Merlyn's Musings~: Fairytales, Sunshine and Ice ~ Part 2 and...HOME

In thinking about our annual treks, I have to say that it is always such a joy to drive south to Florida in the middle of January from New York. You start out dressed in layers upon layers of winter clothing. The winde bites. The snow blows. As you drive, state to state, farther southward, you adjust your wardrobe to match, off goes the heavy coat, then the boots, then the extra sweater until you hit Florida and finally decide it's sandals weather!! Woooot!
There is SUN! Ack!
My eyes! My eyes!

I revel in the good weather, soaking up the tonic that is the sunshine and dear ones whom we rarely see. Musicians whom I'd love to play with daily, I have only a few days to play with. Vistas and adventures that are new to us. Going out to eat and traveling is a joy to my happy wanderer spirit!

How'e'ere, while I do revel in the journey, and I love packing for the trip and seeing new sights...
It is not as fun to say goodbye to those you love, nor retrace your steps northward after being in short sleeves and drive home away from good friends whom you only get to see once or twice a year. Nor are deteriorating road conditions and tractor trailer squeezes on the highway while ice to contend with.

That and the bundling up in ever more layers as you proceed to higher latitudes. Sandals give way to shoes in South Carolina with a cold snap there.... We stopped for the night in N.C. and watched on the hotel TV the advancing of the greatly heralded winter storm "Janus" and had to decide in a groggy morning instant, whether to stay put and let it pass us before proceeding....or to hightail it and skeedaddle and try to beat the storm home first.

We scurried around and packed up our things and put on boots and heavy sweaters and set out early from N.C. and tried to race Mother Nature.

I'll tell you right now, it isn't as fun as winter boots to shoes to sandals...
But it is is fun to think about getting home, and seeing our favorite doggy in the whole world and to have some downtime. We have been going, going, going every minute of our trip. We thank our dear friends, Mike and Leah, Donna, Dre & Max, Star & Mikal and Dee & Francis for putting up a couple of wayward wandering minstrels. Thank you for the comfort of bedding down someplace.safe and warm and dry the nights we were with you! But even saying that, I hope you'll understand that I won't sleep really sound, until I'm in my own bed with my puppyboy at home after all is said and done.

Tuesday morning, we drove straight into the oncoming winter storm named "Janus." A two-faced bastard that it is to match the God he's named for. But Ha! Ha! Janus! We have all new snow tires!! We are not afraid of ice and storm! My Suburu has "Goat Feet!"

I figured by the radar that if we could just get above Washington, D.C, and a bit above we would be fine. But we've usually avoided going that route in the past. Mostly because of stops to friends in Va in the past, we've taken other routes. How'e'ere this time, the shortest, quickest, and least miles was right through Washington. And during a storm too. Awesome.

The weather was fine till we were almost to the Va border. Then it darkened. Then it started to rain. Then sleet turned to snow. Just as we came into Washington, we had to pass a snowplow. Unfortunately he was spreading sand, not in the customary fashion of a fan spray of sand from behind, but in the fire hose off to the side fashion and we got nailed pretty good with sand as we chugged by.

My Suburu said: "cough cough" spew!
And then the sand froze ON the passenger side with ice. Harry is a great driver. I read as he drove and kept his mind off the monotony of the road. It destresses him to listen to my voice. We had already finished reading "20,000 Leagues under the Sea" and had already devoured and picked apart the bones of that story's themes in preparation for next StoryBook Club's theme. I picked up my next new book, which was a Christmas gift from my first husband, David. It is "Women Who Run with the Wolves:Myths and stories of the Wild Woman Archetype" by Clarissa Pinkola Estes's Ph.D.

Psychology AND Myth mingled together and covering stories like Bluebeard and Baba Yaga that I know full well. YAY!! Oh the synchronicity of it all. It is meant to be a help to women that we learn from the folk stories of old. Which is also why I started my StoryBook Club years ago! This book is fascinating to me! HUZZAH.

More snow. More ice. More miles. Miles and miles and miles of miles. I stop reading aloud occasionally due to horrendous traffic or to help Harry find the right exits. At the rest stop in Wilkes-Barre, Pa, we actually had to chip off ice off our headlights so they would shine and the grill and whole front of the car was just one thick sheet of ice. I started trying to break ice off the grill and radiator area with the snow brush, then I said, "Fuck it. It's air cooled enough, I'm thinking." The Wild Woman in me is gonna run with the Wolves in traffic.

Yah! It was kinda like when the Nautilus got trapped in the ice channel and they all ran out of oxygen and nearly died!! Ok, so maybe it wasn't totally like that, but you get the idea.

Anyways, here's a few more pics worth a 1000 words:

Here are the "Harpies" (in the nicest sense of the word) Theresa and Heather