Friday, August 26, 2011

Oh, it was an Amanda Adventure alright

I don't do things gracefully.  Nothing.  I'm not a graceful person.  This also carries over into my relationship with technology.
I had to work the night before I left to get J, got off an hour early, got home got showered got my stuff together so I could just get out of bed, throw on clothes and make up and roll.   I had to wake up no later than 345 and leave no later than 415 if I was going to meet the time requirement set by the Army to pick him up.  I was going off of Google maps, and the GPS, said it would take 5 hours.  I wanted to have ample time to stop if necessary and get through post to get him.
I have alarm clock anxiety, as I call it, any time I have little time to sleep and absolutely can not over sleep.  Luckily, I fell asleep at 11:15pm.  Woke wide awake around 1:30am, fell back asleep.  I rolled over around 2:15 for some reason, just in time to hear my text message go off.  J had gotten his cell phone back and had text me, not expecting an immediate response.  I have barely spoken with my husband in 6 weeks, of course I was psyched and wanted him to call me asap.  He called and we talked for 20 minutes.  I tried to go back to sleep for another 40 minutes, with no luck whatsoever.  So, off I go, pulling out of the driveway, GPS set, coffee in hand, 4:22am.
GPS says arrival time of 9:19am.  Good, that gives me plenty leeway for stopping if I have to, and goodness knows, I always have to stop once on a four hour trip, and am about to bust at the end of 4 hours; so I was glad to see that I would have some leeway.  I had to be there no later than 10am, central time.   
Remember, 2ish hours of sleep, I'm on auto-pilot getting to the interstate.  It's the same basic route I take to work.  So, forgetting that I had a GPS, I nearly jumped out of the car when some woman's voice starts yelling at me to turn soon.  LOL!
Sadly, that wasn't the only time I allowed a robotic woman's voice to startle me.
Make it through my first personally-set checkpoint without much rush hour traffic, very little actually.  Fabulous, I'm making great time.  Sun still hasn't come up.  I get on the highway, off of the interstate, still making great time, not many cities on this highway, so I'm still doing good, very few speed limit changes, even fewer red lights. 
"In 1.5 miles, turn LEFT"  Ok, lady, that's fine, but your map doesn't show that I turn left, the line keeps straight.  Color me confused.  I look at the GPS, compare it with the road signs, and decide to go back and turn left where it said to turn left. 
Well...don't argue with the line.  I went a good 30 minutes out of my way.  Get back on track and stop for a tinkle, more caffeine, and gas.  Well, now GPS says I'll arrive at 9:59am.  DANG!  I have NO time for error.  I'm really freaking out now.  He said I had to get him no later than 10am central time. 
I'm flooring it, our poor car is pushing harder than she's ever pushed.  I'm topping hills, passing folks, I mean, I was boogying. 
I am starting to panic.  I don't know what they will do if I'm not there on time.  I don't know if they'll fly him home, stick him on a bus, and now I've driven this far for no reason.  Freaking. Out
I start to see signs for the cities that I know are close to base.  I called J's Aunt and asked her to please look on the computer and find out how much further I was, because my time wasn't adding up.  GPS still said I had an arrival time of 10am, it was getting close to 9. 
Aunt called back, "You should be no more than 30 minutes away!" 
If you enter a destination that is eastern time zone, you'll get an arrival time that is eastern.  Wow.  Duh, Amanda. 


Yeah, like I said, I do things gracefully.

I got on post, with out any issue, got to my honey, with about 40 minutes to spare to his time restriction.  The smile on his face, the sparkle in his eyes, the pure excitement I saw come across his body when he saw me....love.  That man adores and loves me, and it's amazing to know that the emotion, the love you have for someone is equally reciprocated.  This separation deepened our understanding of our emotions toward each other. 
Like I've said, it wasn't the dream wedding that mattered at all to me....beyond a shadow of a doubt, I have the dream husband.  And I never want to wake up.

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