No Man, No Woman
Whenever I told someone we were going on this road trip, it was always "How will you find bathrooms?" "How will you find hotel rooms?" "How will you not go insane ?" Never once did I hear "But how will you find air?"
Well, believe it or not, that's exactly how our day started. The tires needed pumping desperately, like apparently no other vehicle in the state of Maine does. The state of Maine that you can drive through for four hours straight . And not one of the vehicles in this state needs air. We searched two gas stations that, for some reason, were directly across the street from one another, but came up dry. Not to worry, though, because at the end of that same block was another clump of gas stations! Finally, one of them had an air pump! Dad gets out, pays the thing and inserts the nozzle into the front left wheel and then finds out that there's something wrong with the pump: it won't seal. To Mom's relief, no air was released from our tires, so we just kept searching. At this point you might be saying to yourself "Well, Abby, there's no way there was yet another gas station nearby!" Well, foolish mortal, you're wrong. On the same street, just another block down, was another gas station. We drove around back and a man with his big, manly pick-up truck was using a mysterious hose coming right out of the building to fill his tires. As rich, snobby Hopkinton people who are used to paying for everything, both Mom and I were wondering. "Do you just . . . take it? For free?" to which Dad and the man in his pick-up replied "Yes."
Yay! We've finally got tire air, problem solved. I took this as a celebratory moment, and began munching on some mini donuts we got at a gas station. Only one of five donuts in did I realize: they went bad three days ago. The irony in this whole situation is I even checked the expiration dates on the chocolate milks we bought, but who would check a pack of processed junk food? Apparently, I should have. At that point the irony and humor of the whole situation was driving me insane, so I felt the need to share.
"Technically these donuts went bad three days ago, but they're really processed and I already ate one, so.." I mentioned to Mom before popping another in my mouth. Dad was too busy pumping the tires to hear it, but Mom found the statement absolutely hilarious. Well? We already bought them, might as well eat them. Plus, at that point Gideon had already eaten a pack and he wasn't sick yet, so how bad could it be?
With that, we were off! The morning was fairly calm and I got to finish the second Percy Jackson book! Along the way, however, we saw two horse drawn vehicles and a large amount of on-the-go bathroom use on the horses' parts. Yes, I mean piles of horse poop on the side of the road.
Around one, we stopped at Legacy Sandwich Shop in Bangor, Maine. How were we still in Maine? I have no idea. I was so done with that state. It's beautiful, don't get me wrong, but no one needs to see the mountains for that long. Either way, lunch pick-up was swift and simple. Mom's sandwich was messier than she expected, though, so we had to pull over. There arose the problem as tensions, stress and annoyance sparked between parents. Let's just say, I spent a good ten minutes listening to music with my headphones as loud as possible. Not soon after that, a truce was reached. Not necessarily a peace treaty, but a truce.
By mid-afternoon, we were back in the middle of nowhere, which means that one small house has a lot more streetfront real estate than if they were all packed in, like in Hopkinton. This left room for our second interesting sign of the road trip:
Not only is the visual of beefy Donald Trump funny, but the motto happened to remind me of our earlier conflict. No man and no woman could have prevented that interaction. We're miles away from home, and will be for the next month and a half. We're sleep deprived, constantly in need of a clean bathroom and we haven't had decent wifi since we left home. Any of this would make the average person rather salty, not to mention that we're four introverts who really love alone time and personal space packed into a car together for eight hours a day. This is a recipe for disaster. And sure, here or there we have our issues, but really something rather amazing is happening. I've read more in the past day than I did last week in total. I'm having conversations with Gideon. And enjoying them. We're relying on each other and working together. The reality is that in our modern lives, we just don't do that anymore. We're so worried about this deadline and that project that we forget to enjoy life and the company it brings. It's really cool to just enjoy being with my family for the day.
Later in the afternoon, we stopped to take pictures of a beautiful lake and one of many cheesy Paul Bunyon statues before continuing our home stretch to Burlington, Vermont. Why Burlington? Well, last summer Gideon fell in love with the burger place Grazers so we had to get some for him. It was a long stretch, but we did it! Tonight we're staying at the Best Western in Waterbury where I didn't tuck in the shower curtain and got water all over the floor. Fabulous.
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