Blog Number 199

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well we are gearing up for our vacation in lovely Kokomo, IN.  I am taking this Friday and all of next week off of work and we will get up very early (or as my wife calls it, the "butt crack of dawn") and hit the road for the 15 hour, 900 mile trip.  We have made this trip a few times so far and the wife even made it without me when I was in Argentina earlier this year so we are old pro's at it.  Leaving this early helps us miss St. Louis at rush hour and making the entire trip in one day also saves money (no hotel half way there) and gives us an extra day back home to visit with friends and family.  The kids do great on the way there since they know the grandma's are at the end of the road (the drive back home is another story).

I was talking on Monday with a co-worker who lives in The Netherlands.  He could not believe that I would choose to be in a car for 15 hours let alone force my wife and kids to this kind of thing.  The more I thought about it the more I realized something.  This guy has probably never ridden in a car for more than a few hours at a time.  His country is so small compared to America that you would not need to drive that far to get anywhere really.  15 hours in a vehicle had to seem like torture to him.  Later that day I was talking to another co-worker in Egypt.  He was also slightly aghast that I was undertaking this trip.  He mentioned that he could drive his entire country end to end in about 7 hours so 15 was hard to imagine.  I assured both co-workers that this was not a punishment and that we would be quite fine and no worse for wear.  I don't think either one believed me though.

Until we came to Austin, TX last February for a visist, the kids had never been in the car that long so they are new to this kind of thing.  In Indiana, 15 hours is a long trip.  In Texas (depending on where you start and what direction you are heading), 15 hours might not even get you out of the state.  Folks down here are just used to driving a ways to get somewhere I guess.  At any rate, in about 54 hours, we will be up and getting ready to pile in the Pontiac Montana and hit the road back to HoosierLand.  I am sure there will be something to blog about then.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon