No worries, no complaints -- it's all good.
My family and I got a late start Sunday morning, chalking up our tardiness to exhaustion and an extraordinarily comfortable motel room. Once we got rolling, however, we clicked off miles efficiently, almost effortlessly. We marveled at spectacular icefalls draping the highway cuts, made a game of spotting deer grazing by the roadside and generally enjoyed the bright, clear day.
I tend to resist detours on a home-stretch run, but as we approached northern West Virginia I saw that we had time to grant my wife's wish to stop at one of her old haunts. The 45-minute side-trip for comfort-food, Morgantown-style, was well worth the time we took.
Mrs. KintlaLake ordered up her usual burrito, as did our younger spawn. The older boy had sweet'n'spicy tortilla chips and I dined on chili with a side of fries'n'bleu, the restaurant's signature fare.I think it was the 18-year-old who noticed an old phone booth outside the front windows. I snapped a quick photo with my cell phone, appreciating fully the techno-irony of what I was doing.
The final three-and-a-half-hour dash back to central Ohio was pleasantly uneventful and relatively quiet, each of us keeping to our own thoughts. Likewise, our re-entry into these imperfect quarters was without incident.
Somehow, I believe that our dinner stop had something to do with all of that, putting us at well-fed peace and serving as the perfect cap on a great road trip.
