Jan 19, 2015 3 min read

I finally got a vacation this weekend. Well, sort of.

My husband was talking with a guy in the Harrisburg area about a part for one of our hay wagons, and we were debating about taking a day trip. When a second part was discovered 20 minutes from the first part, then a piece of equipment that we were pricing was also near the same destination, we put a plan into action to make the drive.

You read it correctly. My “vacation” was a drive across the state to handle farm business.

The part that made it a vacation was that no kids accompanied us on the trip. It was the first time in nearly three years – and only the third time in our entire marriage – that we left the kids at home to do something overnight without them.

We hit strange weather as we traveled; several miles of sunny weather were followed by freezing rain, then immediately followed by more sun. I guess the weather is more unpredictable in the mountains.

We arrived just after lunch at the first stop and were finished with our business by 5. We stopped for dinner before we checked into our hotel, where we promptly crawled into bed, watched a movie and were asleep before 10 o’clock. Wild, aren’t we?

Our only planned stop on the return trip was a visit with a couple we met at a Pennsylvania Farm Bureau conference a couple of years ago, and I was looking forward to that almost as much as the alone time with my husband. Farm women understand each other like few others can, and I hadn’t had a heart to heart with this friend in quite some time.

The next morning, we decided to go antiquing for a while before heading to their place. We found an amazing antique mall along our route and stopped to look. Four barns full of various-aged articles were awaiting our perusal, and look we did. We bought a couple of pigs to add to my collection, and a couple of old farm implements for my husband’s.

After awhile, we finished up (read: ran out of petty cash) and were back on our way. Long before we made it the hour to our friends’ farm, the twisting and turning of the mountainous roadway made its presence known. I began to get carsick, and we made another pit stop.

Finally, we made it to their farmstead, a thousand-acre hog and cattle farm. We ate a late lunch, and the men toured their operation while we ladies caught up. Far too soon, we had to go. We still had three hours to drive home, and our son started calling to see when we would be arriving. (Nice to know one of the kids missed us.)

When we finally pulled up the driveway, we handled what had to be unpacked, hugged the kids a handful of times and promptly crawled into bed. Driving 14 hours out of 36 took its toll. We didn’t even make it through a movie this time before we fell asleep.

Wild, aren’t we?

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.