Abbot and Costello Go on Vacation

My sister and I have gone on a couple of trips together, and somehow things didn’t go as planned. We are both reasonably intelligent, strong women, but put us together, and we manage to make even simple things complicated. I guess it’s a gift.

In the middle of a cold, frozen January, we started off on our way to our brother’s wedding. We were in upstate New York; our destination was Maryland. The roads were wet but not frozen. We had my daughter, seven, and my sister’s son, three, in the back seat. We were stopping in Binghamton to drop my daughter off at the Howard Johnson’s, where she would meet her father and stay for a few days. Then it was straight shot to my brother’s, about four hours away. Simple.

Shortly after we took off, we found that the windshield wiper fluid was frozen. That was not good. Driving in winter in cold weather is messy. We had to stop at least twice to throw snow on the windshield so I could see. I got good at following trucks, which would throw enough slush on the windshield that I could wipe it off. Too little just smeared.

We found the Howard Johnson’s with no problem; it was right there off the road. But we couldn’t find the exit to get there. There had to be an exit somewhere, but it took us quite a while to find it. Once we got there, we had lunch and successfully made the drop off. Another four hours to go.

The windshield wiper fluid had thawed, so I could see where I was going. Unfortunately, I believed my husband at the time, who told me the…