Leaving Middle Earth, Thursday April 3

Last night my whole neighborhood was lined with carrier-topped minivans and SUVs, while people loaded them with golf clubs and beach chairs. Must be the beginning of spring break in Grand Rapids. Most of those people looked to be heading south, to Gulf Shores or sunny Florida.

But not the Quists, no. We took a different path, to a place that is likely to be almost as wet and cold as home! We are driving to New York. At least I (Kristy) and my three offspring are. Brian will be joining us later via air. Still, though it’s not any sunnier so far than home, we can already tell we’ve left the Midwest behind—we’ve been driving through the hilly east side of Ohio and southwest Pennsylvania.

I might be the only one who has noticed the hills, actually, since we long ago made a swap, giving up group sightseeing in exchange for quieter, happier family members. Our kids spend their time in the car gaming together. This may be a breach of the sentimental version of singing travelling songs and playing the alphabet game or the license plate game, but memories of those times tend to leave out the more frequent moments of screaming and punching and gnashing of teeth.

The other bonus of letting them use their electronics so much is that they have headphones on. This leaves me free to have a little personal karaoke time while I drive. It turns out that Sirius XM radio currently has a Billy Joel channel. All Billy Joel all the time. I became an instant fan of his when I was about 7 years old and sharing a room with my oldest sister, Karen, who was in high school and always had her clock radio playing. I loved the melancholy tune of “Honesty,” a rather jaded song for a 7 year old to fall in love with. I loved him steadily till sometime in my college years, even after he went and married the wrong Kristy, Christie Brinkley, while I was still a young teen.

My kids have not yet realized the magnitude of my Billy Joel channel discovery. No doubt they will in another day or so. It seems there is an entire section of my brain that is jam-packed with Joel’s lyrics, a dubious use for that space I’m afraid, especially after the early 80s stuff. At some point I’ll have to get back to my normal medley of music ranging from Passenger to Peter Gabriel to Over the Rhine. And a particularly passionate rendition of “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” for which they also have Aunt Karen to thank.

But back to the trip. There was enough screaming and gnashing of teeth just getting the car packed, and that was just me. We planned to leave between 12:30 and 1. We left our driveway at 1:20. Then we drove to the high school to get a pair of shoes from the locker room. Then we drove back home to get the book someone was reading. Then we got gas and ice, and by then we were so hungry we hit Wendy’s before we left town.

When I asked the kids what happened today, Allison told me to write that I was mean and grumpy all day. Except when I bought them treats. Well, really just at the beginning and the end. That’s a pretty accurate statement, though it leaves out the other grumpy people in the scene.

Usually I like to post a photo from each day. Today that would pretty much have been limited to a shot taken through the front windshield wipers, with a visibility of about 2 inches while rain poured from the sky and off the semis surrounding us all day. It wasn’t the perfect day for a road trip.

All of that aside, we are excited to be on the road. We’re outside Pittsburgh tonight in a Comfort Inn. After some negotiations between his sisters that somehow ended with me sharing a bed with one sister and the other taking the fold-out couch, Andrew was utterly amazed to find himself sleeping in a real bed at a hotel for the first time in his memory. He could hardly wait to go to bed for once.

Tomorrow we’ll visit the Frank Lloyd Wright house, Fallingwater, and then on to the memorial where Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field on 9/11. Eventually we’ll hit the big city and all it has to offer. I’m sure no one could possibly find reason to be grumpy there…