Forever in Wonderland: Road Trip Day 1

Hello Hollywood! I’m FINALLY here! Commence with the biggest happy dance ever!

I still can’t entirely grasp that I’m living in California. It’s incredible and exciting and wonderful and every other synonym for amazing.

And the drive out here was so fun. I’ll give ya a recap:

Day 1: Got on the road at about 1 o’clock after Linus (my boyfriend) and I stopped for a delicious lunch in Roanoke, TX. Several hours into the drive we passed Cadillac Ranch, which I hadn’t seen in years and had forgotten was on our way. So of course we stopped, took some less than attractive photos of ourselves, and tried not to get blown over by the insane Texas wind.

So cool!

Anyway! After Cadillac Ranch, Texas made one last attempt to keep me from leaving. Out of the blue my car was attacked by a dust devil/tornado thing! When I lived in Arizona I’d see these all the time—basically they’re like mini-tornados made of dust and dirt that whirl around the dessert. I’d only seen small ones before and they usually dissipate pretty quickly. But OH MY GOSH this one was massive and solid and scary. We saw it from a distance and we’re like, “Oh wow, look at that! Cool!” And then it started coming right for the road. At this point we both began screaming and Linus started gunning my little Hyundai Elantra in an attempt to outrun this ginormous monstrosity. We barely made it past, but not before I snapped a photo of our near death experience. (I’m pretty sure I’m over-exaggerating the danger we were in, but it was actually kind of terrifying).

Dust tornado! Even in moments of chaos I've got my phone camera ready to roll (how sad is that haha).

A couple hours later we stopped for lunch and had sushi in Amarillo, TX (probably more dangerous than our encounter with the dust thing). Then, after several more hours of driving, we called it a day in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A fabulous view from the 17^th floor of our hotel and a couple of beers capped off day one.