I'm Still Here ...

Bet ya'll were thinking I'd fallen off the face of the earth? Or been catapulted into space?

Been busy ... let's see ... Single Son's van is finally back on the road! I should be happy right? Well, I am. Sort of. It's back on the road only because my car died (head gasket) and it was the cheapest of the two to fix. The car will be fixed, as soon as we can come up with the two grand needed to rebuild the engine. So, it's still only one vehicle around here for the two of us. Grrrrrr.

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Married Son's been home a couple of times recently, and will be home again in less than a week for the Thanksgiving holiday. He's grateful to be out on the road, seems DIL is getting on his final nerve. Suddenly he's sympathetic to what WE go through here in his absence. He's talking about divorce again, but will wait until spring after he's able to reach certain goals with his company (like hiring drivers) and can be home to operate the business full time so he can fight for custody of Grandson. I'll still work for him doing local deliveries. Added bonus for me: a company vehicle. At least I'll have something to drive back and forth to work (if repairs to my car aren't made by spring), lol.

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Same ol' garbage with DIL, too. Laundry, dishes, clutter ... nothing changes. We've had many more altercations since I've stopped bottling things up inside. Why should I be the one to suffer? It's my house dammit. And I'm reminding her of this a few times a day anymore.

To the point I told her if she doesn't like it, she knows where the door is. Use it.

Please!

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Let's see ... oh ... Star Trek stuff ... Laurie, you can skip to the next topic if you want ... but it'll be a fun read you miss, lol.

K ... is she gone? LOL.

Our "away mission" to Escanaba was ... oh, interesting to say the least. We had fun, that's for sure, but I don't think I'll soon forget the drive up to Escanaba - or back, or the fact we made the trip there AND back in under 24 hours.

K, so exactly WHERE is Escanaba anyway? Well, let's get out our trusty map ... here ya go ... see it up there in the Upper Peninsula, on the lower end of the pinky finger? I'm located between Detroit and Flint in the Lower Peninsula, about half way. Just about a four hundred mile drive (eight hours for you "clock drivers").

Don't you love our map? Every Michigander has at one point used the palm of their right hand to point to where they live!! Really.

Because of the vehicle situation (the van had only been repaired the week before) we felt it best that our companion, RD, drive. His vehicle uses a lot less gas than the van does, besides, the van hasn't been on such a long trek in years and hadn't yet been proven to be once again worthy of the long drive.

Can we say ... big mistake? Very big mistake. There were reports of snow "up north" and RD being a native Texan (who hates/fears snow) ... well, can you see the recipe for disaster?

On the above map, refer to the place just below the middle finger of the lower hand, I mean peninsula ...

Yup, that would be his HHR stuck in the middle of the median. RD was changing lanes, hit a pile of slush. The rest as they say is history. Luckily both Single Son and I had both dozed off so we didn't have time to tense up and risk possible injury. Son was awakened by RD saying a few choice cuss words as we went into the slide ... I didn't wake up until we were actually IN the ditch, going sideways ... as trees could be seen out of the front windshield. Luckily no one was seriously injured. And it's a miracle the vehicle didn't roll! The vehicle didn't even suffer so much as a scratch. The only "pain" felt was RDs wallet for the hundred dollar tow out of there (although my knee slammed hard into the back of Son's seat, and still hurts days later). And it cost an hour sitting there as drivers on I-75 "rubber necked" to see the fools in the ditch!

I had Trek jokes like you wouldn't believe while we were stuck there ... including "To boldly go where no one has gone before" and once the tow truck showed up "Beam us up Scotty".

Once we were about thirty miles further north, there was no snow, and the sun was out. Relief for the passengers at least!!

We finally arrived in Escanaba at about 2 pm (over an hour later than we should have). Our visit with our Trekkie friends was great. Totally uneventful. They were presented with their Commissioning certificate, making all their hard work finally official. Dinner was good, too, and much welcomed after our eventful drive up.

We didn't stay too long and where back on the road before 7 PM.

I make a lousy passenger, I doze off a lot. But I was already tired as we'd left home at 4:30 that morning anyway. May I say here that the HHR is one of the most uncomfortable vehicles for cat naps!! Of course, having a driver that unintentionally swerves in and out of the lane doesn't help a bit. But dammit, I was exhausted. One such cat nap on the way back home (less than two hours from home at that), I am awakened by a loud THUD. "What the hell was that" I asked RD. "Not a dead body I hope". "Wasn't dead before you hit it anyway. Damn, I'm not closing my eyes any more". And I didn't!! Never did figure out what he ran over. either.

We pulled into RDs driveway at 4 am, and were home by 5 am (after a stop for breakfast). A full 24 hours on the road, with only a few cat naps along the way (and lots of stress).

After we'd picked up the van, the first thing out of Single Son's mouth was "and you have the nerve to say I'm a bad driver?" No, he's just fast. But at least he keeps the vehicle ON the road.

Next time Single Son drives. Or I'm not going!!

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Oops, I lied! No more topics!!

Hope ya'll are doing well. I'm still keeping up with your blog entries through email. I really need to work on being a better blog buddy!!