Welcome to Earth, Space Cadet

Tuesdays are typically kind of a busy day for my daughter and I. We have gymnastics in the morning and I usually schedule a chiropractic appointment immediately afterward, since they're somewhat close to each other and both far from me. Then, depending on what's going on, I run errands, we come home, I put her down for a nap if there is time, and we head off to swimming lessons.

All of that was on the agenda for today.

What was NOT on the agenda was one of the most obstructed drives to gymnastics we've ever had. It is faster to list what did NOT get in our way, so I will do so now:

1) train,
2) school bus (it's not the school year though), and
3) livestock.

I have this crazy long backroads route I take to get to gymnastics which even though it is nearly 10 miles longer than the 19-mile shortest route, it is usually 10-20 minutes faster--less stoplights--although usually is the key word here since these are back roads and they do go through farming community.

So I start along my route and one of my detour roads is "closed to through traffic" for construction. I turn around and head back on a semi-back road route. Where I'm stuck in slow traffic and finally realize it's because there's a very recent motorcycle accident--so recent that had I gone that way in the first place, I would have missed it, and the police have not yet arrived, which they do while I'm waiting, and block the road. Now my only option is to go on an enormous loop to try to get to the shortest route, or see if I can get through the supposedly blocked road I tried in the first place--which I was actually able to do.

Within about two minutes, I'm stuck behind a double-length truck carrying wood that is going--no joke--25 in a 55 zone. After nearly 10 minutes behind him (it's a fast road, but not one that there's any place to pass--and where there is, not room to pass something quite that long), he turned off.

Relieved, and thinking I *might* still be able to make it to her class on time, I navigate through the turns of my back route until I get to where it opens up into a high-speed zone and...I get stuck behind farm equipment doing about 10 in a 55 zone.

Somehow, I manage to keep my comments "clean" for the little one in the back seat and manage to only repeat, "You've GOT to be KIDDING me!" Which she then starts repeating and thinks it is HILARIOUS.

If I weren't so annoyed (and now convinced I will be late), I would have been amused.

Farm equipment finally pulls over (in fairness, he did so as soon as there was safe space to do so). I gratefully get on my way and call the gym (using my hands-free headset, don't worry) to let them know we'll be late for class, but we seem to be actually moving now.

I get off the phone and...traffic is backed up because a pickup lost a bunch of PVC pipe in the middle of the road.

Get past that, and I'm stuck behind an elderly gentleman who appears to be lost, but that who I am able to pass in a relatively short time.

We arrive just as class is starting, miraculously.

After class, we go to my doctor, run enough errands that there is not time for a nap when we get home, I get the bike and trailer all hooked up and bike over to swimming lessons.

The pool is closed. I knew that there was one day that there was no swimming, but I thought it was last week, and stayed home from the pool. Turns out it was this week, so we had no swimming two weeks in a row.

I rode back home and put my daughter down for a nap while I tried to figure out how/why I messed up our schedule, and feeling like a flake since it feels like I can't keep anything straight lately.