Well. I've certainly been here before. I spent the entire day next to my phone (which is so much easier than it used to be), getting updates from the road. The man left right at sunup, if you could call it that, as it was overcast and misty or rainy from here to the Mississippi, and driving west, he got to experience all of it. My job, as it so often has been, was to check the maps for alternate routes, weather conditions, and with the addition of new technology, to give live updates on where the traffic accidents were to explain why certain interstates were parking lots. This job is a whole lot easier in the Google Maps age than it was back in the old days when all I had was Weather Channel and an atlas. I love being able to zoom in and tell him exactly where the gas stations are (and scold him for not believing me when I say he passed his last chance for gas for twenty or thirty miles). It's also easier for me to stay home and take care of the animals than to try to drive with him on these hard cross country treks. I'm not all that old, and I don't even look as old as I am, but when I have to spend more than a couple hours on a highway, I feel ancient. But even in my position as at-home tech support for his road trips, I age a little bit faster. I'm naturally a worrier. I tense up about him on slick highways in crowded, stop-and-go Friday afternoon traffic. I like that he calls me just about hourly, and that he sends me pictures from his gas stops, so I know he's okay.
He has stopped for the night, in a safe place, both for him and for the stuff we are sending to storage in the truck and trailer. Most of the boxes are full of books and cold weather clothes that have been in the garage since we moved to the Low Country, the land of mild winters. There are a few things I wanted treated with care, like the dishes that rode in the back seat instead of in the bouncy trailer. And the back of his pickup is full of things that are absolutely replaceable. I figured if someone was determined to break in to steal the boxes of things they could see through the windows of the truck topper, then they would be saddled with a pile of Christmas decorations that were valuable to no one but us. And even then, other than the ornaments his mom made in the 1970s and put his name on, it's all stuff we can buy over again at Target, if some desperate thief took the gamble that he could sell all that crap for a single hit of meth. (Is "hit" the right term? I have no idea. I don't travel in those circles. I never even watched Breaking Bad.)
Things are mostly quiet around here now. Zoe has flipped out a few times looking for him, thumping the blinds on the window in the bathroom in an angry attempt to break out to find him. Murray is at camp all week, since I'm not allowed to lift anything heavier than Jackie for another month. And with the cold front that moved through last night, all any of us have wanted to do was lie around under blankets and cuddle. I have not lacked for feline company today. I have goals of pruning roses this weekend, but it can wait until the sun is out. Plus, I have to stay near a computer to steer the man through St Louis and Kansas City traffic, and watch my phone for updates along the long lonely road through Kansas. The man says the most depressing road sign in the whole country for him, is that first mile marker after you pass the Kansas border, when it tells you there are over 420 miles of I-70 to go before you get to Colorado. Oh, we have driven that road too many times.
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