Thursday (the day before we leave the house) was the start of bad omens. To start, Bernadette backed into another car after dropping the kids off at school only to be followed by me backing into a pillar as I was leaving work. Later I had quite a bit of difficulty getting ready for my soccer game. First I put my shin guards on the wrong legs, then it took me multiple attempts to get my socks on correctly. I threw on my hoodie and left only to realize as I got in the car it was on backwards. At this point I gave up and left it, let’s just hope I don’t run into anyone on my way.
Normally when I travel I do a modicum of planning (sometimes even more): departure times, routes, stops, overnight destinations, and so on. But now the departure grew closer and I hadn’t done a single shred of planning, I didn’t even know what geographic part of Arizona we were heading to. Even on the day we left I hadn’t packed when I woke up (Bernie: “have you packed yet?”, me: “not even mentally”). So Friday evening we head to Puyallup to pick up the trailer (hopefully loaded) and my mother in law. We are only about 20 miles into the drive when we hit a traffic jam. Are you kidding me? There is NEVER traffic in this area. Someone is trying to tell me something. Fortunately, the rest of the drive is fairly uneventful and we hope to get an early Saturday start to the journey. Except Nick napped for most of the drive. Like most kids his age (3), he’s going to be up late after a long, late nap (true to form he thinks the air mattress is his personal trampoline as we are trying to sleep).
Saturday morning arrives too early and we oversleep (another omen?). Oh well, I get everyone up and gather my things, except I can’t find the sweatshirt I brought for the cool northwest morning. I take the bags out to the Yukon and lo and behold there is my sweatshirt…..on the ground…..wet from the rain (have I mentioned omens?). Apparently my wife, for reasons she doesn’t recall, took it outside and left it…….on the ground. WTF?
So the kids are in the car and we’re ready to leave. As I get in I am greeted by crying. Not from the 3 year old mind, you but the 12 year old, apparently slapped by his sister. We.Haven’t.Even.Left (insert omen reference). We stopped at a local grocery store to get some muffins and a coffee. Apparently the deli at this grocery store is a breakfast Mecca for old people. It was truly bizarre, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. After an exceedingly long time we hit the road with our muffins and bad coffee.
The remainder of the day went quite smoothly, nobody cried, we didn’t have to make many stops and we checked into a motel in Sacramento. I drove the entire way. We grab some Little Caesar’s for dinner and Reilly takes allergy medicine so Bernie asks her if she hadn’t already taken one today. Turns out this was her third one in less than 24 hours and the bottle says not to exceed one. Great, now I get to call Poison Control and make public my poor parenting skills. Whose idea was this anyway? (Long story short everything was fine). Nick was absolutely fabulous in the car, turns out he’s a road warrior. The only catch was he took several naps. Guess who is going to be up late? (hint: not me, I’m the driver).
I wake up at 5:45, Reilly is in bed with me, Nathan with my mother in law, while Bernie and Nick are on the floor (apparently he was up until 3 a.m.). I look around and notice the contents of all the bags seem to have exploded all over the room. When I travel, my bag is pretty much in bugout-ready status when I go to sleep. It is going to take a long time for everyone to gather their things. Ugh, these are not my people.
On roughly 3 hours sleep Nick is a bit grouchy. Bernie is offering him various things like milk and crackers (his response to each “no milk!”, “no crackers!”). Finally she says “are you going to be pissy?” to which he yells “NO PISSY!”. I take this as toddler-speak for “get in the car and leave me alone woman”. Fist-bump for Nick. We finally hit the road an hour after waking up (an hour! Remind me to not road trip with these people again) and it’s not long before everyone is asleep except for Nick and me. Road warrior. At least I have my MP3 player (note: not an iPod, I absolutely refuse on principle).
Thankfully most of the day is uneventful, although with a couple extended stops to let Nick out I watch as my estimated arrival (per the GPS) changes from 6:30pm to 9:00pm. This is certainly not like the road trips of my youth which were fueled by Copenhagen, Coca-Cola, and 90 second bathroom stops.
The last 20 minutes of the drive are spent laboriously keeping Nick awake, if he naps now he will certainly be up all night. We finally arrive at 9:00, we’re all pretty tired. Except for Nick. Even though he was struggling to stay awake mere minutes before he is now running laps around the house, he even manages to get outside and into the neighbor’s garage. Not my problem, I drove, my job is done and I’m going to bed.
I spent the next 5 days in various states of drunkenness so someone else will have to write about what we did and if we enjoyed it. I remember sunshine, swimming pools, and using large quantities of lotion to keep my skin from drying out.
For our return journey we told the kids we would spend a day in Las Vegas. This was the part of the trip for which they (the older two) were most excited. Mind you, their idea of Vegas is entirely based on what they’ve seen in movies (which included The Hangover, so yeah, totally accurate). Reilly said all she wanted to do was find a hooker. Hey, me too!
We left early on Saturday and made it to Vegas by 11 am. During this portion of the trip I got my only driving reprieve, a whopping 2 hours. The kids had a good time there but it was a long day for us. Las Vegas on a Saturday during spring break is not my kind of place. The highlight for the older kids was the stripper cards handed out on the street (you know, good old fashion wholesome family fun! I just cleared a spot on the mantle for my Father of the Year Trophy). I don’t know how many Nathan hid away but I imagine I will be finding them hidden in various places in his room over the next year or so.
The rest of the trip was fairly pedestrian. I don’t think Nick cried one single time during the entire drive either way. The only humorous thing that happened was during our stay in Somewhere, Oregon when I called the front desk to ask what the Wi-Fi access key was. The old lady actually said to me “Wi….Fi…..I don’t know what that is”. Great. Oh well, not my problem, I drove, my job is done and I’m going to bed.
All told we spent over 50 hours in the car.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is what vacation dreams are made of.
