I don’t get to spend a lot of couple time with The Boy, and we get to spend even less time going on vacations together. We do our best to take mini-adventures, but the last time we set aside time to go on vacation by ourselves was in 2006 when we went to Mammoth Caves (sorry, I have no electronic pics to commemorate the trip – besides, I had The Worst Haircut in the World, and wouldn’t want to have it on the internetz forever, anyway).
I also laugh that we don’t travel well. Somehow, we always end up bickering about something along the way that leads me to frantically texting, "OMG, I think I might kill him. Meet me on OH23 in Franklin County and bring a shovel."
My favorite story is the time when we still smoked, and decided to drive down to Columbus for Yule in a blizzard, and I went to flick my cigarette out the window, but it bounced back into the car, forcing The Boy to pull over – in a blizzard – opened the passenger door without saying a word, looked for the smoldering ember, flicked the butt on the side of the snow-covered highway, sat me back in the car, and pulled back onto the blizzardy highway…all without goon-handing me or screaming.
That, my friends, is true love. I knew in that moment, that even when I was totally trife, he would still make sure I was trundled safely back in the vehicle, instead of forcibly amputating me at the knee with a car door.
I’m pretty sure he cursed his way around the car to get me, and all the way back around after he tucked me back in.
But I treasure our travel time together. I’ve recently taken to finding audio books (David Sedaris on both of our recent trips) that we can listen to, which helps the time pass and keeps the, "OMG, stop breathing at me" arguments down to a minimum. This weekend, we spent 370 miles listening to David Sedaris tell us stories through major cities and small towns. Sometimes, I would look out the window and watch the rolling hills of farmhouses. Part of the way, I rested my head on The Boy’s forearm, rolling my fingers in his, trying not to drool on his upholstery when I dozed off. Most of the time, I wondered what it was like to live in the different towns we drove through.
We stopped outside of Jeffersonville at the Flying J travel plaza on Saturday evening on our way to see The Brothers-and-Sister-in-Law for their Halloween party (which was amazing, and when I get the pictures, I will post them). We each got a slice of pizza and bottle of juice, and ate in his truck. Though we were heading south, the weather was still getting colder, and The Boy bitterly complained that we had skipped straight into winter.
On our way in, I snapped this picture of him using the Retro Camera app on my phone. I got him to pose a little for it, for which I am grateful.
It is by far my favorite picture of The Boy in the eight years we have been together. Between his expression and the under-exposed edges, it sums up everything I love when I’m traveling with him.
And with that, welcome to NaBloPoMo’10.
The Blog of JulZ 