Max: Bugs on the Windshield - Blood on the Highway

It's no secret that I'm a fan of road trips. Unfortunately, I either have the time but not the money or I don't have the time or the money. This past week however, I was given an offer I could not refuse. My cousin Shannon was planning the enter into the bliss that is marital ensnarement.

Shannon has long been one of my closest cousins. Shannon, his brother - and oddly enough also my cousin - Brandon, our mutual cousin Steve and I are the most committed of music aficionados in our family. Many years ago, we would spend a large portion of our annual family reunion monopolizing the CD player as we played for each other the cool, new - preferably obscure - music we had each discovered in the preceding year.

Those times were the closest thing I have to "halcyon days of youth." Age, ever increasing responsibilities and ever decreasing free time have made days a hard thing to come by. Back then, there were cousins I saw and partied with at least once a year. Now I find I had not seen many of them in a decade or more. That made Shannons's wedding was a family event not to be missed.

The festivities were set to take place in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I had to work Friday evening, so we didn't hit the road until a little after 9 PM. The route was straightforward enough. MO-40 which became MO-61 which became MO-27 which became IA-27. While it lacked the charm and adventure of back roads and blue highways, our route was not quite as sterile as it would have been on Interstates. We passed through towns, negotiated twists and turns as we listened to The Marijuana-loges and They Might Be Giants.

The one incident worthy of note occurred about a mile or two south of the MO/IA border. We were cruising along when traffic slowed to a complete halt. The lights and sounds of an arriving helicopter where our first clue that someone up ahead was having a bad day. It struck me as somewhat odd, however, that the helicopter was not taking back off. After about a half hour, I was getting stiff and got out of the car to stretch. A few cars back, a semi driver was listening to the police reports on his CB. He was the one to tell me that an ambulance, an ambulance, had hit a horse and buggy - we assume from the nearby Mennonite community. The horse had already departed to that great stable in the sky. The buggy driver, however, was too unstable to be moved. It took about another half hour for the EMT's to get him stable enough to copter out.

Traffic finally got moving again. Someone was kind enough to have moved what remained of the horse out of site. However, there was blood all over the highway and a distinct odor of horse shit. On the whole, a lovely diversion to break up our travels.

We eventually got to our hotel around 2am and crashed.

The next day we got up and attempted to follow my mother to the church. We parted company when she decided to go the wrong way down a one way street. Laura and I restored to reading the directions and looking at street signs in order to get there. The ceremony was a typical Catholic affair - calisthenics, cookies and wine. The reception was the true event. I got to catch up with family I had not seen since the dark ages. I did a - incomplete - striptease. On the whole, it was a Saturday well spent.

The next day was about the breakfast buffet and the trip home. There were no noticeable signs of death this time. But as it was daylight we were able to enjoy the scenery. Beyond a futile quest for an Iowa state magnet, it was an uneventful trip home.

How was your weekend?