April's Life Adventures

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Our Trip

As I have been reading Julia's and ABQ Mommies blogs these past few days, I have realized that I need to give a day by day accounting of our trip as well. We did a LOT of driving, so not every day was fun filled and packed with adventures, but we did enjoy ourselves.

June 29 Day 1
Sultry Husband ran into work to drop off a few things and give our pets to the care givers. Copper didn't even seem to care, Phnarph was up for an adventure, but Tiki the parrot was incensed. We would find out just how angry he was later on. He was home by 3, the car was packed by 3:30 and we were off to Saint George to pick up the rental car.

I had reserved the car two weeks earlier, and the internet promised unlimited miles (which we definitely needed), and a cheap car. The first thing that the lady at the rental counter informed us, was that she had no car whatsoever that we could pick up! Not one! We would have to wait two hours for a car to come onto the lot, oh and she "could not" give us the unlimited miles we were promised. Um, hello? False advertising?

We walked up to another rental agency counter in the tiny airport, the lady felt very sorry for us and therefore, gave us the "reserved early" rate (we had reserved the car early, just not with her). She also gave us the rate for a compact car, even though she had to give us two upgrades because she didn't have one on the lot! So we ended up with a very nice car for a fabulous price... But you had better believe that soon the first rental agency will be getting an ear full. 5:00 pm, we are finally on the road to California. Drive on dear husband, for it will be a long night.

We drove until about 2 in the morning. We could go no further, but we had not banked on one thing... No motel in sight and Sultry Husband was really tired. We drove and drove hoping to find one, and finally, a sign. A cheap, terrible motel. But it was about the only thing we could find and we were tired. The mattress was hard as a rock, and the sheets and blankets felt greasy. We were only given a thin blanket on top of a sheet, so I froze all night...

June 30 Day 2
We were up by 6:30 am and I decided to take a shower. That is, until I saw the shower. It was a terrible concrete shower, the walls and floor were peeling and what did I see all over the floor of it? Black algae!!! Gross! I washed my hair in the sink.

Drive, drive, drive! As we approached Livermore California, we decided to take a favorite old highway instead of the larger and possibly faster way to Antioch. This is the wonderful time when we found the strawberries that we gobbled at a nearby park. M did the monkey bars for the first time, and I captured it on video. It was a favorite park from SH's childhood.

Later that afternoon, we stopped at a friend's house. This is where we would be staying for a few days. We had just enough time to wash up, change clothes, chat for a bit, then leave the kids with them for the evening as SH and I headed to the play. A fabulous show, we both loved it. Afterwards, we were invited to stay for the cast pizza party. SH was a resident celebrity... He was asked for his autograph over and over again. I almost laughed, but thankfully contained myself. We didn't leave the theater until about midnight (which is actually 1 am to us) and I was already moving on about 3 to 4 hours of sleep... urg. It was a fantastic night though, so I felt that the exhaustion was well worth it.

July 1 Day 3
We awoke to our children playing at about 8 am. Thankfully they had slept in a little for us. We both arose and entertained our children for a while. SH was so tired that he went back to bed at 9:30, and we decided that our day would be best spent taking turns for naps. The kids played in our friend's back yard and wading pool all morning, in heaven because they were not in the car... Around noon, it was my turn and I conked out for a couple of hours. At which point, M and L were getting a little stir crazy, but luckily, we had been invited to a pool party that afternoon, so we headed out. I was nervous for L because she doesn't swim well yet, and thus I shoved floaties on her arms. It is a long story, but I didn't swim. I was not feeling well, and lounging in the shade felt more comfortable, not to mention that I really would not have had time for a shower before the next performance of the play. L jumped in the pool over and over again, getting a false sense of security from the floaties. She would always bob right back to the surface... As I was loading up the car and caring for M, L told SH that she was "done". She was shivering so he took off the floaties and wrapped her in a towel. He put his shirt on and turned to say his goodbyes to our friends. He then heard a faint splash and turned around to assure himself of L's whereabouts. He didn't see her, so he ran for the pool. At the bottom, flailing and looking scared was L. Of course he jumped in, shirt and all to pull her out. She had swallowed a bit of water, but was unharmed. I freaked out when I was told about what had just happened, but she seemed fine, so we decided to play it cool so she would not be scared. I hugged her for an extra long time.

We then dropped L off with the babysitter, under strict orders to watch her like a hawk and make sure she was really alright. M was old enough to see the play, so she got to have a special outing with Mommy and Daddy. We had other friends and family coming that night. All told, we had 16 comp tickets... We didn't feel bad at all about this, it was our play after all! M loved it, and still talks about daddies play.

Thus ends the Antioch portion of our journey. This has become longer than it should have already. So I will share the other adventures another day... The play was a success and I got to eat strawberries. The trip was well worth it. Even if I did have to be exhausted.

Posted by April_Mommy :: 7:55 AM :: 2 comments