Woody Cavenaugh

By the strictist of definitions, this is not a Hellride we are taking. In a true Hellride, you stop for just three things, bathroom breaks, driver swaps, and gas. If you want to eat, you would have to eat during one of the three above. On the voyage home we stopped once to eat at a Taco Johns and we ate there. Sara only drove only once (a story I will tell later), and we actually got a hotel room in Peoria Illinoise. Though we did stop, we were only there for six hours and five of those were spent sleeping so I will not break the account up into two parts. I will tell it how it happened.

We woke up about 6:30am in the Badlands KOA. Our note said we needed to go by the registration desk and that didn't open until 8am so we had some time on our hands. We spent it showering and taking some pictures. b By 8:30am we were back in the Badlands for our last few hours of real vacation. We had a relaxing breakfast at the restaurant in the park, I had what they called an Indian Breakfast Taco. I have learned that in most places you say "taco" it means a hard or a soft shell of very flat bread filled with seasoned meat veggies, and if you said "Supreme", sour cream. When you add the word "Indian" to "taco" in the west you get something very differet (and better). "Indian" means fry bread. "taco" means whatever they ladel on top of the fry bread. In this case, peppers, onions, cheese, sausage, tomatoes, and egg. Yummers! I brought home the recipe for fry bread, we'll be killing ourselves slowly with that later.

Relaxing time in the Badlands actually meant driving from one scenic overlook to another and Sara getting out of the car to take some hurried pictures before we go quickly to the next scenic overlook. If I got out of the car, we were taking too long, on a couple of occasions I absolutely had to get out of the car. This place didn't move me like it did Sara but that doesn't mean is it isn't simply one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my whole life. If I could only visit one place on vacation for the rest of my days, The Badlands makes the cut, followed very closely by "beach house with a balcony overlooking nude beach". What can I say, I love nature in all of its splender.

It was about 11am we somberly drove out of The Badlands State Park, and the journey home truly began. It is/was by the way 11am THURSDAY...
We drove hard and fast from there to Peoria IL arriving to the conclusion at 2am that I had had about enough and sleep was comming to get me ready or not. I'm not sure of the miles I covered that day, but we had driven through several states and the terain was getting more like home with every mile. We did stop at a Taco Johns. We had tasted Taco Time the day before and we wanted to compare the two. As it turns out they are both the same, with different names. As bad as we wanted to we didn't stop in "What Cheer" Iowa. We were curious to see if this name was factual or ironic. We learned the next morning that we were going to miss the Morton Illinois 40th annual Pumpkin Festival by a week. That made me sad. I would actually like to see America by local festival.

From here on the ride became even more Hellish, we only stoppd for gas and bathroom breaks and when we stopped we got food which we ate in the car as we drove. I have a new fondness for the Flying J. They served us well. Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, flowed like water beneath us. Especially if the water was filled with potholes which in this case it was. At this time I need to say once again how much I loved our rented Outback, what potholes. As we approached the NC state line I was getting pretty worn down. The lanes started to feel narrow, and my reactions were slowing due to lack of proper rest. I vowed that the NC Welcome center I would turn the wheel over to Sara and sleep. Which I did.

What kind of idiot forces someone who is tired to drive a car they have never driven before in the mountains over strange roads. Oh wait. That would be me. By exit 5, Sara was fit to be tied, tired and more than a little angry. I have no idea what happened between exits 1 and 5 as I was asleep, but the nap helped and Sara definately needed a break. I took the wheel again, and with coffee in hand got us home at 12:50am on Saturday Morning.

I woke up in bed having no real memory of how I got there about 8am. While Sara slept I unloaded the car and got it ready to turn in at the Airport. My hope was that if we turned it in a day early Sally would get some money back for early return. We also had to pick up the pets from the kennel before 11am. Sara woke up, showered and announced that I had not turned on the hot water again as I thought, I had infact turned off the furnace. So she's REALLY awake, and there's no way I'm going to take a cold shower the way I felt at that moment so we hopped into the car and headed for the vet.

When we dropped the animals off we had to take both the Saturn and the truck in order to fit them all. With the Outback we were able to get all the animals and us in the same car on the same trip. Did I mention it gets 30 miles to the gallon? $800.00 the dogs were happy, healthy, clean, and damned glad to see us. The cats were in various stages of unhappiness. Spot was almost catatonic. We were actually a little worried about him. As soon as his carrier opened at the house he bolted for the next closest tight place and wedged himself tightly into it. He was unconsolble. The other two cats made peace with things right away. Max was pretty much spry and kitten-like. Not bad for a 14 year old.

Next we had to leave again and drop the car off at the airport. Hey, why not eat while we were out. We got gas for the car, we got food we didn't have to eat in the car and we dropped the car off. 3477 miles and $717.00 in six days. Most of the miles happened at the end, all of the money was paid up front by Sally for the car and the animals, otherwise this vacation of a lifetime would have been only a dream.

I was in bed last night by 8pm by the way, and I woke up somewhat refreshed by 8am this morning as I type this. Much of the trip is a blur of road feedback from the steering wheel of the RV and the Outback. At least Sara has a gig of pictures for me to see.

I think I could be ready to do it again tomorrow, but I'll need some time to wash my underwear, and sleep some more. Plus, the Outback misses me mightily.

I'll wrap up tomorrow once I have had some time to reflect and digest.