Words from The Crone

Today is the tenth anniversary of the day the towers fell as planes flew into them and thousands died a horrible death. Today is the tenth anniversary of the day a plane flew into the Pentagon and killed hundreds more people. Today is the day a plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania killing all aboard as several heroes tried to keep it from crashing into some other building. It was one of the blackest days in our history. No one wants it to have happened and, would we be able to rewind the clock and know the future, it would not have happened. But, it did and now we are making a national holiday of the day it happened – it’s called Patriot Day. I know this because it popped up on my google calendar that automatically adds holidays. Poof, there it was this year on 9/11, “Patriot Day.” I thought it a bit weird that the word Patriot was singular, but so be it.

Human beings need to commemorate devastating events in life. Many will celebrate the birthday or anniversary of a lost loved one. We honor special people with special days for them like the birthdays of our greatest Presidents. We commemorate fallen soldiers, labor workers, veterans who have survived a war, military personnel who have died in war. We commemorate the very spot where people have died in accidents with white crosses or signs indicating the death. We are a nation of commemorators.

I’m not sure I really want to commemorate this horrible day with yet another day for folks to take off work and go shopping or for politicians to use it as a day to pump us up with their rhetoric. I don’t think I want to commemorate the terrorists that committed these acts. I know folks will say we need to honor our dead, that we need to recognize the real heroes of that day, the first responders, and we are. We are building them a magnificent memorial at ground zero to be a place of remembrance and honor. A place to come and meditate or to cry. A place to remember, each in his or her own way. A permanent place where everyone will know that something other worldly happened at that spot that was so horrific we want those who died in it to be memorialized. All of this is good and soothing to the souls of those who lost loved ones that day. May they all rest in peace and may peace rest in the hearts of those who survived or who lost a daughter, a son, a brother, a sister, a spouse, an aunt, a grandmother, an uncle, a friend, family, co-worker, grandfather.

I’d rather have that eternal memorial as a stand-alone tribute to those who died than to have a national day to recognize a terrorist act. We should honor them every day in our hearts and minds, not just on one special day that will, as history has attested, become well, just that other “Monday” to make a long weekend. We have lost our sense of what those holidays mean by putting them all on Monday to the extent possible, save the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. Let’s not do it again.

Having spent three days in Yellowstone Park without Internet service has been, to say the least, discombobulating. Things are a bit fuzzy, but I did manage to write three blogs because we at least had electricity and evening time on our hands. I lost one blog in cyberspace and I have also lost two days somewhere among the pine needles and smoke. I even have to re-read what I posted recently to see what I missed and to reflect on whether or not it is even important enough to share. One of the reasons things are a bit fuzzy is the fact that at over 8,000 feet we have less oxygen, K and I have had the flu all week and couldn’t breathe anyway, and there was an 1100 acre forest fire just across the lake from our lodge covering the area with thick smoke. Hack, hack, cough, cough.

In the past three days, other than what I have already posted, only three events seem worth remembering. And, the one I will call “Well hello there,” is the one I’ll remember most. But first, we visited the “must see” Old Faithful (OF) geyser. We were quite early which turned out to be very good because the nearby Beehive geyser was about to spout off. She is the highest geyser blowing up to 190 feet and quite spectacular. However, only 1 to 2 percent of the tourons ever see her at her active most because she only performs once a day. We were among the lucky ones and it was quite spectacular and lasted about 5 or 6 minutes. R and K got some spectacular photos, but novice me was manning the camcorder and thought the green light meant recording. Hah, as in a TV studio, it should have been the red light. We all live and learn, don’t we?
We sauntered over to the visitor’s center to wait for OF to put on her show. They have quite an exhibit there explaining the park and the geyser activity. Since the timing is posted as so and so hour and minutes plus or minus 10 minutes, we arrived at the circle of benches around the geyser about 15 minutes early. True to some female norms, our old gal was about twenty minutes late. She sputtered and spurted tiny spouts for a few minutes as if trying real hard to spout. Finally, she showed off her plume, but it was only about 100 feet high and lasted only three minutes. Not her normal higher plume or for her normal endurance. We wonder if OF is on her last legs, or last spout?

