scenes from the road: illinois, indiana, ohio.

snack list.

here is the complete list of snacks that we have left in the car, all of which both of my children have refused, despite their hunger:

Peanuts
Salted sunflower seeds
Almonds
Lemon almonds
Pistachios
Apples
Grapes
Bananas
Fruit leathers
Clif bars
Popcorn
Honey nut rice cakes
Honey graham crackers
Veggie sticks
Snap-pea crisps
Peace-sign pretzels
Tortilla chips
Trail mix
White bread
Peanut butter
Strawberry jam

these are the healthy-type foods. we've got plenty of treats, too. i ask you, dear friends, are my children spoiled? are they incapable of understanding the bounty that is before them? or is it simply that this food has been with us for seven days, and as it is with the humans in the car, they are just bored with their choices?

either way, if anyone is hungry on rt.
80 going through illinois, we've got you covered. look for the gray prius covered in bugs.

day eight.

we're in wisconsin, heading towards madison, listening to "beezus and ramona" on dvd. selkie just ate two rounds of two different kinds of potato chips, and milo is drawing his own search and find pictures.

we're tired.

the front of the car looks like a jackson pollock painting gone very wrong, as the splattered bugs from past states have left their marks. selkie has decided that it's her job to clean the windows every time we stop for gas, and i wholeheartedly approve.

last night we saw our dear friend sean, and he took us to a bowling alley/pub/restaurant in minneapolis, then to izzy's ice cream parlor in st. paul for dessert, where the vegan ice cream made me swoon. it was so surreal and lovely to see our old friend, to introduce him to our kids, to see how happy he is.

the scenery is all looking the same right now, as we make our way through the middle of the country. its lush and green, and the clouds are alternately fluffy and ominous. we're seeing rivers and lakes and creeks. it's filling me up inside even as i become immune to it.

a week from today i'll be in florida with the women who've known me the longest, and we'll spend four days without our children and husbands and families and it will be glorious.

every time selkie starts to whine about how hot she is or milo starts to panic that he can't find his backscratcher, I try to stay calm and breathe, florida,
florida florida.

i'm not losing my shit here. far from it. but this is a small car, and things can get tense. so when i tell you that alex and i spent most of the day talking aim elmo and fozzie bear's voices, i hope you take that for what it is (an obvious diversion to keep our kids occupied) and not what it seems (a screaming, desperate cry for help).

"elmo loves his trip across the country!! elmo is having a great time, and elmo is very grateful that there was a whole foods in minneapolis. elmo loves the usa!"

scenes from the road III.

road rules.

Five o'clock on Monday afternoon, sitting on a road somewhere in Wyoming, taking deep breaths and trying not to want to open the door and escape. The brush looks inviting. There are baby deer around. Maybe I could become a wild woman of the west; I could buy a shirt that says, “Ride a cowgirl, not a horse.” Maybe if I just left this car right now and ran off, jumped over the barbed wire fence and into the hills, maybe then I would find some peace and quiet within myself.

Not very likely, but if I have to listen to my daughter complain about the computer being too dark or her seat being too hot, or if I have to hear my son whine about how his itouch is messing up his game, I just might have to try it. Let them try and catch me. Let them run after me calling my name, and just see if I come back.

Can you tell we're on the fifth day of our trip?

It has actually been lovely. We've laughed a lot, and listened to our kids cracking themselves up. There has been much more of that than of the aforementioned drama. We've driven through some frickin' amazing scenery; watched all kinds of deer find their way across the landscape, begged the signs that say “Be Bear Aware” actually produce a bear, bribed our kids to look out the window by telling them we'll give them five bucks if they see a fox, ten for bald eagles, bears were 20, and moose are worth $50 in cold, hard cash. So far we are out no money.

There are farm animals everywhere, and it must be calf/foal/lamb season, 'cause there are so many babies with their moms out there, drinking the milk they were meant to have and enjoying their families. “Hi, beauties!” we all say.

The ukelele is in the front seat, along with a huge cooler, my camera, the road atlas, my purse and various other stuff. There is not too much room for my legs, to be honest.

I can't get over how lucky I am to be doing this trip, to be taking this ride with these people. I love seeing all of the bikers in their full-on americana gear. Yelling at the Halliburton trucks as we pass them by. Taking the chance and passing the slower cars while we watch the incoming traffic getting closer and closer, and even though we know we have lots of time and can make it no problem, there is always that feeling just under the surface that says, “Oh shit, we're dead meat.”

So far, so good, though.

We're heading towards Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse, staying in Rapid City, South Dakota tonight. The next day we're taking the kids to the country's largest indoor water park, god help us. I can only imagine what that will be like.

We stretch every chance we get, but its all negated by the fact that we are sleeping with our children. Last night Selkie kicked me in the head with her feet, which I sleepily swatted away as if they were flies. She is happy most of the time, brushing her doll's hair in the backseat, drawing little scenes that she then animates in her head.

Milo is more interested in stuff this year, making a point to tell us when he is looking out the window. He is affectionate and happy when he's with us in private, but in public he puts on his aloof costume, and pretends that he just doesn't give a shit. Therefore, when he says things like, “Those deer are so beautiful!” I want to squeeze him tight and tell him how much I love him but instead I just ruffle his hair a bit, which is all he'll give me in front of other people.

