J & S Lowe: Our Story: April 2011

The first weekend in April I flew to Idaho to help my sister Rebekah drive back from college. Lucky duck, she got done with spring semester a whole month earlier than OU. The drive is about 22 hours, with minimal stops. It took us around 26 hours because we had to stop a couple of times to catch some zzzz's. My one request of Rebekah was that she be packed when I got there, so we could leave early Saturday morning. This of course didn't happen.

To begin my long road trip, I flew to Salt Lake City. My plane got in around 9 pm, and I had to wait for the 10:30 shuttle to Rexburg ID. It's about a 4 hour shuttle ride to Rexburg which put me getting there around 3 am. I called Bek when we were a couple miles out so she could be there to meet me at the drop off. Three things had happened; 1) I had drank a liter of water and really needed to use the restroom 2) I had left beautiful balmy 75 degrees in Oklahoma to go to 34 degrees in Idaho 3) Bek wasn't there when I arrived at the drop off. Fortunately it was 3 in the morning so there wasn't anyone to observe my shivering potty dance while I waited for Bek to get there. Once she arrived we hustled back to her apartment to which I discovered had not been packed and was in complete chaos. Her roommate and her were the only girls left in their apartment, but it looked like a F5 tornado had blown through. So we, we being Bek and I, decided that I would go to bed so one of us would be coherent the next day to drive. I woke up around 7 am because my friend Melissa was graduating, and we had breakfast together since I was unable to attend her graduation. Bek of course was delirious from being up all night packing.

After all the packing was done we then had to pack her car. It was definitely a challenge, but having moved three times with John and twice just me I totally had it down to a science how to squeeze everything in. By the time I was finished packing there wasn't a nook or cranny that was free. After all the packing and rearranging to get everything to fit I just had her snowboard left to fit somewhere. Well Bek has a roof rack so I decided we would just lash it down to the top. She had a few bungee cords, and her friend the eagle scout Danny "lashed 'em down tight." He did suggest that we squeeze the snowboard on the very top of the rest of the stuff, but I thought no way it won't fit lets just tie it down to the top. This resulted in being a bad idea later. Finally we were packed, the apartment cleaned, and keys turned in. We finally got onto the road around 12 pm. Bek's great idea was that she should drive first because "She had been up all night and she was still going from adrenaline and she was fine and she could drive and its her car and she was fine." I took one look at her half glazed over eyes and said uh no way you are not driving. She said but it's my car!! I said "Yea but I still have the key and I'll call dad if I have too." Yes, I'm 23 and married and I threatened to call my daddy to make my little sister behave haha. She finally conceded and agreed I should drive first.

The weather was gray and rainy and super windy. The snowboard that was attached to the roof would wriggle around like a puppy on a leash. The wind would get on the underside of the snowboard bag and the bag would twitch up and down reverberating on the roof. This resulted in the most annoying thumping sound. It was pretty funny though because the bag would only make the noise when Bek and I would talk to each other. At one point Bek looked up through the sunroof shook her finger at the snowboard and said, "Hey you up there. Yea I'm talking to you! You need to settle down. It's rude to interrupt other people's conversations. You just need to wait you turn and shush it." We were both tired and a little sleep deprived her more so than me and we burst out laughing for like 15 minutes. It was just one of those you had to be there for it to be funny kind of thing. After about two hours in, the snowboard started thumping again. Bek looked up in time to see it slide sideways and then go flying off the roof at about 70 mph. Instead of saying Sarah slow down or something like that all she could saw was, "No no no AHH AHH AHH." then she screamed really loud as it flew off. I pulled over and ran about half a mile back against the wind to retrieve the snowboard because I'm the best big sister ever. It's a good thing I've been exercising and working on my cardio because Idaho's elevation is was higher than Oklahoma's haha. Once we recovered the snowboard, Bek did a full all over inspection as she sweet talked to her snowboard saying, "Oh baby you're ok it's ok I'm sorry you're ok." So after the snowboard had been inspected and deemed all in one piece without any scratches we shoved and pushed it into the back until the glass on the rear door would close.

The first four hours of the drive Bek was awake and super hyper like a small kid with way to much candy. After finally getting some food in her and turning on a little Enya she passed out. She slept most of the way through Utah and some into Wyoming. When she woke up she insisted on driving again. I told her I'd let her drive once we got to Denver. Denver is about the halfway point. It's about 11-12 hours to home from Denver. She feel asleep on and off and when she would wake up she'd ask where we were. I knew that if I let her drive she wouldn't make it very far, and we'd have to pull over and rest. I made it almost to Kansas before she realized I had been fibbing about where we were. Once we got to Kansas it was about 1am in the morning. I finally agreed to let Bek drive because I was tired. As she drove and I dozed I kept waking up because it felt like we were all over the road. I asked her several times if she was ok and if I needed to drive. She said she was ok but around 4:50 am she shook me awake and said I think I need to stop I'm falling asleep. So she had made it about 3 hours before we had to pull over. We pulled over at a big busy truck stop and slept for a about 2 hours. She was still tired so I switched her places and got back into the captain's seat to navigate the rest of our drive. We made it into Oklahoma before I needed to stop again. We rested again for about and hour and then finally headed on the home stretch. We finally made it home around 1pm Sunday afternoon. It was a crazy long drive and we were both exhausted after the trip. I laid down and took a 3 hour nap then got on the road to Norman which is about a 1.5 hour drive from my dad's house. It was a good trip and nice quality time with my sister, but I was exhausted for the rest of the following week from basically being awake for 48 hours. The following video clips and pictures are just snippets that documented our travels.

A Little Willow Smith to get the Road Trip Started. Plus Bek is super hyper at this point.