Day 4 wasn't going to be nearly as long as the previous day. We had about 7 hours on tap for today, so we knew that at least it would be shorter than yesterday. We were all up early again thanks to the marvel of time changes, so we hit the road to Bakersfield at about 6:30. The funny thing about Flagstaff that a lot of people don't realize is that it's about 6000 ft in elevation. It's surrounded by mountains and let me tell you, even in May, it gets DAMN cold in the morning. Luckily we had some hoodies in the car because we needed them. It was 29 degrees out. It was the first time in about 2 months that we'd had to crank the heater on the car. I *heart* seat warmers. Whoever invented them was a genius.
As we chugged along, the girl slept for almost two and a half hours. Poor thing. All of the traveling was finally catching up to her. It was pretty cool when we finally crossed the Arizona/California state border. However, it was rather anti-climactic. Every state that we had entered into thus far had pretty snazzy "Welcome to *Enter State Here*" signs. California's was very sad. It was just a small green freeway sign that said, "Welcome to California". Really? This is the glitzy and glam state!! Where is the blinged out welcome sign?? Even Louisiana's state sign is more exciting. Then again, we did come in via San Bernardino County. Maybe that explains it. Once we crossed into California, it there was really nothing until Barstow.
We decided to stop and support McDonald's yet again for lunch. At this point in time, I'm convinced that we've pretty much kept them in business this week. We stopped at one that had a REALLY big Play Place. We order the grub and head back to the kiddie area. As we are finishing up our burgers and fries, a rather large family comes in. When I say large, it may be a bit of an understatement. There is a plethora of kids and only 3 adults watching over them...the adults are looking a bit frazzled, which is most likely the reason why they've chosen this place for lunch. Rather than order separate chicken nugget Happy Meals, they order 20 piece boxes. In this instance, I don't blame them. Probably much easier to keep track of and divvy up. There were two boys that kept picking on each other. The husband and I looked at each other just knowing that this couldn't end well. After all, bickering kids + boxes of chicken nuggets + ginormous play structure = pure entertainment for us. They did not disappoint.
One of the boys was on top of the slide with a box of nuggets. Mind you, when you play on these things, shoes are taken off, feet smell nasty and the floors aren't exactly the cleanest. The other little boy comes up to torment the one on the slide. They start tussling, we start giggling. The box of nuggets comes dangerously close to being in peril. The boy with the nuggets pulls one out and directs it toward his mouth. The other one smacks his hand and the nugget goes flying. The nugget lands on the floor. As a mom, I chastise my kids for eating off the floor. Of course my kids aren't perfect and a random M&M will somehow wind up in their mouths. But not a nugget. The husband leans over and whispers to me, "20 bucks says he eats it." I look at him and say, "Oh man...I hope he doesn't." We end up having a whisper war: "Do it, do it, do it!", whispers my husband. "No, no, NO!", I whisper yell back. Sure enough, like a doughnut to a police officer, the dirty nugget found itself in the boy's stomach. It was at that point that I motioned to the munchkins that it was time to hit the road.
We ended Day 4 in Bakersfield. Day 5 was very uneventful, as we were pretty anxious to just get there. We made it into Dixon around noon on Day 5, ever so grateful to be there and with many stories under our belt.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Road Trippin' - Day Three
Day 3 of this fantastical road trip started off in Amarillo, Texas. This day was going to be a long haul day to Flagstaff, Arizona...about 10 hours or so, 2 stateline crossings and 2 time zones. The husband and I were honestly quite happy that the kiddos didn't have the concept of "sleep-in-past-7-am" down. We were able to chow on some hotel breakfast grub and load up the car by 7:00am. I-40 is definitely the way to go. Previously, every cross-country trip that we have taken has been along I-10. Let me tell you, if I had to drive between El Paso and San Antonio one more time, I don't know that we would have even attempted to do this trip. I-10 is very deserty, very brown and more boring that driving through corn fields in Iowa. I do not exaggerate on this. I-40 is actually kind of pretty. It's hilly, mountainous at times, green-ish and there are even a few canyons when you cross into Arizona. However, the only downfall is that there is also a LOT of livestock along this route in Texas. Lots of livestock = lots of methane = lots of stankiness. We had made a quick pit stop and the boy quipped, "It smells like bird poop." #1 - It smelled like cow poop. But at this juncture, it didn't matter. #2 - I don't want to know how my son knows what bird poop smells like.
