For Ammo Grrrll, it’s not odes to the road, it’ JOADS ON THE ROAD or The Grapes of Severe Annoyance. She writes:
Noted philosopher and former World Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson once said, “Everybody has a plan until he gets punched in the face.”
Joe/Max and I had a Great Plan, as I’m confident you will agree. Commenter-Con 4 was being held at a great old iconic resort called Cragun’s in Northern Minnesota. In order to lower the group’s in-season room rate, we had to guarantee 120 “room nights,” which meant at least 40 rooms had to be occupied for the three nights of the conference.
The daily high temperature in Arizona in August is incompatible with sustaining human life. So for many years we have contrived to be almost anywhere else in August. And so we reasoned we would arrive at the Minnesota resort 10 days EARLY for the conference and leave 3 days LATE.
Because certain nameless parties manage – within mere minutes of check-in! –to make a hotel room look like it has been occupied by many frat boys auditioning for the next Vegas Vacation buddy movie, we will take TWO adjoining hotel rooms for those 12 days. This means, in addition to TWO bathrooms and showers, always a plus with Geezer-Americans, our group will have fulfilled 24 of the required 120 rooms at a single stroke! Everybody wins!
Several months in advance, I got my Control Freak on and made reservations for hotels in favorite spots, each under 400 miles from the previous hotel, for nine days on the way to Minnesota and six days on the way home. Whereas even eight or ten years ago I could and did drive 1,000 miles in a single day and 500-600 miles on a typical leg of a journey, our current joints, spines and bladders were more interested in comfort than pointless bragging rights.
I carefully planned to arrive back in Arizona on the Thursday BEFORE the three- or four-day Labor Day weekend with its record-setting traffic and gouge-a-licious hotel prices. Still a Great Plan. But, wait…there’s MORE!
We had also cleverly planned to pack two suitcases apiece, one for the back seat which would go in and out of each hotel on the way coming and going and one for the trunk which would contain our “cabana wear” for the 12 days in the resort.
Of course, we also had a total of three computers, two 5-lb. weights, a bag devoted solely to shoes, three boxes of nametags and Welcome Packets for attendees, a cooler, a Road Snack Bag, a box of “Band Books” for Joe/Max’s conference-closing musical performance, an Emergency Medical Kit, a bag for various vitamins, supplements and prescription medicines, and four weeks’ worth of Shabbos candles and matches. There’s a laundry basket, detergent and dryer sheets and a little tin full of many many quarters.
Then there’s two separate bags for hygiene items, lotions, potions, creams, makeup, charging cords and hair grooming items. And notebooks, Sudoku books, reading material and in a burst of misplaced whimsy, a box of 32 Crayons and an “Adult” coloring book of Psalms.
Finally, there was a 6-pack of proper two-ply toilet tissue and decent Kleenex. All of this luggage looms large as our Great Plan unfolds.
Joe/Max had had our “new” car, a 2018 Genesis, all checked and detailed, all fluids brought up to snuff and the tires kicked or whatever they do with tires. We were loaded in by 9:30 a.m. on August 1 and ready to roll. It was headed toward 120 degrees in the Dusty Little Village. Later the Paranoid Texan Next Door would send us a shot of his outdoor thermometer bearing that daunting number. Travelin’ music streaming in magically from Joe’s phone! It’s been over an hour since breakfast, so almost time to dig in the snack bag. Off we go!
We had not yet hit Holbrook, AZ, our first stop for the night, when poor Joe/Max announced that his back was in a very painful spasm, not his first rodeo with that condition. Now he is a very brave male grown-up who tolerates pain with little complaint. And he was complaining. So I knew it was bad. The first of the previously quoted Mr. Tyson’s plan-ruining “punches in the face.” But not the last… to wit:
Not too long after that announcement, we realized that it was getting uncomfortably warmish in the vehicle. The Air Conditioning, tired of being taken for granted, decided to work only intermittently, and after a nice rest. “Oh well,” we figured, “it will get cooler and cooler the further North we go.” Like Scarlett O’Hara, we would “think about that tomorrow.”
We stopped at the unnecessarily modest motel which was the only one Joe/Max had picked, not that I’m bitter, and he attempted to bend over to retrieve his computer from the back seat. He could not do it. And that was when I thanked God that I had been working with weights for virtually all of my adult life. Because from that point on, emptying the back seat (later the trunk) and carrying in and out every stupid overpacked item was going to fall to me.
Ladies, you never know when disaster will strike and your beloved testosterone-laden helpmate will be sidelined. Get strong! As RFK, Pete Hegseth and Dan Bongino recommend.
No worries. I am small but mighty. Feeling a bit like a Disney Girl Boss Superhero, the days went by with me cheerfully doing the heavy lifting. And all the driving. Day 5 dawned bright and humid in Topeka, Kansas. The car was mostly loaded and I thought I would use a different door closer to the car for the last few items. What I thought was on level ground ended with about a three-inch curb that I never saw coming.
My right foot hit the curb at an odd angle and down I went. Hurt my shoulder, my nose, my head, both palms, and I could tell from the way my jeans were stuck to my knee that it was bleeding. As a young woman, my first thought would have been “Lord, I hope nobody SAW me,” but now I cried weakly, “HELP! Please somebody, HELP!”
Nobody did. In the prescient lyrics of Bob Dylan, “There was nobody even there to bluff.” And so you do what you have to do when you realize nobody is coming. I got up and thanked God that I was conscious, my sunglasses, while scraped, did not shatter and put my eyes out and neither my hip nor my shoulder was broken. My nose looked like I had lost a bar fight that involved a broken beer bottle (“You should see the OTHER guy!”) and I longed for the days of COVID masks.
Except for no Air Conditioning and both parties in pain we trudged happily on, eventually making it to Brainerd and Cragun’s. CC4, organized almost entirely by the Petroskis and the Thompsons, was a stunning success. We had a great time at Cragun’s. Outstate Minnesotans are just the best! In fact, Americans everywhere are awesome. We did not encounter one rude stranger or unhelpful employee in any capacity on our entire trip.
Sure, it turned out that our adjoining rooms were indeed adjoining, just not to each other. To remedy it would have caused a lot of unnecessary hassle for everybody, so we just each had keys to both rooms. We met great new people and communed with the beloved regulars and heard excellent talks, skits and music. We had keynotes from both Scott Johnson and Steve Hayward. Anthony Hates Mayo wound things up on the final night right before Joe’s terrific band, Klezmerica, this time featuring arguably THE best singer in the state, Jennifer Grimm, who blew the doors off the banquet room. Another highlight of my life.
Joe’s back issue did not resolve completely until the last three stops on the way home when he was able at least to PUSH the bleeping luggage cart. I had taken to leaving the car unlocked praying that someone would steal half of the hateful luggage. No takers.
Even when I left a personal note for that goofball from the Biden Administration with the dress, lipstick and beard who was in charge of something to do with nuclear waste. It said, “Dear Luggage Thief: Why go all the way to an airport carousel when you can just take these suitcases possibly also filled with designer clothes made by an African woman? Heck, take the whole car. The AC needs to be turned off to rest every 6-8 minutes, but otherwise it’s a sweet ride.”
It was fun to read in a comment from Ol’ Mel who went with his lovely bride on a bit of a circuitous jaunt back to Washington that he had decided this was probably his last Road Trip. I feel ya’, buddy. #MeToo. Probably. Never say never. But, man, was I happy to wake up in my nice cool home with the four bathrooms instead of looking frantically for the next Love’s exit.
