Any account of a road trip with the Cookes would have to be prefaced with a few facts.
We're optimists. We love being with our little people and assume that anything we do will be a grand adventure.
We're flexible. No expectations and no strict plan. Our only expectation is that we have lots of fun.
We're intrepid. We drive until someone's bladder actually bursts. We don't stop to stretch legs. We stop when the engine sputters. Until then, get comfy, kids!
We travel on a budget, but with some degree of flexibility. This planned trip was our first family trip without "emergency" credit cards and I was a wreck the entire time. I figured we'd get to Amarillo and the transmission would fall out of our mostly-new car. (Rationality = my MO) We sort of planned our meals ahead of time, planning to eat all of our snacks and most of the kiddie food out of the cooler, and eat one meal out a day. The meals we ate out we tried to make sure that someone was eating free or using a coupon. We also decided to camp instead of use a hotel, as it just seemed like a reasonable time of year to do so. It also turned out that our trip route was a little lean on nice hotels, so I think we made a bedbug-free choice. Go Cookes!
We pack light and hope for the best. Sometimes this comes back to bite us, as you'll soon find out.
Andrew and I rarely have an issue with one another, so family road trips are usually pretty fun and relaxed. When we lived in Frostburg we did a routine 3-hour drive back to Baltimore, so anything under 4 is a day trip for us. It should be said here that anything over 10 with toddlers is suicide.
We decided that our Fall Road Trip (I capitalize to annualize.) would be to the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. We thought about New Orleans and South Padre Island as well, but we really wanted to see what lay West of us. Ha. Hold on to your six-shooters!
We decided to leave Friday at 4am, as we had about 11 hours of driving on Day 1. We ended up getting out the door by about 5:30, which was admirable. We so rarely venture off a set time that I was like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. We threw the kids in their seats with their jammies on and a bag of cereal to munch on, set the alarm and hit the road. An hour later, I came to and said, "Oh hey, we forgot the computer. And the Nikon. And the Flip."
Our first stop was in Childress, TX to buy a point-and-shoot camera. Way to stick to the budget!
Here is my first picture with the new camera - Andrew at the helm! Notice the bungee cord? Yes. That's holding our DVD player. It's old and sad and Lucy ripped the little door over the DVD off when she was 18-months. Now that I think about it, Lucy destroyed most of our electronics before the age of two.
[Note from Andrew: I look HUGE in this picture b/c wind was blowing through my left sleeve across my chest and puffing out my right shoulder. I'm not 300+ lbs :-) ]
Am I seriously going to have "notes from Andrew" all the way through this? Don't let him fool you. He's at LEAST 350. :-P
It also shoots panoramic pics! Whee! (It turns out it requires a bit of finnesse to take a good panoramic with this particular camera. It also turns out that I have that finnesse.)
Once the sun was up and Mo got another hour of sleep, she was back to tearing up books and throwing things at her sister. She's the best.
We quickly learned that North West Texas is sad, poor and a tad creepy. Most of the buildings are abandoned and most of the people watch you very, very closely. The speed limit on the highway is 70, and drops immediately to about 25 as you come into each town. Revenue! We got the hang of it pretty fast and were very careful to start slowing down well in advance of each little town.
Our first official stop was in Amarillo at the Don Harrington Discovery Center for a leg stretch and some lunch. Since we have a membership at the Fort Worth Museum of Science, our admission to the DHDC (yeah, I acronym.) was free, making Andrew all proud of my awesome planning at the outset. (Like I didn't plan that to make myself look good.)
Claire and a giant snake. She looks concerned because she IS concerned. She actually looks like a small snack for a snake that big. Molly should have been concerned with her.
Claire and Mommy on a giant pillow. I'd go all Andrew on you and ask you to believe that I'm not 300+ pounds, but the wind don't blow inside, folks. It was clearly a bad angle.
And let me tell you more about this pillow. I thought it would be a fantastic place to nurse Claire, as I saw another mom in there nursing her baby. Whaddya know? He's 5 months old too! We chat about babies and consignment shops in Amarillo (Texas living = summer wardrobe in October, always.), while her 2-year-old is bouncing around me yelping, "I'm Abby! I'm 2! I'm Abby! I'm 2!" Abby is climbing all over the pillow that Claire and I are attemping to nurse on while I give her oblivious mother "the eye." Laissez faire indeed. It was soon clear that Abby's mother was a "we" mom. You know, "we don't hi-it! we don't stick our hands in other people's shi-irts! we don't pull ha-air! I'm going to count to 75 now...get ready...I'm really going to count now...one...I'm counting...If you're not behaving by the time I get to 75, something might happen..." Ah, "we" moms...love them. After I'd been kicked in the back several times, I gave Claire the "you know it's not happening here, sister" look and we peaced out to a more hospitable location.
Lucy thought the little imagination station place was just awesome, and Molly thought that Lucy thinking it was awesome was, indeed, awesome.
See? Bad angle.
Claire thought this little thing was just wild. It was just a ball being held in the air by a fan, but to her, it was absolutely unexplainable. Love babies. The look on her face is the same look I get in front of simple geometry. (And please note the spit-up down my entire shirt. My best moment.)
I think this is just a pic of windmills. Texas is super flat. Even Hill Country is by definition pretty flat. (I would go so far as to say that the mountains we did see we still pretty flat.) Flat = fast, productive winds. That means windmills. They're so huge up close! You can also get a very good idea of the view we enjoyed for about 22 hours of roundtrip driving.
No, really.
No, really.
