503 Miles - 8/22/09

This particular "Making Memories" day was awful! On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the best, it was probably a 5! The only thing that salvaged it was most likely the prayer we had before we left and the one that we had to have halfway through it before things got worse. And, you know the old saying about "God looks after fools and children"?, well, that probably helped out alot too.

What was so bad? In a nutshell:

• I swallowed a flippin bug while putting things in the car and though I spit it out, it felt like it was still lodged in my throat and this was BeFORe we left our street;


• Joe and I had stupid, silly disagreements throughout the day;


• We got stuck on a "scenic country backway" that became the road from hell (more on that in another blog);


• I ripped out some plastic piece of my front bumper when attempting to turn around on a very narrow dirt road and managed to pull out a portion of the back bumper the same way. I've found another use for duct tape people! It ain't pretty, but it's holding everything together for the time being. I'll plan on having that taken care of when I take my car to the shop to have the hood repaired from where the horse we met on an earlier "Making Memories" day tried to eat my hood paint and left teeth marks. (Try explaining that one to your insurance agent!);


• A container of water. that we had frozen, sprung a leak in our Igloo lunch bag and created a small pond in the bottom. Luckily our sandwiches and goodies didn't get wet. Then Joe decided to put it back in the bag without my knowledge. When I opened it again to take out the remaining sandwiches - there was another small pond. When questioned, he said "I put it in upside down since the hole was in the bottom". (Ever hear about overhead items shifting during flight? Same principle when riding down bumpy roads);


• We paid $2.69 a gallon for gas in a small town to insure we'd have enough to get home after all, the last thing we needed was to run out of gas out here. No one would find you for days!;


• My ankles are swelled, I'm sweaty and most likely stink and am covered with a fine dusting of red sand; and lastly since I do want to go get a shower and go to bed...


• It was as though the day would never end as we arrived at home aGAin after dark and some 13+ hours later.

Wait!!! Wait!!! There is another good thing that happened today which was that I passed three Wyoming State Troopers and not one stopped me. That's great news considering I was stopped the last two weekends for not having my front license plate attached and I received a speeding citation last month. (Speaking of duct tape, I even tried, though temporarily, duct taping my front license plate to the front of my car so I wouldn't get into trouble today. I decided against that though and opted for sticking it in my front windshield. You see, my car is not equipped to handle a front license plate and I can't seem to find anyone willing to attach it. They don't want to accept responsibility in case it messes up the front bumper. And, I've gone for 8 months without any problems until the last two weekends.) I seem to be accumulating a nice stack of blue citations and trooper business cards. (I've found that feigned ignorance of Wyoming automobile laws and a thick southern accent have served me well thus far. But I don't speed over the posted 75 mph now and I did attach my license plate to my car tonight upon our return using those "zip ties" until someone can do it more professionally.

I'm sure there is a lot of great things that did transpire this date, but I'll just have to go to bed and think on them and I'm sure that once I review my pics, then I'll start smiling and thinking it couldn't have been that bad, right? So, it's off to the shower (waa hoo) especially since it's already 12:18 A.M.!!! and I am already imagining how great my sleep will be zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!