As we continued our lower circle route of the park, we visited the beautiful and colorful Grand Prismatic Hot Springs. I would love to see it from the air. From there we went through Hayden Valley where much of the wildlife is seen. Thus far we had seen some marmots, a chipmunk, some deer, a Great Grey owl, and a lot of flies and no bears. Well, hello there, that was about to change. As we rounded a curve, ahead of us a mass of traffic was creeping along with cars pulled off to the right and to the left, cameras clicking wildly. Seems a huge herd of very large bison wanted to cross the road to the other side. Who were we to stop them? As you might imagine, bison have no sense of traffic or humans or cars as they blithely walked onto the road and across with nary a glance to the left or the right to see if anything was coming. It was a great photo op and our cameras were going constantly.

At one point I was looking to the left of the road watching a young calf trot across the road and run after its mama. How cute, I thought. I then turned my head to look to the right and WELL HELLO THERE, not two feet from my window was this VERY BIG BULL walking along next to our car. “Holy crap,” I said as I rolled down my window and snapped a couple of pictures. I was tempted to reach out and pet him, but thought better of it. He might not like a human to touch him and I wasn’t ready to have a bull charge our car. Furthermore, the park rules state that you must not get any closer than 75 feel to a bison. Well, hello there, I guess they didn’t bother to tell the bison not at get any closer than that to a human being. Phew, that was a close encounter of a different kind.

Yesterday, was a slow and scenic drive through the Grand Tetons and they are indeed scenic and majestic. It took us 3 hours to go 70 miles, but the turnouts were worth it and I hope we got some fabulous photos. Bear Lake is a wonder and the drive through the mountains was perhaps the most beautiful and scenic drive we have taken thus far, We finally rolled into Salt Lake City at 7:45pm, grabbed a bite at a Wendy’s and crawled under the quilts about 10pm Next stop, Bryce Canyon. Can’t wait.

My bad, K cause of my bad. Off to see the upper falls, lower falls, and the Yellowstone Grand Canyon. K was feeling better from her flu and I was not. At breakfast I thought I would send R & K off to the canyons and crawl back into bed and rest for a day. I should have. But, I really didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see this magnificent canyon and so, I pushed through my malaise and off we went.

Our first stop was a scenic overlook of the upper falls. We were all taken by the cascading beauty of it and we were all taking our snaps here and there. Before I go on I must tell you that the park has barriers at all overlooks. Some are rocks, some are walls, some are log fences. They are meant to keep people safe. Next I have to tell you that when you see the word “overlook” on a sign it means you are way up high. Finally, I have to tell you that I am terrorized by heights. And so, I stay behind the barriers, waaayyy back. If I want a better photo I might go about two feet back, but never, never up to the barrier.

K is an excellent photographer. She is so good that she has had three magazine covers of her photos. She likes to get the very best shot from the very best place that she can. As I found out at the upper falls this might mean that she will climb over a barrier onto the barest sliver of land and shoot away. I had the misfortune of seeing her do this at the upper falls. Being mother, but really projecting my fear of heights and falling onto her, I cautioned her about the dangers of perhaps falling and killing herself. I asked her to obey the park rules and not do that again.

We stopped at Artist’s Point for some spectacular views of the lower falls and then moved on to the North Rim drive and the gorgeous views of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon. I can’t remember the name of the “overlook” but we were very high up. We fixed our picnic lunch there in the parking lot and then K and R each went their way to take pictures. I decided to stay in the car as I was not feeling well at all. I finally decided that perhaps I could just walk over to the viewing area and sneak a quick peek. On my way I found K on the other side of a log fence on a patch of ground not two feet wide straddling a crevice. She planted her tripod in the dirt as rocks tumbled down into the deep canyon below. I called her name, but she didn’t hear me and I really didn’t want to break her concentration and, God forbid, cause her to fall. I walked back to the car seething with anger.

When K finished her photography and approached the car I lost it. I was screaming at her about not doing as I had asked her earlier which was to stay behind the barriers. She rebelled, said something about being a rock climber at camp, knew what she was doing, and it escalated from there. I do remember her saying that I had to trust her enough to let her take the risks with her life. And, while I didn’t agree at the time, later reflection made me realize she was right. That damn apron string is bound to me too tightly. I must let go. At any rate, the day was essentially ruined. My bad. K bad.

