Day 1: Leaving Houston, a day of using the bathroom

Today began with a phone call at 5:30am from my dad waking me up to begin our Journey to San Jose, California. I sleepily dragged myself out from under the covers of my sisters bed and dragged myself downstairs to brush my teeth, use the bathroom, and scavenge for some form of breakfast. We were on our way by 5:45 setting out on the familiar drive into downtown Houston at the worst time to go anywhere in Houston--rushhour. It took us an hour to get out of town, my dad was driving, I was attempting to sleep, but failing miserably due to the sound of my dad's sports radio show that he insists on listening to every morning.

I finally gave up on sleeping somewhere along I-10 after we were well out of the mainstream traffic of Houston. And thus began the continuous stream of boredom that comes with riding along in a car in the middle of nowhere, so I read Harry Potter, the 6th book.

Our first big stop was just before we arrived in San Antonio; my dad insisted that go to Bukky's truck stop. I guess it held some sort of nostalgia or something. Anyways, so pulled in and began walking towards the convenience store when we heard a familiar voice greeting us. My dad's cousin, Rexine. Funny, how that works out. Anyways we made some idle chat before heading off to use the toilet facilities. Coming out of the bathroom I was bombarded by an abundance of teenagers that were not there when I first entered the building, and was somewhat confused. Nonetheless, I did not let it get me down. I was on a mission to find something sweet. I hit the jack pot and found that this convenience store was also a bakery and I got myself 2 jelly-filled kolaches for the road. I was quite satisfied. I found my dad and we left to return to I-10.

Our next big stop was not so exciting. We stopped at a DQ in Kerrville, TX, again used the toilet facilities and ordered ice cream cones for the road. (I got a dipped cone. yum!) And I was enscripted to drive.

Two and a half hours later, I am now driving along in quite literally the middle of nowhere. So much that it is the middle of nowhere that the speed limit has been increased to 80mph. I also have to use the bathroom again (unfortunately that was my main source of entertainment the entire day). So I see a sign for a town called Bakersfield. Bakersfield is a single gas station that is so small and so nasty that the bushes were looking like a better place to relieve myself, so I decided to wait 30 miles to Ft. Stockton. We fortunately found a gas station, clean bathrooms and lunch. My dad took over driving, and we were off yet again with 300 miles to our final destination of the day: El Paso, TX.

Our last and final bathroom break of the day was in another small town that only consisted of a gas station that fortunately was not small and disgusting looking at first glance. We pulled in at first asking ourselves if it was deserted, but then I saw cars parked at the gas station, so we decided it was fine. We pulled up to a gas pump that looked like it came straight out of the early 80's and had $0.00 listed as the prices for gas. We decided to not trust the gas pump, but then proceeded to the convenience store to once again relieve ourselves of all the water we had been drinking since that morning. We walked in and there was a single clerk mopping the floor, which I thought was suspicious at first I then proceeded to the toilet where all the seats were lifted so it seemed that either they had just been cleaned at 3:00 in the afternonn or men had been using the women's restroom....every single toilet. I walked out to find my dad ready to leave. He too found the place had an eery feel to it, so we hurried out. On our way out we again noticed all the cars--empty cars sitting in the parking lot and at gas stations. At least 15 empty cars were just casually sitting around this gas station, but the place was practically deserted of people. And so we decided to high tail it out of there before we got attacked by zombies or something.

Two hours later we arrived safe and sound in El Paso, where I then began attempting to call half of San Jose, trying to find a somewhat affordable apartment.