Vacation with Babies, 2010: Day 1

We’re not quite home yet, but I’m tired of talking to Keith* so I thought I’d start blogging before the small details of the trip escape my brain. Part of the reason I’ve continued to blog is that doing so captures those small memories. So lets talk about the 2010 Ellerman Family Vacation- the annual event in which Keith and I subject ourselves to a potential increase in infants’ temper tantrum and a decrease in adults’ sleep. We claim we do this toget the boys used to traveling, but really, we both have a touch of the wandering spirit and we love a good tradition, hence the Ellerman Family Vacation. We went to Chicago last year, mostly because the boys could still fly for free at the time (under age two kids can fly for free as infant in arms). Last year we even traveled with copies of their birth certificates as proof as G-baby is awfully tall and big, and we knew we couldn’t pass them off as under 2 this year. Nor could we afford 4 plane tickets. So when we  planned this year’s trip, we pulled out the map, closed our eyes and after swirling a pen in the air, pressed it down and vowed to go wherever on the map the pen tip stuck on the map.  But it’s not possible to travel into the Atlantic Ocean, unless you’re on a cruise. Instead we settled on a route that you could see in the previous blog entry. We’ll explain our reasons for the various stops as we cover each.

*just kidding.

Our plan for the first day was to get half-way to our true first destination, Ephrata, PA. We packed and packed for what seemed like days, but in reality likely only a few frantic hours the night before we left.

Early on Day 1, we packed babies into the loaded car, got some coffee for Momma at a fast food store, and let Be-AH talk to the lady at the fast food window.

 

We had close to two hours before our first planned stop, and towards the end of the two hours after reading the same book 3, 561 times and pointing out every truck, bird and car we passed, I gave the boys these little notebooks to “wite” on. Best dollar I spent, these little notebooks were.

We scribbled, turned the page, scribbled some more, showed each other what we scribbled, and before we knew it, we were in South Carolina. We missed the state welcome sign, but could this banner at the rest stop.

 

And 15 minutes later we stopped near Greensville, SC to meet up with a college friend of mine. And her little girl, Abby. We’d not met Abby yet, so we thought a little meeting at a playground would let us meet her and allow us to stretch our legs a bit. 

 

The boys were more than eager to give Abby a hug when it was time to leave, but she wasn’t so sure. So Cole went in to give Abby AND her Momma a hug. Grady watched from a far. He won’t beg for a hug. Dammit.

 

And back into the car we went. And this time, we broke out the portable DVD players. We’ve somehow made it to two and a half years without using these, so we figured we better be prepared to use electronic means to sedate the kids in the car on this trip. The plan was to use the DVD’s when we needed it.

This (click here) made us decide that we needed it. The video was taken right before we stopped at the play park. And I have no clue what set him off. I rarely do.

In contrast, this video (click there) shows after the play park, when the DVD player was in full effect. We used the DVD player on and off the rest of the trip, only for the longer stretches. I mean, if we had to stare out of the window for hours on end, then surely they do too, right? I don’t remember screaming like Cole did, though. We still had fits and yelled and needed Momma to pick up toys intentionally thrown on the ground, and Grady could care less about the TV 75% of the time, but it did help.

With the toy temporarily enthralled with WonderPets, Keith wanted to play a little game of “who can spot the giant peach first?”. I win! There she is.

 

Our next stop was in Charlotte, NC ( we missed the state sign, somebody was too busy fidgeting), to stop for lunch at a taco place we saw on tv. The food was a big disappointment, but the décor was cool.

The food being bad didn’t stop us from eating most of it, naturally.

Then back to the car. With a little dessert snack of gummy worms an hour or so later. Or, gummy snakes, I was informed. And we at first didn’t realize we could eat the snakes ,so we played and played and the snakes writhed in the air and on legs until both snakes and hands were sticky. Only then did snakes get shoved into mouths.

And then we were into Virginia, the longest and least interesting portion of the drive.

We did find a very neat rest stop with trails and lots of shade for froggy potties to make an appearance. Not the first appearance since we carried them into the South Carolina rest stop as well. That’s right, we’ve willing to embarrass ourselves in the name of potty training. Peepee was made, acorns were thrown and we ran a few loops on the trails.

One more segment of WonderPets later, we were nearing our overnight pit-stop, near Roanoke.

Nothing exciting at this stop, it was just a good in-between place to overnight. It did have freshly baked cookies and a fun pool, and two neat beds to roll all over. Whooo! We all got a good night’s sleep and geared up for a big Day 2.