Oktober fest was fun. Wow what an enticing opening line. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m still caffeinating and waiting for the headache meds to kick in. The headache would be from long drive and lack of sleep rather than overconsumption of beer. We had a great visit with our friends in Omaha and really enjoyed ourselves (though I still say that bratwurst taste like giant breakfast sausages–the pretzels on the other hand were OMG awesome). I picked up some new books (yeah I know…that moratorium…it’s a sickness) and did a little on the road brainstorming about HiS. We got off to come home by 7:30 yesterday morning, then stopped in Kansas City to see my very pregnant best friend (7 weeks to go!) for a few hours before finally setting out for the final leg at 3 o’clock. We totally stayed longer than we intended. Which put us getting home after midnight. Not particularly thrilling, but thankfully, we were both able to take off work today to recover and catch up on things around the house. THANK GOD. But anyway, we arrived home safe and sound and very cranky after 1 and went to bed. I had intended to sleep in, but I was awak,e if not bright eyed and bushytailed, at 9:22.
Anyway, I had a few reflections on roadtrips to share.
- Trips home suck and always take longer than the trip there. This may be due to traffic, detours, excessive pit stops, or just general bad luck. But they suck. Because inevitably you really didn’t want to leave wherever you’ve been and if you DO, you want to be able to just sort of teleport instead of actually DRIVE all that way.
- It is the law of the road that no matter how much healthy, tasty food you pack for a road trip, you will inevitably give in and nosh on gas station junk food and drive thru meals. If you consistently eat healthy at home, this has a predictably not cool effect on your stomach.
- GPS navigators are awesome. Ours took a trip that took us 14 hours the last time we drove it and shaved off more than an hour. They would be considerably more awesome if they had a button you could punch every time you wanted to make a stop for gas or food or potty breaks because hearing that computerized voice say “recalculating” all the time makes you want to choke someone. It would also be cool if they had up to the minute adjustments to your route that reflect all detours. There’s probably some expensive model that does that.
- Someone in this country needs to start a chain of fast food restaurants that keep the same hours as Wendy’s, Sonic, and Taco Bell but serves non-greasy, relatively healthy food. Because when you’re in the middle of nowhere on the highway after 10 PM and you want a late dinner, grease does not really fit the bill. See previous law of the road.
- When driving after about 10 PM, I usually start wishing that I was in one of those stripped down Maseratis that they use for drug running from Mexico. Not that I’m smuggling anything, I just want to be able to speed my fanny home as quickly as possible without fear of speeding tickets. Because really, I’m too old for this driving until the wee hours of the morning crap.
- And finally, there is absolutely NOTHING in the world better than getting home to your own house, with your own thermostat and functional air conditioner, and your own bedroom with your own bed and your own blackout curtains and finally getting to SLEEP. Bliss.