When Kathleen and I were leaving the parking of that Starbucks parking lot in Greenbelt, MD -- heading for home - she zeroed out her odometer, signalling a new trip. I liked that. So, here are the zeroes from the U-Haul that would be my home for the next few days.
We had three vehicles with us - the little Honda, the blue pick-up and the smallish sized U-haul. The bulk of the kids (birds and dogs) were with Sonja in the little car. Mike had the cats in the truck.
I didn't have anything but a dashboard of supplies...
...and pictures of my walker family up on the roof. I was still pretty attached to them at this point - they were a week behind me, but still very present. I had been talking to Patrick and Kathleen and had gotten emails from Carrie and Jen, so...our hearts will still very much with one another. So...I took them with me.
And we headed out...at about 4:00pm on a Tuesday, leaving from the Cape. It wasn't the most fortunate time to be starting a 3000 mile road trip - but some things are simply out of your control.
As we soon discovered about 2.3 miles down the road when the car battery on Sonja's car conked out.
Ooooooh. So close.
So, there was that.
Then there was an accident that closed Hwy 6 (the only highway off the Cape) for a goodly section of mileage. We had to take a back road, which slowed us down further. I think it was about 6:00 or so before we even got near New Hampshire. It was....mmm.
We did end up driving quite aways into the night - pulling over at this Stop and Shop at around midnight and discussed how much further we wanted to go. We decided to push another couple of hours and make up some time.
I can't even tell you where we stayed that night. I do know it was about 3am when we pulled into the Econo Lodge.
And then we had to deal with the animals.
Have you ever tried to sneak one of your critters into a hotel room at night?
Ever tried six?
Hmmm...it's kind of hard to explain - at that time of night, and at that level of delirium I just started to giggle. But I had to stifle it, 'cause everyone was exhausted and Mike was sweating carrying Luke's cage up two flights of stairs and then realizing that Kaia was having a panic attack and wouldn't climb the stairs and so just ran back outside - which caused Sheluin to run outside with her. Freeway had to be carried up in her crate or she would've bolted and her anxiety was causing her to meow way louder than normal (which sounds really loud in a motel hallway at 3am). Bramble clawed the shit out of my arm.
I don't have any pictures.
But I can tell you what finally made me lose it - after everyone was finally tucked into the room and I was free to wander around and peruse the snack machine before heading to my room; I was walking up the back stairs where we had snuck everyone in and I saw one lone grape. And I just started cracking up, right there, my giggles richoceting off stairway. It must have fallen out of one of the bird cages. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It probably wouldn't have taken, 'cause it was kind of camouflaged by the carpeting...but there it was, nestled in the corner. It killed me.
Night One.
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