a boost to independence

about half an hour ago, we got back from our weekend trip. for a long story full of reasons, we had to drive two cars back, so i couldn’t get out of driving. mostly, i leave long car trips to mr. h-s. he likes to drive and i tend to not-so-much like driving. especially eleven hours of it. so last night, we drove the first three hours of the trip and stayed in a hotel to break the trip into smaller pieces. we got up this morning and enjoyed the free continental breakfast (hey, fresh waffles from a real waffle iron (as opposed to a toaster) made it one of the best free hotel breakfasts i’ve had in a loooonnng time. possibly ever.) and headed out. poor mr. h-s. today is his birthday and not only are we looking at driving eight hours in weather that is threatening to “thunder drizzle” all the way home, but he is also experiencing some gastrointestinal discomfort that necessitates us stopping every hour or so at a “mc-restroom”. i felt so bad because i couldn’t even offer to drive and relieve him of responsibility! i suppose the bright side was that i probably would have wanted to stop just as frequently to stretch my legs and rest my brain even if he’d been feeling fine, so neither one of us was upset about having to stop more often (just a bit irritated on his part for the reason we had to stop).

i was thrilled that he agreed to take a teeny tiny detour in desmoines to the art center to see an outdoor sculpture by andy goldsworthy. i found it beautiful and a lovely break from travel. one of the concave pieces was in the light in such a way that the inside top was in shadow and the outside front face was well-lit. for some reason, that gave it this weird almost 3-d pop-out effect if you looked at it just right.

the boost to my independence that the title refers to is the fact that we made it home safely and since i had a good audiobook to listen to (maeve binchy’s book, copper beech, read by barbara caruso) i didn’t even get super antsy like i usually do on car trips. just have a very foggy head. but… now i know that if i really want to make a long car trip, i am capable of doing so. yay!