Catching my breath

Alright. I hate to sound like a complete downer but this week has been kind of ridiculous. Let's start with my drive back from KC.

I left Overland Park at about 8:20 AM. On mapquest, the trip is supposed to take 10 hours and 47 minutes. With a dog, I gave myself a generous 12 hours to get back to Hutto at a decent time. It ended up taking 14 and a half hours. Things went fine the first 3/4 of the trip. I made good time, Gabe was an angel, and things seemed to be going well. I even made it through Dallas/Fort Worth without much of a problem. However. When I got south of Fort Worth, kind of in the middle of nowhere, traffic came to a dead stop. It was so strange, and I even saw cars on an on-ramp going into reverse and flying backwards up the ramp. Not a good sign. So, Gabe and I rolled along for a while. Literally rolled. For the first hour, I remained fairly composed. But as the SECOND hour closed in on us, the sun went down, and I watched my precious potential hours of productivity and sleep slip away from me, I was not a happy person. Especially as I came to find out that the reason there were delays in the first place was that there was road construction, one of my least favorite things. Oh, and were they actually working on the roads at the time? Of course not. They just had all but one lane blocked off. That combined with Thanksgiving traffic made it a disaster.

So I made it through that finally, and by that time I was so hungry and needed to stop to let Gabe out too. I saw a sign for Quiznos and got excited since it's kind of rare to see one on a highway so I took that exit. I excitedly pulled into the parking lot, only to realize that I was in the wrong parking lot. I briefly considered driving over the median, but decided against it and found another way around. I pulled up to the front of the store and discovered it was CLOSED. Ugh. So, we continued on. Got back on I35 and took the next exit for a Subway. It said turn right at the light, so I did. The Subway was nowhere in sight, so I kept continuing down the road for quite some time. I finally saw it, only to realize that I was in the right lane, Subway was on the left, and there were about three lanes in between us. Needless to say, I missed that turn. I got turned back around and made it into the Subway parking lot. I got Gabe out to stretch his legs and found that there was no grass in sight and the poor guy had to go! We had to search for some and finally, all the way across the parking lot, we found some. I fed him after that and finally went inside to get something to eat and go to the bathroom. It was then that I was told that NEITHER of their bathrooms were working. I ordered my sandwich and then realized that the chicken one was the sandwich of the day, and like half the price of normal ones. I ordered turkey. Stupid.

Buttt I made it back in one piece. Eventually. It set me up for a very tired week, but things could have been worse I suppose. Unfortunately it was another testing week though, and Diamond and Gabe decided bombing a few things was a good idea. I was contemplating setting them free to be wild dogs yesterday but all in all I suppose we pulled through it ok. It's just so hard when my grades are dependent on entirely independent beings!

The biggest thing of the week is the loss of my Grandpa H. I didn't get to say goodbye, I didn't get to see him much in the last several years. I can't really believe he is even gone. But it was time. I am glad he isn't in pain any more. And I am also glad that I get to honor his life at his funeral this weekend. So many things about him will stand out about him for the rest of my life. Things that will make me miss him. I certainly am glad he is now in a better place though. From what I hear, life on the other side isn't full of downers.