A Tone Is Set

Little Rock, AR - Monday, May 20, 2013

How did this trip sneak up on us?! We've known for six months that we wanted to start our Great American Road Trip the week before Memorial Day. We bought tickets to a fantasy Con in Kansas City, Missouri, and booked a marathon for Jacob to run a couple of weeks later in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This was not a surprise.

Except somehow it is. Time doesn't always pass quickly when you're at work, but working makes the weeks blur together. Our trip was this positive thought somewhere out in the future. Then without warning it is THE DAY BEFORE WE LEAVE. Everything packed? Nope. Ready to leave town for three months? We don't know! Like so many other things.

But okay, we think, let's do this. One final push of running errands, packing bags, saying goodbyes. We have furniture to take to Goodwill, and Jacob's mom offers the use of their van. We've also been housesitting for some friends, and need to take the keys to the neighbors. Except...

When we get in the van, Jacob takes the wad of various keys that Leighann hands him, selects the van key, and sets the others down in a little space on the front console. Do you see the problem with this plan? 

Our later memory is probably lying, but we recall a sucking noise as our friends' house keys vanish down the little hole in the console. It looks large in the picture, but the hole isn't much bigger than a quarter. There's a screw just below it that blocks anything from going too far, so there is no way for a set of keys to get in there. Except these keys find a way not just into the hole, but down down down, into the recesses of hidden machinery, behind wires and casing, into a tomb of plastic and metal.

Our first strategy is an attack with the bezoar of car key dilemmas: the coat hanger. It takes some hard looking to locate a traditional one suitable for making into a hook, but we finally do, and we twist and bend and ply it. Several sweaty minutes later we have only succeeded in getting the coat hanger stuck.

At this point we just laugh, as we picture an increasing assortment of tools sticking out of the hole at odd angles. We aren't quite licked yet, but after an hour and a half of pushing, pulling, and attempted disassembling, we have only freed the coat hanger. No keys.

It is too late to get our errands done. There is no way we'll be ready to leave by tomorrow. Just perfect, Jacob thinks. Let's set the tone for this trip with freak accidents and disrupted plans.

At about this time we start hearing reports of the storms in Oklahoma, and their projected path into NW Arkansas. And we realize we do not need to leave tomorrow. Should not, in fact. Then we hear about the destruction the storms cause, and the tragic loss of life. Our own problems, well, what problems?

We promise each other we will not jump to conclusions about mishaps on this trip. 

There will be no wrong turns, only unexpected destinations.