cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
Day One:
It’s not in my nature to be an optimist. If I buy a car I anticipate that it will break down as soon as I drive off the lot. If I invest money, I wait for the market to tank. If we buy a home, I’m sure the neighborhood will collapse. So it always surprises me that I’m an optimist about vacations… the accommodations will be wonderful, the weather will be perfect, the people we meet will be agreeable, the food will be excellent and our minds will be stretched by what we see and experience.
It was in this frame of mind that I began packing the car. Thoughts of Maine, cool breezes, a tasty white wine in the glass, fresh lobster on the plate, good conversation, surrounded by rocks, trees and blue water, time to relax and write, danced through my mind as the sweat poured from me and I grunted to squeeze one last bag into the trunk. Even the annual battle of the immoveable object, my ‘hold-on-there-are-a-few-more-things-I-want-to-check-before-we-leave’ wife, and the irresistible force, ‘let’s-get-the-damn-show-on-the-road, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-if-we-forget-something-we’ll-buy-a-new-one-there’ me, was reduced to an occasional rolling of the eyes as we each endured the other’s travel habits.
This was going to be one hell of a vacation.
We called Mary and Tom on the cell phone and let them know we were packed and already rolling toward their house. Kathy had no more than hung up than we read the sign, “Red Bank Road Closed, Use Detour.” Ten minutes late, M & T sat on their steps, their car also packed to the gills and after a brief last minute check for maps, phone numbers, did-you-pack-a-(fill in the blank) we mounted up and rode into the rising sun.
By noon we had reached the far side of Cleveland and found a picnic table relatively free of bird shit upon which to spread our lunch. We ate, stretched and took another visit to the potty before placing our creaking bones back into our vehicles. Though toll booths, trucks using the high-speed lanes, and that odd driver who insists on obeying the posted speed limit tried to stall our progress we found our motel rooms in Syracuse by 4 PM. The clerk, a goofy, blond haired boy with ear ring and wispy goat hairs on his chin, struggled to understand that we were four adults, with four last names, requesting two rooms, and wanted to pay for each room separately. I suspect he had just squeaked past high school algebra and that this was a taxing problem made all the more difficult because he had to listen to us with the same ears that were connected to his I-Pod.
Mary and Tom, having traveled this same route several times, knew of a ma and pa Italian restaurant nearby. Two glasses of red wine and the road shakes were out of my body and the roar of the highway ceased to reverberate in my ears. We were halfway to the ocean and blissfully unaware that Mars was in retrograde.
It’s not in my nature to be an optimist. If I buy a car I anticipate that it will break down as soon as I drive off the lot. If I invest money, I wait for the market to tank. If we buy a home, I’m sure the neighborhood will collapse. So it always surprises me that I’m an optimist about vacations… the accommodations will be wonderful, the weather will be perfect, the people we meet will be agreeable, the food will be excellent and our minds will be stretched by what we see and experience.
It was in this frame of mind that I began packing the car. Thoughts of Maine, cool breezes, a tasty white wine in the glass, fresh lobster on the plate, good conversation, surrounded by rocks, trees and blue water, time to relax and write, danced through my mind as the sweat poured from me and I grunted to squeeze one last bag into the trunk. Even the annual battle of the immoveable object, my ‘hold-on-there-are-a-few-more-things-I-want-to-check-before-we-leave’ wife, and the irresistible force, ‘let’s-get-the-damn-show-on-the-road, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-if-we-forget-something-we’ll-buy-a-new-one-there’ me, was reduced to an occasional rolling of the eyes as we each endured the other’s travel habits.
This was going to be one hell of a vacation.
We called Mary and Tom on the cell phone and let them know we were packed and already rolling toward their house. Kathy had no more than hung up than we read the sign, “Red Bank Road Closed, Use Detour.” Ten minutes late, M & T sat on their steps, their car also packed to the gills and after a brief last minute check for maps, phone numbers, did-you-pack-a-(fill in the blank) we mounted up and rode into the rising sun.
By noon we had reached the far side of Cleveland and found a picnic table relatively free of bird shit upon which to spread our lunch. We ate, stretched and took another visit to the potty before placing our creaking bones back into our vehicles. Though toll booths, trucks using the high-speed lanes, and that odd driver who insists on obeying the posted speed limit tried to stall our progress we found our motel rooms in Syracuse by 4 PM. The clerk, a goofy, blond haired boy with ear ring and wispy goat hairs on his chin, struggled to understand that we were four adults, with four last names, requesting two rooms, and wanted to pay for each room separately. I suspect he had just squeaked past high school algebra and that this was a taxing problem made all the more difficult because he had to listen to us with the same ears that were connected to his I-Pod.
Mary and Tom, having traveled this same route several times, knew of a ma and pa Italian restaurant nearby. Two glasses of red wine and the road shakes were out of my body and the roar of the highway ceased to reverberate in my ears. We were halfway to the ocean and blissfully unaware that Mars was in retrograde.