The beautiful part was that we did stop at the Grand View overook and although we weren’t speaking to each other we did see the most fabulous view of the canyon ever. We ended the day with a truce and had dinner with champagne at the elegant Lake Hotel dining room. I was wiped however, physically and emotionally and so was K. We both went to bed at 7:30pm and slept for the next eleven hours. Tomorrow has to be a better day.

I am extremely averse to heights. I am also extremely averse to mountain roads that have several million hairpin curves overlooking very, very deep valleys on very high cliffs. Even though there are now guard rails along such roads, I prefer to avoid them whenever possible, and I refuse to be the driver on them. In fact, when we are driving on such treacherous roads, I read the map. I read the map perched high up and close to my face so that I am unable to see anything but the map. I really need to read the map in order to keep my sanity.

On GART day seven, there was no escaping the road that leads from Sheridan, WY through the Big Horn Mountains to Yellowstone. Not having driven much the day before, R was at the wheel. It started out innocent enough, a curve here, a curve there. Then I noticed that we were going uphill a lot so I whipped out my smart phone and checked my compass. Yikes, 5,000 feet, 6,000 feet, 7,000 feet, when will this end. I think our top elevation was about 8,400 feet. Not for sissies and not for someone like me that hates, even abhors, heights.

The hairpin curves got so frequent I thought I was a hairdresser. Not only that they got more hair-pinny, and then a series of what I call “S” curves, all while going up, up, up. Will this never end? I NEED to read the map, and OMG, more map reading. My heart was in my throat and I got that really queasy, knot in the stomach feeling of imminent doom. I was sure we were going to soar over the edge of the road and plunge to our deaths at any minute.

Finally we started to go downhill. Great, the end must surely be near. What I hadn’t counted on was the fact that what went up 8,400 feet must come down 8,400 feet. What else I hadn’t counted on was that those OMG hairpin curves were on the other side of the mountain too. OMG, OMG, I really NEED to read the map.

From start to finish this nightmare of a jaunt was about three hours and I was sure I would have a heart attack and be dead as we reached the base of the Big Horn mountains. I did notice something interesting on the map I was reading so much. All of the immigration routes are marked with x’s or dashes and one can track the pioneers across the state of Wyoming on to Oregon. The immigration dashes started out on our same route over the mountains but stopped halfway over the mountains. Those smart pioneers turned around and went back to find a better way. In fact, as I was tracing their routes, I noted that they went around the Big Horn. Now why didn’t we think of that.

Gratefully, we are not going to return home by this same route. My R assured me that this was the worse patch of road we would traverse. I sure hope so because honestly, I’ve worn out my map, my ability to cope, and I really don’t want to need to read my map again except to simply get directions. Thank you Jesus, we arrived in Yellowstone in one piece. Imagine that.

With months and months of excited anticipation our little family planned this GART. We had regular GART meetings and licked our lips with joy at the coming pleasure of our journey. Oh, it was such a savory stew of feelings and we all just knew that we would have a fabulous time. What we hadn’t planned on was the labor it would take to not only produce our journey fruit, but the labor it would take to even harvest the joy of each new adventure.

We’ve all passed those cars and vans that are stacked to the ceiling and wonder how they can see to drive. We are close to that condition and let me tell you it is a big “Labor” to pack and unpack our numerous, yet totally necessary, bags, suitcases, more bags, cameras, food bag, picnic supply box, cooler, books, purses, and we can’t forget more bags and whatever hanging clothes we might need for the next day’s jaunt. It is a daunting task, daunting I tell you. Good thing our hotels have those rolling carts to stack high our largess.

Another labor we hadn’t anticipated was where in God’s name would we put all this stuff in one medium-sized hotel room which contained all the amenities to sleep four souls. Fortunately, most of the rooms in our hotel chain are pretty standard and so we can count on a certain amount of floor space. Today however, when we check in I’m going to ask for extra luggage racks because our poor aging backs are giving out with all the bending over to get our stuff off the floor.