So far I still love my family, which after about 1500 miles seems pretty damn good. Except for the moment that just happened, when I asked Alex how far we've gone and he said, “I'm not sure,” and I said, “Well, just give me an estimate,” and he said, “Well, if you'll just look at my notes I can give you a more accurate--” “I'm just writing this for the blog!! I don't need the actual number—just give me a ballpark!!!”

That was a tense moment.

Anyway, things are good. We have about 34 license plates recorded. Hawaii is still our holy grail.

I'll leave you with a quote from Selkie. When discussing the fact that we were not going to get a speeding ticket this year, she said, “Well, then you better not drive, Daddy.”

South Dakota, here we come.

Scenes from a trip II.

Reno buffet.

My children are in a casino. Selkie said, "it's just like an arcade!" Milo's comment: "this buffet is reckless!"

Just please, let us get out of here without having to explain about the drunken, oxygen-tanked, chain-smoking, mostly elderly clientele.

I miss Whole Foods.

scenes from a trip.

bear-ly anywhere yet.

oh sweet morning.

let me tell you, there is something about waking up in a hotel that makes you really appreciate your own bed.  that lumpy, stained, tired mattress that you complain about throughout the year suddenly seems like a dream cloud when you've spent a couple of nights away from it.

just sayin'.

my kids are snuggled up in a bed together, one watching hotel tv and the other playing his itouch. they got less than 8 hours of sleep last night, thanks to a tremendous clusterfuck of chaos brought on by hotwire and the sacramento crowne plaza hotel.  when we finally settled in to our second hotel of the night (thank you la quinta inn), it was way past 11:30 and we were all so tired it was laughable.  literally.  all we could do was laugh.  but let me start at the beginning...

two days ago we started our trip and headed up to kings canyon/sequoia national park, and saw some of the most amazing trees on our planet.  we stayed in a tiny cabin with signs posted inside telling us to lock up all of our food, on account of the bears.  we did all we could to summon bears to us throughout the day we were there, but no luck, even when there were prominent "bear crossing" signs, which i now consider to be false advertising.

at one point, my jaded, cranky ten year old son said excitedly, "i just love nature!"  and he wasn't being sarcastic.  he really meant it.  he had stars in his eyes when he said it.

i'm gonna ride on that one remark for a long, long time.

we had terrible food, just terrible, terrible food; i finally cracked open a barely ripened avocado and tried to scrape bits off with a tortilla chip in desperation.  the kids even remarked about the quality of the food served within the park, which, if you know my kids, isn't really unusual.  we drove the windy, twisting roads throughout the park, took a kick-ass tour of the crystal cave there, and got stuck behind lines and lines of cars as we all waited for the nice construction lady with the stop sign to let us all pass on a one-lane road.

then, as we journeyed to the last destination in the park--seeing the general sherman tree, which is the tallest tree in the world--we got stuck behind a line of cars again, and getting out of ours we walked ahead and saw that one of the sequoias had uprooted itself and was lying across the road, blocking two lanes of traffic.  in a moment of true human folly, we all tried to move it together, then began picking pieces of the bark off, in hopes of pulling it apart to make way for all of us to get by.  after a few minutes of this, we all gave up, and my family turned our car around and made our way out of the park without the satisfaction of having seen the famous tree but knowing that mother nature made her mark on us anyway.

our plan was to get to reno last night, stay at some swank kid-friendly hotel with a cool pool and hang out a bit.  but time got away with itself, and we decided that sacramento was a better choice.  so we hotwired a hotel and made our way up there, stopping only at the fresno whole foods for some dinner.

this story is sounding really boring to relate to you.  but last night it was ridiculously exciting, in the worst way possible.

we finally arrived at the crowne plaza around 10:30.  i waited in line for 20 minutes to check in, while selkie ran around the lobby like a girl on drugs, which she was, sort of, since she'd had a soda with dinner.  the woman at the counter was by herself and frazzled but nice, and she got us all set up with a room.  we took out all of our gear, of which there is a lot, and made our way up the stairs to our room where ONE KING BED awaited us.

fuck. fuck. fuck.  (those were the exact words i uttered.)

i called the desk lady who said there were no rooms with double beds, and when i reminded her that we had just had a lovely conversation about me traveling with my two children and husband cross-country and how could she check us into a room with one bed thinking that would suffice she had no answer.  even mentioned that there were no roll-aways available.

cut to us calling la quinta inn, kids crying from exhaustion, me on the phone with hotwire getting our money back, finally arriving to the other hotel where we walk in with exhausted children to our new room which reeks of pot.  "someone was smoking in here!!" said milo.

yup.

now its today, and the kids and alex are in the pool and i'm having a few minutes to myself.  i am determined that we are going to get into idaho tonight if it kills us, as being only six hours from home seems so wrong, given all the driving we've been doing.

anyway.  this concludes this morning's update from the road.

we're still here.

backseat action, Fresno for dinner, 104 degrees, lost sunglasses, "Bunnicula" audio book for all, banana chocolate chip bread sustenance. vacation on.

the road.

here's one way to pack a chicken dress that can't be left behind. just wear it.

with love and gratitude to my dear Jessica Wallenfels, who ushered us out the door with grace and steadfast love.