Road Trip/Redacted

I just wrote an entire blog post that I--oops!-- deleted. It was about driving cross country to move my daughter and her boyfriend to Portland, Oregon (right before 10,000 writers and writing teachers descended on the city for the annual AWP Conference). My husband and I drove her sturdy little used Miata (not this one), and she and her boyfriend drove his car, the backseat and trunk full of their essential belongings. (We unloaded their heavier belongings from a U-Haul pod, delivered to their new apartment.)

 Our country is beautiful, just as the song says! Spacious skies! Purple (purple?) mountain majesties!

When we got home, our reliable but broken red Ford Focus wagon still sat in the driveway, falling apart. New tires! Still starts! But the bottom might drop out. My little old (1991) blue Ford Escort wagon still sat in the garage awaiting me, its license plates not yet electronically redacted. It was time to get another reliable used car. In Peoria, via Craigslist. As you can see, it is a two-toned Miata. Somewhat tensely, I drove the little blue wagon to Peoria and back, not sure it would withstand 65 miles per hour. It did! But I needed the glass of wine.

I have yet to drive the Miata.

Portland, by the way, is also beautiful! We saw both sun and rain, we hiked a forested trail, we visited the Saturday market and Powell's City of Books and all 4 of the city's quarters. We drove to the coast and walked the beach and hiked another forested mountain trail. I remained awed and grateful.

At Powell's I got Fall Back Down When I Die, by Joe Wilkins (hardback, signed!), and The Pisces, by Melissa Broder (paperback, funny, fishy!).

This is basically what I wrote before, but shorter, so better! The images were still available to me, but the words had flown the coop. Now I am reading The Life of Objects, by Susanna Moore, from the library book sale! And writing a poem a day for April, National Poetry Month!