Roadtripping to the Lone Star State

We've been in Texas for almost three weeks, and it's high time I told you about our travels. It was a fairly uneventful trip down south – no big truck or traffic snafus, no weather-related hold-ups, no wrong turns that wasted precious minutes. In fact, planning how to extract ourselves from our apartment was the most complicated part of the whole ordeal.

Many of you are familiar with alternate side of the street parking rules implemented in most parts of most cities to keep traffic moving whilst street cleaning and plowing, etc. occur. Naturally, we had to consider the parking rules and regulations for our move, so as not to incur a substantial parking ticket on our last day as New Yorkers (disclosure: we incurred a $115 ticket for double parking two days earlier, with my parents' car, which was a real bummer). I was working like a madwoman right up until the day of our move, so Oliver had to take on the majority of the planning responsibilities, and let me tell you, he coordinated one smooth move! 

On Sunday, Dec. 7, we were in our apartment packing up the last few things until 3am. It was hard to not leave a bunch of stuff until the last minute because our apartment was so small, and packed boxes took up, like, eight times the amount of space than our stuff did in shelves and whatnot, making living, working and packing there a real challenge. So, we crankily packed up and moved things around the night before the move, then had to drive to New Jersey, where we were sleeping. The next morning at 8am, we drove our borrowed car to pick up the truck, parked the car for the day and drove the truck into Manhattan. Oliver had precisely timed our arrival to coincide with street cleaning, which was to take place between 11:30am and 1pm. We got in at about 12, so he had to circle the block a million times to avoid the traffic cops and their dumb little ticket books. At 12:55, he cruised into a spot right in front of our building, minutes before the movers arrived (yes, we hired movers to get our stuff from the apartment and into the truck. That is time well-saved and money well-spent, my friends. Those guys are machines. Our truck was packed tightly with room to spare in less than two hours. Thank you, Divine Moving and Storage!) Some douche-nozzle with a champagne-colored Honda Accord was illegally double parked diagonally from out truck for nearly the entire move, making a very skinny passage and causing lots of traffic disruptions. The owner eventually showed up (wearing a shiny tracksuit that matched his car) and angrily drove off after collecting his own well-deserved parking ticket.

With our belongings finally in the truck, we cleaned the apartment from top to bottom (it was sparkling when we left. I was ready to move in all over again!) and headed back to New Jersey. We both had some work-related things to take care of the next day, so we came back into the city one last time, and drove back to the Jerz with my parents in tow for our final night. 

We woke up bright and early on Dec. 8 and hit the road in our trusty steed. 

My dad gave us hugs inside, then went back to bed. Mom weathered the 20-degree cold morning with us and snapped some photos.

In Pennsylvania we initially saw a lot of this: 

but later saw more of this: 

Much better.

There was lots of road work on I-81, in addition to manure smells, but pretty silos and barns eventually cancelled out the noxious odors. That day, We drove along Route 23 to 287 to I-78 and finally I-81, gliding through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and stopping for the night in Bristol, Virginia, right on the border of Tennessee. 

It was a freezing cold night and a frosty eleven degrees in the morning, but the belgian waffles at our hotel on Dec. 9 made us feel all warm and fuzzy. We hit the road and eventually caught I-40 in Knoxville, TN. We had considered making some tourist stops along the way, as we were passing through Nashville and Memphis, but we figured we'd have more fun if we visited those places when all of our earthly belongings were not sitting a truck, begging to be tampered with. So, we forged on, but Memphis delivered a beautiful sunset for our viewing pleasure:

The Mississippi River wasn't a terrible sight to behold, either: 

And Appalachia was lovely:

After an over-priced, under-tasty dinner at Chile's, or some such dining establishment, we called it a night. The morning of Dec. 10th took us through Little Rock, AK, which had the bumpiest interstate road we'd ever been on – very unpleasant in a huge truck! I suspect some federal funds are not being allocated correctly over there, but who am I to judge?

Along the way, we took some self-portraits...

My stumpy arms make for terrible self portraits

...Made some new friends...


...And made a quick pit stop for some essentials:

I kid. 

Here are the actual travel essentials: coffee, water, GPS, phone, chargers, sunglasses and horrific radio

After Little Rock, we zipped over to I-30, which would take us to Texas. Our first sighting of the Lone Star State yielded exactly what you expect to see when you enter Texas: lots of stars and the shape of Texas everywhere: 

We stopped for a late lunch in New Boston, where we happened on Randy's Smokehouse BBQ (we could not consume another sandwich from Arbys) and it was worth taking a quick detour from the highway. We split pulled pork and a beef brisket sandwiches, a side of baked beans, pickles, onions and jalapenos. 

We then scurried along to Oliver's parents' house in East Texas, where a room was all set up for us and beer was at the ready.

The Paradis Compound a few summers ago

The next day we hit the super market to stock up on some much-needed vegetables, after days of road food.

Ok, these are not the vegetables we were actually buying, but can you believe the size of those cans? I've never seen anything like it! They say everything's bigger in Texas. Let's hope I don't become one of those bigger "things."

Oops! Oliver caught me. A girl can't get enough of pork-n-beans!

Some images of the roads we frequent these days:



After a long weekend of hunting, we secured ourselves an adorable house in the Skyview neighborhood of Austin. I can't wait to move in and share photos and stories as we explore our new home. In the meantime, I have some posts planned about our stay in East Texas, so stay tuned!