In no particular order, here are a few things I meant to include in my posts this summer. To call them deep thoughts is misleading though. Sorry.
1. I can’t tell you how many times one of the boys said “Mom! Get The New Yorker!” The good old New Yorker magazine was the go to for fire starting this year. We rarely had newspaper, but I brought a few back issues of the New Yorker and after I read them, they became good fire starter. It always cracked me up to hear Bruno calling for The New Yorker. So funny.
2. Every year, I think of making a soundtrack for the trip. Last year, it was “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. It was always on–literally any time we were in the car–and the boys knew every single word and even re-wrote the song with some really funny lyrics. Also, that horrible Katy Perry song, “Roar” was another one last summer. Songs like that just get in my head and get stuck on repeat, you know? Last year, we were on an Elvis Presley kick too because we made a stop at Graceland and basically listened to the Elvis station on XM radio for the rest of the way home. Our favorites were “A Little Less Conversation” and “Rubberneckin'”
So this year, I’d say there are three songs that top the Driven Batty charts. First is “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea, which I personally sang at least three times a day on the trip. Multiply that by 32 days and you’ve got a hit. Bruno told me it was my theme song, which is pretty funny if you listen to the words (it’s ironic). I also like to think of it as my entrance song, like for meetings or classes or even doctor’s appointments. Can’t you picture it? Me walking into the room or down the hall with that song playing? I’m kidding, but you knew that, right? Also in heavy rotation was “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor, which has a really old time feel to it. I like that one a lot. Last, is the theme song for the new Fantasy Football channel that Peyton and Eli Manning made a promo video for. They rap in it–it’s horrible, but kind of catchy. Little Rock watched it a bunch of times with Bruno and they were both singing it all the time. Do you know it? The video is actually really funny, but the song is just plain stupid. And annoying. And I’m pretty sure the channel is just as annoying and stupid.
3. The boys sustained a bunch of minor injuries this trip—mostly cuts and scrapes and bruises. One night before bed, Rocky was complaining about some of his, so I took a look, and he literally looked like one of the sea turtles we saw at the aquarium who were attacked by sharks or by boat propellers. At one point, he had a giant bruise on his thigh from surfing, a huge gash on his elbow and one on his ankle from falling off his bike. His pinky toenail had fallen off from stubbing it, and along with that, he had an oozing blister from his flip flops and what I thought was Athlete’s foot from wearing his flip flops in the rain. I cleaned and treated each one, put some clean socks on him and then carried him (on my back) to the tent.
4. Big Rock spent most of the trip in his board shorts. He was able to achieve one of his goals, which is to live “board short to board short.” While we were in Frisco, this is what he did. He’d swim in one pair and then, as they dried, he’d hang out in another pair. He’s trying to figure out how to live like this full-time. I think I’d like it too.
5. Every year, I come home with a handful of regrets, which bothers me. I always vow that it won’t happen the next time, but it always does. It’s silly stuff though, like I wish we ate at this place called Food Dudes in Kill Devil Hills and I wish we stopped at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream outside of Cleveland. I wish I had a pina colada at the pool at Maumee Bay and I wish we stayed at the Lake Erie State Park in New York instead of driving on and staying in a hotel the other night. Lingering regrets from previous trips include not taking the mule ride down to the Phantom Ranch in the Grand Canyon, not driving the Going to the Sun Road at Glacier National Park in Montana and not hiking down to the boat lunch at Crater Lake in Oregon and taking the cruise around Wizard Island. There’s always next year for all of these things though, right?
6. Here are some things that I noticed about America. First, Five Guys, Starbucks and CrossFit gyms are literally everywhere—I mean everywhere. Second, everyone seems to know all the words to Pop Country songs that I’ve NEVER heard of and, third, Dollar General and Family Dollar are everywhere there is poverty and that is a lot of places. I’ve never seen more Dollar Generals than on this trip, they’re building them everywhere. It’s kind of scary.
