The Roadtrips

My mom and my sister are roadtripping their way west and home again. They went from Montana/Wyoming to Napa, California. It's a two-day drive for them, but the second day isn't as long as the first. They spent the night in Nevada in both directions and found good places to stop and eat along the way. They ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe! Fun times!

They sound like they are having a good trip, despite the purpose of the journey. They went on this whirlwind trip because Great Aunt Spuddie passed away; Mom and Sis went to the services.

Katie got in her car Friday evening and began her coast to coast roadtrip. We've spoken several times since she's been on the road. Here are the trip details ... I'll update as I hear from her, so check back for new updates! And you can refer to the map in the last post if you'd like, just click it to make it big enough to view.

Friday 7:30 pm PST - The great adventure begins!

Saturday 10:00 am MST - Almost to Albuqueque, New Mexico. Stopped and napped for a couple of hours somewhere.

Saturday, 4:30 Central - Stopped at Starbucks in Amarillo, Texas. She notes that Texas has a lot of ugly scrubby little bushes.

Saturday late afternoon - She saw Cadillac Ranch, the Giant Cross (which she thought was kind of creepy), and the tilted water tower. Entering Oklahoma, she didn't see a big "Welcome to Oklahoma" sign. What is up with that?

Saturday Evening - Oklahoma is kinda old and ghetto. She stopped in Oklahoma City at Subway. Yum.

Saturday 10:15 pm Central - Listening to an oldies radio station. Sure are a lot of church signs! A coyote ran in front of her car.

Saturday 11:30 pm Central - Leaves Oklahoma and enters Arkansas. The speed limit changes at the border from 75 to 70mph. Katie immediately gets pulled over for going 80. She agrees to make a donation to the great state of Arkansas, as requested on her ticket.

Sunday 12:30 pm Central time - Just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. She stopped and slept for a while in a Super Walmart parking lot after driving all night. She has gone 2000 miles so far and only has 500 left to go!

Sunday 6:15 pacific time, 9:15 Eastern, She arrived in Charleston! 47 hours!!!

My sister dropped my mom at her house in Wyoming and is almost home to her house in Montana. They had a good roadtrip too!

We're Back!

We're back. We drove almost 4,000 miles through all sorts of weather. We had a busy week, saw all the relatives but we still missed Thanksgiving. We had lots of quality time together as a family doing silly things like.... talking to each other, singing to the radio, counting how many times we've each been through Las Vegas, silly things like that.

During the trip we encountered all sorts of weather. We went from 91 degrees to 1 degree. I had to buy the teens some coats! We crossed the desert and went over the snow covered mountains. The trip took us through six states.

We only had one "incident" on the trip. My baby burned her hand on Great Grandma's furnace, which is a propane stove in her living room. The burn is a second degree and didn't warrant a trip to the ER but we were all just sick over it. She has blisters but is using her hand just fine. Looks like its healing nicely.

We went on this spontaneous trip halfway across America because my father-in-law passed away last Tuesday. My husband and 16 yr old daughter left on Monday in hopes of seeing him before he passed on, but they didn't quite get there in time. I left with the rest of the crew on Tuesday afternoon. The funeral services were very nice. During the family visitation, my husband held our little one while he stood at the casket and without prompting, she pointed and said "Grampa" for the very first time. It was a very special moment. I think that one moment will last a long long time in our hearts.

We did have a nice time together on the trip (despite the funeral, weather and burn). Here are some pictures from the road. Just fun stuff here... we only take fun photos!
Oh, by the way... the Las Vegas count is as follows: Katie - 15 times, Lexie 17 times, Gracie 6 times, Sandy the dog 11 times.

Roadtrip

Today is a travel day for me, the oldest princess, the youngest princess and the furry princess. Should be an interesting journey! I'm so glad that I have the new mini-van! What a relief to not worry so much about what is dying under the hood.

And the November weather rocks! We are so lucky in that respect too.

I am busy packing and wishing I had more time to take care of details. I'll update my blog from the road if I can. I hope I can find wireless internet - that'll be like a needle in a haystack but there's hope.

Have a good week, folks. I'm off to spend a LOT of quality time with my pincesses.

Family Road Trip!

We are back from our family road trip!

Imagine this... a long roadtrip with your husband, two teenage girls with guitars, a golden retriever who is shedding like crazy, and an active toddler. Got all that? Ok, now add luggage, one more guitar for the hubby, a stroller, toys, food, dog supplies, movies, books, blankets and of course - a big cooler of ice and drinks. Got all that in your mental picture? Ok, now on the way home, add some wall hangings, an endtable, sewing machine, rocks, dishes and little boxes of jewelry and trinkets. Got it now? Oh, wait, add a cardboard box to the load - for some reason it was important to bring home an old cardboard box. Does your mental image of us have it all now cuz - That's us on vacation!!!

