Long Drives

I've missed a couple of blog posts because I've been on vacation. Whew! Glad that's done. It was fun. It was great seeing family, fantastic scenery, memories, yada yada. Tired. Vacations are meant to be relaxing, but I think we all know better. We could have flown, but where’s the fun in that? For us, a long drive is a family event. (Also, my kids are too old to ask "are we there yet?" without being grounded for insubordination so long drives aren't as trying as they used to be.)

The Boy is fond of his 'backseat driver' position in our minivan. He was only vocal about his vantage point when I was driving for some reason. Once I was in the driver’s seat and Hubby was safely asleep, my darling thirteen-year-old son (who’s never sat behind the wheel of a real car in his life) started giving me tips from Grand Theft Auto on how to navigate through traffic. It was nerve-wracking and I had to keep reminding myself we were on our way to Seattle where marijuana was recently legalized.

The Girl took up counting the highway fatality markers on this trip. You know, the white cross people put up where a friend or family member died in a car accident? Sometimes it’s not a cross, it’s something else. A little morbid as hobbies for a bored fifteen-year-old girl go, but I suppose they’re meant to be a memorial.

Some markers were actually very elaborate, some were nearly permanent. In Washington, there were “Don’t drink and drive” signs with “in memory of . . .” plaques below them. That was interesting. Then we started seeing ‘adopt a highway’ signs that were ‘in memory of . . .’  and weren’t sure if they counted as highway fatality markers or not. Nothing’s simple anymore. We decided not to count them simply because we kept missing them. Anyway, she counted sixty-five in six states/sixteen days/3300 miles.  

Hubby just drove and kept turning off the music when I turn it on until it was my turn to drive. Then he left the music alone and fell asleep, until I slowed down for any reason. As soon as I gently touched the brakes, Hubby would wake up like I hit a deer. Oddly, I could have probably hit a deer and not disturbed him as long as I didn’t hit the brakes. I had this strange twitching urge to test that theory, but it would have ruined both the front of the van and a perfectly good deer. I think the deer suspected I was considering this because they avoided us when I was driving. Smart move.

The chipmunks weren`t so smart. They were . . . another time.