We're off!

Wow, what a way to start a long trip!

I’m writing this as we’re headed out on day 2. Our plan was to leave yesterday (Wed) at about 10am. Ten o’clock came and went, though, and we still had a loooong way to go with packing and cleaning. Normally I’d be tempted to just leave the house messy and not worry about it, but who likes to come home to a pig sty after a long trip? Besides that, with as long as we’re going to be gone, any dirty laundry or dirty dishes would be cringe-worthy by the time we got back, and that’s just gross.

Jeff and I spent the last two days before leaving working like crazy. Since he can’t always remember which clothes belong to which child—understandable when three of them are nearly the same size—I was in charge of packing for everyone, and he did laundry, cleaned, and packed kitchen things. I know it should be obvious, but packing for eight people for a month is a lot of work!

We finally got done with everything at about 5:30pm, loaded the kids up, grabbed all of our “Oh yeah!” stuff, and drove out at about 6pm. Yikes! It’s a 6-hour drive to Amarillo from Carrollton, but we didn’t realize at that point that we weren’t really even on our way yet. A quick stop at Wally World to return some jeans and shoes we didn’t need, then off to Costco to get a new Coleman air bed, since we’d found a hole chewed in ours by some rodent invaders. (Not to get on too much of a tangent, but I love Costco’s seasonal merchandise. You never know what they’re going to have, because it’s never the same thing twice, and it’s always the best deals. Hard for me to resist, even if it’s something we don’t need.)

So we headed in and grabbed two air mattresses, and then Jeff stopped dead in his tracks. Right across the aisle from the airbeds was a red, shiny, portable grill. Jeff had asked for a portable grill for his birthday, and I’d found a small table-top propane grill with a carrying handle that worked pretty well. We had that, along with a propane camp stove, packed in the back of the van. This new grill, though, was a handy-dandy Coleman model that is just miles better. Jeff isn’t a huge impulse shopper, but he was dead serious when he looked at me and said, “I know this wasn’t in our plans, but I want that.” Since it’s a grill and a stove combined, it takes up less room than the two that we already had, and since we are packed to the gills, I really couldn’t argue with that.

We bought the grill (and MY impulse purchase, the boxed set of Planet Earth DVDs—woo hoo!) and headed back to the van. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could do with it except go back home! 15 minutes’ drive back, unload the other grill and stove, help Jeff unpack and assemble the new one, remember that we forgot to pick up a prescription for Jaden, run to Albertson’s pharmacy fifteen minutes before they close, wait for a phone call because the insurance won’t pay because it’s been too soon since his last refill, get a “vacation override” approved, and finally head out of town at 9pm.

We made it to Amarillo at about 3am. Jeff set up the tent, got all the mattresses and sleeping bags ready, and then we got out the kids, who were by that time wide awake because they’d been sleeping since before we left Carrollton. A six- or seven-hour nap did wonders for them, while Jeff and I were both dead tired because we’d napped for maybe 90 minutes while the other one drove. It was NOT the best sleep I’ve had by any stretch, although I finally did fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion despite the children climbing over me and bouncing on the air mattresses.

One pancake breakfast later, we’re all packed up and on the road to Eleven Mile State Park, just outside of Colorado Springs. Since all we have to do today is drive, hopefully it’ll be less exciting than yesterday was!

DAY 1 total travel: 375 miles