So there we were, moving up the highway looking for adventure, surprise, birthday cake, and the thrill of the open road.\u00a0 We’re celebrating many things this month, including SOBUMD’s dad’s birthday,\u00a0our 20th wedding anniversary, and my leave balance – this is the longest I’ve ever taken off work – and we’re celebrating by getting out of the usual rut for a while.\u00a0 For a change, I’m taking enough time off that I’m going to try to post a few notes from the road, rather than writing them all up at the end.\u00a0 Plus, pictures to come!<\/p>\n
We were making good time heading up\u00a0I-95 on a beautiful Saturday morning, just the six of us in the\u00a0minivan – myself,\u00a0SOBUMD,\u00a0the three lunatic children, and Mister Frank Sinatra.\u00a0 Singing\u00a0along with Come Fly With Me at the top of my lungs in that minivan,\u00a0I realized that if I were any more\u00a0whitebread, someone would have\u00a0to pull me over and slice me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thank goodness the whitewash didn’t last – we love Frank, but once that CD was over we started to rock that van, we gon’ drive all day, we gon’ light it up, with the Ella way.\u00a0\u00a0 With Taio Cruz dynamiting our speakers at top volume, it was a religious experience – it was almost like being in church.\u00a0 This feeling was exacerbated by driving past the shrine to\u00a0“Our Lady of the Highways<\/a>,” which\u00a0travelers zooming up the side of Interstate 95 in northern Maryland\u00a0toward the Delaware border will see out of the corner of their eye as they pass it doing 85 mph.\u00a0\u00a0The shrine, a 12-foot statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary\u00a0facing northbound traffic,\u00a0was created by the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales after a 17-car pileup\u00a0in the 1960s that killed several people.\u00a0<\/p>\n Is it me, or does the term Oblate sound suspiciously like something out of a religious order invented by Dr. Seuss?\u00a0 St. Bartholomew and the Oblates?\u00a0 I think I read that one to the three lunatic children recently.<\/p>\n Like anything enjoyed at 85 miles an hour, though, even the awe and reverence inspired by the sight of a 12 foot BVM holding a bible like a radar gun didn’t last.\u00a0 Our musical review moved into the second-most recent\u00a0Green Day\u00a0song, which reminded us of the new\u00a0Foo Fighters song, which moved us to play the very newest Green Day song, which I mentioned sounded quite a lot like the Dead Kennedys.\u00a0 The next thing I knew, we were rocking our punk-ass selves up the highway\u00a0on our way to\u00a0a Holiday in Cambodia.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m so proud – our little lunatics listen to punk!<\/p>\n I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Jello Biafra and the boys while I play connect the dots with the next installment.<\/p>\n \u00a0
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