so my friend cara and i are totally crazy. we deicded a month or so ago to drive to flagstaff to see one of our favorite authors give a lecture and sign books. so yesterday, at 4:40 am, my alarm goes off. i got up and made breakfast and got ready and she picked me up at 5:45. then we hit the road jack.we saw some crazy cacti that had fur, a golfball shaped house, and some really interesting street and landmark names.
for example: holy moses wash, devil dog road, and doug dog road. we have friends who have a dog named doug and we call him doug dog. love it! also now cara and i can keep saying holy moses wash instead of oh crap! heehee.
so we got to northern arizona university and ate carls jr for lunch. more on that later. we found our way (eventually) to the liberal arts building where diana gabaldon was givng a lecture and signing books. she talked about getting oublished, how she went from being a scientist to an author (start writing!) and her upcoming work ( a graphic novel, movie options, and the 7th book in the series. is it fall 2009 yet?) after she was speaking we lined up and got our copies of outlander signed. so exciting. then we got to meet her and take a picture with her.
then we drove around the university some more, and after accidentally finding ourselves back on the freeway headed to los angeles and having to turn around and come back, we found gabaldon hall, which we can only assume was named for diana since she did graduate from NAU. all of the people who live in gabaldon hall looked at us like we were crazy but we often get those looks so who cares?
not like i will see anyone i met that day again except for... CASSIE! she it the residence life coordinator at reilly hally at NAU so cara and i got to see her apartment and she took us out to dinner at oreganos, a local (awesome) italian restaurant. when cassie came around the corner to the front desk of her hall i realized we were dressed the same. black t shirt, black sweatshirt and jeans. even after living apart for years we still got it! then we drove all over creation looking for a shot glass for armando (seriously he better appreciate us! mulitple stops at multiple bars who all said - no we dont have any shot glasses but we do have pint glasses - how is that even close to being the same thing????) and back to her aprtment to change into our sweats before making the 7 hour drive home. 
so i am officailly adding carls jr to the list of fast food that i will never eat and would rather starve. the list currently consists of only jack in the box (jack is so freaking creepy). then there were two. i got food poisoning. have you ever been disgustingly sick at 1 am after being awake for 20 hours in the middle of a seven hour car trip. SO not fun. we had to make more than a couple stops ont he way home - i am very familiar with multiple gas station bathrooms along the 40 now. so check that one off the bucket list.
when we got back into familiar territory along the 5 we saw huge flames and smoke coming from the mountains near the valley. we switched from our road trip cds (cara loooooves the brittle lens!) to the radio and listened intently as they talked about evacuating sylmar. this is really close to where my boss lives and we texted her and so far havent heard back. i am freaking out. multiple houses have burned down and there are still rescue workers out there trying to control the blaze 12 hours later. cara's husband fran is a police officer and he was called out there and spent 8 extra hours helping out. the wildfires here are awful. right now we are safe and prolly will continue to be but lots of people arent. so that totally put a damer on the end of our crazy road trip day.
now after sleeping for several hours i am awake and so happy that i got to meet one of my favorite authors! you can read her blog at: voyagesoftheartemis.blogspot.com
1 comment:
I also had an unfortunate experience at a Carls Jr. in Tulsa, every time I see one now I start to feel kinda sick!
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