Single Prompt Option - The Weekend Freewrite - 6/4/2022
Thoughtful six-year-old Grayson Ludlow came to big brother ten-year-old Andrew with a question.
“How far is Papa driving today, to Big Loft?”
“About sixty miles,” Andrew said.
“He's gotta drive through all the other little towns?”
“Not all of them – Shortport is off to our west here at the Veteran's Lodge, but he will pass by Smallwood, Littleburg, wave at our Big Cousin Ironwood [Hamilton] and his family in Tinyville, then drive through Miniopolis, and finally get to Big Loft where Big Cousins Harry and Maggie [Lee] live.”
Grayson thought about this.
“If Papa kept driving, how many miles would it be for him to drive around the world?”
“Gee, Grayson, we're going to have to look that up.”
The two brothers got down the Encyclopedia Americana and looked together.
“So, it is 24,900 miles around and almost that much if you go north to south,” Andrew said, and showed it to Grayson. “So, basically, that is like Papa driving back and forth to Big Loft about 208 times going around, and about 207 times going up and down.”
“That's a lot of driving,” Grayson said. “Is this why people take planes instead?”
“Well, there's a lot of water on the Earth, too,” Andrew said, and turned the pages so Grayson could see. “It's 71 percent – see all this blue?”
“Yeah, that's a lot of water – we need to get Papa a nice boat,” Grayson said.
“No, those are oceans – you need a big ship for that,” Andrew said. “You take a boat to Lake Esmeralda or down the Roanoke River, but oceans have big storms and big waves and they are really, really big. Look here at the Atlantic Ocean, near to us.”
“That's big, Andrew.”
“OK, so then there's the Indian Ocean over here,” Andrew said.
“That's really big,” Grayson said.
“And then there's the Pacific Ocean, right next to San Francisco where Grandma is from.”
“Yikes, Andrew,” Grayson said. “That's really, really big. Even if you had really, really big floaty tires and stuff, trying to drive to Hawaii from San Francisco, or Japan where our friends the Miyamotos are from, would take a long time.”
Andrew thought about this.
“There would be an even bigger problem,” he said. “There are no gas stations in the ocean.”
Grayson thought about this.
“It's a good thing Papa is not doing world travel today,” he said. “They gotta hurry up and fix this ocean gas station problem first.”