Day One: Holy Crap, We’re on the Road

4:58 PM Pull out of the Driveway

1800 miles to go

5:00 PM Rain

Lesley and Scott look at each other, trepidation crossing their faces. Soldier on.

5:10 PM Passenger side windshield wiper ceases to function

Lesley: Have we gotten ourselves in over our heads?

Scott: Of course darlin’, but that happened well before today.

Still, they soldier on.

6:51 PM First “bus love,” a vintage, restored European car of unidentified provenance, full of people waving at us on Rt. 340 S. We’re totally doing this!

Shortly after, we see a weathered Mickey Rourke type riding a horse bareback while smoking (Marlboros, no doubt), just loping along the median strip of Rt. 340. He’s totally crazier than we are, if not for the fact that we have more horsepower.

Delayed Start (Subtitled: If it’s Not One Limb, it’s Another)

Things were going entirely too well on Friday so I should have known better. Shame on me!

The bus passed inspection, my orthopedist said that I didn’t need the boot anymore as long as I continued with six more weeks of ultrasound therapy, and we decided to leave for the trip on Sunday to allow ample time Saturday for packing and other miscellany.

Every weekend in recent history I’ve made homemade pizza: dough from scratch, sauce from scratch, and lovely herbs from the garden. Saturday was no different, with one major exception. While chopping basil for the finishing touch, I made the grave error of actually attempting to carry on an animated conversation…and slipped on my final knife pass.

The chiffonade of fresh basil that I was “carefully” chopping quickly turned into a bloody gore fest and I realized that I had almost completely severed the top ¼ inch of my middle finger. The irony was not lost that it was karma’s way of giving me the good old one finger salute: You are completely incapable of having good luck Lesley; therefore you must sacrifice a critical digit in order for the rest of the trip to be a success!

An impromptu trip to the ER then ensued (one day shy of my 5 month anniversary...it was a veritable reunion in the ER), followed by a late night Burger King run in which the lady (and I use that term loosely) behind the counter told me that no, I could not have half regular iced tea and half sweet tea because they just didn’t do it that way.

We got home at almost 1:00 AM, I missed SNL, and still hadn’t packed. F-you karma, I’ll get you back one day.