February 1 – “First Adventure”

Retirement Day One started mildly enough.  I slept in until 6.  We saw Josh and his family off shortly after 8.  So let the madness begin …

 

Well, not exactly madness.  At least not yet.  We sat at the table and went through all the gifts and envelopes and well-wishes and bucket list recommendations.  So many expressions of love and appreciation.  Each one was perfectly special in its own way.  Guess that what makes relationships worth pursuing – they each have a story to tell that is unique that no one can take away from.  We really enjoyed those bucket list ideas, by the way.  I’m pretty sure Chris is going to make a whole new list of future adventures …

 

But on to our first retirement adventure.  It was a simple one, really.  At least it should have been.  Cailyn had a basketball game.  Not a big deal, right?  We have gone to several games already.  But this one was an away game.  In Lake Jackson.  That’s about an hour away, so, yes, that counts as a road trip, right?  After a quick trip to WalMart to replenish some fruit supplies, we packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some Buc-ees snacks (Thanks, Ray and MariAnn) and were off. 

 

And of course, it had started raining.  Our new Siri Guy voice assured us the quickest route was to go up to 2004 and cross the country that way.  We know that route pretty well.  It was also the quickest way to get to Bay City back when we made those jaunts fairly regularly.  Chris dug in and pointed us in the right direction. 

 

All was well until we arrived at the school.  We pulled into the parking lot and realized that there was no Santa Fe school bus in sight.  In fact, only a few cars were parked there, and the game before Cailyn’s was already in progress.  Chris circled that lot, and we decided to try the other side of the campus.  Sure enough, there was the bus.  But when we reached the road to turn left … of course the sign said, “No Left Turn.”  Chris drove on down to the next intersection, pulled into a church parking lot, and headed back.  And … whoops.  Missed the turn into the school parking lot.  She pulled into the next driveway but ran into a locked gate right before the elusive parking lot street.  Well, she didn’t actually “run into” the gate.  She stopped before she hit it.  So, she turned around and drove back to the back of the school again so we could check for access that way.  Nope.  Keep on driving.  Here we go.  All the way back around to the front and down to the church parking lot again.  She found the right driveway this time, but almost turned the wrong way into the lot itself (Those pesky “Do not enter this way” signs).  We finally made it to a safe parking space, though, and we were in plenty of time even to see most of the first game. 

 

Sadly, both Santa Fe teams fell short in the scoring race.  Cailyn’s squad really made a run for it late, though.  They got to within five after being down by more than ten.  Couldn’t quite hold on, though.  Cailyn played her usual swarming-style of defense.  Drove her opponent crazy.  She did her job in that department.

 

After the game we switched drivers.  I generally have nighttime driving duty.  How hard could it be, after all?  All I had to do was retrace Chris’ route, right?  Surely Mr. Siri could help me with that.  Well, he helped me, all right.  Skipped right past the road we came in on.  Took us down to a major freeway (288).  That was all fine, until he forgot to tell us to take the exit to our road home (2004).  Zip.  Right on past.  “Recalculating.”  Yeah.  If you had just spoken up last time, you wouldn’t have to recalculate.  Now, in most cases I wouldn’t have minded a little side trip.  Short cuts are awesome, you know.  But in this case … it was dark.  It was raining hard.  We just wanted to go home.  But the short cut was a pretty simple work of art to behold.  We drove in a big circle and hit our road home somewhere, somehow.  And strangely enough, it only added ten or fifteen minutes to our time.  Guess we can work with that.  At least now we have a semi-memorable event to look back on as our very first retirement adventure.

 

Psalms 121:2 says, “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

 

Father, thank you for your protection as we floundered around in the darkness last night.  Amen.