First Day on the Road

There are some first days on the road that really should be last days ... marked by a wise turning around of the vehicle, headed back to where one started followed by a stubborn refusal to drive said vehicle for a least 48 hours.

Today was such a day.

We should have recognized something was amiss when both of us awoke this morning, sick as dogs (while the dogs, ironically, woke in contrastingly good health).   With my head trying to explode under the influence of raging sinuses and my husband's GI tract trying to explode with comparable force, it was difficult to even roll out of bed, much less finish packing six animals, two people, and a hootload of stuff in a minivan headed for the west.   We pondered the thought of staying in bed until our bodies were more cooperative, but alas, we stupidly and stubbornly dragged ourselves onto the road anyway.

We were again tempted to turn around and return to our place of origin when it took four hours to travel 140 miles.  All too soon, we discovered that the massive volumes of people we had seen at Clearwater beach only 24 hours prior were now all headed back north alongside of us.   Traffic inched and crawled forward at a maddening inconsistent and slow pace, worsened by increasingly impatient drivers up to their usual interstate tricks.

At the very moment that we broke free from the log jam on the interstate, our cat Kickstand recognized the mistake she had made by not partaking of the litterbox one last time this morning.   In celebration of this mistake, The Howling went on for at least ten minutes, followed shortly after by The Smell, followed not so shortly thereafter by the rest area, where said mess was cleaned and bedding replaced, so that poor kitty could refrain from The Howling during the many miles that still lay ahead of us.

Tired already, we decided to get lost, fooled by a U.S. highway sign that surely must have been terribly shy and decided to hide behind a tree at the very moment that we passed it.   Another forty minutes wasted, we relocated the errant highway and proceed west into Alabama.

Alas, Kickstand was not yet down with her carsickness drama.  The drama suddenly resumed somewhere in Alabama. It began with more of The Howling, followed by strange noises that made us wonder where the nearest vet could be found, and finally, headed into a crescendo of puke.  Then, more Howling, more Smell, and so on and so forth.

I swear that Montgomery, Alabama moved west today, trying to evade our poor hapless, loaded minivan.  However, when we finally caught up with the moving city of Montgomery... we were almost not too surprised to find we had been placed in a smoking room.  With my allergy to cigarette smoke and relentless head cold, I suspected an evening equally as joyful as the day's road trip lay ahead.  I again thought about turning the car around and heading back to Clearwater, Florida.

Instead, I rolled out of the van, leashed a rather anxious Lucky and restless Lady, and ventured out upon a long walk... during which L & L ran into an episode of Big Sticky Thorn followed by Silly Bystander who, seemingly unaware that my dogs are large, protective, and canine... proceeded to challenge Lady to come after her.   Although I am still putting my shoulder back into its socket, I was able to keep Lady from rising to the challenge.  Really -- who challenges an unknown big black dog and expects good things to come from it?   Sigh.

Although, my head still feels like a full explosion is near... this is what the reaction to today's high stress and drama was among our household:

That's what I love about this crew.  They just let it all roll off of 'em as if days like today never happened.