Let’s go for a Rain Ride. You know you want to!

I make it sound like all the GG and I do is walk. Another thing that we both enjoy doing is driving around out in the tootlies. Slow rides through the countryside. I grew up doing this with my parents. We spent many a Sunday afternoon tooling around the eastern yooperland. If we were really lucky, the old coot might actually pony up the $1.50 fee to cross the International Bridge and our wanderings would take us to an actual foreign country, Cananananada. Signs in French *and* English! I don’t remember ever crossing the Big Mac on these junkets. That was reserved for the business-like travel that took us downstate to visit our beloved relatives.

As a kid, I was often bored on these trips. The fields and forests all looked the same to me back then and when we did encounter a town with *stores* and restaurants and things (and they are few and far between in the eastern yoop), do you think my parents would stop and buy us candy and trinkets or a hamburger and fries? Oh, no. We took utility food with us. PBJ, fruit, cookies, maybe pop if we were lucky. Bathroom stops usually happened behind trees on quiet side roads. I remember once we were out roaming around all afternoon and my dad said, “We’ve driven as long today as a trip to Lansing would take!” That really disappointed me. I would’ve *loved* to drive to Lansing to see my cuzzints down in that area.

Somehow as an adult, I love taking rides like this and so does the GG. I can’t feature his family doing anything quite like it given that there were 10 siblings but he has a huge curiosity and love of the great outdoors and driving. Therefore, our beach urchins were often subjected to junkets like the ones I took as a child.

Today, mid-morning, we kind of wanted to take at least a mini-hike somewhere but it was raining and the GG is minorly under the weather with cold virus-type symptoms. When he asked, “Do you want to take a Rain Ride?”, I jumped at the chance. We went south and west and I think it was when we got to the beautiful little berg of Manchester that a bit of melancholy set in. We crossed the bridge over the Raisin River and I noticed that the Dairy Queen was still there. When we dragged the beach urchins out for long Sunday afternoon rides, did we ever buy them ice cream there? I *think* so. We were more likely to stop and buy things than my parents were and there are more opportunities in southeast Michigan. But… Then we spotted the little cemetery where, just after The Comm died, we saw about a bazillion turkey vultures flying around.

I spent the rest of the day reflecting on my life so far as a daughter and a mother. Missing my parents (back in the day, not their last few months on earth, those were horrible for all of us) and thanking them for subjecting me to those boring old rides in the country when I was a kid. Missing my beach urchins and remembering all of our junkets with them with fondness.

Disclaimer 1: What I am prob’ly blocking is the sibling arguments (“Don’t look out my window”) and carsickness (one of our urchins — Cheerios in a baggy helps) and incidents like Bubble Gum On the Windshield.

Disclaimer 2: If either of my beach urchins is reading this, I am absolutely okay! Just another chapter in the book of Life is Like a River. Some days are … and some days are … We ended up the day walking down by Barton Dam, another suggestion by the GG. Yes, let’s go. Walking around outside always makes me feel better about things.

Who else likes to drive around out in the countryside?

Love y’all,
KW This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2014 at 6:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.