Milo Thursday - Road Trip

Eager to take back another piece of my life, I arranged to pick up Milo, my dear grand-dog, yesterday. This regular event happens most Thursdays - unless I am juggling a mom illness like I was during the last 4 weeks.

The trip to Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, takes about 40 minutes from my house. It is a pretty direct route - route 95 south to the Washington Beltway for several miles and then a few more miles into Bethesda.

Yesterday was not a normal day.

It started out fine - great actually. I left the house at 2:00 and got to Milo's abode at 2:30. At that point it fell apart.

We weren't on the road 10 minutes, when Milo threw up! A large yellowy bile kind of vomit with grass. I managed to stay on the road, fold over the blanket to hide the offending ick and kept on. Dogs eat grass, they throw up, no big deal. Three minutes later, he was doing an encore! But this time a piece of wood came up! Yikes. I pulled over and called my daughter. After confirming he has been a bit of a chewer recently, I got back on the road. My poor baby had the saddest face, but at least he seemed to be settled down.

(Silly boy, stop eating random stuff!!)

I got onto the Beltway for the quick trip home. Most locals know the Beltway is a parking lot during rush hour. This wasn't rush hour - maybe it was 3:00. The traffic slowed to a crawl. Maybe 5 miles an hour with stop and go episodes. I figured there was an accident.

Never saw an accident. Just lots of cars.

I saw some vehicles on the side of the road that had overheated, or had a flat tire, and a police car - but no accident.

(Glad that cop isn't looking into my car like that. Hands on the hips say alot. I suppose he would have pulled me over too if he saw me looking through a camera instead of the road.) :-)

We crawled along. I would have made better time walking, but it was 96 degrees outside. (And 30-45 miles is alot to walk even without a sick dog.)

Finally the traffic began to break up as we got onto route 95 north. I was happy - now we were moving. And then we weren't. Darn!! I began reading the ads on business vans.

This guy "Mallick" is a plumber. In the lower right corner is the word "Lick" with a number. I would not have used the word "lick" on a plumber's truck. Lick and plumbing are not words you put together anywhere.

ugh!

Another plumber truck. What do you think a "certified back flow technician" is?

At least he is getting paid for sitting on this road.

(Right about here I began thinking that I needed to get more of a life.)

Do these large trucks have to be so big? Or so close? Or so noisy? Or so many?

Don't all these people have someplace else they could be?

They are probably saying the same thing about me!

Grandma, are we there yet?

I finally took an early exit off route 95 - country roads - yeah!!

And finally, my street!

And my home!!!

Finally, at 5:00 pm, we arrived.

Yes, the trip took me 30 minutes in one direction and 2 1/2 hours going back.

And you know you have been on the road too long when you start reading the truck ads!

That was yesterday! Today is the beginning of a 3-dog weekend: Milo, Meathead and Grimace. And my daughter! It should be fun!

Hope you all have a fun holiday weekend.