First of all Happy Easter to everyone out here floating around in Stream! Hope you find all your eggs and can put them all in one basket! Dont forget...chocolate bunnies only scream once at a high pitched volume when you bite their heads off. Kinda like one of them dog whistles that you cant hear. Go ahead and chew a few jelly beans for me while your at it, would ya?
Today we are going to have a nice Easter Ham. Typically we dont do Easter dinner but we decided to do something different this year and I am looking forward to it. It will be our first Easter dinner. We used to go on our first camping trip of the season on every Easter, but we kind of got away from that since it snowed on us. No fun looking for your frozen eggs in the snow! Mostly we never did anything at all, but this year I thought it would be nice to be a bit more traditional.
Lovie and I went on a field trip yesterday sort of...Well everyday is an adventure of sorts with me and Lovie but yesterday..well.... I will have to tell you the whole saga.. Let's just say we took a four hour drive touring almost every subdivision and town in our fair city trying to get home... Yep.. we got lost and didnt have a trail of breadcrumbs to follow home...
It all began at about 7:30 in the morning when I am all cozy and toasty in bed under our warm comforter when Lovie comes in the bedroom and says... "You wanna get up now?" I open one eye and look at her through a sleep induced haze and groan...."It's Saturday and no, I really dont want to crawl out of my warm cocoon.." It doesnt stop her, she says- "I told that lady that I called about the cornhole set that we would be there by 10:00 and we need to leave here by 8:30 if we are going to extra time to find their place."
I am thinking in my head... why oh why my dear sweet wife of mine did you tell them we would be there that early...but I hold my tongue and groan and grumble under my breath and then slowly drag myself to an upright position to sit on the edge of the bed. Oh joy this is going to be fun. "Okay....well can you pour me a cup of coffee?" To which she responds, "I didnt make any... I thought we'd stop and get something on the way back." What?! You wake me up early and no coffee?? How do you expect me to function?
By this time, Lovie is already pacing the floor and I said -"Woman what is wrong with you?"- She says "I'm nervous because I don't know where we are going and I probably shouldn't have told her we'd be there by 10:00." As she's talking she is wearing a path out in the hallway carpet pacing back and forth from the living room to the bedroom to see if I am up and moving yet. I am, but barely, she gives me one of those hurry up and come on looks. "Should we take the phone book? It has a better map in it." she hollars back at me as she heads back out towards the living room.
No- I think the maps that I printed out from MapQuest a few days earlier should be good enough. She looks those over one more time.. which I dont know why..I am the map reader in the family... "So what road do we need to take again?" she asked. I go in and point it out on the map and tell her Rt 50 runs all the way along the river we can take that. The place we have to go to get the cornhole set is all the way across town and past the downtown area into another area we are both unfamiliar with. Along the way I would say we had to pass probably eight different towns plus our main downtown central area.
I grab a pair of jeans and a teeshirt after I do all the morning bathroom stuff and she already has her coat on ready to go out the door. I chuckled and said, "Hon, it isnt even ten after 8. We've got plenty of time. Relax." She gives me another one of those looks that I am so familiar with that says... okay... just go with the flow here woulddya? So I ask her if she has everything she needs, and she affirms yes, so I grab my coat and we head out the door. I grabbed my ball hat too since I still have bed head and know she would fuss if I took the extra time to make my hair all nice and presentable. A hat will cover it just fine. Besides I most likely wont even get out of the truck when we do get there.
So off we go. I determine that she better drive since I have to look at the map and can look for street signs and such.We drive for a little bit and get to Rt 50 and she says "I guess I better get some gas huh?" Yeah... so we stop and fuel up and she goes to turn the opposite way after we pull out of the station. I said "I think you want to stay on this road because it is Rt 50 and this will take us all along the river and eventually where we neeed to be." She starts to argue with me and says "But we need the other Rt 50." I said "What other Rt 50?" She said "I have to go down and take such and such road to get down by the river right? Then we pick up Rt 50 down there." I said "Lovie- we are already on Rt 50 so lets just stay on it and follow this." She goes "Well this cant be the same Rt 50 as the other one." I said "There is no other Rt 50. Why would they make two Routes and name them the same and both of them go along the river?" I said "Just stay on here and we will be fine." She gives me another look that says..well, we will see...
The woman knows I am right so why she insists on doubting me, I'll never know... but I go along and know that time will tell. We follow Rt 50 all through several towns that we are familiar with but haven't been through in eons and never knew that Rt 50 even ran through them. So anyway, traveling is good and we are making slow but sure progress. I have to interject here because our travel adventures have been ladled with so many funny things...not at the time mind you, but afterwards when you can look back and laugh at them. I never know what is going to happen when we set out to uncharted territories. I may share some of our other adventures with you at a later time, but for now I will stick with this one.
So we get to the usually busy downtown area and it isnt too bad.. mind you because it is still early and a Saturday and we dont have the typical rush hour four lane traffic that congests these waters. So we get to view the magestic tall buildings and pass the ballpark and stadiums of our hometeams. I'm thinking I should have brought my camera and then I think.. well we probably couldnt stop anyway because she wants to get there early. Another road trip I suppose will be fine. The river is a bit choppy and there are several boats out, but not many because we've had a coldfront come through and even some snow last night that clung to the blades of grass. So anyway we enjoy the ride though the downtown area and pass on through. We still have several more towns to go through and I look down at the clock and an hour or so has already passed. Dang that went quick! It is now 9:25 and we still are unsure as to where this person's house actually is.
