Tag: Austin Texas

Driving to Austin (Texas) from Illinois is always a multi-day trek.

We generally spend one night in St. Louis with family. (Thanks, Mark!)

After that, normally, we take our own sweet time, but my spouse decreed that we would not leave until Saturday (Nov. 2) and that has made all the difference. I don’t know why I meekly accepted that departure date.  I’ll just say it was because I was dumb.

Why dumb?

Because I wanted to make sure to vote for President on November 5th and now we’re registered in Texas. The U.S. cannot afford another 4 years  of Donald J. Trump. It barely withstood the first four horrible years of Covid, climate denial, cronyism, insults and incompetent people in sensitive government posts followed by a January 6th coup in an attempt to seize power when DJT lost the 2020 election. Enough! We are the world’s laughing stock to even think of putting a convicted felon in a post where he travels the world representing us, as a nation, when his Access Hollywood tape displays plenty of reasons why a man accused of (and convicted of) sexual assault is not a fit person to lead the greatest nation on Earth. How can a man who calls our military “chumps” and “losers” be made Commander-in-Chief ? It’s preposterous and unthinkable. Not only that: how can any parent be proud of holding up DJT for their children to emulate— a guy who is a congenital liar and hawks everything from watches to shoes to any other con known to man. (And also rode the Lolita Express to his friend Jeffrey Epstein’s private island on more than one occasion.)

I wrote 6 books in a series called “The Christmas Cats in Silly Hats” and all of them were about helping others and being good citizens. And then Donald J. Trump—a convicted felon and world class liar and con man—somehow (with Russia’s assistance) became our representative abroad as President of the United States. I’m still in shock over that and just read a very interesting “New Yorker” story about the extent of Russia’s aid to DJT back in 2016, which Attorney General Bill Barr downplayed when it was very real. (I own a copy of the Mueller Report and have read the entire thing, not the Bill Barr Cliff Notes version.)

We had received all kinds of absentee Illinois ballots, in Rock Island County where we previously voted. My question is whether or not we could have voted using the absentee ballots we received (in Illinois) as long as we didn’t “double up?” (i.e., no voting twice.) Since I did not know if we could pick and choose, we went  with the “drive to Texas and vote when we get there” plan, which has revealed itself to have many drawbacks, just as I had feared.

I was in Chicago right up until October 28th (Chicago International Film Festival), so I began packing immediately upon returning to East Moline, Illinois, and was ready to leave after 2 days of packing. I  would have preferred arriving a day or so prior to the vote, just in case anything unexpected happened on the drive down (see photos). I would have liked to have left no later than November 1st. Even more, I wish we had secured absentee ballots, because now I will have to stand in line in Austin, Texas. (*Mind you: I also spent July 25 through September here in sunny Austin; the back-and-forth continues). But I accepted the “November 2” departure pronouncement without a word of protest. That’s on me. I should have known better. As one friend pointed out, I should have voted absentee. But, honestly, this plan to vote in Texas is so new that I did not know how to get an absentee ballot from Texas here. I’ll have to work on that for future elections.

In an attempt to make the Choctaw Indian Casino and Resort in Durant, Oklahoma, to spend the night there on November 3rd, we were caught up in the tornadoes, heavy rain and 70 mph winds that swept through Oklahoma on Sunday. We drove from 10 in the morning until the accident that you see pictured here, which took place around 7 p.m. in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, (which is not close to anything and only has about 11,000 residents.) We had decided to give up on the push to make it to Durant by nightfall, because of the weather, and were stopped at an intersection that had red blinking lights. It had been dark since 4:30 p.m. (thanks to Daylight Savings Time). We stopped at the intersection (U.S. 75 and 6th Street), just as one is supposed to, but the car heading from the driver’s left either did not stop at all or stopped way too briefly and then gunned through the intersection, in the driving rain, and side-swiped my 2020 Prius Anniversary Car.

I was and am very, very sad about this. It was one of only two that were even sold in Moline from this 2020 Special Edition. (I have owned about 6 Priuses going back to 2002, when they cost $20,050 and you got a $500 rebate from the government, along with 0% interest.) Moline got a white one and a red one; I bought the red one. We drove it less than 100 yards to the bottom of Kennedy Drive and John Deere Road, after picking it up, brand new, when an uninsured driver from Texas rear-ended me. Not a great beginning and now, not a great ending—if it is the ending, [which it well could be.]

My door frame was sprung.  I could just barely get in and/or out of the car. I’m pretty sure I incurred a broken rib (from the seat belt) upon impact, as it hurts to laugh, cough or hiccup. I think my side of the car does looks like it got hit harder. My husband, fortunately, was unhurt. We both feel very lucky that injury was avoided. But now what?

