Zak and I, before #Vanlife, have taken a LOT of road trips, and quite a few of those road trips have been 6+ hours. We have driven to NY from FL (and back) twice and from GA to IA and back, so we’re no strangers to driving for long periods of time. However, when we started Vanlife, we decided that we would never drive more than 2 hours at a time. There’s just so much out there to see, and skipping over more than 2 hours worth of open road is a lot!
However, in this instance, we had just had a lovely, but long weekend seeing our friends and my brothers in Tampa and the work week was starting. In addition, Keith (Zak’s dad) and Nanny (Zak’s Nanny) were headed out to see Zak’s brother and their new grandson in St. Augustine later that week. So we figured the more time we got to spend with them and Kathy, the better.
We left Tampa on a Monday (Pi Day, 3/14) to go to Zak’s parents’ house in Appalachicola. However, before we left, we had stopped to get some pie at Goody Goody, and also hung out with my brothers for a bit. Plus, we chatted a lot with Dr. Freundt! We probably didn’t leave Tampa until 9pm or so. It is about a 5 hour drive from Tampa to Appalachicola. Zak drove the second half of the trip, and around 2 am, I decided that it would be best if journaled before we got to Keith and Kathy’s, because I knew all I would want to do when we got there was sleep. Anyhow, here is my unedited journal entry from that night:
Day 25: 3/15/22 1:42am
We are about an hour out from Keith and Kathy. I am so tired I can’t barely type or keep my eyes open. Zsk has been playing hella country music. We got to see Dr.K and doctor Freundt. tofu.’mmmmmmmmmm wow okay don’t know where that came from. I think I’m micro dreaming**. Anyhow, dr Freundt gave zak and i 2 bottles of beer that the micro class brewed. He even made a sour!! We also celebrated po day from Goody Goody. No chocolate cream tho. Also saw a girl from Barnard there! And got a follower from our decals! It was awesome to see buns and Chris. Idk how the hell im gonna tutor tomorrow morning. I’m so exhausted. I’m really excited to blog more!!!!!!!
3/15/22 10:33pm
Today was super rainy all day and very tired. I haven’t been very good at looking at my week’s schedule before hand, so I woke up at 8:30 after staying up until 2:30am just to find out that my student is on Spring Break. (Which also was kind of cool. Haha) I think that the only useful things today that I did was shower, nap, and tutor 1.5 sessions (bad internet).
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**When I said Micro-dreaming, I actually meant micro-sleeping. Although I have linked an interesting article about micro-dreaming here. Micro-sleeping occurs most often when the body is sleep deprived. The body is greedy for sleep and will beg, borrow, and steal in order to get that much needed rest. (Micro-sleep is the “stealing” part of that analogy).
I hadn’t gone to bed before midnight since the previous Thursday, and in the passenger’s seat at 2am, I was again, staying up wayyy past my bedtime. Without realizing it, my body/brain shifted into a very brief episode of sleep. (Another reason why driving drowsy is so dangerous… good thing Zak was caffeinated and I was not driving!)
