Whoa, scary road trip plans begin

I was supposed to go to Wisconsin a year ago. It was supposed to be ruminant and speculative. It wasn’t meant to be scary and infected. It wasn’t meant to be an add-on to somebody else’s thing. But Hubbins Aunt has liver cancer and he’s melting down because he wants to be there NOW even though that’s the worst possible thing, the in the way, tire everybody out, can’t fix a damn thing. What he’s losing was lost a long time ago and it just brings up freewheeling autistic anger he’s not got time to deal with. Now he’s in the middle of the quarter trying to teach a class that just isn’t working and he’s effin mad at everything. Being mad at everything isn’t going to get him through all this. He (and the family oracle) think I can help him through the scholarly problem and I would if I could but the subject matter is truly beyond my scope. I don’t know how to communicate this without seeming indifferent. I CAN feed him which isn’t really something he needs but it gets some of the growlings down. I cannot eat the way he wants me to. When I am stressed out no good thing comes out of eating my feelings. I don’t want to. He views it as a “you don’t love me” moment when I push the food away. I make his vats of soup, sandwiches, bread, whatever he asks and the voracity of his consumption is terrifying. I know what it would do to me and I am very uncomfortable.

While this is all going on Pup reports the roommate is over covid.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“He went back to work. How am I supposed to know?” he responds.

Well, there’s a house that needs repairs and he lives in it. Apparently, he says “Oh it wasn’t that bad” but that’s not how it sounded while Pup was bringing his groceries and hiding in the basement. So what does over it mean? You can not really be over it and spread viral load all over the place. Meanwhile, there are counties going back to lockdown because the younger demographic doesn’t seem to be as impervious and untouchable as everyone wanted to believe.

And today Hubbin gave me the green light to finish booking places to stay for our fall abandonment of adult sons. Almost 3 weeks out in weird USA places. The booking sites started giving me an attitude. “Are YOU really doing this?” Yes AI, bot, Skynet, whatever you are, I MUST lock some of this down before there isn’t a damn room available west of Washington Island. People are getting grabby.

A funny subject came up over the weekend while Zooming the HubFam. “You know there seems to be a shortage of rental cars…” Yes, we do know, we bought our rental car from Avis 6 months ago. We’re the reason there’s a shortage.

The deed is done, not set entirely in stone but done. Hopefully, I won’t get a replay of the hotel in Missoula that changed its name to avoid the bad reviews.  I do NOT stay anywhere there is a number in the name and would not have booked it if the website hadn’t been bogus. When the tweakers started fighting in the parking lot we ran. Eff YOU Missoula! Took 3 months to get the matter resolved because Mr. Creepy lied and lied some more when it came time to cancel the charges. The place we ended up was much better  (of course the last day of the trip) and still the guy at the front desk spent over an hour telling me how many times he’d been arrested (and what for) before my companions came down for breakfast. Missoula is a place with serious issues, like my roommate when I was in the Airforce who referred to herself as the Dragonlady was from Missoula and thought it was perfectly normal to bring truck drivers into our room late at night and leave them there. I’d wake up and some hairy dude would be eating cheerios and watching cartoons on tv.

But I digress…we won’t be staying in Missoula any time soon, nor will we be sleeping in the van at a rest stop in South Dakota because HURRAY Sturgis will have totally done its thing before we leave. Hubbin liked to be Mr. Free Spirit and just go go go. Can’t count how many times the local rodeo (everywhere a frigging rodeo) left me desperate for anyplace I could lay my head and a reasonable day’s drive morphed into a migraine and a marathon. That guy homes in on Iowa like it’s going to disappear before we get there. That was so un-fun by the time we had a 2-year-old in tow.

I am restless so it’s pasted together until he comes up with a reason to change my plan. Now I have to get on with other things. So many things to do always.

Eubie (that cat I don’t want) and Gibson are in cahoots now messing with me while I try to get the yard cleaned up for a long season of musings. The wind seems to be a factor in setting things up. It’s not just cold when it looks like it should be beautiful but I’ve become preoccupied with lashing heavy things together so the stuff doesn’t end up tossed across the yard. This worked in 2019 when I hid out at the Moony lake. No place to take the RV now so have to deal with what I have where I am. Not sure what I’m going to do with the RV. People have grabbed up anything that looks remotely like a campsite and I’m beyond any ambitions regarding tents and improvised restrooms. No. Hubbin burned me out on that too. Gosh, I used to be patient.

Maybe this seems a bit grumbly but that’s not the case. The first part of a pretty good adventure is a scaleable plan. That much I’ve got. Talking myself out of the terrifying details of what I know I will do is usually part 2. Remember in any adventure I am the brave one. It’s amazing that people actually want to go. Hubbin can only handle itis he has control of the wheels. Delfina used to just ask me about every 20 minutes if I knew where we were going. All the way to Reno and all the way back, don’t get me started on Walla Walla. We regularly went the same places over and over but still, she’d get in the car and insist she’d never had been any of the places we were going, (don’t think about that too much) and still call to ask me to go again.

The big thing about this trip is the state of being restrained for over a year. My brain has to stretch itself around the new rules. Driving through Minneapolis this year? I think not. Chicago? Nope. Hopefully, there will be room for such things in a few years but for now the hinterland.

Hmmm… now there’s a thing I shouldn’t know about.

https://www.hinterlandiowa.com/lineup/2021/