The Return to the Have

August 2, 2008

Our DC revels now are ended. We have, we hope, left not a rack behind. I was too excited for words to be coming back to New Haven—to our ward and our friends, to my classes and my books, to cooler and saner climes. We now realize, which we never quite did before, how small a city New Haven is, and we’re very grateful for that.

Our trip home started well. We managed to pack everything we brought into the Bull (even the girls’ princess castle) and get on the road before noon on Saturday. The girls sat side by side to make extra room for our stuff. This was a novelty at first; at length they were at one another’s throats.

I was in merry spirits until we ran into heavy traffic in Delaware. I have no patience for traffic and decided unilaterally to detour through Philadelphia. This took a long time—probably more time than we saved by evading traffic, but it was psychologically worth it because it kept us moving.

The girls had a meltdown around 3 o’clock. We responded by stopping for gas and M&Ms. They finally took their naps at about quarter to four, but they napped abominably and we had to start 101 Dalmatians at about 5 o’clock to keep the peace (they had watched Enchanted earlier). We slogged miserably through the interminable tracts of New Jersey and New York—those loathsome states that bog motorists in the mire of unmoving traffic for hours on end and charge through the nose for the privilege. A pox on their public fisc.

At length, though, the happy hour arrived when we crossed the Connecticut border, and we had smooth sailing thereafter. We finally arrived at 517 Prospect around 7:30, exhausted and exhilarated, happy to be home.