Hi I'm Mike and this is Mike's Road Trip. "Get off the road..." "All right." Hi I'm
Mike of Mike's Road Trip and on this episode I'm going to share with you an arduous journey to get
reunited with my girlfriend Mihaela. We have been separated by borders for over nine months now.
You see Mihaela is from Romania, you may have seen her on some of my older videos.
We actually did an epic road trip around the Southwest last year around this time in March
when Covid just started really closing everything down. Whe left in June of last year and that's
really when it became impossible to travel so that's how we've been separated all this time
thank goodness for technology because we've been able to communicate almost every day via face-time
so that has been really really helpful why Chicago well it's right next to Indiana and Indiana is the
number one manufacturing state for rvs and that is where we're going to pick up our brand new
Dutchmen Kodiak Cub travel trailer and we're gonna road trip all around the country for the
next four to five months and we're gonna document the entire experience but in the
meantime I've got about a three long day trip road trip to Chicago to pick up Mihila
oh man you just stretch out oh i love the snow it's not much but it's still nice
i told you everybody was telling me about Charleston yeah and i was i was talking to
Lisa yesterday saying where we're going and blah blah blah and she was like oh you could go through
to Charleston took me nearby i said yeah we are i said oh say hello to last four people
oh my [ __ ] god i always forgot that detail that's why i knew about Charleston because we
used to we have a plan there oh is that right yeah oh wow yeah yeah and everybody wants to go
to visit the park in trousers because it was one of our prettiest locations oh i bet yeah
i never been to get there though there must have been something going on
uh like ice or something on this road because you know i just told you about that semi that
was tipped over i just drove by about six or seven semis in the middle of the road all of them
turned over oh my god yeah there must have been a big storm or something that this is right yeah
right now in the middle of Texas gas is quite a bit cheaper here only two only 246 a gallon
in phoenix it was 315. Albuquerque was 278 and actually saw Sam's club was only 2.38
i guess it stands to reason we are in oil country so one of the nice things about these long road
trips is that i get caught up on uh all my phone calls so i was uh yesterday i was talking with
one of my best friends Jeff and um he travels a lot work for work so i asked him i said hey
where are you these days and he said uh he was in Oklahoma i said is that right he said whereabouts
and he told me and it was some small town I'd never heard of before and so i i said well I'm
going to be staying the night in Tulsa and he goes oh yeah it's just about half an hour from Tulsa i
said you gotta be kidding so uh I'm diverting my uh my direction a little bit to go see him but
uh yeah so I'm gonna stop by and have a quick chat with him and then I'll be heading on to Tulsa
What's with the cloak and dagger? "You can't just come to a job site like that."
So, did you see me drive up? I was coming out to meet you, i figured timing was you
had to be close. Yeah so how are you good you start seeing all of this contamination
um you can see on the back wall underneath the plastic mound you go down first level of dirt
that was dark at the top yeah that's our oil stand oh wow and this whole site up until this morning
smelled like nafta what's really strong it's a it's a it's a crude oil component huh
smells like mothballs but you'll i mean this truck will smell like it for two days after
you just drive by with an open door open window or door huh well that was really cool to be able to
see my buddy it's uh been a while and we don't get to see each other all that often because both of
us are always traveling he's on this job site in Cushing. Cushing, Oklahoma which is where all of
the pipelines the oil pipelines intersect and it's where the keystone pipeline was going to end and
the site that he is uh cleaning up uh in charge of cleaning up from a safety perspective is where
Streep was in that movie and i think
Well i just drove through St. Louis which is a city i would love to go back and visit
one of these days unfortunately this trip is not my usual road trips where
maybe i travel a couple hundred miles a day and spend the entire day doing it rather um
driving a couple thousand miles in just three days well i have just 24 hours until Mihaela
arrives into Chicago and I'm on the tail end of this long three-day road trip uh tonight I'm
actually going to divert a little bit to Peoria, Illinois where my aunt and uncle live and i'm
going to stay the night there and have a few hours to visit with them tomorrow before i drive into
Chicago and pick me high up at O'Hara so getting close cannot wait to see her
wind me up and watch me choke
he could build me with feathers and break me with smoke
holds me till i can't breathe
and his eyes tell me things his mouth can't achieve
me i feel a thousand different ways
still
I've got cracks on my back and my shoulder and my way you see i'm in nature but i do bad things
and when you want me well I'll be gone
boy it has been sunny all day a really pleasant day for driving
but as they get closer to Peoria wow does it look
ominous
there's always hope to keep us
as time goes by
well i had a fantastic visit with my aunt and uncle and now i just drove two and a half hours
or so to Chicago O'Hara airport uh where i am now waiting for me hilah to arrive her plane
is about 10 minutes later so uh so I'm just sitting here waiting in the parking lot uh
to have her get through customs and all that to go in and pick her up so our as soon as i
pick her up we're heading straight to Indiana we have about a two and a half three hour drive
and that's where the adventure will begin wow i guess they called the windy city for a reason
um might be a little tough to kiss her with one of these
oh this is so nerve-wracking I've been waiting and waiting and I'm just so nervous that something's
gonna happen at immigration so uh nevermind i didn't say that i don't want to jinx it
so many people are coming through the doors but not me hilah i just got a text
message from her and she's at border control or immigration so hopefully she'll be through soon.
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