The following sentence won’t win me any Blogger-of-the-Year awards, a Pulitzer, nor will it help stop the dramatic plunge of my remaining man-points that seem to be dwindling with every mile driven in a mini-van and each watched episode of Baby Daddy, Melissa and Joey and anything on the Sprout channel.
I’ve been crying a lot lately.
And this morning, before leaving for Arizona, it became much worse. Saying good bye to my wife and twins proved to be one of the hardest, most emotional, moments of my life.
So much so, my wife lovingly held out her hand in what I thought was a show of support. Instead, she asked for my proverbial man card. (Although the joke was on her, she took my man card years ago.)
Now, nearly 12-hrs and 720 miles later, the first leg of my journey is over. The tears have stopped, mostly, and the use of video-chat has proven to be a godsend. I miss the family already but I know we’ll be together again soon.
And it’s that thought that’ll keep me going.
Lessons from Day #1 on the Road
Let me just say there are FAR too many country music stations in southern Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma. I knew that we were in trouble as a nation, I guess I didn’t realize it was this bad.
On that same note, I’m now convinced that everyone named “Clay” is somehow in the country music business in some way, shape, or form.
And finally, as screwed up as the toll roads are in Illinois, Oklahoma is worse. As I didn’t have cash and my checkbook was packed away (and they don’t take cards) I was actually given directions by a toll booth operator to an ATM at the next exit followed by payment options.
I then had to sign a $4.00 IOU to the state of OK.
Yet at a later toll booth, I was given a $1.25 refund from the second $4.00 toll I had to pay.
But hey. Life’s an adventure, right? And I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.
Oh. And did I mention I left the seat warmer on and couldn’t figure out why, for hundreds of miles, I was sweating despite having the vent on cool and blowing high?
