Border Hopping

I suppose it doesn't matter how crazy a journey is as long as you are right where you are supposed to be to lay your head on your pillow that night.

And I am.

I should have known by my projected schedule today that things might get a bit hairy -- which is a mild way of saying stressful. All I had to do was work in my home office from 7:30-11:30, run to Wal-Mart to pick up a headlight, come home and install it, pack for the weekend and leave by noon (wishful thinking) for Minnesota.

Well, I got my work done and got packed and got that replacement headlight bulb. Good so far but it was noon by then. Popped open the hood and realized I had not changed a headlight on this Civic before. I was sure I had, but nope, I quickly discovered there was no way for me to reach the lights and change them out. Things were situated pretty tight under the hood compared to our CRV and the previous Civic.

So I had to add in a quick trip to the service station before I could leave town. I guess I'll have to turn in my "gearhead" card now. For the first time, I could not change my own headlight and had to pay someone to do it. What a loser I am!

Ha.

I got on the road at 1:30 and what should have been a 3 1/2 hour trip was more like 4 1/2. Just 3 words will tell you why: Rain, Construction, Traffic.

Rained the whole way so there were hydroplaning moments. Not many, thankfully. When I finally got to the interstate -- I-94 at Osseo, traffic was crawling because it was down to one lane. That lasted a very, very, very slow 10 miles. When our side was back to two lanes, the eastbound side was backed up and not moving for 4-5 miles. Glad I was heading west. And I will completely avoid that route for the near future.

Due to my delay, I came upon the Twin Cities at rush hour. So more rain, construction and traffic jams! Yay. And filling up with $4.40 per gallon gas! Double yay.

It was a relief to finally make it to my aunt's place in North Branch. We had 7 of us cousins on my dad's side of the family get together to work on family tree stuff. Mainly it was looking at a lot of old photos, figuring out identifications and scanning them in so we eventually can all have copies. I also brought my family tree facts and details so I could share that. It will be good to have it all in one place.

We were mainly focusing on my dad's father's side of the family tonight. Next time, whenever that may be, we'll focus on his mom's side. We definitely needed more than just an evening but we made progress and it's always great to see family!

From there, I followed my sister Romey back to Wisconsin. Less traffic this time! It still felt great to pull into my twin sister Raylene's driveway and know I was done driving for the day and sleep wasn't too far away.

Tomorrow we'll border hop again to see Rock of Ages in Minneapolis then hop on back. I can guarantee you I'll have more energy to hop than I do now.

I might even jump!