Thursday September 11th, 2014

The exercise:

Write about: the detour.

Tomorrow morning's market harvest will be interesting, as berries are pretty much done and we don't have much else to bring from the garden other than cherry tomatoes (which won't take long to collect).

I'm sure I'll find some way or another to make it take longer than it should though.

Mine:

Our collection of road maps were still strewn across the double bed in our cramped motel room when we came back from dinner. A part of me had hoped the cleaning lady would have trashed them during her daily visit, like how yesterday she'd tossed the last three pieces of my pepperoni pizza that I'd planned on eating for dinner.

No such luck today.

"We need to make a decision eventually," Crystal said as she flopped onto the atlas bed. "We can't stay here forever."

"We know where we want to go," Tammy pointed out, "we just have to figure out how to get there."

"Without the cops finding us," I added, oh so helpfully.

"So it's either a straight shot, get there as fast as we possibly can," Crystal told the ceiling, "or we take a detour or two or three, make sure nobody is on our trail, and get there a little later."

"Yeah, but how much later is a little later?" I asked, allowing an armchair to catch my fall. "Every extra hour on the road means more chances of something going wrong. Flat tire, engine failure, random police check..."

"Some idiot stealing the van," Tammy said, "and all the money therein."

That gave us all pause. I think that was the moment we knew we would skip the detours and go all out for our destination. The moment that led to all others that would follow it. The cute boys at the gas station outside Lewistown. That horrible waitress in Reno who spilled coffee on Crystal's gun hand.

The moment that sent us on our tired, doomed voyage toward the police roadblock south of Fresno.