At the end of their sojourn in Trondheim, Becky and the Baroness (The Promise of Happiness) get to pack up for the trip to Holland. They will be traveling with Tiele and Tialda. Will they fly? No. Another cruise? Nope.
Road Trip!!!
The distance from Trondheim to Home Sweet Home, is roughly 700 miles. Much is made of the fact of how far that is...Tiele takes three days to make the trip. THREE DAYS. I suppose if you stop and have lunch in a sit-down restaurant, and then tea, plus breakfast and dinner at a hotel you could take that long. That doesn't work so well for citizens of the western portion of the U.S. We'd take forever to get anywhere.
In the 20 years that Dr. van der Stevejinck and I have lived in Washington State, we have routinely taken 2,000 mile (round-trip) driving vacations. Flying the two of us and six kids would have been entirely too cost prohibitive...so in order to visit my in-laws, sixteen hour bum-burners were de rigueur. It's about 900 miles to Salt Lake City from our house, and we seldom take more than one day to drive it. Here's why (and now some bullets!):
- there's nothing to see between here and there (sorry Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Southern Idaho and Northern Utah). Trust me, after the first couple of times you've made that trip there is nothing near the freeway worth stopping to see. Alright, I'm exaggerating - a bit. There is a lovely stretch in Eastern Oregon between Pendleton and LaGrande. It's lovely as long as it isn't snowing...which we've had happen to us there as late as early April.
- kids. I'm pretty sure that Dante missed one of the levels of Hell. I'm sure there is one reserved for being confined in an automobile with kids. For extra bad people, the air conditioner has stopped working.
- did I mention there's nothing to see?
- did I mention driving with kids?
Lest you get the impression that the trip is just a nightmare, I will say that I have gotten lots of reading done when it was my turn to be passenger. I'm exceedingly grateful that I don't get carsick on the freeway, otherwise the trip would be a nightmare.
Last October my daughter, son-in-law, and 4 grandchildren under the age of 7, moved from Washington to Charleston, South Carolina, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles. They made the trip in 6 1/2 days. Six and a half days of being cooped up in a mini-van with six people. I'm so impressed that they made it. There's no way I'm driving out to visit. *I'll be taking to the friendly skies.*since writing this, Dr. van der Stevejinck has booked flights for us to go to S.C....in 10 days! Yes, it's great, I'm excited, thrilled, overwhelmed...now I have to find a substitute for my class. I'll be even more excited, thrilled and perhaps a little less overwhelmed when I've done that.
Wow. Dr. van der Stevejinck does not let the grass grow. Are you stacking up posts in eager anticipation? ;0)
ReplyDelete10 day?! That's pretty quick. Enough time to get excited not too much waiting.
ReplyDeleteBetty Keira: I will be stacking posts like crazy.
ReplyDeleteBetty Suzanne: I'm more than a little worried about getting 8 days worth of substitutes...surprisingly there aren't that many willing takers who would cheerfully volunteer to teach at 6am for free.
I'm so excited--and sometimes for the wrong reasons. I was going to have so many more things painted, planted, and furnished before you got here, but with 10 days--be merciful and know the house and garden are a work in progress that I try NOT to make my top priority.
ReplyDelete