Theoretical itinerary (as they always are):
· Friday, 1:00 p.m. sharp: Pick up Nuria from afternoon classes with car loaded, gassed and ready to hit the road for Batavia, New York to rendezvous with soccer team at hotel for weekend tournament in Brockport
· 3:30 p.m.: Stop for bite at The Cracker Barrel. If not hungry, proceed to next Cracker Barrel. Continue along Cracker Barrel path until hungry.
· 6:00 p.m. Wait in lobby of hotel until rest of team arrives and checks in.
· 7:00 p.m.: Light supper with team
· 9:00 p.m.: Lights out for. . .
· Saturday, 6:30 a.m. wakeup call.
· 7:45 a.m.: Leave hotel for first tournament game at 9:15 a.m.
Actual Itinerary:
· Friday, 1:00 p.m.: Go pick up Nuria from classes and let her buckle up her confused soul into the car sans Peter. Jet to the gas station to fuel up, jet to Timmy's to get those iced caps we can't seem to live without.
Run back into the house to finish packing while vital articles of clothing are still tumbling damply in the dryer.
Peter has gone to the hospital to check on his dad (he's 99 now, and has a fever too often to let him out of the hospital. He is in good spirits and doing well. Will update you when I know more. I am going to visit him tomorrow. Peter has been going every day.)
Peter comes home, double checks the double checking while I try to remember everything I am forgetting (ironic, ain't it?).
3:30 p.m. Hit the road.
· 5:00 p.m.: Delayed at border offices for documentation for our Spanish senorita.
· 5:45 p.m.: Finally in the U.S.A.
· 7:00 p.m.: Stop at Cracker Barrel (at last). Send text message back to Cousin Amy in California to tell her our location. Am not allowed to print what her reply was. It wouldn’t be polite (okay, she said YOU SUCK) Lovingly ate biscuit with butter and honey in her honour. Also ordered the hash-brown casserole without the casserole in her honour. Was told it was too late to order breakfast.
· 9:45 p.m.: Wait in lobby for most of the team
· 11:50 p.m.: Lights out for 6:30 wake up call. It isn’t going to be pretty.
Saturday morning was too early for all us. We all piled into vehicles, Peter and Google maps to guide the caravan through the back roads of Batavia and the surrounding area to the tournament.
If only the roads had signs. If only State University New York (SUNY) was built somewhere inside a city boundary. If only one of the five to eight vehicles had GPS, I may have nothing to write about (and if you believe that. . .).
But the fates had deigned to make our seemingly simple, 30-minute-route of lefts and rights into a surreal adventure of almost an hour of wandering through a vast landscape of unmarked roads, creepy wagons full of stuffed animals and several stops on the side of the road to conference about what direction we should really be traveling.
Without a good cup of coffee and my required 8.5 hours of sleep, I’m sure Nuria stifled more than a healthy amount of nervous giggles as Peter and I discussed what Google maps really had printed on that paper. I’d read it and he’d ask if I was sure. So I’d make him read it. Probably not the best thing to do when he’s driving.
When we ended up on the correct road quite by mistake, Kathy, her van full of orange-clad teenage girls, decided to take the lead. We’d failed in our role of follow-the-leader and it was time for us to let someone else play. Google was failing us, miserably. And Kathy had a map. A real map that somehow made unmarked roads as discernable as the yellow brick road covered in neon-high-gloss paint.
So almost an hour into our 30-minute drive we made it to the tournament.
Peter opted out of being the pace car for the return trip.
Saturday afternoon, another parent, Terry, went and purchased a GPS.
Guess he doesn’t want that to happen again. Front yards with giant wagons full of stuffed-animals would scare anyone into a GPS.
