We Can Do This
The sun was just ringing the sky as we smashed our luggage into the back of the Fit for what ended up being just about 15 hours on the road, originally intended as only twelve. Only.
“If we do this again,” Carrie groaned at the end, “we’re flying. I’ll pilot us.”
You can blame that one on Atlanta. Long enough to find the need to earn land legs again after our final arrival.
But first, a last look at West Palm Beach under the pink light of a shiny saucer cloud in the east. A few hours north through Florida: strangled wild orange trees wooded-sidelined highways, and an abnormal influx of Ontario plates. All men seek sun. While I took the first shift, Carrie continued her threats to poke Rose:
“Look. My atoms are tickling your atoms.”
“Yuck!”
We still hadn’t left the state and Rose stocked up on a couple of souvenirs for Thunderbird and Annamaria and a co-worker: ugly shell people. She was pretty proud of the mariachi band composed of cowries and clamshells, staring back with their googly eyes. And a couple of more Blow Pops:
“Blow Pop Queens toast!” Carrie exclaimed.
They cracked unwrapped candies together, and began to observe the traffic passing me in the left lane:
“Why are you driving so slow, Collette?”
“You can drive five over the speed limit, you know.”
“We just got passed by a Hyundai.”
“No, not by the Illinois plates!”
“Oh, Collette, seriously, a tour bus!!”
I will put on the register that it was not my fault that we arrived three hours late that evening. Add in a few stops for pecans and baby alligators, Taco Bell, and then the 75 miles of snarled traffic outside Atlanta – my sisters swore never to drive tire through that city again – and we had some obvious delays.
I got the mountain pass through the Smokies that night while the girls cranked up party music in the back seat. No one had any cotton balls to offer Mom for her ears. But even she had to admit that not every song was completely “terrible.” After awhile, though, we wound things down with some “Pride & Prejudice” audiobook. We stopped in Tennessee at nine. None of us felt like pulling home at three o’clock in the morning.