It’s Officially Summer, So Time to Road Trip

We did it again. Not on the grand scale of last year, as my brother decided to change things up with their vacation plans for this year, and my sister bowed out with the silly little excuse of being 8 months pregnant. In fact, for the first day of cross country driving, we were on our own since my parents took my grandma on a mini-tour of mid-continent casinos a few days before our departure. So off we went, one husband for driving, one me for cruise directing, and two kids who could swerve from happy to super whiny in 2.3 nanoseconds. Day 1, 681 miles, no problem, right?

I’m sure my family was delighted with me waking them up at 5 AM, but come on, it was road trip day! Time to get a move on! Which we did, more or less, a tad later than I would have liked, but still. The kids were thrilled with the prospect of McDonalds for breakfast and a picnic lunch, as well as a steady stream of DVD entertainment, so everything went along fairly well until I noticed that Sammy had chewed completely through the straw on the new water bottle I bought him. Yes, I lost it right there, right then, inside the car, which is more than a little embarrassing considering it was over a glorified sippy cup (those of you who read this probably knew it was coming). But I’m not proud, and I admit being squashed into a few cubic feet of space for going on 11 hours had something to do with it. But best to get that kind of thing out of the way early on.

So just as I was leaning over to Chris to whisper that maybe in a little bit, if maybe we saw a Walmart nearby, I could duck in, and… what’s that little doohickey flashing on the dashboard? Why is it showing a tire pressure issue? Say, the last time that thing lit up, I ended up with a flat in the library parking lot, so maybe we should duck off this highway at the next town 4 miles down the road? Or, maybe the tire will just go ahead and go flat right now in the middle of nowhere. That’ll be fun, won’t it?

Let me just say THANK GOD for the state patrolmen who saw us just minutes later, put out comes around our car, and helped make sure my husband didn’t get creamed by an 18-wheeler changing the tire. And THANK GOD again for my husband who changed that bad by inside of 20 minutes, without getting smushed. And one more THANK GOD that my children thought the whole ordeal was amusing and didn’t get fussy in the least. And I’ll put in a few smaller Thank Gods for 1) cell phone, which allowed me to call my folks several hours ahead of us and let them know we’d be a tad late rendezvousing at the hotel that evening, 2) their iPad, which they used to locate the nearest Walmart with a tire center, and 3) for that Walmart being 4 miles away (coincidentally at the exit we were trying to make we the indicator light went on).

And so, we ate dinner at Walmart, waiting for 2 more tires to be installed on our car to match the 2 we’d had to put on 3 days prior. Yeah, we’re still kicking ourselves for that one. The kids scored some extra DVDs, and, yes, I did replace Sammy’s water bottle.

That was just the first day. I shall regale you with more takes from the road later. I’m sure you’re on tenterhooks.

The fact that I've allowed myself to be photographed in this state tells you how tired I was.