There has to be some better way I tell myself each night as I lug and lug and lug things into the room. There is. We’ve given up our appetizers before dinner so all of our picnic stuff can stay in the car. We still have to ice up the cooler each morning and that is another labor upon labor. I’ve given up bringing in the bag with all the maps and tour books – I can read them as we motor on yonder to our next “place at which we’ll unpack the car” place. And, maybe by the time we get home we’ll have it down to a science and bring only the minimal necessities in with us each night and pray that we don’t need anything else. Or, be prepared to make a few trips to the van each night.

K just told me a story about a business man who always over packed (like us) for his trips. So, he finally took a picture of each item of clothing, etc. that he actually used on his trips. Then the next time he travelled he only took the clothes, etc. in the pictures. Over the course of time he was able to travel around the world with only one bag. Hmmmm…..I think I’ll take a picture of everything I didn’t use on this trip and leave all that home next time. Ah, GART, come labor on, time to leave for the next leg of our trip – Devil’s tower. Is there something prophetic in that destination today? Like, the devil is in the details – or in the packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking…

Everyone in my family has been raised in the suburbs of a large city. It wasn’t always large like a New York City large, but large enough to have all the services and conveniences of almost anything you wanted. It also meant that you didn’t live on large farms or have vast expanses of open spaces in which to bathe. Most of us knew our neighbors and most of us were friendly with our neighbors, helping each other when the need arose. It was our somewhat crowded little world, and we loved it.

About six years ago we moved to what is fondly referred to as slower lower Delaware, a mainly agricultural area that supports a large poultry industry. I can sit on my front porch and watch the corn grow across the street in the nearby farmer’s field. On any given day I can get stuck behind a huge insect looking piece of farm equipment lumbering down state highway 24 not even caring that 20 cars are backed up behind it. Life is truly slow where I live. There are some large farms that dot the countryside and you can drive a couple of miles without seeing a house. It is rural and quiet and, as we like to say, “In the middle of nowhere” or ITMON. I have to travel 45 minutes to get to any size town.

Well, today on our GART (Great American Road Trip) we traversed the state of South Dakota. The wind farms of Minnesota and yesterday’s travel were gone, the farms and farmhouses were 20-30 miles apart, and in between were miles and miles of rolling hillsides filled with sunflowers and rolls of hay. The interstate was straight as an arrow except for a minor curve here or there. If there were five cars and/or trucks anywhere nearby it was “traffic.” It was very lonely at times.

As we stopped to picnic at a lone rest stop, devoid of much of anything except a sign that read “Watch Out for Poisonous Snakes.” Nice. We ate quickly in the lee of a howling wind. K looked out over the vast expanse of nothingness and empty land and remarked “I’ll never think Delaware is in the middle of nowhere again.” We were ROTFLOAO! It is all about perspective, isn’t it?

Our scenic trip through the Badlands National Park only reinforced the fact that us easterners have no concept of what it means to be in a land where the nearest neighbor is 30 miles away and the nearest grocery store just as far or maybe farther. We think we have a big sky, but we can’t even imagine the grandeur and beauty of a sky that seemingly goes on and on and wraps around us forever. And, at night, the dark is like falling into an inkwell of the blackest ink. We try to imagine the Native Americans or the early pioneers moving west and how they survived and even thrived. It boggles my mind and gives me a new appreciation for those who forged before us and developed this grand land we call home.

So God, thanks for giving me this opportunity to see the magnificent beauty that is your creation. I hope I am worthy of taking care of it for you. I will surely try – harder.

One of the unhappy consequences of vacations is that there is ample opportunity to eat more food than necessary, particularly when traveling for hours in a car. And thus is was so and thus I did and thus I was so full from dinner last night that I came back to the hotel, plopped on the bed and promptly fell asleep. R woke me up only long enough to take my evening medication and then I was off to lala land until 4:33am this morning. I am now wide awake whilst everyone else is still romping around lala land. And so I’ll blog a bit.

