A thousand miles in a weekend -- that used to be nothing to us. Twenty-plus years ago, we thought nothing of driving a state or two away, spending one or two nights (usually imbibing great quantities of adult beverages) and then driving home to show up to work that Monday. It seemed easy, and just what one did on a weekend when one is in their twenties and thirties. By the time we had moved to the east coast for the first time, and were driving down on a weekend with the kids to visit my parents, my dad thought we were nuts for making that long of a drive only to be at his place for 36 hours, and he wondered aloud why we didn't stay longer. That's just the way we were (young, usually broke, and without a great quantity of paid vacation on my part).
Working in that same paradigm, we assumed an easy jaunt down to Albuquerque would be exactly like it was in the old days. It wasn't hard to get there. Ten miles to the interstate from the house, four hundred and eighty (ish) to the exit to the hotel. Easy-peasy. Shoot, compared to the old days when we were camping out with our friends for those weekend getaways, checking into a Marriott felt like cheating. We didn't even get drunk. (His one beer and my one old fashioned were nursed over the entire evening.) This morning we had a leisurely breakfast with an old friend and his new wife, and left around 11, thinking we would be home in time to feed the dogs and cats dinner.
It took a little longer than we calculated. We tried to take a different route home, and to shave off a few miles, we turned on a B road to meet up with the north-south highway we were looking for. Except I read the map wrong, for having my phone screen set too dark and not double-checking my turns. I made him exit at Moriarty, and we still ended up going past Santa Fe, the twisty east-west section we were trying to avoid. Whatever. It was a pleasant, quiet drive in the middle of nowhere, except for Drunky McWeaverson who we followed for ten miles or so before we finally got a chance to pass.
Traffic was horrible from Colorado Springs onward, as it always is now. We got home maybe an hour after we thought we would, and felt every mile traveled in our bones. He's been fighting a cold for weeks and losing, and me, well, unless this is your first time reading this blog, you know what my health is like. We instantly changed into jammies, and the rest of our evening was divided between sitting in our favorite chairs playing tablet games and dozing. I have a funny feeling I'm not going to be good for anything outside of the house tomorrow, and I can only hope he doesn't overdo on his side-gig, knowing he's got to prepare for Monday's classes. I'm starting to see these weekends from my dad's perspective, all these years later. It IS a lot of driving, for one short visit.
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