A Change of Pace

I'm changing temporarily to a life and travel topic. This week, we're taking our son (aka "6") to start school at the University of Tampa in guess where, so come on along!

Mimsy scheduled a graduation soirée for 6 as a farewell par-tay last weekend, so that set things in motion. A week of last minute preparation and purchases led us up to a planned Saturday morning departure in 6's jam packed SUV.

Friday night came around, the dreaded last night at Stately PFOS Manor. 6 had been developing a growing case of melancholy and separation anxiety all week -- as had his parents, OMG did his parents have separation anxiety -- and Friday evening was shaping up to be a tear jerker. Imagine watching all the sad movie endings you've ever seen at the same time. It was getting like that. So we did what every red-blooded, testosterone dominated, in-your-face stand up and fight kind of family would do under the circumstance (as if there was another group like us to take as an example, ha!).

We ran away.

We packed up and left, right then and there, Friday evening. Just got the hell out of Dodge.

Driving off was terrible, watching over my shoulder as 6 stared at the homestead, shrinking behind us , tears rolling down his cheeks. We had discussed, Mimsy and I, the merits and drawbacks of deferring this moment until 6 was around age 30, and decided against that particular course of action, lest we turn into a Boo Radley type of family, but this was so freakin sad I felt sick.

The cost of filling up the gas tank in the SUV a few minutes later didn't help, but at least I was back on emotionally familiar ground.

So off we headed, clicking off points (mostly sports events that 6 had played in) in time that coincide with highway exits. This took us as far as Bourbonnais (youth football), then Champaign (high school football and lacrosse). The melancholy was slowly evaporating as we drove, mostly silent, into the black night of central Illinois.

Our torpor ended when the dashboard of the SUV started beeping and flashing like that robot from the old Lost in Space tv show ("DANGER Will Robinson DANGER"), telling me that the electrical system was taking a dump, late at night, in the middle of nowhere.
What will happen to our intrepid band of travelers, under assault from within, miles from home, miles from help?

Tune in tomorrow.