We made it in to Flagstaff relatively early - about an hour before dinnertime. We were tired of supporting McDonald's stock at this point, so we decided to try and figure out a place that would be semi-fast and semi-good for the kiddos. What kind of place fits this bill? You guessed it. Sizzler. We didn't even know if they still existed. Yes. The rubber cheese is still rubbery. Yes. There was even a graduation party being held there. And yes, we were that ghetto. But not nearly as ghetto as what was happening back at our hotel.
We were staying at the Holiday Inn Express. Not because we really wanted to, but because there was nothing else available. Me, being Ms. Super McSmarty Smartpants, procrastinated so much on my homework that I had 3 papers to write in a matter of 36 hours. I didn't feel like torturing the husband or kiddos with the light from the laptop or the incessant clacking of my fingers typing furiously on the keyboard, so I decided to go down to the lobby to write my papers. Wrong idea. It was the NBA Finals and there were about 20 people watching it in the eating are. Accompanying the peeps were about 10 bottles of wine, 60 bottles of beer, and about 5 pizzas. Essentially, it was like a frat party in the lobby of the Holiday Inn. 3 hours and many f-bomb laden tirades (not mine) later, the papers were written and thus began Day 4.
We made it in to Flagstaff relatively early - about an hour before dinnertime. We were tired of supporting McDonald's stock at this point, so we decided to try and figure out a place that would be semi-fast and semi-good for the kiddos. What kind of place fits this bill? You guessed it. Sizzler. We didn't even know if they still existed. Yes. The rubber cheese is still rubbery. Yes. There was even a graduation party being held there. And yes, we were that ghetto. But not nearly as ghetto as what was happening back at our hotel.
We were staying at the Holiday Inn Express. Not because we really wanted to, but because there was nothing else available. Me, being Ms. Super McSmarty Smartpants, procrastinated so much on my homework that I had 3 papers to write in a matter of 36 hours. I didn't feel like torturing the husband or kiddos with the light from the laptop or the incessant clacking of my fingers typing furiously on the keyboard, so I decided to go down to the lobby to write my papers. Wrong idea. It was the NBA Finals and there were about 20 people watching it in the eating are. Accompanying the peeps were about 10 bottles of wine, 60 bottles of beer, and about 5 pizzas. Essentially, it was like a frat party in the lobby of the Holiday Inn. 3 hours and many f-bomb laden tirades (not mine) later, the papers were written and thus began Day 4.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Road Trippin' - Days One and Two
Summer time is fun. It evokes images of backyard BBQs, sprinklers, pools, lemonade, sunshine and happy-go-lucky kids riding bikes and everyone is just a ray of sunshine and rainbows. This year, my insanity got the best of me. Because the husband's job is going to keep him rather *um* "preoccupied" over the next year, I decided that the kids and I would drive out to California for a good chunk of the summer. The boy's last day of school was May 27th, so why not leave right after that? (No, seriously...we left right after the last bell rang.) Originally, my dad was going to fly out to Dallas and we were going to pick him up and he'd drive back with me. Such is the case with best laid plans...they don't quite always go the way that you want them to. In the end, it looked like I may have to do this haul by myself. Then I realized that the husband had a 4-day weekend and plenty of leave saved up. Cue the puppy dog eyes and some irresistible pleading and voila! He was suckered into my insane thought process as well.
To start off the story, I have to rewind a weekend. I decided to print out the confirmation emails from the hotels that we were supposed to stay at along the way. Our route consisted of 5 days: Day 1 - Shreveport to Dallas. Day 2 - Dallas to Amarillo. Day 3 - Amarillo to Flagstaff. Day 4 - Flagstaff to Bakersfield. Day 5 - Bakersfield to Dixon. I had the confirmation from the hotel in Dallas, so I printed it out. I looked for the other ones and couldn't find them. What? Wait a sec...I KNOW that I have them. I don't delete records and confirmations. I still have the confirmation emails for flights that I took 4 years ago, so I just *know* that there is *NO* way that I deleted the emails...or did I?? The month of May was very chaotic. I still can't remember much of it. I think it's my brain's way of blocking out how truly crazy it was. Any hoo, I call my dad to see I had sent him a copy of the emails. He doesn't have any. The husband is wonderful and calls each hotel chain to see if we have reservations at any of the hotels in any of the cities. It takes him two days to make it through the list. Turns out I didn't make the reservations. Yes, my friends, I felt pretty stupid at this point. Again, I blame it on the brain block of May. I make the hotel reservations and all is right with the world.
