UPDATE: With all the talk of parades on Saturday, I thought Veteran’s Day was Saturday and not Sunday.  Fear not, for I kissed my Veteran on Sunday, too.

This year’s Veteran’s Day was much more quiet and uneventful for us than last year’s. None-the-less, I performed my civic and patriotic duty by kissing a veteran, my wife (several times I might add).

We spent Veteran’s day at my parents, as we are up to do a some things for them over the next few days.  Mom was gone today to judge a gymnastic’s meet, which is what she does for most of the winter.  With her away we took over dinner chores for dad and asked him what he wanted.  He couldn’t decide, so I suggested something mom would never cook for him:  brats and sauerkraut cooked in a red wine and beef broth.  Mom doesn’t like anything with sauerkraut, so dad never gets to eat it.

For Ann and I, this was just the excuse we needed to head to Bellevue to visit Whole Foods. After all, Dad deserves the best sauerkraut I can find, right?  That’s exactly what I thought, too!

It takes about fifteen minutes on a good day to reach Whole Foods, though the only good time is around 2am in the morning.  Otherwise, it seems the drive along I-405 from Renton to Bellevue is an unpredictable series of stop-and-gos or just stops, but rarely just gos.  It’s often advisable to pack several ready-to-eat meals, a change of underwear, and notify next of kin before leaving for the trip, because you just never know.

On this day, which is Saturday, the northbound lanes were surprising go-ish and not stop-ish, while the southbound lanes were stop-ish.  We were traveling northbound, so we were happy, despite the busy traffic [editors note . . . I have just been informed that you should imagine Ann with combed hair and makeup — but that is the fictional part of this story, for the hair on both of our heads is best described as frightful].

A couple minutes into our trip, I asked Ann to hit me on the head, because I was clearly delirious. She asked why and I said, “because I think I see a MB jeep just ahead of us on the highway. Am I crazy?”  She chose not to hit me nor call me crazy, but instead looked ahead.  She didn’t see anything.  Then, I saw it again.

“There it is.  It’s on a trailer. I’m gonna get it!” I said.
“Go get it honey,” She replied. I started bobbing and weaving through traffic, employing all the skills I learned watching Canadian Dave when he drove an FC through an airport terminal, It took a mile or so, but I finally caught up to what turned out to be a good little jeep.  I’m assure the driver of the truck pulling the trailer and jeep though he was being stalked, because Ann was asking me to speed up, then slow down, speed up, then slow down, until she finally got some good shots of the vehicle.  As I was doing this, it suddenly dawned on me that the jeep had probably been at the Veteran’s Parade in Auburn earlier in the day, which is why it was looking extra special today.  Once we got our pics, we raced ahead, just in case the driver had called 911 to report a pair of crazy stalkers in a black car . . .

So, that was the second best thing that happened to us today. (The kiss of course being the best thing, right honey?)