Yesterday started out as one of those rainy awful days when one would rather be cuddled up by a nice fire reading a great book. Being on a schedule and heading west required an up and at’em and off to the races attitude. Wisconsin is a beautiful state and late in the morning we rounded a curve and caught our breath at the panoramic view of the Mississippi River just below its natality. It was this magnificent sprawling expanse of water dotted with small islands. The fact that we were viewing this wonder from high on a bluff only added to the awe of it all. Unfortunately, there was not a one of those “scenic overlooks” so prevalent in other parts of the country and so our wonder was tucked back into our pockets as we flew by it at 70-plus miles per hour on I-90. But, we savored the memory.

Shortly thereafter we began our trek across the 220 or so miles of the state of Minnesota, a not unpleasant trip in a land not unlike Pennsylvania. It was dotted every half mile or so with gorgeous farms accentuated with round topped silos surrounded by lovely rolling hills. But, not an hour into this serene jaunt we rounded a curve to a scene that splintered the bucolic farmlands we had just enjoyed.

Numbering in the thousands, stretching across the entire state, outside of eleven cities, sprouted a new brand of farm. Wind farms. Giant turbine windmills tilting this way and that way to catch even the merest wisp of air dominated the vast openness that is Minnesota. As far as the eye could see on either side of the road rose these mile-high white tri-bladed beauties. In their own way they were majestic, as the blades slowly turned providing electrical energy for the nearby cities. Traveling along with them for many, many miles brought me to the realization that this was the future of our land if we wanted to continue our dependence on electrically driven devices.

Our small state of Delaware has been arguing about putting a small farm of these windmills off-shore for years now and here we were driving through farm after farm of them. What cultural differences these represented – those afraid of change, those embracing change. Who is the wiser I pondered? Who will be on the train to the future and who will be left waving on the station platform?

I am not one who thinks our national government should run everything, not by a long shot. But, I do think a national mandate to convert to renewable energy ought to be a national law. Or am I one who thinks we should put our heads in the sand and pretend a problem will go away. We have an energy crisis and wind farms are one natural solution. Don’t bug me about all the distribution problems, wires, sub-stations, blah, blah, blah, I know that no system is perfect and no system is cheap. But, using natural, renewable resources to provide for our comfort just doesn’t seem like rocket science to me.

And so, driving through this myriad of beautiful, 100-feet tall, white, blades slicing through the sky was a sign of hope for me. Hope for a future for our children and grandchildren and all future generations that we could indeed save our planet, or in other words, have our electric cake and eat it too. Thanks for the lesson Minnesota.

Morning came and we were off and running by 8:20am, without incident and without angry words and much, much better than day one. Ralph took the first driving shift and we rumbled on down Interstate 80. We were really trucking along when my stomach grumbled that it was looking forward to lunch, but it was only 11:30am and a bit too early. Then, the “arrive by” time on Gypsy shifted to an hour earlier and the atomic clock on my device was also an hour earlier. Oh drat, we had just crossed over the imaginary time zone line and were now on Central Daylight Time. Who eats lunch at 10:30am I told my tummy.

At 11:02 CDT I began my driving shift and as we rambled on down the road I saw the sign “Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore” 29 miles. Hmmmm….maybe a good place to stop for lunch. I consulted our navigator, K, and asked her how far off our track would it be to stop there. Well, between our devices, our maps, Gypsy, and our AAA TripTik we had no clue. On the fly, I made the executive decision that it would be better to pull off at the next service area to assess the situation rather than risk some dreadful intimacy with a Mac truck going 75 miles an hour while having a device put in my face with the words, “Look Mom, we’re here and the dunes are there.” Not good.

At the rest stop K and I made a quick pit stop. I was always taught never to pass up the opportunity to use the facilities when you didn’t know where the next one would be. We then grabbed a map of the dunes park and took a look. Too far we decided; we’ll just eat lunch here at the picnic tables. Oh well, it was a pleasant thought. As we approached R who was waiting outside for us he said, “We’re on vacation, we have time today, let’s go to the dunes.” We showed him the map, mulled over the possibility and the fact that we still had no clue how far or how long it would take, and suddenly I said, “It’s time for an adventure, let’s go.”

