Survivor - Family Vacation

We are going to visit my family tomorrow. We are driving (11 hours) in a Ford Explorer. This Explorer does not have the "Billy Graham seat" that I now wish we had sprung the extra money for. (For those who are not in the Davidson clan, the "Billy Graham seat" is the optional 3rd row seat that is available in many SUVs. Why is it called the "Billy Graham seat"? Because my parents had never needed to use their 3rd row seat until my dad got volunteered to drive an Expedition full of women down to see a Billy Graham Crusade. And so, that is the "Billy Graham seat". My family uses a different vocabulary for several things.) So Chris, Wilson, and I will be traveling with our luggage and the two dogs on this trip. There is a good chance someone will get voted off the trip and left on the highway somewhere between Fort Worth and St. Louis.

We originally were going to board Callie at the vet's. Vet offices work like hotels - peak weekends you will pay much more than the room is worth. Callie's little stay at the vet was going to be $150. No way. That's what my family calls "The Ponderosa". (Ponderosa is a steak/buffet place that was located between our house and church while we were growing up. Every Sunday dad would take us there and inevidibly they would be "fresh out" of whatever you ordered. Why we even ate there was a mystery. So, when someone takes advantage of you or you get a bad deal, we say you've gotten "The Ponderosa".) I'll take my chances with the dogs in our car. So we are packing light and leaving really early in the morning, hoping that the dogs and the boy won't even get up until we are more than halfway there. I give us to Muskogee Oklahoma before that end of the vehicle wakes up. Let's hope that is the case.