said, Mom, I am moving to Texas and going to beauty school. She got really quiet for a moment, I suppose because that is a lot of information to process in a short period of time, and then said, OK. The second thing I did was call my dad and say, Dad, I am moving to Texas and going to beauty school, will you make the drive with me? And he said, sure Honey, when do you want to leave?

We left on June 3, 2009. The plan was for me to make the drive from the Bay Area down to Orange County, where I would pick up my dad to make the rest of the drive together. We had to make it to Austin by Saturday the 5th before the leasing office closed, otherwise we would be at a hotel until Monday. So, needless to say, we were on a time crunch. Given that, and given everything I know about my dad, I don’t know why I created an entire sepia-toned video montage in my head of us stopping at all the oddities and roadside attractions along the way, but this is just how my brain works. I created an entire scenario of me in the future, looking back at this trip, and remembering all our side quests. (I don’t know if I am explaining this well.) I created a cinematic vignette, recreated from the future looking back, or us laughing, throwing our heads back with a giant dinosaur in the background, or the world’s biggest stuffed armadillo. Stills flashed through my head of us standing in front of a crater somewhere, or some diner that Elvis ate in- as if, in addition to me, my dog Linus and my dad, we had a film crew with us as well, documenting our grand adventure.

Why I had any of these ideas is beyond me, because my dad took pride in getting from Point A to Point B very quickly, with the only necessary stops being bathroom breaks and gas fill-ups and snacks- with these generally being the same stop for efficiency. You held it until you got there and there was no time for whimsy on a family road trip. As an adult, I can see the allure of getting the entire family out of the car as quickly as possible, so perhaps it had more to do with cabin fever on wheels than it did a lack of whimsy. Regardless, I have zero memory of my father taking his time on a road trip, so I have no basis for thinking we would make detours along the way, especially while we were on such a time crunch. And yet, I fully and completely expected we would. To my dad’s credit, its good we followed his play book because I think we rolled into that leasing office around 430 pm on that Saturday, June 5th, just in the nick of time.

But before we got there, we did create memories, just not the ones I had been expecting.

On my way from Northern California to Southern California, I decided to take the circuitous route and follow the coastline for a bit, and to visit the first town I lived on my own in: Pismo Beach. To note- this adds several hours of driving, and maybe not the best plan when you have a deadline halfway across the country. My reasoning was, I’m moving to Texas, and I have no idea when I will see the Pacific Ocean again, and my dog, Linus, needs to go to a beach for the first time ever, so this makes sense, obviously. When my dad called me and asked how far away I was, and I let him know that I was three hours out rather than, say, an hour, he was not impressed by my logic. Which still cracks me up, 17 years later. So back in the car, and back on the road. Linus and I made it to Newport Beach after dark, literally swooped my dad, and before we hit the road, we stopped at Del Taco. The same Del Taco my dad went to almost daily for breakfast up until the day he died.

It should be said that we were driving across the country in a Scion xB- not a moving truck or van or anything of that nature. I had my favorite $35 Thrift Town dresser strapped to the roof after purchasing $200 worth of roof racks to keep it there. I had Linus in his crate in the backseat- the door to the crate faced out, and could only be opened once the car door was opened. He was so young that the crate was the best option- for his safety and ours. Out of the crate, he was a bouncy ball of puppy that couldn’t be contained to a lap. The rest of the car was packed to every edge, nook and cranny with whatever I deemed essential for a new life. A family member gifted me an air mattress, which I slept on for ages. I had a bike. My clothes. Books. The front seats could not be moved back or reclined further. And this is how we slept the first night- upright in our front seats with our feet sticking out the window at a truck stop.

I remember that we made it to outside of Phoenix that first night, which is not very far, but it was as far as we could get since I decided to take the long way down. It was June, and hot. I don’t remember why we didn’t get a hotel- maybe it was about money, maybe we just got tired and saw place to stop. But I remember the two of us, doing our best to sleep, with Linus doing his best in the back. I remember that we were on the road by 6 am because it was already too hot to sleep any longer.  

