So we hightailed it out of St. Petersburg immediately after our 7-11 Thanksgiving Dinner. But not before Jeremiah had one more comment... As Auntie Marge tucked us into our minivan to send us on our way, Jeremiah said, "Auntie Marge I just have one more question for you. Why do you keep your house so hot???" SERIOUSLY funny!
We weren't driving that great that night. We were both very tired and couldn't take very long turns at driving. We only made it barely to Georgia before we stopped for the night in a Holiday Inn. We just cleaned up and went to bed. Early the next morning we both were awake so we dressed the kids while they were half-asleep and loaded them into the car to return to the road. That day...it was NOT a good experience... the kids were done being in the car and were a little sick of each other. We kept having these odd experiences: gas pumps down, credit card machines down, clocks set to the wrong time.... My mom started educating me on how the world was probably coming to an end...something about electromagnet pulses, the economy, and Barack Obama being elected President. I was actually starting to get a little creeped out... it was Black Friday. Maybe the rapid influx of purchases was creating a sonic electromagnet boom that was going to knock out all communication. We'd be stuck 700 miles from our loved ones, unable to purchase gas or a hotel or food, with no ability to contact them. Every apocalyptic movie I have ever seen was running through my head: we'd be walking to Franklin... carrying the children on our backs (crap! why'd I let people talk me into leaving my stroller at home and renting one at Disney?!?!?) we'd have to kill rodents along the way to feed ourselves and drink our own pee (AHHHHHHHH how many times could you drink it before it wasn't sterile anymore?) I was seriously starting to lose my mind. It was just about this time that the noise from the backseat reached an all-time high and the children started lunging out of their seatbelts at one another. We pulled off at the next exit and PRAISE BE TO GOD there was a McDonald's WITH A PLAYLAND!
Since the car was becoming such a pigsty, I didn't make anyone find their shoes in order to go into McDonald's only Noah had his on. Well even this stop wasn't without drama: the "Cash Only" written on a piece of paper and stuck at one of the registers revitalized the end of the world worries, I took Hannah to the bathroom and as she was sitting on the toilet she didn't lean forward enough and she started peeing all over her pants and training pants. Well thank goodness I decided not to fight her when she wanted to drag her pjs into McDonald's with her. I just put her pj pants on her. I thought... I have to remember to put training pants on her before we start driving again [famous last words...okay thoughts]. We hung at the playland for about 30 minutes letting the kids burn some steam off.
Then we returned to the car and headed out on the road about 30 to 40 minutes later, Hannah said, "Momma I peed," and I realized.... yep you guessed it.... I forgot to put the training pants on her. So we got off, stripped her down, removed the liner from her car seat, put training pants on her....while this was going on I told Noah and Elijah (who had to pee too) to go in to use the bathroom with Oma. I said get your shoes on...the look on Noah's face said it all. I said to him, "You left your shoes at the playland didn't you?" Yep he did... those were the only shoes he had with him, and he left them at a playland, and we were NOT driving back 40 minutes to get them. C'est la vie.
What else happened on that fateful trip??? I don't really recall.... but here was the final frontier of insanity. Somewhere in Kentucky, Hannah's little will gave up. She just started crying and wailing about being in the car (in retrospect it was poor planning to drive only 4 hours the first day and 16 the second). We switched drivers so I could lie across the back and be near Hannah. She fell asleep but every now and then she would wake slightly and start crying again. It was heartbreaking and pitiful. As we neared Chicago, we had the finish line in sight, but we got a little cocky. Wanda (our GPS...mom named her Wanda "so we don't have to wonder while we Wanda") told us to go through Chicago. Mom said, "Wouldn't it be better to go around Chicago?" I was too tired and worn out to form many thoughts and could not come up with a decision. I said, "Whatever you think." But then somehow we ended up going through the iPass lane of the toll booth (we don't have an iPass!), and I started freaking out. In the confusion, we started listening to Wanda again...she was desperately trying to get us back on the route she felt was best. Long story short, we ended up in Chicago (not on the freeway traveling THROUGH Chicago), but IN the actual city at about 10 p.m. on a Friday night. Yippee! Finally Wanda forced us back onto the way through Chicago; we'd added about 30 minutes to our time and every cell in my body was literally SCREAMING to be home. The texts were flying back and forth: dad to me; me to Cori (who was at mom & dad's house); John to me; Gorski (who was secretly awaiting my return at my house) to me; I was getting whiplash!
Finally we arrived at our home at about 11:30 p.m....I was rudely assaulted by snow and freezing cold the second I stepped out of the van. I carried a sleeping child in and found my house completely transformed...John had spent his entire holiday cleaning the house, carpets and all.... Sarah had baked a cake and cookies... it was an amazing welcome home. But best of all, we were HOME, and we were out of the car.
End of trip story.
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