Lucy and Ethel takes a road trip.
Yesterday was an adventure. My niece has been up visiting from San Antonio. Always fun seeing her, time goes so fast. I promised my sister that I would drive up to Chicago with them to take her to the airport. We left town around noon, ate lunch on the way, had a good trip with lots of laughs and conversation. Ran into traffic as soon as we got close to the city, not too bad though. My niece didn’t want to take any chances so we took her straight to the airport around 3:30 for a 7:15 flight. After hugs and good-byes, my sister and I headed back towards home. We were only a few minutes off the interstate so getting back on wasn’t too bad. I must tell you, both my sister and I are not big city girls, a little naive, and not very brave. So we sighed a big sigh of relief when merging onto traffic was no big deal. We immediately was in traffic going at a snail’s pace. When we finally got out of traffic and was clearly on our way back home, (about an hour) we decided to stop at a town that I used to live in many years ago. Both of us needed a quick pit stop. Since there is an IKEA in this town, we decided to shop for about an hour. (Would you believe my sister’s never been to IKEA.) A little over half way into our shopping, my daughter who had just picked up her little brother at his friends, told me he had been hit in the eye with a nerf gun and they think his eye is scratched. I’m still a good couple of hours away. We finished up our purchases and headed towards home. It had started raining more, so we we’re glad to be on our way. A few minutes after we got back on the interstate, the wiper blade arm on the driver’s side decided to come off and start flopping on the window. Luckily, there was another exit about a mile away. We stopped at the Shell station and I was able to get the arm to go back on. (of course, while standing in a puddle) Imagine, Lucy and Ethel takes a road trip. I won’t tell you which one I am. (o.k., I’m Lucy) Anyway, we get back on the interstate, go a few miles, and it does it again. By this time we’ve passed a few State Trooper’s sitting at speed traps, wondering if we should get them to help. We finally find another exit and pull over. As Luck seemed to have it, there was another trooper going into the gas station. My sister, says “What if God has sent us three State Trooper’s and we choose to ignore him.” So, I tell her to go in and ask him for help. He’s no better than me, and I get the blade back on. Of course, he says he thinks we’ll be fine and that the weather is supposed to be letting up. So, we head back onto the interstate. By this time, we’re babying the wiper blade, only turning it off and on as little as possible. All of a sudden, I remember that my oldest son should be heading home from the city. I give him a call on his cell phone, no answer. He should be almost home by this time. He calls me right back. I ask him if he’s home or still on the road. He says “I’m not sure exactly where I’m at but I think it’s close to Gardner.” “Gardner???” The exit sign right next to me just said Gardner. “What’s your mile marker?” He says 227, I say we’re at 224. “Your just a few miles behind us.” My sister, say’s “Thank you, Jesus!” And we explain to him the problem, we meet him at the next exit and he looks it over and finally gets it to snap into place. As soon as we’re done, the sun comes out and there’s this huge rainbow in sky. We fed him some dinner and then we’re both on our way. I do believe in small miracles. We finally arrive home around 10:00 p.m. My youngest, who had been holding a wash rag on his eye for the last 5 hours was in pain and tears. I went over to the store, picked up some eye drops, talked him into letting me use it, and with a few minutes he was feeling a lot better. What a day!!! At least today was a beautiful, sunny, pleasant window opening kind of day. I cleaned my garage (which still has remnants from my daughter’s move back home), went grocery shopping and got totally caught up on laundry. It feels good.
