January, 2018
It was a really last minute decision. The wife wasn’t feeling up to it so she volunteered the grand daughter to go. G had a 3 day weekend break from school and we’d be back within that time frame.
G came home from school Friday and her mom said, “Do you want to go to Texas with Grandpa?”
G, “Of course I do.”
Mom, “Well, you’d better go pack a bag. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
That fast and I had a traveling buddy. G was 10 years old and I knew I had to lay down some rules fast to avoid catastrophe.
Grandpa, “First rule. Grandpa likes to listen to books to stay awake, but when I do get tired, we trade places ’cause your gonna have to drive so I can sleep.”
G, “But Granpa, I can’t drive.”
Grandpa, “Sure you can. You drive the Mule at the farm all the time.”
And then I warned her mother that what came home might not be the same as what left. She might learn to cuss, drink, chew and spit this weekend.
With the formalities out of the way, we were off. G is a good packer. She had one bag of clothes for 3 days and a small bag of things to do for the long drive. She settled in and promptly began to entertain herself. I started my book. All that ranks high on my travel buddy criteria.
I’ve never liked to drive too long before stopping because I have arthritis and need to get out and move around a little every 3 hours, or so. It’s good for traveling with kids. Since I don’t mind stopping for restroom breaks, I always fill up on drinks and snacks for the drive. But, I couldn’t sell G on a single thing. She came prepared. She brought her own drink and snacks.
Grandpa, “What, no snickers, no Diet Coke?”
G, “No, I’m fine.”
There’s gonna be more training involved with this trip that I had realized, I thought.
So on the trip to Texas, she made 3 small bracelets with something called a Band-a-loom, played with her iPod (a hand-me-down from her Dad), and observed every single thing we did, passed, said and saw (more on that later). A little talking but not too much, again, which ranks high in my travel buddy criteria.
Just passed the 3/4 mark, she conked out. iPod on her lap, she laid her head back and became a dream maker for the rest of the way.
I was delivering a used refrigerator and G came along to visit with the Texas kids. She was up and ready the next morning. She had a busy day planned. She would accompany her cousin to a birthday party at someplace called Jumping World (which to me sounds more painful than fun, but I’m not 10 years old). Afterward we went visiting and she played with other friends.
Before leaving home, I had backed the truck up to the deck (36″ off the ground) and, with help from a friend, rolled the fridge into the truck bed and strapped her down. The only difficult part was the -2′ F temperature and 10 mph wind during the process.
This fridge was bigger, newer and fancier that the one it was to replace. I had asked for measurements of the space it was to go into and determined, based on that measurement, that it would fit into the space with 6″ to spare. I knew the depth of the fridge was 36″ and because of the design of the fridge doors/drawer, that I didn’t want to have to take the thing apart to move it in. The front door, the most obvious door I saw to use, was 35 1/2″ wide.
I spent an hour or so sitting at the dining room table looking at the lake wondering how to get the fridge into the house. Once into the house, we were fine, a 38″ wide hall lead into a 36″ entryway into the kitchen and the fridge would fit with almost 2″ to spare (everything is bigger in Texas, except rulers).
But, as I was contemplating the problem, I was looking through her 48″ French door off the easily accessible deck, at the lake. The lake view was cool as the Great White Pelicans were on the migration trail, illegally of course. No damn wall would stop them, despite President Donald Trump. Yep, I said 48″. Finally, it dawned on me.
The next problem was that it was me and my brother unloading this 250 pound behemoth off the pickup and onto the ground, 40″ down with no 36″ deck to back up to, after all my work getting it here, without dropping and ruining it. That took some serious discussion. My brother and I often have serious discussions. I had tilted the fridge back onto the truck-bed tool box so that it didn’t lay flat, thus preventing the oil from settling out of the compressor and preventing my burning up the now oil free compressor when I plugged it in. We discussed several complicated ways to get the fridge out of the truck without tilting it. Finally, we laid it down, slid it out until it could cantilever off the tailgate to the ground in the time it took to say, “It can’t be done.” Way faster than the oil in the compressor could move anywhere.
My job was now done, save getting home safely.
G is great with other kids. She takes care of and protects them better than most adults take care of her. Because her cousin was at the birthday sleep-over, she decided to stay at my brothers the last night there so she could play with and care for her 3 year old friend.
As I was getting ready to leave (I would sleep elsewhere) I said, “Be a good traveler; be polite, brush your teeth and keep your things all together and neat. I’ll see you in the morning.”
G, “OK Grandpa, you too.”
So Grandpa left to be a good traveler; be polite, brush my teeth and to keep all my things together and neat. The next morning we loaded up and hit the road, in common American parlance.
I told the story of how I had learned to drive. On road trips with my Dad, he’d sleep and I would drive. This started the summer I was 13 years old.
G, “Can you get a driver’s license that young?”
Grandpa, “Nope.”
G, “Isn’t it illegal to drive without a driver’s license?”
Grandpa, “Yep.”
Somewhere just shy of half way home, G saw a Highway Patrol Trooper with a victim. That opened a pretty good discussion on laws, law enforcement, fines and those who choose to pay fines for their indiscretions instead of obeying the letter of the law.
She asked, “Have you ever been stopped by police, Grandpa?”
Grandpa, “Most certainly.”
G, “Was it scary?”
Grandpa, “Maybe the first time or two.”
She settled into thinking about that for a while.
Somewhere down the road, I’m driving happily through Podunk, Oklahoma. I slowed down for the trek through a town that must have been 200 yards long, with a 55 mph speed limit sign at each end and a 35 mph sign in the middle. Apparently, I didn’t slow down enough.
From off in the dark corner of an industrial parking lot a Ford F-150 with bubble balls on top and SHERIFF emblazoned on the doors comes after me. I guess they should be called bubble LEDs these days, but that doesn’t sound as cool. I pulled over 10′ from the 55 mph sign post. A Lady Sheriff’s Deputy (I assumed because I didn’t think the actual Sheriff would work the Sunday night graveyard shift on such a miserable night) took my license and insurance card and went to see if I was on America’s Most Wanted list, or something.
G, who had been asleep, stirred a little bit and softly asked if this meant that I was willing to pay the price for my choice to speed? Lucky for me, I got my hands slapped with a verbal warning. She, the Lady Sheriff’s Deputy, also warned me that the weather was moving in. Like what we existed in was weather-less?
I found out what she meant about 50 miles further when rain turned to sleet and then snow. I guess I ought to look at that Weather App on my phone more often.
G looked at the heavily falling snow and asked, “Can we drive in this?”
I thought, that makes sense for a 10 year old who had only known everything to close because of snow or ice, “Of course we can, pumpkin. I’ll just slow down a bit and use 4 wheel drive.”
I’ll let you figure out what we talked about next.
It was a little tense, what with the grand daughter in the car with me instead of just me. No plows or sand, yet. The temperature was 5′ F and there was 4″ of snow on the road. The last 100 miles took over 2 hours but we made it safely home.
From your road weary and grumpy Uncle/Brother Dave and the infinitely inquisitive grand daughter G.
Weary