{"id":2933,"date":"2014-08-26T18:46:37","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T22:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=2933"},"modified":"2014-08-26T18:46:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T22:46:37","slug":"off-epilogue-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=2933","title":{"rendered":"We Went Off: The Epilogue (#9)"},"content":{"rendered":"

For earlier parts of our tale, see #1<\/a>, #2<\/a>, #3<\/a>, #4<\/a>, #5<\/a>, #6<\/a>, #7<\/a>, and #8<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was driving, so I noticed it first, and tried to remember which dashboard light was on as I asked LCB a question that will likely go down in Island Family infamy, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wait honey, what does that light mean again?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t repeat the next thirty seconds of our exchange since someone’s already borrowed it for a premarital counseling segment on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What Not To Say in Marriage During Moments of Tension.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I eased the minivan over to the side of the road. By now, the whole vehicle was tilting toward the driver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s side.<\/p>\n

Oh joy, our back driver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s side tire was flat.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been as much of a drama if A). we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have hundreds of miles to go that night, B). it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t evening, when many tire shops were either closed or closing soon, C.) our tires weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t relatively new and still under warranty in case we could find a nearby location at the chain store we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d purchased them from, D). it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t raining, and E). that thing that happened back when we were in Colorado Springs hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happened.<\/p>\n

You probably want to know about that thing that happened in Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

Well, see, in her zeal, while loading the back of the minivan a week earlier, one anonymous member of our family had wrenched the door handle off the back hatch.<\/p>\n

This was awesome.<\/p>\n

Even more awesome? The back door of our minivan has no inside handle. And the awesomest thing about screwing up something like a door handle is that you get to be reminded of your mistake again and again, via facial expressions and heavy, guttural-sounding sighs, every time your spouse needs to access the back of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

This happens a lot when you are on vacation moving from one hotel to the next. It also happens, it turns out, when you are by the side of the road and need to access the spare.<\/p>\n

We worked parallel paths, calling for towing service (in case the spare situation ended badly) while trying to unload every piece of luggage from the back of the minivan by way of the side doors. By the end, LCB looked not unlike a massively larger version of this<\/p>\n

\"100_2518\"<\/a>as he struggled to remove the last pieces of luggage and then remove the spare.<\/p>\n

And remember, this was all at the side of a busy interstate.<\/p>\n

Then I heard, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Find me a rock, woman!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as he eased himself down by the flat tire.<\/p>\n

I hate it when he says that.<\/p>\n

I hate it when LCB makes me rummage through nature or litter for objects to use to fix things like vehicles, houses, chronic diseases, etc. I have boundaries when it comes to jerry-rigging.<\/p>\n

LCB does not.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even want to know what he did with the rock I found him, but there he was, rain and sweat pouring down his face as he worked the flat tire off and replaced it with the spare.<\/p>\n

We had already determined that there was a store a few miles away with the correct replacement tire, but it was also closing in a few minutes, so LCB literally threw the luggage back in the minivan and we backtracked, carefully scanning the road for the tire store. When we located it, I called and canceled our tow while LCB pulled into the parking lot.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact we showed up right at closing, one of the mechanics offered to put the tire on for us while we waited in the lobby. At one point, I looked across the room to see Baby-Girl doing this.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8523\"<\/a>Not much else happened during the rest of the trip, except I did discover that Country Inns<\/a>, a hotel I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never stayed in before, has cookies sitting out in the lobby at all hours of the day and night.<\/p>\n

Seriously, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to note that no one cares how many you take.<\/p>\n

I really wanted to end this series with the newsworthy Country Inn cookies discovery, but I guess there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153coming back new\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thing looming overhead from my first post of the series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The long and the short of it is I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come back new.<\/p>\n

I wanted to; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d make for a great ending for the series and for real life, after all. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what happened. There was no rebirth, no baptism, no new Christine that emerged. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve sat on this series for a while, on this last post of the series in particular, waiting for some sort of takeaway, hoping it would come after a little time and distance.<\/p>\n

But nothing came. I sat for an hour last week, staring at the salt marsh, watching the tide recede faster than it came in, trying to figure out how to end the story, because stories need endings. But I wanted the takeaway to be authentic, not conjured by wishful thinking. By low tide, I had nothing, so I moved on to other things.<\/p>\n

Then yesterday, still with no idea how to end this, I was sitting talking with Baby-Girl and, at her prompting, we started talking about the trip we hope to take next year to the Southwest. I asked her what her favorite thing was about the trip we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d already taken.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she answered, fumbling for a minute with her words. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We did so many fun things on that trip.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She hemmed and hawed again for a minute, and then it came.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That trip was the funnest thing I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever done in my life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

So the takeaway? While I was busy bemoaning transmission problems and battling agoraphobia and berating the cold, my little girl was busy doing the funnest thing she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ever done.<\/p>\n

And I got to watch her do it.<\/p>\n

Beats coming back new any day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For earlier parts of our tale, see #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, and #8. I was driving, so I noticed it first, and tried to remember which dashboard light was on as I asked LCB a question that will likely go down in Island Family infamy, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wait honey, what does that light mean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365,4],"tags":[1819,1823,105,1822,1817,1818,1816,1820,1821],"class_list":["post-2933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-off-island-stories","category-island-parenting","tag-coming-back-new","tag-country-inns","tag-island-life","tag-leaving-the-island","tag-out-west-with-kids","tag-road-trip-car-problems","tag-rving-out-west","tag-what-i-learned-out-west","tag-what-my-daughter-taught-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}