We planned this trip six months ago, locking in excellent off-season deals on plane tickets and lodgings. At the beginning of February, everything was set: my angelic supermom would drive the 2.5 hours from Seattle to our house to watch our kids in our absence. But first, we had a birthday to celebrate! Rose's 8th birthday was on Thursday, February 7th (trip minus 3 days). We celebrated with presents, hamburgers for dinner, and cake with cousins, and invited friends to our house for a birthday party on Saturday the 9th (blog post pending-- poor neglected middle child, haha). Jeff and I planned to drive to the Seattle airport on Sunday the 10th to catch our afternoon plane.
A few days after the groundhog forecasted an early spring (not that Pennsylvania weather ever resembles the wild wild west), our weather apps practically combusted with frigid doomsday blizzard warnings for Sunnyside. The forecast had grown so alarming by Friday morning that we decided last-minute to leave for Seattle two days early to avoid the terrible winter storm. Our valley does not do snow management/removal well, so we were not confident we'd be able to drive anywhere once the snow began falling. On Friday morning (Feb 8th), we decided to leave after school that same day and bring our kids to my mom, so they could stay at her house in Seattle while we were gone.
It was a good decision, but suddenly I was faced with three days' worth of work and only a few short hours to complete it all! Rush, rush rush! For six straight hours I worked flat out to get everything taken care of for our departure. Here's my journal entry from that long day-- Friday, February 9th:
I spent the entire day getting everything ready for our trip. I had to text around and postpone Rose's birthday party. I called off this week's piano lessons. I did laundry and packed. I cleaned out the fridge. I did all of the things I thought I'd have 2 days to do, all in six hours. I am so tired that I barely want to write about any of this. We picked the kids up from school an hour early and left at 2:20pm. We thankfully remembered to say a prayer for safety at a stop sign 10 minutes from home.
Eventually the road got bad enough that we pulled over to put on chains. We have never used our chains before, and they were different from the chains Jeff has used in the past, so it took him a while to get them positioned right and clipped onto the tires. The snow was falling thick and heavy, it was 20 degrees, and Jeff had to kneel in the deep snow on the side of the road while he wrestled with the chains. I stood by and held the plastic instructions sheet and tried to be constructive and supportive, while I trembled with tight-strung nerves and cold. Rose kept calling out from the car "I have to poop!" This was literally less than 15 minutes after we left the last rest stop. We told her to wait. After a few desperate pleas, Rose finally got out of the van on her own and said "I'm sorry, I can't hold it anymore." She pulled her pants down and pooped in the snow on the side of the road right next to the van, in full view of oncoming traffic (shielded slightly by the van and the thickly falling snow and the unlikeliness of her actions, ha). Then she realized that we didn't have any toilet paper, and she started freaking out, stomping on her own poop in the process. THANKFULLY she already had lots of snow stuck to her boots so the poop didn't stick to her feet, but it was a ridiculous situation and I felt like laughing and crying all at once. I gave Rose a napkin from our pizza and she made do, unhappily.
Meanwhile Jeff was still wrestling with the chains, kneeling in jeans in the snow. He was freezing; I was stressing. It was scary and hard and awful! And Rose's poop reeked. After Jeff got the first chain on, we pulled forward ten feet or so to get away from the stink. Jeff got the chains on at last and I could feel the solid grip they gave us in the snow. It eased my nerves for a little while, but they kept coming back. I found that if I looked out the side window instead of straight ahead, I was able to keep a handle on my spiraling snow-driving anxiety. Jeff calmly drove through the storm. I did box breathing and tried to focus on Jim Dale's voice and escape to Hogwarts rather than the terror that the thick mountain snow inspired in my Tennessee core.
FIVE HOURS after we left home (aka twice as long as usual), we pulled into the good ole Brown house and saw Mom waiting for us in the garage. Jeff got the chains off of the van and we carried all the stuff into the house, and I breathed freely again at last. I think that drive aged me at least ten years. But we made it safely and all of my many desperate terrified prayers were answered.
Leg one of our journey is done!
[end journal entry]
Brooklyn Pizza employees write cheeky notes in the pizza boxes.
