The Drive

We woke the children up at 4:00am, put the snacks into the cooler, packed the last minute things like toothbrushes, drank copious amounts of coffee, and loaded everyone up into the van. We pulled out of the driveway at 4:30am.



At 4:35 we realized we left something at home and turned around.

At 4:50 we were on our way again.

Around 9:00 we stopped at a rest area on the side of the highway and ate breakfast. The kids also ran around on the grassy area and climbed the lone tree, proving that we can have fun anywhere *and* make a spectacle of ourselves at the same time.



We stayed there for an hour before heading back out onto I-95.

The kids played with their new gameboys, something I had previously sworn off but bought especially for the trip, their leap pads, colored with their new twist-up crayons, listened to their CD players, read some books, ate some snacks, played with their "travel" Light Brite (which mostly involved dropping the little colored pieces), used their view masters, and then 5 minutes passed.

Okay, not really.

Finally some of the children drifted off to sleep.



Some more peacefully than others.



And on we drove. And drove. And drove.



And to answer the question, "Did you drive at all, Chris?"

I did for about an hour of the trip. Rob complained that I did not know how to drive "right". Huh. How do you drive wrong? Wouldn't driving "wrong" imply that you were crashing into things or else swerving all over the highway? Neither of which I was doing.

Personally I think it was just an excuse. He would rather drive the van than have to fetch the dropped toys, entertain the troops with engaging games of 20 questions or ISpy, dole out snacks, or comfort the wee ones.

This trip did remind of why I want a wife, or a slave, either would do.

It would be nice to have someone other than me working behind the scenes making sure things ran smoothly. I packed everything for the children and myself. I bought and packed all the snacks and toys. I loaded everything into the van. I researched the best places to stay. I read all the books about touring Disney.

Rob packed his own bag.

On the second morning we were in FL, I took a picture of Rob laying in bed asleep. I had been up since the alarm went off at 5:30am, fed and dresed the children, got all the snacks and water ready and packed for the day ahead. We just needed him to get up and get dressed.

The flash of my camera woke him up and he asked what I was doing. I told him I was going to post the photo on my blog with the caption "Why I Need A Wife". I won't really post the photo since he was neked, even though he is a hottie ; -)

Later on in the day he was doing something useful, can't remember now what exactly it was so I am not sure how useful it really was LOL, but he told me that in the interest of fairness I should take a picture of him and post it on my blog with the caption "Why I Need A Husband".

I had to tell him that the more appropriate caption would be "Why I Keep Him Around".

We made another one hour rest stop and bought messy snacks.



We also looked at all the redneck paraphanalia that was for sale and made fun of it. I know, we are not really nice people, but we have to have some fun. Toto, we are not in the liberal north anymore.

I also came to the conclusion that I could never live in an area where a fringed leather jacket and sequined applique jeans are considered the height of fashion. Or where men would actually buy and wear a t-shirt which references the "crack of Dawn". Dawn being a woman depicted on the t-shirt in very uncomfortable looking small shorts.

Around 7:00 pm we stopped for the night in Sumpter, GA. We managed to get just one hotel room. Rob lied about how many kids we have, much to the horror of my rule following 9 yr old who was certain the police would be banging down the door any minute and carting us off for lying. We did have some fun with that for while though... "What's that noise?" "I think it is a policeman" "Uh-oh, turn off the light pretend we aren't here." See, I told you, we aren't nice.

We ate dinner at a really nice seafood buffet place next door to the hotel. I had fried chicken since I have a deadly seafood allergy, and wow was it good. I could feel my arteries clogging as I ate it. Toto, we are not in the north anymore ;-)

The kids and Rob were excited by the tv at the hotel and the fact that they could watch baseball and that guy hit his 700th homerun. My family is going to disown me if they find out I can not remember his name! LOL. There was much rejoicing, screaming, yelling, and jumping up and down on the beds. The kids thought I was a bit nuts and should restrain myself better ;-)

Everyone finally fell asleep around midnight, and at 6:00am we woke up and began driving all over again. Luckily it was only about 6 hours of drive time until we arrived in Orlando. the condo we rented wasn't ready for us to occupy yet, so we headed over to the Super Duper walmart and went shopping. We were blown away by how inexpensive the groceries were. I am not certain if it is a result of the location of the store of the fact that it was a Walmart, but I was wishing we had one of these stores near us.