1524 miles

Last year, I found that having a car during my summer internship was very convenient, so it was always the plan to drive from Las Cruces,  NM to San Jose, CA so that I could have a car for the summer. However my previous car was a 2006 Mustang GT - I absolutely loved it, but the gas mileage was horrible and it wasn't very comfortable for long trips. After searching online for a while I finally finally made a decision, and bought a car at the end of March! Now I get about 450 miles per tank (twice as many as my Mustang) and I love it!

2012 VW Jetta TDI - 43 mpg!

First I might need to explain something: Google maps says that from Las Cruces, NM to San Jose, CA is only 1113 miles NOT 1524 miles? You are very wise grasshopper. Instead of going directly from Las Cruces to San Jose, we decided to take a couple of pit stops along the way. Check out the map below!

Efficient route                                                                 Not so efficient route (probably more fun)!

The week before my trip, I got to see all of the wonderful people in my life: my YWiC chicas - Alyssa, Becca, Janie, Jen, Nicole, and Rachel and most of my uncles, aunts, and cousins. Except I was sad that I didn't get to see my fabulous friend Ashley! :( Big time fail.

Well, I think I can start telling the story now...

The adventure began Friday, May 25 at 3:30am. Why are we waking up so early? Well my sister Nicole just graduated high school so she had to go to freshman orientation at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Albuquerque, NM which is about 3.5 hours away; she had to be there at 7:30am! "Tasha, wake up! Are you all packed? It's almost time to go," I hear my mom saying as she walks into my room and turns on the light. Then she proceeds to wake up Nic. I slowly get out of bed and start getting together the last bit of stuff that had to be packed. Once the car was packed, my mom, sister, and I were on our way. 

All packed up!

We finally arrive at UNM at 7:45am - my sister was a little late. Oops. I dropped my mom and sister off at some building on campus. (Thank goodness for Google Maps that helped us find the building!) Then I went to my Grandma's house, which was only like 10 minutes away. My Grandma is super awesome, so it was great getting to see her. We ate breakfast together, and then I went back to the guest bedroom to get ready to go eat lunch with my best friend Marisol! I got to see her office. It was cute! After lunch I went back to my Grandma's house and just hung out and chatted. I even taught her how to sort her email by sender/date/subject etc. I took a quick nap, and then I finally picked up my mom and sister at around 5:00pm. Apparently they had been doing a lot of walking and attended a bunch of presentations, so it is needless to say that they looked exhausted! We cheered them up a bit by going to a really good Chinese restaurant for dinner. From 6:30-8:30pm my mom and sister slept, and I just couldn't seem to fall asleep. So naturally at 9:00pm, when it was time to leave Albuquerque, I had the first driving shift.

My Grandma and little sisters!

Mom and Nic!

I drove from 9:00pm - 2:30am (1:30am with time change). It seemed like forever, but I kept myself entertained by singing along with the country music that was playing on the radio, counting the number of semi-trucks I passed (87), munching on Starburst, etc. The last half hour of my shift was probably the hardest to stay awake, since I didn't sleep very much and my shift was only supposed to be for 4 hours. For some odd reason it was really hard for me to find a gas station that didn't look really sketchy! We ended up stopping at some random gas station somewhere close to Flagstaff, AZ. It was so cold there! We filled up my car with gas, switched seating, and were back on the road. Not even a few minutes passed by before I fell asleep in the back seat...

6:30am Saturday, May 26. When I woke up we were at our second pit stop of the adventure: Las Vegas, NV! We stayed in Vegas for 2 nights at the Circus Circus hotel. Whenever my mom would escape into the never ending realm of slot machines, Nic and I would find ourselves shopping and exploring or eating! On one of the nights, my mom and I went to some show where they hypnotized people. At one point the hypnotist had the participants believe that a belt was a poisonous snake! It was really funny. My mom was the one that took all of the pictures on this trip, so I don't have very many, but here is one of me and Nic when we went to eat at the Rainforest Cafe.

8:00am Monday, May 28.  LAST DAY OF DRIVING!! I was way more excited than what I can portray. lol I wanted to get to San Jose already. I wanted to meet my roommates. I wanted to get a good  night's sleep before work the next day... Google Maps told us we had approximately 9 more hours! My mom took the first driving shift. I'm not sure exactly how much she drove, but we stopped to eat lunch at a gas station in the middle of nowhere that had a Subway. After we ate lunch, my mom continued driving and I began to read my "Design Patterns" book that Google sent me for my internship. I got through about 30 pages when my mom decided that she needed to be relieved from driving. I drove the rest of the way, partly because I drive a bit faster than my mom and I just wanted to get to San Jose. At some point along the way my mom decided that she really wanted some fruit and kept nudging me to pull over at random fruit stands along the side of the road. I didn't until... Traffic started to get really bad! It was so slow that it felt like we weren't even moving, so I moved into the left lane which was moving faster. I ended up missing the exit for HW 152 near Hollister, CA. I was annoyed at myself. I thought, "Oh well, I'll just have to turn around." 

After I made the turnaround and was about to get back on the highway in the right direction, my mom says, "Stop! Take a left." I wasn't too sure what she had seen but I took a left anyway. As we pull into some parking lot, I see a building with a sign on it that said 'Casa De Fruta' (translates to 'House of Fruit'). We went inside and it was the most magical fruit store I had seen in a while! Seriously. There were so many different kinds of fruit. I love Mangos, and the ones they had there were so ripe and looked absolutely delicious! Not only were the fruit and vegetable sections impressive, but they had so much dried fruit! 

Dried fruit! My sister was getting embarrassed at how much fruit my mom was buying!

~7:30pm. So we ended up buying a lot more dried fruit that we planned. lol My mom bought me a bag of Mango Tamarindo which is sooooo good! When we were paying, we found out that they didn't have plastic bags and that you had to pay 10 cents for a paper bag. We were definitely confused. Apparently there is some bill that banned grocery stores and others from giving out pastic bags! Once we were happy with our fruit, it was time to get back on the road to face the seemingly never ending traffic. Hours and hours later we arrived in San Jose! :)

"Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason." - Sr. Francis Bacon