A month ago....one fine evening, I got a call from my sister saying "varun, this summer you really have to be there for our annual get-together"....It was hard to say "No", after me skipping last year's annual event. So I said "Yes", not knowing what my actual plan was....
After contemplating for a long time...whether to fly to Indianapolis or to take a 8 hour road-trip...I decided I will drive..(It's been quite some time that I had taken a road trip)...
The plan became complicated after my brother's friend wanted me to visit North Carolina.Me driving for 14 hours, alone, continuously is (always) difficult...(not impossible..but difficult)...
Then my seemingly impossible task of coaxing sushanth and prasanna to accompany me to the trip bore fruition. The arithmetic became slightly more complicated with gunjan wanting to go to Ames, Iowa to visit her sister. So the final equation looked like: Manhattan- Ames, Iowa- Florence, KY- Smokeys, TN- NC and for the return trip the equation is NC- Manhattan, KS.
And all we had was 3 days for the entire trip.....
We started our trip on the friday afternoon, drove 6 hours to Ames, IA, dropped Gunjan and then started our 2 leg of the trip to KY....We drove across Illinois, Indiana and then finally we were at florence the next morning. The whole crew were ready for the third leg of the trip by the time we arrived. So we decided we wont sleep(Honestly, we didn't have much time to sleep either!!!) and after a gruelling 6-7 hours drive we reached Smokey's and checked ourselves in a beautiful cabin. (I never hated driving before but for a second that thought flashed my mind!!!)
Within no-time we found sushanth falling asleep. Prasanna and I decided to wait till the dinner was served..and Voila...the waiting paid off...we had an amazing dinner after a long..long time. After our dinner, off we went to sleep...Sleeping never felt sweeter ....after a long, long sleepless driving, it was something we desperately wanted...
The next day, we visited smokey's, had a great time, got stuck in the weekend traffic , took the cable car, drove all the way to florence, KY....all in a single day...(BTW, the NC trip was shelved after the first 3 legs of the trip....)
We were given a separate room in my sister's home- hoping we wont disturb anyone the next morning when we left their place...We got up at 6AM, took a shower and had some breakfast and said goodbye to almost all of them (How on the earth are people getting up so early??!!)and found ourselves in a too-familiar position- "driving for 16 hours NON- STOP".
Return trip was actually quite easy- with sushanth, prasanna and myself sharing the time behind the wheel and from Ames, IA it was Gunjan's turn....
We reached manhattan at around 1AM, monday morning. It took me 2 full days to recover from the trip tiredness. But it was one hell of a experience for me....
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