Ode to Sleeping In

Tomorrow morning, I’m sleeping until I wake up of my own volition. This morning we were up at 4:30 to drive out to New Ulm, Texas just north of Sealy. We ate our breakfasts, loaded up the car and piled in. The kids were asleep before we were out of the neighborhood. Erin kneed Nathan in the head at one point. She woke up long enough to apologize. He woke up long enough to forgive her. Then they both fell back to sleep.

About 15 minutes out of New Ulm, Stephen said to me: “Is that rain?” The droplets on the windshield were pretty hard to interpret as anything OTHER than rain…but I denied it. “Nope.”

About 10 minutes outside of New Ulm, Stephen had turned on the windshield wipers. This was a bad sign. Stephen is a big fan of the one swipe method of cleaning the windshield. The kids began to stir in the back seat. “Is that rain?” Erin asked.

“NO!” I snapped.

“It’s raining?” Nathan asked.

“It is NOT raining!” I responded.

The windshield wipers kept right on slapping that non-existent rain off the windshield.

We got to the start site, signed in and used the restrooms. (One of the port-a-potties had been set up off balance – it was really pretty amusing as a side issue for the day.) We went back to the car and got the bikes off the rack and set up to ride. And it continued to rain. It wasn’t a bad rain, just enough to make it unpleasant to stand outside. So we sat in the car for a while and ruminated.

Then we decided to walk around and see what other people were saying about the rain. The rain was wet. It was a bit windy. The rain was wet. The road was wet. There were a lot of hills. The rain was wet. We got back in the car and decided to leave.

We loaded the bikes back up on the rack and headed for home.

Erin and I went shopping and found her a prom dress. I was in the wrong mood for shopping (even though I have a conference in two weeks for which I MUST dress like a grown up!). So, we left the mall and went back home. Nathan had finished his homework while Erin and I were shopping. Stephen had fixed the towel rack in our bathroom while we’d been shopping. When we got home, Erin went inside and I inspected the front flower beds for weeds. Stephen met me out there.

“Perhaps we could ride now. There’s no rain on the radar.”
“There was no rain on the radar this morning.”
“Well, now the sky looks clear, too.”
“Good point.”

We went in and sold the idea to the kids as: If we ride now, we can all stay up as late as we want to tonight and sleep in late tomorrow morning. (Easy sell!)

41 pretty easy miles later, Erin’s at the symphony with her best friend Travis (THANKS for the tickets Jason!!). Nathan and his buddy Patrick are parked on the couch shooting simulated enemies. Stephen’s puttering around on his computer figuring out what’s going to happen next weekend. And I’m updated the blog.

I’m not getting up tomorrow morning ‘til I’m darned good and ready.