More Directions Gone Awry

September 27, 2006
Phone call to the Holiday Inn Express in Albuquerque, NM.

Rose: “Hi, I’m calling for directions. I’m coming in on I-40 West.”

Desk Clerk: “You can’t get here from I-40 West, you have to come in on I-40 East.”

“I can’t come in on I-40 East, I’m driving from Texas.”

“You’re driving here from Texas?”

“Yes, on I-40 West”

“Well, you’ll just have to get on I-40 East then.”

I think I should stop calling for directions.

Quite a Discovery

Wednesday September 27
After calling information for the number for the Don Harrington Discovery Center in Amarillo, TX, the conversation went something like this:
Operator: “(muffled speech)…..help you?”

Rose: “Hi, I’m coming in on I-40 West, and I need directions.

“OK, are you familiar with Amarillo?”

“No, I haven’t been to Amarillo in about 20 years.”

“No problem. From I-40, you take the Coulter exit. That’s C-O-U-L-T-E-R. Turn onto Coulter and then take a right onto Wallace. We’re right there.”

“OK, I exit at Coulter and turn onto Wallace. I got it. Thank you.”

“So, are you coming in for a breast exam?” (long pause--maybe the cell phone is acting up).

“Ummmmm, what was that?”

“Are you coming in for a breast exam today?”

“You know, I might have the wrong number, I’m calling for the Don Harrington Discovery Center” (and I’m wondering what sort of discovery center this is!)

“Oh, the Discovery Center is just down the road, also on Wallace.”

“Good. Thank you. Bye!”

I was a little cautious going in, and completely relieved to find that the Discovery Center was, after all, a hands-on science museum for kids with a new exhibit on engineering and a planetarium show. Whew! What a relief.

Where the Buffalo Roam--or something like that

Tuesday, September 26
Somewhere in Oklahoma, along I-40
We stopped at a roadside “trading post” because we are ahead of schedule. We are supposed to be meeting my aunt and uncle for dinner and we stopping more often than usual to keep everyone occupied. I took the little girls on a little walk to see some buffalo that were in an enclosure. I felt sad to see such creatures penned up. It is hard to imagine the plains they used to roam. Of course, if I had a vote, I’d give the plains back to them, and they could deal with the infernal wind.

OKC Memorial

Tuesday, September 26, 1:30 P.M.
The chairs in the yard are hauntingly empty, a reminder of what we have lost. Not only the bodies and souls that might have occupied these spaces, but the innocence we knew in that time before. The memorial marks this time 9:01 on April 19, 1995, and references it often, as a reminder that there was a time when we did not know what it was to have a large-scale terrorist attack on American soil.

Maybe it is because I have a lot of kids, but I found it easy to relate to the parents in the videos today when we visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. I was often moved to tears, and my sentiments and thoughts were just as often interrupted by my younger children who had no concept of what we were doing in this place. I wasn’t sure how I should even feel about them being there. I did not want them to be disrespectful to the memories of those who were killed in the attack, and they did not understand why everyone was so solemn.They sometimes ran over and were exuberant at buttons they could push. Other times, they were whiny and fussy that they couldn’t do what they wanted.

We kept them in line as much as we could--Bella, at 6, is old enough to understand some of what she was seeing. I was frustrated that I could not spend more time focused on the information that was presented. I wanted to give each of the victims a moment of my time, to honor their memory in some small way.

I tried to block out the bickering. It is wearing after a while. I tried to look at it in a different perspective. For the parents who lost their children--children who would be about the age of my Alex and Alyona right now--I tried to imagine what they would trade for a chance to see them today.

Toward the end of the memorial, there is a room where there is a picture of each person who died in the attack on the Murrah Federal Building. Most pictures have a small object that the family of the victim selected. One child has a pacifier, another a favorite toy. One adult had a work I.D., some had Bibles or plaques with favorite verses, others had sports items or stuffed animals. It got me to thinking: If I had to pick something to represent my life, my passion, what would that one thing be? And if my family had to choose, what would they choose as the one object that defined who I am?

Heading to Tulsa

Monday, September 25
Tulsa 9:00 p.m.

