Nothing On My Mind But Georgia

I have arrived in my new state-land of peaches, rappers, and antiques. Georgia; northern Georgia to be exact, at the start of the Appalachian Mountains.

We got up at 7am on Saturday and went to Henry's for breakfast one last time, which was a great way to start the day. The rest was spent packing up the U-Haul we'd rented, thinking we could definitely fit our lives in the back of a 17 foot truck. By the time 8pm rolled around, the time we'd decided to leave the beach, we had packed the truck so that not a single inch was wasted, and still didn't take everything with us.


{In case you're wondering, we decided to drive through the night so that the kids would sleep (hopefully) most of the way. If you don't have kids you probably don't get how giving up a good night's sleep is totally worth it when the alternative is turning a 9.5 hour trip into a 12.5 hour trip, considering all the stopping and letting the kids out to stretch and run, not to mention the endless screaming, toy throwing, and general chaos than can occur while driving with small children.}


When the time came to actually get in the truck and go, the surreal feeling I'd been holding onto kind of slipped, and the reality of what I was about to do hit me a little. Especially when my mom started crying. We aren't a family that cries lightly and openly about things. I mean, if it's called for then it's not a big deal or anything, we just don't give in to it unless we have to. So it was a pretty emotional few minutes. Add to the fact that my 1 year old daughter, who can be seriously adorable when she puts her mind to it, could tell something was making her Mimi sad, so she kept giving her big, open-mouth kisses and smiling, making her sounds for "nice". It was kind of heart-wrenching, in a good way.


I managed to get the kids into the truck, and started down my road for the last time. My husband was following with the U-Haul, so I let the tears come for half a minute, let the reality settle in again that I was leaving everything I knew for new and uncharted lands. Well, new and uncharted for us at least.


But as I was leaving the old neighborhood, I turned that part off again and settled into "driving mode", focusing only on where I was going and what I was doing at that moment. Inconsequential details like speed limits, passing cars, and gas levels have a way of emptying the mind of everything else, allowing you to focus on only those things in front of you; a large part of the reason I love to drive-freedom to think as deeply or shallowly as one wishes.



After stopping for one last fill-up, and to stock up on some serious energy drinks, we hit the road in ernest, south and west, from sandy beaches and flat lands to trees and rivers winding down mountains.


The next 9.5 hours were mostly uneventful, unless you consider drinking a 5-Hour Energy Shot, a Red Bull, a tall french vanilla cappacino, and a can of Coke eventful. I'll tell you this, it was pretty eventful to my heart rate.


At a little after 6am, right about the time when I just knew I COULD NOT sit in the car and stare at lines on the road for ONE MORE MINUTE without completely, totally, absolutely FREAKING OUT and LOSING CONTROL, we drove up one last hill, and I literally let out a little gasp.



The sky was still very dark, although not as dark as it had been an hour before, and the air was a little foggy and damp with early morning. We crested the top of the hill and laid out in the valley before us, all dark windows and glowing yellow streetlights, was the town. It was an absolutely beautiful moment that I don't think I'll forget for a very long time. It was like driving into a story book, or a Norman Rockwell painting.



I only had a second to take it all in because, as it tends to in the mountains, as soon as we went up, we had to go back down, and right, and left, and up again. I like driving in the mountains because you never know what the next manuver is going to be.



Seeing the story-book village picture calmed me down a little bit and I was feeling a little more relaxed and able to make it the last 10 minutes to our new house. I was also feeling a little nauseous from drinking such a ridiculous amount of caffeine and eating nothing, so I was hoping it really was only ten minutes away.


As it turned out, it was two minutes less, and we were suddenly there; our new house.


Home.


The kids, in that way that kids seem to have, woke up as soon as I parked in the drive way, and gladly got out of their carseats to investigate the new place. After discovering that tile and wood floors combined with a complete lack of furniture, or anything else, made for great running/jumping/echoes, we left them to it and started unpacking.


I don't ever want to think about that part of the trip again, so if you don't mind, I'll just skip over it and go straight to my next favorite part.



After close to 36 hours with no shut-eye at all, I laid down in our familiar bed- in a new house, a new state, a new life-and went to sleep.

(Painting by K. Craft, used as the cover for one of my favorite books, The Book Of Atrix Wolfe.

Painting titled In the Forest of Peace)