Thanksgiving in Oz

I'm off to see the wizard tomorrow....the wizard being my family of course. Although nowhere near Kansas, it will be quite the adventure. My car Oz and I will be trekking the 15 hour cross country trip together (yes, I did in fact name my car Oz, but no relation to the wizard). I've thoroughly prepared for this trip. And by thoroughly, I mean I have waited until the last minute to determine some of the things I need to shop for, decide that I want to try an audiobook for the first time without having yet procurred one, and, oh yes...do laundry. Somewhat essential when you're trying to pack clothes.

I'm also in the process of trying to borrow a GPS, because over the course of 15 hours, I'd rather not have to look down every half hour at a Google Maps printout and try to figure out where I am, I'd rather it be told to me. I'm not quite sure how people survived in the stone age 20 years ago when they had to map out routes themselves and weren't instantly told that the route they *thought* would be the quickest is in fact 2 hours longer than other routes on their 90 minute trip. I remember a cross-country road trip with my family going from Colorado out to South Carolina one summer, and my mom wasn't able to come with us, so I took my natural birthright, sat up front, and was in charge of the map. I soon found that as a preteen, this was a very mundane task, and there were far more enjoyable things to do, like sleep or melt crayons on the truck seats. The minute we hit Dallas/Ft. Worth, the road T'd in 4 directions, my dad had no idea which one he was supposed to take, and there were enough cars on the road to sink a battleship. I don't react well under pressure, so the instant my dad started stressing, I started panicking and blanked. What was this sheet in front of me? Why did it have lines with numbers? I wouldn't know. After 20 minutes of battling traffic with only ONE (that's, right, count them!) wrong turn, we made it out safely. And I made a vow 10 years later to never take a roadtrip based on a human's mapping skills alone again.

So wish me luck as I start my journey at the unreal hour of 4am. And pray that, unlike my brother's last cross-country roadtrip, my credit card isn't cancelled and my cell phone doesn't get turned off because my bill can't be paid since I have no credit card...