Coffee With Purps

Coffee Conversations with a Purple Girl

Moving Right Along

“Moving right along in search of good friends and good foods, with good friends you can’t loose.”
“This could become a habit!”

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Before every long distance trip, my husband and I play “Moving Right Along” from the Muppet Movie. It’s been our tradition for two years now because it’s a great song and I like it and it’s so much fun to sing on road trips. I always sing Fozzie’s part and Logan sings Kermit, just to please me. He even does the voice. I realize that, as the driver, Logan should technically be doing Fozzie’s bits and I Kermit’s, but I like Fozzie’s lines better and Logan likes to do the voice, so this is how it is. It’s one of those things that our kids will think nothing of until they mention it to their friends and are informed that singing “Moving Right Along” before every road trip is not, in fact, a normal thing to do.

This has been a summer full of road trips and, thankfully, we seem to be done, barring any random last minute adventures. We’ve driven the same amount of hours this summer as we did the summer we got married and drove to New England twice in two months, just a bit more broken up. Two trips to Indiana, one to Philadelphia, one to DC. What I’ve realized from all these road trips is that we are much better at road tripping together than we were two years ago.

So the very first thing we did as a married couple was take a road trip up to Maine for our honeymoon. It seemed like a great idea at the time, mostly because Maine is beautiful and neither of us was terribly comfortable with flying. We debated on flying but decided it was cheaper to drive, I think, and starting out as frugal as possible was a good plan. So we drove seven hours across country, slept in Connecticut, then drove seven hours up the coast to Maine for a fourteen hour trip total, which we then had to drive back. As much as I love my husband, the driving was not a great time.

We tried listening to the Lord of the Rings trilogy on audio book and it was not a great choice. My bad. I had nothing but crocheting to keep me occupied, which I just taken back up for the trip, which meant I didn’t really know what I was doing and managed to make one pot holder and that was it. Or was it a washcloth? It might have been a washcloth which I have no idea where it went. So I was board listening to Tolken and Logan was board kind of half listening and getting rather lost in places. It was stressful and draining and a very long drive home. Our trip to Boston a month later was much the same, but with the Abhorsen trilogy instead, which I love, but Logan still can’t do audio books, so it didn’t much help him.

Since those unfortunately long and inexperienced road trips, we have learned a thing or two about traveling together. We’ve discovered podcasts, for one thing. Podcasts with a lot of back and forth conversation can keep my husband’s interest and focus much better than audio books ever could and we have a couple that we enjoy together. We’ve been listening to a group we love play a Star Wars table-top game which we have super been enjoying. I’ve already told you about Campaign and One Shot and you should check both out now, if you haven’t already. This has done wonders for our traveling experience as it’s something we both enjoy and get into and can keep us both entertained for long hours. On top of that, I now have a Kindle which I can read in the dark and an iPad which I play games on while we drive so I have something to do with my hands, even when I can’t see said hands. I still generally bring something to crochet but I have other options now, which is nice, and I can follow a pattern now, which also makes things more interesting.

I’m rather proud of us for how well we’ve done this summer. Long car trips are still the butts, but at least they aren’t as bad as they used to be. We’ve learned a lot in two years about living together as well as traveling together and I think we’re doing pretty well. Now if we could get the packing and unpacking thing down, that would be cool. I may still have half my stuff from vacation sitting in my suit case because it didn’t need washed. I also have a tendency to over pack, but that’s a different story all together. Welcome back, my friends! I hope you have a lovely day!

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