This is the second installment of my summer road trip travelogue, starring Artificially Sweetened (AS), Cupcake, and this Turkey.
As Day One unfolded, we managed to survive the argument about who told whom to be ready at which time versus who was actually ready when. It didn’t matter. We were ready to rock and roll, with our morning faces in full bloom. I shut off the house water and the water heater, and reprogrammed the air conditioners to keep the house toasty, but not incendiary, while we were gone. And before we had left I had made a mental note to pry more on what are scented air filters so that the house wouldn’t go fetid and dingy by the time we got back.
We had decided to use AS’s van, which was roomy and would be comfortable for a party of three and “all our crap” as Cupcake called it. As we staged for departure, we loaded up the van with our crap, AS called shotgun, and away we went. Cupcake was talkative for the first 50 miles or so, then she fell silent. She had brought along an iPod, a perpetually attached cell phone, a summer reading assignment, and a pillow. So, she was either listening to music, reading, sleeping, talking with or texting her sister or her boyfriend, or engaging in some combination of those things. Occasionally, we would alert her to the presence of something photographable, such as the “Welcome to Georgia” sign, whereupon she would snap a picture while reading and listening to the iPod.
The first memorable quote occurred when Cupcake asked whether we would be stopping anywhere or driving straight through to the first day’s destination, which, as I’ve said, happened to be Asheville, NC. AS saved me the trouble of responding. “Of course we’ll be stopping. We all do have bladders, you know!”
When we stopped at the overcrowded South Carolina welcome rest stop on I-95, nobody’s bladder was in need of evacuation. I guess we all don’t have bladders. In any case, there was a Geocache at the rest stop that I had previously searched for when it was missing, so I wanted to see if it was there. That gave us the opportunity to get out and walk around a little. After we had nabbed the cache, we walked back to the van. As AS passed the rest area depositorium, she stated that she intended to use the facilities. ?? ???? ??????? I told her that we’d see her back at the van. She asked if either of us had to use the toilet; Cupcake and I demurred. AS grunted, “Hmph!” Now, I know that my bladder was trained on much beer over the years, but I had to wonder about Cupcake. Perhaps she had precociously and furtively pursued a similar training regimen with the same foamy substance. [Read more…]
