Thursday Thirteen: Road Trip Edition

On the BlogHer site, where NaBloPoMo is is hosted, there is a daily question, to inspire people who may be lacking inspiration writing a daily blog. After a full day on the road, that is me, for sure.

Today's question is interesting, and I want to think about it, and write about it, but first...

There is a side question you may be asking yourself: How does a four hour drive translate into a full day on the road? That answer seems to me to be worthy of a Thursday thirteen list.

Thirteen things that always seem to extend my road trips with the girls:

1. No matter how well I try to plan, there is always one more errand to run. 
2. No matter how much I tell the girls that the errand will be "quick", they will always want to come in with me, and it will always take longer. 
3. There is always one more person to see before I leave. In the one direction, I either have to get the animals squared away, or drop by Small's school, or speak to a neighbor, or drop something off at my mom's house or my sister's house (or both). In the other direction, there is always one more person I'm trying to squeeze in. 
4. There will always be something weird with the car. Even if having it serviced was the one more errand I had to run, it will make a noise, or have a non functioning light, or something will be hanging off the bottom of it. 
5. No matter when I leave, there will always be traffic somewhere.
6. I will always think I'm smart enough to get around the traffic, by taking a detour. I am not. This kind of thinking once rerouted me through a completely different state.   
7. No matter how many snacks I bring, I will forget something, and we will be hungry for whatever that was that we
8. I, personally, will  always have to stop for the restroom more than I think I will. This includes the stop two miles from my house, which is absolutely ridiculous, I know, but sadly necessary.
9. I always think gas is cheaper around the next corner. This necessitates my stopping for gas more times than necessary. Theoretically, a 250 mile drive would not require stopping for gas. Certainly, it will not require stopping for gas more than once, unless you stop for gas and think "Holy cow! No way am I paying this much for gas! It must be cheaper further on." When that happens, it just gets stupid.
10. We will always get stuck behind people who insist on going ten miles under the speed limit. Typically, this will happen when we are so close to our destination that we can almost see it, which makes it even more frustrating.
11. No matter how many times we stop for gas, even if everyone uses the restroom, someone will have to use the restroom between stops. This is different from number 8, because in this case, I am not talking about myself.
12. When stopping at a Cracker Barrel, no matter how well intentioned, no matter how much we decide beforehand to only hit the restroom and then move on, we will always lollygag.Because, come on! They have fake fireflies in jars, and talking dogs who hit on you, and bouncy balls with eyeballs in them!Also, even if we do not stop at Cracker Barrel, one of the stops will take an inordinately long time, because we are easily distracted, by things like pink cowboy hats and fake hamsters, and cheap DVDs that we must look through, even though we rarely buy them. (I say rarely, because I think we bought one once. I think it was about vampires, or zombies, or martial arts, or something. Maybe a combination of two or three of those things.)
13. No matter how long the drive, no matter how tired I am at the end of it, there are moments when I totally allow time to slip away. This is because there is something about a road trip that bonds us, that makes us sing together, talk about genealogy, tease each other about things without anyone's feelings getting hurt. My girls giggle with each other in a way that does not happen very often when we are not in motion. And for that, I will take the extra time, even if I am worn out by the time I get off the road.

Tomorrow, I'll answer today's question... "What is the moment that you leave childhood and enter adulthood?"