Couple of Coffees

Danger danger, overload zone

Pardon us for the lack of updates in the last few days. Our brains have been on overload. Not only have we been traveling for three weeks, we've been seeing lots of scenery and visiting with lots of people. And then there was New Orleans. Which has stilled my pen, so to speak. There's so much there it's hard to wrap your head around it, yet alone find the time and bandwidth to post something worthwhile. Still, it's coming soon. We promise. With some photos. It's such a huge story, it's hard to figure out how to make the pieces we saw firsthand into a narrative that makes sense. Because it doesn't really make sense.

We've hunkered down in Orlando for a few days, with friends Marjorie and Doug and their 3-year-old son, Kyle. Before that, we spent the night in Tampa with Caroline and had dinner with her brother and sister-in-law, Tom and Jonti. They'll be on the road this summer, too, with their son, the Juice. Today we're in Boca Raton, just arrived, to see Becca and Simon, then Janett and Shane, Lee from Lincoln City, then back to Orlando.

In Orlando, we've indulged in the unglamorous part of road tripping: paying bills, catching up on laundry, staying in one place until the rhythm of the road becomes a faint calling outside the door, but not loud enough to make us charge out there, keys in hand, ready to go again. I've even taken one luxurious nap. It's nice to put on the brakes and great to catch up with Marjorie and Doug. Kyle is highly entertaining, as were the turtles visiting their kitchen.

Today was a four-hour drive, easy with a few stops, including the legendary Ron Jon's Surf Shop at Cocoa Beach. We've noticed people drive fast and zip to switch lanes without turn signals in Florida. The further south we've gotten, the worse the other drivers have behaved. Still, my New Jersey instincts have kicked in, and it's a relief to know they're still there, buried under the miles of polite Oregon driving I've done.

We've had lots of coffee. On the way to Tampa, we witnessed what was surely a fatal accident, although we haven't found any news reports. Four cars. One man's body was motionless, 35 or 40 feet from his Geo Tracker, which had rolled. He must not have been wearing his seatbelt. His companion, still in the car, didn't look much healthier. We passed so close to it, timing wise, that Jonathan was the first person to call 9-1-1. It was a sober moment. Between seeing that and noticing the crazier driving, we've been even more cautious and wary on the road.

I've been working on fixing photos from Gary and Marisa's wedding earlier this month, although I have yet to start my scrapbooking. At some point, we'll arrive back home, road weary and sleepy, smelling of miles of America, grease and laundromats mixed, dropped chips under the seats, and then it'll be quiet. And then it'll be so quiet and so stable after so many weeks of excitement. I don't want to think that far ahead.

An update: Tamara won the prize for part two of Where's Jonathan? We have the prize, but once we track down a post office, etc., we'll get it to her.

posted by Laura the Writer @ 4:09 PM