7. We play this game where we tell a story with each person saying one word. You know that game, right? You kind of build a story one word at a time. Well, we played that a lot and our stories usually ended up being about the same things—LeBron James or Kyrie Irving, butt cracks, poop or peeing—no matter how hard I tried to steer it away from those topics. Anyway, the funniest thing that happened was when it was Bruno’s turn and for his word, he says “All dem” and we were all like, “What? That’s not one word.” And he said it again. “All dem (with his two hands up). You know, like All (one hand moves) and dem ( the other hand moves). It’s short for all of them. It’s like a contraction.” All dem???? Really? I blame that crap on bad music. All dem. He kills me.
8. This is the first year that I’ve done the trip without contacts and glasses (and being blind in general). I was happy not to pack extra contacts and the cleaning solutions and my glasses, mostly because it freed up space in my toiletries bag for more of my Birchbox samples. Seriously though, having the eye surgery has changed everything for me and I can see so well and so consistently and I can go swimming and I don’t have to take my contacts out every night at the campsite and worry about keeping my case and my contacts free of dirt and grime and germs. My eyes don’t get tired looking at the map or the phone. And, I’m much better with my eye/hand coordination which makes be better at mini golf and shuffleboard and cornhole.
In fact, since the surgery, I’ve been looking for a sport to take up and I think it’s going to be shuffleboard—you get to be outside, it’s a good core workout, you don’t need special shoes. The only thing though is that I’m not sure what the professionals wear for their uniforms. I’ll need to check into that before committing to any sport. I’m also into fencing for some reason.
9. Weather is key to a good road trip. We’ve never had as much rain as we did this time around and it’s not that it ruined the trip or anything, but it does kind of put a damper on stuff. If we’re driving, it just makes it harder to see everything and we can ‘t just pull over and get out and check things out or eat lunch at a park. If we’re at the site, it’s harder to cook outside or be outside and you have to work to keep your stuff dry. One other bad outcome of rain is smellier feet. I’m not exactly sure why, but I’m pretty sure it’s got to do with being in wet flip flops. This has plagued all eight of the feet on this trip and, for two nights, Big Rock chastised Rocky for his stinky feet in the tent–that he wasn’t taking good enough care of his personal hygiene and stuff like that. Eventually, we figured out that it wasn’t his feet that stank…it was mine. Poor kid. As I said in a previous post, I did a lot of “rainplaining” this trip and the stinky feet just added to my aggravation in that department.
10. Bruno has this USA Word Search book and there’s a word search for each state with state capitals and other facts related to the state. He kept up with it until we got to Ohio and then he sort of kept saying that he never had any time to do his word searches anymore, which is a funny complaint. Anyway, one morning, we took a quick trip into Toledo to get the bikes fixed and we found ourselves crossing the border into Michigan. We were all surprised as we didn’t realize we were that close to another state and, from the backseat, Bruno says, “Great. Another word search to do!”
11. As we drove into Port Clinton, Ohio, there was a huge sign for the Perch, Peach, Polka and Pierogi Fest happening next week. I thought that sounded super interesting. Don’t you?
12. On South Bass Island, the campground store sold firewood and ice and bales of straw. The first two are totally normal, but straw? We couldn’t figure it out. However, as we drove around the campground, we saw that people were spreading straw under their tents. We’ve camped literally around the country and have never seen that before. I looked into a bit and apparently, this helps insuluate your tent? It keeps the cold from coming up through the tent floor. This sounds dumb to me. And weird. Any thoughts?
13. Bruno loves to swing. So do I. Don’t you love just swinging really high on a nice old swing set? If you haven’t done it in a while, you should give it a go. We found some great swings this summer and most of them were right on the water, which makes swinging even better because it feels like your flying over the water.
14. Bruno loves a Duty Free sign. He cracks up every time. When we crossed into Canada this time around, he snickered from the back seat when he saw it. Duty free, it gets him every time.
See? Nothing too deep, just some random stuff (and a lot about Bruno for some reason). I’m still not done with this blog though, I’ve got a few more posts I need to tidy up and get on here. Stay tuned.
T
