If you are shuddering, we are very different in our approaches to life pleasures. As soon as I was old enough to drive, it was not uncommon especially during stressful situations to get in the car and drive....where-ever. I always dreamed to have the possibility in my life where jumping in the car for hours at a time was perfectly acceptable. This is a moment where I'm taking the time to celebrate that arrival! Eric understandably flies everywhere because weekends would be destroyed if he consistently drove back and forth to Boulder, Atlanta, DC, Boston, Pittsburgh, and of course downright logistically challenging for London, Dublin, Brussels, etc. However, I have a little girl who is equally adventurous and I do not answer to the same sort of deadlines from clients the way I do, ie, they don't care if I'm on the Arctic Circle as long as I'm online. Thus, in my travel planning for the next two months, I realised suddenly just how much driving my adorable Mini, Ellie, and I would be experiencing.
Another major celebration is blowing past 100,000 miles on my odometer for a 2009 MiniCooper. We have partnered in travel from Canada to Mexico, Pheonix to Cape Cod, Toronto to Orlando and quite a few places between. Thus, we toast this special occasion by slapping another 6,000 miles, but only after rewarding the little motor-er with a fresh new set of tires and brakes next week :)
So what is this 6,000 mile madness?
Nicely tucked in Asheville, it's time to shed the nest. Heading up to Indianapolis for three weeks where Eric will swing in on weekend, but is spending the majority of the time in Texas (I really hate Texas). Then we meet again in Asheville for a day, putting south to Orlando for a conference and Ellie's first Disney trip (anybody want to volunteer to take her instead of me? I really hate big fake creatures walking around trying to hug me - I'm told that I kicked Mickey when I was a kid). Back north to Asheville for a whole 1.5 weeks, then heading way up there to the world of ice and snow (otherwise known as mosquitoes and water in summer) to Minnesota for a conference and my doctorate (handily in the same city). While I'm out in the hinterlands, I decided to go southwest to the Black Hills for a few days, a location where I've kicked myself for not visiting while only five hours away in Denver. Eric goes who knows where during that time, and then we meet each other again the following week in Boulder, puttering on home for a few weeks break.
This was to be a quiet fall with little travel action, so there is some spectacular failure on that level, unless we can say Fall doesn't really start until October, in which we succeeded greatly. While I look forward to Malta and Rome for half of December, I'm sad that even my adorable Mini will not fit the plane. It's especially too bad because many of it's fellow colleagues will be running around both Malta and Rome thinking that sidewalks are perfectly appropriate parking spots and that those funny things with two legs need run over because they are in the way....
