Day 1 - A New Adventure

[Intrepid explorer's note: These scribblings of a mad diarist are my impressions. They may or may not depict reality, and you can probably guess which one they tend to lean towards. I wax frothy, wax sarcastic, wax outrageous, wax poetic, wax enthusiastic, and wax neurotic. I hope you enjoy candles, because there will be a lot of waxing in these electronic pages. With that said, read on, if you dare...]

ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been SOOOOO LOOOOONG! Butt in the driver's seat, hair in the wind (of the A/C), freedom and glory and the call of the wild road!

A few things may have changed, of course. Living through a plague leaves scars, whether you got the plague or not. Thirty-three friends and fam gone to it, and many many more friends and fam still affected by long-term memory and body changes. Hubby and I may still be unicorns in that we didn't get it, but that doesn't change the fact that we've still aged from losses of people and health gone way too soon. What affects our close ones affects us, and pain ripples and intersects like waves in a small pond.

Add to that a double diagnosis and complete loss of hearing in one ear, in which I basically had to re-learn to do a lot of things, including driving. And now, with no caffeine and no sugar, like I used to. Life was so much easier when I could chug peach iced tea all day as my drug of choice, and spin up my brain into working more efficiently. Completely ignoring the effects on my body, of course. Can't do that any more, a five-day trip in the hospital seven years back has emphasized that point rather clearly. So, the hard way. Slower brain, slower reflexes, and all the extra driving care included in that bundled package that I wish I didn't have to admit to. More focus and concentration for safety.

Which means, a lot of food has to be packed and taken with us, and all the fiddly details included for free. Ah, old school. Forties style picnicing on hard mode. Hotels with microwaves and fridges. Well, challenge accepted or not, that's what we've got, so time to get on getting on.

First, a delay of sorts, and a detour. A dear friend from quite a long ways away was coincidentally also vacationing in the same general direction as we were, and we met for lunch at a rest stop that mostly intersected with our path. We had picked up sandwiches the day before at our favorite local deli and chatted as we stood around and noshed in a corner – because the regular picnic tables were outside. In the sun. Under that heat dome. Yeah, no. Me being the pasty white northern European extraction that I am, I burn if you glare at me crosswise. Did I mention the picnic tables? Aluminum? Nice and shiny and reflective? Isn't it nice that our technology includes oven racks you can sit on and rest your soon-to-be burnt elbows upon?

We eventually parted, our friend to go northeast, and us to go west.

Why?

Squishies!!!

I may collect those delightfully shiny pressed pennies. I may squee in rapturous joy when I get them. I perhaps make up silly songs as I dance to my metal chariot, replete in the coppery goodness that is a penny embossed with an image that gets lovingly slid into its slot, with all the others, rows upon rows of oval shields in glowing array, in boxes that I may flip through and smile in remembrance of fun times.

I may also be effluvient in my descriptions. Did I warn you properly? Because shiny happy dancetty squishie foxtrots may show up at random times in these pixelated pages because yay yay squishies gotten / yay yay I got more squishies SQUEEEE-

Ahem. Sorry. It's gonna be like that.

There's a website that tracks squishie machines – because of course there is – and I may peruse it, plotting trips with squishie stops in mind. And since hubs and I just celebrated our thirtieth anniversary, we decided a trip was again in order.

So, west we went, in search of an ice cream shop.

It took a while, since we were driving almost four hours. But we got there! Heat wave, community pool somewhere nearby, misters deployed to keep people cool, a machine tantalizingly within reach of the line for ice cream... What diabetes?? But I 'haved, mostly, with a small soft serve vanilla. Hubs, under no such restrictions, got a double scoop of blueberry pancake. Their scoops are huge, is all I'm saying:

We ate in the car, because we'd like to stay unicorns for as long as possible. We go in masks, too, and simply make no bones about it. If we have something, I don't want it spreading to unsuspecting strangers we meet, like the nice young lad I talked to at the squishie machine about lining up the dies properly to get a good squish. I may have flubbed one, and had to go for more coins.

Thusly fortified, off we drove into the mountains of western Pennsylvania... and the sky got darker and darker. Though the siren calls of delayed trip and squishies were in my ears, Mom didn't raise a person who can ignore the weather. We could see the clouds building up, and we stopped in Grove City to beat the storm. Well, and there's a zoo there, with a squishie. When you drive into a tourist attraction with ten minutes to spare before they close, you either get the stink eye, or the curious quirked eyebrow. It's fun to get both. And we did, as I was quickly squishing while hubs bought a thing for our Squickle (our granddaughter) while the last two guests for the day were also checking out.

Yeah, time to stop for the day. We could feel the barometer dropping.

We beat it into our hotel room by a half hour.

We were just finishing up our meal when the heavens opened up, and we had a lovely clear view of a thunderstorm rolling up I-79 to play with us. No thanks, lightning, you play rough. We'll pack it in early and work on getting a good night's sleep, see if we can find more squishies tomorrow.

Night!