I lost my pants in Texas - Part 1

I recently told a friend about writing this story. She said based on the title she imagined a wandering pair of pants in Texas. I thought that was a great idea. It is true that I do not know where my pants are and what had happened to them. They could be wandering somewhere. I hope someone found them and got a good use out of them. They were a nice pretty new pair of pants. If you do see some wandering blue jeans in Texas please make sure to let me know.

I felt like I should tell you that before this trip I did not like driving at all. Usually, I had to drive to work and I had commuted so much in my lifetime to go to work that I was happy to give up driving any time. I learned a lot during this trip. It was crazy. It pushed my limits and the limits of my son. It was dangerous sometimes. It was also one of the most amazing, interesting, and beautiful things I have done in my life. Things I loved about this trip were going to new places and spending time with my son and with my daughter once we arrived in Florida. I just knew this trip — driving cross country — needed to be done no matter what. We did it, and it will always be one of those crazy experiences that we can tell friends, family and hopefully grandchildren. And of course, you my dear reader.

I want to start by saying I never drove across America before. This is not how I would have planned a trip if I had time. I would have loved to do a nice scenic route with taking my time.

My daughter and I were always planning a cross country trip at some point and the plan was for a slow and enjoyable cruise. We have not had a chance so far to do this. I hope we can still do our trip in the future. For now, well, this trip needed to be done super-fast with not much sleep on the way. Not much is an overstatement. Practically no sleep at all. Can you imagine? Just try to imagine this now. Driving cross country with practically no sleep at all. Well, no sleep might be a little overstatement. We did got some sleep occasionally just not much of it.

Luckily, there were two of us and we drove some, switched seats, then drove again. It was scary sometimes and yet, it needed to be done. My daughter needed her car. I am super grateful that my son was able to come with me. We went through some shady places and slept in some weird parking lots on the way. Truly made me appreciate a bed and nice shower even more. Just after 2 days in a car you just start to stick to things. Stick to the seat, stick to yourself, stick to your clothes. Showers and water are your friend for sure.

The road trip started in Astoria, Oregon and ended in Eglin, Florida. Me and my son did the trip in March of 2019, the goal was to get my daughter’s car to her. My son Andras drove up from Bend, Oregon on a Friday. He arrived in the afternoon and we were not sure if we should leave Friday or have a good night sleep before we left. We both decided that we wanted to get a head start and get there sooner than later. We finished packing my daughter, Andrea’s stuff in the car and decided to leave Friday night.

WE GOT CREATIVE WITH THE PACKING. Even writing this makes me smile. The places we came up with to pack our things and the things we were taking to my daughter were sure interesting. We used vacuum packing and placed things under seats, around the spare tire, under the spare tire, in every pocket available in the car and behind seats. Every space was utilized very well. We packed some snacks and drinks for the road that we hoped would last for a few days. We left Astoria around 10 pm Friday night. It was dark and we were not sure how far we would get that night. We figured it is good to start at night to skip Portland traffic in the morning. We headed out on Highway 30 toward Portland, jumped over to Washington and drove through Longview back to Highway 30 once we hit Oregon again. It is a funny loop, but it is quicker to cross to Washington then come back to Oregon than staying in Oregon. We were not sure about the exact route because there was some flooding happening in the middle of the county. We were just going to decide on the road which way to go. Before the trip, we got advised to stop every two hours or so get out of the car and walk for 10–15 minutes. I think this was very helpful and saved our sanity and lives. We had tried to keep to this routine and stop every few hours to move a little.

We had one week to do the trip. That is all the vacation time I had and the time my son had off from school. The plan was to drive the car to my daughter then stay a few days and fly back to Portland, Oregon. The car for our adventure was a little black Suzuki, 2008 edition.

The car is not sold in the United States anymore, my daughter got it from someone a few years ago and it served her well so far. She has been in Texas then moved to Florida about a month before the trip. We looked at shipping and other options, but it did not work out. It would have been even more expensive than a trip. Also, of course I wanted to see my daughter, since I had not seen her in person for months. I did not want to give up the chance to see her in person. It is way better than seeing her when we talk through social media.

We drove all the time. It seemed that the road would never end. We slept in parking lots and church lots. Whatever relatively safe place we found when we were tired. Most of those times we rested for about 2–3 hours and then got back on the road. We started in Oregon then used Highway 30 /Highway 84 to get to Idaho, Utah followed, then Colorado, New Mexico just for a short while, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama then our final destination Florida. The first few hours of the drive went fine, I think we were both excited to be on the road and had no idea what was waiting for us. At least it did not take me long to get a reality check. The first obstacle was finding bathrooms in the middle of the night and safe places to pull aside. Many bathrooms are closed at night and there are long distances along Highway 30 between such a facilities. It was a great relief when we would find an open bathroom. One of the greatest excitements of a road trip. It is a huge relief when you find water to wash up and find a bathroom to go and do your business in.

Just before we left Oregon when we were driving about a night and a day, we found a nice place by a river that also had a hot spring. We were using our phones and a car navigation system to find the correct route to places. This of course did not work many times. Reception of satellites can get spotty in places as well as phone navigation systems. There were multiple times during our trip that we relied on memory and signs. Well, of course there are multiple ways to get to your next destination. A short way and a long one. We had missed a sign during a time in Louisiana and ended up in New Orleans when we wanted to go around it. It was in the middle of the night. It was dark and we were tired. We had been driving multiple days. None of our navigation systems were working. We got used to the sound of our navigation system saying: “lost connection” and “trying to reconnect”. The mistake added a few more hours to our trip which does not seem a lot now, yet when we been up so many days and were exhausted every minute counted. Back to Oregon.

Read the second part of the story here

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