I'm convinced that a group of males with outstanding navigational ability designed the interstate!

Well, I decided I should finally wander on here and say SOMETHING. I've thought about updating several times, but I've either been too busy, or have had only negative, bummer things to say. So today I just decided to say them. = P But now I have some happy things too - like I had a wonderful weekend with my family and wished it could have been longer. It's so much fun to all be together and listen to the dull roar of 3o some odd people (and I mean very odd.) Now can I gripe? It all started awhile back... one day the other week I ran out of gas. Oh wait, before that I blew a stoplight and so easily could have killed myself, but God was gracious and there was no one coming to hit me. So then I celebrated my new lease on life by running out of gas, holding up traffic both on the road and in the parking lot. My car can run so long with the gas light on that I must have not been watching close enough (ya think?), but some nice people stopped to help me and we were really close to a gas station that had a gas can I could borrow for free. How very generous of them. But still an embarrassing situation. Then I moseyed up to the north land. Nothing too tragic there, other than some mice that wouldn't let me sleep. = ) If I had the ability to fall asleep after being awakened in the middle of the night, this wouldn't have been so tragic. Oh yeah, another thing about the trip - I had bought some food down here to take on my trip because it's way cheaper here. So, half of it I forgot in my fridge. The rest that I remembered exploded in my luggage. A jar of salsa broke and got class and salsa all over. But again, could have been much worse - nothing stained. But somehow I feel as though there's this odd strain of bad luck following me around these days. Or maybe I should look at the opposite cause I haven't killed myself yet. Okay, so went home and had a lovely time and sadly, didn't spend time with anyone from Red Lake other than family because it was such a short trip. Like I said, it was great to see family. Maybe I'll post some pics of the trip soon. I'm trying to hurry and go do something useful with my life like laundry or something. But I just want to tell you about my wretched trip home yesterday. I'll try to spare all the details, but it was pretty much one thing gone wrong after another and I could have driven it in the same amount of time that I was flying! So when I got to Minneapolis, I discovered my flight to Detroit was canceled. Yes canceled. So this lady was helping me out and got me on the next flight, but it was going to be really tight making my next flight out of Detroit. She said I should try to make the flight, but if I couldn't, I could get one 2 hours later. So when I got to Detroit I practically ran to the gate and the flight hadn't left yet. It was about an hour delayed, so I thought everything was fine. When I was boarding, however, the lady told me that I was no longer booked for this flight. She let me on because it wasn't full, but said my luggage wouldn't make it until the next flight. Precious little good that does me! So I got to IN and waited for my luggage, and left about 2 hours after schedule. But I still could have made it home at a decent time. Oh my, do I ever hate driving, even more so in the dark, even more so when I'm not sure I'm going the right place, and the most more so when I KNOW I'm going precisely opposite of where I need to be, but can do nothing about it. As I was exiting on to the correct road, I actually backed up and took the South route instead of the North route which is what I wanted. After I had been driving south for awhile, I knew it was wrong - stopped and asked some guy at a rest stop how to get to where I wanted and he said I needed to get going north (much easier said than done!) and then gave me the exit I needed and everything. So I went back, going the opposite direction, but there's no where to turn around and I was going to just make an illegal U turn, but I kept flying past them all - sort of hard to see them in the dark until they're right there. So anyway, I drove and drove and drove and drove in the opposite direction, going nuttier and nuttier and wanting the whole bad dream to just stop! Finally I came to a town about 3 years out of my way and I knew it was pointless to backtrack, and I had NO desire to do that, so I made my way home from there after stopping at a gas station with my atlas and getting some help. Only had to turn around once after that. But it was really starting to feel like it would never never end. In the end it took me about 2 hours and 15 - 20 min. to get home and should have taken under an hour. It was very late when I got here and I felt was quite out of it when I got here. I was in a coma like state all night when I could finally go to bed and overslept by over an hour this morning (which was actually quite nice). There are more foolish things I did on the way home that I won't bore you with, but reiterated the fact that driving and nighttime and directions and interstates and me do NOT get along. Oh, and how cotton pickin hard would be it to have areas to turn around on the interstate? It's as though once you make one wrong turn, you're locked in for life, as though the people who designed the highways are trying to teach deep, philosophical truths about life instead of simply helping us get from point A to point B. Even now I see no humor in the situation, just bitterness and agony. Well, I trust this has been uplifing and I need to go now. Talk to you all later.