{"id":2350,"date":"2026-08-07T11:58:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T11:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2350"},"modified":"2026-08-10T14:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:24:33","slug":"northbound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2350","title":{"rendered":"Northbound"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Family Car trip North, 
next stop: Vacationland.
Minute: zero
Family: buckle up.
Me: \u201cIt\u2019s six-oh-one, we\u2019re late go go go go go go!\u201d
Car doors slam, garage door shudders down.

Minute: zero point five
Me, as we back down driveway: 
\u201cIt\u2019s so freaking humid I\u2019m going to die right here, right here in this death seat!\u201d
Him: averts eyes, tucks chin down to protect neck
Her: Audible Eye Roll\u2122\ufe0f

Minute eight: At local Starbucks:
Me: grande coconut milk latte, what the heck add a shot of vanilla and obviously the rice crispy bar\u2014
Him: You don\u2019t really need a Dream bar before seven right? 
Me: \u201cmake that two!\u201d

Eleven minutes in:
each of us are folded back into overstuffed car, 
we turn onto backroads before the interstate:
Apple Music CarPlay at volume 2 of 100: 
\ud83c\udfb6 move bitch<\/strong>\ud83c\udfb6
Me: LUDA!!!!!!!!!!!<\/strong>
[immediately dials volume to 23]
Him: whoa whoa it\u2019s way too early for volume 23
Me: guzzles latte, emits feral cry: 
\u201cWhooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhwoooooooooooooooohhh
MOVE B!!!!!\u201d<\/strong>

Him:  Um Di, can you pull up directions, I need a navigator\u2014
Me: Ugh hold ON! I\u2019m almost done sending this reel pebble to my friend\u2014
Him: And\u2014this is time-dependent I need to know if the road is closed or not\u2014
Me: It\u2019s a road<\/em> I\u2019m sure it\u2019s open\u2014
Me: Oh yeah, so it's closed\u2014
Him: ____

Thirty-two minutes into our daylong drive:
Me: \u201cWe need to stop immediately I need to pee!\u201d
Him: We\u2019re on an expressway linked to a tunnel there\u2019s literally no where to stop, Di. Look up \u2018Maryland House\u2019\u201d
Me: \u201cThat\u2019s twenty miles away! I will pee on you before we get that far!\u201d

Minute: fifty-eight
Me: ebullient post-restroom relief.
I run towards him, arms open, 
hopping thrice, launch preparations to leap into his arms.
Him: grimaces, teeth bared in the middle of the rest stop:
\u201cPSA reminder for the millionth time: I don\u2019t do PDA, babe\u201d

Minute sixty-one:
Me: Cross arms; huff to car
Get back in, re-fold arms over belted chest.

Minute sixty-seven (six-seven!)
I think he\u2019s winking at me, to melt the ice.
I turn to smile as he says: 
\u201cYou know...your windshield interior is profoundly<\/em> dirty\u201d
Me: Uh! I\u2019m sorry my windows aren\u2019t up to your standards, Tom<\/em>!
[We are all Patricia]<\/strong>

Minute: seventy-four
Me: \u201cI can\u2019t believe you wouldn\u2019t kiss me in public\u201d
Him: \u201cI\u2019m still getting over your gremlin moment before you got to pee\u201d
Me: WHAT<\/em> GREMLIN MOMENT 
Him: \u2014
Him: \u2014 \u2014
Him: \u201cThe next four hundred miles will be pleasant, surely.\u201d
Me: \u201cDon\u2019t call me \u2018Shirley!\u2019

Him: Searches, palpates, 
desperate fingers brush across the console 
running across knobs and dials to find a partition window button, 
seeking an absolution. 

Narrator: \u201can absolution, that would never come\u201d
Cue the James Horner Titanic<\/em> soundtrack

Roll credits<\/strong><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cNorthbound,\u201d an unhinged travel log of driving North with family, written Friday, August 07, 2026 poem 219 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: “Get Low Low Low,”  by Diana Ludwick \u00a9 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,811,552,311,200,887,1572,1244,2,5,263,551],"tags":[2284,2268,2184,438,2274,2267,132,2271,183,2269,2264,2280,1838,2277,1320,2265,2266,2275,2273,2270,2283,2282,1587,2278,2279,1006,134,2276,1063,2281],"class_list":["post-2350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-current-events","category-faux-lament","category-generational","category-humor","category-loosely-hinged","category-of-place","category-perimenopause","category-poems","category-rants","category-snarky","category-unserious","tag-apple-music-carplay","tag-audible-eye-roll","tag-august","tag-car-ride","tag-death-seat","tag-dream-bar","tag-family","tag-family-car-trip","tag-friday","tag-garage-door","tag-generational-dynamics","tag-gremlin-moment","tag-high-summer","tag-james-horner","tag-latte","tag-luda","tag-ludacris","tag-maryland-house","tag-move-b","tag-north","tag-pda","tag-psa-reminder","tag-road-trip","tag-roll-credits","tag-shirley","tag-starbucks","tag-summer","tag-titanic","tag-ugh","tag-we-are-all-patricia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2350"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2366,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions\/2366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}