THE Road Trip from YouKnowWhere

The plan? My parents and I had to drive from Columbia, MD to a place in TN to pick up Gila who was being dropped off by Clint. We would all enjoy a relaxing lunch with Clint & Gila and then the four of us would hit the road to Altus and arrive on Christmas Eve. We expected the drive from Columbia to Altus to take about  26 hours to complete.

Nothing but open road ahead

We had one big goal in mind, which was to make it to Altus without having to stop in a hotel. This goal was contingent on a number of "hopes," too: we hope it doesn't snow, we hope we have the stamina, we hope we make good time, etc. We had developed a number of coping strategies to help us get through this ordeal. We rented a huge van; a really nice van in which we could construct a bed of sorts that we could take turns using to lay down and sleep- this was crucial. We made sure that all four of us were listed as drivers on the rental. If we broke the drive up into two-hour driving shifts, it would make the time go by faster (or at least feel like it). We left Maryland really early in the morning so that by the time the afternoon rolled around, we could feel like we'd made significant progress. Finally, we all had agreed that it was okay to stop if we really needed to. This made us feel like we weren't being forced to torture ourselves; we were opting to torture ourselves (a nice little mental trick).

In the days before the trip, we felt like we were preparing for a marathon. And finally, the day arrived. Our alarms went off at 5am. We got ready, packed the last items into the van, and were out of the house by close to six. My dad hopped in the passenger seat, I in the back, and my mom was going to take the first driving shift. My mom said, "ready!?" with excitement. We replied, "yep!" with equal gusto. She turned the key. We did not hear the churning of a powerful V6 minivan engine. No, we heard..clicking.

Our balloons of hope were deflating rapidly and we reacted through a combination of reasoning, blame, and panic.

"Maybe it's the battery?"
"Did you leave the lights on last night?"
"Expletive" 
"I swear everything was turned off."
"This sucks."
"What are we going to DO?"

And finally my dad said, "Let me try." So my mom got out of the car and handed my dad the keys. He did some jiggling and turning and the car started! We immediately celebrated and began to rationalize why it didn't start in the first place,

"You know how sometimes the shifter isn't all the way in park and you can't start the car when that happens?"
"Yeah, exactly. Isn't it funny we thought we were going to have to get a different car?"
"So funny!"

Does that look comfy, or what?

And we were off! We made great time to TN! We stopped for food and for gas and did not have any further problems with that tricky engine. You silly van, you. My mom and I each took morning naps in the van-bed. Our confidence in our ability to make it to Altus in one fell swoop was increasing with each passing hour. We arrived at our meeting place (Ruby Tuesdays) in TN just a few minutes before Gila & Clint.

The five of us had a great time at lunch. We got to hear all about Gila's visit with Clint's family and what Clint's plans were for Christmas. We got to talk about how much time we had ahead and make jokes about how rough it was going to be. We made no mention of the incident in the driveway that morning not because we wanted to keep it a secret, but because we had all forgotten about it. That was how much we believed that it was a fluke and not a real, potential problem. We showed off our makeshift bed to Gila & Clint who both agreed that it looked really comfy! We exchanged Christmas gifts with Clint, said our goodbyes, and piled into the van.

Dad turned the key....clicking.

Life is good!

Everyone was pretty surprised to hear this old, familiar sound. Gila had to be filled in on what happened earlier and again we started postulating about what was causing the problem. I remembered that when this happened in the morning, my mom took the keys out of the ignition and handed them to my dad. Maybe, just maybe my dad had used a different key than my mom to start the car. I suggested,

"Dad, try the other key, maybe one of the keys is messed up!"

Dad tried the other key and low and behold, the van started! Again we were relieved to finally know the real problem. One of the keys was bent or something! Obviously! We made a mental note of the key we should use versus the key we shouldn't use and got on with our day. Worry-free.

