PEEING ACROSS AMERICA

  

Last week Jan and I and our three daughters who live in Alaska, Jen, Liz and Autumn, left for a journey to one of the great wonders of the world, the Grand Canyon. Before we left, I happened to mention to my good friend Renee Alexander that we would be lucky to make twenty five miles without having to take a bathroom break. She wrote me back a day or so later and said that she'd had an epiphany during the night; an idea for a book which might be a best seller. She suggested the title, "Peeing Across America: Memoirs of an Old Man and his Three Daughters With Weak Bladders." I loved the title, but figured it might be a little long for a book. I may have to tweak it, but I'm definitely going to use some variation of it in a future book. I mentioned Renee's suggestion to Autumn, who whole-heartedly endorsed it, and using her phone started to document our trip as we took a leak in a vast number of restrooms across this great land.

We left on a Friday night to catch a 1:15 AM flight out of Anchorage. Jen was going to fly up from Juneau to meet us at the airport. We had to leave early to insure that we all made it through TSA, since there was some snafu with Liz's documentation. It was just as well we left when we did. We only made it to Eagle River, about thirty miles from home, before we had to make our first pit stop on the journey at a Fred Meyers store. Having refreshed ourselves, we were good to go the next twenty or so miles to the Anchorage airport. Of course by the time we arrived, we had to make a mad dash inside and find the restrooms, which, I might add, should ideally be located near the entrance of both arriving and departing passengers. Once we made it through TSA, we walked to the departing gate and found seats. There were actually five seats together, but before we all got sat down, a lady that no one knew sat down next to Liz and proceeded to talk, barely taking time to draw a breath. She was probably in her late fifties or early sixties, I don't know, I didn't ask, fearing she would start to converse with me. My word could that lady talk. I can't begin to remember anything she said, as I was trying not to listen, though she was just on the other side of Liz, whom I was sitting beside. Autumn, Jen and Jan wisely found seats farther from where we were and did their best to keep from laughing. It runs in my mind we had to wait the better part of two hours, and the gal didn't shut up the whole time. You would have thought she'd have had a dry mouth or something. Liz even got up to go pee and when she came back, the lady started in where she left off. I was trying desperately to get a little rest, and had even donned a pair of ear phones that Autumn had bought me, but unfortunately they only muffled the gals voice. Fortunately when we boarded the plane, she wasn't sitting by any of our party.

By the time we got ready to depart, I think all of us had visited the airport bathroom at least two more times. Several of the girls wanted seats in the back so they could have easy access to the restrooms, which I believe they availed themselves of. Jan and I sat near the bulkhead in the front where there was supposed to be more leg room, but that's questionable.

I won't go in to all the other bathroom stops we made at this time, but may cover a few memorable ones later. We made it down to Boise and rented a luxury SUV, a Lincoln Navigator. Honestly, this car had a feature that allowed you to take your hands off the wheel so it could drive itself. It was incredibly comfortable and got unbelievably good gas mileage. Once in Idaho, after visiting the airport restrooms, we made several stops at roadside rests where the girls were amazed at the sunflowers growing wild along side the road. Of course pictures had to be taken.

We made our way to Mountain Home Idaho, and decided to stop for breakfast. The girls looked up a restaurant, and after we parked, we went looking for it. However, there was some kind of celebration going on, including a parade that closed off a street we needed to cross, so we fortunately found a delightful restaurant nearby called Stoney's. The atmosphere was delightful, the waitress we had was so sweet, and the food was incredible, and surprisingly inexpensive. If you ever find yourself in Mountain Home Idaho, please do yourself a favor and stop in at Stoney's, you won't regret it.

After eating, we made our way across the street to where the car was parked. It just so happened that a couple of young ladies were selling watermelons for five dollars. What a bargain! Without thought of how we would cut it or where we would eat it, Liz bought one, and not a small one either. That thing must have weighed in at twenty pounds. It's not the kind of thing that you can cut with a plastic knife that you took from the hotel dining room. So we had to stop at Wal-Mart and buy a butcher knife big enough to deal with it. While we were there, enough snacks were bought to feed a small army. Of course that didn't matter. Anytime we stopped for gas and of course to pee, coffee, soda, snacks and other edibles were purchased.

Our destination for that day was Jerome Idaho, close to Twin Falls. We had to cross the Snake River and true to form, we wanted pictures. While we parked at a designated space, we all got out of the car with the exception of Jan. Forgetting that we weren't in Alaska anymore, I left the car running and the girls left the doors open. After taking pictures, I knew I wouldn't make it to the hotel before having to relieve myself, so  walked down through the sage brush and let fly. When we returned to the car Jan let us know that while we were busy taking pictures, two men of questionable motive started looking at her and walking towards the $140,000. 00 car which was running with the doors open. It scared the crap out of her, and she let us know she didn't appreciate it. Needless to say, for the rest of the trip I locked the car when we stopped, whether it was occupied or not.

There is more I'd like to share about this trip, but it's going to take several more posts, so I'll see you at the next one.