Road Trip

The view the girls had for most of the trip…

So I rent a Budget truck the Friday before our move, load all our stuff with my good friends Tom, Herman, and Tracy, on Saturday, then prepare to hit the road a week ago Sunday morning. We planned to tear ourselves away from everyone after worship that Sunday morning, but the tearing was harder than anticipated. Seeing the literal line of folks waiting to hug us and cry with us was more than touching – it is a sight I will play in my mind time and again in the future.

I saved my last hug and kiss for Erica. Saying goodbye to her was indescribably hard.

But we did finally pull away, with a crowd in the parking lot waving at us. Our girls’ “Grandmother and Poppee” came along for the trip, and we are so glad they did. They have helped us so much I can’t even begin to say.

SUNDAY: We stopped at Wendy’s by the Ocean Springs exit for lunch on the way out of town, then hit the open road. Our goal on Sunday was Lake Charles, Louisiana, which we achieved by 5pm. It rained on us for ten minutes of this trip, the most rain we would see all week long. Toward the end of this leg, we looked and saw a sign left for us on I-10’s Exit 59 in western Louisiana by our good friends, Jamey and Karen. It read, “Godspeed Sturgeons. Love, the Landrys.” I think that’s what it said, Jamey – this was during the rainy section of our trip! I took a picture out the windshield while driving the Budget truck. Here’s what I captured…

We stayed at a La Quinta Inn in Lake Charles. It was nice. We ate dinner at Chili’s. It was not.

MONDAY: In a word, Texas. Twenty miles of Louisiana, followed by lots and lots of Texas. We saw Houston and San Antonio, and after San Antonio, we saw the tall humpy things they call mountains. It rained on us five minutes, which rounded out the rain section of our road trip. Fifteen minutes total on the trip. We stopped at an exit that looked a little desolate – a truck stop, a local restaurant, and a gas station – in tiny Ozona, Texas. It turned out to be a great hotel and a wonderful meal. Always remember: appearances can be deceving. Jesus came to the planet to say a word or two about that.

TUESDAY: More Texas. Eventually, New Mexico, but mostly Texas. And more mountains. Sometime on Monday I mentioned to Poppee that I hoped we would see a Wind Farm along the way, and in west Texas boy did we ever! I’ll get back to that in a bit. Now everyone says that Texas is boring, but none of us agree (mostly because of the mountains). But it is long. 880 miles of long. Eventually we made it to New Mexico and stopped for the evening on the southwestern side of the state in a town called Lordsburg. We ate at a local Mexican restaurant and stayed in a brand new Comfort Inn, which was very, very cool.

WEDNESDAY: A little bit of New Mexico, a whole lot of Arizona, and quite a bit of California. It was a long day. We saw some downright AMAZING sights on this leg of our journey.

There were the cactuses…

And the mountains…

And an UP CLOSE view of a wind farm…

It was a tiring, but unforgettable trip. We hit some rush hour California traffic in San Diego, then made it to Temecula in the late afternoon. We spent the night with Chuck and Betty, friends of Dewey and Madonna’s (aka Grandmother and Poppee). They are beautiful people in a beautiful home in a beautiful city.

THURSDAY: We were 140 miles outside Malibu in Temecula, and we left Chuck & Betty’s at 8:30am in hopes of skirting L.A. traffic as much as possible. But we expected the worst. And got the best. We made it to Pepperdine at 11am, capping off simply a perfect trip.