Happier times

We made several stops for gas, to stretch our legs, to switch drivers. No problems! We were making great time. All of us were enjoying the use of the bed. Gila and I were even able to lay down next to each other and watch episodes Modern Family on her computer...that was just how awesome it was! We were unstoppable and also a bit hungry. We decided to stop at Chick Fil-A for dinner. We were all pretty road-happy and loopy by that time. We had the giggles and were acting as though we had never been in a Chick Fil-A before; staring at the menu like we'd never seen it. We even had to ask the girl who took our orders what city and state we were in! Turns out, we were still somewhere in TN. FYI, TN is one long and narrow state. If you ever consider crossing it horizontally, be prepared for this.

We finished dinner, piled into the car, mom turned the key..........clicking. We double checked to make sure we used the right key. We did. We made sure the van was alllll-the-way in park. It was. This time it did not re-start. We had to call roadside assistance. The woman on the other end of the phone was nice, but tedious. She made my mom honk the horn, flash the lights, etc., etc. We were attracting a lot of attention in that Chick Fil-A parking lot. One nice woman offered to help us. There was nothing anyone could do except wait for the towing company.

Tow-man arrived. He was very kind and very sympathetic. He jumped our car with this giant battery and it started. (We decided that what we really needed was a battery pack with jumper cables, not a new car, that thing was sweet). He turned off the engine and tried to re-start it....clicking. He confirmed that there was some kind of major issue and strongly encouraged us to swap cars to prevent us from being stranded out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of night. He jumped the car again and pointed us in the direction of the Memphis airport through a very long set of detailed directions, which he repeated several times. My mom was patiently saying, "uh huh," "mm-hmm," and nodding, but the look on her face said, "Dude, I tuned out a few minutes ago." My sister, dad and I were trying not to laugh so hard, but failing miserably.

We pulled out of the parking lot and were on our way to Memphis when we received a call from the rental company. They said they would be happy to switch out our car so long as we returned our van with a full tank of gas. I can't repeat what my dad's response was, but trust me, it was funny. Luckily my mom was the one on the phone and she said, "So, my car wont start if I turn it off, do you want me to refill the tank with the engine on?" They replied, "No, don't do that, we apologize, just get here." So we did.

In rental car world, what happened to us was that we got upgraded to a swanky SUV. In our world, we lost some significant space, including our bed. We stuffed everything into that car and were pretty cramped. The middle seats could not recline at all because of all the stuff in the back row. We got into several arguments with one another before leaving the parking lot. We drove for about 20 minutes with the headlights off because my dad was too stubborn to pull over and get to know the functions on the car. My mom had sunk into what only appeared to be a deep depression. I oscillated between yelling at people and trying to play peacemaker. Gila just tried to make everyone smile. To top all of this off, the car smelled strongly of strawberry shortcake (which was the straw(berry) that broke the camel's back for my mom) and had a significant shimmy.

We tried to regain our confidence that we could still make it, despite the hold ups, the lost time, and the lost bed. No one wanted to be the one to say, "Let's stop," but the loss of the bed was a fatal blow. A little less than two hours after we shimmied out of Memphis, we decided to start looking for hotels.

Everyone fell asleep immediately and pretty much without speaking to one another. "Never go to bed angry" were words of wisdom that were proving difficult to live by that night. We had all reached our limits. We woke up around eight the next morning, had breakfast, started being nice to each other again, and got back on the road.

We love you, Eric!

The remainder of the trip was pretty unremarkable. We made good time and the smell of strawberries had either become familiar or had actually diminished. The car still shimmied, but at least it started. We drove straight from wherever we stopped to Altus, stopping only for gas. We arrived in the early afternoon of Christmas Eve. We were so happy to see Eric and he had made us beautiful homemade pizzas for dinner.

We failed to accomplish our goal, but what really mattered was that we arrived safely and that we still kind of loved each other. We agreed that, at the end of the day,  it was better that we stopped anyway. At least our nights and days were on track and we didn't have to pull into the driveway, greet Eric and proceed to sleep the day away.

All's well that ends well, but I think it will be a while before we attempt that kind of trip again.