The first afternoon from Shreveport to Dallas was really uneventful. We took both cars because the husband, while he has a plethora of leave, didn't have a summer's worth of leave and had to fly back to Dallas-Ft. Worth the day after our scheduled arrival into California. When I say it was uneventful, I mean it was really super boring...to the point that I was actually reading different kind of semi-trucks that were on the road as well. Yes. It's that exciting between Shreveport and Dallas. Three hours of nothingness.
On Day 2, we decided to expend some of the kiddos' energy by throwing them in the hotel pool first thing in the morning. The drive from Dallas to Amarillo was slated for 6 hours. Since my children have no concept as to what the phrase "sleep-in-past-7-in-the-morning" means, we figured we had a little bit of time to kill. After about an hour in the pool, we loaded up the car, turned on the DVD player for the bean and headed up toward Amarillo. We took a road that took us up through a little town called Wichita Falls. That's kind of a wackily set up town. We started our McDonald's stock surge at lunch. It ws rather warm and the kids were getting itchy to play outside. We warned them that the slides were going to be a little toasty and even pointed at the signs so that the boy could read them himself. Since they are kids of a special nature, they figured that their little tushies would be immune to the toaster slide. Alas, they soon found out that was not the case and they played on the playground for maybe 5 minutes. After lunch, we continued the trek to Amarillo. We passed through many small towns, that I'm proud to say are waaay smaller than my hometown (which is pretty dang small). On the outskirts of one particular town, there was an adult super mega-ultra porn shop. I don't usually pay much attention, but this one made me giggle because it advertised an ATM AND free coffee! About 10 feet from the store, right inside the city limits was a sign that stated, "This town does not condone pornography in any way. Pornography victimizes women and is not tolerated in this town". Kind of reminded me of the movie, "Footloose". The town bans dancing, and what do you know...it's done in basements and eventually there's a big dance sequence and everything is happy. I don't want to know what happens in the basements of the town that bans porn. A couple of hours and 11 counted trains later, we make it in to Amarillo for that particular leg of the race.
To start off the story, I have to rewind a weekend. I decided to print out the confirmation emails from the hotels that we were supposed to stay at along the way. Our route consisted of 5 days: Day 1 - Shreveport to Dallas. Day 2 - Dallas to Amarillo. Day 3 - Amarillo to Flagstaff. Day 4 - Flagstaff to Bakersfield. Day 5 - Bakersfield to Dixon. I had the confirmation from the hotel in Dallas, so I printed it out. I looked for the other ones and couldn't find them. What? Wait a sec...I KNOW that I have them. I don't delete records and confirmations. I still have the confirmation emails for flights that I took 4 years ago, so I just *know* that there is *NO* way that I deleted the emails...or did I?? The month of May was very chaotic. I still can't remember much of it. I think it's my brain's way of blocking out how truly crazy it was. Any hoo, I call my dad to see I had sent him a copy of the emails. He doesn't have any. The husband is wonderful and calls each hotel chain to see if we have reservations at any of the hotels in any of the cities. It takes him two days to make it through the list. Turns out I didn't make the reservations. Yes, my friends, I felt pretty stupid at this point. Again, I blame it on the brain block of May. I make the hotel reservations and all is right with the world.
The first afternoon from Shreveport to Dallas was really uneventful. We took both cars because the husband, while he has a plethora of leave, didn't have a summer's worth of leave and had to fly back to Dallas-Ft. Worth the day after our scheduled arrival into California. When I say it was uneventful, I mean it was really super boring...to the point that I was actually reading different kind of semi-trucks that were on the road as well. Yes. It's that exciting between Shreveport and Dallas. Three hours of nothingness.
On Day 2, we decided to expend some of the kiddos' energy by throwing them in the hotel pool first thing in the morning. The drive from Dallas to Amarillo was slated for 6 hours. Since my children have no concept as to what the phrase "sleep-in-past-7-in-the-morning" means, we figured we had a little bit of time to kill. After about an hour in the pool, we loaded up the car, turned on the DVD player for the bean and headed up toward Amarillo. We took a road that took us up through a little town called Wichita Falls. That's kind of a wackily set up town. We started our McDonald's stock surge at lunch. It ws rather warm and the kids were getting itchy to play outside. We warned them that the slides were going to be a little toasty and even pointed at the signs so that the boy could read them himself. Since they are kids of a special nature, they figured that their little tushies would be immune to the toaster slide. Alas, they soon found out that was not the case and they played on the playground for maybe 5 minutes. After lunch, we continued the trek to Amarillo. We passed through many small towns, that I'm proud to say are waaay smaller than my hometown (which is pretty dang small). On the outskirts of one particular town, there was an adult super mega-ultra porn shop. I don't usually pay much attention, but this one made me giggle because it advertised an ATM AND free coffee! About 10 feet from the store, right inside the city limits was a sign that stated, "This town does not condone pornography in any way. Pornography victimizes women and is not tolerated in this town". Kind of reminded me of the movie, "Footloose". The town bans dancing, and what do you know...it's done in basements and eventually there's a big dance sequence and everything is happy. I don't want to know what happens in the basements of the town that bans porn. A couple of hours and 11 counted trains later, we make it in to Amarillo for that particular leg of the race.
