This week, I finished teaching my 2nd 5-week course at a location that is 96 miles away per mapquest, which is more often than not my guide to the universe. The first week was okay driving the 1 hour and 45 minute each way route, which turned into about 3 hours and 30 minutes of my favorite CDs from years past. (On a recent-ish trip to visit a friend, which is about 2 hours each way, it was all Dave Matthews, all the time. Even for me, that was about my limit.) After that first trip, I was already starting to feel a little dready, like "Ugh, this hours upon hours of CDs is going to get a little bit old after a while." It's not that I don't enjoy some good alone-by-myself-in-the-car-jamming upon occasion, but I just wasn't feeling it for 9 more weeks.
Enter the boy, who was all "Duh, books on tape..." with me but in a nice way. I tell you, if I hadn't already married him... Good ideas, sometimes, does that one have. Hence, I booked it (I'm oh, so punny) to the library and got a couple of books on CD (book on tape...psshhh) and my wishful longing for a nice long roadtrip commenced. I think that I could easily drive somewhere far, far, far away by myself with a few good books to join me for my traveling companion. Once, seemingly forever ago, before children (just to emphasize my point about forever ago), the boy and I took a real, honest-to-goodness vacation whereupon he basically forced me to camp for a week in order to justify the gas as we were thinking a cross country journey seemed like a good plan when gas was well upwards of $3/gallon. And he is almost anti-flying because he a) thinks it's too expensive and b) likes to drive. Did I willingly join these foolish notions for better or for worse? This proves beyond a doubt that he is just wrong sometimes/often/usually. Suckered in by the notion of fresh crab and authentic lobster rolls, we loaded up the no-longer-with-us Accord and brought Harry Potter audibly along for the ride. That was the only way that my sanity was not shredded by riding with Mr. Twitchy for hours on end in a small, over packed space (camping gear, you are bulky). It was brilliant! I distinctly remember idling into our camp site one rainy night after we ditched the cold, saturated tent in favor of Ratatouille for the mere price of $20. Yep...vacation time, and we went to the movies. Yet the point here is that were idling into our camp site. Crawling. Creeping. Trying to listen to the end of a chapter right at the very tensest of Harry Potter moments. It was soul satisfying.
You know what else suffuses my soul with warm fuzzies? Listening to a book on CD, alone, for 3 1/2 hours once a week and then every other time I need to go somewhere by myself. Believe me here when I say that I volunteered for every...possible...errand that allowed me to drive alone for these few weeks. Case in point, one of us needed to drive to a city an hour away to pick up a dresser that I found on Craigslist for the toddler bean's room. Round trip, that's 2 hours of quality book time. Yes, please. AND, I don't know if it's just me now noticing it, but this fall has been seriously gorgeous with the colors around here. Let's put this all together: vividly beautiful colors, warm sunny afternoon, book on CD, no kids in car...B-L-I-S-S.
Granted, the book that I just finished this week wasn't the best one I've chosen and sometimes I think that I don't get as excited about the book depending on who is reading it, but overall, B-L-I-S-S.
(you know, bliss...)
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