The Landscape of a Car Trip

I know what bleary-eyed means. Oh yes.  I know we all do, and we all probably have for a long time.

Think long hours up at night with a crying baby.
Think long nights studying for a mid-term.
Think long conversations that brought the sunrise.

For the last two days, though, my eyes have been--well--bleary. And I am experiencing that very visceral, terribly twilight zone-y kind of feeling. I got up at 3AM yesterday morning and drove, with my friend Kara, twelve hours to Michigan for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals competition that my son Luc's and Kara's daughter Claudia's team is competing at.  It's pretty crazy here.  Thousands of kids from all over the United States, as well as from Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, China, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Canada, and Germany. Pretty crazy and pretty cool.

But I was talking about bleary eyes.  And a long car ride.  And the way traveling for hours upon hours on the highway makes you feel like you have popped through the wardrobe, or down the rabbit hole, or  into the forest.

Time elongates. Every minute counts. (And you count every minute.)  Yesterday felt like five days.

About three hours into the trip we ended up behind a truck. A truck filled with crates.  Crates filled with chickens.  And one chicken had escaped and was sitting on top of the truck.

No, I don't mean like this.

Chicken Truck by Krystal Allen

                  I mean more like this.











Except the truck was on a highway, going 60 miles an hour, and the chicken was white, hanging on for her dear life.

It was an incredible sight.
It was an incredible metaphor.
And it was incredibly funny.

Luc and Claudia made up a song about it, it was so funny.

Chicken on a truck
Chicken on a truck
Ch-ch-ch-ch chicken on a truck...

Pretty hilarious when you sing this into I-pod app that adds dance music, mixes, and plays back your fully accompanied song. Pretty hilarious when you have been up since 3AM and went down the rabbit hole.

Chicken on a truck.  It's my new anthem.  And it's my go-to reminder of middle grade humor.


With gratitude,
Tam