To Iowa: A prepositional tour of the heartland

The seventeen-hour-dependent-on-good-weather-and-only-fuel-stops-journey to Iowa is a not-to-be-missed experience that can only be likened to being hauled, cross-country, in a cramped shipping container while maintaining a strictly dehydrative diet. Think of Tyrion Lannister's escape of King's Landing or how Mickey and Debs disposed of Sammi on Shameless.

Now that I don't have young children as an excuse to make reasonable stops, I am forced to act stoic and strong; even foregoing snacks and a pillow as, obviously, pioneers didn't nap their way across the plains.

"Pioneer?" Brad scoffed, "You were begging to stop at a Perkins by Erie, less than three hours into the drive." It was at this point that I began to seriously regret my self-imposed snack food restrictions. "Have a snack cracker," Brad offered. I wrinkled my nose. The marketing gimmick was to mix different flavored snack crackers...in the SAME box. Not normally a political person, I am, nonetheless, passionate on one particular subject: Snack cracker segregation. Sorry liberals, not all snack crackers are created equal.

Despite my liquid limitations, nature still called. First a subtle email. Then a text. Followed by frequent phone calls before issuing an amber alert. I tried to tell myself I was bored. I attempted to take my mind off the impending problem by counting every pothole we hit. With one eye on the clock, Brad offered to stop but I refused to be the reason we arrived twelve minutes after his predetermined ETA. It was time to reach out to my support group.

Me:  I think my legs are cramping from crossing them so hard.

Me:  Oh good...the baseball game is on the radio.

Me:  We're currently passing the RV Hall of Fame. Wonder if they have a public restroom. Or a vending machine.

Sydney:  Pull over

Sydney: It's not worth the UTI!

We finally stopped at a gas station to fill one tank and empty another. On the road again, my attention shifted from my bladder to my belly. "Have a Fig Newton," my husband heartlessly offered. How dare he! I'd rather starve. "There's also the snack crackers," he said, shaking the box at me. I explained, in detail, what he could do with his snack crackers.

In the end, I ate the Fig Newton. I swallowed both my pride AND the stupid snack crackers. "Imagine if we'd driven the entire distance to Iowa instead of stopping halfway," Brad remarked as we pulled into the parking lot of our hotel. I was clutching my McDonald's take-out bag like a teddy bear. I had dispassionately ignored the fact that my food server was alarmingly high and didn't care that my days-old, rubbery apple pie was stone-cold. At least it wasn't made out of figs. I am not a complainer by nature.

I checked into our hotel and pretended to be street-wise and savvy as the receptionist neglected to ask me for my credit card or license plate number before casually placed my cash on the counter near her purse. I ignored the woman in the lobby who was loudly instructing her boyfriend about which one of her b-b guns was best to shoot a dog with. I happily accepted my complimentary waters and didn't check the seals until I was out of sight.

I couldn't wait to see what tomorrow's adventure would bring! Hint:  It started with a Perkins!