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A week ago today I took an unexpected cross-country trip. Okay, maybe it wasn't totally unexpected since my husband was supposed to drive my son from Maryland to Boise, Idaho and I'd planned to fly out with my daughters. We were to meet up with the boys and take a few vacation days in the mountains of Ketchum, Sun Valley, Stanley, and McCall before attending my son's freshman orientation at Boise State University. I just never expected to be the one driving!
Unfortunately something happened at my husband's work that made it impossible for him to leave, so I had less than twelve hours to pack, sleep, and head out. That wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't been doing laundry for days for the boys and not me. After all, I wasn't supposed to have left until Thursday. It also didn't help that the county was replacing the water mains and turned off my water from ten at night until six in the morning. Yes, you read that right--I not only had no clean clothes, but I couldn't even wash them.
Oh, and did I mention that I was on a deadline and a blog tour? Yeah, it just keeps getting better and better!
My husband thought he could have the problem fixed in time to fly out with our daughters. Wednesday night I found out he was wrong. The girls would be flying alone, which wasn't a problem except for the fact I was ten hours from Boise, they were arriving before noon, and my friend wasn't answering her cellphone so I had no way of knowing if she got the message to pick my daughters up at the airport.
I took off at four in the morning after way too little sleep so the girls wouldn't have to wait long in case my friend didn't get the message. I stopped to grab a cup of coffee, ran into a truck stop, only to be alerted by an attendant on my way out of the restroom that someone had just rear-ended my parked car.
Two hours later, I was duct taping cardboard over my missing rear window, and still dealing with the police. Did I mention that the boy who hit me had no insurance and was younger than my son?
The good news is that no one was hurt since no one was in either car (yeah, I still can't figure that one out either.), my dear friend picked up the girls from the airport, the car was drivable, if not a little windy, and we made it safely to Boise.
In between getting my daughter's tooth pulled (don't ask) and arranging to have the car fixed, we've enjoyed seeing old friends and exploring Boise. My son is loving college so far. By the end of his first day of orientation, he'd already made a friend (who turned out to be his roommate for orientation), met a girl, and got a date!
The bad news is there's a forest fire close to Stanley--one of the most beautiful places on earth--so our plans for a drive through the area where much of my books take place, is still up in the air. Still, we're headed up to McCall and Sun Valley/Ketchum for some mountain fun. I'll try to remember to take pictures to share in my next blog.
In celebration of Call Me Wild's release, I'm giving away a copy to a lucky commenter.
Just tell me about your last vacation disaster and be sure to include your email address spelling out at and dot so you don't end up with a mailbox full of spam.
Do things like this happen to everyone, or only to me? It makes me wonder if a plague of locusts can't be far behind...
Do things like this happen to everyone, or only to me? It makes me wonder if a plague of locusts can't be far behind...
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