Chewing Up Miles

I thought about that phrase a lot while we were on the road, "chewing up miles." Because it seemed that every white line, every mile marker, brought with it a howling request for food or drink from the backseat. We're back, and the car is parked out front, but I can't bear to look at it--the interior is coated in a thin sheen of spilled milk and studded with sunflower seed shells.

But we made it. And dammit, we had fun. Not in the fun-at-gunpoint way, either. We had an old-fashioned idyllic Christmas under a blanket of snow. Cole made cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. Josh and I got a date night. Art supplies were abundant. Grandma made a glorious turkey and grandpa let everyone try his shotgun.

(Christmas nirvana, no?)




And those miles? The endless hours in the car? Honestly, it was all pretty...fine. Sometimes they whined, sometimes we did. But mostly, we just got along. Once they realized the trip was for the long haul, they pretty much settled in and sucked it up.

In the spirit of the Griswalds, Riis decided to do her napping in kinship with Aunt Edna.