Yesterday I woke up bright and early, showered, packed George Jettson to the brim, made the bed, folded the towels, washed the dishes, turned off the heater, locked the doors, and flipped Mayberry the bird as I sped away.

Everything necessary to leave the house for an extended holiday away from It All.

I was outta this joint.

Obligatory start-of-trip dashboard reading (okay, so I didn’t get out of the house till 10:30—don’t you judge me).

Everything was great:

Until pretty soon it wasn’t:

See that white stuff all over the road? It’s not snow. It’s snow’s evil twin sister—SLUSH.

And what many of you Arizona drivers may not know is that slush is probably worse than snow for driving. It’s much more slippery and altogether nasty.

What this photo does not capture is the hurricane-force winds that accompanied the slush. I mean, slush by itself is bad enough, but the wind made me slip around more than once within ten minutes, and it was not a fun experience.

It was a storm I had been hearing about on the weather channel all weekend, but until yesterday, I was in denial about it. It would trail all the way from Mayberry to Idaho on the I-15, which—wait—yeah, that’s exactly where I needed to be yesterday. And it will last until Thursday.

Lovely.

So with tears streaming down my blotchy melodramatic face, I slowed George Jettson down and turned around at the next exit.

As I drove back home (really away from home, but meh—semantics), the GPS railed on me, countering my decision every 500 metres:

Recalculating. In 500 metres, turn left; then turn left.

When possible, make a U-turn.

You’re making a mistake.

A terrible mistake.

You’re a failure.

Recalculating. Turn around and keep going, you lousy piece of yankee garbage.

In the end, though, I stuck with my decision to go back to Mayberry for the duration. My house was dismal when I got back. The only thing more depressing than coming home at the end of a wonderful holiday is coming home at the beginning of a wonderful holiday. One that never started.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, Mesa. I’ll see you when I see you.

p.s. Niki? I think we’ll have to reschedule. Sorry.

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