The Road Trip

Editor's note:
This post is long. Sorry. It was a long trip. (:


Well, we made it back in one piece. Our two week road trip was a great success and we are glad to be back.

We left the Wed. before Thanksgiving and drove to see my sister and Brian's brother (who are married to each other, isn't that convenient?) in Kansas city. That wasn't a bad drive, no ugly weather and our neighbors on the interstate drove a leetle above the speed limit. There were a few states a few days later where the highway patrol must give out tickets for sneezing too fast. South Carolina, for example. We did not exceed the speed limit and were glad when we didn't decide to get behind those who did and who were ticketed a few miles later. (They were from Tennessee and must not have known better).

So, Tuesday we drove to IL, across fields of white and many pleasant quiet acres of farmland. When we were a couple of hours from Chicago we noticed a windmill farm. Not the oldschool Holland types, but the new-age, alien and foreign-looking wind-powered electric kind. Strange and bizarre. I wondered about the farms next door to the entrepreneur guy who let someone plant them in his yard. Do his neighbors hate him for spoiling their view?

We spent the night in a hotel Tue night and Wed drove to see my uncle, aunt and cousin in Elgin, IL. That night we drove to Chicago to stay with friends there until Friday morning. There was more snow there and it was 10 degrees when we left at 6 am. Cold!

From Chicago we drove to Washington, DC to see some friends from college. That was a long day and I learned a lesson I should have remembered from growing up in a family of 5 kids. That lesson is that whenever you are going on a road trip over 15 minutes long all children must visit the restroom before entering the vehicle. Even if it is very early and very hard to get out of bed and very, very hard to expose any part of yourself for fear of frostbite. But I had forgotten, and at almost 2 that afternoon when Andrew started crying because his "stomach" hurt, I realized my sweet little potty-trained three-year-old had not used the restroom since the day before. Oops! I guess we had only made one stop anyway and apparently he hadn't needed to go at 10 am. This is also the day we endured "Lady and the Tramp" back to back to back.

So we arrived in DC about 9 pm after driving through snow almost all day. (New experience for me.) Oh, let's really be specific. Driving through roadwork, in the hills, in the dark, in evening rush hour traffic, in the snow is a new experience for me. I let Brian take a break and sleep.

We spent a few fun days near DC. Our friends Nikki and John have 3 boys about the ages of our own so there was never a dull moment. It was nice part of the trip for Andrew and James because they were allowed to run around with fellow small guys and play with a basement full of toy trains. A dream come true.

Monday morning, Dec 8, we awoke around 5, threw our kids in the car and stopped at the local Wawa for coffee. That was a very busy place but I noticed there weren't many happy people around. Maybe I should include myself in that category.

We avoided 8 am rush hour in DC but hit it instead in Baltimore as we drove north. About 9am we passed a car in flames on the opposite side of the interstate. But it must not have been as dangerous as stopping traffic would have been; firemen and police cars stood at a distance but allowed cars to still drive past.

We made it to Long Island to visit our friend Rhoda after a fun stop at IKEA, a place where I could spend two weeks by myself. Rhoda is in her 70s and opened her basement apartment up to us four years ago. She is as Rhoda-ish as ever and seemed to enjoy meeting Andrew and James for the first time. They warmed up to her fairly quickly and proceeded to inspect all of her antique Christmas ornaments for defects. I think it would have been nice to spend more time with Rhoda but I understand that my children are very inquisitive and can be loud and anoying (like right now- Andrew is driving his Mack truck around the table and James is screaming "Mama!" while he tries to open the wipee box).

We said goodbye to Rhoda at 3 am at her door. We tried to convince her the night before she didn't have to get up but she wanted to make sure we remembered the picnic lunch she had packed for us. And she wanted to give me a dose of vitamin C for the sniffle I was developing.

On the road again, driving a trail we had blazed before. Only 22 hours in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico. We thought we might drive straight through but stopped in Birmingham to spend the night with my sister who we only saw for a second before they jetted to work at 7 the next morning.

We made it home Thursday afternoon around 2. It was great to be back in a milder climate where I didn't have to worry about coats and gloves so much. We enjoyed our trip and especially liked visiting with everyone. We didn't even sightsee this time besides looking at the historic industrial buildings we could see from the interstate in Pittsburg.

When we arrived back we brought in the kids and made ourselves at home. We love Mississippi!