I was so happy to read this. I hope tomorrow is more of the same.
In the spirit of being totally truthful, both of the above apply.
Part of not letting him fail was to use my tablet to look for motels where I thought we might stop. This always caused bickering because his ears get tired after a few hours in the car and he doesn’t want to pay attention to me when I ask when he thinks we are going to stop for the night.
Before we left, I presented him with a promise “I know it annoys you when I keep trying to find a room before you are ready. I promise to really try to not do that anymore.” He thanked me.
He was tired and his knee was hurting when he was ready to stop, but then we had to spend two hours driving around and looking at places. He could barely walk this morning and isn’t feeling much better now.
Because he had reserved a room for today, I suggested we stop for a relaxed dinner before checking in because we could and then we wouldn’t have to go back out. Every time we hit traffic I found a way to mention how nice it was to not have to worry about getting to Knoxville too late to find a decent place again. Once we got checked in I found a way to reward him that didn’t involve him using his knees and his mood is much improved.
Positive reinforcement isn’t just for cats anymore.
So, OMG you guys, Tennessee in the spring is amazing. We’ve never done this drive in the spring so I had no idea what we were missing. It’s like driving past Nature putting a fireworks display with bright explosions of lavendar, orange, yellow, red and white.
I’ve seen pictures in the past but I thought those were planted trees, not wild ones. It was just amazing.
Because the trees were right up to the road, I had to keep craning my neck to look at the tops of the trees and now I have a sore neck. Totally worth it.
Then we saw a Buckee’s sign. I knew who they were from some of you folks, so I told hubs about the big wall of beef jerky and he agreed that it sounded like a fun place to stop.
OMG, it was one of the most horrifying experiences in my life. Just the parking lot was bigger than the Walmart in town and the store was even bigger. We started wondering if it really was our kind of place even before getting past the two rows of gas pumps but lucked into a parking spot right in front so went in. If not for wanting to at least look at the Wall 'o Beef out we would have gone but we battled our way through the crowds, gazed in wonder for long enough to agree that we didn’t want anything enough to wait in line for half an hour, battled our way back out and fled.
Hugs described as Walmart Christmas shoppers on steroids. I’ve never once stepped food into a Walmart, so I was thinking bedazzled zombies, but it was still pretty bad.
VanGo, I’m glad you are making some money on your wonderful camera obsceras and I hope you make even more the day of.