{"id":1796,"date":"2011-08-28T15:04:14","date_gmt":"2011-08-28T19:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=1796"},"modified":"2011-08-28T15:04:14","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T19:04:14","slug":"wedding-road-trip-part-5-rolling-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=1796","title":{"rendered":"Wedding Road Trip, Part 5: Rolling Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those of you just joining:<\/strong>\u00a0 We\u2019re driving to and from Chicago for my cousin\u2019s wedding.\u00a0 No, my other cousin.\u00a0 Also, there will be no weather in this narrative.\u00a0 The weather was fine, with only a few embarrassed clouds.\u00a0 For the purposes of our driving descriptions, you should feel free to fill in whatever weather you prefer.\u00a0 I\u2019ll try to remind you where to fill them in, for those of you who require a little climate control in your narrative.\u00a0 We resume our story on Monday morning, having married off my cousin and feted the 9th Birthday of the Reigning Queen of Pink over the weekend.\u00a0 Wheels up.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Breakfast<\/a>

Breakfast At Tiffany's?<\/p><\/div>\n

I woke to the sound of gunfire, which I was getting used to at that point \u2013 it turns out Katy Perry was staying in our hotel, and she doesn\u2019t limit the festivities to just Friday night.\u00a0 Since we needed to get up anyway, this wasn\u2019t an altogether bad thing.\u00a0 We decided that the best part of the day was going to be over too soon, so we loaded the car, the kids, and Marvin the Martian and rolled out promptly \u2013 even skipping a chance to have breakfast at Tiffany\u2019s, and when was the last time you got to do that, huh?<\/p>\n

\"Road<\/a>

Road Trip Self Portrait<\/p><\/div>\n

So we made the car go lightly down the road, spinning nature’s panoply of paintbrushes faster and faster under our tires, and made for the impending hurricane on the East Coast like a man tired of waiting on death row \u2013 not exactly thrilled with the destination, but ready to be done already.\u00a0 Illinois quickly became Indiana, which gradually became Ohio.\u00a0 Mind you, it would have become Ohio much faster had SOBUMD not taken a well-deserved nap while I drove us a good way toward Canada.\u00a0 Luckily she\u2019s a light sleeper and woke up before we crossed the border, steering me back toward the heartland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not wanting to miss a chance to hear Katy Perry, we kept spinning the radio dial as one station would fade out and another fade in.\u00a0 Local radio is a little more local in the heartland.\u00a0 Lost dogs were described with their breed and the date and location where they were found; the report ended with “and Bob, ol\u2019 Roscoe got out again, Mavis says come get him before she sells him to them girls from Sturgis who thought he was so cute.”<\/p>\n

There being nothing like revisiting our misspent youth, we stopped for lunch at an Eat-n-Park in Nowhere, Ohio, which is just outside Youngstown.\u00a0 The waitress obviously interned at an Olive Garden, because she stopped at every table with a baby, picked them up, and passed them around.\u00a0 It was adorable, in a small, round, and talcum-powered kind of way.\u00a0 Eat-n-Park has retired Sparkle, their evil Eat-n-Park star<\/del> former mascot, and seems to have re-imagined their smiley-faced cookie as the Silver Surfer \u2013 a little freaky, really.\u00a0 The food is just like I remember it, sad to say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"See-Thru<\/a>

See-Thru Barn!<\/p><\/div>\n

We continued to roll through Ohio for the several hours one does that.\u00a0 Eventually, following one of the many \u201cWhat state are we in?\u201d queries, Number One Son piped up.\u00a0 “You know, this nation is e-mother-effing-normous<\/em>.\u00a0 And so’s Ohio.”\u00a0 Can\u2019t argue with him there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Phallic<\/a>

Phallic Symbols<\/p><\/div>\n

Another thing you\u2019ll notice driving across America that\u2019s less obvious when flying the the country\u2019s fascination with phallic symbols.\u00a0 Sure, the airport has an air traffic control tower that\u2019s straight up with a knob on the top, but have you seen the grain silos we use?\u00a0 Tell me you don\u2019t think about the Washington Monument when you see those.\u00a0 Is it just me?<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the Turnpike.\u00a0 Taking the Pennsylvania Turnpike is a joy.\u00a0 There are signed every few miles stating “Fines higher in work zones,” by which they mean the Pennsylvania Turnpike.\u00a0 The whole damn thing.\u00a0 The view is also an issue \u2013 it was so boring that I fell asleep and had to have SOBUMD drive it.\u00a0 Luckily, she was able to stay awake by listening to the radio, which was playing Katy Perry\u2019s Last Friday Night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Road<\/a>

Road Trip Sunset Over Sidling Hill<\/p><\/div>\n

But Pennsylvania does roll into Maryland, and the sun does set faster on trips going East, and in the fullness of time we reached the construction zone<\/del> fun ride that is the US Capitol Beltway.\u00a0 Just as we turned off I-270 and went to merge onto the Beltway, I spotted the sign:\u00a0 \u201cYou must be at least this tall to ride this ride.\u201d\u00a0 The Reigning Queen of Pink was again disappointed with the height restrictions.\u00a0 SOBUMD did the dodging and weaving needed to make the trip safe and fun, and we approached the final exit \u2013 our exit \u2013 at 75 mhp in heavy traffic.\u00a0 We passed the penultimate off-ramp, only then seeing the newest sign for the ride:\u00a0 \u201cYour Road Westbound Exit Closed 9pm \u2013 5am\u201d<\/p>\n

After driving 13 hours, we\u2019d missed the chance at our exit by 5 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As we navigated an alternate route, there was plenty of time for blamestorming.\u00a0 SOBUMD decided those 5 minutes were spent with me trying to drive to Canada.\u00a0 I maintained that those 5 minutes were actually consumed by our carrying the extra weight of Marvin the Martian slowing down the car.\u00a0 By the time we got home, we had decided that it was probably Katy Perry\u2019s fault.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The car was unloaded, the cats were out of their mind with joy at seeing us, and the next day the earth shook.\u00a0 Again, sorry about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So congratulations to my Cousin Drew and my new Cousin Rachel, great partners in crime!\u00a0 It was a great trip made all the better for meeting new family, seeing old family, and rolling through the heartland with both.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thank you all for helping us get there and, once again,\u00a0back again.\u00a0 Rock on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We continued to roll through Ohio for the several hours one does that. Eventually, following one of the many \u201cWhat state are we in?\u201d queries, Number One Son piped up. “You know, this nation is e-mother-effing-normous. And so’s Ohio.” Can\u2019t argue with him there. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,47,21,5,45,40,10,49,48,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1796"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1821,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions\/1821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}