Driving From Tempe to Memphis
July 22 to July 23
From Tempe, AZ to Memphis, TN is a 22 hour drive. We were determined to get it done. I was actually looking forward to it. I love road trips, Dru on the other hand does not. He was dreading it. We bickered like a married couple the entire time.
Apparently Dru had driven this route before while helping a friend move across the country so he was able to inform me how shitty and boring the scenery was. I actually thought it was pretty nice. Even Albuquerque seemed like a decent place. The way Dru talked about it you would've thought it was the worst city on earth. We did make one stop in Albuquerque:
Dru: Hey man stop somewhere in Albuquerque, I gotta take a shit.
Me: Roger that pal, any preference?
Dru: Yeah, somewhere with a doorman that hands you towels and mints. Just stop anywhere.
Me: You got it bucko.
So I pulled into my favorite public pooping place, Starbucks. Dru got out of the car and started walking to the door, I quit paying attention at this point. Apparently as Dru approached the Starbucks an older couple informed him that the inside was closed and he would have to use the drive-thru. "Drive-thru isn't going to work for what I'm about to", said Dru. So he jogged across the street to a Burger King and apparently after he walked off he heard the couple saying, "I don't think Burger King has coffee."
After 11 hours of podcasts, rap music, and Rosetta Stone Spanish lectures we finally pulled into Amarillo. And that's all I have to say about Amarillo.
The next morning we woke up early and got the hell out of Amarillo and started yet another 11 hour journey, this time to Memphis. We didn't really know anything about Memphis besides from the fact that it was closer to Nashville, our end destination. We drove through 4 states that day: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee, every one of them looks exactly the same. Dru decided at one point that he was tired of being a passenger and wanted to drive, fine by me pal. I sat in the passenger seat and threw water bottles at flies in the back seat. He drove for about an hour and then pulled over to get a burrito and got back in the passenger seat, guess it’s my turn to drive again. We must have had 4 coffee's throughout the day. It got to the point where we would argue about coffee:
Dru: Do you want to get a coffee?
Me: I could get a coffee.
Dru: *Silent
Me: Do you want to get a coffee?
Dru: I don't know
Me: Well now that you mentioned it I want to get a fuckin' coffee. Why did you ask me if I want a coffee if you don't want a coffee?
Dru: I was just wondering if you wanted one.
We both got coffee.
At one point I was driving along and I noticed a pretty mean looking cloud dead ahead. Eventually you could see the rain and it was apparent that it was raining hard, like really hard.
Me: Hey man do you see that cloud up there? Holy shit we're about to get rained on.
Dru: *Looking at his phone, uninterested* Yeah dude it rains really hard in the south.
Five minutes later you could see the wall of water as we drove towards it. It looked like cars were disappearing into another dimension as they drove through it. This finally got Dru's attention. "Holy shit", he said. We entered into the rain and my wipers were as fast as they could go and I couldn't see a god damn thing. Eventually we started passing cars on the side of the road pulled over with their flashers on so I did what they did. After about 30 seconds of sitting on the shoulder I decided that driving was probably a quicker way to get out of this thing.
Me: I think we should keep driving, this can't last much longer.
Dru: Yeah I don't know why the fuck you pulled over in the first place.
Me: I couldn't see you asshole!
Dru: *Rolls window down and sticks head out to look around* Those rain drops are so big, it feels like hail! It kind of hurts!
Me: Get your head back in the car, we're gettin' out of here pal.
About 45 seconds later the rain completely stopped and it was sunny. The south is wild.
Every time we crossed a state line Dru would turn to me and say, “You can knock *state name* off your list of states you haven’t been to. “People keep track of that?”, I asked. “Yeah they make maps so you can scratch off which states you have and haven’t been to and eventually scratch them all off”. If someone gave me a map like that I'd be pissed. Then I would feel obligated to go to the shitty states. There's a few states I can do without.
After 4 coffees each and roughly 65 mg of nicotine we arrived to Memphis. We went straight to the gym and got yoked. Afterwards we went to Walgreens to get some protein bars. The store manager was walking to his car after closing the shop and he actually stopped when we pulled in and re-opened for us. God damn southerners are so nice.
We woke up early the next morning so we would have enough time to day drink in Nashville. We were 4 hours away form our destination. We hit the road.