My trip odometer just turned over 6,500 miles. (Don’t worry, dear daddy is driving as I type.) We are mere hours from home. I’m pretty sure I died last night.
We crash landed with a dear friend in Brown County, Indiana (one of my other favorite places) who just happened to have four very dark, very quiet, brand new bedrooms in her basement. The baby slept almost 14 hours straight and I dreamt beautiful steampunk scenes for my new book I’m about to start.
This blissful night of rest was preceded by several quick reunions with friends we haven’t seen in years, a BBQ and several miles earlier that morning listening to my son say “Look! A floating piece of metal!”
In fact, he said it about 25 times over the space of one hour. What was this elusive floating piece of metal you ask? I’ll show you.
Do you see it? It’s a guard rail at about 80 mph. If you’re not driving, stare at one. It looks like a floating piece of metal. Really! These are the kinds of distractions we’ve been driven to. Along with Poke the Baby and Make Him Laugh, Bison Ball, What Food Does this City Look Like, Tunnel Panic, Name that Crop, and Field Friend.
The girls have also decided that there is a never ending fence that stretches from NC to LA and back along the freeway. “No wonder the Indians were mad, that’s a lot of fence on their land.”
We were also treated to several more shrieks of “Edamame!!!!” along the way in Illinois and Indiana. The kids wanted to know if the pioneers were Japanese.
Kids are awesome. This trip would have been easier, but not nearly as fun without them. Lots of people tried and failed to hide their incredulous looks when I told them I was driving across country with my four kids, ages 9, 7, 5 and 1. To them I say: where is your sense of adventure? Where is your imagination? Where is your spark of wonder?
Everyone should do something big, exciting, and kind of crazy at least once in their life. I prefer to do something of that sort at least once a year. It keeps me young and gives all of us plenty of material for stories.
We’ll be home sweet home tonight. I’m sad to see this trip come to an end, but daddy needs to go back to work and we all miss our beds.
Life is good friends! Hope your dreams are taking you somewhere beautiful this summer! Real or in prose…
