I haven't written in a while as I have been suffering from post traumatic symptoms from our family holiday excursion to Texas in December and January. I have not allowed myself to write anything new until I documented the ridiculous tale that I am about to tell. I wish I had blogged along the way, but as you read you will begin to understand why I simply could not. I plan to tell the story in "chapters" as I am able.
I will warn you - this will not be short and sweet, so turn your phone off and grab a glass ... no, make that a bottle of wine ...
 |
| Raven, Me & Christine |
My husband has a nasty little habit of buying old "cool" vintage cars that he can tinker on (for years) and then "flip" for
almost the amount of money he dumps into them. It's a smelly, dirty, and expensive little habit. The first time he dabbled in this addiction was two weeks before our wedding. Regardless of my protests, he drove a beastly '69 Plymouth Barracuda into our driveway and behind our new house. I nearly called off the wedding. Somehow, in my gut, I
KNEW this was only the beginning of the suffering I would need to gracefully endure. For three long years he spent his weekends and any other spare time he had with the heap of junk I came to refer to as "Christine". Christine left her stench all over him all the time. She also claimed nearly his entire wardrobe. During this time he repainted her and re built her engine so many times I lost count. First he built it so she could run on water, then on propane, then a hybrid combination that could switch back to gasoline on demand. On paper this sound fascinating .... and my husband is somewhat of a mechanical genius, but it's just not exciting anymore when it always smells like your sleeping on the floor of a gas station.... with the pump wrapped around you.
Finally, one joyous day, he sold Christine.
 |
| The Dart AKA the Bat mobile |
.... and then he bought the Dart.
1967 Dodge Dart.
Actually, he didn't "buy it". He did a side job - some custom work on an acquaintance's car. The client couldn't pay cash, so he gave Raven a car. Raven promised me that this would not be a new project and that he would sell it right away
... a year ago.
Whether it's hormonal, or just mental survival, being pregnant and then being a new Mom has given me new found peace, tolerance and patience. I seem to have a sense of calm about things that normally would/should send a normal person in good health into coronary failure, stroke, or cause a sudden onslaught of manic depressive behavior. I mean, I didn't even inflict any bodily harm on my husband when he was explaining in detail the nature of the last surgery he performed on the Dart to my night nurse while I was in labor.
In the days leading up to Christmas, my husband was completely swamped with a last minute production he was working on. His client had requested a "shabby chic" motor home circa 1985 for the photo shoot they were planning to commiserate late January 2011. Raven found one
exactly like what the client hoped for
 |
| our Christmas Chariot |
... and bought it. Yup, Merry Christmas to me. He bought it.
As the love of my life was consumed with cleaning up & tuning up his latest (slightly more shabby than chic) automotive purchase, I was busy (in denial) Christmas shopping and making plans for our baby's first Christmas and other hair-brained tasks like rearranging our entire house to be more "family friendly". I guess this is why neither of us (my husband or I) realized that on Christmas Eve we still did not have the airline tickets for our family holiday trip to Texas. I assumed Raven was handling it .... since we were visiting
his family, and Raven assumed I was taking care of it .... cause
I am the "family organizer". Need less to say, on Christmas Eve he asked me
"can you please find tickets for us? -I looked on line last night, but they are very expensive."
???!!!
 |
| Quilla meets Santa |
... two last minute tickets - half way across the country ... on Christmas .... of
course the rates would be through the roof!
Annoyed as I was, I still felt bad. I know how important the trip to Texas for the holiday was to Raven, and I had also been excited to introduce Quilla to her Daddy's family. SO, in a moment of utter insanity, when Raven came through the door saturated in the smell of oil and transmission fluid at 10pm on Christmas Eve, I told him that I would consider a "family road trip" in the RV to Texas. He excitedly took my hand to lead me on the tour of what would be our home on wheels for our new family's first Christmas. I admitted to him that it looked better than I had expected.
mistake # 2: I should have waited to "inspect" the vehicle in the daylight.
We decided that our plan would be to sleep in and have a somewhat normal Christmas morning of breakfast & gifts before we planned to get on the road around "noonish".
Our first Christmas morning with Quilla was great! We enjoyed steak & eggs for breakfast while Quilla enjoyed crinkling the discarded red wrapping paper. I'm sure she will appreciate the whole fan fare a bit more as she gets older, but having her sitting with us in front of the tree made it the best Christmas ever in my book. After breakfast Raven headed out to the RV to do some last minute bits of cleaning and tweeking. While he was busy making the RV more "Mommy & Quilla friendly", I busied myself with packing for our "adventure". I called my family back east to wish them a Merry Christmas and inform them of our travel plans. Each and every one of them responded "OK" in a tone that suggested they assumed I had had one too many eggnogs with my Christmas breakfast.
Around 4pm I was finally packed and ready to go. Around 6pm Raven told me he needed 2 more hours. AT 8pm it started to pour rain (of course!) as we began to load up the motor home for the trip. At 10 pm we were finally on the road.
As we pulled onto the highway, every molecule of my body protested as my gut told me this was a BAD idea. The RV began to shake and rattle something fierce as doors and cabinets slammed open and shut. The the windows clanged loudly like an old haunted house. Quilla began to cry and I nursed her on the sofa-bed to sooth & calm her. I was white knuckled and terrified before we even got up to 50mph. It sounded like the RV was coming apart screw by screw. Raven pulled over at the first exit to "secure" everything and assure me that this was going to be a great trip.
.... and so began our adventure.
.... to be continued.
