On blessings and miles and miracles.

I honestly do not understand how I could be so deserving of such love and consideration that’s been shown to me recently. I am so thankful and blessed to have so many good people in my life.

Car Trouble … Again

I asked my mechanic to squeeze me into his hectic schedule to give my car a once-over before traveling to Kansas to visit my brother, my sister-in-law, and my newest nephew. I figured all it needed was an oil change as I went to Florida and back at the beginning of the summer. But as I was making my way to his shop, the check engine light came on and the engine was emitting a terrible noise that sounded like a high-pitched scream. It was not a simple oil change.

But my mechanic was kind and patient — as always — and said he’d take care of it. I left the car with him and took an Uber back to my place, where I was promptly scooped up and treated to dinner by good friends. We walked the boardwalk afterwards, and even though I wanted to rage about the injustice of failed plans, it was an absolutely perfect evening. They even drove my car key back to my mechanic’s because in my self-pity and anxiety, I forgot to leave it.

The car was ready by the next afternoon: incredible. I’d been so excited about traveling nearly halfway across this beautiful country to meet my newest nephew, Jamison, and visit with my brother Mike and his wife Abby. Abby and Jamison both nearly died during his delivery two months ago, so it was a special, emotionally-charged endeavor to get to see them. When it almost became an impossibility, I was devastated. The expense could be managed, but if I didn’t have a car, that became a serious issue. They live two hours from the nearest airport, so I’d have to rent a car. When I looked at ticket prices, they were exorbitant. It was cheaper to just rent a car and go, so that became my Plan B. But my mechanic came though.

Hitting the Road

I left my apartment in Seaside just before 3 AM; the trip was supposed to take 18 hours, which is about the same travel time as when I go to see Maddie and the boys in Florida. Only this time, I was traveling west instead of south. I really appreciated the change in scenery. I-95 gets boring and monotonous real quick.

Any good road trip starts with a stop at Wawa for coffee, and I filled my 24 oz cup all the way to the tippy top, which proved a fatal mistake later. With caffeine and a full tank of gas, I hit the road. An hour later, I was in Pennsylvania … and covered in coffee. I spilled nearly half the cup when I went to pick it up from the holder. Luckily, it wasn’t burning hot anymore. When I stopped in Pennsylvania to fill up around 7:30 AM, I changed my clothes and got some breakfast.

By 9 AM, I had made it through Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and I had just entered Ohio. I was making *beautiful* time. My ETA was 7:47 PM.

I stopped for lunch in Indiana and once I hit Illinois, the time zone changed and I “lost” an hour. The GPS also added an hour because there was a road closure due to flooding, so I was good and cranky before I entered Missouri. But the scenery was stunning and there was minimal traffic, so I just cranked the radio and kept on keeping on.

I crossed into Kansas around 9 pm and was at my brother’s house just 10 minutes later. And I got to hold my nephew.

Writing Life and Real Life

The details of this trip may seem boring, but as my next novel will center around a cross-country road trip, I wanted to pay special attention to the minor details and the logistics of interstate travel, in addition to the breathtaking imagery and points of interest. For example, I could have stopped to see Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace, and/or the world’s largest gavel. And there was a country store that dealt exclusively with “bullets, boots, britches, and bologna.” How could that not make it into a novel?

And my nephew Jamison is perfect, absolutely perfect. Despite needing to be resuscitated and undergoing a cooling treatment at birth, he’s wonderful. I changed poopy diapers and he projectile-vomited formula all over me, and it’s all been worth it. Mike and Abby are excellent parents; Mike even did my laundry for me.

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