You Know Those People You Pass on the Road Changing a Tire on their Trailer?

Sometimes a rainbow is just a rainbow.

Case in point, we were driving along after coming through a particularly nasty bit of highway when we looked up to see a gorgeous full rainbow complete with a shadow of a second one. A couple of minutes later my husband uttered an expletive, just moments after I sensed what had just happened. A blow out on one of our brand new trailer tires (though the picture is not our actual tire, by the way).  Needless to say our rainbow euphoria evaporated on the spot.

Of all the road trips I’ve taken, as well as those my husband and I have now taken together, those poor souls you see on the side of the road changing a trailer tire with their stuff unloaded nearby was now very close to my every thought, as we were now one of them. That I never imagined that would be me some day is not a minor point.

Stuff happens on the road.

No sooner had we changed the tire than we hit a torrential downpour. … .. It soon turned into serious snowfall (that lasted into the night), so we cut our driving short and hunkered down in a hotel room smaller than a New York City studio apartment bathroom. We were too tired to care. Well, that’s not entirely true, especially once the train started going by hourly. A fitting end to a day from hell. Thank the gods for alcohol.

Blue skies and freezing temps greeted us the next day, but that was nothing compared to the mountain passes, which were icy and dangerous. I slid through half of the drive, as my husband followed in his truck.  The sunrise morning was a nerve racking focus driven experience through beautiful elk country at freezing temperatures, with nearly unpassable roadways. Even my windshield wipers and fluid were frozen until almost midday. But the glorious beauty of the drive made any tension disappear.

Once the day unfolded we had clear sailing, with a long way still to go.

Meanwhile, back in the world of politics a lot was happening.

All the while I listened to the soundtrack of “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” a fitting backdrop to red clay bluffs flying past.

Lordy how I love driving through the American west. (I’ve done it enough times.)

President Obama’s first decision about Afghanistan seemed miles away.

President Obama said Tuesday that he would send an additional 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer, putting his stamp firmly on a war that he has long complained is going in the wrong direction.

The order will add nearly 50 percent to the 36,000 American troops already there.

I support a limited addition of troops wholeheartedly, as I’ve stated many times before. VoteVets issued a statement on it, welcoming the move as well. Sen. Feingold expressed the need for more than just troops on Afghanistan, because a strategy is needed beyond the military, something on which most can agree, though you wouldn’t know it by the rhetoric of some.

I’ll check in from the road again before I finally make it to Washington if I possibly can. Let’s hope it’s clear sailing from here.

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