My Own Personal Marathon

Dearest Rachel –

It’s kind of ironic; since I’m assigned to the booth this weekend, I won’t be heading downtown to cheer our runners on tomorrow (and I keep mentioning this, because it feels like this should be a topic I ought to go into more detail about to you, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time to put it together. Maybe Monday?) But thanks to the situation at hand, I’m kind of performing a marathon of my own today, only I’m behind the wheel of my car instead of just on my feet. I know that it’s not quite the same thing, but the endurance factor is there, you have to admit. While the streets will be closed tomorrow for ten hours straight (from six a.m. to four p.m.), no individual runner will be on the course for that entire time, since the faster competitors take off first, followed by corrals of increasingly slower runners. Meanwhile, I’m on the road for a full ten hours, from 4:30 to 9:30, and from about one until six.

I didn’t think I’d be able to tell you about it in real time, for the very reason that I’ve taken on the driving responsibilities, but as it happens, I actually managed to repeat yesterday’s performance. Better, even; I’d set my alarm for 3:30, but after waking up a first time at 11:45 or so, I went back to sleep for a little less than four hours. When I found myself back to staring at my dark ceiling, I fretted that the alarm hadn’t gone off (I’m never quite sure about whether silent mode allows for an exception for sleep timers; I’ve had it work fine, but I’ve also heard it muted by its own settings, so you can understand why I’m wary). As it happened, I’d actually woken up with ten minutes to spare, allowing me a little extra time to make a start on getting in touch with you .

Now, you might wonder why I would even get up this early; half an hour should be sufficient to wake up, throw some clothes on (which I’d set out the night before, so no worries there), and get out the door by four-thirty, in plenty of time to get to Des Plaines before five to pick the girl up. That’s true, but we’re in that season when you can never be sure as to how much to wear to bed at night; too little, and you’re freezing when you wake up, too much and you’re sweating. This morning was the latter, so the extra half hour allowed me to freshen up before getting dressed and checking on the boys.

At least on a trip like this – downstate and back in a single day – we didn’t have to concern ourselves with packing anything. Not that it stopped me from assembling my new tablet, along with several hard drives of potential entertainment along the way (despite the fact that Daniel had made a pretty solid suggestion about a YouTube channel that everyone could enjoy, thereby rendering these plans irrelevant).

Speaking of irrelevant plans, though… it turned out that the whole trip down was spent balancing the need to keep myself awake against that of letting those who wanted to sleep on the way do so. This meant any plans to play one thing or another on the car’s speakers was pointless, as it wouldn’t be heard by half the passengers.

But once again, I’m getting ahead of myself.

As I mentioned earlier, we made it out of the house by the four-thirty we’d planned on, so we were at Kerstin’s place before five. I think we actually caught her off guard, too; she gave some indication that she hadn’t gotten our last texts letting her know we were on the way. She told us she needed to get an additional something from her house, and disappeared back into it for the better part of fifteen minutes. After a while of sitting in the car, with the engine still running, I considered texting her as to whether the place had eaten her. However, her earlier comment about not having received the last few texts left me wondering if that would be pointless, as she might be out before it was delivered, let alone read. Still, I very nearly started texting her – in order to do something – only for her to emerge and climb in, ready for us to head out. Maybe I should have made the effort sooner, so as to prompt her out that much sooner.

Still, this issue left us with the question about making sure that Erin would be ready for us, since my texts were apparently not making timely contact. Kerstin offered to call her, as I would be preoccupied with driving over there. And to her credit, she answered the phone right away… to tell us she had just gotten out of the shower. Well, she was already up, so that was worth something. It still meant that we were sitting in front of her condominium for a similar fifteen minutes before she came out – and when she did, she took an extra moment to grab the newspaper that had been delivered to the building, and run it into the lobby before joining us. If the delay annoyed me (because we were essentially parked in the middle of the – admittedly empty at that hour – road), it also amused me, as it was the same sort of thing you would have done in a similar situation when we lived at our condo in our first few years together.