It was a LONG trip. Thank the Lord for the dvd player and the movie "Cars". I know the movie dialogue by heart now for the entire movie. Add that to my list of Mom-Talents. I am pretty sure the whole family, including the dog, has it memorized too.

We drove there in two segments. First run was just over 1000 miles and took us 17 hours. Second segment of the trip was 630 miles and took us 10 hours. Then home, 1650 miles and 30 hours.

I gotta say, I have a pretty good traveling toddler! And her carseat must be super comfy because it wasn't too hard to keep her happy. It wasn't always easy though. I did see a vehicle traveling down the highway in the lane next to us, going 80, baby in the front seat on Mom's lap. That just made us all sick to see that.

Here are the highlights:
Our first day we drove to north-central Wyoming to see my Grandma and my Mom. We left at 8:45pm on Sunday night and arrived at 3:00pm on Monday. Along the way, we pulled over on the side of the road in Arizona so I could nurse Gracie. I think it was 2 or 3am. The girls and the dog got out to stretch. When we were ready to go again, we all piled in, buckled up and put the van in drive.... OOOPS! Where's the dog? Oh Lordy, we almost forgot our dog in the Virgin Gorge in Arizona. Yikes! In the afternoon before we got to Grandma's house, we stopped in Shoshone for a milkshake. If you are ever passing through Wyoming you just have to take the road that passes through Shoshone and stop for a milkshake! Awesome!

While in Wyoming, we stayed at the Vision Quest Motel. These fine accommodations included two full size beds . Did I mention that there are 4 adult sized people in our family and one toddler who flops around at night? And a big lovable dog? Did I mention that? Sleep was fleeting.

The highlight of our Wyoming visit for the girls was their "playdate" that Grandma set up for them. They were a little worried about this "playdate" wondering what they were in for. They figured it'd be boring or involved horseback riding or something equally awful. Turns out, a couple of teenage girls came for the "playdate" and said "wanna go swimming?". The girls said "sure!" They soon learned that "swimming" meant going 35 miles up the road to the dam and jumping off a cliff into the reservoir. Lexie said "It felt weird cuz after you jump you fall for such a long time". Ok, there are just some things a mother does NOT need to know! That little tidbit is one of them.

On Wednesday, we loaded up and left for the far side of South Dakota. I think there are 2 towns between my Gma's house and my inlaws. Very boring drive. Around 7pm we heard the radio news about the 35W bridge in Minneapolis. The bridge collapsed. Immediately, I called my sister and she is fine she wasn’t on the bridge and neither were any of her in-laws. Whew!

We got to the in-laws late in the evening and the place soon filled up with Aunts, Uncles and cousins. Gracie was a little overwhelmed, but the girls and the dog were super excited to see everyone! I was super excited knowing I would sleep on a double bed in a quiet dark basement! Whooo Hoooo! I'm gonna get more than 4 hours of sleep tonight! I really miss having a quiet dark basement. Such a wonderful place to sleep and sleep and sleep! Ah!

On Friday, I took one teen and one toddler to the new waterpark in town. For those of you familiar with the town, it's at the Southside swimming pool site. Very cool aquatic park! One of my kids enjoyed it very much! My little one did not enjoy the water. She looked very cute in her swim suit though and isn't that what is important to a girl at the pool? She did enjoy running around on the sidewalk and her cousins took her to the sandbox area.

Saturday we went to Aunt Gert’s estate give away. This is how we ended up bringing home a sewing machine, dishes, some framed art and an end table. We learned that Aunt Gertrude donated her body to science and is currently attending medical school in Vermillion. She'll be there for 2 years. She passed away a month ago. Her and I share a birthday which gave us a sort of a bond. Also, my daughters all looked just like her baby picture. But, she was 14 pounds when she was born! Thankfully, my girls were all between 7 and 8 pounds. Her baby picture looks amazingly like my girls as babies and she just loved that. She gave me her one and only baby picture last summer.

Sunday, we left all the girls with their cousins and my husband and I got away together for the afternoon. Only one of his brothers tagged along, so it was as alone as we were ever going to get on this trip. We went to the Terry Redlin Art Center. So nice! The paintings are so beautiful and a wonderful peaceful feeling overtakes you as you get sucked into the artwork. I could have stayed there for a few more hours. We bought a small framed print. Then we went out for some mediocre Mexican food with very bad wait service. Made me laugh, South Dakota is just not known for good restaurants. Oh to be back home again!

We packed up and left Monday evening at 8pm Central Time and got home 30 hours later at midnight our time. This was a 1650 mile drive from there to here, but we did it in one shot to get it done.

We've been home for a whole day now so I guess I should unpack and clean up the vacation mess. My new mini-van did really well! It is so full of dog hair now though. We put 3831 miles on it and drove for 69 hours from our house back to our house again. I'd say it's maiden voyage was a wonderful success! We'll do it again in 11 months!

Here are some more vacation pictures, there is a nice collection in the photo gallery of our family web site if you want to see them all: