Holy (expletive)!! Could it be hotter!? I just loaded the van for the start of our trip tomorrow, and I’m dripping from sweat. It could have been from rain, since the second – the second – I walked out the door to begin loading, it started to rain. I had to convince myself it was nothing personal. Evil spirits were not trying to sabotage my trip. Instead, I took it as a sign from the universe telling me: “Things will go wrong on this trip. You need to just relax.” So, I waited an hour before loading the van – rain free.
But I am soaked.
Things didn’t fit quite as I’d planned. I’m now taking along a sheet and two small blankets in lieu of the two enormous sleeping bags the boys got for Christmas. (The best laid schemes, eh?) I figure, if it gets cold and the blankets aren’t enough, they do have stores out west.
The boys gathered all their stuff for packing yesterday. I made them a list, then I checked off each item on the list after they threw their respective piles of clothes on the table. I always take charge of the packing because, given the task themselves, the boys would pack a pair of shorts and a shirt, maybe their toothbrush, and, well, that’s probably it. I shake my head every time my oldest goes to spend the night at a friend’s house carrying only his toothbrush in his front pocket, and that’s only because I reminded him. I’ve even given up on that for the overnights. Too often they forget their toothbrush at the friend’s house, never having used it to begin with.
Most of our camping will be in national and state parks. We will visit 11 national parks, eight state parks, three national monuments, and one national forest. I found out this morning that the Four Corners Monument is under construction and “will re-open in August 2010.” We’re going to be there in July! I looked further and found that it’s actually open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and, luckily, I planned our visit for Saturday. Yeah!
I also found out in a friendly “Welcome” email from the Devils Tower KOA that I can immediately save $3.45 on our visit there by becoming a KOA Value Kard Rewards member. It will only cost me $24. Hmmm. We’re staying at only one other KOA on this trip (remember the “kabin”?), so I ignored the magnificent offer.
I keep telling the boys to make sure they’ve loaded the DVD holder with all the movies they think they’ll like to watch along the way. They still haven’t done that. They’re not above watching the same movie 10,000 times. On our trip to Kansas, they watched The Mask, over and over. Since I was in the front seat, I could only hear it, but one line still haunts me to this day: “I hope you can enjoy your victory with one freakin’ eye!” A DVD player is a must when you’re traveling with children who think the slapping game is fun. They play that in the car because we can’t fit the ping pong table, which would allow them to play sting pong.
The big test tomorrow will be fitting the pillows. I’ll stuff them into cracks if I have to, but I need my pillows. The boys each use two, and I require four to get a good night’s sleep. They have to fit, so I’m not evening allowing myself to stress about how (un)comfortable the boys might be with pillows all around them.
I’ve decided to leave around 10 tomorrow so I don’t have to rush around all morning. I hope the start of this trip goes better than the start of the Kansas trip, where we didn’t make it 45 minutes before two boys had already thrown up. The good thing for my boys is I’ll be willing to stop when they say they have to pee. Not like my Dad who, 10 hours into the trip, would yell at anyone who claimed they had to pee, asking, “Why the hell didn’t you go before we left?” We’d always respond by saying, “We did, but Dad, that was almost a whole day ago, and I was still technically asleep.” When he did finally stop, it was only to pull over to the side of the highway, where he’d angle the truck off the side of the road so that the door blocked the view of passing cars. “No one can see you. And don’t get anything on my truck.” At least my kids are boys, so that form of rest stop shouldn’t bother them much.
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