San Antonio Half: Week 1
Distance: 4.05 miles
Time: 43:48
Route: A.R. Teague Parkway
Today was the official kickoff for San Antonio. I haven't run 4 miles in awhile and since I took the week in Vegas off, I was a little worried about this morning. I didn't sleep very well last night, so I got up before my alarm and off I went. I was a little cranky and just felt kind of blah about the whole thing. It was still dark out when I got to the trail, but it was already 81 degrees. Hello humidity! I popped in the tunes and off I went.
I let my mind wander during the run and realized that this is one of the things I love about running. I can just let my mind go and not harness it in. It's funny how random some of the thoughts can be. Before I knew it, I was almost at my turn around. I made it a point to NOT check my Nike+. I didn't want to know my time, I just wanted to run this morning. I started to get a little fatigued around mile 3, so I walked for 30 seconds and picked it back up. After my brief walking break, I heard a song that I haven't heard in years that I had forgotten that I had downloaded. It made me smile and kept me going. As I was running a long, I saw a white snake like thing on the trail. As I got closer, I looked at it and it was a puka shell necklace. I almost picked it up, but decided against it. It reminded me of Mark and made me smile again.
It was a great run. I missed my running buddy, but I have some catching up to do before she gets back in two weeks. I have decided to run the half instead of the full in San Antonio. After New Orleans, I kind of self-destructed as far as fitness and health go. I was very burned out and it wasn't fun anymore. I fear that if I go for the full again, the same thing might happen. Plus, when you start getting into the high mileage weeks (14-16-18-20 miles), it stops being fun and starts to become more burdensome and more painful. I've already done a full and I don't have anything to prove to anyone by doing another. I think I'll stick with the halves for awhile. I also signed up for the USAF Marathon 5K. Mark is doing the whole thing, but the 5K is the day before his race, so I figured that I'd do the 5K. It'll be fun and this way we both get to run.
Week one is done. Many more to come, but it's good to be back on track again.
Time: 43:48
Route: A.R. Teague Parkway
Today was the official kickoff for San Antonio. I haven't run 4 miles in awhile and since I took the week in Vegas off, I was a little worried about this morning. I didn't sleep very well last night, so I got up before my alarm and off I went. I was a little cranky and just felt kind of blah about the whole thing. It was still dark out when I got to the trail, but it was already 81 degrees. Hello humidity! I popped in the tunes and off I went.
I let my mind wander during the run and realized that this is one of the things I love about running. I can just let my mind go and not harness it in. It's funny how random some of the thoughts can be. Before I knew it, I was almost at my turn around. I made it a point to NOT check my Nike+. I didn't want to know my time, I just wanted to run this morning. I started to get a little fatigued around mile 3, so I walked for 30 seconds and picked it back up. After my brief walking break, I heard a song that I haven't heard in years that I had forgotten that I had downloaded. It made me smile and kept me going. As I was running a long, I saw a white snake like thing on the trail. As I got closer, I looked at it and it was a puka shell necklace. I almost picked it up, but decided against it. It reminded me of Mark and made me smile again.
It was a great run. I missed my running buddy, but I have some catching up to do before she gets back in two weeks. I have decided to run the half instead of the full in San Antonio. After New Orleans, I kind of self-destructed as far as fitness and health go. I was very burned out and it wasn't fun anymore. I fear that if I go for the full again, the same thing might happen. Plus, when you start getting into the high mileage weeks (14-16-18-20 miles), it stops being fun and starts to become more burdensome and more painful. I've already done a full and I don't have anything to prove to anyone by doing another. I think I'll stick with the halves for awhile. I also signed up for the USAF Marathon 5K. Mark is doing the whole thing, but the 5K is the day before his race, so I figured that I'd do the 5K. It'll be fun and this way we both get to run.
Week one is done. Many more to come, but it's good to be back on track again.
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