Monday, June 30, 2008

Day 2- Our first long day

Planned departure time = 7AM
Actual departure time = 8AM

Mileage today = 621

Most paid for gas = $4.19/gallon in Fort Stockton (gouge the traveler), Tx

Anyone who knows us has probably been the beneficiary of our "lateness". We always make an attempt to be timely but sometimes it just doesn't work out. I had a friend in college named Homer who was late to everything; we used to joke around constantly as we waited for him that he was on "Homer-time". I asked him once about it and he said "I had a bad accident as a freshman mid-shipman at the Naval Academy and was in the hospital for a year recovering. During that year, I realized there were really two important things in life, God & family; everything else can wait." Well, we are often late to meeting family, but we try our hardest. We have resolved ourselves on this trip to not stress about schedules, agendas, or whatever. We have some planned events and we'll do our best to see a lot, but not at the sacrifice of our time together.
We pulled out and made great time. Jennifer's mom made fried chicken, butter sandwiches, and had some fruit for our lunch so we didn't have to stop (not that there really is any place good to stop and eat in West Texas). Aside from a couple of restroom breaks and one stop for gas, we had the pedal down and made it into Las Cruces around 5PM local time. See some pics below of our journey across Texas today.
This is how the boys were when I woke them up. They can't even stay still when they're sleeping! Note :Tate is completely flipped around with his feet underneath the pillows.

Any visit to Nana and Pa's house usually involves a feast. This morning was no different. We gobbled up breakfast casserole, cereal, fresh peaches, pigs in blankets, and cinnamon rolls. Braden holds the record for cinnamon roles at 5 while Tate pounded down 2 whole bananas. Thanks to Nana & Pa for hosting us and getting us started on the right foot.

Again, we're off..............

Abby is ready to go. She loves her brothers. Don't worry, she didn't ride like this, we were stopped getting gas. She rode the entire 10 hours properly strapped in to her car seat...................yea right.........
Downtown Fredericksburg, Tx. This is the heart of the Texas Hill Country. Turning right here takes you to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area where the Odom family has camped many times (mostly before moving to Houston).



We had a pretty "spirited" drawing contest this morning. I think there was even a tear shed when the judge (me) had to pick a winner during one of the heats. After that we played Brainquest (trivia questions from three different age appropriate sets of questions that mom brought along). Braden became the recognized scholar when he answered an astrology question from Dawson's set of 4th grade level questions. Heck, I didn't even know the answer. Everyone got a prize.



Three guesses as to what these boys are doing.............no, they are not cleaning the inside of the doors after puking from being car-sick.



If you've never seen it, this is West Texas. We saw this terrain for about 6 hours today. It's beautiful open country with mountains all around. It gets old after a while........



Finally, we leave Texas.

The front desk recommended we go to La Posta in Old Towne Mesilla for dinner. It was only about a mile from our hotel. There is a huge cage full of parrots in the waiting area. We could not get them to talk. The "New Mexican" style food was fantastic. I highly recommend this place to anyone traveling to Las Cruces.

Trivia Factoids about Mesilla:

At one time it was the largest settlement between San Antonio & San Diego. The restaurant is located in an adobe building built in the 1840s.

Billy the Kid was convicted and sentenced to hang here in about 1871.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

We depart

Although everything was "packed", we still managed to stretch out the car-loading portion of our trip to around 4 hours. The trip was relatively uneventful as we all know the route to Austin in our sleep and the kids are very accustomed to the trip. I think we heard "are we there yet" only about 4 times. I imagine this question will reappear in force tomorrow.




I offered $5 to whoever could find the second 2-way radio. The offer increased to $10 after about 10 minutes of fruitless searching. Everyone seemed to think they had seen it recently but it never materialized. Guess I have an extra 10-spot for myself. We'll do without the radios on this trip.









The older boys managed to get the luggage out of the house but only Tate stayed around to assist with the complex calculus of loading, positioning, and weight-balancing the vehicle. It's all still fun for a 3-year old. He's my little helper!





But, you should have seen the meltdown he had later after missing his nap.......










We're off.


Everyone is still smiling!














Everyone is in their place.













We made it to Austin.

James offered to hold Abby for a bit for some quality time together........we both knew what was going to happen!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

T minus 1 day

We scurried around today and sewed up loose ends......
-Talked to the neighbor about feeding the dog, guinea pig, fish; watering the plants, taking care of the pool, etc.
-Purchased our second iPod Nano to download some books on.....James purchased some cool Bose in-ear headphones that are supposed to block out all peripheral sound.....we'll see.
It's a little after 1am and we're just about done packing. We'll leave sometime tomorrow for Austin (only 3 hours away) and spend the evening with Jennifer's parents. Monday is the first real road day when we'll log close to 700 miles en route to Las Cruces.


Everybody has a backpack.....











iPods all charging. We'll use these sparingly. We really want everyone to enjoy the scenery and time together. But, never hurts to have a few "electronic" distractions. Dawson downloaded Pippi Longstocking and Dad downloaded a book about the Holocaust.......







More stuff.....Somehow, we'll get everything packed tomorrow. No worry, we have all day to pack and drive three hours.















Thursday, June 26, 2008

Prep for our summer vacation.....

This is our first post to this blog.



We are three days out from departure on our 2008 family vacation to the West Coast. We leave Sunday, go to Austin, then on to: Las Cruces, San Diego (beach, relax, etc.), Anaheim (Disney), Vegas (see the strip, Hoover dam, Grand Canyon), Flagstaff, back to Las Cruces (White Sands & Carlsbad National Park). The whole trip will last 14 days and span over 3,500 miles of the southwest US.



The universal reaction we get when telling people about our trip is "are you crazy?", or we get a look like there are two heads growing out of our neck. Mom, Dad, three active boys, and a 3-month old trekking across the US in a car sounds a little daunting. But, we are doing what we like to do best as a family: spend time together!!!