Back to traveling today. We managed to leave St. Louis around 10:30. We are heading west for the first time in our trip--headed toward home. But first we had to navigate Missouri. After a flurry of phone calls, we figured out that the Philipp family was now living about 30-40 minutes from Lebanon. We would be passing through Lebanon, and they would be able to meet us. Jim, Daisy, Faith, Justice, Boaz, Esther, and Jubilee moved to Missouri about a month ago to study with New Tribes Missions.
We figured out that they would be driving south on State Route 5, so we turned off of I-44 onto SR 5 and called them. As we were driving and talking, calling out where we are, we realized that we were waiting at the same stoplight--just driving in opposite directions!

It was really great to spend an hour and a half talking over some ice cream. The only plus to having them out of town is that we no longer get our vans mixed up in the church parking lot. Just in case, after this picture was taken, we did a quick head count to make sure we all had our own kids before we got started.

Once we got to Tulsa, we got a visit from Caroline (college roommate’s mom) and her friend Glen -The-Computer-Genius who came to see if there was any hope for my laptop. He was not able to fix it, but he had some ideas for Brian once we got home and had access to some recovery disks--so there may be hope yet.

The night ended with laundry--and picking corn kernels out of the dryer after washing the little girls’ clothes.

Godfrey, IL

Sunday, Sept. 24
Today was Godfrey day. We started out at Heritage Days on the Goshen Trail, an annual event held in Godfrey. All the vendors were in period costumes. Bella got to make a rope, and Jolina, Katia, Ed, Alex, and Alyona all got to fire a musket. Olivia, Sophia and I discovered kettle chips made right before our eyes, and we were enjoying our bag immensely when the rest of the family discovered us--so we had to go back for more.

We had lunch and headed over the corn maze. Brian and I decided that official T-shirts were in order. He asked if there might be a discount for “real Godfreys”, but the girl behind the counter just laughed. The little girls were most impressed with the ability to play in a big corn pit which we did while Brian made a run to the bank. Ed, Alex, and Alyona took a second turn through the maze while he went.

Welcome to Godfrey

We had to get a picture in front of the sign.

Apple Picking Time

Saturday, Sept 23
We decided to rent another car so that Brian could go to Six Flags with the big kids. Emily and I took the younger ones around town and then out towards Otterville to pick apples at Yates’ Orchards. I think we got too many, but they were so yummy that we couldn’t stop picking!

We arrive in St. Louis

Friday, Sept 22
Our arrival into St. Louis came with the realization that we would be staying well north of the city and that Six Flags--our destination for Saturday--was well south of the city. In all, it was about 1 1/2 hours away. We started to rethink our plan of going in the morning, going back to the house for lunch and then returning to the park. That would mean about 6 hours of driving.

Brian got us settled at the Grafton Homestead Retreat, and we stayed there while he made an airport run to pick up Jolina and Emily. It was pretty late before we got everything squared away. It was a tight fit, but we managed. We loved the grounds, but it was a little rough with only 1 bathroom. Still, you could hardly say we were roughing it. It was a welcome change to cook some familiar food and have a nice dinner.

The kids will have fun exploring some of the 60+ acres of the property and enjoying the paddle boat.

Meramec Caverns

Friday, Sept. 22
The caverns were....cavernous. We are off to Illinois.

We are not in Kansas anymore!

Friday, September 22
We are not in Kansas anymore! Falling gas prices met us in Kansas City--a welcome sight!

Wee are on the way to Meramec Caverns after a night in Kansas City, MO. We are expecting to have lunch there, tour the caverns, and then head on to Grafton, IL to the Grafton Homestead where we will spend the next 3 nights.

KANSAS

KANSAS--September 21, 2006
Barely into Kansas, we pulled over and picked up a copy of The Wizard of Oz to watch on our way through the state. This was really the only bad day we’ve had. We started out from the hotel with a hot breakfast and very full tummies, only to discover the Kansas Wind. Our van was buffeted all over the road which made for a very tumultuous ride in which several kids wondered if they would lose that breakfast after all.

We made a pit stop in Salina to eat our lunch and see if we might pick up a laptop. Finding a laptop was impossible, but we were able to eat. All the kids chose to stay in the van, but Ed took Max out to get some air. It took him 5 minutes or so before Max headed back to the van and started trying to climb in. He was begging to be back in his carseat, and even started pulling it over his head to show that he was ready to be strapped in and go. I didn’t think there was anything that would make him want to get back in that seat, but the great Kansas Wind did the trick.

