One Thousand Six Hundred and Seventy-One

1,671.

Miles.

Driven.

Two hours of sleep total.

North Platte, Nebraska to Henniker, New Hampshire.

Sort of by accident, see.

I didn't set out to drive all night. The circumstances were such that it just sort of happened that way. Let me back up. After a frenzy of packing and loading the trailer on Tuesday afternoon, following one last round of recycling and Salvation Armying, I left Boulder (insert dramatic music here) FOREVER at 4pm. Ok, so not really forever. I'm sure I'll find my way back there at some point.

Anyhoo...I had it in mind that I would drive a ways just to start cutting into the big trip. As Simon pointed out, 10% of the trip now is 10% less tomorrow. I figured North Platte would be a good destination. It was a reasonable distance away, and had plenty of amenities. My mom asked if I shed any tears when I left. The answer is no. I had zero emotional attachment to Boulder. That is what bums me out about it. It's such an aesthetically beautiful place that is unfortunately filled with very shallow people. Perhaps I just never met the right crowd. I'll never know and now, I don't really care. I will miss my ace housemate Allison, though. She really did make it bearable.

Mother Nature gave me quite a sendoff as well. I woke on Tuesday morning to rafter shaking winds which wanted to blow me off the highway all the way across the State line. I should have seen it as a sign of things to come. After waking in North Platte to overcast skies I set off along the road that would be keeping me company through many states, Interstate 80.

About oh, 10 miles into the trip I hit a little snow squall. Nothing significant, save for the fact that it didn't stop until about 500 MILES LATER! Yes, all the way across the rest of Nebraska and all the way across Iowa it was snowing. At one point I hit a patch of black ice that started the trailer fishtailing. A 16 foot trailer that might be ever so slightly overloaded is a lot of weight for the little Touareg to handle. I don't know how I managed to hold it together and keep it on the road. I was convinced that I was going to head off, but good kharma was with me and I righted my direction and stayed on the tarmac.

My nerves were shot to hell. I started questioning my choice to make the trip. I scolded myself for letting my overwhelming desire to be here take over my better judgement. I had Laura Bontrager's voice ringing in my head telling me to 'Make Good Choices', and thought that this time I probably hadn't. I was mad at the weather. I was mad at the road. I was mad at myself. I was mad at January and trailers and people who do stupid things like moving in the winter with trailers that don't like anything other than perfectly dry pavement.

My sister took the brunt of this frustration. I needed to know what was ahead of me. She's my weather guide and had to deal with me being short and blunt trying to figure out how much longer I was going to have to deal with this storm. I wanted to know exactly when it was going to stop. Exactly when I was going to have some relief. I wanted dry pavement. Never in my life have I wanted dry pavement so badly. Why didn't I stop?

The trouble with stopping in the middle of this mess was that I would just have to wake up to it again and keep slogging through. I wanted to get ahead of the storm and clear into what I had seen as a window of nice weather before the next storm hit New England. I finally got a break around Davenport, Iowa. By then I had resolved that if I made it that far, I was just going to continue on through Chicago.

I am not a fan of Chicago (a whole other story). The thing that annoys me the most about it is the deplorable state of driving there. And rush hour. I knew that if I stopped before Chicago that I would be fighting traffic all the way through Indiana. The best time to get around there is later at night, so I kept going.

When I was through Gary, Indiana I wasn't sleepy. When I was through South Bend I was wide awake. My motivation had returned, and I didn't stop until Toledo. Finally at 3am, I pulled into a highway services and slept for an hour and a half. at 4:30 I was awake again and the anxiousness was back. I set off and drove for a while before stopping for another half hour of sleep. The GyPSy said I was due to arrive at 6:30 and I only had 300 miles to go. That thing must not be working.

Blah blah blah, driving more miles, blahdey blah...is this odometer even MOVING!?!...blah blah...I swear this is the longest 10 miles of MY LIFE!...blah blah oh my gosh this is a very twisty little two lane road in Vermont drivedrivedrive I am never taking the trailer on this road AGAIN! Phone call to sister, text messages I can't reply to, when is the next storm supposed to start? Midnight? I should be ok...drivedrivedrive What do you mean they've moved up the time that the storm is supposed to start!?! Please, please can I just make it safely...blah blah blah Damnit if that stupid GPS wasn't right in the end. How did it KNOW that it would take so long on Vermont route 7??

And I made it. Then:
1) I backed into the driveway at my sister's house
2) Got out of the car
3) Burst into tears

My body still hasn't recovered. But, I'm here and I'm safe and happy. I am not anxious to ever repeat such a feat of driving madness.