And I Would Drive 500 Miles…

…and I would drive 500 more, just to be the girl who helps to deliver the coolest Christmas surprise in our family history.

Actually, the cumulative total for the weekend was somewhere around 1400 miles, which accounts for my absence here and my lack of production for Novel PI.  I am tired.

So what was I doing exactly?  Well, my MIL bought my FIL a new motorcycle and hubby and I went to go get it in order to preserve the surprise. This necessitated a quick weekend trip to Savannah.  Actually, the bike was in Statesboro, and since Savannah is just up the road, we decided to have a little fun.  It should have been a straight up, no problems trip that allowed us to spend most of Saturday playing around Savannah.  Of course, since my husband is nicknamed Murphy for a reason, it didn’ t happen that way.

We spent the night somewhere in Georgia Friday night, got up Saturday morning and headed to Statesboro, arriving to find out that the perfect, pristine 1995 BMW K1100 with the pretty red paintjob had had the starter relay smoked.  Of course it took hubby and the seller guy at least an hour to determine this was why the bike wasn’t starting.  So then the seller, who felt horrible, got on the phone to try to find the part.  Nearest one in stock was in Charleston, SC.  So…yeah, more road trip.  I’d never been to Charleston before, and I don’t really feel like I can say I’ve been now as all I saw was the bike shop and a cheap Chinese place for lunch.  It’s like how I’ve technically BEEN to New Orleans and Los Angeles, but all I ever saw was the airport.  Seller’s wife met us in Savannah, picked seller and the part up and he went back to wrench on the bike and fix stuff.  We went to check into our swanky hotel near River Street.  Hubby’s thank you to me for spending my entire weekend on the road when I had other things to do, was to get a fancy hotel for one night where we could walk all over downtown Savannah.  Wish we’d had more time there.  We wound up spending the evening at Kevin Barry’s Pub, where I drank way too much and we both enjoyed the music of Brendan Nolan, who was awesome and knew my favorite Scottish ballad (Black is the Colour, in case you were wondering).  I’ve never seen a bodhran played before.  It was really cool.

Anyway, I was kind of hung over Sunday morning, so we got off half an hour late to pick up the bike.  Then the process of purchasing it took longer than it should.  We didn’t get off until 10:40.  Then the GPS took us down some country backroad trying to save us miles to get to I-16, which we found out 15 miles in that the road was blocked and there was no detour.  So then we spent 45 minutes trying to find our way through the labyrinthine mess of county backroads to find an alternate route.  FINALLY got going and made decent time on the way home considering we had to stop every 2 hours for hubby the meatcicle to thaw out.  He was wearing long johns, 2 pair of jeans, armoured over pants, a winter jacket with liner, a fleece, a balaclava, 2 pair of socks, and the biggest winter riding gloves I’ve seen.  It was a COLD ride back for him.   The bike is hiding at our house until Christmas Eve.

The plan on Christmas Eve is for all of us to be at the in laws’ house and for hubby, who has to work, to come later on the bike.  Halfway up the street he’s going to cut the engine and coast the rest of the way into the driveway so Daddy doesn’t hear him drive up.  Then we’ll do the present thing and he’ll get the manual.  Then a toy version (so it looks like we’re sadistic).  Then hubby will go outside and crank it.  It should be a really big, fun surprise.

In the meantime, I have today at work, then I leave tomorrow for another 1000 mile round trip to Texas to see my grandmother and uncle.  I think I’ve clocked more time on road trips this year than I ever have before in a year.  Kansas City, North Carolina, Hot Springs, Texas, Savannah twice, Charleston, Omaha…I think I’d like to stay put for a while.