I left San Antonio at 9:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving evening, November 28, 1987. It was pouring rain. At one point I had to pull over for a few minutes because it was raining so hard, I couldn’t see where I was going.
This was before Mapquest and before cell phones. I had planned our a route that would have taken me across the country to Jacksonville, Florida on I-10 and then I-95 straight up to Atlantic City, New Jersey. The man who ran the Drive Away Company that provided the car for me recommended another route. I decided to follow his directions.
I drove through Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky without any problems. I was driving main roads all the way. When I got into West Virginia that is when the problems started. It was a two lane road. It was dark and it was foggy. I was driving about 30 miles an hour with the emergency flashers turned on. Finally, a truck driver in a semi passed me. He flashed his lights at me and I knew what he was trying to tell me. I followed him out of the mountains of West Virginia. Thank God for truckers.
I stopped during my trip through West Virginia and placed a call to Mr. Wonderful. I told him that I was tired and I was going to stop for the night. He begged me to keep going because I was “so close.” According to him, I was only about 8 hours from New Jersey. He told me that he would meet me at a casino in Atlantic City.
I continued driving and because of the conditions in West Virginia, it took me about 12 hours to get to Atlantic City.
After West Virginia, driving through Pennsylvania and New Jersey was a cake walk. I didn’t have any problems other than the hallucinations that I started having after driving for 36 hours straight. There are green signs that tell you the distance to the next city or town along the interstates in the U.S. I kept seeing those signs up ahead and when I got to the point I thought they should be, there was no sign. I also thought I saw a tree jump out into the middle of the road at one point.
I arrived in Atlantic City, New Jersey sometime during the day on Saturday. A drive that was supposed to have taken me 24 hours, took me 36 hours. I was tired and I wasn’t in a very good mood when I got there. Mr. Wonderful came out of the casino asking me what took me so long and telling me that he had called the highway patrol because he was so worried about me.
We took the car I had driven to a car wash and I cleaned it up. Then we delivered it to the people who owned it in Ventnor City, New Jersey.
After we delivered the car, we headed to New York and the land of my dreams. Oh what a dream it was. On the way back to New York, Mr. Wonderful told me that he would have to leave me alone for a few hours after we got back to his place on Long Island. He had to go bowling.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had just driven 36 hours to be with him and he was going bowling?
He had a girlfriend that I didn’t know about when we got involved. He had broken up with her but they were still on the same bowling team. He didn’t want to tell her about me because he didn’t want her to know that he had met someone while he was in Texas. When he broke up with her he had given her that famous line, “I hope we can still be friends.”
When we got close to New York City, we were passing the landfills in New Jersey. The wind was blowing just right that day. The smell was awful. My first impression as we entered into New York was that it was dirty and ugly. It was a cloudy day and nothing looked appealing to me.
My arrival to New York wasn’t all that I had imagined but there were some positive sides to it. I was in New York and after Mr. Wonderful left me in his apartment to go bowling with his ex-girlfriend, I called my family to tell them where I was. Shocking my family has always been a great source of joy for me. I accomplished that when I called them and told them that I was in New York.
I learned many things on this trip. Number 1: I will always map out my own trips unless I feel like I’m talking to someone who knows what they are talking about, like a trucker. Number 2: Many times reality isn’t the same as what we imagine, but we can make it work if we try. Number 3: God uses others to get us where he wants us many times, but that doesn’t mean that they will remain in our lives. Number 4: If you meet a guy who is from another city or state, find out if he has a girlfriend, wife, etc. before getting involved.
© Pamela Sawyer, 2012
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