A strange woman is leading us...

We were in no hurry to get on the road this morning. Our GPS system (that strange woman, indeed) did lead us on a little wild goose chase and sent us up another interstate and then have us return to what we could have gone up the block to get onto, but she still got us where we needed to go. I guess she just doesn’t know there’s a gas problem out there, but we followed her anyway, just to make sure we could trust her before we threw her out the window.

Have I mentioned I still feel more comfortable with my AAA maps that have been highlighted just in case she goes a little coo-coo? Well, I do. There is so much security in a map to show me the big picture until I am more familiar with the little screen.

We only saw one accident along the way today. It involved an automobile pulling a U-Haul trailer. We were coming up on a work area and perhaps he didn’t realize it, applied the brakes and swerved at the last minute to avoid hitting the car in front of him. He left the road, causing the U-Haul to overturn. He hit one of those wire fences that don’t look very secure when you see them. They worked in this instance. It kept him from crossing the medium and hitting on-coming traffic, which was pretty heavy at the time. There didn’t appear to be any injury to his body or anyone else for that matter. Very lucky indeed.

We got as far as Carlisle, PA before the day ended. Another early stop. These were the same stops we made on our earlier trip, so we felt a little more familiar with the areas. We knew where the eating places were, the fun shopping places were, etc.
We decided after eating just to enjoy our night without doing a lot of outside stuff. It felt good just to let down for the night early.

A Movin' and a Shakin'

Several weeks earlier when the Northern Five were in town for spring break of at least one of the wee ones, we were invited to come visit them for the spring break for the remaining wee one. Actually it was for the bigger one and his Mommy who had spring break during this time. If we decided to go up, Mommy was going to allow Little Free Spirit to miss a couple of days from school while we had a fun day , a day of home schooling, by making a tour of The City.

After a few minutes of thought, actually it was more like a few days or a couple of weeks before we called them and accepted their invitation.

We finally had all the bags packed and loaded into the car for our trip to see the Northern Five relatives on Friday, April 18, 2008. With clothes laid out for Friday, our plans were to go to bed, get a good nights’ rest, get up at a decent hour and get on our way.

My husband, who can never pull himself out of bed when we have an important appointment, decided he could wait no longer and roused me out of bed somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m. It’s funny, but I find myself unable to sleep most mornings much later than 5:00, but this morning I was really yearning a few more snoozes before hitting the road.

I had put my one and only surviving green brown plant into the bathtub and watered it thoroughly, hoping it would once again pull through the neglect of another upcoming two weeks without a drink. Hubby made his usual rounds of going to the basement to cut off the hot water heater, cut off water and other little routine things we have on our list. This, all while I was trying hard to shake the cobwebs from my head.

He came back upstairs,checking to make sure I had indeed moved my weary body from the bed to the bathroom, and after seeing I had, he headed back up to the front part of the house. It was at this point that I noticed the little plants leaves quivering in the bathtub. A constant quivering and shivering. Did it know we were going to leave it alone and without water so long, again? How strange, I thought, because I had never noticed any quivering before when he walked. Was he suddenly a heavy walker? Was it an attitude he had developed because I hadn’t gotten out of bed when he wanted me to? It continued on for a few more minutes or maybe it was just long, long seconds, but it seemed quite a long time.

I pushed it to the back of my mind. It’s a little hard to concentrate when you’ve been dragged out of bed when you’ve just gotten to sleep.

Finally, we were on the road and up to Costco to fill up because we knew this would be our best price on gas. What a surprise when we had to pay $3.38 a gallon. It has been creeping up and now leaping up a bit in the last few weeks, but this was a total shock especially since prices at Costco are always quite a few pennies cheaper than the normal stations.

We were listening to the radio checking on current traffic news, etc. when they announced there had been an earthquake around 5:45 this morning. An earthquake? An earthquake? So that was what made my poor little flower tremble in the bathtub and not my hubby’s heavy foot?

This is the second earthquake I have felt. An earthquake is very unusual considering where we live. The first one was years ago when we still had a little dog. I was awakened by a noise and a shaking that I thought was the dog running into the dresser or bed in the bedroom. She was getting older and sometimes was a bit uncoordinated and I was sure that was what had awakened me. But it wasn’t. After turning on the radio I found out it was an earthquake.

When I told my daughter about the latest one, her reaction was, “What? I missed another earthquake?” Yeah, it seems you did, sweetie and I’m not sure I don’t hope I’ll miss a few more of them myself.

Anyway, that was the most excitement we had in our day. We continued our drive on up into Lexington, VA before stopping for the night. We made a fairly early stop. We aren’t expected at the other relative’s house until Sunday around 11:00. No need to overdo. The scenery along the way has been its usual fabulous view. Some of the trees are coming out with reddish leaves and it makes the scenery appear to be almost fall-like. Beautiful, beautiful view. I loved every minute of it even though it’s a long, long drive between here and there.