Let’s Eat”Lobsta”With a Friend

February 28 marked the first day of my wife and I’s three month road trip. It also signified an emotional parting from family and friends. On the days preceding a trip of this magnitude, apprehension for leaving inevitably settled in. Would my family need me? Was my 2008 Honda good for another run? Did we overpack?

This year, however, my pre-departure jitters diminished as a result of a four day reunion with my wife’s longest friend. In particular, I always have found this woman’s character quite amusing with her unique, high-pitched laugh and propensity to make exaggerated use of her emotions seemingly at will. In addition, she seems fully capable of a spreading her good influence on my wife and I. Noticeably, a basis of trust has been built up over the years between the three of us that always generates open discussion of sensitive issues whether we agree or disagree.

Before dropping her off at the airport today, we thus decided to take her to lunch at Kelly’s Landing in Fort Lauderdale. We would be celebrating our respective departures with a lavish feast of lobster tails and lobster rolls, amidst tourist-popular, New Englander surroundings. Focusing my attention on such interesting company and succulent food in the hours before our trip commencement definitely “did the trick” in calming my departure neurosis.

We drove only a few hours north on the Florida Turnpike today yet at times I sensed the loneliness of distance away from home in our mileage ahead. Positive memories of unforced conversation with our friend today however lingered to somehow make such challenges of isolation on our road trip seem less important. Good friends it seems makes good adventures.