The Start of Our Trip (11/25/09)

This was it. One month before Christmas! That means that I have a short time to listen to all my Christmas music! Wow.



Well, Wednesday was also the day of my vacation and the start of our our Thanksgiving trip. It was finally here. So much to do!

We woke up, sleepy from the night before. We got the kids ready for daycare and left the house. We dropped them off, and then I dropped Lydia off at college. My day had just started. I ran over to Sam's Club and bought some snacks for us to eat on our trip. It turned out to be a little bit more expensive then I had expected.

My next stop was to the $3 car wash. While there, I clean and vacuumed the car. Boy, did it need the cleaning. I won't go into detail on what I found around the kids' car-seats, but I'll say that it was a good thing I decided to clean up the car!

I stopped by one of the gas stations and aired up all the tires, including the spare. I wanted to be ready.

I then returned home. Time to load up. I had a checklist of things I needed to take. Once I gathered everything together, I started packing it into the trunk. At first I thought I had enough room, but as things started to crowd, I found that I'd have to really pack it in! I was almost finished and ready to leave to pick up the kids when Lydia called. She had gotten out of class early! Great....

So I rushed over and picked up the kids and packed them into the car, then off to OTC to pick Lydia up. From there we headed over to my parent's house. They had already left earlier that day,  but Sam was going to caravan with us. He was loading his truck when we arrived. I made everyone take bathroom breaks, and helped Sam so we could leave.

We hit the road before 3pm. As we headed out of town, listening to the local radio station that plays Christmas music 24/7, they mentioned that snow was in the forecast for Monday! Yippee!

Two hours into the trip, Malachi got sick. A sucker and soda don't mix well I guess. So we pulled over and cleaned him up. It wasn't much, but we knew that we'd better get some Dramamine for motion sickness. Five minutes later, while driving down the road, I notice white things hitting Sam's truck behind me. Sam calls me on my cell as I again pull over. The trunk hadn't closed properly and I lost our cups and plastic utensils! Go figure!

The trip was long. We let the kids watch a movie after supper and darkness was upon us. We made it into Medicine Lodge around 9pm, and took a quick bathroom break at my Larry & Betty's house. M&M were asleep in the car, and Sam was wearing out, so we didn't stay long to visit. We wanted to make it in as soon as possible so we could sleep. Sam finally caved in and let me drive his truck so he could get a little rest. So I drove for about an hour and a half before we switched, and I gave Lydia relief. She was tiring too. I guess classes had really taken toll on both of them!

Well, we finally arrived in Garden City, Kansas sometime before 2am. Sam and I unloaded or vehicles and then crashed in our assigned beds and fell fast asleep.

~Matt

Tech note: The GPS units that I got worked well during our trip! It was neat that it kept right with us.... even telling how fast we were going!


"The only knowledge that can hurt you is the knowledge you don't have."