After the send off to send all off (with a surprise from Madeline at my party) Madeline and I hit the road for the Lone Star State. It torrential rained the minute we hit Bloomington-Normal all the way to our first stop. Thankfully it stopped for 30 minutes (I'm not lying), because the Gateway Arch in St. Louis was our first stop. Can you believe Madeline has never been there? I KNOW!! We walked to the entrance in a slight mist and when we got tickets to go up, by the time the super claustraphobic egg ride finished, the clouds had parted and we could see all the way...into the cornfields of Illinois haha.
From there we made our way to the day's end destination. My dad's Aunt Emy and Uncle Gene's house in Rogers, AR. It is so nice to stay with family on long trips. Having a comfy bed and nice shower to rest up for another day of 10 + hours of driving really makes a difference. We left the next day and continued our road trip. I have to say the drive to TX from IL is not the most picturesque and sometimes its really hard to stay alert driving through 10 hours of cornfields. Thank God for NW AR with its beautiful hills and winding roads, because after that, it was more cornfields in OK, and northern TX.
We finally reached Marble Falls, TX and Madeline's camp after 12 hours of driving. It was so nice to know that we would not be driving for a long time after that. I've often been told that I couldn't have picked a worse time to move down to TX haha. I had to come down during the hottest most oppressive time in Texas' year weather wise and that is no lie! They averaged triple digit Temps for over 2 weeks straight!! This portly fellow from Chicago looked like he went swimming in his clothes about 10 minutes just walking out the door!
For the next 6 weeks my days consisted of going to the local coffee shops and looking for jobs, applying for jobs, interviewing for jobs. That's pretty much it. Kind of boring but a much needed necessity because I couldn't live on Madeline's camp forever. Nor would I want to, they are about 60+ miles from Austin so commuting meant 120 miles round trip! My car could not do that with any consistency which I found out at about week 4 haha. I had gotten a job (my first job in the state of TEXAS!!) as a bread delivery driver for a small bakery called Great Harvest Bakery. I would wake up at 4:30am leave Madeline's by 5 to get to work a little after 6. Picked up the bread to be delivered to two local Costcos and the other bakery location (they don't actually bake at the second location). Then I would come back and pick up super fresh baked bread (the bakers get to the bakery at 3am to start baking the bread for the day) and take more over to the second location. It was an ok job, money coming in at least, hours kind of blew, but I met some really nice people. One of the bakers loves to cook and I turned him on to Giardinara and Beer Brats so on my last day he brought me in a jar of homemade Giardinara (which doesn't exist in stores down here) and cooked me beer brats in the huge bread oven so when I came back from deliveries they were ready to eat on loaves he made that morning. MY GOD WAS IT SUPER DELICIOUS!!!! It tasted a like a little bit of home so far away.
Ok, back to week 4 or maybe 5. I was heading to work at 5 like I always did and this was my lasst week at the bakery because I had found a full-time job (more on that in a bit) and I got to the Perdenales River Bridge and a few warning lights turned on my dashboard. I started to freak out once I pressed on the gas, and nothing happened. I lost power steering and was going 70+ mph down the road. Luckily a gas station appeared and I swerved off the road and almost, ALMOST in to their uphill driveway. Luckily the brakes worked so I didn't slide back into traffic and i called Madeline to help me out. When she arrived we tried pushing the car into the gas station but I learned as strong as I thought I was, I couldn't push a car up a hill by myself. A truck full of guys pulled up, got out, pushed my car up the hill into the station, got back in their truck and drove away. I was so grateful to my hill country guardian angels haha. I didn't even get to say thank you, it was done before I knew it. So I called for a tow and waited for it to arrive. I didn't know that Monday was everyone needed a tow truck day because I waited from 6am-4pm at the gas station before a truck came.
Now where I was stranded I had a predicament. I was literally in the middle of Marble Falls and Austin. Literally. 30 miles in either way. Can you imagine the price of the tow!!!!!? I was able, through the help of Yelp, find a local garage that was only 5 miles away on the road I was stranded on! What luck! I got the car towed and the little Hispanic man, Luis told me he would call me once he got the damage report and he hoped it was just a hose that broke and leaked all my coolant out of the car. This turned out to not be the case. I guess, I didn't have coolant in my car for a little bit and my engine overheated and blew the head gasket and other parts of my engine. Yay! And instead of a $100 hose replace, it was $1900 engine rebuild!!!! SUPER AWESOME! They said my car would be ready in a week because they had to machine a whole new part. So a week goes by, I'm using Madeline's car as my mode of transportation by the way (which is not the most in shape car in the world but her car is like an old battle axe. A lot of scars but keeps rolling). I call Luis, and it will be another day, next day comes, one more day, that day comes, one more day. At this point I should mention, I have found an apartment, a nice 1 bedroom right on I-35 and Oltorf pretty close to my new job and friends who live in Austin. Also, my dad is in town helping me move all my stuff he brought down from IL into my apartment. So Thursday (a week and 4 days later) my car is ready and we go pick it up. It was so nice to have a functioning car, a place to sleep, and a full time job to go to, and all my things about me. This all happened in less than a week.
I had mentioned I had gotten a new full-time job. I now work for a company called Amplifier. They are a third party customer service/ logistics company that warehouses, produces and ships products for various online companies so they do not have to worry about that sort of stuff. Some of our top clients are Livestrong, The Chive, Rooster Teeth, Homestar Runner and Rowdy Gentlemen. I basically answer and respond to people's online complaints or questions. Like when you fill out a basic email form on a website and send it in to that company "Where's my stuff!" I'm the one who tells you it's on it's way. The people I work with are great and it's always fun to go to work (weird I know). The company is also sponsored by CrossFit, kind of like P90X or Insanity. It's a crazy workout that uses the body as it's main form of resistance. Anyway, they offer 3 free classes AT Amplifier a week taught by one of my co-workers who is licensed in the techniques. It's a tough class. I mean, I threw up the first workout. But I take solice in knowing that everyone has thrown up at least once during these workouts haha. That leads us to today. I'm sitting in a small local coffee shop (Thunderbird Coffee) with Madeline and writing this up.
I hope everyone is doing well back home. I miss you all terribly and I cannot wait to come back and see everyone in November. My new address is:
3209 S IH-35
Apt. 1-3094
Austin, TX 78741
I accept all letters and packages. If sent a letter I will write back. I love you all.
Kyle
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