A Safe Trip

The trip was quite harrying. First we had to leave the house, that in itself was a task. Our car was in the shop getting some routine maintenance done, and they reported that it would be ready before we were going to leave for California, which it was, still I had to leave from work early just to pick up the car. Due to all of this I decided I wanted to go to work early so I could make up some of the time I would be missing by getting the car. So, despite the fact that I knew we would be in the car for man hours I was up early, cutting short my good sleep.

I wish I could say I was packed and ready to go, and all I had to do when I got home was take a nap and maybe get more work done. Sadly I still had more work to do on my laptop just to get it ready to bring with me so I could get work done, and I had to pack, and I had a small list of chores that needed taken care of before our housesitter arrived. That was enough to keep me busy well beyond the three hours I wanted to spend, and I did not get a nap in. After my wife got home we scurried about putting the finishing touches on things and bade our cat farewell and left an hour later than my wife wanted.

My wife was planing on stopping only four hours into our journey, which would put us in the neighborhood of some of my relatives, but I wanted to do more than half of the driving on the first night, so we pressed on. I was supplied with enough caffeine to keep me up most of the night and felt certain I could make it until 1 am. As it turns out we rolled into a good sized city right around 1 am and set to the task of finding a hotel to spend the night in. That proved to be quite some task. There was a fire in the area, and it had burned many homes, evicted many more families, and attracted firefighters. In short, we could not find a vacancy, and it was recommended to us that we try a town forty minutes to the south. It was not until 2 am that we found a hotel to stay in, which was quite fortunate, for by 2:30 am I was tired enough to sleep, but it would be in my own double bed, for that was all we could get.

There was not much sleep to be got, for by 8 am we were awake and getting dressed. I was quite happy to find the hotel had a continental breakfast, so a quick bite to eat was followed by refueling the car, and only three more hours found us at our destination, my in-law's place. By this time we were still tired, still sweaty and sticky, and had to get ready for a funeral. Luckily we had about an hour to prepare, and we made it just in time for the funeral, but that will have to come at a later date.

The effects of my nap are wearing off and I must go to bed and sleep.