back roads

We were touristy on Saturday. My favorite thing. The best kinds of weekends are the ones where we wake up and decide to go on a spur of the moment day trip. If I’m honest, I prefer the relaxation of not thinking about things in advance. I’d always take spontaneity over planning.

Saturday morning started with a confession: A couple of weeks ago I went 10 days without picking up my camera or taking a single picture. That hasn’t happened in all the years since I got my first dSLR. I felt like something was wrong with me, or I’d let the busyness of our lives overshadow my passion. I confided this to Caleb along with my need to remove myself from our ‘normal’. He agreed and then we were off to find a place we’d never seen before.

And boy, did we get a good dose of spontaneity. After several hours in the museum we made a quick swing into Ikea and were busily checking the seat squish-ability of every armchair in the store when the fire alarm went off. At least I assume it was the fire alarm. The sprinklers were never activated, but the alarms were so loud they steadily drove us out the door with nothing but a tray of cinnamon rolls and three bars of chocolate.

Then we started the trip home, happily chatting at each other while the boys slept in the backseat. After a while…

Caleb: “Um, why’d I just see a sign for Macon?”

Me: “I don’t know. Maybe there’s a back road that goes to Macon?”

Caleb: “It’s more likely we’ve been driving down I-75 instead of I-85 this entire time.”

Me: “Yeah right. But that would be hilarious if we were that dumb.”

Caleb: sigh… “Could you just check the phone?”

Me: “Sure… *pause* … Oh… oh dear.”

He was right and we were 35 miles closer to Florida and and hour further from home. And when you pull off on Bucksnort Road you know you’re in the middle of nowhere. We had to back road it all the way home, a process made all the more aggravating because I couldn’t get “Take a Back Road” out of my head so I was bursting into song every few minutes. Caleb may have been ready to put me right out of that car, but I was feeding him chocolate… so no dice.

For some reason trekking across Georgia renewed and restored me better than anything else. And now, based on experience, I can say I’d much rather take a back road. How’s that for spontaneity?