Mission accomplished.

In a desperate bid to stay awake, I have been cleaning since I got home. I'm even contemplating sweeping and mopping the kitchen, my most hated chore. (And unfortunately, one that I will need to do just about daily once we get N home. I'm game. I'll clean it twice a day if I have to, just let me bring her home.)

Last night I went to bed early by my standards knowing that I was going to be up at 5:30 for a trip to Austin. I was tired and decided to hit the sack before I got my second wind and was up all night. I think I had the lights out at around 10:45. At 11:30, C came in and got ready for bed and woke me up. I tried to go back to sleep. I laid there until 2am. Apparently my brain, unaccustomed to this early bedtime stuff, had decided that it had enjoed a nice nap and was going to be awake for a while. My tossing and turning wasn't helping C sleep and he had an important meeting this afternoon, so I got up and got on the computer for a while. My body was tired...my brain? Wide awake.

At 3:45 I attempted sleep again. Surely I could doze off for a few minutes?

Nope. I finally got up a few minutes before my alarm would have gone off at 5:30.

Fifteen minutes later I was on the road, earlier than usual. I flew through the Mixmaster at 6:15. There wasn't hardly any traffic at all between Dallas and Waco. Things were looking up. I knew I would be tired later, but I figured I'd deal with that when I got there. I don't speed on these trips. I've learned that the police are too ubiquitous and I've just about got the speed limits memorized. I go about 4 mph over the limit. The safety cushion of speeding. I set my cruise control and go. Estimated travel time to Austin? 3.5 hours.

Right around Waco, I have to change radio stations. I've done this enough that I have an Austin one programmed in. I don't have a CD player in the car. I drive a Maxima and CD players became standard the year after mine. C offered to put one in, but I don't spend much time in there and when I do, I am happy to listen to my classic rock station. I rarely listen to music at all, so listening to the radio in the car is fine. Except when travelling, when I do think a CD player would come in handy. Don't even think about me getting one of those I-pod hook-up things. I barely use my I-pod. If a docking thing comes with a car at some point, I may use it, but we certainly aren't buying one.

So I hear something abut a big paint spill messing up traffic somewhere in Austin, but miss where it is. Seriously, a paint spill? As I approach Austin, going through Round Rock, traffic grinds to a slow crawl. I immediately notice that there is virtually NO traffic coming toward me on the other side of the highway. The problem must be over there and my side is rubbernecking, which is always infuriating to me. If it doesn't involve you, put the pedal to the metal, people, and get out of my way.

Then the radio reports the paint spill again and I know that this is it. As we crawl past, I do a mental checklist of the vehicles and people involved. The only reason I care is because I am about to turn around and come right back through here. Or at least, that was the plan before I saw it all.

Two fire trucks, one huge red hazardous materials response truck, two ambulances, and four police cars. And about 25 construction guys. Seriously. It's about an 8-lane highway there...4 lanes on each side...and they had one lane on their side kinda sorta open. It's a nightmare.

I get past it and pity the people I'm passing and contemplate that I may soon be one of them. And I clock it on my speedometer. 3.5 miles of back-up and still growing. Then the radio lady comes on and tells us all that they think it will be noon before they get it cleaned up. It's currently 8:45 am.

I can't help but wonder what the hell kind of paint spill this was to cause this much commotion and take four hours to manage. They say it is a result of an accident and it is evidently a construction site.

So I get to the Secretary of State and have to wait 20 minutes to get up to the desk and then I'm out the door with my gold seals and off to the yarn shop. I was so early I got there just as she was opening the door. I pick out the colors I want for my Russian Adventure blanket and hem and haw about how much to get since the "pattern" doesn't really say. I also get some blue and white Comfort DK to go with some red I have because I have an idea about a 4th of July dress for N.

So let's look at yarn.

mmm. yarn.

This was taken in fading light with no flash on my back porch just now, so it is fairly accurate. I was really feeling the warm colors with this. There are four colors of red tones, two different purple tones (one is a very dark eggplant), a yellow for pizzazz and contrast, a dark grey color, and a cream color. I may use the grey for the winding connective pieces in the blanket, which will include mosaic knitting of the various colors in it as well. I had thought about doing the connective pieces in cream, but I think grey may look better. the cream is there for contrast as well. We'll see how I feel about it when the time comes. That's why there is only one ball of it so far.

The cupcake trailer was closed because I was there so early, and if I sat down the knit, I'd probably just pass out in the yarn store and fall asleep, 9and besides, they don't seem to have an open knitting area there...weird...so I hit the road again and decided to see what the paint spill was looking like. It was around 10:30 when I left Hill Country Weavers.

I wasn't entirely sure where the spill was, but I sure did know it when I hit the back-up. I wasn't particularly sleepy, so at first I tried to stick it out. 1.5 miles and 25 minutes later, I had a case of the yawns and had started contemplating lunch, so I made it over to an exit and pulled into a Whataburger. Have you tried the honey barbecue chicken strip sandwich? Yum. With a full tummy, I parked under a tree in the shade, put my seat all the way down, and tried to nap.

Ummm. No.

I only nap when I am flat out exhausted. Apparently I was not yet exhausted enough and the birds having a party on my roof didn't help. Neither did the heat. The last time I did this, it wasn't 90 degrees outside. And I didn't want to leave my engine and A/C running for a nap. So I sat up and assessed the highway situation, since I had a great view from my parking place, especially of an 18-wheeler on the shoulder with his hood up and another 18-wheeler parked behind him.

It was still pretty bad.

So I decided to try out the service road, which didn't look bad at all. I had a brief opportunity to enter the highway fray and passed on it, thinking the ones entering were lunatics. Then I crested a hill and saw the other 800 people in front of me who had also decided to try the service road.

Slow lights. Rude drivers. It was not a pleasant 30 minutes as I crawled my way along another 1.5 miles or so of service road. At one point, several of us cut through a parking lot to a back street so that we could come at another angle against the light that only let ten cars through at a time.

By the time I passed the Great Paint Spill of 2009, I was still on the service road and it took another mile or two before the rather questionable Round Rock road system would let me on the freeway.

The rest of the journey was an exercise in endurance. Around 2pm I decided another attempt at sleep was necessary for my safety and the safety of anyone in my vicinity, so I pulled off into a truck stop, could not find shade, parked so that at least my body was not in the sun, and restlessly tried to nap. I must have dozed because 25 minutes later I woke before my alarm feeling a bit like a turkey on Thanksgiving. Roasted. That little bit of shut eye did the trick, (though perhaps aided by the Dr. Pepper and Snickers I picked up there) and I made it to the Mixmaster at 3:35, a little more than an hour past my usual schedule. The Mixmaster was fine. 35 backed up when we hit loop 12, but it was okay. And then I accidentally took the left exit for the HOV lane instead of 635 West because I was spacing out. I've never missed the 635 West exit...we take it all the time. Before I knew it, there I was in the special HOV lane that winds under the interchange, hoping like crazy one of those HOV cops wasn't going to be sitting on the other side ticketing bozos like me. Luckily, noone was there and I booked it out of that lane pronto with a nice little illegal lane change to avoid a ticket for being there illegally (I couldn't win) and took the round about way home.

A very long day, indeed. Followed by a trip to the Fed Ex place to send off the priceless documents and a cleaning spree in my messy kitchen. I've been afraid to sit down on the sofa. I'm typing this at the kitchen table. If I fall asleep now, I'll be up all night.

But I have the apostilles and the yarn to begin Our Russian Adventure. Mission accomplished.