Shudder
Cringe
We spent Friday and Saturday nights at my parents' house. An entire foot of snow fell during that time! We played in it with the kids on Saturday morning. Of course I had to come down with a head cold during this adventure, so on Saturday Jeff and I went on a snowy hike through the trails by my parent's house to get a decongestant at the nearest grocery store. On the way, I stumbled upon a cell phone that someone had lost in a snow drift. It had one of those cases with a card holder on the back, and inside we saw the owner's driver license and several credit cards. The phone's screen wasn't locked, so I called back the number with 7 missed calls, figuring it was a friend trying to help find the phone. The people were so relieved to get the phone back! We met them on the road to the grocery store and they were so glad. It was fun to help in such a simple, big, way! We got my medicine and hiked home. It was a great first date of the trip.
We left for the airport at 11am on Sunday morning (we had to dig our van out of the snow first, using brooms since my parents' snow shovel had already been packed for their upcoming move). Church was cancelled both in my parents' ward and back in Sunnyside, due to the snowstorms. That may not seem like a big deal, but the weather on the west side of Washington rarely matches up with the weather in eastern Washington. Normally they are about as opposite as can be. My mom and the kids dropped us off at the airport, and at last we were on our way to Marseille and the sunny Mediterranean! We spent Tuesday-Friday (Feb 11-15) in Marseille, stayed in Paris from Friday-Monday (Feb 15-18), and flew home Monday afternoon.
Sweeping off the van
Trying to get excited about airport food.
Leaving Seattle's snowpocalypse.
Flying over Scotland while reading a book written by someone who lives there. Hi!
At the gare in Paris, waiting for our train (and waiting, waiting, waiting...our plane arrived early so we had a nice long wait for our train).
Passing out on the train...I may have fake-slept for this picture, but I dozed for real off and on the entire ride. We were going on hour 25 without sleep, so it's all a tad fuzzy in my memory.
We arrived at the Gare Saint-Charles in Marseille at sunset.
Bonjour, Marseille! Even though it sounds dramatic, it was love at first sight--first golden sun-drenched sight. The gare is up on a high hill overlooking the city center, and the view took my breath away. The place was vibrating with centuries of history and experience!
That yellow Mediterranean sun became our best friend during our stay. At sunset, it turned the gare gold. Gare means train station in French (it rhymes with car, but more nasal-ish with the R). Did I mention that? It was definitely implied, but I won't be obnoxious and leave you guessing.
Here's the numeric breakdown of our trip. As a travel enthusiast/nerd, this is the type of stuff that interests me. Normal people can travel! We reserve one season of coaching pay for our yearly date trip and it is THE BEST.
COST... for 7 days:
- Round trip plane tickets from Seattle to Paris: $368 x2 = $736
- Round trip train tickets from Paris to Marseille: $50 x2 = $100
- Marseille Airbnb studio apartment, 4 nights: $225
- Paris Airbnb studio apartment, 3 nights: $505
- Food, public transit, gifts, etc. for 7 days: $350
- TOTAL trip cost: $1,916
ACTIVITY... in 7 days, we:
- Ran 31 miles
- Walked 50 miles (minimum)
- Rode buses for 7 hours
- Rode trains for 8 hours
- Flew in airplanes for 22 hours
- Spent 10 hours in 3 airports
- Took 715 pictures
And a quick tour of our [Ikea] studio apartment in Marseille, rented via the magical, finance-friendly Airbnb...
View from the bed: kitchen on the right, bathroom on the left, entrance on the far left out of the picture. Apparently French speakers like to hang English words on their walls, just like English speakers like to hang French words on their walls.
Bathroom, with a clothes washing machine behind the door: true luxury! Although no shower curtain or door... that is such a funny phenomenon to me. Somehow the shower didn't splash onto the floor much at all. I wish our shower at home would be self-contained without a nasty curtain!
View from the kitchen: the couch folded out into our bed. Not the most comfortable or large of mattresses, but functional.
The walls weren't actually striped; it was the shadows cast by the decorative light fixture. Jeff and I decided that we could easily and happily live in this little studio apartment long term (especially if the bed were upgraded). The high ceilings made it feel so much bigger than it was. The windows looked out onto a wall, with a glimpse of a small courtyard off to the right. It was quiet and cozy, on the third floor up a tight spiral staircase.
It was a long journey, but the fun had just begun!
The second best part about traveling is re-living all of the adventures!
{stay tuned}
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