When I received my job offer from Apple in 1999, one of the first things I nailed down was getting Thanksgiving week off, practically a Herculean achievement in a call center courtesy of Black Friday.
Normally, I would work and stay put during this period. It’s relatively easy money: the bulk of the country takes an extended weekend and two of the days are overtime. Why waste money to spend it trapped at an airport, on the highway, in the mall or with relatives you don’t like? Those do remain my primary (cynical) reasons but don’t get me wrong, I had great, memorable Thanksgivings in the Eighties, it was the Nineties which sucked (1995 and 1996 being the only exceptions).
My real motivation for securing the iconic week was more shallow…I needed to return to Raleigh-Durham to retrieve my belongings in storage. When I left, I couldn’t transport everything in my VW Golf nor could I afford to have UPS ship and destroy. So the compromise was a $37/month compartment for the non-essential items: dishes, novels, action figures and the majority of my music collection. I planned to be back for these things in several months but getting hired at Apple took longer than I expected. All the while, I had to mail a check to North Carolina which could’ve been put to better use on the new debts I accrued in the relocation. The two hurricanes the region experienced over the Summer nearly put me in a panic as well; I had recently lost a few CDs to a leaky roof, the last thing I wanted to do find the remaining 800 floating around in a cesspool on CNN.
As the departure date drew closer, my relationship with Somara had solidified to the point I could call her my girlfriend, therefore I invited her to come along, all expenses paid. I was more interested in having her company than borrowing her pickup truck yet I wasn’t sure how much junk I left behind. Somara agreed relatively quickly which surprised me because I was planning her vacation for her, so I laid out an itinerary for the journey which Somara also approved when I presented it:
- Drive out to Memphis. Stop there for a day and see Graceland.
- After Memphis, get to Cary, NC; stay there to see some of the local sites I liked, meet my parents, visit a couple old friends at the movie theater and pick up the stuff in storage near the end.
- From Cary, NC, head back to Knoxville for Thanksgiving with Lee and Masami (we were invited).
- Back to Austin before the weekend is over to recharge.
Graceland certainly piqued her curiosity. I had been there twice and I felt I could give her a more accurate, funnier tour of the King’s estate. I warned her that I would prefer to visit my parents alone; Mom was notorious for being openly rude with girlfriends she doesn’t like yet doesn’t know. It wasn’t fair to Somara to drive almost a thousand miles to be insulted. This scenario never happened due to Grandma breaking her hip shortly before we left. My parents had to rush out to Central Illinois to tackle the emergency.
Agenda set, we packed the truck and took off for Dallas on the evening of November 19. Our goal was to make Memphis by the following afternoon, rest up and see Graceland on Sunday morning. This is when Somara demonstrated to me she has an iron will when it comes to marathon driving. I fell asleep by midnight, woke up briefly as we departed the Dallas area and passed back out. Due to her endurance, we made excellent time. Texarkana appeared around dawn, Arkansas was a blur and we were at a nice West Memphis hotel well before dinner.
Sunday morning was spent taking in the full experience of Graceland: the house, the planes, the cars and the more personal effects (like a sample of how much fan mail Elvis received every day). Then we shared a peanut butter and banana sandwich sans mayo (seriously) at the gift shop/cafe before we got lost trying to find I-40 and crossed into Mississippi which I didn’t know Memphis practically touched. Makes sense though, Elvis was born there.
Getting across Tennessee took longer than I forecasted. Had I known about the foggy, nighttime conditions when driving through the mountain stretch between Knoxville and Asheville, I would’ve skipped the White Castle in Nashville. We managed despite the horrible visibility. It wasn’t dangerous, just unnerving going downhill. Post-Asheville was smoother yet North Carolina is almost as long as Tennessee so we had to find a vacant hotel in Cary around 5 AM.
Monday was spent sleeping until mid-afternoon. Afterwards, I presented the bulk of Cary to Somara in an hour. She laughed at what little I put into storage because her truck was overkill. My defense was that I had forgotten how much there was and better to have too much vehicle than not enough. We later drove by my parents’ house for reasons I can’t recall. I did see Teddy and Mewsette staring out the window which made the diversion worth it (it was the last time I’d see them). The highlight of Cary was taking Somara to dinner at il Sogno, the awesome, genuine Italian restaurant I took my family to for Father’s Day and my friends to for my 30th birthday. I generally ate there whenever I wanted to celebrate, namely the night before I moved away.
