lWe arrived home last night from our 10-day trip to Upstate New York, thankful for a very good trip, and thankful to be home. Of the 10 days we were gone, 5 of them were spent traveling to multiple locations, giving us many opportunities to reflect on the "joy of the journey" -- and to try to convince the kids that this was possible. We drove over 1800 miles, and according to Pete's new GPS toy, with all of our stops along the way, we averaged 46 miles per hour, so you can do the math to calculate how many hours that meant in the car. I'll just say it was a LOT.
It was also a lot of snacks -- I think I need to schedule a special chiropractor appointment this week to get the crick out of my neck from swiveling to the left 4,654 times to hand someone some food or drink in the car. It was also WAY too many stops at nasty restrooms to take kids to the bathroom. The trip also afforded time for multiple games of Car Bingo and the Alphabet game, as well plenty of time to listen to some books on CD (interrupted about every 20 seconds by someone), as well as several rounds of singing songs.
There were many moments of aggravation -- such as when Colsen would get mad at us for not letting him do something (such as wiggle his way out of the car seat), and to punish us, he would throw his pacifier to a spot in the car no one could reach. Then we would all get to hear him cry in anger as if we did it. There were also moments of frustration, such as when we were trying to help Rayna achieve one of her "summer goals" which is to memorize the books of the New Testament. I wanted to pull my hair out on several occasions.... like when she kept insisting "July" comes after "Jude." And there were some moments of amusement, like when Strider announced to us, after a conversation with one of his cousins, "Did you know that Barry Bonds takes Asteroids???" And for the last 20 minutes of yesterday's 8 hour trip, we all ended up having a major laughing fest -- mostly to ward off a crying fest.
One of our favorite stops to break up long days of driving has become the New River Gorge in West Virginia. We stop to see a huge bridge that is something like the world's largest single arch steel bridge or something. It's 847 feet above the river -- a fact I try to forget when we have to drive over it -- and it looks like really cool from the little park that we stop at. Some of us ventured down 181 steps to an overlook with a beautiful view of the river and bridge... This place definitely beats stopping at a yucky rest area or McDonalds!
I'll write later about our adventures at our actual destinations, but for now will just say we're thankful the journeying went well, and it was good to stop and see family, friends and attractions, and attractive friends and family, along the way. Now that we are home again, though, I have to agree, "East, West, home's best." And I'll be happy to not get into car again with squirmy kids, juice boxes and trail mix, for at least a few weeks. :)
(Strider just read this and says he disagrees. He's been walking around chanting, "Vacation's best! Vacation's best!" But he made me laugh last night when we came home and he was trying to find something and, after spending over a week in very small quarters, said, "Man, this house seems so big now!")
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