There could be nothing more perfect than this after a two-day journey.
Rather than stop along the way, the boys and I decided to push through and get to Sanibel in two big days instead than three more leisurely days. In some ways, staying in the car is more relaxing than multiple stops, especially when your traveling companions are three small children heavily focused on the destination, rather than on the journey. BEACH, they cried, and BEACH, I answered, and I gave them beach before bedtime.
The first one to ask, "are we there yet?" was the two-year-old. I laughed. There's really very little else I could do.
Somewhere amid multiple status requests we saw emergency vehicle graveyards along I-95 and joked about the "sneaky water tower" that was following us and popping up every so often along the way. We left little tokens of kindness and got attacked by very unkind blackbirds at a rest stop. We listened to an actor with a gorgeous voice reading James and the Giant Peach. We sampled cheese fries and found roadside blackberries. We saw magical cloud formations and got caught in a torrential downpour so intense we nearly had to stop in the middle of the highway, then saw radiance spread across the sky afterward. There were swamps and rivers and boats, Spanish moss and palm trees. I was very glad that we hadn't flown and that we had the opportunity to see the landscape changes that told us we were headed farther South and closer to the Gulf of Mexico.
And at the end, there was the beach at sunset with the moon reflected on the waves. Griff and I captured it each in our own way, without knowing the other was doing it. Around us was promise: a hotel room with the big fridge Reese had wanted, glimpses we had caught of a swimming pool, and a koi pond surrounded by invisible quacking frogs at night and tiny speedy lizards during the day. Adventure awaits. But first, sleep.