Post date: Jul 13, 2012 9:9:57 PM
I remember this feeling from my childhood: we stop at a rest stop and everyone piles out of a messy car in dirty clothes, with unbrushed hair, trailing garbage and dirty diapers and everyone else at the rest stop pauses. They stand there with their organized coolers, their blinding white sunvisors and braided pigtails, and just stare at us, the great unwashed. And their cars are not full of pamphlets and pillows which I swear are procreating in the back seat somehow. And their children are not whining and blinking in the sun, with giant bags under their eyes, but rather playing a nice calm game of catch or seated at a picnic table playing travel chess. Who are these people? Why are they always so much more organized and so much better behaved than us? Why are they always at the same rest stops as us?
My children caught a garter snake in South Dakota. Russell tried to squeeze it's tail off. I saved it. We're headed for the Badlands. Maybe we'll find a place to hide there, somewhere with a lot of bad guys.