I remember seeing all the billboards for roadside attractions, that were actually dozens of miles from the main highway and not in any way convenient and asking my dad if we could go, and him reminding me that we are on a time crunch.

I remember seeing all the signs for turquoise and moccasins across the southwest and being desperate to buy something. But by this point, I knew that I couldn’t ask to stop and go shopping, so I created a diversion- I HAD TO GO TO THE BATHROOM. I said, Dad, there’s a place to get gas and coffee and I can go to the bathroom. You can wait here. And so he did, until he came in looking for me. MORGAN. I can still hear his voice- I was so busted. He totally caught me shopping instead of doing anything else that I was supposed to be doing. I tried explaining that they had to brew a new pot of coffee so I was poking around while it was brewing! Sometimes, you just gotta poke around! I left empty-handed, but full of giggles. Really, no matter what  age you are, you are still just a girl with your dad sometimes. I really thought I pulled a fast one, I’ll tell you what.

I remember the celebration when we crossed each state line. Arizona! New Mexico! TEXAS! Texas lasted forever and is quite anticlimactic when the rest of the states seem to be crossed off so quickly. We spent that second night in some small town outside of El Paso, I am pretty sure. There was a small grassy knoll outside that Linus made a beeline to and pooped for the first time since leaving California. He could just never find the right spot in any of the gas station parking lots. We tried. I remember that that weird hotel had a weird restaurant attached, and that is where we ate dinner. I remember him talking to his brother Joe while we waited for food. His brother was a truck driver, and I’m sure they discussed routes and stops and how much time we had ahead of us.

The next day was our last day on the road. We stopped for gas where the sidewalk ends,  and someone warned us about the nudists out in Austin. We thanked them for their concern. I remember getting to Austin- to navigating the Y. And eventually, we pulled into the parking lot of my new home- The Cascades Apartments- a place that would lovingly become known as The Slums of Travis Heights, featuring such characters as The Gay Brazilians, The Skinny Gay Mexican Dude, Weird Pervy Grandpa Man, my neighbor Andrew, and my lovely friend Grace and her dog Chula. My dad and I got my key, and together, he walked me into my new life. It was the first time seeing my apartment, and I was in awe. It had ceiling fans. It had air-conditioning. It had a garbage disposal. And it had a whole bedroom and a whole walk-in closet and a whole living room and a whole bathroom and a whole kitchen that I didn’t have to share with anyone else.

It probably didn’t take more than 30 minutes to move in. Again, I had what fit in my car, so 30 minutes is generous. I’m not sure where my dad slept that night- we only had one air mattress. I don’t know that he cared, or maybe we went and got a second. Maybe he slept on the floor. We went to Wal-Mart and got a few things, like a chair for the porch, which neither of us noticed that it was a child’s chair, and we got a good laugh when we got back and set it up. But we didn’t take it back. I sat in that kid’s chair for a very long time. We found a yard sale the next day and bought me a microwave and a bookshelf. I found a baby gate on Craigslist that I wanted for the dog, and we drove to Georgetown for it, without realizing how far Georgetown was. I remember that gate was $5.

And then it was time for him to go. I remember driving him to the airport and crying and not knowing what was next but knowing it was probably going to be OK. And if it wasn’t OK, that I could call my dad, ask him to fly back out, pack me up, and drive me back to California. I couldn’t have known then that I would still be here, 17 years later this year. I couldn’t have known what those 17 years would entail, or that my home would be his during COVID, or that he would spend almost of the last year of his life here, with me. I guess our home was always with each other, no matter where that was.

So maybe I didn’t get that sepia-toned montage to reflect on, and there are no pictures of us in front of giant dinosaurs, but the memories I have instead are uniquely and distinctly ours. I got a dad who dropped everything to move me across the country, supported my decision, and no matter what he may have been thinking, never tried to talk me out of it or tell me it was a bad idea. And those are some really great fucking memories, in full-spectrum color.