Once they were aboard, I had the girls guide me onto interstate 294. While I’ve obviously driven on it before, I’m not used to getting onto it from Des Plaines. This was, by necessity, a different route than we used to take when going to Macomb back in the day. My unfamiliarity with the route showed when we passed up an oasis; the sign indicated that the next such rest stop would be in fourteen miles. After confirming that everyone could last until then, I commented that “it would be just my luck that interstate 88,” which was where we were to turn onto, “will show up in less than those fourteen miles,” and we would have to drive so much longer than that before we could make that desired stop. Sure enough, we didn’t manage to find a stop until DeKalb, nearly a third of the way along the interstate

At least it hadn’t gotten light yet by that time, and remained mostly dark until we had gotten to the intersection of interstates 88 and 39, nearly halfway along. Back in the day, you and I would come to this point from the north, and turn onto 88; this time around, we just kept going until we were nearly to the Iowa border, at which point, we turned to head south for the next two hours, on roads that would have been perfectly familiar to you (aside from the positioning of the construction cones, as those keep getting placed somewhere different every year, but never quite go away entirely).

We actually arrived in town with time enough to grab breakfast beforehand – which wound up being a slice of breakfast pizza at Casey’s again. Kerstin loves that particular pizza, and Erin just loves pizza in general… and Casey’s in general, come to think of it. I’m still trying to wrap my head around these particular enthusiasms; probably since I still see the place as a glorified gas station quick mart.

Breakfast sorted, we made our way to the church. I’m thinking I helped you and Ellen deliver goods for the rummage sale held there once or twice, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in the sanctuary before, and I know I’ve never attended a service there. In a way – and you’ll understand the comparison – it felt like when we would visit Prospect Christian before the merger; Ellen had told us that our presence wasn’t required there, but it seemed as if it made a difference for us to be there.

As for the service itself, I was surprised as to how far in it got before it addressed Sylvia personally. It felt like there was a stock script that the pastor was using for the first half of his message, especially since she had worked with him at the church for a few years half a decade ago. Eventually, though, he got to the stories about her; stories that, while there’s nothing stopping me from reporting them here apart from my own memory, are better told by those who lived through them. Ellen’s one of the ones who inspired me to do this kind of writing in the first place; she would be better to hear from about the specifics I might get wrong if I tried to write them down here.

While I was glad we had been there for her, I was surprised that the gang agreed to stick around after the service. Not that we couldn’t hang around with and for Ellen and her sisters, but the tables could only seat so many; we were separate from the three of them (along with Ramón and the minister) in our own group. Besides, both Daniel and I had been looking forward to introducing Logan and Erin to Avanti’s on our way back, and assuming that Erin wouldn’t want to eat the small meal being provided at the church (the sauce in a sloppy joe is basically a sort of barbecue, isn’t it? And she doesn’t like barbecue sauce). Still, I was more than content to remain there, even as the group effectively elected to forego the sit-down meal in Normal in the interests of time. Given that the sisters still have to finish cleaning up their mom’s home, there will probably be one more trip down there to help them out, I shouldn’t wonder; we’ll have another chance yet.

For now, though, there was the trip back, which still took us through the old southern route. We skimmed right past our old college stomping ground, going straight from interstate 74 to 55 without even bothering with the town at all, opting instead for one of those new type destination-style truck stops for a refueling pause (in both senses of the term – although Daniel wasn’t in the mood for much of it, having been outvoted in terms of stop). Along the way, pretty much everyone got their chance to rest, apart from myself (and to be fair, if I had taken the opportunity to do so, that would not have been a good thing).

Mind you – and you should know this, even as you would occasionally express effusive thanks for my taking the wheel throughout our own travels – I’m not complaining about this. I actually don’t feel comfortable anywhere else in the car aside from behind the wheel (well, aside from when we’re in a foreign country, as I don’t know my way around, and can’t necessarily even read the signs), so I’m fine with the position I volunteered for. But I will admit to having violated my own rule about spending more time traveling than at the destination; but that’s how long the moment lasted, and how long it took to get there. This is something that needed to be done in a certain place and for a certain time. I’d like to think we did the right thing in being there.

But I will admit to being a little tired from it all, and I’ll probably be calling it another early night, if I can. With that in mind, honey, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.