We added the dunes as a “via” point in Gypsy and took off. Our first stop was the dunes visitor’s center which had the most pleasant folks ever. We got a much better map, conferred with Kyle as to the best picnic area on the water, the route, and the timing. It was about 10 minutes from the center. K was already in the gift shop getting her Park Passport and a park patch. I asked her why she wasn’t getting a pin since she collected them. She decided since she couldn’t afford both, she’d get patches to put on her bags. The nice young man waiting on us, Pierre, said he had an old pin in his desk that he would give her. Wow, such a nice thing to do. With many thanks, K stamped her passport with the park stamps (there were two here because it was also its 25th anniversary) and off we went.

After three wrong turns and a bit of trepidation we found our way around and through the US Steel plant to get to the Portage Lakeshore and Riverwalk. OMG, it was this gorgeous site right there on the shores of Lake Michigan. There was a brand new building and a group of picnic tables high on a dune overlooking a very busy beach, a quaint green and white stripped lighthouse at the end of a jetty, and all the grandeur of Lake Michigan. It was perfect except that it was 96 degrees. Undaunted, we spread out tablecloth, and prepared egg salad sandwiches, chips, and fresh cherries for our repast. It beat the interstate service area by a thousand miles.

Before lunch K had gone into the building in search of soda or water and learned that the land we were lunching on had previously been a beastly acid lake. Essentially, the site had been an effluent waste disposal pond from the US Steel plant nearby and was once a highly corrosive and toxic wasteland. Oh yuk. But, for some unknown reason it had been filled in giving our picnic table a magnificent panoramic view of the lake. The beast had been turned into a beauty and we were the recipients of this transformation. God is so good to us.

Bellies full, rested and relaxed, it was time to continue our journey west. We diddled and dawdled as long as we could, but after almost an hour we had to bid adieu to this slice of Americana and move on. There will be more beauty ahead of us we know, but this first National Park visit, completely unplanned, was somehow very special, even magical. I am still smiling about it and will treasure the adventure of going off the beaten track in search of a nice place to picnic.

After my father-in-law died we found a suitcase full of letters and notes dating back over a hundred years. Being a genealogy buff I dutifully took the suitcase home and began reading. None of them were very useful or enlightening. They all started out with salutations like “Dear Cousin,” or “My dearest friend.” They were all signed in a like manner with “Fondly, your uncle,” or “With love, your beloved.” Well, nothing to be gleaned there. The contents were as dry as my mouth when I have been mouth breathing all night, filled with niceties and affectionate sayings, but nothing of substance and/or news of any kind. Since some of them dated back to 1851 one would have thought a mention or two of the Civil War would have crept into them. Not. Nary a word. Just sicky sweet platitudes and not even a hint of gossip.

Well, I have decided that if I am going to blog on our great American road trip (GART) I would at least put in the nasty messy stuff along with the good and the glorious. Really, who would believe that three adults spending 24/7 with each other in either a cramped van or a double hotel room a great deal of the time would be without any grumpiness, contention, or discord? I didn’t think you would buy that.

It started this morning, the nastiness. K, our adult daughter, with ADD, Executive Function Syndrome, and narcolepsy was still putt-zing along at our announced departure time of 8am. R and our neighbor were out by the car chatting and I sat on the porch fuming. Couldn’t she just once be on time? And, so I would go in periodically, announce the time, and ask how she was doing. This only frustrated her, caused her to lose focus, and consequently be later and later. Finally, as she was tossing her way too many bags into the car we were a decibel or two below screaming at each other. Her to leave her alone (how typically daughterly) and I telling her she needed to move along and get in the car so we could finally leave (how typically motherly). It was not pretty. I am sure we both wanted to kill each other.

Our bewildered neighbor had his camera and wanted to take a picture of the three of us as we departed. He asked us to pose and K shouted a very nasty sentence that included a word that starts with “F” and got into the car. Our neighbor smiled weakly, waved, backed away, told us to have a good trip, and ran into his house. R and I climbed into the car and the argument continued with me threatening to leave K at home if this was going to be the start of everyday on our much anticipated vacation, and K trying to tell us how hard it was for her to get ready and to plan and execute the tasks necessary to be ready on time. We finally settled down, talked more calmly and sanely about the issues and began to sort out how we might avoid this on our trip. We left an hour later than I had planned. I realized that I need to relax a bit and K realized that “a little late” didn’t mean 60 minutes.

