Hats Off to the Best Roadtrip Ever

8:00 Saturday Morning- Meet Oleg and Oksana Magdych at the corner to go on a road trip to Poltava.

8:02- Argue with Oksana about who is sitting in the front seat. Oleg begs me to take the front seat so that Oksana won’t pester him about driving too fast but I win the war and Oksana gets shotgun.

8:04- Listen to moans in Russian about Oleg driving too fast.

8:06- Listen to more complaining from the front seat. :0)

8:07- Narrowly miss an oncoming truck. Just kidding.

8:25- Stop in Boryspil to buy some yogurt.

8:30- Eat yogurt, open the sunroof, and sing Christmas songs in 90 degree weather. Yeeeessssss.

10:15- Stop and eat breakfast/lunch at this little Ukrainian restaurant and eat omelets.

10:49- Take pictures with every type of greenery imaginable.

10:56- Find flowers. Take more pictures.

11:23- Discover why the word “rest area” has no Russian equivalent.

11:37- Spot a giant field of sunflowers and stop the car and take pictures. Imagine the biggest field of sunflowers you’ve ever seen. Then multiply it by 10. That’s how many sunflowers there were. Sunflowers for as far as the eye can see.

11:47- Explain the rules of the cow game.

12:36- Pass a cemetery and have all 66 of my cows die.

12:45- Arrive in Poltava and drive downtown and see the natural history museum and all sorts of other fun and exciting things.

1:36- Ignore the “No Pictures” sign and take pictures with the wooly mammoth skeleton.

1:48- Narrowly dodge the glance of a sneaky guard babooshka and take a picture with a giant stuffed moose with Oleg’s cellphone.

1:49- Pretend like we’re making a call on the cellphone.

1:50- Hang up.

2:07- Watch a Ukrainian Wedding Ceremony until the doors are shut in our faces.

2:08- Pretend to be terribly offended that we weren’t invited.

3:15- Stop by Oleg and Oksana’s apartment that they rent out to people in Poltava.

3:24- Take a nap on a log while Oksana talks to the new renters.

3:53- Head to the town where Oleg’s parents live.

5:35- Meet Oleg’s parents and have more food than should ever be made put in front of us.

5:48- Try to explain to Oleg’s mom that we’re stuffed.

5:50- Have Oksana explain to Oleg’s mom that we are stuffed.

5:50- Oleg tells his mom that we are stuffed.

5:52- Finally hit a breakthrough…

5:53- …get offered more cookies.

6:45- Head to the coffee shop.

7:24- Discuss the differences between “cappuccino” and “latte.”

8:05- Head to Oleg’s brother’s empty apartment.

9:07- Go to bed early and silently wish that air conditioners were more commonplace in Ukraine. Especially in 95 degree weather.

9:14- Decide that we would rather read about Gideon and his army.

9:20- Listen to Lori read outloud because I’d already taken my contacts out and everything looked like one of those magic eye illusion things.

9:22- Receive a text message from Oleg Magdych on the other side of the wall ordering us to go to bed.

9:23- Write one back saying we’re reading the Bible; we’ll go to bed soon.

9:24- Start a text message war.

9:27- Lose the text message war.

9:32- Go to bed.

9:27 a.m.- Go eat breakfast at Oleg’s parent’s place.

9:45- Mute Spanish soap operas and make up the dialogues.

10:13- Bemoan the loss of Juan Diego’s superbowl tickets.

10:15- Discover that the evil Maria Guerra has taken them because she loves the Steelers.

10:18- Find that Lucia has come out of her coma and has lost her job at the basket weaving factory. She now must work at Domino’s and deliver pizza on the weekends. Minimum wage just isn’t covering the cost of her expensive brand-name cereal eating habit.

10:25- Cry because the soap opera is over.

10:45- Leave the town and stop at every imaginable place along the way to make a 3 hour drive a 6 and a half one. Outdoor museums, random lakes, giant bridges, cantaloupe buying, Armenian restaurants, friend’s houses, grocery stores and birch trees.

6:20- Arrive back in Kyiv and than Oleg and Oksana for the best road trip ever!

You know those family vacations you took as a kid to Disney World and everyone would pile in the car and Mom was already in a bad mood because Dad forgot to change the oil and now everybody’s already in there waiting and seatbelts are buckled and it wastes gas to leave the car running but it’s 147 degrees outside and why couldn’t he have just changed the oil before today and why do we even bother going on family vacations because, honestly, we’d all just rather stay at home anyway, I mean, Disney’s a huge ripoff and Johnny’s scared of Minnie Mouse, something about polka dots, and besides, the water in the “It’s a Small World” ride is really dyed green and those Dutch girls aren’t really Dutch, they’re made in China, and that stupid song gets stuck in your head for 3 hours after you go on it, and, Dad can we just turn around?
You know, those roadtrips?
And you know the part when you’re a kid and you’re driving down I-75 and you see all these magical billboards that promise that for only $19.95, your family will have the best time ever because we have 75 foot long alligators, or if you just come see our live aquarium shark we’ll give you 2 free tickets to Busch Gardens, and you really want to stop because it all just looks so exciting and there’s all these pretty colors that promise fun for all but Mom says, “No kids. We’re going to Disney World. Don’t you want to go to Disney World?” Really the “Seashells- 5 for a dollar” sounds more fun than posing with Cinderella, but you can’t tell Mom that because then she’ll be offended and say you’re ungrateful. And there’s all these orange groves in south Florida. All my life I’ve wanted to stop and take pictures in an orange grove. Never once have we stopped. The only stopping that takes place is when a bladder is about to explode or until a toll booth demands it. You know, those kind?

This road trip made up for all of that.