it seemed like a good idea at the time

Hitting the road immediately after the art car event wound up, at 4 pm today, seemed like a good idea at the time. The plan was to drive until I felt tired, then stop at a motel for the night, and finish the trip in the morning.

I followed the plan until about 8 pm, when I stopped outside Savannah to grab a bite of dinner and find a motel. While they were bringing up my food at Wendy's, I turned around to get some ketchup and saw a cockroach. Crawling around in the sugar packets. Ugh ... ew... bleh.

I hope the people at Wendy's realized what a favor I did them: I did not scream oh Christ there's a cockroach in the sugar packets and scare away the other customers. Instead I calmly told the girl behind the counter about the cockroach. Looked around and discovered the health rating was not visible. Grabbed my iced tea, left the food, got in my car and back onto I-95. I was in no mood to eat after that and I wanted to put as much distance between myself and that sordid scene as possible.

So I guess it was inevitable that I would end up driving the whole way home tonight. I was just tired of hotels and wanted to wake up in my own bed tomorrow. Probably not my smartest road trip decision ever, but I made it home in one piece. Stopped for a snack out of the cooler and an hour-long nap around midnight, and then I was good to go. Got home about 10 minutes ago.

I think Georg might have had some inkling that I was going to drive straight through, because the kitchen light had been left on. He's asleep but the dogs greeted me with great enthusiasm, as dogs do. They're both quiet dogs so I didn't have to worry about them waking Georg up. I turned off my headlights as I pulled into the driveway, but my car must have woken Jane up because I could see her watching me out the window. She came bounding out the door, hopping around with excitement. (Then of course she ran past me to check for squirrels in the front yard. But at least I got her undivided attention for the first minute or two.) Thirteen was still asleep when I came in, but I woke her up by petting her head. It was kind of comical to see her thought process go from "wha-huh-what?" for the first few seconds, to intently sniffing my arm like "hey, I know this person! something important is happening!" to tail-thumping "it's the girl! the girl is back! my girl is back!"

Now they're both sleeping. And I should be too.