I'm Back!

I've been having a very busy July. First Mr. H.'s family came for a visit and then we were off to Michigan for a family weekend with us, my dad, and my sisters and their families. Nine people in a two bedroom cottage is a tight fit, even when two of them are as small as Boy and Girl are, but we worked it out and had a good time. We even convinced Boy to get in the water, and he actually enjoyed it, although he only tried it because we bribed him but he had fun once he gave it a chance. By the end of the weekend, we even had him jumping off of the boat in the middle of the lake!

On Sunday we left the cottage at about 8 p.m. so that we could do the entire trip while the kids were sleeping, and thereby avoid the normal driving annoyance of fighting and crying from the backseat and stopping at every rest area. The idea was that I'd sleep a little bit while Mr. H. drove, and then we'd switch. At least that was the plan but there were a few complications. We decided to shave some time off of the trip by going through Indiana instead of taking 94 through to Chicago and getting on to I-57. Unfortunately, Indiana doesn't have a really good expressway that will take you straight from where we were to where we wanted to go, so the plan was to take side roads. But Mr. H., can not remember directions for more than five minutes. I told him our entire route five or six times, but he still kept asking what the highway numbers were. Then the exit we were supposed to take was closed so we had to go two miles to the next exit, and get back on the other way. There was a lot of construction and we weren't really sure how to pick up our route once we got to Valparaiso. So after several turn-arounds and mistakes we were finally on the right road, headed in the right direction and on our way. So time for me to sleep, right? Wrong! We were on an unfamiliar road, one lane in either direction, curvy, no street lights and random construction and stop lights along the way. Mr. H. is driving 80! His claim was there was someone behind him who's lights were bugging him so he needed to lose him. But the only lights I could see behind us were at least 10 miles back. So were flying around curves, slamming on our brakes at stop signs (through all of Indiana, Mr. H. kept stopping in the middle of intersections because they didn't have those big white rectangles where you're supposed to stop. He kept saying "Well how am I supposed to know where to stop huh?") The whole way he is cursing Indiana for their crappy roads and inadequate signage, but how can you see the signage when you're flying by at 30 miles above the speed limit?

Finally we got off of Route 2 and were driving south on 41 which was a bit better: four lanes, still really curvy and hilly, still with random stop lights, still super-dark, but there were less cars, no houses and it required no navigation for about 105 miles. Time for me to sleep? Nope. Everytime I'd close my eyes, Mr. H. would swerve either because he had to suddenly get around a car, or because he was looking at the stars, searching through a cd case what have you. All this while keeping cruise control on 80 (the only reason he didn't go faster then that was because the maitainance light was on and he was worried he'd blow out my engine). He kept refusing my requests to drive so we got all the way home with my clutching the "Oh Shit" bar for dear life and my occasional shouts that he was an asshole that would kill us all while he dodged cars and trucks and growled "All right asshole, don't make me take this car off cruise control" at them. He doesn't understand why I was upset. He doesn't get why I wouldn't want to race down unfamiliar, dark roads in the middle of the night with a tired driver. He thought we were just making good time.