We were particularly thrilled to note that we were going to change time zones. It makes it easier to blame bad behavior on "the time change" later on. Car lag and all that.
6.5 hours of driving, a whole bunch of pricier-than-Fort-Worth gas, a couple of creepy gas stations, a new camera and a TON of Froot Loops later, we made it to the state line. The term "state line" always reminds me of a joke. Of course I'll add that in here.
There once was a magical island kingdom where there lived beautiful dolphins who had been there forever. They could not die by natural death; but they could be killed. The king who ruled this island didn't want to ever risk losing his dolphins to their own wanderlust, or to someone else's violence, so he created a ring of outposts in the ocean around his island and placed there huge beautiful lions to guard the dolphins.
One day a young man on the island was called to the water by the dolphins. "Please, kind sir. We have lived forever, seen and experienced many things; but a visiting whale has told us that we have not really lived until we have eaten a Sea Gull. There are no such birds on this island, and we are so bored. If we give you a magic carpet, will you please go find us a Sea Gull or two to appease our appetites?"
Having always wished to go see the world, the young man quickly agreed. He climbed aboard the magic carpet and sped off. He spent many months travelling the world, but he never forgot his promise. Finally, he caught 3 huge Sea Gulls, put them in a box and sped home. Just as he flew over the sea outposts and came into view of the island, he heard a siren. Up came a policeman on his own carpet and pulled the boy over.
"Sorry, son" he said. "But didn't you know it is illegal to transport gulls over stately lions for immortal porpoises?"
Here is a picture of the backseat. Sweet girls.
And Claire, who held this expression for a full 96 hours. I want to say that this one was taken upside down and I turned it around while I was editing. I use the term "editing" loosely. Don't take me for the Pioneer Woman or anything. "Mm-hmm..we never took you for the Pioneer Woman, fool."
All children really are cuter when they're sleeping. This much I can attest to.
So we made it to Albuquerque. I think we pulled in around 5:30. Bear in mind that the sun sets around 7:30. Traffic was HORRIBLE. Being a stay-at-home Mom from Fort Worth, people talk about traffic and I sort of just smile the same way I do when Andrew talks about his job. I'm all, "Say wha?!" See picture of Claire above. So when we hit traffic, I came unglued. "I'm so sorry, Andrew! I didn't think about traffic!" As if I should have called ahead to Albuquerque to clear the streets in case my husband was tired of driving and wanted to get to his campsite in a timely manner. He looked at me like I was crazy. See picture of Claire above. (I should note that from here on out we'll be referring to Alb. as ABQ. It's the most obnoxious word to type.)
We arrived at the Bernalillo Campground around 6:30 with three happy kids wanting to get out, build a fire and roast some marshmallows. What happens next is the stuff of nightmares.
It's raining. It's supposed to rain for the next 12 hours.
It's freezing. ABQ is at an ungodly elevation. We did take that into account and brought warm clothes, but we weren't prepared for snow-like conditions. We aren't prepared for snow-like conditions anywhere.
I check in and ask sweetly, "Can you explain why there aren't any fire pits?" The lady looks at me and says, "They're not allowed in the entire county." Oh. Fantastic. I guess the car full of firewood is for naught. I mentally begin to plan our escape.
We're checked in for two nights! Huzzah! Escape plan begins to get more detailed.
Our campsite is next to the doggie area. Yes, that's right. NEXT TO the K-9 Kompound. (Have I ever mentiond my dismay at C words starting with K's? Abject horror. Every time.)
Our campsite is also AT the main entrance. As in, you can see our tent from the main road. Our tent, our darling girls, our belongings, our general naivete...
Andrew and I exchange "The Look" and jump into our "Isn't our demise going to be super fun!??!" routine.
I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the van while Andrew prepares the tent in the rain. In about 15 minutes, we start moving from the car to the tent. The girls add their blanket sleepers over their daytime clothes (Breathable layers, folks! Was my 5th grade class the only one required to take survival training at the Ridge, or was that a county-wide thing? Anybody?) and barrel out of the car like a shot. Molly jets into the tent and turns into a little human pinball. She's jumping, screaming, laughing, falling over, it's a mess. In about 30 seconds she's split Andrew's lip with her head and given Claire a goose egg to beat the band.
Lucy and I take it a little slower, searching for body heat and exchanging concerned looks. Here are Lucy and Daddy smiling, probably much like the Donner Party did the night before they realized they were doomed.
Since everyone has been up since 5, we're ready to crash immediately.
The wind picks up, smashing the soaking wet sides of the tent into the sleeping bodies inside the tent.
The temperature drops to 35.
The kids fight for blankets all night, but are fast asleep while they're doing it.
Andrew sleeps with the girls on the queen mattress and I sleep with Claire on the twin. Claire and I sleep with our heads covered as well, since my pillow is soaked anyway.
Andrew goes outside several times throughout the night to reposition the tarp we put over the tent around midnight. It's whipping around and making a huge noise, and for once, we're thrilled that we're going to be getting up at 5am. Anything is better than this.
At 5am, we silently exchange the "we're so out of here" look and put our mostly asleep, crying children in the car. We pack up the campsite in less than ten minutes. I'd estimate it took about 7.5. Our fingers were actually so cold that we couldn't bend them anymore. It was miserable. Somehow, knowing that we'd look back on this as our most insane and miserable night, and knowing that we'd just survived, we sort of smiled and passed out the Froot Loops.
20 minutes later, we were on the bus to the Balloon Fiesta with two very excited girls and one very sleepy baby, ready for Day 2.
