Joe and Christine start the latest branch of the family.
Esther is 3 years and 0 month old.
Katherine is 6 months old.
We arrived in Louisville, KY for the night after about 12 hours on the road. We left Waxhaw, NC at 8:40am. We had lunch in Knoxville and escaped with only 2 or 3 stops on the way.
More details (and pictures!) to come.
I’m sitting in the living room of my parent’s apartment, in Waxhaw, NC. Football is on TV, my mother is packing up Christmas ornaments (to go home with their owners). We’ve just finished reviewing home movies (most people ignored most of them) and are anticipating a quiet end to the day.
Christine, Esther, and I arrived in Waxhaw at midnight on December 22 (or 23, depending on how you look at it). We left Oregon at 6pm on Friday the 21st. We were surrounded by a dense fog, from the moment we left our driveway. I couldn’t see further than 10 feet ahead until sometime after we crossed the Illinois border. Even then, the fog only thinned out. It never quite left us.
We drove from Oregon, WI to Indianapolis, IN on Friday night. We didn’t pull into Indy until sometime after midnight. Fortunately, Esther slept during most of the drive (and was willing to play during the other parts). Once we got to the downtown Days Inn, we setup the Pack’n’Play. She fell asleep pretty quickly. So did we.
Saturday morning, we hit the road by 10:30am, Eastern time. The drive through Indianna was pretty boring. (So was the drive through Wisconsin and Illinois the night before. But the fog obscured that.) Things got better once we crossed into Kentucky. The scenery in Kentucky and Tennesse kept me awake all day long. We stopped several times during the day. Our first Kentucky stop was just outside of Louisville. We took Esther on a walk around a local shopping center and enjoyed our first warm weather since early November. Our next stop was for lunch, sometime around Lexington (I think). I had Arby’s, Christine had Wendy’s. (It’s the story of our lives, in microcosm.)
The drive through Tennesse was absolutely gorgeous. Once again, I thought about moving down to Tennesse. What’s not to like, after all? Beautiful scenery, low taxes, moderate politics, and friendly people. We stopped for dinner in Knoxville — the home of Glenn Reynolds and Helen Smith. A month and a half ago, I e-mailed Dr. Helen and asked her advice about what to see (if we had time) and where to eat. On her recommendation, we stopped at Calhoun’s on the River for dinner. (Thanks!) We enjoyed it so much, that we’re stopping there again on our way home. Next time, we’ll arrive hungrier so we can eat more.
Unfortunately, we weren’t too hungry when we stopped for dinner. Christine and I had wings for dinner, then ordered a double-chocolate cake for dessert. Esther didn’t much care for the wings, but she absolutely loved the cake. I think she had more than I did!
From Knoxville, we drove south to Spartanburg, SC; back north to Charlotte, NC; and finally back south to Waxhaw, NC. That really was the quickest route. We hit rain outside of Knoxville and it followed us most of the way into Waxhaw. A bit of rain always makes nighttime driving more fun.
We greeted everyone, in a state of exhaustation. Then we went to bed.
Last night, Esther had a great time playing with Uncle Nate. We captured a few minutes on video, just for you.
Esther’s grandparents gave her a drum kit, complete with drumsticks, tambourine, bells, and xylophone. She isn’t too good at making noise, yet. We expect that to change soon.
We gave Esther a Playskool Busy Ball Popper for Christmas. So far, I think it’s her favorite present. It only took her about 3 minutes to figure out how to start it up and she loves making the balls fly around the room.
Watch and see.
It was an interesting end to the week.
Friday started out like pretty much any other day, but developed it’s own identity at lunch time. An ex co-worker was back in town and organized a group to go out to TGIFriday’s for lunch. Because lunch started at 12:30p, I missed the first part of my last training class. I left lunch at 1:35p and got to class around 2:00p. Class only lasted another 45 minutes, after I showed up.
Around 3:00p, I started driving back to my Madison office (from the Verona offices, where classes were being held). At the intersection of County Road PD and County Road M, my car stalled out. In the left turn lane. As the engine shut off, the dashboard oil light turned on. At this point, the road was on a slight incline. Fortunately PD isn’t heavily travelled, so I was able to wait one light cycle, then back the car away from the light. This allowed left turning traffic to easily go around me.
The next step was to get the car off of the road. That proved more challenging. I needed to cross a lane of traffic whether I went off to the left or off to the right. The left shoulder was closer, so I wanted to do that. Because the car was on a slight incline, I couldn’t get it moving fast enough on my own to push it across the lane. I made two phone calls. The first was to Christine, asking her to come pick me up and to bring some oil with her. The second was to Mike, asking for his help in pushing the car off of the road.
A note: A surprisingly large number of people pulled up behind, failed to notice that I was 30 feet from the light (with no one in front of me) and that my flashers were on. Having failed to notice these obvious indications that my car wasn’t running, they then proceeded to honk and glare at me.
Fortunately, most people that drove past weren’t jerks. One man initially started to pass me, suddenly slowed, then pulled off to the right side of the road. He came over and helped me push the car over to the left shoulder, in between waves of traffic. To whomever you are: thanks!
Mike pulled up about 2 minutes later and let me warm up in his car until Christine arrived. When Christine arrived, I put a quart of oil in the engine (after checking the level and seeing that it was slightly low). The car still failed to start up.
It was at this point that I first suspected that I’d run out of gas. I had good reason for not suspecting it before: based on average miles per gallon, I thought I had about 20 miles left before I ran out. Also, the gas light completely failed to come, both when I was driving and when I was stopped. I still didn’t really think that I was out of gas, but I figured it was worth a shot before calling for a tow.
Christine drove me over to James & Liz’s house (quicker to drive there than to our house and back), where we borrowed a gas can, and filled it up. I poured it into my car (spilling some on myself in the process), then tried to start it again. After a few seconds of cranking, it caught and started up. It ran rough for about 30 seconds, then smoothed out. Well! I guess it needed a fill-up after all!
We drove back to Verona, put a full tank’s worth of gas in the car, and returned the gas can. I finally arrived home around 6:00p; with cold, numb hands; and clothes that smelled like gasoline. As if that wasn’t enough, my iPod decided to call it a life and committed suicide.
The rest of the day was boring and anti-climatic by comparison.