By this point I have no idea how much further it is going to be because neither one of us are familiar with this sections of town. So I have my eye peeled out for a certain street name. Lovie says she has to pee. I said "You didnt even have coffee!" She goes "I know...it must be a nervous pee." She is so cute that way sometimes... Silly things make her all nervous. So I said "Well.. I guess you are just going to have to wait for that huh?" We were the only truck on the road and it looked like we were passing by big tankers that stored oil or somthing. Actually the few houses we did see along the way reminded me almost of a ghost town or something. After we got out of the downtown area, there was no other cars in sight.
So we drive and drive and we drive some more. Finally I spot the street name we were waiting for and Lovie makes a sharp turn up this huge big hill. There was a Y kind of in the street and she yells- "Which way do I go?" in her panicked state of making a split decision. I said "I dont know! I've never been here before remember?" So I point her in one direction and luckily it was the right one. We get to the top and I said "Here's the next street we need- turn left" "Are you sure it's not right cause it seems like it would be right to me." I assure her I am right. "No.. Turn LEFT!" "Okay what's next?" Look for the main road and that is where they live. So we go on further twisting and turning on these unfamiliar roads. Finally we find the right street and I say okay now we need to look for the address. "Is it on my side?" "No I think it's on mine" No... wait..maybe it is on your side." So I spot the address as we pass it. "There it is!" Of course we had to drive on down the road and turn around and come back... Never fails...we always do.
So finally we get to this woman's house about ten minutes til 10:00 which was probably perfect timing on Lovie's part. Now mind you we don't know these people and we found them on the internet selling cornhole sets..which for those of you who dont know what in tarnation that is...it is a yard game much like a bean bag toss onto a board with a hole in the center. The bags are filled with corn instead of beans and there are different rules and such. It really is a fun game and very popular in our neck of the woods. Sets are going for upwards of over $160 dollars anymore because of the custom designs on them, so when we found this one for $110 with the bags included, it seemed like a pretty good deal. Besides I want to design it myself so we bought a plain white set with blue and red corn bags. I will be doing a patriotic theme. Stars and stripes...anyway that is the plan.
So Lovie gets out and I wait in the truck. It seems to be quite a while and maybe a bit too long for my taste and in situations like that my mind tends to wonder....I am thinking okay... she just went into the house of strangers. How do I know there is a nice woman in there and not some mass murderer? Of course if they were mass murderers...they sure live in a nice house. My mind is a weird thing sometimes... so I create my own little senarios and think...where is the cell phone? Crap I didnt bring it! Now what? What if I need to call the police? Okay I know what I'll do. I'll blow the horn and let them know somebody else is out here....No... I'll go right up to that door and bang on it and I will say... I wanna know what is taking so long and what have you done with my Lovie? No... because then I will be pulled in the house and who's gonna call the cops then? Okay... how about I go to the neighbors house and say I am concerned because my wife never came out and can they call the police? But then what if the neighbor is really the murderer? Then Lovie wont know where I am!
About that time amidst all the thoughts going on in my head... the garage door opens and I see a nice young woman carrying a big white board and here comes Lovie right behind her... Okay, the weird thoughts disappear as the young woman waves and smiles at me. All is okay. They load the stuff in the back of the pickup and the woman's husband comes out and helps Lovie get them situated so they won't get scratched up and they hand Lovie the corn bags in a nice red bag with handles with their logo name on it. They gave it to us free for traveling all that way. Normally they ship the cornhole sets to their customers but we told them we would come get it and that way we were able to save on the shipping charges. Finally! We have our very own cornhole set and I cant wait to play this summer!
Lovie gets back in and says "Okay... get me out of here and I still have to pee!" So I lead her back the way we came and she says, "I think it might be quicker if we go a different way back instead of all that way along the river." I asked if she knew the way back another way and she told me if you get me to this certain road that I know, I'll be able to find the way. I think...Okay...Well that was our first mistake. We drove and took turns that I had no idea where we were. There was no familiar road that lead us back....and it seemed we kept getting further and further away from home. At one point I realized where we were and it would have taken us over an hour and 45 minutes to get home from that point.
To make a long story short..which by now I doubt this is a short story anymore... we did not find the right road and we ended up nearly in the wrong state heading towards Indianapolis. After we got turned around we got lost and ended up in several pretty scary places where there are frequent shootings everyday... then Lovie nearly went over into the next lane on another car. At that point I think I screamed... "You are killing me woman! You hear me? You are killing me!! Next time I drive!!!!" By then I had to pee too and I was so hungry I was nearly seeing stars, as it was nearly 12:00 when we finally made it back into familiar territory. We traveled on three different highways, passed two main airports, went through nearly every town in the whole fricken zone and spent four hours on the road before we made it back to our local Panera to get something to eat and a much needed cup of coffee! Actually I inhaled two cups I think. We nearly knocked each other down trying to get to the bathroom first. After we filled our tummys and emptied our bladders..all was right in the world again... but still next time... I'm driving!
Happy Easter!
PolarB ;)
Thank you Easter Bunny! BOCK!! BOCK!!!
