The Wrong Long Road Home, Part One

Many moons ago, way before there was a Gaggle, or even Google for that matter, Andy and I were in El Paso, Texas where he was playing AA ball for the Diamondbacks.

(Okay, apparently Google did exist then. We were just too poor to own a computer and communicated with Morse code. I just learned of the birth date of the Google by Googling it. I also just used a noun as a verb. And you knew exactly what I meant. Who's using Morse code now, huh?)

Anyhoo, on the very last day of the season we decided that we would drive as far as we could that night and just stop when we got tired.

We were very ready to get out of El Paso.

I will let you deal with that information as you wish.

Also going on that day was the Kentucky/Louisville college football game. Which I dutifully recorded on our 13 inch tv/vcr.

Yes, it was VHS, why do you ask?

So we went ahead with the plan. I drove while Andy watched the game in the car. On the annoyingly bulky 13 inch tv/vcr combo which was resting on his lap. While he kinda hunched over weird to see the screen because our little car was so crammed he couldn't push the seat back.

He was dedicated.

When the game ended he was fired up. I can't remember if it was because we won or we lost, but he was wired. (I'm sure if he was here he would be able to tell me the exact score, who threw for what and what the weather was like. He's a little scary that way).

Moral of that story is, he drank some Mount@in Dew and declared that he

WAS NOT TIRED. AT ALL.

So by morning we were in Memphis which was about six hours from home. Never having stopped at a hotel to sleep. Never having really eaten much, because who eats at 3 am?

And the Dewski was no longer working.

By the time we walked into my parents house in Lexington, we were a mess. A stinky, overtired, slightly jittery mess.

After sleeping for three days, we vowed we would never do that again.

So this season, as we were planning the trek home Andy suggested that we drive a little after his last game (which was in the morning) to take some of the hours off the long days of our trip and hopefully make it somewhat easier for the girls.

I love a man with a plan.

That day arrived and after loading up the last of our stuff and saying goodbye to our Arizona buddies we hit the road to pick up Daddy at the field. I drove first while Andy finished his game reports on his laptop.

I had flashbacks of the 13 inch t.v. incident. Only it was smaller. And it had wi-fi.

And Andy didn't yell at it for three hours.

Moving on. Things were fine, except for the fact that I had a sinus/allergy headache that was trying it's darndest to turn into a migraine. And Andy was trying to finish his report while the girls were enjoying The Sound of Music.

Again.

And I was driving in the mountains of AZ with the squeakiest brakes you've ever heard.

Ever.

Due to all these issues when we stopped a few hours later to switch drivers and let Mommy Lainey go to the bathroom, we missed a turn.

There's a state route that cuts through parts of AZ into NM that cuts nearly 70 miles off the trip from Phoenix to Albuquerque (our destination for the night). When you're going to be driving for four days, you do what you can to save time.

And your sanity.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize that anything was amiss until we turned onto this



Don't worry children,

THE ADULTS HAVE EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL.

The whole time we're driving through this lovely desert trailer park Lainey is saying

why doesn't this look like the interstate? Are we lost, mom?

And Lola, the lovely but monotone GPS voice is saying

Make a u-turn, if possible.

Really, what makes you think that would be a good idea?



Huhn.

Yep, this could be a problem.