Road Trip With The Ones You Love

We have arrived in beautiful sunny partly sunny Florida. The trip went great. Pretty uneventful, but with my crazy brood, always entertaining. We made it safely, and with no major mishaps.

I have to say, GPS is one of the greatest inventions of all time. Not so much because it tells you when to turn and how far to go, and all of that - but because it has this little spot on the screen that tells you your estimated arrival time. It is the long awaited answer to "are we there yet?" It is absolutely wonderful to not have to keep answering that question.

The downside of GPS is that it shows exactly how fast you are going, also. So there is no more placing your arm in a way to block the speedometer so that the wife can't see it. Oh, well. I actually didn't drive that much on the trip anyway. Mrs. S drove most of the trip.

The boy child drove a bit as well. One of the best moments of the trip occured as he was driving. I was in the passengers seat, and Mrs. S was in the back. We were bickering about something like a couple of school childrent, and the boy says "don't make me turn this car around!" It was priceless.

Girl child played her part in making the trip interesting as well. Unfortunately, her part involved letting some of the nastiest smelling farts I have ever experienced. Who know that something so rank could come out of a 14 year old girl. It smelled like a mixture of month old baby formula and peanut butter. (Sorry that this is two posts in a roll dealing with flatulance.)

We were treated to many excellent serenades by Mrs. S. She really knows how to put on a show. It was, as always, a very special treat to listen to her sing to me. She was singing me a song, and I told her how grateful I was for her because I didn't have a life before her. She says, "Yeah you were a real loser."

I once again was mocked - as I am on every roadtrip - because I have told the family about how when I was a kid, you could stop at a state's Welcome Center, and they would give you free pop in little Dixie cups with infomormation about the state printed on it. They don't believe me. So they always mock me that we should stop for free pop. Does anybody else out there remember when they used to do that? I know I'm not crazy.

This morning as we were finishing up the trip, we had kept hearing radio commercials for something called the Rattlesnake Rodeo. Apparently they have snake races and snake shows, and who knows what else. We had stopped at a gas station to do the business, and as Mrs. S was waiting for the bathroom, some two-toothed redneck woman asked her if she was heading to the rodeo. We laughed so hard that someone would look at her and think - yeah, definitely the rattlesnake rodeo type.

I was also losing my voice a bit this morning, so I made mention of it. Mrs. S says, "what was that? Did I just hear the answer to my prayers?" Really? Really? I'm not that bad!

I'm glad we made it. I just gotta say thank god for laptops and dvd players and ipods. I don't know how our parents did it back in the day. All we had to do was play the stupid "find the letter game."

OK....off to do some more vacay breaky breaking. Stickman Out!