Saturday 2 March 2013

Unexpected peace

Today, I felt my jaw muscles unclench after a hard workout all week long.  Today, I felt my shoulder blades inch their way back down my back.  Today, we were on the road for an end-of-winter vacation, and I had nothing to do but sit and drive and enjoy the ride.  And a peaceful ride it was.

As the date to this trip grew closer, I felt myself becoming more and more apprehensive about it.  We're meeting up with Chris, and until then, I am the only one with a driver's license to take the wheel.  And I've felt myself wanting to nod off while driving across town, let alone for six hours on flat, mind-numbing highway. 

But the drive turned out to be nothing to fear.  We listened to some of our favorite Vinyl Café stories from Stuart McLean.  We laughed and guffawed together and the distance to our destination seemed eaten up in a matter of minutes rather than hours.  I wondered to myself how I missed some of the towns and landmarks I'm so familiar with on this long stretch of road, and then simply concluded that the company was far too enjoyable to be mentally ticking off all the landmarks along the way.

For the last half of the trip today, the children watched a dinosaur movie.  Not the Land Before Time variety, but the documentary kind.  They picked this out on their own from the library this morning - that and a movie about the War of 1812 (I kid you not).  I did try to encourage them to check out the kid's section, but the dinosaurs ruled out.  I wondered if their choices would have us pegged as weird, then I giggled as I considered that we were likely already weird in the eyes of mainstream society, so why not go for broke.

And how was the movie?  From what I heard, there was a scientist investigating whether Tyrannosaurus Rex was a communal hunter or preferred to be alone while scrounging up a meal.  I'm sure it was gory, but the kids were spellbound.  As we were pulling in to our destination, I think they were considering how the great extinction occurred, and there were many references about "history repeating itself" and "we should learn from the dinosaurs".  I was bracing myself for questions about the next great extinction, and whether we would be a part of it, but I don't think my children have quite put together that the scientists were referring to human extinction when they were making their comments. 

Now, most children are sleeping and I only need to figure out how to get to my final destination before I turn in early as well.  Here's hoping for more smooth sailing tomorrow!

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