By lunchtime we had settled in and found a lovely rest stop called “South Mountain” in Maryland, and made our picnic lunches – the norm for our trip. It was delightful and we enjoyed our half-hour break. We rotated through the driving shifts except that K’s narcolepsy kicked in early on during her shift and R and I finished up the driving.

It was all interstate and nothing to write home about as they say. We drove 484 miles this first day to Elyria, Ohio over a period of nine and half hours. It wasn’t brutal with us all sharing the load, and tomorrow will be a somewhat shorter jaunt. The weather was mild with clear skies. All in all it was a good beginning, with one hell of a start.

Here were are 25 hours and 45 minutes before launch. Technically. In all of my 30 plus years of traveling with my soulmate R and my daughter K, we have actually left at our designated time once. But, in all cases we were within the hour so that is hardly anything to worry about. We’ll just arrive in Elyria, Ohio closer to the dinner hour. No big deal, only a few grumbling tummies.

What is a big deal is TODAY. I am working a plethora of lists to be as certain as possible that whatever it is we will forget it will not be major. You know that everyone always leaves something behind. Good thing we have stores along our route. A fact that, in the frenzy, we all seem to forget. I’ve even heard tell that they might even sell your favorite brand of toothpaste or mouthwash should that be what you left behind. And if not, well add that to another adventure in your life – a new minty mouthy flavor.

Lists are the bane of some folks existence. They are my existence. Were it not for my lists I think I would be lost in a mess of what to do next and what not to do next or what to never do. I even have a list of my to do-s which I call my “ToDo” list. For our trip I am checking our “Things to do before we leave” list and adding to it every hour. It now contains over 40 items. The good news is that all but about a dozen are now checked off. This list is the one that reminds you to water the plants, stop the paper, turn off the water, turn down the thermostat stuff. Important stuff.

My second list is “Things to bring on the trip” and this one is critical to leaving behind only nonsense stuff or stuff we wouldn’t have used anyway. This list has things like phone chargers, laptop, medications, list of medications in case we wind up in a hospital. It also includes items such as my Nook, cameras, phones, camcorder, books, puzzles, electronics, Trivial pursuit cards, cooler, bags, throws, pillows, etc. etc. etc. This list even has a sub-list of things that we must not forget to pack for the dog’s visit to the pet sitter. His list is almost as long as any of our lists. I never realized how much a seven-pound dog needs to be comfortable for 40 days – blanket, treats, crate, bowls, meat, kibble, toys, medicine, carrier, leash, etc. etc. etc.

Another list I have is one that contains all the clothes and accessories I will bring, jeans, jumpers, blouses, tee-shirts, shoes, slacks, poncho, jackets, bras, you get the idea. It also includes items like jewelry, toothbrush, comb, perfume. I write it all down. Then, when I get home I check it off again to see what I might have left behind for someone else to discover. We always leave something somewhere. Once it was R’s bathrobe, once it was a black comb. Once it was my favorite throw left at a Hilton Hotel – they were great. They found it and shipped it back to me. Go Hilton!

Then there is the list of food we need to buy/pack. We are going to picnic our way to California stopping at parks and rest areas and making our sandwiches as we go. K thinks we’ll be pretty sick of bologna sandwiches after about a week. And, since I no longer eat meat or poultry, I might eventually throw up over a tuna sandwich or a cheese and tomato creation. Cottage cheese might lose its allure, and only God knows if we’ll survive this way, but we will make the attempt. My prayer is that we remember that we are spending hours in a car travelling and not using many calories. It would not be good to arrive home 20 lbs. heavier than when we left. We already have some extra calories around our waists in case we get stuck in a snow-storm in the car for days.

The final list I’ll be checking daily is our itinerary. We’ll be following our friend “Gypsy” (our GPS), but just to be sure we know where we are going we have it all written down in an excel spreadsheet list and in a AAA Trip-Tik book (all 400 pages of it). If we ain’t where that list, or the AAA book, says we should be on any given day, then we are lost. God help us all.