4-08-08 Get Your Kicks On Route 66

For the past three days, I haven’t been able to get a decent night's sleep. It’s really been frustrating waking up in the morning and feeling like crap. Today I woke up feeling like I got three hours of sleep, instead of 7. I think that all of the crap that’s been going on has finally caught up with me. The only thing that was good about my morning was the breakfast. I could see the strain in everyone, and it was really sad. Some of us talked over breakfast and came to the conclusion that maybe we really screwed up last night. Tim and Tyrone don’t look to optimistic. Justin and Jacob are pretty down and Sydney seemed to realize that maybe the trip might actually me cancelled. Even perky Jennifer looked miserable and no one was smiling. I really hope there will never be a repeat of this morning. While I was sitting there waiting for the truck to be loaded, I started thinking about last night and everything Thomsen said and I realized that maybe we screwed up, but more importantly, I didn’t want this trip to end and for me to go home. Shit, With really low spirits, we all left the hotel thinking we were going to be sent home. As it turned out, we were actually driving to Tucumcari for the night. This was our chance to make up for our mistake and we were not going to waste it. So the whole entire day was spent catching up on makeup work. I felt like I was moving at a snails pace calling all of the contacts. But I felt good when I realized that I had caught up to Norman, OK. After calling, I dozed off for a little while and the next thing I knew we were stopping for lunch. It was really fun because after we were done eating lunch we got to play football! We started playing flyers up and I was a little scared that I would jam my fingers so several times I let the ball go through my hands. As a result Jacob, who would always be behind me, got hit. After the third hit, he decided to avoid me as much as possible. Tee hee! When we left the gas stop, Mr. Thomsen decided to put us on bikes, which we were all reluctant to do since everyone thought this was going to be our last ride and that we were all going to be sent home. The ride was amazingly easy! It was mostly flat, with a couple of hills. What I loved the most about the ride was the scenery. Even though it was dry, there would be these patches of beautiful green grasses. Also as we neared the end of our ride there were these carved out red sand spots. By the end of our ride, our hands were sore from the bumps on the back roads. Oh and by the way, the whole time we were riding on route 66! After my group was done, we rode in the car for a while, until Arielle had go to the bathroom so we stopped in this little town that was part of historic route 66. As we waited for Arielle, Jennifer came rushing towards the cars and told us to come and meet her new friends. As it turned out they were this old couple that had been living on route 66 for basically all their lives! They brought us into their shop and explained to us they were going to be featured in the new Cars Land at Disney Adventure. At first we all thought this was just a joke, but it turned out to be true! They even put on a show for us and later had us sing the Route 66 song. It was a blast! I will never forget that experience as long as I live. Once we got back into the cars I realized that we were almost to our destination, and exhaustion is beginning to hit again. We haven’t had dinner, but chile and fritos is starting to sound really good. I’m super excited for tomorrow since it’s going to be in Santa Fe, but I think all of us are really concerned that we blew it in Norman and that Thomsen is going to send us home. Regardless, I have heard great things about Santa Fe, so hopefully things will go well tomorrow.