Road Trip

I should be asleep. In fact the entire living contents of this vehicle should be asleep minus Dev because he's the driver.

The plan was that Dev would go to bed early, the kids and I would stick to a normal schedule- then we would leave at 2am with intents that everyone would get cozy in the car and go back to sleep.

Fail.

We got in the car at 2:30am. The kids were all chatty and had the munchies- even Preslie. I cured the need for a middle of the night feast and at about 3:40 everyone was nestled into an awkward positioned car sleep.

Then it started to snow. A lot. So I couldn't sleep because I started mentally freaking out. It's spring break! I have a car jam packed of SPRING clothes. Open toed shoes, short sleeves, outside Easter activites. Snow is not on my agenda. A hundred miles or so of a blizzard and we were out of it. I could rest easy. Literally.
But not for long because 3 kids and 2 adults in a car isn't enough- we also have 2 dogs who decided, not too long after I found sleep- to unleash the worst smells EVER. Enough of a stench to wake up everyone and make everyone grumpy and shout from the rooftops- or car tops anyways- that "it stinks in here!!"

It's now 6:15 am. Everyone is wide awake.

I am in awe of technology and can't decide if I appreciate it or am disgusted. Brody is on his iPod. Zane is on a leap pad, Dev is listening to Xm radio- the 90s, the GPS is smugly telling us that we have to infinity and beyond before we make it to Grandma Honeys, there's some kind of buddy Easter movie with talking animals that is showing on the car DVD player that no one is really watching so why is it even on?? And here I am blogging from my phone somewhere between Idaho and Canada. What is this world coming too??

When I was a kid we made the trek from Canada to Rupert ID a lot. We crammed 3 kids and 1 stinky dog into the back of a normal sized car. We used old fashioned things like books and crayons to keep us occupied. The most techie we got was yellow and black Walkmans complete with awesome cassette tapes featuring boys to men, new kids on the block-and I even remember a soundtrack to teenage mutan ninja turtles on one trip.
Even with such cool music choices the decision for me was sometimes hard- put my earphones on and sing along to totally inappropriate songs for an 11 year old like " I'll make love to you" OR stay unplugged and rock out with the rest of the car to my Dads homemade tape collections named "various 1" all the way to "various 407" featuring all the Abba, Wilson Phillips, Meat Loaf, Neil Diamond, Stevie Wonder, Heart, Lionel Richie, Beegees and Chicago a girl could ever ask for. I could kick some Singing B trash if any of these were the featured artists.

Well carry on we must. And it's now time to charge all things "i" - swap out DVDs , negotiate a better satellite radio station out of the 300+ we can chose from, warm up a bottle for Preslie with the car plugged in warmer thing and read a book with my paperless kindle.

Some things haven't changed in the world of road trip- side of the road pee breaks, endless asking of "are we there yet" sibling fighting and proclamations of "he's on my side!!!" - and alot of junk food. A flying j corn dog tastes best pre 7am according to Devin. Happy Trails.