What? SEVEN days into March and not a single post? There must be something drastic afoot. Rest assured, there is. On Monday, Jay, Rose, and I hit the road and drove half way across the country to visit my sister Em and her family in Missouri. Say
what? Yep. We did. As if a mere 30 hour drive could stand between me and my newest nephew! HAH! My stalwart husband is dutifully holding down the fort (and going to work) while his family gallivants around the countryside, staying in fancy motels along the way.
Let me tell you, it was quite the drive. This picture was taken in Nebraska before my windshield wiper fluid unthawed enough to squirt onto the dirty windshield on the second morning. My camera couldn't focus beyond the grime coating.
The story: Two or three weeks ago I was YEARNING for a sister-visit. Plane tickets are ridiculously ridiculous, so I thought I was out of luck. But then a little sneaky idea took root in my head and somehow I let it develop into a full-fledged, slightly insane master PLAN. Gas for a drive to Missouri would only cost $200. The temptation was too great. So Jay, Rose, and I loaded up our Honda Civic and left at 6am on Monday morning. We drove to Salt Lake City and stopped at Brad and Dani’s house (my brother and sister-in-law) for a gourmet dinner of risotto and salmon. YUM! We hung out with them for a whole hour and then jumped back in our little vessel to squeeze in a few more hours of driving before bed time.
We were about 10 miles away from the inn I reserved in Rawlins, Wyoming when I heard it. One of the worst sounds to hear in the car: Jay started barfing. He finally caught the sickness Rose had last week. Oh boy. I confess to speeding a little for those last 10 miles to the inn. I dashed into the desk, checked in, and herded my puke-coated son and his sister into a little cement-brick-walled room. Needless to say, our short $44 layover in the motel did not afford us much in the way of sleep. When the barfies were finally over, we snoozed for almost 4 hours before early risers at the inn clunked and noised us awake. Back on the road, we drove another butt-crunchingly long 15 hours, arrived at Em’s house in the wee hours of the morning and collapsed into bed.
Since I was driving solo with 2 kids, I did some majorly intense preparation and organization to make passing snacks and entertainment to the back seat as painless as possible. Note the two days worth of pre-bagged snackies. In spite of all my foresight, I still did end up swerving back onto the road a couple of times while trying to reach someone or hand something back. Jay and Rose were actually amazing little troopers. I was pleased with their patience. There were only two or three times where Rose cried inconsolably. There is something to be said for living in the wild wide west where the grocery store is 45 minutes away and everything else is 3 hours away! My kids are used to driving.
A few things I did to ease the agony for the children:
I placed a box FULL of books (30+) in between their carseats. Books always entertain Jay and Rose. It worked like a charm! They browsed our mobile library off and on for the whole trip. I also slipped the etch-a-sketch and the magna-doodle in there, so that was a nice box that they could access without my help. I helped them pack their favorite toys into their backpacks, which I wedged between the car door and their seats so they had something interesting on both sides. In the front seat with me, I kept a bag of tricks, filled with a few new little trinkets and new dollar coloring books, which I passed back when things were getting iffy.
I created another cardboard masterpiece for the drive: cardboard car trays. They prop perfectly against the front seats and created a nice big surface for playing, drawing, and reading. And when they were not being used as tables, they made great sun shades when propped in the windows. Excuse me while I preen my feathers just a bit. These things were awesome.
Annnnd then there was the Kindle Fire loaded up with 6 movies and 3 episodes of Sesame Street, courtesy of Jeff’s clever computery-whizziness. I got a headphone jack splitter and two pairs of headphones for them since the Kindle’s volume is too quiet to hear over the roar of the Civic. The headphones were too big, so they were kind of a pain, but it was nice to have the motion pictures available. I wedged the Kindle between the two front seats, and voila, in-car-movie theater! I was surprised that they only wanted to watch ONE movie on the first day (Star Wars). The second day they watched two and a half. All of these things combined made our trip amazingly smooth. We only had to stop for gas. We went to the bathroom every time we got gas. It was quite the streamlined drive, even though that sitting still killed.
To ease my own suffering, I did three things: listened to story CDs, wore my sweet new prescription sunglasses, and sat on my new Forever Comfy gel-foam-sherpa cushion.
This cushion saved me from Civic-butt. It was magic! I was sitting on clouds for the first half of the trip, and then it started getting a little compacted. But even compacted, it was like heaven for my poor lanky limbs. It’s no picnic being folded up inside a Honda Civic for two days, but the Forever Comfy saved me hours of agony.
Other things we did in the car: recited a million Mother Goose rhymes, sang along with music, talked about what we wanted to do in Missouri, and ate food. We only stopped once to buy food since I packed so many snacks. On Tuesday night we ate at Chick-Fil-A, my favorite fast food of all time. YUM.
I love how Rose kind of sinks into her coat when she sleeps. Little turtle.
This one gas station in Nebraska was called The Nutcracker. What are the odds? The wind was bitingly cold, but Jay dashed over for a quick picture with his hero.
Now comes the reward for those two days: TWO WEEKS of visiting time! Yeehaw!
Chase!!
That drive was SO worth it! I’d totally do it again. Oh wait…I will be doing it again in two weeks…
