Driving Day #2, Owensboro, KY to Urbana, Illinois. So we left the reunion at about 5:00 PM and only drove about four hours to Urbana, Illinois. Can't remember anything of note about the drive, but, oddly, we have several connections to Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois. Dr. Jonathan Fineberg, art historian and featured speaker at The Lucy Daniels Foundation's (where I work) annual lecture on art and psychoanalysis this past Feb. is from U of Illinois. Also, it's the homeplace of Allison Krauss, one of my favorite singers, and David Foster Wallace, one of David's favorite authors. But the real thrill was checking into the Holiday Inn Express. I knew, I just knew that the young man taking down my address would comment when he heard that I lived in Chapel Hill, NC. He did, and I said, "Yep, 2005. Men's Basketball Championship." It felt really good.
Driving Day #3, Urbana, IL to Perry, IA. Again, not much to report on the drive. We stopped at McDonald's for a Happy Meal and another "Cars" toy. Grace flipped out over getting a yellow punch buggy, and Johnny was quite jealous, you could tell.
So, we arrived at Grandma Mo's and David's sister Sandy (the one who lost her husband recently) had all of this stuff ready for the kids: a kiddie pool, water guns, water balloons, beach balls, buckets, sidewalk chalk. It was really great. And even better, Sandy played with and entertained the kids the rest of the day.
We spent the 4th of July like you'd expect in small-town America: we dressed in red, white and blue, walked to the corner to watch the town's parade, got a lot of candy thrown at us, went back home to swim and visit with family in the backyard, then had a cookout/picnic outside before fireworks. The highlight of the parade were the monstrous John Deere tractors, a sight we just haven't seen in the Chapel Hill parades.
The next few days in Iowa were filled with great food, eating ice cream every single day, going out to lunch with the ladies, having dinner with David's niece and nephew and their children, (who dubbed Johnny the "naughty man." He had a new little chainsaw toy, so I thought it was funnier to call him the "naughty tree cutter."),watching Romantic Comedies with David's mom, going to the big mall and pretty much taking it easy. They have this frilly Victorian tea room that the "girls" went to for lunch one day, and we decided that Grace was old enough to go. She did great, but leading up to it, Johnny caught wind that Grace was getting to do something he wasn't, so, of course, he insisted that he wanted to go to the tea room, too. Talk about a bull in a china shop. There's this hip coffee shop in the ghost-like downtown in Perry, and we all had time in the morning for an outing, so I told Johnny that he was going to get to go to the tea room after all. At the coffee shop, I ordered caffeine-free hot tea (with an ice cube) for Johnny and Grace, and they both felt really big. We got away with making Johnny think he had been to the tea room and therefore had not missed out on anything that Grace got to do that he didn't.
Johnny was climbing a chair and slipped and landed on the spout of a sippy cup and cut his eyelid right at the brow bone. It didn't bleed for long, so we didn't go to the ER but it's going to leave a scar. David and I call those "near misses." The day after we left Iowa, David's dad fell and cut his eyelid open and did have to go to the ER and get 15 stitches!!
Driving Day #4, Perry, IA to Indianapolis, IN, Still no DVD player (but we knew we could pull over at any time and buy one) and we're all starting to get on each other's nerves. Johnny broke my sunglasses, again, and I wonder: do I keep buying $3 sunglasses because Johnny keeps breaking them, or do they keep breaking because they're $3 sunglasses? We try to stop every three hours, but because of all of the coffee and water that David consumes first thing in the morning, we end up stopping every hour. I get ticked at this, so the next thing I know, David is relieving himself in a gatorade bottle. We tell the kids that they can pick out a toy under $5 at each three-hour stop, and we relish in the greatness of Walgreens and inexpensive toys. Johnny is thrilled with his toy motorcycle and declares that he wants a motorcycle for his third birthday (that is just around the corner). Grace gets a little stuffed pony that makes a jingly noise when you press it, and we have to listen to the jingle ad-nauseum.
On David's shift in the backseat between the kids, he draws pictures and makes up silly stories. We all laugh a lot. On my shift in the backseat, I rediscover the magic of oragami paper folding and with the colored construction paper that I smartly packed, I create balloons, boxes, and paper cranes. The kids are amazed.
There's more whining, crying, and screaming on this leg of the trip but we make it to Indianapolis with the knowledge that we'll be sleeping in our own beds the following night.
Driving Day #4, Last Day-Indianapolis, IN to Chapel Hill, NC. This day was the toughest, hands down, and I gave up trying to keep the car in any shape of clean. Pretzels were spilled everywhere, candy wrappers too but it was almost over. David and I pressed on, looking forward to the Venti Starbucks coffee we would both get in Buckley, WV. David finally popped a DVD into his laptop for the kids, but realized he hadn't charged his laptop up and only had 24 minutes of power. We all got punchy at the very end, but in a good, fun way. Remember the songs, "Great big gobs of greasy, grimey, gopher guts?" and "When you're climbing up a poll, and you feel something roll...?" We all laughed at those, and I don't know which I enjoyed more: making the kids laugh, or David laugh. We listened to a lot of songs, over and over. Johnny's most requested: "Up" by Shania Twain, and Grace's: "Yellow Submarine."
Our time together was so intense for those 45 hours in the car together and the trip in general, that it was very tough for everyone to get back to their schedules yesterday. Johnny broke my heart crying yesterday morning, because he just didn't want to go to school. I managed to talk him down from his sobs, but when it was time to climb back into his carseat, even though this time it was only a 10-minute drive, he started sobbing again. I don't blame him. I didn't want to go back to work myself.
For better and for worse, I hope the kids remember the trip for a long time. I know I will.
Albert Paley
2 comments:
Just a word about $3 sunglasses: a few years back, I made the mistake of thinking that "good" sunglasses would last longer than the cheapies so I plunked down about 40 bucks on some really cool Ray-Bans. About three days later I left them (just for a minute) on my sawbench (I was working as a carpenter) to go in and take a measurement and one of the sheetrockers (who were clearly all on "speed") stole them. By the way, where are you finding sunglasses for $3 ?
I'm getting the glasses at Dollar General up at Cole Park. Thanks for confirming that even if I spent even $10 or more, I'd still lose them, break them, or have them stolen.
By the way, Otto, I think you should start a blog. That would be fun.
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