A Sightseeing We Will Go

Last week, after having babysat our five grandsons (ages 3 to 12) for the better part of a week, the kiddos went home. You'd think this would be a time of great relief now that order and quiet had been restored in the house of two boring oldsters, wouldn't ya?

It was fine for a day or two, then I got bored and lonely. What to do? What to do? Then it hit me – road trip! Now came the conundrum. Where would we go? I didn't want to go too far since I had someplace to be that evening so I got on the old computer and tried to come up with an idea, preferably indoors, where we could kill a day and not spend too much money.

Armed with a map and a full tank of gas, off we went. Or so I thought. We were getting a late start since it was getting way too close to noon and wouldn't you know it, David decides he needs to make a couple of stops in search of a part for our hot tub so he'll be able to work on it while I'm at my meeting. ARRGGHHH! That was not a good sign.

While sitting in the parking lot of the pool store, we pondered where we should go.

Me: You're always saying there are places you want to go one of these days so let's go to one of those places. (I couldn't remember specifically where he said he wanted to go, just that he said it.)

David: Ok, let's go see where Custer fought (some say massacred) the Indians at Cheyenne, Oklahoma.

Me: Let me see how far it is.

We only had about seven hours to make a round trip. I pulled up the handy-dandy map on my phone. Two hours there, two hours back, maybe an hour to eat and plenty of time to stroll around the battlefield. All is good, right? Wrong.

Mistake number one: Thinking David would pay attention to the nag-i-gator and I'd be free to enjoy the scenery (staring at my phone).

Mistake number two: David ignoring the nag-i-gator and speeding on to the next largest town where we stopped for lunch. I wasn't worried about our time limit at this point but I still picked a buffet place so we could control how long it took us to eat.

Mistake number three: I wasn't paying attention (as usual) to which direction David was driving although I did notice that our GPS was about to have a stroke with all the recalculating 'Julie the nag-i-gator' was having to do. I figured he knew the roads pretty well and it'd be okay. We were 81 miles from our destination when we left the restaurant.

Mistake number four: Not paying attention to the GPS. It dawned on me that we had been traveling over half an hour since lunch and we were STILL 81 miles from our destination. How was that possible? I looked at the route that GPS had laid out and it was desperately trying to get us to make a U-turn. At this point I (and 'Julie') got frustrated. Let's just say there was a lot of sighing going on, not that he'd hear it anyway.

Me: Well, I guess I'll turn off the map because you haven't made a single turn 'Julie's' told you to since we left the house.

David: What? You didn't tell me to.

Me: Silly, me. I assumed you'd pay attention to the BIG MAP in the middle of the dashboard. (Mistake number five.)

I left the map on, it recalculated AGAIN, and we kept driving. Imagine our surprise when, half an hour later, we were in TEXAS. Yes, freaking Texas, and we were still an hour away from our destination!

We finally arrived and stopped to read the engraved monument commemorating the event. We didn't get out of the car since it felt like it was about 120 degrees outside.

We spotted a museum and decided we had a few minutes (15) before we'd have to head back home in time for my meeting.

Do you remember the scene in National Lampoon's Vacation where the Griswolds spend about two minutes taking in the Grand Canyon? Well, that was us in the museum. We "sped read" all the text accompanying the photographs and drawings, hopped in the car and headed back home.

David learned his lesson and paid attention to 'Julie,' and we made it home with a couple of minutes to spare.

I also learned my lesson. I learned to make sure 'Julie's' sound is turned up as high as it will go so David can hear her nag-i-gate us to our next destination.

I think I'll wait until 'Julie' has had a chance to recuperate before we take her on another adventure.