My birthday weekend, installment One

[derien]

eor is of course doing his post about the weekend, but I suppose I can still do my own notes.  This, of course, is actually written on 8/16 and backdated.

Friday:
By 6AM we were hitting the on-ramp of the highway, and everything was pretty much smooth and good until Pennsylvania.  Eor commented that we're like a racing pit crew - we have a routine worked out.  I have the credit card into the gas pump as he's getting the cap off the tank, and as he's filling I go in and find the bathroom and some drinks.  We pack pepperoni, cheese and corn chips, which can be fairly easily eaten while driving, yet don't tempt us to eat too much.  Massachusetts and New York State are easy enough (Maine only takes an hour to get out of and New Hampshire we pass through so quickly it doesn't bear mentioning), but I don't know what it is about Pennsylvania.  For me, it's like an exotic place - the place names have an unfamiliar sound, being based on a combination of a different Indian tribe than I'm used to and Dutch.  ("Mifflin" always makes me giggle, it somehow sounds vaguely risque, and it was very amusing to me to discover that it has the same effect on cyberquail.:))  The hills are steeper than I'm used to, the farms are still real farms with crops and barns with hex signs on them, the forest is thick and lush, and this time I spent the entire state worrying about deer.  (Those of you who've been around for a while know that two years ago when we made this trip we spent many hours in Pennsylvania after hitting a deer trying to get a new windshield, and eventually giving the car to a kind garage guy and renting a car to make the rest of the trip.  One of the guys I work with won't let me forget it - "No deer this time?") 

Stopping at a gas station (one we had stopped at two years ago in the middle of the night - eor still remembers it well enough to tell me exactly where to find the bathroom) we traded and I drove for a while.  At that point it crossed my mind to call cyberquail, but for some reason I thought it was like an hour earlier than it actually was, so I decided to let it go until our next stop.  When I realized that I was wrong about the time and there was absolutely no way we were going to make it before 5pm, we had to pull over a little sooner than we probably would have, which I was happy to do because I was having flashbacks to the deer episode and kept slowing down, watching the sides of the road, wherever the highway looked at all similar.

cyberquail, sounding cool and chipper and intelligent and very much the opposite of me: "How much more of Pennsylvania do you have left?" 
Me, like a zombie: "Um." *suddenly realizing I'm completely unable to recall what eor just told me*  "I think we have three hundred miles." 
"Pennsylvania isn't that BIG!"
"It seems like it goes on forever." 
"Where are you?"
"Um."  *searches desperately for a sign*  "Snow Shoe?  We're in Snow Shoe."
"Snow Shoe, Pennsylvania?"

It turned out that what Eor had just told me was 150 miles - I guess I automatically doubled it in my head in order to be sure that I was giving an overestimate.  That way when we arrived earlier than she expected she could be pleasantly surprised. 


And oh how lovely it was to arrive, our bodies buzzing with the car vibration, and find a delicious korma awaiting us.  cyberquail had put a sign on the back door welcoming us to Quail Manor, and she had arranged some wonderful birthday gifts for me - a bottle of spiced rum ("Lady Bligh") and mojito mix (which I mispronounced, much to her James's amusement) with a shaker to mix them in; a small wind-chime, a green glass hanging candle lamp, and a blue beaded bracelet that she had made, and an adorable little black suede purse with a silver button which she had also made, to go with my fair costume.  Most excellent. :) 

The evening was rounded out by drinking lots of rum and watching Little Britain and Joan Rivers.  (Which, I don't think I've ever actually watched her.  She's mean and shallow, but very very funny.)