Trip to Texas and Back over Thanksgiving 2004
2004 December 2
(posted 2005 February 19)

back to Family Night

Our trip to Texas and back was not uneventful.

The plan itself was too packed and complicated.  Viann was at a conference in San Diego Wednesday through Sunday evening.  The van was parked in Azusa from where she had carpooled.  Katy, John and I were to drive to Texas Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  Viann would fly out Wednesday from Burbank, Viannah from Philadelphia.  We'd spend the week with my mother in Hillsboro excepting Thanksgiving Day when we would all be at Viann's sister's in Dallas.  Saturday morning, we would leave at 5:00 a.m. to get Viannah back to DFW for an early flight back to college, and we'd drive home from there.

And this summary includes none of the planned, complex nuance.

So, Saturday in Victorville (about an hour up the road) we came up too fast on shopping center exit traffic.  Katy swerved, lost control of the car and we spun into the median.  See attached picture.  The car was drivable except that the only tail lights were the brake light in the back window and the license plate lights -- pointing straight up.  Four policemen showed up out of nowhere, ran a traffic break to get us off the freeway, and took reports from all of us independently.  Nothing else was damaged, not even the guardrail.  But the sun was setting.

We called, got directions from Viann, and drove the car back to Azusa to swap for the van, arriving in the dark.  Viann's colleague's husband thought that it (the wreck we were leaving parked in his driveway) was totalled.  The trunk wouldn't budge.  Luckily, the Mazda 626 has trunk access from the rear seat.  Once I got the first piece of luggage unwedged, all the rest came out easily.  The only cargo damage we've found so far was my glasses case, in my backpack next to the trunk lid, bent but not bad enough to hurt the glasses.

We drove the van to Kingman (where, incidentally, we had bought it on vacation in 2001 after it's predecessor broke down in the desert on a fine 110 summer day) and spent the night.  I woke up in the middle of the night shaking and recognized the symptoms as shock.  (You'll remember I broke my arm on a Saturday not that long ago.  Same thing then.  Actually, this has happened twice.  Same thing both times.)  We got up when it was light and, loathing food, I forced myself to eat half a pancake and two cups of coffee, hoping they would help.  I seriously considered spending the day coming home and just forgetting about the rest of the trip but, oh no, my heritage is to keep on going no matter what.

So... we drove on west and the food, such as it was, did help.  First it was fog with 200 foot visibility, then it was intermittent downpour and drizzle, temperatures dropping into the low 30s, then as we neared Flagstaff mid-day, the road was covered in snow slush.  Plows were on hand to keep the freeway open and we crawled along with the other traffic for an hour and a half before coming out in the clear on the east side of the mountain.  There were no open exits in the Flagstaff area so there was no (easy) way to go anywhere else but forward.  We did see half a dozen wrecks along the road, including one big rig, tractor on the railing, trailer in the streambed below the bridge and a service truck wrapped around a tree.

The weather was fine for the rest of the trip.  We stopped in Amarillo Monday morning to buy dad a tombstone then went out to Panhandle to visit his grave.  Katy, after a looooong talk, did some of the driving Monday afternoon, in better shape than I but less experienced.  Well, not so much "less experienced" now, actually.  We ate at a Whataburger in Ft. Worth.  It is now near the bottom of our list, right above McDonald's.

Sunday afternoon Viann got back and took the car the rest of the way home.  She took it to the shop Wednesday on the way to the airport.  If all goes perfectly, we could get it back just before Christmas.  It is not totalled.

Tuesday afternoon she was being brought home from work at Azusa by a colleague and they were rear-ended on the 210 by an 18 wheeler.  That car was totalled and all of Viann's stuff smells like gasoline, but neither of the ladies was injured so far as we can tell, aside from some soreness.

So now we're fielding calls on three different wrecks at once (these two and one that Viannah had in 2002 which isn't ... over yet.)  We answer the phone:  "Hello ... Yes, State Farm?   Which accident is this concerning?"

Back in Texas, we took Katy down to a prospect visit at Baylor Tuesday.  The half hour drive down the "NAFTA Freeway"  (I-35) took an hour, as one of those four inch per hour downpours (50 foot visibility) occurred right in the middle.  We stayed home to rearrange mom's living room Wednesday, the weather unremarkable.

Viannah missed her train from Lancaster and thus her flight from Philadelphia.  I spent much of the afternoon on the phone talking her through ... this.  Miraculously, she managed to arrive at DFW near midnight on a later flight, and at no extra charge.  That flight was delayed three hours due to weather in Rhode Island.

Viann's brother and family were going to travel up from Austin by train but Amtrak cancelled the run due to flooding in San Antonio.  They drove rather than taking an Amtrak bus.

The trip to Dallas and Thanksgiving dinner all went without incident.  I know, how droll.

We watched old original Star Trek episodes in Hillsboro all week (Nomad, Planet Killer, Adonis, Mirror Mirror, and four others).  My kids have a serious gap in their education!

We got out of Hillsboro at 5:15 Saturday morning, nearly as planned.  Made the flight.  Made the drive.  Gas is only $1.80 in Texas.  The weather was OK except for serious crosswinds all the way back to California.  And, there was no way to avoid heavy traffic coming into L.A. Sunday night.  We spent about an hour going 15 miles through Indio but, in all, arrived only two hours later than we might have without heavy traffic.  Since Mexico, Vegas, and the Grand Canyon are the big driving destinations from L.A. for this holiday, I-10 would seem, nonetheless, to be the best way to re-enter town.

You ever notice how in Genesis, whenever the neighborhood gets rough, God tells the patriarch to pick up and move on (as in 31:3, 35:1, etc.)?  Well, God is telling me not to do this anymore.  Not in a nine day span anyway.

Thanks for your prayers.  Though we complain at every little thing, we are all fine and fantasizing about the possibility of a little boring routine.



Just off the off-ramp (after the traffic break) in Victorville.  Drivable but no lights except that one in the rear window.