Detours

Saige and Nate and I are in D.C. and it has become frighteningly apparent that living on the quiet, pastoral, slow-paced border of Idaho has destroyed my ability to live in the real world. I've lost all skills.

I used to be master of the greater Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and Maryland highway system. Nothing phased me in my domain. A road that was one way into the city except from 3-7 p.m. when it was one way out? No problem. Bridge closure? I could get around it. Hidden two foot entrance ramp onto eight lane megahighway? Loved them all.

Last night at eleven my sister and I tried to drive from Bethesda back to my parent's house in Springfield. We sat in traffic on the Beltway for a really long time and I bitched incessantly about where - in the hell - all of these people could possibly be going at 11:00 p.m. ? Where? And then it opened back up and we started driving and we got off at the Springfield exit and we were completely confused for beaucoup amounts of time until we finally had to call my mother - at midnight - like irresponsible college kids - and beg her to help us because OMFG where WERE we? It said Springfield Parkway but we'd been driving and driving and driving and were we going the wrong way somehow? We turned around because we must be going the wrong way because their house is seriously like two blocks from the interchange of 495 and 395, which is where we got off so WHAT THE HELL?

It took my mom seconds to realize that we never made it to the 495/395 interchange because we somehow exited I-495 onto I-66 - an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MEGAHIGHWAY headed towards West Virginia or Kentucky or something - without once realizing it. I'm all, mom that is not possible, we were ON 495, unless we passed through a break in the time-space continuum, I think I would have noticed exiting one eight lane highway for a second eight lane highway. Oh, well, she mused, they close 495 late at night sometimes for the construction. And everyone just has to drive to Kentucky. Of course. Makes sense.

There is one highway in all of Border of Idaho. Two ways to go. West to Seattle. East to Chicago. If you head to Chicago you'd better have a lot of gas because there isn't jack shit else in the 2000 miles between Washington and Chicago. If you head to Seattle this time of year you'd better have chains because the pass closes to all but chained cars regularly, but even if that happened to you and you couldn't get over the pass they STILL wouldn't just shoot you off onto some other highway headed to Nevada or Utah. You know why? THERE ISN'T ONE.

So, that was annoying, but we made it home and the kids slept the whole time, which meant it wasn't nearly as annoying as showing up at the airport all perky and clean and chipper at 8:00 a.m. the previous morning to be told that our flight to Salt Lake City was canceled and we could instead fly straight to Minneapolis at 1:20 p.m. I wasn't that stressed because straight to Minneapolis instead of SLC to Minneapolis - YAY!!!! Five hours in a small border airport with Saige and Nate - Not yay. And that was not even the the annoying part. I had to call Matt because he had dropped us at the airport an hour earlier on his way to take a hysterically sobbing Garrett (I wa-a-a-a-n-n-nt t-o-o-o-o go-o-o-o to GRA-A-A-A-A-MAAAAAAs) to Kindergarten and asked him to please come and save me from five extra hours at the airport.

I braced myself for the sarcasm extravaganza and called.

Matt: You realize that we have this thing called the internet and that you can just log right onto that darn thing and see if your flight is canceled or not?

Grrrrrrrrrrr. Yes, I do, but I had to do ten kajillion things to get all of the kids into the car by 7:30 a.m. ready to go to our myriad of destinations. I had like 30 seconds on the computer this morning and I checked my email because I assumed that since I'd printed my boarding passes the night before and no additional snow had fallen in the interim that the plane for which I held valid boarding passes would actually 1) take off in the generally right direction for Salt Lake City; and 2) not detour unexpectedly midflight to some other destination like Kentucky, which apparently highways in Washington D.C. may do AT WILL.

My mistake.

We made it. The kids were delightful, the trip was easy and security went smoothly. Now if highways would only stay where they are placed, leading helpfully to their original destinations, all will be well and we'll be back on the border of Idaho by Sunday.

(P.S. I led my discussion with families waiting to adopt from the foster system in Bethesda. I was so apprehensive. They were lovely.)