For the purposes of this post, let's call Dale's company "The Big B." When The Big B identifies an employee with leadership or management potential, they want to brainwash the employee as early and as effectively as possible. One technique that The Big B has found to be particularly effective in indoctrinating employees is to bestow an award on the employee in the form of a week-long stay at a very nice hotel, with excellent food, surrounded by other Big B employees (some already brainwashed, some being brainwashed at that time), with all-day-long seminars with the message "The Big B is wonderful" repeated subliminally approximately once an hour. In April, The Big B bestowed such an award on Dale, and for one week in May Dale was required -- I mean privileged -- to travel to St. Louis for a week-long Big B Project Management boot-camp at The Big B Corporate Training Headquarters.
St. Louis is only a four-hour drive from Indianapolis, and we know quite a few people in Indianapolis who we love to spend time with, so we decided to drive Dale to St. Louis, then continue on to Indianapolis for a little vacation.
Of course, "...drive Dale to St. Louis..." sounds so easy, as if I might say "I'll just drive Dale to St. Louis after lunch" -- but it was a little more difficult to execute. For us, it took the best part of three days.
Part 1 of the trip was a day-long drive to Tulsa. We woke up at 3am, I nursed the babies, Dale had Adelaida use the toilet, we put the kids in the car (still in their pajamas), and started driving. One reason we decided to leave at 4am was that we imagined that the kids would sleep for the first four hours of the drive, putting us pretty far down the road before we had to stop for stretch/play/breakfast/bathroom breaks. That worked for two of the kids. Adelaida was awake the entire time.
By 8:00 we were ready for a break, so stopped in Amarillo at a very nice park. We fed Estella and Cordelia while Adelaida played on the playground, then got back in the car and let Adelaida eat in the car. Adelaida burned off some energy at the park and was kept occupied in the car by eating. It worked wonderfully! We repeated that at lunchtime a few hours later and made it to Tulsa in only two stops, although those stops were close to two hours each.
We had a lovely evening with Richard and Laura, and the kids all played together nicely. We spent the entire next day with them, relaxing between long driving days. Highlights of that day included Adelaida going fishing in the neighborhood pond (her attention span was much too short to actually catch a fish, but she did touch a fish!), a nap for me, a walk around the neighborhood, Dale watching eight hours of pre-training videos, and all the adults watching six cousins play together.
Elizabeth leads Adelaida on a walk around the neighborhood
Day 3 started much like the first day: we woke up at 3am, loaded kids in the car, and started driving. Again, Adelaida stayed awake while Estella and Cordelia slept. Unfortunately, it was raining in Missouri that morning, so our first stop was at a McDonald's with a play structure instead of a park. It turned out OK, as Cordelia and Estella were able to burn off some energy playing on the structure as well. We ate, took bathroom breaks, stretched, played, and got back in the car for another long driving stretch.
Estella, Adelaida, and Cordelia -- all still in their pajamas -- play in the tunnel at McDonald's
Our second stop was in St. Louis, where we met my mom and brother. Michael was going to spend some time in St. Louis with a friend, and my mom was going to help me drive the kids to Indianapolis. I didn't really need the help, but it sure made it easier to have a second adult!
We played a little at a park, but by this time Adelaida was so tired from getting up at 3:30am that morning (and two days prior) that she wasn't really interested in playing. Estella and Cordelia ate a little, but soon we decided to continue on to our destination.
We said goodbye to Dale and Michael, and Mom, the three kids, and I finished the drive to Indianapolis, with only one brief stop. Adelaida actually fell asleep in the car for about an hour, and was so tired when we arrived at Mom's house that she slept on the couch in the living room while seven other people talked and laughed around her. We were so happy to have reached our destination, and happy to see Mikel, Rachel Murphy, and Simon!
And so ended the first part of our roadtrip. I'll write more about it later!
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