Anniversary Celebration with Oil and Ice

July could not have been hotter or more humid that summer. We were seven months late celebrating our anniversary for several reasons. Money was tight in December, and so was our schedule. Child care was also a dilemma.  We decided to wait until later.

Later finally came, in July.

“If you’ll go with me, I promise I’ll stop and buy you diet coke on ice or an ice cream cone whenever you ask,” my hubby told me.

That’s because our little blue Mazda had air conditioning that didn’t work. Its oil reservoir had a continual leak. We would be stopping to add oil as often as we would petrol. We packed a case of motor oil, opened our windows, and hit the road.

Just the two of us. How long had it been since we’d had time to ourselves – just the two of us?

Less than half an hour after we left home, we stopped for gas – and to fill up with oil. Next, we stopped for my diet coke (that was back in the days when I drank soft drinks instead of water) and Dave got his favorite: Mello Yellow.

Every time we stopped to fuel the car, Dave added oil. We didn’t care.  Our half-dozen were in the care of a reliable babysitter and we had nary a care in the world.

Footloose and fancy-free, we drove west for almost six hours, stopping along the way to stretch and cool off our backs from those seats in the car.

Three days of relaxation and fun being together. Three days of fixing only our food and our plates of food. Three days of going to bed when we felt like it and getting up because we wanted to and not because someone else was calling our name.

We’ve been a lot of places since then and celebrated in a myriad of different ways. They’ve all been fun. Yet the one that makes us smile the most is the time we hit the road in a Mazda with over 200,000 miles on it with money for gas, oil, and ice.