Day Two--The Journey Continues

Desperate Prayer of the Day by Doug: Please make this Route 395, even if it wasn’t before!

--10:40am. We were traveling through our old haunts in Maryland where we lived with our two little ones from 1971-1974. We kept exclaiming over highway signs that announced Silver Springs, Andrews Air Force Base, Beltsville, New Carrollton and Annapolis. We felt young again. It felt good.

--11:00am We saw the top of the capitol building! It still evokes pride and awe in us.

--Doug had been surprised when the GPS had insisted on going through Washington, DC, but so far (in spite of his declarations of disagreement), it had not steered us wrong. But through Washington, DC?! And, then, right in the middle of a dubious part of town, the TomTom went to sleep! That’s right—it closed its weary eyes, gave a soft snore, and the screen went dark. I repeat--right in the middle of a dubious part of Washington, DC.

Obviously the GPS needed to be recharged. There was a McDonald’s on the corner, so we fought our way through DC traffic and pulled into the parking lot. No one in the entire restaurant spoke English, so no one could tell me if they had Wi-Fi. Since I saw no sign advertising this service, we decided to use the bathroom and leave. That is, until we learned that they charged to use the bathroom; there was no way we were going to pay cash for that privilege!

Grumpy now (for more reason than one), we tightened our seat belts and pulled out into the unknown. I have to say that my husband is amazing. By instinct and vague memories of years past, he was able to navigate through the streets of DC. Eventually he breathed the Please make this Route 395, even if it wasn’t before prayer and we were on the highway. By 11:30 we crossed the border into Virginia, and I must say, a Welcome to Virginia sign has never looked sweeter.

Day Two

Saturday, February 26

Quote of the day: “Every so often I need OUT; something will throw me into total disproportion, and I have to get away from everybody—away from all these people I love most in the world—in order to regain a sense of proportion.” A Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L’Engle

--We woke up early, packed the car and were on the road at 6:50, earlier than we had announced the evening before. We were heading to Todd’s to get the insurance card for our car, when he called to say that he was at that very moment in Ehret’s driveway with the insurance card in hand! [Now, that sounds like a Gilmore girl scenario.]
--We met him at McDonald's near his house and he patiently taught me how to text and how to answer text messages. [Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?]
--We were on the road again (Why does that phrase sound vaguely familiar?) at 8:10.

We’re off the to see the Wizard! The wonderful Wizard of Oz!

--And then started the love/hate relationship with the TomTom. First of all were the bongs that went off every time Doug exceeded the speed limit (you can just imagine how well that went over), and then there were the fairly frequent times when Doug disagreed with the directions the woman was giving him. (Once again, you can just imagine that whole verbal scenario.)
--I, on the other hand, was caught up in a lovely world created by Madeleine L’Engle. Doug kept talking to me, but I was completely oblivious. I finally had a decision to make: should I be a good wife, put the book away, and be involved with an on-going conversation with my husband? Or, should I remain immersed in A Circle of Quiet and completely ignore every wild animal—dead or alive—that my husband pointed out to me along the road? I agonized for a bit, and finally made my choice.

But, I’m not going to tell you which choice I made. I'll leave that up to you to decide.

South Carolina or Bust!

Our first-ever-escape-the-despair-of-winter vacation

Sing with me: We’re off the to see the Wizard! The wonderful Wizard of Oz!

--Doug and I left Newark Valley at 8:30am on Friday, February 19, with a car packed so full you couldn’t squeeze in another Field and Stream magazine.

--We stopped at Tami’s for a cup of tea and gentle hugs after her recent surgery (Blasted gall bladder)

--We made one more stop at Ryan’s office building to get his TomTom which, we sadly discovered, will not charge in our we’ll-be-forever-grateful-for Honda Civic (an important detail to remember for my Day Two post).

--We tried to sneak past the Dunkin Donuts in Great Bend, but the Silver Bullet lurched to the right and zipped down the exit ramp, refusing to get back on 81S until an iced caramel latte was standing tall in the passenger cup holder.

-- We were counting the minutes--like so many labor pains--to get to our grand-kids, but Doug was belting out “You’ve Gotta Have a Made-Up Mind” with such zeal that he missed the Quakertown exit. Wes then spent a significant amount of time on the phone, tracking our location on the computer, and then telling Doug every right and left turn he needed to make to--finally--get us to Washington Ave., Souderton, PA.

--Soon after our arrival, Doug and I squeezed in the Ehret car along with Kaley, Griffin, and Lincoln and hung out for a couple of hours in a coffee shop at Calvary Church. [Lincoln likes me! He really likes me!]

--Upon our return, Kaley and I grabbed our stash of coupons and headed to CVS, while Doug snored loudly in the guest bedroom. (The boys were also supposed to be snoring, but indications are that it never happened.) Wes stayed in his bedroom doing school work (trying feverishly to make up for the time he lost getting his father-in-law through the winding streets of PA.)

--The Philly Hills arrived at dinner time with arms laden with take-out smelling of garlic and hot peppers. The door was unlocked, but the house was dark and even when they called out, no one responded. Suddenly they heard a distant cry and, for a brief moment, Todd thought, “Did they all go out and leave that baby alone?!”

--With the banging of a few doors, the house came alive, and Kaley and I returned with our CVS-steals (oops, deals). We filled our paper plates from Styrofoam containers of Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese, and topped off the meal with Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. [I like ‘cation!]

--The grand-kids invited us downstairs to see a show that they had been preparing for our entertainment pleasure. They told us that it was called “The Relaxing Show,” but as we walked down the stairs, Ethan cautioned us by saying, “Warning—violence is allowed.” [Sidebar: “The Relaxing Show” was a misnomer indeed; more realistically, it should have been Rated R for V.]

--The rest of the evening was spent with our kids helping Doug and me with last-minute details for our two-week adventure. Our kids amaze us with the respect they show us and the way they serve their parents. With the dining room table piled high with cords, instruction manuals, and computer print-outs, Wes and Young-Mee tussled with charging the TomTom and teaching a deer-in-the-headlights mother-in-law how to use it. Todd tangled with the Fandango coupons they gave us for Christmas and figured out how to access them, while Kaley printed out coupons and such things as Jonathan’s condo instructions.