Order Horizon

Saturday and Sayonara

Today was our last dayin Texas, so naturally Alice finally admitted that we were actually in Texas, just minutes before we left.

The morning I let the rest of the family hang out at Mimi’s house while I started packing. I must have been in a hurry on the way down (imagine that!) but I was able to pack everything down to about the same space despite the massive volume resulting from Mom’s shopping sprees. The true moment of sadness of leaving for the boys was the point at which I shut down the computers and packed them away as well.

After that, Uncle Bruce and Uncle Craig with Bryson and Dawson showed up. We just hung out for a while, talking and engaging in weapon’s drill. Despite that, we managed to roll out of the driveway at 5:05 pm, having originally scheduled departure for 5 pm.

This time, we put Charles in the wayback with Corwin and provided both of them with pillows. Perhaps it was coincidence, but they both slept a lot more than on the way down.

For excitement, we were almost in three auto accidents in Dallas (about which, presciently, Mom had commented “Driving in Dallas makes me nervous”). For all of these, the traffic is very heavy and fast, moving along at about 65-70 MPH.

1. Our exit is coming up and Mom is trying to shift lanes, which is difficult despite it being 8 pm. Finally a spot opens and as she changes, a car directly across from us two lanes over tries to pull in to the same open space. That one wasn’t very close, but a bit unnerving.
2. About 2 or 3 minutes later another minivan blasts by us on the right and then encounters another car that has hit the brakes hard in the middle of the traffic stream. The minivan decides it can’t stop and so swerves around that car in to our lane right in front of us. It turns so hard that the left rear tire is literally emitted a cloud of burnt rubber. I was stunned that it didn’t blow out and send the minivan spinning across another 2 or 3 lanes of traffic.
3. Just a couple of minutes after that we come up over a hill and there’s a truck literally stopped on the highway, in the second from right most lane. Luckily Mom isn’t trying fancy lane shift manuevers like crazy minivan driver but she still has to brake and swerve to avoid a collision. Directly in front of the truck is another car, old and descrepit, with an open trunk holding a big pile of something (bricks, or metal junk, something of that nature). I am left wondering if that wasn’t an attempt at a planned accident, the beater stopping in front of the truck with stuff in the trunk to help the passengers survive the impact.
4. Continuing the theme of stopping on the highway, a minute later we pass three more cars stopped, but at least these are in the median in front of a turn off instead of actually on the high way. It looked to me as if they had managed an actual collision of some sort.

Needless to say, Mom is now all about moving to Texas and commuting in that every day.

Other than Dallas the trip was uneventful, except for Mom making herself sick on too much junk food overnight. We arrived home around 11 AM. Mom and I spent the rest of the day in basically a daze while the kids did something, the memory is unclear. Alice was tired as well — she crashed out about 5 pm and didn’t wake up until 7 the next morning. The boys, having had comfy pillows, were unfazed and ready for another trip.

Charles and Dawson prepare to get it on