Road Trip

and I'm back...

Talk about a whirlwind tour! I just took a four hour nap trying to recover :) Hooray for the 4th of July!

Everything was picture perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and the most beautiful bride on earth.

One of my favorite parts of the entire weekend had nothing to do with parties. Well, except for the dance party that I was throwing in the car. I had the best time on the drive up to Idaho. There I was, for three hours, just singing my guts out, joining everyone from Neil Diamond to Keith Urban. If you really want a chuckle, think of me bouncing up and down on a country highway, music so loud that you could probably hear it from other cars, singing this all alone. I'm sure that the passing vehicles thought I was having emotional issues, or really needed to use the restroom.

In between getting down with my bad self, I just thoroughly enjoyed being in the car. I have forgotten that it can actually be pleasant to drive down an open road. No schedule, no constantly checking the mirror to see if Cole is seizing. I could turn up the music because it would not hurt his ears. No Incredibles or Nemo in the background :) No wondering where the nearest hospital was if we had an emergency. No searching for enough road to pull off on if we needed to call Life Flight. No constantly asking, "Are you okay?" and waiting for the conditioned response. I am usually an anxious mess when I drive with or without Cole in the car. This time there was no stopping or calling frequently to assess the situation. Just cruising down the road in a comfortable vehicle, enjoying the beautiful vistas.

There is something about the West. I was constantly finding myself just taking a deep breath on this drive and relishing the views. To me, nothing says home like planted fields intermingled with meadows full of sagebrush, mountains that are still snow capped in the distance and the flaming red of Indian paintbrush waving at you from the roadside. Miles and miles of open land without a house in sight.

I was kind of on auto-pilot having made this drive hundreds, maybe even thousands of times in my life. It gave me the space in my head to think, or to just enjoy belting out an 80's rock ballad. I miss having a sense of direction in my life, at home I always know when I am facing North. I can find my way around without relying on a GPS and don't have to hear a mechanical, female British accent filling the car with the word "re-calculating" because I have veered off course. In our new city, I am constantly lost and asking for directions, whether it be from Garmina (our GPS) or from a Higher Power. It felt so good to know exactly where I was and what I was doing for a few hours.

It is funny how its the little things that have become the biggest and most celebrated things in this new life of ours. Getting to be alone in a car for three hours, going to the church's 4th of July breakfast together, taking a bath, sharing ice cream and conversation with a cherished friend. These are our new victories. I don't think we'll be hitting the open road any time soon as a family, but we are on an incredible journey. Destination: unknown. We just have to remember to enjoy the view every once in a while.