Tuesday morning came and we both decided to head out for Knoxville. Without my parents being around, Cary really didn’t have anything worth sticking around to see. I had bailed on trying to hunt down any of the friends I made too; I doubted they wanted to be bothered during a holiday period. We first called Lee, confirmed our change of plans with him, then loaded up the truck, finalized my account and headed West on I-40 well before lunch.
Masami and Lee met us at the appropriate exit and we followed them to their house in Loudon (a distant ‘burb of Knoxville). Things were moving along for them but they weren’t perfect; Lee’s father was dying of cancer, otherwise it was wonderful to see them adjusting after three years in Japan (or a lifetime in Masami’s case).
The following day, Lee took us into Knoxville to show us what I consider his hometown. I’m sure we saw the key parts of his alma mater, the University of Tennessee, from the car. We then caught Toy Story 2 at a nearby mall to keep up with the tradition Lee and I had in seeing the first Pixar movie on the same opening night four years earlier. Overall, Knoxville seemed larger than it appeared from the Interstate. Maybe all those jokes about it hosting the World’s Fair in the early Eighties on The Simpsons were a tad unfair.
Thanksgiving Day was a calm, low-key dinner at Lee’s parents’ house. I had met Mrs. Rhea before during one of her visits to Austin in the mid Nineties but this was my first meeting of Mr. Rhea. His mood was upbeat so I was relieved after witnessing my grandfather’s deteriorated state two years earlier. The time wasn’t as morbid as this reads though. Most everyone’s spirits were positive because it was great to be together again: Lee and Masami were recently married; Somara and I had a decent relationship; I was back in Austin with a permanent gig at Apple (where I wanted to be); Lee landed a job pretty quickly; and the future seemed a bit brighter for everybody when the holiday season finished. The evening concluded at Lee and Masami’s house watching The Nightmare Before Christmas and Kiki’s Delivery Service (dubbed with Phil Hartman as Jiji).
(Black) Friday was the day we began our drive home. Somara and I wanted to beat the rush and use any “excess” time recuperating before returning to work the following Monday. We thanked Masami and Lee for their hospitality, invited them to visit us in Austin soon and learned what the dirty Japanese word from the recent episode of South Park meant.
Traffic was light but the cold, borderline freezing rain through Tennessee made this stretch take all day and we ended up passing through Arkansas at night. I drove from Texarkana to Dallas only to have a state trooper pull me over because Somara’s truck had a license-plate light out; must have been a slow evening for them to pursue such a trivial matter. Somara’s zen driving skills took over by Dallas as I was too exhausted (and full of White Castles) to drive. She did slip in a cat nap at an I-35 rest stop without my knowledge. I had regained enough alertness to assist her on the final stretch to my apartment; Somara insisted on driving so my job was to keep her awake.
She successfully got us to my apartment in one piece around Dawn. We collapsed in my room and slept the rest of the morning. The weekend then became a relaxing couple of days watching cable, putting away the boxes from Somara’s truck and not doing much.
I thanked Somara for all her assistance on Sunday night but suggested we avoid each other until Friday. We had just spent a week together, most of it in a small pickup truck and it didn’t result in any serious tension. However, I wasn’t keen on pushing my luck. Besides, some time apart was a good idea. Let each of us reconnect with our separate worlds for a few days. Somara agreed, she was thinking the same thing but we both thought this was a successful road trip.
The plan failed. I invited her over for dinner and TV by Wednesday! I wasn’t lonely or anything needy. I just felt my concerns of complacency, excess or smothering (from either) were addressed sufficiently to have us carry on like we had before the trek. Again, Somara concurred and this triumph led us to do another Thanksgiving drive to Phoenix the following year.
We both want to take another extended car-based vacation but our vehicles don’t seem to up to the task; we still own the original vehicles we had when we met 11 years ago, I doubt they’d make it out of Texas. When we do replace one, probably in 2010, we’ll have to stick with either extended weekends or something buffered by a holiday because Somara only receives 12 days a year for vacation hours. We’re open to suggestions in the Comments.