Fruited Plains and Climate Change

Update From the Road

The girls are finally stirring to life after a much-needed night of sleep. We are ensconced in an excessively comfortable guest loft of lovely friends somewhere in Alabama. These sensible people have sheep and a wide vista. And yesterday I got to see, in real life, a person I have known online for like as long as people have known each other online—7 or 8 years? That was a dream come true.

A lot of years ago I wrote a post that many people liked about how to drive across the country with six small children and not lose your mind. I can’t even remember what it was called, but I explained about how you should have a shoe bag and that no one should be allowed to just take off their shoes in the car and throw them down, and how I packed meals in zip lock bags and handed them out, and other things. And verily truly, if you have a long car ride with a lot of little kids, I’m pretty sure the advice all holds true.

It’s totally different, you will be completely shocked to discover, driving with four adult girls who are completely functional. They make the lunch while you drive, and pour mugs of tea, and handle the playlist, and give advice about where to stop and when to keep driving.

They also talk politics with aplomb. I had, as I said on Sunday, just finished Shepherd’s For Sale and so we went and listened to Gavin Ortland defending himself, and then listened to the original video that Basham dismantled in the book. The first thing you notice, if you watch them both, is that Basham’s description of Ortland’s voice and manner is literary perfection. It is exactly what he sounds like. The second thing we observed is that people like Ortland don’t hear themselves, and that is, for them, a feature not a bug.