DENVER AND BEYOND

Sept. 20
After the amphitheater, we headed out with sleepy little ones for another half hour or so drive to Denver where we met up with my aunt Carolyn and cousin Cara and her son MalachI. My aunt brought along some homemade cookies, milk, and tea, and the kids climbed and played in the park while we talked for a bit.

I was beginning to suspect that all of America was one big mountain range, and then we drove out of Denver and into eastern Colorado. We stayed in a little town called Stratton which is close to the Kansas border. We drove down the entire length of the “business district,“ an activity that took 3 minutes, including the turnaround time. It was in Stratton that I plugged in my computer to charge the battery, and I am wondering if we had a power surge--of course I didn’t think of a surge protector for the road, and it was an older building.

RED ROCKS

RED ROCKS (pictures later :)
Wednesday, Sept 20--reconstructed since my laptop crashed and burned.

We started out from Glenwood Springs, CO. On the advice of my aunt Carolyn, we stopped at a rest stop in the Glenwood Canyon and went for a nice walk alongside the river with the canyon walls just on the other side of the water. Although we were only yards away from Interstate 70, which was elevated a bit, we rarely heard the traffic because of the roaring of the river. Saying that Glenwood Canyon is “magnificent” is kind of like saying that a 7-course meal at a 5-star restaurant is “alright.”
After getting back into the van, we drove out of the canyon and through resort areas like Vail and Breckinridge. We made the mistake of pulling into a grocery store in Breckenridge to pick up some sandwich fixings for lunch. That little adventure left us wondering how anyone in the town can afford to eat with those prices.

We headed on into Denver. I had intended to work on my laptop, but the scenery was too striking to take my eyes off the trip. It is just as well that I didn’t do any work since it would have been lost in the great computer brain dump anyway. Just outside of Denver we stopped to see the Red Rocks Amphitheater.

We thought we might find a place to let the kids climb the rocks, but ended up just going into the amphitheater instead where we found a lot of stairs waiting to be climbed. We started at the top level, so we headed on down. I tried to talk Katia into going down on the stage and getting a feel for what it would be like to be on stage in such a big place, but she was too shy. She did eventually head down, but I couldn’t talk her into singing even one little note. Sophia was about to belt out “God Bless America,” but she changed her mind at the last minute.

To quote my favorite children's book, it has been a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. The storm we have been just ahead of for the past couple days caught up with us last night. My laptop crashed this morning. And then we drove into Kansas. We had to slow down on account of the weather. We had not considered slowing down on account of weather because, frankly, we don't have weather in California. At least, we don't have Kansas Wind in California. We blew all over the road and listened to tornado watches and warnings coming in all across central Kansas--where we were driving.

The highlight of the day was meeting up with my college roommate Nancy. It is late now, so I will post more tomorrow about the past 2 days as I reconstruct my trip journal on my new laptop (ouch).

So tonight we are sitting in our room trying to adjust to a time change and listening to the rain turn to hail outside our window. I am asking how we got into this mess, it seems a good time to pause and reflect on how it all began. My column in the Appeal-Democrat ran today and the story goes something like this.....

Oh, MOM!” she squealed. “These are perfect! I'm gonna get these for Dad!”
I turned to see my 5-year-old daughter holding a pair of boxers with a bold flag motif. One side sported a blue background with white stars; the other side was emblazoned with red and white stripes.

I tried to imagine my husband's face when he opened this gift.My job was supposed to be to guide my daughter's choice of gifts for Father's Day. Just as I was turning to point out some sensible black socks, she found the boxers and made her decision.

“This is what Dad needs for the Nine States of America,” (more)

Colorado

Wednesday, September 20, 2006 9:30 a.m. Mountain Time

We are beginning day 4 on the road. Things are still pretty even, but we have had a few frayed nerves. Overall, though, we have a good group. Max is even coming around as long as we have occasional breaks to get out and walk around. We’ll turn him into a traveler yet! As we gas up for the morning, Brian noted that we had driven 995 miles thus far. We will make a brief stop at Glenwood Canyon for a short hike then head out to Denver for lunch. Today we expect to put in about 5 hours of driving today and end up in eastern Colorado for the night.