I had an app on my phone that showed us that there were only 2 places one could stay in the small town. Someone called in the accident and three policemen appeared and took down data. (I was in search of a women’s rest room, so I missed most of the initial conversation with the kid who hit us—Jimmy Hawkins—or with the firemen and/or policemen. Two medics also came and took my blood pressure, which the technician said was better than his own.) While my chest hurt, it felt like a broken or bruised rib, not tachycardia or arrhythmia.

After I ran 150 yards to a Subway store with a bathroom (of paramount importance at that particular moment in time), we found the Holiday Inn Express 1.6 miles down the road and checked in. I think I was experiencing  PTSD, because it was only 7:30 p.m. but I was exhausted. It could be auto-immune hepatitis, which the liver people think I may have and which makes you tired. (I start CellCept soon).

I fell asleep (until 4:3o a.m.) and went back to sleep until 8 a.m., but we also contacted Triple AAA and someone was supposed to come help us out with our car situation in 90 minutes.

We waited for 2 hours and nobody showed up. We canceled the appointment and decided we would attempt to drive the damaged car farther. I do not recommend this and we hoped that we were invisible to highway patrol along the route, because the main reason for continuing, despite the risks, was so that we could vote tomorrow. I hope to be among those from northern states who are “purpling” up the state of Texas, in time. (After all, if we voted in Illinois, the state will go blue; if we vote in Texas, the state will go red. But more people are moving to Texas than are moving to Illinois, so...).

Ironically, the interior of the car seemed fine. The headlights were dubious, but the taillights worked fine and, although the dashboard was signaling all kinds of issues with various dashboard services (no cruise control; passenger door not able to be fully opened; etc.) the actual motor seemed to be okay, the radio worked, the tail lights and signals worked, as did the windshield wipers. It was primarily the headlights (and my door) that were not working well. My husband spent the night restlessly trying to figure out how we were going to get a rental car when we had been told the closest one was 50 miles away in Tulsa. And there was no way to get to Tulsa but to drive the injured vehicle there (which is why we should have left earlier for our voting trip down).  I, on the other hand, felt exhausted and passed out early, [which never happens.] I seriously don’t know if it was the dealing with this unexpected catastrophe, riding all day from St. Louis, or AIH, but I was totally out of it and remained so for about 12 hours.

On Monday (Nov. 4, today), my spouse got up at 7:00 a.m. (to call the AAA guy at 7:15 a.m.)  and we were on the road fairly quickly, once we had waited (and waited and waited) for the Triple AAA guy [who did not show up in 90 minutes, or 120 minutes.] Our kids suggested flights out of Tulsa, but we had beaucoup crap to get to Texas packed in our car, including a rather large painting I want to hang over the TV set. How would we deal with getting all of that stuff into a different car—if we could even get one in Tulsa, 50 miles away?

We talked about our options. My Big Concern was getting down here to vote for Kamala Harris.  I am, after all, the author of “BEE GONE” (available on Amazon) and I really want to see DJT “BEE GONE.”

So, we decided to chance it. (Kids: Do NOT Try This At Home!)

First, we purchased zip ties and tied everything down on my poor red car that we could.

That didn’t keep the right front fender from beginning to become really wonky by the time we hit Waco. We pulled off and—somehow—my husband removed the front panel that had (previously) been zip tied and left it in the parking lot of a tractor supply store. (Apropos), We would have transported the fender to a dumpster if we could have put the piece of metal in our overcrowded car. We had to drive for 5 hours in my damaged 2020 Anniversary Edition Prius. Can it even be saved? Don’t know. Can’t tell you.

KAMALA: I HOPE YOU APPRECIATE THIS! We risked tickets and personal injury to get to the polls tomorrow.

I read that older women prefer Kamala 68% to 25% or some such and I believe it. I fought hard for women to have the right to decide about what happens to their own bodies, back in the 60s and 70s. I still have my ERA bracelet from the 70s. Watching it all disappear under this guy is not on my Top Ten list. We will NOT go back. It is time to give Agent Orange his walking papers.

I managed to read half of Steven King’s book “The Long Walk” during our drive down but we forgot to charge the e-reader and it gave up the ghost about the same time my front right fender did. We’ll finish it on the way home. I also was reading Bob Woodward’s “War” and a book entitled “Watchdogs.”

We prayed for invisibility when driving, as this is obviously not the kind of vehicle you want on the road in that condition. But I was NOT going to be denied the ability to vote DJT into oblivion. “BEE GONE.”

I just hope that my liver doctor, who saw me on July 26 when I had just had my right thumbnail ripped off at the airport (see photo), isn’t disappointed in my ability to follow her directions to me, which were, “Try not to hurt yourself before I see you again.”

I see her on November 7th for a fibrescan and now I have a rib that hurts when I cough, laugh or hiccup.

I just hope that’s all I have.

Wish me luck.

And vote for good over evil and hope over fear.

Ladies, it’s up to us to save democracy. I’m doing my part. Do yours!