Trip Report

1755 miles – distance traveled.
784 – number of BBQ’s we passed along the way.

We are back from our road trip and if there is one thing I Iearned on this trip, it is that the south really loves their barbecues. Every few miles it was another billboard. Sonny’s; Maurice’s; Dustin’s; Big Daddy’s. One billboard actually looked like pig mashed between two halves of a bun. And not a cute pig like Babe or Charlotte’s friend, but one that looked like it was sent through the meat grinder a couple of times. At one point, after listening to the dulcet sounds of James Blunt crooning over the airwaves about a beautiful girl on the subway, the DJ followed up by reminding us that we were, in fact, listening to WBBQ. I swear I am not making that up. We ate pizza all weekend.

Our first, and probably only, pregnant vacation was by most accounts a huge success. Our major concern was Tracy’s ability to cope with an abundance of travel time in a car. I am happy to report she handled it very well. The only major difference from past road trips was her newfound ability to sleep for long periods of time. While happy she was able to rest, it did leave me with lots of alone time in car. But I combated that by making up little games for myself like,

Try and change lanes without hitting the reflectors in the road.

Or,

What just hit my windshield? - That was a dragonfly!

And the ever-popular,

Guess which muscle will cramp next! Will it be the neck? Perhaps it will be the calf.

Unfortunately, the one thing that can dampen a road trip is traffic. Leaving Florida, there was a stream of cars and trucks floating along the two-lane highway like platelets through a major artery. And of course, half of the time I am stuck behind Bobby Brake-A-Lot. You know, the guy who feels the need to hit the decelerator repeatedly, like he senses a squirrel is about to dart in front of him at any moment. But even Bobby couldn’t break our spirits.

We enjoyed North Carolina. I actually found myself saying a couple of times, "we’ll have to come back and visit here with the kid". Probably the most enjoyable thing about the state was the people. While visiting friends, I asked if we were just lucky or are people really this nice? He confirmed they are indeed very friendly. For example, he explained;

"You can be at an intersection and in a lapse of attentiveness, not realize the traffic light has turned green. The car behind you, instead of honking, cursing and giving you the finger, will sit silently, patiently waiting for you to realize you have the green light."

"You are kidding, right?"

"No. They’ll even sit there just pondering, ‘I wonder what that person in front of me is thinking about’?"

That is wonderful, if not a little too passive. I want to learn how to do that. I have become one of those mother-cursing finger flippers and that is not something I want to teach my child.

Anyway, over the weekend we entered week 15. Things look pretty much the same as last week. Tracy is maintaining a healthy weight. I, on the other hand, ate too much pizza.