Dinosaur National Monument

September 19, 2006, afternoon
After lunch we drove a few minutes outside of Vernal over to the Dinosaur National Monument. Just as we got there, the hike of the day was about to start. It was billed as “strenuous” and she wasn’t kidding. The ranger seemed a bit skeptical with all the kids, but the big ones quickly grabbed a buddy, and we headed up a steep slope. Max was content to be in the backpack on Brian’s back—as long as he stayed in motion. We had several stops along the way for rest, water, and explanation of geographic formations. We got to see a spot where some dinosaur rib bones were sticking out of the ground.

Sophia was having a blast. Her only disappointment was the she had to hurry. Sophia doesn’t hurry anywhere! She has exuberantly enjoyed every aspect of this trip, from proclaiming everything she encounters as her “favorite” to loudly announcing that we should pray for the woman behind us who happened to be carrying a ski pole to use as a walking stick. The woman either didn’t hear or didn’t mind. She kept up a conversation with Sophia for much of the climb, complimenting her often on what a great hiker she is. Sophia, as is her way, took all of this as a matter of course. Self esteem has never been an issue with her—she is beautiful, she is good at everything, and if you aren’t sure about it, she is happy to remind you.

Wednesday, September 20
This morning we walked over the Utah Field House of Natural History. Max had the backpack which lasted long enough to get to the museum then he wanted to be down on the ground. It was great to let him run around and do all the hands on things. Of course, I think the highlight for him was getting to climb the stairs, as always. We then went back to the motel to pack up the van and head out. We’d had such a relaxing morning that we decided to splurge and buy lunch out, so that was kind of fun, and dan unexpected treat for the kds. They know up front that we are on a budget, so they are being really good abut not asking for every little thing. They usually are pretty good about that, though the younger ones haven’t really figured out that part yet.

Time Changes Everything

September 18
4:23 Pacific Time

Brian made the point of showing the kids the sign that said we were moving into mountain time. As a result, the kids have been so helpful as to remind us—repeatedly—that we are technically off schedule since the schedule did not take the time change into account with the travel time. Next time, I told Brian, don’t tell them about the time change while we are on the road. Maybe we can sneak around at night and reset watches.

Evening
We arrived in Vernal, UT. We will be heading to the Dinosaur National Monument tomorrow. We learned why Nevada is called The Sagebrush State. We started out yesterday at home in summer time, drove through winter with snow just above Salt Lake City, and came out on the other side to emerge in fall with leaves changing along the hillsides of Utah. We are all ready for an exploring day with minimal driving.

The Adventure Begins

9/17/06--Evening

When the travel bug stopped by our house to give us all a good bite, he bypassed Max entirely. He is the boy who doesn’t like change, who cries when he wears long pants because they touch his legs, and has no interest at all in wearing shoes.

This journey from Marysville, CA to Godfrey, IL should be interesting. We will either learn to put up with screaming or he will learn to tolerate a carseat for more than a half hour at a time.

The first two hours were great. Max was asleep. But when he woke up, he wanted out of his carseat, and that was that. He screamed, he squirmed, he wailed. A quick stop in Fernley, NV allowed us to heat up a bottle and give him a brief reprieve from his carseat. He grudgingly accepted the bottle, and it kept him content for a while, but he ended up screaming again for the final 30 minutes of our drive to Winnemucca.

The past 2 weeks of intense preparations have been a blur. I'm exhausted, and if I didn't need a vacation before all of this, I sure need one now. But, carrying the bags out to the van always gives me a second wind. It is proof that we are almost ready to go. I still have to stuff the maps into the console and wrap up a few loose ends.

They say you aren't really having fun until someone gets hurt, so Brian must be having a blast. He is on his way to Urgent Care to get checked out for what is probably an ear infection. That should make crossing the Rocky Mountains real interesting for him. I guess it is better than the time he got strep throat in Russia....

We are a few hours away from departure. The little ones are too keyed up to take their naps, but that is OK--they can pass out on the drive to Winnemucca. I know I plan to!