I truly love my husband. He's a wonderful man and makes me very happy. I've even given him one post a week on my blog. I'm going to have to change my "About" page to reflect his presence. Today The Hillbilly is going to get a little serious about life and vacations. Enjoy.
My last few posts have had to do with surviving vacations with my parents. I decided to do one more vacation post and then to move on to other things.
Last year Cynthia and I took a road trip back to Missouri. This trip was more for visiting than for sightseeing. We did plan however, to do a little bit of sightseeing on the way. I wanted to take a longer, more scenic route to once again see and to show Cynthia, Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. But, mostly we were just trying to get to Missouri as soon as possible.
As we planned it, I worked as usual. I drive a route at night, so that meant that I began about 6:00 PM, drove most of the night and got to bed about 5:00 AM the next day. I then slept a few hours, got up, got some things done around the house, got packed and left for vacation about 11:00 PM. Since I had driven all night the night before, Cynthia began driving. She drove the first 2 hours and I drove the next 12 hours due to her coming down with a headache. Hm! Seems like that happens often when we travel! Oh well!
We then got in a little sightseeing, got to a hotel, slept about 4 ½ to 5 hours and then started driving towards Missouri. This 2nd day was supposed to have been a 21 hour drive but with flood detours it took about 23 hours. Cynthia drove a couple of times for a total of about 4 hours to give me breaks when I needed it. I don’t sleep very well in a car anyway. Cynthia does and did quite a lot of the time so that she could give me breaks when I really needed them. That 2nd day was kind of a killer!
At any rate, with Cynthia sleeping quite a lot, I had a lot of time to think. The following was some of what came from my introspection!
Cynthia and I both had gone through some bad times before we met. When things were really bad for me, as I started to work each morning, I would cross Interstate 44, and catch myself wanting to just turn on to it and to keep driving! To keep driving to any place --- to no place --- to just keep driving! Sometimes the urge was so strong that when I got to work, I felt like I had been in a physical battle and lost! I suppose it was just a mental escapism mirroring the fact that I just wanted to get away from my life.
Of course, things eventually but slowly got somewhat better. And then I met Cynthia. Things got great! And as she was sleeping, I was thinking how great is this? Here I am actually getting to break loose on a HAPPY ROAD TRIP, and sharing beautiful places from my past with this beautiful woman who is my wife and the love of my life!
As I was driving for all these hours over some of these highways and seeing the scenes, I couldn’t help but think about my trips with my parents. The last time I had been on some of these highways was with them some 45 years ago! Whew! That makes me feel old! Anyway, I realized that I had become my parents. I leave out on vacation in the middle of the night, drive for hours, and go see the sights. Shoot! They would probably be proud. I can drive longer and further than both of them put together! And I was thinking how if they were with me, they would, as the old saying goes, be walking in tall cotton!
Just thinking about them and vacations with them brought some smiles and it brought some tears. I know that any of you who have lost your parents know what I mean when I say --- boy, I would like to take just one more of those vacations with them! I would even drive the whole vacation and would make sure that we had a better camera than that stinking cheap one that they had. It got me into way too much trouble! I have so many questions I would like to ask and so many things I wish I had said.
While we were driving through part of the Grand Tetons, I was thinking how great it would be to get to share this with our children and grandchildren. I was also thinking how much fun it would be to talk to them about their grandparents. When my children were young, we lived close enough to my mom and dad that they were always walking or riding their bikes to see them. My parents usually had candy, ice cream, cookies, or something else they could talk them into giving them. Mom would make them pizzas and milk shakes. Dad, big overgrown kid that he was, would take them on rides on a trailer to the back of his farm. The kids thought my parents were great! They were! Grandparents are supposed to be fun! As a friend of mine said about his mom after he had kids! “Who is this woman? She was never this sweet, fun and loveable when I was growing up!” Truthfully, my parents were also fun as parents.
Working on this post made me think about life! In songs, I have heard life called a highway, I have heard it compared to a river, and I am sure it has been compared to different things. Personally, I think life is a journey. Sometimes you are on a highway and things are smooth. Sometimes you are on a rough gravel road or maybe you run off the road or get lost.
Sometimes you get stuck or have a wreck. All kinds of things can happen! Sometimes it is your own fault! Everyone makes mistakes! Sometimes it is caused by people around you. Sometimes even by people you love and trust. Everyone likes to feel like they are in control of their journey, but so many things can happen! The fact is, the only thing you can really control is yourself! You can control what you do, how you react, how you treat others. Fortunately, God judges us only for our own lives!
From the Hillbilly’s corner
You can see why I love him, can't you? He's a keeper. I took all these photos on the trip he's talking about. There's a lot of beautiful country out there. Also, don't let him fool you; he loves driving, so I let him!
Who drives on your road trips?
