Let the Wild Rumpus Begin

I have the television on in the hotel in Rochester waiting for The Running of the Belmont and reflecting. I am letting my masculine side dominate by flipping back and forth between pre-race coverage and the second game of the Rice/LSU super regional that is tied 2-2. We made it through the winding, hilly road of eastern Pennsylvania and central New York. During the trip I saw one thing that made me go HMM--an empty helicopter sitting on the edge of a ridge overlooking the highway.

Our day started with me behind the wheel of the fully loaded van (three adults, four suitcases, three duffle bags, three briefcases, one backpack, and two full-sized bikes, and extraneous detritus). Walter took the middle shift (and unfortunately, the roughest drive time: too many construction zones, lane shifts, and non-expressway routes). About a hundred miles outside of Rochester, six-and-a-half hours into the trip, Walter pulled into a rest stop to turn the driving over to Davis.

Davis had chomped at the bit to drive all morning and complained about the delay every time we stopped. For those of you who have known Davis a long time, you know that he's not particularly hyper, but he can get jicky (for a definition of jicky, think about that time when you had three too many cups of coffee). We all loaded back into the car with Davis at the wheel. He beat both hands on the steering wheel in agitation while we took our various seats and belted up. Then, he cranked up the radio and announced, "Let the wild rumpus begin."