I thought writing was all-consuming, but I discovered Road trips and Wreaths were more so yesterday. Besides my heavy writing schedule this week, I had to pick up my husband at the Greenville/Spartanburg Airport, about sixty-five miles from Asheville. My dog was sick and wouldn’t eat. He made a mess on the piddle-pads, which had to be cleaned up. There are angels because it was on the pads, not the carpet. He has pancreatitis, so about once a week, he is like this. I took him out to eat grass, which usually works in a few hours to ease his insides. He has had this for about one and a half years, and so far, he is good most days—full of energy. But once or twice a week, he is very sick. Usually, he would have eaten something by the time I left, but he hadn’t, so I had to leave him alone.
The initial trip to the airport began at 4:00 p.m. and was easy unless you count the semis in front, behind, and beside me, who slow down to about twenty going up the mountain, then get back to sixty-five going down. If a semi was not to my left, some other speed demon was trying to get around all the trucks. It took an hour in line to finally pick him up at the baggage claim at 6:20.
Returning, Google sent us via all back roads, which I suspect was because of all the crashes on the interstate I saw going down. We went through small towns, twenty to forty-five mph, for most of the sixty-five miles back. Then we left the town part and were on a secondary highway. Two narrow lanes for seventeen miles with drizzle, fog, road construction where traffic was down to one lane with paving from two different parts so it was uneven, curving through what looked like white fluorescent lollipops with two feet to the left of the car, and a severe drop off the other side. Vehicles on the other side kept coming up around the curves and over the hills with their bright beams on. I was furious, so I was going to show them their rudeness, but I accidentally turned my lights off. That was a come-to-Jesus moment where I learned that “showing them what it’s like” was probably not a good idea.
We finally got home at 7:50. The dog was eating okay, and my husband loved my decorations, which had taken a long time to do. I can confidently say that I will never drive to that airport again for any reason.
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